I knew there would be people within the legion who were dissatisfied with me.
In particular, I thought it would be the members of the Defense Corps, the unit responsible for repelling the enemy.
So, as a measure of my own, I had installed traps throughout the training room, but—
“Ha.”
So this was how they were going to play it.
“Secretary. What is the condition of the prisoners?”
“The men’s bodies are unharmed.”
“......And their minds?”
“The worst.”
The humans dragged into the training room as prisoners were, how should I put it, all completely broken.
Because they had been beaten senseless by orcs with all their strength?
Because adventurers of at least intermediate rank had been made to submit before overwhelming violence?
That was certainly part of it, but they had witnessed an even greater shock right before their eyes.
'They saw their comrades being gang-raped.'
The female adventurers had been gang-raped.
The orcs had forced the men face-down on the floor and held them there one-on-one while brutally raping the female adventurers.
The rapes had been partly for the sake of satisfying their own pleasure, but an even more fundamental urge had driven them.
“To think they would do this just to demonstrate their superiority over humans.”
Self-display.
To put it more crudely, cock-display.
“This is a provocation aimed at me.”
They had provoked me.
Otherwise, they would not have brought the prisoners to the training corps in this condition.
'It feels like coming home from work to find that your girlfriend ordered mala tteokbokki, ate her fill, and left the leftovers for me.'
When I briefly lived together with my girlfriend, she would sometimes order food just for herself.
Rather than prepare dinner, she would solve everything with delivery food, and instead of eating with me, she would gobble it down first and casually toss the leftovers in front of me.
This was exactly how it felt back then.
Like finding something someone else had started eating and left behind on the table.
'And not something left there for me to eat, but something given to me just to piss me off.'
It was even more unpleasant because I knew it was not simply laziness, but malice mixed with the intention of telling me to go fuck myself.
“Secretary.”
“Yes, Trainer.”
“The female prisoners. What condition are they in now?”
“.......”
“Let’s take a look.”
Lilith used magic to project an image of one of the prison cells in the training room before me.
The women gathered there in twos and threes, dressed in prison uniforms, were covered in bruises from head to toe. Their eyes, however, were completely dead.
“I have applied healing magic, but the damage was too extensive....”
“Ha.”
This part was especially fucked up.
'Though there is also the fact that they are difficult to look at.'
Along with the very human disgust of feeling as though I was looking at actual victims of rape—
“They were women who had the potential to become vampires.”
Several female adventurers had all become useless.
It was not simply that I had no intention of turning them into vampires because they had been gang-raped by orcs.
“At this rate, even if we spray them with aphrodisiacs, they will feel pain rather than pleasure.”
Their bodies had been ruined, broken, and destroyed in countless places.
And by “countless places,” I did not mean merely the outside of their bodies. Their insides had been utterly destroyed as well.
How was I supposed to coax them with words and lead them into corruption?
'This won’t do. If I try, I might create vampires who will kill orcs without exception.'
It was different from Dalia’s and Zentia’s cases.
Their desire for revenge had been directed at humans.
'They had to despair and become disillusioned with humanity before they could become vampires, but that despair is directed at our legion from the start.'
To turn these women into vampires, I needed to redirect their desire for revenge away from the orcs and toward humanity, but the current circumstances made that impossible.
“Secretary. Abandon the training of these prisoners. Record the reason for abandoning it as follows: their hostility toward the demons is too strong for them to consider betraying humanity. Write it as the trainer’s opinion.”
“Would it be all right if I added that the trainer merely swept them with one glance and did not even train them in the training room?”
“Good.”
Lilith understood me at once.
Along with my opinion, Lilith would submit her own assessment in the report.
Since the report would state that the trainer and her secretary had reached similar conclusions, Chief Aide Archmonde would likely read it, fly into a rage, and thunder at the Defense Corps.
A corrective order would probably be issued against the Seventh Defense Corps.
'Then they’ll be even more pissed off and kill the prisoners.'
If I let them have their way, I would be a fool.
But rather than sit around and become a helpless sucker, it was better to act directly.
The one fortunate thing was—
“Secretary.”
“Yes, Trainer.”
“I may die. Even knowing that, are you willing to follow me despite the danger?”
The lower-ranking officers and members of the Defense Corps might think poorly of me, but the highest-ranking officers of this Vampire Legion valued me.
“I am the trainer’s secretary. Even if it comes to fighting the orcs, I will assist you at your side.”
Lilith answered seriously.
“Not only me, but the succubi under my command as well. The succubi who received the trainer’s grace while in the training room will follow you.”
While in the training room, several succubi had received my favor.
It was not as though I had scattered semen or gold coins for them. Instead, I had allowed them to freely take the prisoners’ semen.
“Good. Then we need to set things in motion.”
So that we could take possession of the prisoners.
It would be difficult to do so immediately, but we needed to prepare a method that could be used later.
“Kill all the female prisoners. We’ll use the male prisoners however we see fit. Tell the succubi to feast.”
“Is it all right to kill them?”
“If they die beneath succubi while having sex, rather than having their hearts torn out, that’s a good death. Kill as many as you like. In fact, it would be better to kill them all.”
I made a slashing motion across my own throat.
“Make sure you convey this clearly. These prisoners are useless for training even if we accept them, so they are to be disposed of.”
* * *
At that same time, the Adventurer’s Guild in Baron Gilbert’s domain.
“Did you hear? Sounds like they failed again this time.”
“My goodness. That must have been an incredibly dangerous dungeon.”
The adventurers gathered in small groups at the café on the first floor of the Adventurer’s Guild were discussing a certain dungeon.
“The Jake Dungeon. I suppose part of the reason is that Sir Jake is the most famous among those who disappeared....”
“Wasn’t Eris stronger?”
“Shh. This is Gilbert’s domain, isn’t it? Eris is a commoner.”
“...Ah, r-right. Ahem.”
Countless adventurers had disappeared.
More precisely, they were presumed to have been killed.
“You know what the guildmaster said? He intends to raise the Jake Dungeon’s rank to A this time.”
“An A-rank dungeon in a barony? Ugh. If monsters come pouring out, wouldn’t we have to mount a defensive battle?”
“Fortunately, I heard the baron brought in a large number of laborers to build a fortress right in front of the dungeon.”
“That’s a relief, at least.”
A dungeon was dangerous not only when one entered it.
Just as humans could invade the dungeons, which were the monsters’ territory, monsters could also cross through dimensional gates and attack cities.
It was truly ironic.
The demons were the ones who had opened a dimensional gate inside the small dungeon known as a cave, yet the ones attempting to enter through that gate and hunt in the Demon King’s army’s dungeon were not demons, but adventurers.
“Damn.... What a waste. If it weren’t such a dangerous dungeon, we could have made a killing.”
“The price of magic stones has been fluctuating wildly lately, too. We might have been able to make a huge haul. Still, let’s be safe. Safety first.”
Even so, there was one reason adventurers entered dungeons.
Money.
Magic stones were worth money.
And not only magic stones—the materials obtained from hunting monsters were worth an enormous amount as well.
Adventurers could earn in a single week of dungeon farming what ordinary people worked themselves to the bone for an entire year to make.
Those confident in their abilities became adventurers because, in places where their lives were relatively safe, they could shoulder a reasonable degree of risk and receive immense wealth in return.
“Would conquering the Jake Dungeon actually benefit us...?”
“Who knows? A recommendation letter isn’t exactly a dog’s name.”
Risk and reward.
Either losing one’s life, or obtaining something even more valuable.
“Hey. About the Jake Dungeon—are you planning to challenge it?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Even though so many adventurers had already died, even though more than seventy people—many of them fairly powerful adventurers—had disappeared in succession from Baron Gilbert’s domain alone, there were still those who continued aiming to conquer the dungeon.
“I heard that was what the men who encountered the vampire demon and returned alive said. The succubi were wearing suits and standing behind the demon as though assisting him.”
“A vampire and succubi.... If we could capture them, buying a house in the capital would be nothing.”
Assuming they had enough skill, it was worth risking their lives for.
“Then—”
Creak.
The door to the Adventurer’s Guild opened.
The adventurers turned their eyes toward the person who had entered—
“Gasp.”
—and were startled.
A slender figure and the beautiful appearance characteristic of elves were nothing unusual among elven adventurers.
“D-Diamond rank...?!”
The adventurers swallowed hard at the diamond earring hanging from her ear, a symbol that openly revealed her rank as an adventurer.
“S-rank...!”
“C-could it be....”
As they watched the blonde, green-eyed elf approach the receptionist immediately after entering, one of the adventurers swallowed nervously.
“[Orc Slayer], the high elf Silverit...?”
The elf was smiling.