Chapter Four: King, the Adventurer?
“King! I’ve finally got a girlfriend!”
“Huh?” Vandal exclaimed. “When did that happen?”
Marie, betrayed by her stepfather and sold into slavery, had fallen into crushing misery.
Her real father had died when she was small. Her mother remarried but passed away from sickness. Her stepfather had decided to ignore her mother’s final request that he take care of her daughter and, instead, sold her as a slave. This betrayal from someone she had loved like her true father plunged her into despair.
Young girls like her, in their early teens, would only be purchased by brothels if they were exceptionally pretty. She was more likely to be sold off cheap and expended on rough manual labor in a mine.
“Heh-heh, my beautiful bride. Tell me your name, my flower . . .”
So when she discovered that she was being sold to a vampire, she was actually relieved. At least it would be over quickly. Even if a decent buyer had miraculously appeared and released her, she had no family who loved her left in the world. Having to live the rest of her life with this pain was more than she could bear.
“You don’t wish to speak? No matter. I will soon taste all of you with these fangs and tongue, my dear.” The handsome face of the vampire turned beastly as he flashed his fangs. Those same fangs closed in with her neck—
One of the precious, expensive glass windows exploded.
“What? Ugah!” A black shape darted across the vampire’s back and around his sides, blood erupting from the vampire’s body with each pass. Marie could hardly believe what she was seeing. This was a vampire in front of her. The very essence of evil, something that only adventurers and heroes could kill. And yet something was slicing it up, completely one-sidedly.
“Curse you, coward! I’ll heal this damage in seconds—!”
“No, you won’t. These daggers are blessed with the Child’s Zero Heal magic.”
“And covered with Virulent Poison, too. Powerful enough to work even on vampires.”
“That can’t be! No, impossible . . . blagh!” The vampire spat blood from his mouth and then stopped moving.
The vampire that was supposed to end Marie’s life had been killed instead. A giantling wearing a mask carried the body away.
What am I meant to do now? Marie wondered vacantly. She was filled with fresh terror. She grabbed a piece of the glass, hardly even thinking.
“Wait!” As the shard approached her neck, however, one of the small assassins grabbed her arm.
“Why are you stopping me?!” Marie wailed. “Please, just let me die!”
“No! I can’t let you die!”
“Why not?! I’m not special! Anyone could be used like me!”
“No! No one can replace you!”
“—Huh?” Marie’s arm relaxed a little at the sheer strength of these words, at this rejection of her chosen fate.
In that moment, Braga snatched the glass away. Then he treated the cut on her hand that it had left behind.
“Everyone is worried about you. Don’t throw your life away.”
Their king, Vandal, had told them to rescue and secure as many of the people being held by the vampire as possible. Braga and the others were therefore scrupulously ensured to keep them all safe. His words were 100 percent honest.
But in her weakened, exposed condition, in that moment Braga became Marie’s black knight on a white steed.
“And so, King, this is my girlfriend, Marie!” Braga announced proudly.
“Please, will you bless our marriage? Please!” The girl at his side looked like a teenager.
You never know where love will blossom, Vandal mused. “I’m happy to give my approval, but you understand that Braga is a black goblin. Are you okay with that?”
Black goblins were closer in appearance to humans than normal goblins and had much nicer personalities. Choosing one as a friend was one thing; marrying one might cause all sorts of impediments in life.
But Vandal’s concerns seemed unjustified. “Of course I am,” Marie replied. “The only person to even treat me this well was my dear departed mother. Braga and the others saving me just before that vampire killed me—it has to be fate!”
“I-if you say so,” Vandal stuttered. “But once we leave, we won’t be coming back to this country for at least a decade. Are you okay with that too?”
“No problem!” she replied brightly.
“Then the only thing left to do is offer my congratulations,” Vandal said. Back on Earth, such a marriage would be unquestionably immoral; on Talosheim, not only did many women get married in their early teens, but more importantly, Vandal was flabbergasted at how to put a stop to the situation. And most importantly, bringing Marie to Talosheim would ensure her a much safer life than here.
“Hey, Child, what about the prostitutes and other women being put to work by these bad guys?” Zulan piped up, with a catch in his voice.
Behind Zulan’s mask, Vandal could tell he was having some kind of issue. “What’s up? I was planning on using my Spiritual Corrosion skill to stop them from talking about us—a gentle push, nothing more—then pay them off and let them go.”
Vandal’s group had taken over the Night Fangs organization, but they were only going to be using it for a few months at most. There was no need keep operating certain branches, like the brothel, and Vandal certainly didn’t intend to do so. The nasty women who ran the place had been disposed of, but Vandal intended to silence the rest and then release them.
“Ahem,” Zulan said. “You see, the issue is, after what happened with Marie, the goodtime girls have got the idea that they won’t get killed if they can get us to . . . like them. The black goblins are having the time of their lives right now, let me put it like that.”
“. . . Oh boy.”
“None of them have much experience, either. They are like putty in the hands of these women.”
“. . . Never say you can keep a good woman down.”
“Lord Vandal, what shall we do with them?” Eleonora asked.
That was a very good question.
“We’ll have a chat with each of them, and I’ll give them a health check, to start,” Vandal decided.
“Oh, dear, you need to tell him about Linda as well,” Marie said.
“That’s right!” Braga exclaimed. “King! I’ve also got another girlfriend!”
“. . . Congrats.”
In a quiet part of the manor annex, conspirators were meeting to give their reports. These individuals sought to bring an end to the settlement project that was the brainchild of Belton, the second son of Duke Heartner.