The Blood Count (4)
— Screeeeech! Skree!
The rat-headed monster crashed down into the garden with Veronica clenched in its jaws.
The knights and soldiers of the count's household closed ranks around it. But faced with that mountain of a creature, not one of them could summon the courage to charge.
Just as well. You damned heretic.
A voice rang out from above, and the monster lifted its head.
A steel shield bristling with spikes, glowing cherry-red with heat, was plummeting straight down — like a meteor falling from the sky.
The monster threw up both arms in a desperate guard.
— Screeeeeeech!
The shield struck home, and a colossal impact jolted through every inch of the creature's body. Bones shattered in its arms. Flesh seared and hissed. Scarlet blood sprayed in every direction, and black smoke billowed up to choke the air.
Would've left a bad taste in my mouth if I'd let you walk away without a proper burning.
Jeremy — Flame Gate, Second Squad Leader of the Heresy Inquisition's Execution Division.
The monster swung its arms with everything it had and barely managed to fling him off. Then it bolted away from the manor, racing toward the square — the very place where the burning at the stake was about to begin.
What are you standing around for?! Don't let it escape! It's trying to join up with the dark mage!
The inquisitors of the Execution Division took the lead in pursuit, knights and soldiers thundering after them.
"Wh-what do we do?! The squad leader got taken!"
"Calm down, will you. Worrying about the squad leader's safety is about the most pointless thing you could do."
Agnes soothed a deathly pale Alexander.
"Squad Leader Jeremy. What happened?"
Karl approached with Dorothy supporting him, and put the question to Jeremy.
Baron Manfred. Young Master Anton went berserk. Looks like the holy knights provoked him — swore they'd make sure he burned. Right after that, he swallowed something he'd been hiding. Human flesh, most likely.
"Why would he do something so pointless…"
Maybe that was the plan from the start.
"Pardon?"
Never mind. More importantly, we should—
"Th-that monster… you're saying that's my son?"
Count Blarose asked in a trembling voice. Moments earlier, if Veronica hadn't pulled him clear, the monster would have seized him instead — and he would have been grievously wounded for certain.
That is correct.
"M-my son tried to attack me? He must have lost his reason—"
I wouldn't say so. Judging by how deliberately he's heading for the dark mage, he hasn't lost his mind. He altered his curse, most likely. His temperament may have grown more violent, but he's still acting with full intent.
Count Blarose didn't catch every word of Jeremy's explanation. But one thing he understood with perfect clarity: his son had meant to attack him.
"W-why on earth…"
That's dark magic for you. Power that comes easy tempts a man to cast aside every ethic he has. Which is precisely why, before anyone can lay hands on that knowledge, it must be burned out by the root.
Jeremy turned his gaze from the shattered count and looked toward the Special Task Force — people cursed from birth, continually tainted by dark magic. Someday they, too, might become a threat to the Lumenic Church. He had no choice but to admit they were proving genuinely useful for now. He could only hope the Saintess who founded the Special Task Force was keeping a sufficiently wary eye on them.
We're going after them. Special Task Force.
"I'll give ya a ride. Hop on."
"B-Baron… shouldn't you rest…?"
"No. I'm going too."
"You took far too long to decide."
— Screeeech!
Freed from the pyre, the dark mage clambered onto the back of the monster Anton had become.
It had been some time since he'd given Anton the vial of human flesh and blood, and still the young man had hesitated to take it. Anton was indecisive by nature, yet endlessly greedy. He wanted talent, power, wealth, women — all of it — and his own weakness made him fumble every opportunity that came his way. The chance to become the count's heir. The chance to marry into a better house. If he had hesitated this time as well, he would have lost his chance at power too.
Even so, the dark mage had never doubted it would come to this. The power dark magic offered was simply that seductive. Once Anton had tasted it, there was no way he could cast the temptation aside.
"You made the right choice, young master. Once we get out of here, there's so much more we can do."
— Screeeeeech!
The ground around the pyre was littered with blood and corpses — the territory's people who had come to watch the burning, and the holy knights who had tried to stop Anton. The holy knights, armed with consecrated weapons, were troublesome opponents for a dark mage. But against a beast that fought with nothing but sheer bulk and raw strength, even they were helpless. As a cursed being, Anton was vulnerable to consecrated arms as well — but not enough to close the gap.
You damned heretic!
The squad leader of the Execution Division arrived astride a black bear. Inquisitors in gas masks fanned out to encircle the dark mage and Anton.
"I have a hostage! Go ahead and attack if you dare!"
The inquisitors already had seething flames ready to fire. The dark mage pointed at the woman clamped in Anton's jaws, trying to hold them back.
If things had gone according to plan, he would have told Anton to take Count Blarose as a hostage. Instead, the fool had brought back some random woman. Judging by her attire, she was a heresy inquisitor. Anton's fangs were buried in her, which had to be agony — yet she hadn't screamed once. She was calmly surveying the situation even now. A tough one, true to her profession.
Doesn't matter! Burn them!
"What?"
Divine fire erupted from the inquisitors' hands in unison. A merciless wave of flame crashed in from every side. The dark mage hastily cast earth magic amplified by dark enhancement. Black barriers surged up around Anton and himself, holding the firestorm at bay.
"You insane bastards!"
He had known the Execution Division was extreme, but to disregard a hostage entirely? This woman was clearly one of their own inquisitors — and they were willing to burn a comrade alive just to kill a heretic?
He couldn't hold out like this for long. He needed to create an opening and break free.
The dark mage cast sky magic. Dozens of black lightning bolts, amplified by dark enhancement, came screaming down toward the inquisitors outside. A thunderclap tore through the air —
But it wasn't the inquisitors who screamed.
— Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech!
Every bolt of lightning veered as one and slammed directly into Anton's skull. Anton collapsed unconscious, and the dark mage tumbled to the ground with him.
"What the hell is this?!"
It made no sense. As a World Mage, he was at least 3-Star caliber. He didn't make mistakes when aiming.
"…You should give up now."
"Aaaargh!"
Someone wrenched the dark mage's arm behind his back and pinned him to the ground. It was the woman Anton had been holding in his jaws. The arm lock itself wasn't painful enough to break bone — but the ground was scorching hot from the heat rolling in from outside, hot enough to cook flesh. And for some reason, a crushing pain was tightening around his heart as well.
"Aaaagh! Let go! It's burning!!"
"…All that awaits you is the flame."
"Damn it! Why go this far?! You'll burn to death too at this rate!"
The black barriers were glowing cherry-red under the onslaught of fire, on the verge of melting through.
"…That wouldn't be so bad either. …If it were possible, that is."
"Ghhk… Wait… how the hell are you still fine…"
With half his face cooked by the heat, the dark mage clung to consciousness and forced himself to think. Dozens of lightning bolts had struck Anton's head dead-on. And yet the woman who'd been clamped in Anton's mouth was unharmed. Didn't that seem strange?
"…"
"Hnnngh!"
As if to deny him even a moment to think, the woman drove her weight down harder.
"You don't seem particularly worried about Karl, do you? About your squad leader."
Maria spoke as she watched the inquisitors' flames eat through the black barriers. She had ridden with me atop Dorothy in her wolf form all the way to the square.
"Because the squad leader is someone who comes through any situation unharmed."
Those afflicted with the Curse of Severance cannot inflict harm on others. Veronica had altered that curse so that others could no longer inflict harm on her. Even if that lava-like torrent of flame burned everything else to ash, Veronica alone would walk away unscathed. Just as Agnes had said — worrying about the Special Task Force leader's safety was about as pointless as it got.
"You really don't understand a woman's heart, Karl. Women want a man to throw out every rational, logical consideration and look at them with nothing but pure emotion."
"I don't understand what you're getting at with that remark."
"I haven't had a proper chance to talk with her, but I like your squad leader."
That was an ominous thing to hear, as far as I was concerned. In Luke's Biography, Veronica had been one of Demon King Maria's highest-ranking officers.
"I think she'd suit you well, too."
"I do consider her a good superior to work under. Though I have no idea what she thinks of me."
The Black Swamp. First Parish. Blarose County. This made the third time Veronica and I had worked together. She was quite knowledgeable about curses, and the orders she gave always lined up closely with my own thinking.
"Heh. I'm a stimulating kind of woman, you know. Having a dull one around for balance might not be such a bad idea."
"…Again, I have no idea what you're driving at with any of this."
— Screeeech! Screeeeeech!
The monster Anton's howl rolled across the square. A death cry? Apparently not.
Blood.
The blood still left at the scene of this massacre — whatever hadn't yet evaporated — rose droplet by droplet into the air. It became a crimson river flowing through the sky, streaming as one into the black barriers.
"Oh no. Dorothy! Run! Careful not to touch the flames!"
Dorothy launched forward like the wind, and Maria wrapped both arms around my waist.
Baron Manfred!
Jeremy, astride Agnes in her black bear form, shouted at the sight of me charging straight into the fire.
"Agnes, you run too! Squad Leader Jeremy — he's going to break out!"
No sooner had the words left my mouth than Anton smashed through the black barriers and emerged. His body was far larger than before, dyed entirely red, with four legs and fully six arms. His rat-like head now bristled with dozens of eyeballs. Several of his arms burned away and dropped off before the divine flames that purged evil — only to regenerate in an instant.
The sight jogged something loose in my memory. In Luke's Biography, the Blood Count had kept one particularly powerful demonic beast. A grotesque creature whose entire body was covered in countless arms and legs.
That beast had never been a beast at all. It had been human.
Anton Blarose. The end that awaited a cursed man who threw himself into dark magic with half-baked talent and half-hearted resolve.