“I should report this to the Vampire Princess.”
The succubus secretary said that and hurriedly left the room.
She had been so flustered as she departed that I couldn’t understand why she had abandoned her post to go make a report.
If I had to guess—
‘It’s one of two things.’
One.
The corruption had succeeded.
But there was one problem.
‘Could she not tell that the ritual had been carried out?’
Had she been unable to detect through magic that the ritual had been performed at the altar—or that it had succeeded?
Or was it impossible to confirm in real time, making it something that had to be reported in person?
‘Maybe she isn’t interested in this side of things. Or perhaps she simply doesn’t care.’
Whatever happens, happens.
Or perhaps results couldn’t possibly appear all at once.
Just as it would be absurd to expect new-material research to succeed overnight the moment the budget was approved and researchers assigned, perhaps this matter had simply been brushed aside with a, “Oh, the altar worked.”
‘Maybe that’s what she really needs to report.’
Splat, splat.
The priestess Dahlia wildly swung her flail, its head wrapped in red and white cloth.
“Ugh, aaah!!”
One of the prisoners entered, then recoiled in horror upon seeing his dead comrade. Dahlia immediately chased after him, grabbed him by the nape, and threw him into the execution chamber.
“O Goddess! May the flail of judgment descend upon the apostate—!”
Crack!
Another one died, his head smashed open.
Even though blood splattered across her entire body, Dahlia was instead delighted, swinging the mace wildly.
The power contained in that mace.
Was it divine power?
I wasn’t sure.
Something divine did seem to flow from it, but it was difficult to make a careless judgment.
‘I know far too little.’
All I knew was the miracle granted to me and the clues I had obtained in this training room.
‘Forget it. Just focus on surviving.’
I steeled my resolve.
If I hadn’t risked my life as a trainer, the person whose head was being smashed by that mace right now would have been none other than me.
“Huff, huff.”
Dahlia caught her breath.
Exactly to the last man, she had bludgeoned all eight male prisoners—the men who had violently rammed their cocks into her—with her mace.
“O Goddess…”
Dahlia knelt and clasped her hands in prayer.
“Hey.”
I approached Dahlia, but she quietly turned her eyes toward me.
“Can’t you see that I’m praying?”
“No, I just wanted to say good work.”
“Hah. My efforts are for the Goddess to recognize. You just… ngh.”
Dahlia frowned.
Though she was drenched in blood, the red irises visible through it began to grow even redder.
“…”
Dahlia had become a vampire.
Had she developed a craving for blood?
If so, then the only available target—
“You.”
“What?”
“What’s your name?”
Dahlia slowly rose to her feet.
“I need to remember your name.”
“My name? Well…”
My name from my previous life had no meaning, and I had no particular desire to use a name in this life either.
“What sounds good? Andy, Jack, Malcolm, or Jace?”
“What?”
“I’ve forgotten my real name. Or you could give me a new one.”
“……A divine revelation?”
Dahlia looked at me with an expression that clearly showed her displeasure.
“She said that she would bestow a new name upon you.”
“Why are you saying it so solemnly?”
“Shut up. Those really were the words she conveyed to me.”
“The Goddess?”
“Yes. Which means… she’s watching over this place.”
Dahlia twisted up the corners of her mouth as though to make a point.
“The Goddess is sending her divinity even into this dungeon, the headquarters of the demons.”
“…”
I wanted to tell her that she was simply the one who believed that, but perhaps the shock of being gang-raped had affected her more severely than I thought.
No.
Had I done something even worse to her?
She had endured being raped by the men, but perhaps her mind had snapped after being crushed by the actions of those corpses, who had splashed semen all over her priestess robes.
“Azazi’el.”
“What?”
How could anyone’s name be Azazi’el?
“You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“…No. She said Azazel.”
“……?”
It had been shortened, but it didn’t seem to have become any better.
It wasn’t even Azazazazel.
“That’s ridiculous. Are you sure the Goddess really said that?”
“The Goddess is watching this as well, so do not dare put me to the test.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“…”
Dahlia glared at me as if she wanted to kill me, but even though she gripped the mace tightly, she couldn’t swing it at me.
“What? Going to hit me?”
“…”
She left the mace, smeared with blood and bits of flesh, hanging at her side and glared at me for a long while. Though her displeasure was plain to see, Dahlia did not swing it.
“More importantly, what happened to the other women?”
“The other women?”
“Eris and—”
“Oh. Aside from the female knight, they’re dead.”
I drew a finger across my own throat.
“The female thief was eaten by slimes, and the female warrior… well, the orcs dragged her away.”
“Cannibalism…”
“Our master doesn’t order her subordinates to eat people.”
The Vampire Princess killed humans, but she didn’t eat them.
“Unlike the other dungeons.”
“…”
“They do have all the blood in their bodies drained when they die, though.”
“Is being drained of blood really different from being eaten?”
“At least in terms of how it feels.”
Compared to being dismembered alive and becoming living proof of a cannibalistic feast, perhaps it was better to have one’s heart torn out in a single blow and then die while all the blood was drained from one’s body.
“I see… Then Eris is still alive?”
“Yeah.”
Not merely alive.
As my save point—
“I’ll help you.”
“……What?”
“I said I’ll help you.”
Dahlia licked her lips with a sultry smile.
“I want to teach you the joy of falling into demonhood.”
“…You.”
A thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Isn’t it simply because you want to turn the other women into beings like you?”
“…”
Dahlia did not deny it. She only smiled.
Ah.
Hadn’t they said that a woman’s enemy was another woman?
“Nothing wrong with that.”
* * *
An old castle cloaked in deep darkness.
Everything was painted black, while the only decorations were red. In the central hall, a woman sat upon a throne.
White hair and red eyes.
A woman bearing the typical features of a vampire.
Yet the purity of her near-white hair and the vividness of her blood-red eyes revealed just how close she was to being a “True Ancestor.”
Some would describe this woman as—
The first descendant of the Vampire King.
The First Princess of the vampires.
But those residing in this place, the Vampire Princess’s castle, called her by another name.
“Master.”
The master of the dungeon.
“I have something urgent to report.”
“The Demon King’s Army’s meeting of the four chief officers is scheduled to begin in ten minutes.”
Or one of the four chief officers of the Demon King’s Army.
Under the title by which she was most widely known, she was the “Vampire Princess.”
“If it is something that can wait until after the officers’ meeting…”
“It may be more important than that.”
“…”
At the succubus secretary’s report, delivered while kneeling on the red carpet in the center of the hall, the Vampire Princess stopped her hand.
“You are not one to make false claims. Report.”
“…Could you dismiss the others?”
“How dare you!”
The elderly vampire standing beside the Vampire Princess roared.
“How dare you demand a private audience with the Princess! You’re only a seventh-grade administrator!”
“Silence.”
The Vampire Princess raised a hand to restrain the old vampire.
“I can judge the matter after hearing the details. If you have merely wasted my time, then you may atone with your life.”
The Vampire Princess slowly rose to her feet.
“There is no need for you to explain it in words. I shall see for myself.”
As the Vampire Princess rose from her throne and descended the steps, the succubus secretary quietly undid the top button of her shirt.
“Through the memories flowing in your blood, I shall confirm what you saw and heard.”
Crunch.
Very slowly, the Vampire Princess’s fangs pierced the succubus secretary’s neck.
“Ah, ngh…!”
Blood rushed to the succubus secretary’s face in an instant.
Ignoring the secretary’s reaction, the Vampire Princess closed her eyes and drank the blood from the neck into which she had sunk her fangs.
And then—
“……!!”
Her eyes flew open, and she trembled.
As if she had witnessed something impossible.
As if something she had never expected had come to pass.
“…”
And at the same time—
As if something impossible had truly occurred.
“…”
When the Vampire Princess, looking as though she had suffered some kind of shock, stepped back, the succubus secretary’s legs gave out and she collapsed.
“Haa, haa, haa.”
The succubus secretary, seemingly lost in ecstasy, covered her neck with one hand.
They said that when a vampire close to a True Ancestor bit you and drank your blood, the pleasure was incomparable to any other.
They said that you would be steeped in that pleasure, dying without even realizing that you were dying.
Wasn’t this exactly what that looked like?
If there was one fortunate thing—
“You.”
The Vampire Princess had seen and read the succubus secretary’s memories, and had stopped short of killing her by draining her blood.
“There was not the slightest falsehood in what you saw, was there?”
“……Yes!”
The succubus secretary nodded vigorously.
“He—”
“Shh.”
When the succubus secretary tried to speak, the Vampire Princess placed an index finger over her lips.
“Quiet. Say nothing.”
“……!!”
“Arkamond.”
“Yes, Master.”
The elderly vampire, Arkamond, quietly approached.
“You will attend the officers’ meeting in my place. As my proxy.”
“Pardon?”
“It is merely a regular meeting. Nothing urgent, so there is no problem sending a proxy.”
“But… without a suitable pretext, the other officers will find it suspicious.”
Arkamond rolled his eyes as he looked the Vampire Princess up and down.
“I do not know what the matter is, but if it is serious enough that Your Highness wishes to inspect it personally, then as for the reason I am attending in your place…”
“Tell them I got my period.”
“…”
Arkamond’s already pale face grew even paler at the Vampire Princess’s words, but she was already helping the succubus secretary to her feet with her own hands.
“We’ll discuss this after you return from the officers’ meeting. Arkamond. Make up some plausible excuse.”
“Understood. The officers, of course, and…”
“Keep it secret from the Demon King as well.”
Arkamond mimed zipping his lips shut and nodded emphatically.
“Good luck, Master.”
“Ah.”
After Arkamond gathered a large stack of documents and disappeared somewhere—
“Then… shall I go meet him?”
The Vampire Princess smiled broadly and reached toward one of the countless mirrors hanging on the walls of the hall.
“Toward the hope of our army, the one who has awakened my yearning—and the ‘ancient power.’”
“The ancient… power.”
The succubus secretary swallowed hard, and the Vampire Princess reached her hand into the mirror.
“If that power is a fragment of the ‘Chaos God,’ whose worship was forbidden with the ascension of the current Demon King… If a portion of that power has been recreated in this land once more thanks to the success of the corruption…”
Lick.
“As I thought, I wasn’t mistaken.”
The Vampire Princess placed a hand over her chest and smiled in ecstasy.
“That trainer. By any means necessary, I’ll have to make him settle down in our army.”