Chapter 196: Hansel and Gretel (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 196: Hansel and Gretel (2)
Needless to say, the Holy Kingdom was in an uproar.
Vampires had appeared once again.
Ten of them.
They made no distinction between their targets, turning everyone from ordinary believers to Holy Knights and nuns. As their numbers grew, so did the repercussions.
It was on a completely different scale than before.
Amid the chaos, a rumor began to spread.
“It’s a curse that turns believers into vampires. They say the balance has collapsed, causing divine power to turn into demonic energy.”
It wasn’t that vampires had infiltrated the kingdom, nor that people were being turned by bites. No, the believers themselves were changing because the balance that maintained order had been shattered.
There was no other explanation for such a sudden appearance of vampires.
The Holy Kingdom was already shaken by the Slave Reaper’s victory in the trial. With the re-emergence of vampires, the hypothesis was not dismissed as mere nonsense.
It gained momentum and was instantly elevated to the status of truth.
This was undoubtedly a favorable turn of events for Marcenus and his faction. Not only had the Saint they so desperately wished for fallen from the sky, but she had also aligned herself with their cause.
However.
“The Saint is certainly running wild, isn't she?”
“Indeed, she is.”
Roman and Matilda spoke with cynical smiles.
Elize was no different from a hound off its leash.
The previous night, Sister Ray had turned into a vampire and died a gruesome death. Headmistress Matilda knew it was Elize’s doing, so she felt no sadness.
But she had raised the girl since she was a child. Elize’s rampage had cost them a valuable asset.
She ran amok, trusting in her excessive power, yet they had no means to control her. To top it all off, the Saint, a vessel of God, was a slave. It was a truly maddening situation.
“Is there no way?”
“A way! Of course, there’s a way. We make the Saint our slave!”
“Is that possible?”
“Of course! Because the Saint is half-vampire!”
The demon race was composed of various species. Vampires, devils, skeletons—any being that harbored demonic energy was called a demon.
There was a reason they had chosen to infuse the test subject with the traits of a vampire out of all the many demonic beasts.
First, the method of injecting their blood was convenient for the experiment. Second, it was due to a unique trait of vampires: they could turn others into vampires by biting them.
A host vampire and the countless others spawned from them.
It closely resembled the relationship between a god and their followers. They had judged the probability of success to be high due to this similar characteristic.
And the third and final reason.
A vampire’s bloodthirst.
Vampires form contracts through blood. The plan was to use this to their advantage, to ensnare the vampire through blood.
Normally, they would have formed a blood contract immediately after the experiment succeeded and used her as they pleased, but due to the accident, they had failed to make any contract with Elize.
“Headmistress! Have you ever seen the Saint drink blood?”
“No. Not once. In fact, aside from her red eyes, I never even suspected she was a vampire. If anyone had seen her drinking blood, word would have gotten around.”
“That means it’s one of two things! Either she’s drinking blood in secret, or she’s suppressing her bloodthirst through some other method!”
“Hmm…”
Roman didn't miss the flicker in Matilda's eyes, as if she'd recalled something.
“You seem to have an idea!”
“She wears a ring on her finger. She didn’t have it when she first came to the convent, but at some point, it appeared.”
It had caused a stir among the nuns at the time. Some bad-mouthed Elize, while others came to Matilda, protesting that she should be reprimanded.
But since she was the child brought by the high-ranking priest Lucas, they hadn’t dared to scold her.
In any case, when Elize first arrived, she had seemed subtly fatigued, but after she started wearing the ring, that exhaustion vanished completely.
Snap! Roman made a crisp finger snap.
“That’s it. That has to be it! It must be a magic tool that reduces a vampire’s urges!”
“To think such a magic tool exists…”
“The Slave Reaper must have given it to her. I don’t know how, but it seems he’s also aware of the Saint’s existence.”
He was no ordinary man.
A gut feeling told Roman that if this operation failed, it would be because of him.
He needed to be eliminated, and quickly.
“So, if we remove the ring, will that work?”
“Exactly! If we stimulate her bloodthirst and then form a subjugation contract with the Cardinal’s blood, we should be able to control her as we wish!”
*
“Saint, how have you been managing your bloodthirst?”
Marcenus asked Elize, repeating the information he’d gleaned from the secret meeting.
Now that she had revealed herself as a vampire, it wasn’t a surprising question. But she didn’t appreciate personal questions unrelated to their objective.
A guarded look appeared on Elize’s face.
“Why are you asking that?”
“Don’t misunderstand. You asked before about how to manifest your mystic power. This is related to that.”
“If that’s the case…”
It wasn’t a great secret, so she answered readily.
“I drink fresh milk.”
“Milk…?”
She acted as if she’d squeeze a person dry and drink them raw, yet all she drank was milk?
“Don’t vampires drink blood?”
“Why would I drink something as disgusting as blood? If you became a succubus, would you go around draining men dry?”
“……”
“It’s the same principle.”
He understood immediately.
“Of course, it was hard to control it completely with just milk, but this ring helps.”
Elize held up the red ring on her finger.
Roman and Matilda’s guess had been correct.
That ring was suppressing Elize’s bloodthirst.
“Now I understand why you have been unable to manifest your mystic power. It is because of that ring.”
“What’s the reason?”
“The balance between Saint and vampire must be maintained, but because you wear the ring, your vampire traits have been weakened. The scales are imbalanced.”
“Are you telling me to take off the ring?”
“That would be it.”
Elize stared at the ring. She had thought it simply suppressed her bloodthirst, but she never imagined it would have such an additional effect.
Karami knows a lot. Perhaps far more than I imagined.
Could he have been trying to check her, to prevent her from becoming a Saint?
It was a reasonable suspicion.
“Is taking off the ring all I have to do?”
“Yes.”
“Then what about the bloodthirst? Surely you’re not telling me to drink blood?”
“It is a necessary step to becoming a Saint. You could call it a trial you must endure.”
“A trial…”
Elize, who had been lost in thought while looking at the ring, soon gave her refusal.
“I’ll think about it.”
“It is something you must do eventually. In that case, it would be better to start adapting now…”
“I said I’ll think about it. Why are you pushing me? What, are you plotting something behind my back?”
Elize didn’t trust Karami, but she didn’t trust Marcenus either. How many innocent children had they deceived under the pretext of trials to become a nun?
For Elize, the word ‘trial’ was a trigger.
“I’ll handle it myself, so don’t overstep your bounds. Just do your own job properly. You’re all helpless without me, anyway.”
“My apologies.”
Elize snorted as if to say the apology was pathetic.
“What about the thing I mentioned?”
It was the price Elize had demanded in exchange for her cooperation with Marcenus: to halt all ongoing experiments and release all the children they had taken.
“Do not worry. As long as you are here, there is no reason to continue the experiments. I, too, do not wish to see innocent children get hurt.”
“To hear you talk, one would think you were a saint yourself.”
Trying to act nice now won’t work on me.
*
As the incident escalated, the Holy Kingdom reached a point where it could no longer gloss over the issue.
Their previous announcement, which had declared the incident a vampire infiltration, now backfired. People began to wonder if, even back then, it hadn’t been an infiltration but a curse upon the faithful.
They tried to placate the public by saying this time was different, but it was only a temporary fix. There was no telling when another vampire might appear.
“Have you still not found the host?!”
The council chamber of the Cathedral, where the Council convened. Cardinals and other high-ranking clergy were gathered in one place, deep in discussion about the recent incident.
Although they had publicly announced it as a vampire infiltration, all the vampires that appeared had bite marks. The balance hadn’t collapsed.
That meant there had to be a host.
However.
“We have cast detection magic across the entire Holy Kingdom, but no demonic energy is being detected.”
“Does that mean the vampire simply vanished into thin air?!”
“Well…”
A divine barrier surrounded the entire Holy Kingdom. It was a barrier optimized for detecting demonic energy, of all things, yet it was picking up nothing.
Occasionally, it would sense something, but it would be gone in the blink of an eye. Whatever trickery this was, it was baffling enough to make a ghost weep.
“The demon realm has also stated that this incident is unrelated to them. The same goes for the Vampire Lords, who claim they cannot control the transgressions of individuals.”
“The people’s anxiety is skyrocketing due to these successive incidents. If this continues, the very foundation of the Holy Kingdom will crumble.”
“To think that the balance is being shaken by a single bat.”
It was a lamentable situation, but ultimately, no solution came to mind. Just then, Headmistress Matilda, who had remained an observer throughout the meeting, spoke up.
“Cardinal Marcenus. As the head of the Congregation of Doctrinal Faith, shouldn’t you be the one to propose a solution at a time like this?”
At her words, all eyes turned to Marcenus.
The second-most powerful man in the Church, after Pope Antonius.
If he wished, he could brand any thorn in his side a heretic and purge them. Moreover, with Antonius having stepped down, he was even being named as the next Pope.
As such, there were many who disliked him. They seized the opportunity to put him in check.
“A perfectly valid point, Headmistress. Heretics are running rampant, yet the Cardinal of the Congregation of Doctrinal Faith is just standing by. Is that acceptable?”
“Hmm, a sound opinion. As it happens, I too have just found a solution.”
“You’ve found a solution?”
Marcenus nodded.
With a light gesture, the Holy Knights opened the doors as if they had been waiting.
A woman entered through the open doors, escorted by the knights.
It was Sister Elize from the convent.
But she wasn’t wearing her usual nun’s habit. A veil rested on her head, and her attire was closer in form to a dress than a habit.
A figure both alluring and sacred.
She exuded a mystical aura that no ordinary nun could produce.
“Allow me to introduce her. This is the Saint who will save our Church.”