“I-In what?” The woman looked back at Kanata, startled.
Kanata just smiled back and cast a defensive spell. The knights found the blessed silver spears they’d brought to fight the vampire blocked by a magic wall.
“And one over there!” Kanata said, pointing her finger at the sky above the burning castle. A vortex of cold air began to form as dark clouds appeared right where she was pointing. “Rain rain, rainy rain!” Kanata sang, and rain began to fall in response to her words of power, though she kept it isolated to the space immediately around the castle. It came down like a waterfall, dousing the intense flames before they could spread to the nearby forest. Soon the inferno had been reduced to smoldering embers. If the rain kept falling, it wouldn’t be long before it went out entirely.
The knights were astonished. “Wh-What was that?!”
“A spell?! I’ve never seen magic on a scale like that!”
Not only had Kanata effortlessly thwarted their deadly spears, but she had conjured a torrential downpour with a single gesture of one of her hands—a great feat of magic. Fearful of her overwhelming power, the knights began to back away.
“Insolent fools, listen when people speak to you!” said Zag’giel, holding his head high with pride despite not having contributed a single thing to the defense. “Try as you might, your spears will never reach Kanata!”
“Drat!” said Fenrir. “I wasn’t able to serve as Lady Kanata’s shield...” His tail drooped with disappointment even though there really had been no need for him to rush to Kanata’s defense.
Kanata noticed that Fenrir and Zag’giel were getting sprayed with water from her rainstorm, carried their way by the wind. Their fur was getting quite wet.
“Oh no! You’ll catch a cold! We should move somewhere else!”
The sight of their fluff all drenched and waterlogged did stir Kanata’s heart a little, but she decided it was more important to get them somewhere dry. After all, the rain was still coming down hard.
“H-Halt, witch!” shouted a knight. “You won’t get away!”
“We won’t let you take the vampire!” added another. “You will die here, heretic!”
For them to continue challenging Kanata after her display of power, these knights must have had either a strong sense of duty or else too little intelligence to realize the difference in their power. Or perhaps they were being driven by something they feared even more than her. They moved to surround her, pointing their spears in her direction.
“No, thank you!” Kanata said, as a magic circle appeared at her feet and floated upward to envelop her and her companions.
“She’s making her move!” a knight bellowed. “Charge her!”
They rushed forward as one, but before they could come within range, Kanata and the others simply vanished from the spot.
† † †
“And they got away?!” A man wearing somewhat more stylish armor than the rest of the knights listened to his subordinates’ report with disbelief. He was a tall man who loomed over his subordinates, and he had removed his helmet, revealing flowing locks of blond hair and a handsome face.
The lower-ranking knights could do nothing but cower.
“A-A thousand apologies, Sir Theodoric!”
These knights were a special brigade within the Holy Church formed for the purpose of weeding out heretics. They were the elite of the elite, and they underwent training far beyond that of the knights in service to the kingdom. The Holy Church gave them license to act independently according to their own judgment, without the need for oracles from the Saint. Before today they had never failed in their mission, bringing a swift end to heretics of all stripes in the name of absolute justice.
Today’s operation had looked like it would be another success. The plan had been to set fire to the old castle, draw out the vampire, and surround her with knights armed with silver weapons. Then they would drive her back to where the handsome Sir Theodoric was waiting, allowing him to deliver the finishing blow. It all went perfectly. They succeeded in engaging the ancient vampire—a heretic among heretics—in melee combat, and they dealt her a heavy wound. It did seem a little strange that the vampire didn’t even once make an attempt to attack, but perhaps she simply understood that even a vampire had no recourse but to flee in the face of knights in heavy silver armor. All they needed to do was force her to Theodoric’s position, where he would pierce her heart with his holy lance.
However, it was just then that someone got in the way—an unidentified girl dressed in a school uniform and accompanied by magic beasts. With an oddly laid-back attitude for the middle of a battle, she brought their plans to ruin, extinguishing the fire and escaping with the vampire. Worse, she had vanished using some kind of spell, leaving no trail for the knights to follow. They had no clue where the girl could possibly be.
“Well, no matter,” said Theodoric, showing a bit of leniency for his cowering knights. “Without her castle, the vampire is bound to become starved for blood and cause some sort of commotion. Send word to the local churches to keep an eye out for an incident. Tell them to overlook nothing, no matter how small!”
“Yes, sir!”
Theodoric tossed back his hair, wet from the rain. His men couldn’t help staring for a moment in admiration of his beauty before saluting and rushing away to execute his orders without delay. None of them heard the words their handsome captain muttered to himself as they left.
“Yes, it’s for the best. A dismal place like this would be terrible for a first meeting between lovers.” He gazed dreamily off into the distance, his cheeks flushing as images of the vampire ran through his mind. “Just you wait, my star-crossed love! Even if romance between a Temple Knight and a vampire is certain to end in doom, nonetheless I will make you mine!”
† † †
“B-Brr!” The vampire woman shivered, covering her shoulders with her hands. “What is this chill all of a sudden?!”
Kanata had escaped using her teleportation spell and taken the party back to where she had parked the wagon. The ability to visualize a space was the essential component of teleportation—Kanata could only teleport somewhere she had not only been before but could clearly picture in her head. As she’d cast the spell, she held in her mind the image of the wagon parked in the village, bringing them back to where they had come from.
It was the middle of the night, but the village was full of people who had come outdoors to gawk at the plume of smoke rising from the old castle. It seemed the inferno had been visible as far away as the village. The flames had been extinguished by Kanata’s rainstorm, though, and the smoke cloud looked as though it was going to shortly follow suit. The villagers were too busy discussing whether they should go to the old castle and see what was going on to notice Kanata and her party appearing out of nowhere behind the inn, or to wonder about the injured woman she had brought with her.
The woman, for her part, was astonished. The spell Kanata had used to escape required an extraordinary degree of magical technique. She had been feeling a strange premonition of doom for a while now, and suddenly it came over her like a chill breeze, making the hair on her skin stand on end.
“Are you cold?” Kanata asked, peering at the woman. She was still holding her from behind, like she had been when the woman protected her from the knights’ spears.
“E-Eek!” Startled, the woman leapt out of Kanata’s arms. Despite herself, she was blushing. “H-Hrm!” She cleared her throat in an attempt to cover up her awkward behavior, and sat down on the back of the wagon. Her body was in shambles, and the dress she had been wearing was reduced to tattered rags, but sitting above them with her legs crossed and her arms artfully arranged to emphasize her chest, she looked as if she could have been some kind of queen.
“Human child,” she intoned. “Tremble with joy, for a great treasure—myself—has not been lost to the world this night! In my magnanimity, I will permit you to give thanks for my allowing you to save me.”
She spoke like she had done Kanata a favor. It was just about the haughtiest thing she could have chosen to say.
“What an arrogant woman! The nerve!” Fenrir gawked, skipping right past anger to arrive at disbelief.
Zag’giel sighed from atop Kanata’s head. “It is hard to take her completely seriously with a bleeding wound on her head...”
The woman’s injuries were severe. Her whole body—not just her head—was slick with fresh blood.
“I guess we’d better heal her before we dry her off, huh...” said Kanata.
A warm light appeared in her right hand as she prepared to cast a healing spell.
The woman, however, tumbled down from the wagon in shock at the sight of the light.
“S-S-S-S-Stop that at once! Healing magic is like poison to me!” It seemed like the knights had not been confused when they called this woman a vampire.
“I see,” said Kanata. “Well then, how about this: I’ll buy you a potion from the Royal Capital!”
“We doubt whether human potions would work on the likes of her...” said Zag’giel. “Vampires are beings with a powerful undead nature. Ordinarily their wounds should heal in but a second’s time, but it seems those knights were carrying some manner of special weapon.”
The woman’s injuries from the fire were already healed, but the wounds she had suffered from the silver spears were even now oozing blood. She was doing her best to act like nothing was wrong, but it was obvious she was in incredible pain.
“I wonder whether it would help if I licked her!” Fenrir suggested.