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Volume 5 Vampire Tea Party Part 10

Carrying an attache case in her right hand, the woman called Canaria placed her baggage on the ground and then bowed while showing Leticia an overly friendly smile.

 

「Good evening, 「Blonde My Fair Lady」! It has been exactly one month since we last met, and while that might only seem like a short while to you, then allow me to ask this of you anyway: how has life been treating you since then? Or to be a bit more casual: how are you doing?」

 

「I believe that what you see before you speaks for itself well enough. However, I managed to store up enough energy, and I was just thinking that waiting for you to come before me again was making me a little impatient.」

 

「Ooooh, then it appears that I have come here at just the right timing then! After all, Gift Games are always more interesting if you are a little impatient or if there are animosities between the participating Players!」

 

Instead of sounding timid or afraid of Leticia’s words, Canaria seemed to be overjoyed and started acting like a traveling door-to-door salesman praising their own wares. However, Leticia paid them no heed. Whatever this woman was trying to sell her, she was not going to buy it, so unbeknownst to Canaria, everything that she was saying right now was falling on deaf ears. She did not know if she was behaving like that out of stupidity or sheer arrogance, but it mattered little to her. Deciding on mercifully giving her a final way out, Leticia glared at Canaria from atop her throne with her crimson eyes filled with contempt, and declared her ultimatum to her.

 

「Heed my words, mortal. I am giving you your last chance to leave this place alive. Tell me all that you know about the surviving Vampires and their settlements. Do that, and I promise not to kill you and let you go.」

 

「. . .  Hmm? Vampire survivors? Did I say there were any the last time I visited here? Because to be honest, I do not remember. Not the best excuse, I know, but that is the truth and I am not going to lie about it.」

 

Canaria crossed her arms on her chest, looking as if she was doing her best to make herself remember if they talked about it or not, and Leticia also glared at her with her brows furrowed in wonder.

 

「Then. . . . does that mean that all vampires have perished?」

 

「Now, did they perish, or did they not? I wonder about that. I mean, I could just tell you, but where would the fun in that be, so I am going to keep it a secret for now. If you want me to reveal that secret to you, then you have to play my Game. Oh, and I would be grateful if you did not use the word 「kill」when talking about the Storytellers, because nowadays you might get laughed at for saying something like that and that would be pretty embarrassing, right?」

 

Canaria placed her index finger on her lips and laughed happily. She then took out a piece of parchment, a quill and a bottle of ink seemingly out of nowhere and began writing the Geass Roll that would make the cornerstone of their Gift Game.

「If you manage to win the Game, your reward is going to be . . . . . .  hmm, let me see. . . . . .  how about. . . . . . how about 「All the information about Vampires」? Good enough? Great. Next, let us make it a trial & error based Game that does not require any chips or other forms of forward payment to be made, and let me also add the rule that you can challenge it as many times as you see fit.」

 

「. . . . . And what are those strange rules supposed to be? What do you stand to gain from the Game being shaped in such a blatantly one-sided way?」

 

「Oh, so you are not satisfied with me disregarding my own merits for your sake? A part of me is so happy to hear it, but at the same time my pure, altruistic heart feels a little bit hurt, you know? But just a little bit. Well then, if you are that dissatisfied with me not gaining anything from this Game, then how about making my reward something related to your past, like telling me all that I would like to know about you instead, hmm? How does that sound?」

 

She smiled frivolously and jabbed Leticia in her weak point. She did not like the direction that this Game was heading into, but she had to admit that even for someone like her searching across all of Little Garden without having any information about the Vampires at all would be quite troubling after all these years that must have passed outside of her citadel. However, her biggest concern right now was her own condition. After so many years spent in deep sleep, she felt incredibly dull, and honestly doubted if she would be able to fight at her full strength if the Gift Game with that young woman involved an all-out battle. . . . . . . . .  but on the other hand, such a battle might be just what she needed to properly go back to her senses. And if she get tired of whatever it is that she came up with anyway, she can just capture that woman and extract all of the information that she would need out of her by means of torture.

 

「. . .  Very well then. I will play along and participate in that child’s play of a Game that you came up with.」

 

「You will? Thank you very much! Well then, in that case. . . . . .」

 

*SNAP!*

 

Canaria snapped her fingers. It was a small show-offish gesture used more for the purpose of getting the people’s attention to focus on the one who performed it, but in this case, something that should be insignificant had a much bigger effect and were more dramatic than Leticia could have ever anticipated.

 

Even though she should have been sitting on her throne, Leticia notice that she has been moved to the heavens where the aerial citadel was floating. But that was not the only change that has occurred. The entire aerial citadel has been engulfed by the burning flames, and the castle tow was being ravaged by war.

 

It is not that she was transferred to the air herself, and it was not the sky that has been changed in any way.

 

(Space-Time Transition. . . . .? No, that is not it! Is this a memory imitation type of Gift Game?)

 

This unexpected turn of events made Leticia look around with eyes widely opened. This is not a Gift Game that summons the stage to the Players or transports the Players to the stage that has been prepared beforehand. This is a Gift Game based on relieving the memories where the goal is to search for the answers to the questions of the present by delving into the past and finding and exposing the contradictions based on the experiences that someone has actually went through.

 

As a proof of this, what Leticia saw before her eyes right now was the towering silhouette of a Giant Dragon that was screaming and breathing the sea of fire all around it. Right now, Leticia was staring at the Giant Dragon through the eyes of someone who was present at the Vampire’s sunset.

 

(This is. . . .   the Giant Dragon!?)

 

When it flew towards the heavens, one flap of its wings was enough to scatter the sea of clouds away. When it opened its gaping mouth, it breathed out of it the manifestation of the strongest of powers known throughout all of the mythologies, the fire hot as the flames of hell itself, melting and turning to ash anything and anyone who was unfortunate enough to find themselves in the way of its breaths and the sea of flames that it continued to spew without end.

 

But. . . . but who was the one to whom this memory belonged to? On that day, the only ones who confronted the Giant Dragon were the members of the Vampire clan.