Ancient Vampire Lirasia (1)
The night before the Guardian joined the Hero party, Selen had a strange dream.
What's going on?
Her mind was unnaturally clear. She had to pinch her own face before she even realized she wasn't awake.
A revelation, perhaps? That didn't feel right. There was no sunlight, and nothing about it felt sacred.
"Over here."
Someone called to her.
"Have you been well?"
The voice was unexpectedly deep. She tilted her head and turned around — and there, wrapped in brilliant light, stood a figure.
"Are you truly the Goddess?"
The words slipped out before she could stop them. Revelations were supposed to be one-way.
"No matter how I look at this, something is wrong."
Suspicion surged through her. This had to be some blasphemous impostor pretending to be the sun.
"How troublesome."
The light dimmed for a moment, the way the moon swallows the sun.
"Ngh…"
A sudden headache made Selen flinch. Then she straightened her back.
"You're ready, then."
Of course it was the Goddess. Why had she ever doubted? What a ridiculous misunderstanding.
"Listen carefully."
Selen opened her ears as wide as they would go.
A revelation laced with mockery. It was almost impossible to accept. Wasn't this an open command to turn against Clitia?
Why would She say that all of a sudden?
Even as Selen reeled, the Goddess continued.
"And when you go to meet the Guardian, there will be a man with blond hair and blue eyes. Ignore him as best you can."
The next moment, Selen woke up.
"……"
Her head was a mess. She scrubbed her face dry over and over before she finally calmed down.
"What's wrong?"
Brenie, who'd been sleeping beside her, rubbed her eyes — Selen must have been making too much noise.
"It's nothing. I was just excited about meeting the Guardian tomorrow."
Selen forced a smile, but she couldn't shake the worry settled in her chest. A Hero's near-prophetic instinct was already warning her of something ominous.
The next day, while talking with Wipilud, Selen carefully posed a question.
"Is there a man in the village with blond hair and blue eyes?"
She intended to come clean and ask her companions for help. It was too much to decide on her own.
"Why are you looking for me?"
A voice cut into the conversation out of nowhere. Startled, she turned around — and there he was, walking toward them, matching the Goddess's description down to the last detail.
"Guardian, do you know this person?"
"I don't really know him either."
Selen went rigid. This was someone she was supposed to be wary of.
"Pardon me, but who are you?"
"Clitia's ex-boyfriend."
"Excuse me?"
Selen's mouth fell open.
"Is that true?"
"I swear it by the radiant sun. I can even make a mana oath if you want."
So it was true. Clitia had a romantic history. And of all people, her type was this slick-looking man?
"I don't know what business you have, but listen to me carefully."
The blond man put on a serious face.
"Clitia is always right. Don't bother resisting — just do what she tells you. Got it?"
"……"
The exact opposite of the revelation. And since this was the man she'd been told to ignore as much as possible, it amounted to the same thing.
Do I really have to stand against Unni?
Clitia. The former Saintess she trusted and relied on. She wasn't particularly large, but standing beside her felt safer than standing beside anyone else. Selen wanted her close. She never wanted to make an enemy of her.
But if it had come to this, there was no choice. The will of the sun had to be obeyed — even if it meant opposing someone she respected.
"Don't just stand there. Sit down and let's talk."
The man in front of her was also someone she wasn't supposed to engage with. That was what the Goddess wanted.
"Not curious about the story of how Clitia confessed to me first?"
"...Please tell me."
She couldn't resist that.
"When was it again? It was a day when snow had just started falling."
Selen and her companions hung on every word. And exactly thirty minutes later, the Hero party found themselves agreeing, as if spellbound, to a plan to paint the village pink.
She wasn't sure this was allowed — but it was far too interesting to ignore.
She never said I had to fight her.
Maybe it was enough to simply walk a different path from the last Hero party. There was no real reason to treat her as an enemy.
I'd rather we all get along, if we can.
And so the ideal the Hero party would come to pursue — harmony — began to take shape.
"That bastard's mouth is going to ruin everything."
The whole thing was unfolding quite differently from what the "someone" in the dream had intended.
"Don't get us lost this time."
"Understood."
I was riding on Logan's back — currently in the form of an ice tiger — as we crossed the Desolation Zone.
Our destination was one of the two locations where the Blood Banquet, a gathering of pureblood vampires, was being held. Specifically, the one the Hero party hadn't chosen. They'd set out ahead of us.
"Now that I think on it, is this not rather strange?"
Logan, who'd been running steadily, suddenly raised a question.
"I cannot fathom why there would be two gathering places."
"It is pretty suspicious."
Circumstances that invited doubt. It reeked of a trap.
"Could the factions have split?"
"Had that been the case, would the modified vampire not have known?"
Aren10, who'd given us the information, was a vampire of few words — but they'd dutifully told us everything they knew. I'd watched their face carefully. They didn't seem to be lying.
"They may have been given false information from the start."
Eluke, riding Logan with me, offered a plausible theory — her arms locked tight around my waist from behind.
"We ought to be cautious."
"I'm more worried about the Hero party than us."
The Vampire Lord wouldn't attend a pureblood gathering. But if this was a trap, it was dangerous. A vicious Public Enemy. Still too much for the Hero party to handle.
"You already set up a contingency for that, so what's with all the worrying?"
Other-world Liam, riding an obsidian steed separately, cut into the conversation.
"That doesn't mean I can just sit back and relax."
The more I thought about the unknowns, the less the anxiety would settle.
"We're competing, you know. She talked back to you. Doesn't that make you mad?"
"Not really."
Selen had pushed back, but she'd been as polite as possible about it so she wouldn't hurt my feelings. Maybe that was why it didn't actually bother me.
"You're so kindhearted."
"Eluke, is there any way to shut that one up?"
I asked, irritated — and got no answer. Eluke was pressed right up against me, but she didn't make a sound.
The atmosphere was awkward. I figured out why soon enough.
"Did you two have a fight?"
"……"
They wouldn't even look at each other, and they were deliberately traveling separately. Even I, clueless as I was about romance, could see how strained things had gotten.
"We just had a difference of opinion."
"What about?"
"It's a secret."
Honestly, I didn't really want to know. Not my territory to step into.
"Clitia, you may not realize this, but even a lovers' quarrel is something one can only have because one cares."
"You don't know either. And you never will."
"I had no interest even before I became like this."
The couple stayed quiet the whole time we talked. I didn't know what they'd fought about, but I hoped they wouldn't pull this in front of the enemy.
"Enough chatter. I shall pick up the pace."
Logan started running faster. For a while, the only sound was the ice tiger and the obsidian steed pounding across the ground.
"Is this really the place?"
"It is."
We arrived at the location Aren10 had given us. A point near the eastern edge of the Desolation Zone.
On a plain where fresh wild grass grew in patches, a structure of enormous presence dominated the landscape. It filled the entire field of view — a massive square pyramid. I'd never seen one in person, but it was startlingly familiar.
To put it bluntly, it was just a pyramid.
"First time seeing the real thing?"
"I never even left the house, let alone the country."
Eluke and I whispered together. Having the one person who shared that frame of reference beside me filled a hollow little corner of my heart.
"What are you two murmuring about? Do you know what this place is?"
"We do, actually."
Time to put my knowledge of Apolis Tales to work again.
"This is a Dwarf Cemetery."
Funerals in this world were typically cremations. The rites varied by race and region, but burning the body was common sense. Necromantic black magic that raised corpses actually existed here, so burying the dead in the ground invited trouble. The culture had grown naturally from that.
Dwarves, however, longed to keep their living appearance even in death. Only then, they believed, could they keep crafting things in the afterlife — a very craftsman-race sort of reason. A folk belief, essentially.
You'd think that would make them prime targets for dark mages, but they were surprisingly safe.
"Just looking at it, the entire structure is fitted with a device that freezes mana."
An extraordinary technology that made it difficult to even use the mana inside your own body. The pyramid itself was one enormous tool, forged by the dwarves' unmatched craftsmanship.
"That only makes this more suspicious. Why would they gather in someone else's tomb?"
"Don't ask me."
The odds of a trap had gone up. Not that I planned to stay outside either way.
"Whoever's in there, we can beat them anyway."
"A fair point."
There were almost no enemies who could put us in real danger. The Demon King, maybe a Public Enemy. Beyond that, the force we'd assembled was strong enough to make anything else feel trivial.
"Let's go in."
"Wait."
Just as I'd found the entrance and was about to walk straight in, other-world Liam stepped in front of me.
"What."
"I'm the Hero. Let me take command."
"Ah. Still not used to that."
Our party had always been led by Logan, never by our own hopeless Hero. This was a first.
"Go ahead."
"Thanks."
Other-world Liam grinned like this was the best thing that had ever happened to him, then pulled his silver helmet down over his head.
"Our objective is suppression."
Same way of talking — completely different weight behind it.
"Aim to eliminate if you can. Spare them if they surrender. And always assume it could be a trick."
For the first time, I was receiving proper orders from a Hero.
"So this is what a Hero party is supposed to feel like. He is certainly different from our Liam."
Logan said exactly what I was thinking.
"Clitia, you're the vanguard — take point. Then me and our Clitia. Logan brings up the rear."
I decided to follow without complaint. I would have chosen the same formation.
"Then let's go in."
The entrance was cut into the side of the pyramid, about halfway up. We climbed the stepped stone and went inside.
The first thing that greeted me was a narrow corridor. The walls on both sides were carved with winding characters.
"Dwarven script. It's all consolation and praise for the dead."
I'd been wondering what the writing was. Silver Liam provided the commentary.
"You can read dwarven too?"
"I picked up a lot of languages traveling with Logan."
Liam and Logan. Not a combination that made much sense.
"Wonders never cease."
Our Logan seemed to feel the same. The two of them had always been at each other's throats.
"That's enough chatter. Focus."
The playfulness vanished. If only he were like this all the time.
"Clitia. Let's go."
"Right."
I moved forward, trying to circulate the mana in my body. As expected, it barely budged.
A technique applied to the entire cemetery. I forced it, straining, and only just managed to reach the first stage. Getting it to the second stage or higher would be tough.
It had been a while since I'd been in conditions this hostile to a proper fight. My heart was pounding hard. Not a situation I disliked. Even with the environment holding me back, I'd be satisfied as long as I fought with everything I had.
This could be a pureblood vampire scheme, and you're happy about it...?
"You already know why. Don't ask."
I brushed off Sun-bask's comment and kept walking down the corridor. It bent a few times, but nothing else happened.
After what felt like a long stretch of walking, the corridor finally ended — and we stepped into a space lined with countless coffins, all neatly arranged.
"What in the..."
It wasn't just coffins. Corpses and pools of blood were scattered everywhere. A massacre.
"They haven't been dead long."
Eluke spread her Holy Power, analyzed the scene in an instant, and frowned.
"They're all vampires."
"……"
What was this supposed to be?
While I stood there stunned, Logan tapped me near the thigh.
"Someone is over there."
A small finger pointed to a square hole in the corner — a passage leading down.
"Clitia. Take point again."
At this rate, it wouldn't even be surprising if the Vampire Lord was waiting for us in person. I quieted my heart — which was pounding with completely inappropriate excitement — and passed through the hole, descending a slanted slope.
Another narrow corridor. Narrower than the last, so this time we had to go single file. Fortunately it didn't stretch far. Another space opened up almost immediately.
Smaller than the room above, but still plenty large. Thick pillars stood at regular intervals, giving the place a solemn air. At the far end sat a coffin of unmistakably exquisite craftsmanship.
The problem was the being sitting on top of it.
A face drowned in black shadow, impossible to make out. I didn't know who it was — but my body reacted on its own. This was a powerhouse.
"Did you kill all of them?"
"……"
No answer. Instead, they tapped the coffin they were sitting on a few times.
Figures who'd been hiding behind the pillars stepped into view. Faces I knew far too well.
"...Huh?"
On the left, a little girl with purple hair in twin tails. On the right, a muscular man in a cloth martial arts uniform.
"Erin? Ivar?"
Companions I thought I'd never see again. Not undead like Liam — their faces were clean, whole. Where had they been all this time?
Something in my chest ached.
"Get a hold of yourself."
Logan stepped in front of me as I started walking toward them in a daze.
"I do not pretend to understand how you feel... but they are fakes. We watched with our own eyes how Ivar died to the Demon King."
I shook my head and pulled myself together.
"Sorry. I wasn't thinking."
Ivar's head had burst. Even as an undead, there was no way he'd show up looking that intact.
"This is a blatant provocation aimed at us. What do you intend to do?"
"What do I intend to do?"
I clenched my teeth. Hard enough to hear them grind.
"I'm going to beat that bastard to death until I'm satisfied."
I still didn't even know who they were. I had no intention of letting them leave alive.