Ignoring the battle between the monsters and the garrison near the main gate, Abel, Shinso, and the Five Mountains entered the castle through the front doors, as bold as brass.
“P-Please stop, my lord,” a knight called out desperately to Shinso.
But none of them dared touch him. The knights maintained a careful distance as they trailed after him, as if they were afraid their arms would melt off should they get too close.
Abel honestly felt sorry for them.
“You sure about this?” the swordsman asked. “Aren’t you supposed to not intervene?”
“I’m not intervening. I’m simply walking ahead of you all.”
“Riiight. Have it your way, then.”
“Frankly, this is all getting a bit tiresome. Let’s end it quickly.”
Abel suspected he knew what Shinso had left unsaid: that he was worried about the garrison members fighting at the gate. Sure, Shinso was a vampire, so Abel doubted he placed much importance on the lives of the human guards. Even so, he didn’t think his intuition was wrong.
Shinso opened the door to the archduke’s parlor without knocking.
Archduke Cyrus and another unknown man froze in the back of the room; meanwhile, the members of Valkyrie cried out in joy.
“What?!”
“Abel!”
Cyrus was the first to move. He quickly rose from his chair, came before Shinso, and knelt on one knee.
The five members of Valkyrie looked stunned, and why wouldn’t they have been? The archduke of Twilightland, the highest-ranking person in the country, had just knelt before the young man who’d just entered without a hint of hesitation.
“Long time no see, Cyrus,” Shinso said.
Before then, Shinso hadn’t radiated a particularly unapproachable or oppressive aura. It could’ve been best described as the same temperament of the eldest son of a fine, noble house. However, the moment he uttered those words, the atmosphere transformed. Everyone present felt it. Both Abel and the members of Valkyrie, who knew nothing of the situation, recognized that the person before whom the archduke knelt was an extraordinary man of power.
“You honor me with your presence, my—” Cyrus began.
“Enough with the stiff formalities,” Shinso interrupted. He looked toward the back of the room. “Vicente, we must speak.”
He was addressing Marquis Vicente Espier. While the man appeared imposing from a distance, a closer look revealed his slight trembling as he desperately cloaked himself in false bravado.
“O-Of course, my lord. However...you have no say in this nation’s politics...”
“You would presume my purpose here?” Shinso said. He asked the question as if stating a fact, yet no trace of anger or irritation touched his voice.
Vicente jolted, and then the color drained from his face. “F-Forgive me, my lord,” he choked out. His mouth had gone bone dry. He swallowed convulsively, shaken to his core.
“Marquis Espier, I’m here to inform you that Abel has already taken the guesthouse and liberated the Kingdom’s delegation.”
Vicente listened in silence.
“Furthermore, I will be returning these adventurers from Knightley to said guesthouse. Do you have any objections?” Shinso asked, but it wasn’t a question.
And Vicente knew that.
“N-None at all,” the marquis replied.
Shinso spared the archduke, still down on one knee, a glance before turning back to the marquis. “Vicente, what were you planning to do with Cyrus?”
“E-Execute him for treason...”
“No!” Myu cried out, her voice small but sharp.
“Hmm...” Shinso looked first at the archduke, then Myu, and finally Vicente. “You no longer control the state guesthouse, and the monsters Sandalio dispatched are attacking the main gate. With most of your forces tied up defending your mansion, you can no longer defend yourself.”
Vicente stared, stunned and silent.
“Incidentally, Abel has also taken Sandalio’s estate. You have been outwitted in every single way, Vicente. It’s high time you admit defeat.”
Shinso’s words struck Espier like a thunderbolt. His face paled even more before rage suffused it with red.
“And lose to a human? I can’t... I won’t. I’ll never admit defeat. Never!”
“Vicente.”
“It doesn’t matter, even if you’re saying those words, my lord. I won’t accept it!” Vicente stood up, his expression still furious, and pointed at Abel. “Human, I challenge you to single combat!”
“Stop this, Vicente,” Shinso admonished him with a frown.
“Challenge accepted,” Abel promptly replied.
“Abel.”
“I’m just proving my strength. Isn’t that the best option here?” Abel said with a casual shrug.
But his words only provoked his opponent even more.
“Proving your strength? Proving your strength?! A mere human against a vampire... Against me, a marquis... Ridiculous... I’ll crush that arrogance!”
“Right back atcha.”
And so the stage was set for a fight between the two generals.
“Since you mentioned you’re a marquis,” Abel said, “I should say that I cut off Lillo’s head like that. The man didn’t even get a swing in at me, and he’s a count. Does that mean you’re stronger than him, then, on account of your rank and all?”
Abel was just trying to goad him before the fight began, and Vicente took the bait.
“Are you mocking me?!” the marquis hissed.
Humans and vampires alike could be provoked into attacking, and an irate fighter always made the same move: a downward strike.
Vicente was no different.
He’s fast. Too bad for him...
Abel had been anticipating it. Despite his opponent’s superhuman speed and strength, he still predicted his movement and—
Klang.
—the skilled swordsman sent Vicente’s sword flying out of his hand. Then Abel pressed the tip of his blade against the man’s throat.
“Enough!” Shinso’s voice rang out.
It’d only taken one strike.
“This is...impossible...” Vicente’s voice was barely audible. He couldn’t believe what had just happened.
“So, question,” Abel began nonchalantly. “Are vampires more emotional than humans? ’Cuz it didn’t take much for Contreras’s butler to lose his cool too.”
“They underestimated you far too much,” Shinso replied, frowning. “They allowed their contempt for humans to blind them.” Then he turned to Vicente, who still seemed unable to accept his defeat. “We are vampires. You’re free to view and treat humans however you like, but you must respect those with power. Otherwise, we will once again be pushed to the brink of extinction.”
The anguish in his voice told Abel that Shinso spoke from experience. As for Marquis Espier...
“I don’t accept it... I don’t accept it... There must have been some kind of mistake. Yes, yes, you cheated! Magic? Alchemy? Such cunning isn’t worthy of a one-on-one duel...”
Something flashed through the air, but it happened so quickly that no one—not even Abel, an A-rank adventurer—understood what it was.
And then Vicente’s head slid off his neck and dropped to the floor, and everyone realized that Shinso had swung his sword and decapitated the marquis. Without a word, Shinso pierced his heart.
Then he chanted, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
His blade glowed white for just a moment, and then Vicente’s body crumbled to ash and vanished.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Shinso said, his tone once again lighthearted.
I thought he and Ryo were birds of a feather, but I was wrong. Even Ryo isn’t this scary, Abel thought.
But after he saw what had just happened, something bothered him. Specifically, what he’d heard about vampires being unkillable...
“Is the marquis dead?”
“Not...quite. However, it isn’t something you need to concern yourself with.”
“Except I already have. I mean, who wouldn’t be?”
“Be that as it may, why don’t we handle the mess in front of the main gate as well?”
“Fine. Keep your secrets.”
Though Abel wasn’t happy about Shinso sidestepping his question, all he could do was nod in agreement. He then looked around. The archduke, Valkyrie, Five Mountains, and Vicente’s soldiers were still in the parlor.
“What’s gonna happen to Espier’s men now?”
“Hmm... A good question.” Shinso looked at them. They seemed dazed, as if their souls had left their bodies. “Attention.”
The soldiers snapped out of it, their spines straightening at Shinso’s sharp voice.
“You are to follow Cyrus’s orders and defend the castle until further notice.”
“Yes, my lord!”
There was so much energy in their voices now that it was hard to believe they’d been in such a stupor a moment ago. Archduke Cyrus inclined his head respectfully.
“Right then, off to the main gate we go,” Shinso said.
Abel and the members of Five Mountains nodded.