Master’s Smile

C75 – In The Suburbs at Night

“It’s always nice to have a night without the sun, but this night is extraordinarily splendid!”

A woman was walking at the outskirts of the city, illuminated by the moonlight of the dark night.

Her long, flowing, and silky blonde hair fluttered in the cool breeze as she smiled joyfully.

Her face had a prideful look to it, yet it was also frighteningly beautiful.

Her voluptuous and charming body was covered with a blood-red dress that seemed to accentuate her style.

“A quiet time with no activity in sight. It’s perfect for an elegant woman like me!”

She looked up at the full moon and smiled.

If the members of Yelquchira, who knew herーーーVampir well, were to make a retort, they would all say that she was the noisiest person on the planet instead.

“If I were to wish for more, I would have looked at this beautiful moon with Master… Geez! Where in the world did he go!? I’m going to kill that stalker!”

The first half of Vampir’s mind was used thinking about her master modestly, and the rest was used remembering the stalker ninja while she stomped on the ground violently.

There was no trace of the mysterious young lady from earlier.

The only thing that was left was a woman trembling with anger, having something she wanted so badly snatched from her grasp.

“ーーーーーーDon’t you think so too?”

Vampir, who had been talking alone, suddenly asked.

Her maiden atmosphere from earlier was blown away all at once.

And she was back to being the mysterious and cold noblewoman she had been at the start.

However, as one would expect, there was no one around.

No one would be foolish enough to go out at this late of the night in a city full of dangerous monsters and criminals.

Vampir was not a normal person, so she was excluded.

Well, the members often called her stupid.

“(…Ara? Could it be I’m mistaken?)”

After waiting for a while and not getting any response, Vampir started to get worried.

To an outsider’s view, she looked like a cringe woman who suddenly started talking all by herself and trying to look cool.

“(I don’t want that! I’m not Krankheit!!!)”

Vampir screamed in her head while picturing Yelquchira’s representative of chuunibyou (8th-grade syndrome)…or rather, cringeworthy people.

Krankheit is a gray-haired, adult pretender who tried to speak and act maturely like an adult, but ultimately failed and fumbled her words quite commonly.

Vampir, who strongly believed herself to be a mature lady, can’t stand to be lumped together with her.

“To think I would get noticed….”

But thankfully, Vampir’s sense of smell was not wrong.

As if crawling out of the darkness, a big muscular man appeared.

The savage smile on his face was not a friendly one.

After all, there was no way someone wandering around this late could possibly be a normal person.

“You’re slow!”

“O-Oh…?”

However, Vampir instead screamed at the big man who had been exuding such a dangerous aura.

From the man’s point of view, he could understand if she let out a scream, but he did not expect to be criticized for being slow.

He didn’t know that Vampir was actually afraid of being lumped together with Krankheit, so it was natural for him to be puzzled.

“Even if you ask that, I don’t even know your master nor the stalker you’re talking about….”

The man uttered a complaint.

The man was also troubled as he couldn’t talk to Vampir who was talking to herself in a blabbering voice when he tried approaching her before.

“I don’t care about that!”

But Vampir didn’t accept his opinion at all and dismissed him as unimportant.

A blue vein popped out of the man’s forehead.

The only person who could match this selfish young lady was her master.

“So? Who the hell are you? It’s impudent for you to peep at a lady’s stroll from the shadows!”

“What kind of stroll does a lady take that ends outside the city at night? Yelquchira must be pretty crazy too.”

“It’s not really that dangerous, though? The monsters will also withdraw if I ask them to.”

The man’s sarcasm didn’t reach Vampir.

If this had been said to the wise Anat or Schwarz, they would have blown his head off.

Thankfully, she was an idiot.

By the way, Vampir didn’t know.

When monsters were asked to do something by a monster race that is far superior to them, they felt no different than when they were being threatened.

“Leaving that aside, you’d better tell me who you are now.”

“Oh, right. I belong to the dark guild “Iron Queen (Inicken)”ーーー”

With a face full of confidence, the man began to introduce himself and how great he and Inicken were.

However, Vampir was already not listening to him as soon as she asked him.

The only thing she wanted to ask was what kind of organization that pointed their blade against her master was.

“(Come to think of it, I think someone mentioned there was a guild that was working against me and Master….)”

Vampir thought so as she looked at the man with a blank look.

The important issue of her guild had also been left out of her mind.

In other words, she knew that hostility against Yelquchira meant hostility against her and her master, while cases involving other members were outside of her consideration.

“ーーーand well, my master is very obsessed with you guys.”

“Eh? Ah… is that so?”

From the way he said it, it seemed that his lengthy monologue was at its climax.

Vampir hadn’t heard a single word from him, but he decided to continue talking to her anyway.

That alone made a huge difference compared to the past.

“I’m also interested in the title of the strongest of all dark guilds. That’s why, I have nothing against you, but I will have you die here.”

Inside his mind, being the strongest out of all the dark guilds was directly correlated to being the strongest guild in the world.

Well, dark guild members were probably better at fighting for their lives than normal guilds were, so he was not entirely wrong.

Naturally, there are many excellent adventurers in the normal guilds as well, so the strongest dark guild is not necessarily the strongest guild in the world.

However, the man was already fully motivated.

As soon as he finished speaking, his entire body was filled with bloodlust.

It was so dense that it would have made even middle-ranked adventurers flee.

It was as expected of a member of Inicken, a group that is notorious for its atrocious deeds.

“That is an impossible proposal. I still want to taste more of Master’s blood.”

However, Vampir is a member of the world’s most dangerous guild, Yelquchira, which is dominated by Master fanatics.

She was neither intimidated nor shriveled.

Rather, she replied with a giggle.

This was where the first battle between the “Salvation Army (Yelquchira)” and the “Iron Queen (Inicken)” broke out.