Volume 3 Chapter 102 The Story Of The Vampire Princess I
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
The landing spot was a wide space in front of a spire, surrounded by a square of crumbled stone walls.
Barrels and wooden boxes, covered in moss from absorbing water, were scattered around with their hardware exposed, showing they had been abandoned for decades.
’The thing that used to manage this place is long gone. It got taken out quite a while ago,’
”Taken out? What the hell was even managing this place?”
’A monster. You fought one, like the Leanan sídhe in the Labyrinth of Roses.’
”……”
Kian looked up at the spire.
Wing Cain landed right beside him, flapping his wings.
Wing Cain climbed onto the crumbled stone wall nimbly and started preening himself like a crow.
”So, where am I supposed to go?”
’Down.’
”Down? Not into that spire?”
’That spire is empty now. It’s been looted by grave robbers. There’s a sealed-off section underground. Take us there.’
”Hmph…”
A vampire’s ancient castle.
It was guarded until decades ago.
With so many matching conditions, he couldn’t help but recall the events at the Labyrinth of Roses.
He had revisited the Labyrinth of Roses with Oswald, and during that visit, they fought a mysterious creature in the underground.
Could the same thing be lurking down there?
That unsettling thought kept nagging at the back of his mind.
’Don’t worry. You have nothing to fear. Now, the entrance to the underground is below the stone wall to your left.’
The left he mentioned was beyond the wall where Wing Cain was perched.
Beyond the wall was a low cliff, a few meters down.
Structurally, it meant that climbing the steps led out to this grand hall, so originally, the lower left side must have been the ground floor.
Kian readied himself to draw the Windsong Blade at any moment, then quickly jumped over the stone wall and dropped down.
The landing point was a narrow passage that turned left at a sharp angle.
The passage was quite dark.
It was still daytime, and if you looked up, you could see the blue sky.
But the sunlight didn’t reach this narrow alleyway well enough.
Walking on the crumbling stone pavement, he turned left.
There, the passage ended.
In front of him was a round, expanded space, and a statue of a warrior with a sword (its armor design different from that of Western swordsmen) stood alone, as if about to thrust its sword down into a stone basin at its feet.
”Hey, what’s this? It’s like a dead end.”
’Approach the statue. Take off your ‘Silver Ice’ and extend your arm.’
”What?”
Kian narrowed his eyes.
The instructions from ‘glasses’ felt off.
Taking off his armor and sticking out his arm?
He had a bad feeling about this.
’You want to know this one secret? I’ll tell you if you listen to what I say. If not, this conversation ends here.’
”…Alright. You’ve helped me a lot so far. I’ll trust you on this.”
He walked up to the statue.
Kian struggled to take off the top half of his ‘Silver Ice’ and rolled up his inner sleeve.
”Phew…”
He looked up at the statue.
The statue remained, sword poised.
It had a noble, handsome face with thin eyes, looking down at Kian with a detached gaze.
Kian shifted his eyes to the basin in front of him.
Here goes… he thought.
In that moment, he feared the sword might come down and chop off his arm.
If it was just his arm, with Kian’s regenerative ability, he could reattach it.
But if it was his head that got chopped off, that would be the end for Kian.
’Heh heh heh. Even you’re scared, huh?’
”No, it’s about whether I trust you or not. I’m making the final decision. As promised, I’ll extend my arm.”
Kian said this and stretched out his bare right arm over the basin.
’Lower it more. Make your arm touch the basin.’
The commanding voice of ‘glasses’.
Kian steeled himself and pressed his arm against the basin.
”────!?”
In an instant────.
Countless needles shot out from the surface of the basin, turning Kian’s arm into a hedgehog.
”Gyaaahh?! You…!”
Kian glares at the magic tool in his pocket, his face twisted with pain.
’Glasses’ stays silent.
As he suffers, just as he expected, the sword held by the stone statue drops down.
The sword’s tip ruthlessly pierces Kian’s right hand.
Bones snap with a loud crack, flesh bursts in a messy, squishy splatter.
The intense agony shoots through his arm.
Kian screams and collapses to the ground.
Blood streams from his arm, pooling into a stone basin.
”Ugh… You, ‘glasses’…! Did you trick me?!”
Just as he manages to say that, a faint scraping sound echoes from his left side.
He turns to see the stone wall he thought had stopped earlier slowly being sucked into the ground.
Ahead of the opened stone door, darkness and a staircase leading downward are visible.
’That staircase beyond…’
’Glasses’ calmly murmurs.
”Tch.”
The needle retracts as if a lie, and the sword in the statue returns to its original position.
Kian pulls back his blood-soaked right arm, shielding it with his left hand.
His arm quickly begins to heal.
Using a healing spell from his warrior monk ‘Wall’ skills, his bones regenerate rapidly, and the wound closes.
Only stained blood remains afterward.
’Down it goes…’
”…You wouldn’t really be planning to sacrifice me, would you?”
This ‘glasses’ couldn’t go places on its own, so it started helping Kian.
For ‘glasses’, if it could somehow become flesh──like taking human form──things like playing along with Kian’s whims would no longer matter. It could restore its body to life as a sacrifice, or even take over Kian’s body──there were endless ways for ‘glasses’ to gain freedom.
’Heh heh heh… We’ll see. If you don’t trust me, then turn back. It’s better for both of us.’
”──A man doesn’t go back on his word.”
Kian stands up, clutching his still-bleeding arm that won’t stop hurting.
He glares at the dark staircase waiting below, jaw wide open, as if daring it.
”I’m moving forward. I want to know about you.”
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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