#105
Escaping the Mountain Range (3)
Harley first let the power he had drawn up settle back down to conserve energy, then quickly assessed the situation.
Its presence was so clamorous that Harley had detected it, but there was still quite a lot of distance between them, and the creature’s speed was not particularly fast.
‘At that speed, about ten minutes? Compared to the power I’m sensing, that’s fairly ordinary. It must be a pretty large one.’
And seeing as it could sense the signs of battle from that distance despite the interference of the magic tool, its detection ability was better than he had expected.
Harley turned his head and looked back at the group, who had yet to notice the approaching danger.
“Phew... phew. No, Mr. Harley! What on earth was that? I knew you were strong, but I never imagined you were at this level! And that flying axe, too!”
“As expected, that notoriety... no, reputation exists for a reason. Looking at it now, I think the rumors were actually understated.”
“...Beyond expectations...”
Even while exhausted and hurriedly reorganizing themselves, they were casually heaping praise on him.
“Khuhuk, Bordeaux... after coming this far, to end like this...”
“...There’s nothing we can do, Hans. Let’s recover his belongings first.”
“My friend... I told you I’d buy you enough beer to burst your belly once we got back...”
The rangers and the dwarf were sunk in grief before the corpse of their fallen comrade.
“Marcus, how much farther do we have? Didn’t you say we were almost there?”
“There were too many battles. Naturally, we’ve been delayed that much. Still, we should be able to leave the mountain range within the day.”
There were even those discussing what came next.
As experienced as they were, the group was already doing what needed to be done and preparing to leave immediately after the battle ended...
But no matter how he looked at it, the situation was not good enough to immediately engage a powerful enemy.
If it were just him alone, that might be one thing, but if they encountered that thing now, they would not last long and would die in no time.
‘As expected, this won’t do. We need more time.’
It was a bleak prospect, but fortunately, there was someone among the group who could break through this kind of situation.
Harley clapped his hands to draw their attention and relay the situation, then opened his mouth with a serious expression.
“Wahaha—! Friends? Unfortunately, the situation isn’t looking too good right now, so I think we’ll have to move a little urgently!”
...The aftereffects of drawing out his madness still remained, so his manner of speaking came out even more excessive than usual, but that was not an important issue right now.
“Harley? What is it this time? Don’t tell me...”
Given the circumstances, the rest of the group seemed to be thinking the same thing, and they focused more on the content of his words than his tone.
Because not a single warning Harley had given so far had been wrong.
The slightly relaxed atmosphere among them was pulled taut, and tension rose.
He briefly explained the situation to the group, who had already finished preparing to move and were looking at him.
And the one who immediately stepped forward at Harley’s words was...
“Ten minutes? Five minutes is enough!”
Zaonic, the dwarf who already had a record of evading a monster rampage once before.
***
The Azerion Empire, located in the central part of the continent.
Tobea City, one of the imperial domains surrounding the capital Jeron, was a place that enjoyed prosperity in its own right as a transportation hub, though it was located some distance from the capital.
Clatter, clatter—
A carriage crossed the wealthy district of the city and stopped before the main gate of a mansion.
A moment later, the carriage entered through the open gate and, skipping all subsequent security procedures, quickly drove inside.
Soon, after crossing the garden, the carriage stopped in front of the building, and its door opened...
Srrrk—
From within, a beautiful woman with long, glossy pink hair neatly arranged stepped down carefully.
With a gentle smile on her lips, she looked around with a bright, innocent expression, then entered the mansion with calm steps.
“Have you arrived, my lady?”
“It’s been a while, Terry. Do you happen to know what Mr. Andrew is doing right now?”
“He is in the playroom at the moment. Shall I pass along a message?”
“Yes, could you tell him I’ll be waiting in the study on the second floor?”
“Yes, understood.”
Naturally responding to the greetings of the servants moving about inside the mansion, she slowly went up to the second floor and walked down the corridor.
The moment she set foot in an area where no one except those with permission could enter...
Wooong—
Along with a strange vibrating sound, the resonance of a special barrier swept over her body in an instant.
And then.
As if changing masks, the benevolent smile on her face instantly transformed into a sticky, seductive one.
“Hmm~ Looks like Olivia has started moving? This might be a bit troublesome.”
She glanced out the corridor window and murmured softly.
She had expected this ever since the undead began to stir, but now that it had become reality, she could not help but be subtly bothered by it.
After all, since she had once been with her, she fully acknowledged her abilities.
As an ally, she was an incomparably reliable existence, but as an enemy, she was an existence one could not help but dread even more.
Originally, spectral bodies among the undead were aggregates of specific thoughts, and thanks to the killing intent they inherently carried, it was not that difficult for a powerful person above a certain level to detect them.
‘But the ghosts Olivia commands are a different matter. She can temporarily remove from them all thoughts except for the specific purpose of gathering information.’
A simple spirit body that carried neither its characteristic desires nor killing intent was itself difficult to detect.
Of course, if that happened, the individual’s thinking and discernment would drop, making it hard even to sort out useful information...
But that, too, was one of Olivia’s specialties.
The pink-haired woman organized her thoughts as she walked down the corridor.
Due to her innate nature, it was a bit easier for her to detect them, but there would not be many who could notice them so easily.
‘Well, even so, humans aren’t incapable of learning. She won’t be able to play as active a role as she did in the previous generation.’
As long as they paid special attention to their barriers, they would be able to block their intrusion, so the upper echelons who already knew that the Immortal King had revived would have taken separate measures at each important facility.
The same was true for her right now.
Not only was there a barrier installed across the entire mansion, but this area she had just entered, in particular, had security facilities set up using every possible method.
Bang—
She opened a door on one side of the corridor and entered the study.
‘The current Immortal King’s goal must be the same as the previous one’s, so I can assume Olivia is moving accordingly.’
Wanting to turn the continent into a land of death was like an instinct that naturally came with becoming the Immortal King.
By accepting the Immortal King’s heart, one gained immense power, but instead, one became submerged in it and pursued even greater power more blindly.
‘But the current situation is different from before. Not only have powers taken root all over the place, but the Order’s influence has grown far greater as well. This time, too, it will probably end with heavy damage, just like before.’
And that was precisely what their “Oath of Reversal” wanted.
It was also the reason she had ignored the Immortal King’s signal and instead hidden herself even deeper.
‘I don’t want to join that army of immortals again. It’s filthy, it stinks, and there’s nothing delicious there.’
In the previous generation, she had been summoned to the surface and, somehow, ended up subordinated to the Immortal King and following him, but after three hundred years had passed, she had no desire to do that again.
Wasn’t her position different from that of the other undead under him?
“Well, I suppose I’ll just have to keep my head down for a while. The Immortal King will be busy coming up with a plan to conquer the world~ Would he really pay any attention to parasites of society like us?”
While she, unaware of the true purpose of the ghosts spreading through the world, was chuckling to herself like that...
Knock, knock—
“Sister Siana, I’m here!”
“Come in.”
A sly-looking man with dull blond hair and green eyes opened the study door and entered.
“Wow— you’re as beautiful as ever today, Sister! But what brings you here so suddenly?”
His body, as if he had already had a bout of indulgence in broad daylight, reeked of alcohol and perfume as he approached with a smarmy smile, but Siana did not distort her expression in the slightest and instead smiled brightly.
“Mr. Andrew~? You did finish all your work before playing around like that, didn’t you?”
“Ah... about that, you see?”
Contrary to her gentle voice, her violet eyes were cold, and the blond young man, Andrew Weaver, smiled awkwardly while scratching his head.
“First of all, it seems certain that the head of the Brokoslak Clan has changed, but finding out about the man himself hasn’t been easy.”
“Tell me just what you’ve found out so far.”
“Yes... First, his name is Heinz. In terms of martial force, he can suppress a True Blood by himself without much damage. He seems to have surpassed an ordinary True Blood, but not quite reached Sacred Blood. A little over a month ago, he suddenly appeared in Talaria and swallowed up the clan in an instant... but his movements before that are unknown.”
Considering that the inside of the Brokoslak Clan was completely controlled by the “Refined Blood Crystal,” and that Heinz had since shut himself away, finding out even that much was already impressive enough...
“Have you become too complacent? I think I gave you more than enough time.”
To Siana, who did not know those detailed circumstances, it only looked like needless whining.
“Ah— give me a break, Sister! My ability isn’t that convenient, you know? At least this time, with my ability growing stronger, I became able to observe indirectly, but I still can’t directly track a True Blood!”
Having helped with the opening of the Abyss this time and acquired karma, he had been able to complete the fourth enhancement of “Trajectory Observation.”
‘Maybe because I didn’t move directly, the karma I received was less than I expected.’
Still, combined with what he had gathered before, it was enough to enhance his unique skill by one stage.
Thanks to that, by specifying a time and place, or someone nearby, he had become able to indirectly “see” even powerful figures who reached the level of True Blood.
‘No, it’s not like a True Blood vampire just strolls around peacefully. They vanish at the drop of a hat and appear somewhere else in the blink of an eye, so how am I supposed to grasp all of that?’
The fact that he had figured out the moment Heinz entered Talaria had been possible purely because he had been lucky.
So to speak, his ability was close to a kind of CCTV analysis.
Even now, there were dozens of his eyes scattered across the entire continent, and if the conditions were right, he could change their positions at any time and read the past...
‘But I’m the only one who has to examine all of that one by one. No matter how much my mental strength has been enhanced, how long would it take to analyze all that?’
But when a superior was saying something, he could not just stay silent.
“Um, it isn’t certain, but... judging from the direction he arrived in the capital Talaria from, I think he may have departed from the nearby city of Rapella...”
“Don’t mention things that aren’t certain. It will only make things needlessly complicated.”
When Andrew, who had been scolded for adding one extra word, became crestfallen, Siana furrowed her brow and fell into thought.
Previously, after a clash with the Order, the people she had planted in the Kingdom of Thalia had been torn away in an instant.
On top of that, as the Brokoslak Clan began to gain even more power under its new system, it became more difficult to play tricks than before.
It was only natural that the plan she had been preparing all this time had become twisted in various ways.
It was a situation that required some extraordinary measure.
“It can’t be helped. It’s too risky to contact that side again now, so we have no choice but to eliminate them.”
“Hm? Will that be all right, Sister? Weren’t we allied with the vampires?”
“The ones we formed an alliance with were the Yufersch Clan. As it happens, their political position isn’t very good compared to the martial force they possess, so taking this chance to push out Brokoslak and entrust the Kingdom of Thalia to them wouldn’t be bad.”
They were a clan based in the empire and active across the entire continent, typical vampires who lived hidden in the darkness of cities.
“Hmm... I thought they said the other side had a Sacred Blood, too. Won’t the damage grow for no reason?”
“In the end, it’s just a ghost of the past lying in hibernation and waiting for the day it dies. Besides, the Yufersch Clan has not only Bisk Yufersch, who properly inherited Sacred Blood, but four more True Bloods as well. They should be able to finish the job before Brokoslak’s Sacred Blood even awakens.”
Having finished speaking, Siana’s violet eyes gleamed bewitchingly as she smiled faintly.
“If necessary, we can give them a little help from our side.”
“Well, I’ll leave that sort of thing to you, Sister Siana. Then should I go back to doing what I was doing before and periodically examine the movements of the upper echelons?”
“Huhuhut, do that.”
While she was wearing a sinister smile like a mastermind plotting schemes, Andrew, who had been watching her mood for a moment, carefully opened his mouth.
“By the way, Sister? Your... horns, they’re out...”
“...Ah? Oh dear, I must have relaxed too much. Since I’m always tense outside, I end up like this whenever I come here.”
“Ahaha— th-that’s right. Relaxing is important, too. I spoke unnecessarily.”
“No. Since you never know what might happen, it’s better to always be careful.”
The pair of sharp horns that had sprouted from Siana’s head slowly shrank again and disappeared.
“Then I’ll be going now?”
“Do try to play in moderation, Andrew. Or shall I play with you?”
“Ah... I’ll decline that, Sister. ...I don’t want to die just yet.”
Saying that, Andrew Weaver stealthily backed away, then quickly opened the door and disappeared outside.
To anyone watching, he clearly looked afraid of her, but since it was something that always happened, she did not particularly mind.
And left alone in the study, she—Siana, the succubus of the demon race who had been summoned to the continent over three hundred years ago—
Took out a communication magic tool to contact the Yufersch Clan.