#122 Yufersh Clan (1)
Talaria, capital of the Kingdom of Talia.
“Uuugh—.”
For the past two days, Bricky’s nerves had been wound tight.
It was because of a presence that had brushed past her for the briefest instant while she had been lying in bed in the guest room of the Bright ducal estate as usual, idling away the time without a care. ‘Did it simply pass by? Was it just a coincidence?’ It had been only for a split second, but her transcendent senses had unmistakably caught that ominous something.
It had vanished almost as soon as she sensed it, so she could have dismissed it as a mere illusion and moved on, but...
Her intuition was a kind of authority, an ability that in some ways bordered on foresight.
What was more, hadn’t the sensation from that moment been a presence she had already felt several times over the long years she had lived? ‘Right now... I’m not sure. It feels like I can sense something, but it doesn’t seem like it’ll become an immediate problem.’ Even so, she had no choice but to react sensitively.
After all... it had been the aura of the Immortal King’s “death,” something she had felt several times before.
“...Hm?”
Bricky, whose nerves had been on edge, suddenly froze, and her gaze slowly turned in one direction.
She stared silently at a blank wall for a moment...
And the next instant, she was already standing before the door to Mullo’s office.
Thump, thump, thump.
—“Mullo? I’m coming in for a moment.”
After lightly knocking, she flung the door open without waiting for an answer and stepped inside.
“...Lady Bricky? ...Welcome.”
Though it was a sudden visit, Mullo, unable to get angry given who it was, greeted her with an awkward expression.
But when he saw Bricky enter the office with a stiff look on her face, his own expression inevitably hardened as well.
“Mullo? You’d best prepare for battle immediately.”
“What is the matter? For Lady Bricky to come out like this...”
Even as he spoke, he immediately ordered the nearby clan members to assemble on emergency notice.
If she, who was usually so carefree she seemed almost dazed, was acting like that, then whatever had happened could not possibly be ordinary.
“...Hmm, how should I explain this...”
While Mullo was busily moving about, Bricky, whose expression had relaxed again before anyone noticed, crossed her arms and began to ponder.
It wasn’t as if she had any concrete basis, so how was she supposed to explain that it was because she had been on edge alone and suddenly felt uneasy?
Of course, her intuition itself was a powerful basis, but...
“Oh, honestly, if I say prepare, then prepare! Why so much chatter? Do you think I’d spout nonsense for no reason?”
In the end, she merely grumbled needlessly and scolded Mullo.
And at the same time.
In the direction she had been looking, where the city of Rapella was located—
A Blood Gate
opened, and the vampires of the Yufersh Clan began gathering at speed.***
“...This is exceedingly unpleasant.”
That was Bisk Yufersh’s impression immediately after crossing over to the city of Rapella.
From that moment on, the frown on his face showed no sign of easing.
An unknown unpleasantness seemed to crawl up from beneath his feet and seize him by the nape, making it impossible for him to maintain his usual composure. ‘What is this? Why do I feel this way?’ It felt as though someone was watching him, yet even with his senses, he could not identify the source at all.
All he felt was frustration; it was a foreign sensation he had experienced for the first time since inheriting the Sacred Blood. ‘Is it an ill omen? Because I entered Brokoslak’s domain? ...A Yufersh, unsettled by someone of that level?’
As Bisk was deep in thought by himself—
“...Lord? Is something the matter?”
Someone who had been busily checking on the vampires under their command approached him with a group and spoke.
It was Theodore Yufersh, the clan’s second-in-command who had overseen this operation, along with the remaining three True Bloods.
“No, it’s nothing. More importantly, are all preparations complete?”
“Yes, they are. Four True Bloods, forty-four Purebloods. They are all elites, so we should be able to clean up Brokoslak in an instant.”
The Yufersh Clan’s elite force, composed solely of those Pureblood or above.
And the one leading them was Bisk Yufersh of the Sacred Blood, so with this level of power, they could even raid the Talian royal palace.
Naturally, Brokoslak, whose strong members were scattered and who would be off guard without knowing anything, was not an opponent capable of dealing with them.
“There’s no need for a long speech. Before they notice, we head straight for Talaria and wipe them out cleanly before the day is over.”
“Yes, sir!”
Bisk forcibly shook off the unpleasant feeling that continued to cling to him and thought only of his objective.
Only of beating down the Lord of Brokoslak, who would be in Talaria.
And the moment his words ended...
Flutter—!
Flap-flap-flap-flap.
—A vast swarm of bats cut swiftly across the night sky.***
At the midpoint between the capital Talaria and the city of Rapella, several kilometers high in the sky even from there, a single black figure was floating.
Whoooosh—
An absolute being wrapped in darkness, buried in the night sky as he gazed down upon the earth with lofty composure.
It was the Immortal King, Hans. ‘They’ve begun to move.’
The Kingdom of Talia, secretly ruled by the Brokoslak Clan, was an important foothold in many ways for this side as well.
Leaving aside the symbolic significance of it being the place that marked the very beginning in the Auterica dimension, the fact that he could sway an entire kingdom through Heinz carried greater meaning than he had expected.
No matter how much it might be a weak borderland nation, it had international standing, so it was only natural that he had to manage it with more care than Tarak, where Hubert and the others were based.
On top of that, it was also the center of the intelligence organization he had just begun building, so there was no need to even mention its importance. [Kuhut— So it begins.]
That was why the Immortal King, who had reached the pinnacle of the arcane arts, had personally come forward and was waiting here with his presence concealed.
Like a satellite monitoring the ground, he observed every situation below in detail with the “Abyssal Eye.” ‘Honestly, it’s best if Hans doesn’t step forward unless absolutely necessary.’
Originally, the most natural course would have been for only Heinz II to get involved in this matter.
Hans and the undead under his command could draw attention simply by moving, and Heinrich could not freely leave the Holy Land.
Harley was in the middle of a brawl with monsters at the Steel Citadel, and Harris was on the distant Enamel Continent... ‘Needless to say, Howard is still only a novice craftsman, and Hubert is in the middle of recuperating.’
On top of that, if he dragged in another avatar for no reason and created a link between them, it could limit his freedom of action later.
However. ‘Right now, I have no choice.’
Yes, setting all those problems aside...
When the house was about to be robbed while Heinz was away, how could he just sit back and do nothing? ‘Still, since Harley now has the causal connection of his business partner being attacked, it shouldn’t arouse much suspicion.’
Of course, there would be those who wondered how he had obtained such information, but he had no obligation to explain every last detail. ‘But...’
Hans’s gaze turned toward Talaria, and Harley’s figure entered his eyes.
Our barbarian warrior, majestic and imposing no matter when or where...
This time too, as expected, had been caught by the capital guards and was undergoing inspection.
He could understand them reacting excessively to that distinctive appearance, but just how many times had this happened now...? ‘Without the Order’s letter of introduction, he might not have been able to move around properly.’
Even in Tarak, which could be called his base, there were countless people who shrank back whenever they saw Harley.
How much more so in a place like this, where they were not used to him?
He was literally intimidating everyone around him simply by existing, so it was only natural that wariness and inspections followed. ‘...As long as it doesn’t interfere with starting the job, it doesn’t matter.’
Hans gave that side a brief glance, then looked again toward the Bright ducal estate. ‘By the way, vampires suddenly started gathering at the mansion. Did the Sacred Blood notice something?’
He had known it from the moment she seemed to sense his presence at first, but as expected of her name, she had something extraordinary about her.
At the time, he had just moved through space, so his concealment had not been perfect, but even so, he could not underestimate the ability that had detected his existence.
Because of that, even now, he was concealing himself more thoroughly than usual. ‘This raises our chances of victory even further. While I’m at it, I can also confirm the abilities of those strengthened by the “Refined Blood Essence.” Fortunately, with a Sacred Blood present, the balance has been maintained to some degree.’
He did not know when the Sacred Blood “Brokoslak” had arrived, but thanks to her, they now had someone capable of opposing Bisk Yufersh.
They were already inferior in strength; if this side had lacked even a Sacred Blood, then regardless of whether they had been strengthened by the “Refined Blood Essence” or whether Harley intervened, they would have been cut down meaninglessly. ‘Then Hans would have had no choice but to step in.’
Since he wanted to avoid that as much as possible, this could be called a rather pleasing development.
Hans’s gaze then shifted to a group of bats cutting swiftly across the sky.
It was a terrifying force composed of one Sacred Blood, four True Bloods, and over forty Purebloods.
Yet his gaze was fixed solely on one among them. ‘...Is that him?’
That opponent was neither a Sacred Blood nor a True Blood, but to him, he could be considered more special than anyone else.
After all, that guy was the very one who had turned Hubert’s insides to mush and driven him to the brink of death—
The assassin vampire with red hair and red eyes.
He was in bat form now, but from the moment he had arrived in Rapella, he had already been properly imprinted in Hans’s eyes.
So that no matter where he fled afterward, he would never be let go. [Kuhuhut... Revenge is the sweetest fruit in the world. At last, the time has come to repay the grudge carved into my bones. Your fate has already been decided, so struggling will do you no good.]
Under Hans’s persistent gaze, the bat’s wingbeats seemed to falter for a moment, but...
Right now, Hans was concealing his presence more thoroughly than ever before, so it was probably just his imagination.***
“Ah— You folks really are persistent. Where else would you find a citizen as good and honest as me, yet you keep pestering me like this?”
Released by the capital guards, Harley scratched the back of his head roughly as he strolled through Talaria’s night streets.
Of course, instead of the one that had been left in tatters from his fight with the dragon, a brand-new magical beast head now sat atop his head, so his hand merely scraped against tough hide. ‘Whoops, gotta watch my strength. I went to the trouble of getting this new one, and I almost tore the hide.’
Harley quietly lowered his thick arm, its muscles twitching, and slowly looked around.
As befitted a city ruled by vampires, there was no particular curfew, so despite the late hour, there were still quite a few people passing through the night streets. ‘If you want to move around freely at night, it’s definitely more convenient not to have a curfew.’
He leisurely admired the new scenery and watched the people passing by.
Naturally, it went without saying that those passersby were also watching Harley.
“Good heavens... Is he a barbarian? No, a southerner?”
“Wow, I’ve never seen someone walk around dressed like that.”
“What kind of muscles are those... Shh, he’s looking this way! Don’t make eye contact!”
Scenes from the past, ones that could no longer be seen in his base of Tarak, were being reenacted here exactly as they had been.
From people whispering among themselves to those frowning or clicking their tongues.
Those sights, which he had not seen in a long while, felt almost familiar. ‘Experiencing this again after so long is refreshing. Thanks to my sincere smile, things like this hardly ever happen in Tarak anymore.’
But if such gazes had made him uncomfortable, he would not have walked around dressed like this in the first place.
“Ahem, hmm!”
Harley, attention-seeker that he was, subtly showed off the muscles and tattoos on his bare upper body as he strode confidently barefoot down the main road toward his destination.
It was the hour when the night had deepened and the streets were slowly beginning to empty.
While even the street ruffians quietly slipped away, the place his footsteps were heading toward was...
The Bright ducal estate, which seemed the same as always, yet for some reason had a subtly ominous air hanging about it.