'So, how do I do this?'
I had a plan.
But the condition of the ingredients I needed for that plan was terrible.
I thought for a mont, then
went over to check on those ingredients first.
“Keooo....”
Then—
the one who was barely managing to let out dry breaths,
looking no different from a walking corpse.
“You....”
Jinlei looked at and spoke in a ragged voice.
“What... did you do to ...?!”
“...Ah.”
Unfortunately, the healthy dish I fed him had not been made from monster at, but ordinary at.
It had been cooking made from the survivors’ food supply.
The effect could not have been that strong.
And because of that—
“My goal was just about to be fulfilled...!”
“Ahem, khm.”
“You interfered... with the transaction between and the Grand Duke...!”
Not only had the effect of [Confusion] worn off quickly,
it seed he had also kept mories I would have preferred he forget.
“You interfered with the Grand Duke’s plan to that extent... so now....”
After recovering his mories, he glared at .
“Did you co... to kill ...?”
That was what he said.
“Kh, heh heh.... Yes. From your perspective, killing would be the best option.”
“......”
“But... do not think that ans I will fear it.”
He glared at , smiling with that dying face of his.
“No matter what happens, I fulfilled my transaction with the Grand Duke. And the Grand Duke will carry out the rest of what he owes ....”
“......”
“So long as I know my purpose may one day be fulfilled... I do not fear death.”
At those words, I thought to myself,
'Well, he’s not exactly wrong.'
The mont this bastard dies,
the Grand Duke will no longer be able to gain anything from successfully occupying that city.
That conquest war will succeed in this bastard’s na, and after that, the Grand Duke would still have to draw the remaining 3% of power out of him.
Thinking about it that way, what he said—that it would benefit to kill him here—wasn’t entirely wrong.
But.
“I’m not killing you, idiot.”
“...What?”
Unfortunately,
I had no intention of doing what he wanted.
There were three reasons.
The first was this.
'If this bastard dies... I don’t know where the power of the [Conquest War] inside the Grand Duke will go.'
He didn’t know it,
but right now, the power of the conquest war inside the Grand Duke was actually getting in his way.
It was just short of what he needed to achieve his goal, which caused the Grand Duke’s objective to fail,
and now it remained inside the body of a Grand Duke who had failed to raise his rank, burdening him with power beyond his capacity.
As long as that power stayed lodged in the Grand Duke’s heart, achieving his objective through Ariella wouldn’t be easy either.
If this bastard died and that power still remained in the Grand Duke’s heart, that would at least be a relief.
But the mont this bastard died, it might judge that one conquest war faction had been extinguished and simply dissolve back into this land.
And besides....
'It probably wouldn’t be easy to kill him in the first place.'
The Grand Duke would not have tossed this bastard aside thoughtlessly.
If I tried to kill him, there was a good chance that cloud would appear again and protect him.
In that case, it was better to leave him in a state I could control.
That cloud seed to function like a kind of algorithm—it only acted when this bastard was in a situation where he was certain to die.
And then—
the truth was, this last reason was the biggest one....
“Still, there’s sothing a man who called himself your friend asked to do. Hard to just ignore that.”
“...What?”
“There’s sothing like that, idiot.”
Anyway.
Judging from the fact that he was talking to , he didn’t seem like he was about to die imdiately.
That was only possible because the life force of an awakened really was that ridiculous.
“So just watch.”
“...Watch? Watch what?”
“The people you abandoned.”
After roughly checking his condition,
I stood up and moved away from him as I said it.
“How they’re fighting.”
“......”
At my words, Jinlei slowly turned his head in a daze.
The fierce battle unfolding in that city began to fill his vision.
'Better to leave him like this.'
At the end of the day, he was only barely clinging to life.
And right now, he didn’t even seem to have enough mana left to use his abilities.
He didn’t look capable of interfering with .
“...Are you okay?”
So.
What mattered was the other side.
“Ariella.”
***
“Are you okay, Ariella?”
“...Ha. Does this look... okay to you?”
She looked at and gave a bitter smile through cold sweat.
“Sorry... about this....”
“......”
“I never... expected anything like this....”
“Sa here.”
According to the plan,
Jinlei aside,
Ariella at least was supposed to remain in normal condition.
I never imagined they would be able to take that rank or whatever back this easily.
“To regain that rank by yourself—”
“...It would not be impossible. But... it would take a very, very long ti. If, during that ti, I built my rank up myself... then soday....”
Right now, we were barely struggling just to survive.
Which ant it was functionally impossible.
The gap in strength between her and the Grand Duke was overwhelming.
There had at least been one possible way to bring down that Grand Duke, but now even that looked like it would fail.
“...It seems there is only one thod left.”
I wondered what she was thinking.
Looking at , she said,
“The door that little doctor made... is nearby.”
This was near the place where we had first been thrown into this land.
Which ant the very door that had thrown us here was not far away either.
“Right now, I carry power that exceeds my rank. It would be difficult to wield it freely... but simply supplying that power to sothing might still be possible even for now.”
We had tried activating it a few tis, but failed in the end because we lacked mana.
In other words, she was saying she could open that door.
“That door is one-way.”
But at those words, I frowned and said,
“We can’t use it to call in reinforcents.”
“...I know.”
“So... you’re telling we should run together?”
“That is... a little different.”
That was what I expected.
Sure enough—
“More precisely... I am telling you to run.”
I scratched my head and said,
“You’re not coming?”
“Looking at now... shouldn’t that answer be obvious?”
When she laboriously raised a hand, the tips of her fingers crumbled away like ash—
drifting apart in the wind.
“Collapse has already begun... from power beyond what I can contain.”
Power equivalent to a marquis.
Forced into the body of soone who was only a viscount.
The aftermath of that was showing.
“I too had a goal... but unfortunately, I can no longer achieve it.”
“......”
“So.”
Standing on the brink of death, she looked at with burning eyes and said,
“You must avenge .”
“Avenge you?”
“The vampires who dragged into this miserable life. This filthy world that abandoned . And... that Grand Duke who blocked my goal—take revenge on them all...!”
“......”
I must have looked speechless,
because Ariella kept speaking.
“If the Grand Duke fulfills his objective, he will be reborn into sothing that ordinary power could never hope to stop.”
“...Probably.”
If Ariella activated that barrier and disappeared,
the Grand Duke would not be able to take her blood.
And if I took Jinlei and fled back to Seoul, or just dealt with him here,
then even if the Grand Duke completely conquered this land, he still would not be able to achieve his goal.
“That barrier is what blocks movent between nations. It loathes beings from another world like myself.... It would never permit him to cross that barrier for a ridiculous reason like the one that allowed you to do so. At the very least, if the Grand Duke wishes to reach your holand, he would need to pass through more than one nation first....”
At the very least,
it would take quite a long ti before the Grand Duke and the Legion faced each other.
And.
“If it is you.”
“......”
“If it is you, who already understands the existence of the enemy... perhaps sohow, in that span of ti, you may be able to devise a thod.”
Certainly, she had a point.
My job was chef.
If I had a decent grasp of the opponent, and ti to prepare,
I could deal with enemies several stages above .
The gap between and the Grand Duke wasn’t a matter of several stages,
but even so, I had ans within that might let handle even that.
Just as she said,
if I withdrew here and planned for later, then maybe I really could avenge her.
But....
“Not a bad offer.”
I thought for a mont.
Then shrugged and said,
“I refuse.”
And yet, even though I had rejected her offer—
“...I thought you might say that.”
“You asked even though you knew? Pretty vicious of you.”
Ariella gave a faint little laugh, as though she had expected that answer.
Which made sense.
If I ran away alone here, that would be—
'abandoning everyone in this land.'
The duration that door could stay open was short.
There was no way hundreds of thousands of awakened could all evacuate through it back to the Legion.
And farther away,
Ariella’s dependents who had marched all the way to the capital to fight the Grand Duke were still there too, along with Karhin.
“I promised.”
The option of abandoning them and planning for later—
no matter how efficient it might have been—
“I’m not doing that.”
For , it was no different from an option that didn’t exist at all.
***
'If it was you... I thought you’d say that.'
To begin with,
if I had been the kind of bastard who would accept an offer like this, she never would have followed onto a battlefield this dangerous.
Ariella had worked with long enough that she seed to have a rough idea of what kind of choice I would make.
Even so, there was a reason she said it anyway.
“But... there is no other way....”
And then—
“Who says there isn’t?”
“...What?”
I cut her off and said,
“There’s... a way?”
“I’m not completely sure either.”
Her eyes widened.
I stared at Ariella’s face.
“If this is lucky or not... I had a bit of an insight not too long ago.”
Before, my rank had been too low. Even if I saw things, there was nothing I could understand.
And the last ti I saw it,
I did notice sothing, but I didn’t think it was anything special.
But.
“When I looked inside the Grand Duke’s body... I saw things I recognized.”
“...?”
“The first ti I saw them, I wasn’t sure.”
I grinned.
“But when I took a closer look, I beca certain.”
Only now did I think I could understand exactly what it ant.
“There’s exactly one thod worth trying. The odds aren’t good, but they’re not zero either.”
“...So it is a gamble.”
“It always is. Though there is one problem with this one.”
“A problem?”
As I said that,
I started walking toward Ariella.
“Sorry to say this to you, but—”
If it worked,
it was a gamble that might even let Ariella recover her rank.
But.
“I think I’m going to need to see... sowhere private.”
“...What?”
Probably, from Ariella’s perspective, it was not a very welco thod.
“S-see what...?!”
She was flustered by the sudden turn of events, but—
“Sorry, there’s no ti to explain in detail.”
“I an—!”
“Excuse ...!”
By the ti I got close enough for my breath to reach her,
Pak!
I threw myself at a very private part of her body.
***
Paaaaak....
'Co to think of it.'
And then, with my eyes closed, I thought,
'Guess it’s been about a year... ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) since I last did this.'
The first ti, it hadn’t exactly been by choice, but I had done sothing like this before.
After that, Ariella hated it, so I hadn’t done it again.
“This place too....”
...Yeah.
“It’s been a while...!”
When I finally opened my eyes, what I saw there was—
[Shadow Veil]
[A private space that only a night noble may freely enter and exit.]
[A world of inner image, severed from reality, which reflects the owner’s ntal landscape exactly.]
A blood-red sea stretching all the way to the horizon,
and a massive castle built atop it.
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