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Chapter 33 – Part 1

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Translator: Kousei

Editor: Ryunakama & Pink Tea

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Rita obediently followed Dramina’s words.

Seeing Rita tightly cover her ears with both hands, a small smile showed on Dramina’s face, but upon noticing numerous small wounds on Rita’s thin limbs, cheeks and forehead, a scarlet blush of anger appeared on Dramina’s snow-white skin.

「Even if you are knights in name only, to chase around an innocent girl like this in a group, how shameless. Drawing pleasure from torturing those that have no means to resist or weapons to fight with, capable of only running away, Glossgrier Knights are not knights. A mere sham, claiming to be knights. 」

Dramina is unarmed. Her fingers covered with long, black gloves are elegant enough to enrapture anyone, just as naturally as living beings are attracted to ores, water, wind, or moonlight. One of the three knights took a step forward; it was the gray knight. He didn’t carry a spear or a sword, nor did he have a bow or an axe, but instead had several thick chains wrapped around his waist.

Grasping both ends of the silver chains hanging from his hips, the gray knight unfastens the chains in one go. Maybe through some kind of magic trick, the chains unwrapped without making any sound, and now three silver chains were extending from each of his hands.

It’s a thick and heavy chain, like the kind used for a ship’s anchor. Even just one of those chains would make a strong man buckle under the weight and fall.

「I can’t help but thank my creator for giving me the honor and the great sin of wielding the skills of my great ancestors. First of all, I, Galockford, will be your opponent.」

While having a feeling of guilt, Galockford swung his arms like a whirlwind, as if scattering blooming flowers in the moonlight. Immediately, the incessant buzz of the chain cutting through the wind could be heard, creating a tornado of silver chains around Galockford.

「I think it’s a good technique to make a cool breeze in the summer, right?」

A faint, gorgeous smile appeared on Dramina’s face. Galockford wished deeply that those lips would suck his blood, and all things in nature would have agreed with him.

Dramina took three soundless steps forward. Galockford’s arms, which were spinning nonstop, came to a stop the moment Dramina’s body entered the tornado.

Dramina’s slender arms, which were about half as thick as Galockford’s, grabbed and stopped the three silver chains that had been swinging at a speed ten times faster than the speed of sound.

「Ooh!?」

Even if Dramina has a heart to be mad about cruel treatment of an innocent girl, even if she has a graceful and charming figure, Dramina is still a child of the kingdom of night and moonlight — the fact that she is queen of the vampires is as unwavering as the beauty of the moon.

Thus, it would only be natural that if she swung her hands to the sides, swinging the chains with them, that Galackford’s arms would be torn off too.

Neither the armor nor the chainmail nor the magical protection applied to them served any purpose, and black flood burst from the base of Galockford’s torn off arms.

The beloved Queen of the moonlit night was merciless.

As each of Dramina’s slender arms were moved back and forth mid-air, Galockford arms, which were still attached to the silver chains, were slammed into their owner’s head.

The arms swung by Dramina, with her strength that far surpasses Galockford’s, not only shattered his helmet like it was rotten fruit, but also cut the gray knight in half vertically.

「Who’s next?」

「In that case, then I, Elnessa, will be your opponent」

It’s the knight in black armor. Dramina’s eyebrows moved as she sized up her next enemy.

That arch of her eyebrows would’ve made the best artist in the world anguish day after day over how to recreate its beauty on a canvas, and the reason for it was that Elnessa’s voice belonged to a woman, not so different in age from Dramina.

There is nothing inferior to the other knights in terms of quality or quantity of fighting spirit that Elnessa released towards Dramina. In her hands she held a shining sword. It was a double edged longsword.

The blade glowed with a shining silver light, which showed off its sharpness, from which even armor crafted by the finest of the artisans wouldn’t be able to withstand an attack.

「Well then, here I come!」

「Good. I permit.」

Slightly after Dramina finished speaking, the ground under Elnessa’s feet exploded.

Elnessa’s step was so powerful that it made the ground split, which was possible due to the terrifying strength of her muscles.

The black armor turned into a cannonball, and slashed at Dramina from the front.

The sword spread, like the wings of a bird of prey attacking its victim, and drew bright silver lines through the air.

The slash reached Dramina as fast as a lightning strike, and at almost exactly the same moment, the longsword slashed through Dramina’s thin neck and slender waist.

The trajectory of the longsword came in two slashes parallel to the ground, splitting Dramina’s body into three pieces. But Elnessa felt a lack of resistance, and she realized that it was only an afterimage, created through Dramina moving back at a high speed. The moment she realized that, Elnessa leaped back, still holding the sword in the same position.

Or rather, she tried to jump back. Moving even faster than when she had retreated from the sword’s trajectory, Dramina advanced, and pierced with her right hand through Elnessa’s armor and heart before her feet could even leave the ground.

Dramina’s right hand, wrapped in black gloves from the middle of her upper arm to her fingertips, squeezed Elnessa’s heart, and the blood vessels which extend from the heart are smoothly cut, as if it had meant to be that way from the beginning.

Elnessa didn’t feel any pain when a hole was opened in her chest, and even until now she felt no pain. Blood didn’t spill from her pierced chest either.

Dramina’s arm was buried in Elnessa’s chest up to her elbow, then Dramina pulled her right arm out in one go. Even a movement like that is as elegant as a choreographed dance, is it because of Dramina or a characteristic specific to the vampire queen?

Elnessa’s heart was still in Dramina’s hand, but the beauty of her hand was not diminished in the slightest, even as she held a heart which does not beat nor bleed.

On the contrary, the raw and nauseating heart in her hand contrasts with her beauty, and even seems to further accentuate the beauty of Dramina’s hands.

「To think that I couldn’t leave even a single scratch… Regrettable.」

After she murmured those words, Elnessa collapsed to her knees, then began to turn into ash as she fell to the ground, and then the armor and the longsword dropped down to the ground with a thud.

At this time, Dramina could see Elnessa’s crumbling face from the gap in the helmet. Grasped by the hands of destruction and slowly turning into ashes, a radiant smile could be seen on the female vampire’s face.

Even if she was completely no match for Dramina, Elnessa still challenged her with all the power she had.

Even if the result was her destruction and ultimate death, she still had no objections to that result.

Seeing Elnessa’s heart, which turned into ashes in her right hand, Dramina didn’t conceal her grief as she spoke.

「Why is this the only way in which you can express your virtue? If you have enough valor to fight with no hesitation despite your inevitable destruction, then why does it not occur to you to stop the cruelties of your master, even if it means your ruin?」

「If admonishing your lord’s wrongdoings by offering your life is called loyalty, then following them down the path of ruin and falling together into the depths of hell is also loyalty, Your Majesty.」

「I understand the former, but I fail to understand the latter. That loyalty is the one that permits countless deaths of the innocent. It means excusing Giorr, who is indiscriminately killing even children, who have never held a weapon in their lives, and elderly, who only await their last hour to come. I never sought from my subjects a loyalty that pardoned the crimes of their master, that pardoned smearing one’s hands in blood, or that pardoned taking innocent lives for no reason. I hoped for them to correct me when I’m about to lose my way, remonstrating me at times like a father, at times like a brother, at times like a teacher, and at times like a friend.」

「Your Majesty’s fame had reached our kingdom far before you succeeded the throne of the Valkyrios.
At the dawn of your reign, Valkyrios welcomed a time of unprecedented prosperity, and the kingdom was hailed as one akin to the ancient nations of the past, which will have its flag and crest floating over every continent, and have every tribe bow before it.
However, the position Your Majesty was born into made you destined to receive loyalty from others.
That’s why even if we turn to dust, Your Majesty has no means to truly understand the hearts of those that were born to offer that loyalty. And that is fine.
That is because as the one inheriting the blood of the ancestors, we shouldn’t have loyalty to anyone or anything apart from our founders and creators. Not even to the gods themselves, no matter how good or vile they are.」

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