A matter concerning the establishment of external policy due to the Blood Alliance’s expansion into the entertainment industry.
In Romania, Heinz slowly nodded after receiving Jin Soran’s report.
‘If it goes as planned, it’s not a bad method.’
Whatever else one might say, humans were instinctively bound to be greatly influenced by another’s appearance.
In truth, wasn’t the fact that most vampires were handsome men and beautiful women an outright exploitation of that very point?
That was how useful an attractive exterior was when it came to seducing prey.
‘There’s no reason not to use a weapon we already have.’
Of course, they would have to endure all sorts of restrictions and wary gazes in the process, but that was a problem they could sufficiently accept.
‘There must be quite a few who want to step into the light, even if they have to do it that way.’
They were only enduring it because of realistic issues; naturally, not every vampire could be satisfied with their current life in the shadows.
If one thought about it, Jin Soran, who was currently in charge of practical affairs, could be said to be exactly that kind of case.
And so Heinz handed full authority regarding that matter over to her.
Just as she had done until now, she could handle everything on her own.
‘…I’m already a busy man as it is. If she truly needs me, she’ll say so herself.’
He did feel a little sorry, but it couldn’t be helped.
She was receiving treatment worthy of that burden, so surely she would understand?
Right now, there were simply too many things he had to personally concern himself with.
“As expected, there’s nothing new. I had wondered, just in case.”
After thoroughly inspecting the place where Doctor’s hideout had been one more time, Heinz shook his head.
While Hans and Horus were examining all the documents and equipment they had stripped from inside, he had come back to check again on the off chance there was something more, but there was nothing additional to be gained.
‘He scattered foreshadowing so blatantly. How could I just sit still?’
As Heinz faintly frowned, Doctor’s final words passed through his mind.
—“…Then I shall see you again next time! When that time comes, I hope I’ll be able to see not only you, but all of your friends as well! Pyahahahat!”
That was why he was going through all this trouble now.
No matter who heard it, those were not the words of someone about to die, so of course it left an unpleasant aftertaste.
“Hmm. There’s no doubt he died back then.”
That much, he could be certain of.
Heinz II was a vampire who coveted the lives of others and accumulated karma and rank.
Among them, he was a supreme being who had reached the very pinnacle.
There was no way someone like him would fail to recognize whether the other party was a true human or an artificially created fake.
Everything, from the life reactions to the flow of causality, proved that the man had been the person himself, and Heinz had personally confirmed with his own eyes that he had certainly met his death then.
So he had taken the man’s final words as a curse, something along the lines of meeting again in the afterlife…
‘But somehow, it doesn’t feel like that was the end.’
Yet as time passed little by little and he gradually grew accustomed to his new senses, a feeling began to raise its head—that before long, he would face the man again.
There was no precise basis for it, but the intuition of a being on Heinz’s level sometimes bordered on prophecy, so it was by no means something he could ignore.
“…He must have some other means of resurrection.”
As expected, that hypothesis was the most convincing.
Even on Earth, the man had created a dungeon that operated on separate laws.
If someone with such abilities had accepted death so easily, then it likely meant he had some separate countermeasure.
‘Wait.’
At that moment, one thought suddenly flashed through his mind.
Come to think of it, didn’t he himself possess the resurrection perk called “Extra Life”?
‘That was the ability Hans received when more than half the intelligent beings in the world recognized him as an enemy.’
But what if that man also possessed something identical or similar?
Then his shameless attitude could be sufficiently explained.
“Tsk. What a headache.”
Even after searching through the materials he had left behind, there were no particular hints related to resurrection.
Fortunately, however, it wasn’t as though Heinz had no way to act.
Ssssss—
A drop of blood seeped, bead by bead, from Heinz’s outstretched fingertip.
Soon, it began to tremble faintly, scattering a strange ripple.
‘I’m glad I collected it just in case.’
It was Doctor’s blood, which had remained on the floor at the scene and which he had recovered because of a vague sense of unease.
The blood he had spilled after being stopped from attempting self-destruction had all disappeared along with his corpse, so this was all that remained, but in truth, this much was more than enough to achieve his purpose.
Woooong—
A strangely floating sensation spread out along the ripples emitted through the medium of the blood.
It rode the causality of the world like an ocean current, extending in all directions, and in a single moment read information related to a specific condition within a radius of several hundred kilometers along that flow.
‘Even if he changes bodies and his flesh transforms, it will be useless. Blood is not merely an appendage of the body, but a medium between spirit and flesh.’
And he was a being who stood at the pinnacle when it came to handling blood and blood magic.
He was still struggling to grow accustomed to this power, and there were many areas where he was lacking, but even now he was continuously adapting and steadily growing.
“…So he isn’t nearby.”
With eyes gleaming sharply, Heinz stared intently at the drop of blood on his fingertip.
It trembled several times, then fell silent without any particular reaction. He withdrew it and shook his head.
The range he could currently confirm was just under an eight-hundred-kilometer radius.
It was an enormous area, stretching from Bucharest, the capital of Romania, all the way to Athens in Greece and even to the edge of Italy.
And yet he had not found him, which meant…
‘Either he revived outside this range, or he hasn’t revived yet, or perhaps he used that technology of his to hide himself somewhere deep.’
But no matter which case it was, he would not be able to evade Heinz’s eyes forever.
He was rapidly adapting to his current state even now, and his search abilities were steadily improving by the same measure.
In the end, finding him would only be a matter of time.
‘As it happens, I was thinking of using the power of divine blood to properly bring the vampires across Europe under control. This works out well.’
For now, he planned to tour Europe and sweep through it in its entirety.
Once he did, he would likely be able to grasp a rough outline.
‘Next time, I will finish you for certain. Even if I have to call Hans to do it.’
So that not even the slightest possibility remained.
With eyes sunk coldly, Heinz looked around the room once more, then turned and moved on.
He still had many things left to do.
***
Aberdeen, a city in northeastern Scotland, United Kingdom.
In the basement of a certain building there, where human traffic was scarce, there was a secret laboratory of fairly large scale.
Not only was it unknown what the place was for, but it had been handled in utmost secrecy from the moment it was built, a mysterious laboratory whose very existence was known to almost no one.
Recently, there had been no one entering or leaving at all, leaving the space practically abandoned—but at long last, a change occurred there.
Whirrrr—
The fully automated system, which usually remained dormant and repeated only basic tasks, once again sucked in electricity and awakened its functions one by one.
Bubble, bubble—
In an incubator fixed to one wall, filled with a fluorescent green culture fluid, bubbles began to rise incessantly.
Then, at one moment.
Blub, blub—
Thoom!
A large bubble burst from within, and with the impact that followed, the incubator shook violently.
Thud! Thoom! Bang!
A heavy noise rang out from inside, gradually growing stronger at shorter intervals, as though something were rampaging within.
And at last—
Kwaang! Crash—! Crumble!
The accumulated shocks shattered the incubator in question, and the being inside flopped down onto the floor.
The naked male body sprawled there, its entire body dyed in fluorescent green liquid, twitching intermittently.
Cough, cough—
After crawling and trembling on the floor for a while, he finally vomited up everything inside him with a fit of coughing, then drew in a deep breath.
Huuup—
Haa—
For some reason, even a sense of reverence seemed to cling to his actions.
As though he were someone taking his first breath since being born.
Time passed like that.
Having gained some control over his body, he staggered and slowly raised his upper torso.
His ashen-brown hair, soaked thoroughly in the culture fluid, clung to his face, but he merely focused quietly on his breathing before slowly lifting his head.
“Pussssss— Was it a success?”
Along with a laugh leaking through his teeth, a cracked voice flowed softly through the laboratory, where only a faint mechanical hum could be heard.
Beneath the hair covering his face, the corners of his mouth twisted sharply upward.
“The loss rate is… hmm, I’m not sure. I’ll have to check it carefully later…”
After that, he tried to stagger to his feet, only to tumble back onto the floor. He simply lay there comfortably and began to let out another foolish laugh.
Because he had lost the energy he had accumulated in his body up until now, along with various other abilities, he felt a considerable sense of loss, but he paid no mind whatsoever to such trivial things.
After all, what mattered was that he still had a body with which to conduct experiments, his genius brain, and the unique skill that would assist it.
“Phantom… and Masquerade…”
Those two words slipped from his mouth in succession.
In the eyes of the man who spoke them—Doctor—some mixture of yearning and desire burned greedily.
“Hihihik, hihik!”
And for quite some time, a mad laugh rang low within the thoroughly soundproofed laboratory.
***
While the commotion that had occurred in Europe on Earth was causing the world situation to flow in an even more unpredictable direction…
A woman in Auterica was also experiencing a situation she had never imagined.
“Uh, pardon? What did you just say…?”
Isea, who had been blinking blankly, instinctively asked the person who had uttered those unexpected words to repeat himself.
Her sharp mind and cognitive ability had allowed her to understand his words the moment she heard them, but the content was so absurd that she could not bring herself to accept it easily.
“So… you’re saying you went to Earth? You did, Saint?”
“That is correct. And it was to a place called Korea, the homeland of Lady Isea and Lord Hesperon. It seems my connection with the two of you had no small influence.”
“…How?”
“Hmm, if you ask how… I can only say that the Lord guided me. I am merely His sword, after all.”
At that confident answer, Isea stared at him blankly.
Then, after opening and closing her lips a few times, she finally shut her mouth and nodded.
In truth, that explanation clarified nothing and could not be accepted as proof, but when a devout saint gave the answer “the will of God,” it was no different from an invincible trump card.
“…This is incredibly bewildering. I’ve never considered such a situation before. I’ve also never heard of something like that being possible until now.”
“I heard the same. Perhaps that is why there were quite a few people on Earth who could not believe it either.”
At those words, Isea nodded heavily.
In truth, even now she could hardly believe it, but since he had no reason to lie to her, it was probably true.
For a brief moment, the thought “Could Saint Heinrich have been an Earthling?” passed through her mind, but even taking that into account, the fact that he was freely traveling back and forth between Earth and another world was just as absurd.
It was also not easy for her to suddenly change her thinking when she had firmly believed until now that he was someone from another world.
“So the reason you’re telling me this is…”
“I thought I might be able to help you in various ways, Lady Isea. You have had many worries lately, have you not?”
“…How did you know that?”
“Because we are companions. We have spent quite a long time together, have we not?”
Heinrich smiled gently with a benevolent face.
There was not the slightest hint of hesitation in his figure, whose everyday life had now become a fraud.
‘Perhaps the “Persona” that makes up Heinrich’s disposition contains a considerable amount of swindler-like nature as well?’
If one had to be precise, the cause was the “faith bordering on fanaticism” that formed his foundation.
The moment any words left his mouth, even the speaker himself believed them to be the truth, so it would not be an exaggeration to say his very existence was that of a con artist.
Perhaps even a lie detector, or even a supernatural ability such as “Eyes of Truth,” would unconditionally identify his words as true.
Thanks to that, the conversation between them proceeded very smoothly.
Isea, expressing gratitude for his kind consideration, and Heinrich, laying the groundwork in advance to use her later.
However, that peace did not last very long.
Just as they were deep in conversation on a warm and friendly topic—
[“Saint!”]
Saintess Riesta’s sudden cry rang through his mind.
[“It has begun!”]
At those words, Heinrich’s gently relaxed expression hardened in an instant.
In the current situation, there was only one thing she would be in such a hurry to report, was there not?
[“Right now, through the seal of the Abyss…!”]
Before she could even finish speaking, his body shot forward like the wind.
To prepare as grand a welcome as possible for the uninvited guest.