3 bar menu

Volume 5 Vampire Tea Party Part 3

But as for her garments. . .   they consisted of nothing else but a white trench coat and simple-looking clothing. The only thing about her that could be genuinely called fashionable would have to be the seashell-shaped earrings she had in her ears. Other than that, Leticia concluded that this young woman had almost no sex appeal whatsoever. Maybe she was actually Eurydice’s servant, and so she was expressly forbidden from wearing anything too fashionable or flashy so that she would not catch any attention instead of her master. . .?

 

Those were Leticia’s initial thoughts about Canaria, but then she squinted her eyes, took a closer look at her and then asked:

 

「You, the female servant over there.」

 

「. . .  Servant? O-Oh, you mean me? Yeah, yeah, I can be a servant if that id what you are thinking of me, no problem. So, what is it, Your Majesty the Vampire Queen?」

 

Canaria asked the question back at Leticia while feigning ignorance. However, Leticia was not interested in her playing dumb, and she certainly was not going to play along with it. With her pupils shining with a crimson light, she pointed her finger at Canaria’s blonde hair.

 

「Those beautiful golden hair on your head. . . . they are not your own, correct?」

 

「Oh.」

 

That was Canaria’s only reaction when Leticia unexpectedly pointed that out about her.

 

「Well, yeah. Essentially speaking, they are not strictly mine, but hose blonde hair that I got from a good old friend of mine are one of the few things that I am pretty proud of. What about them?」

 

「Exactly as I thought. There is simply no way for a mere human to have such beautiful hair. And that begs the question: those golden hair of yours. . . . .who did you get them from, and of what race that person was?」

 

Leticia’s pupils have become colored with a dangerous shade of crimson that communicated many feelings at once, including anger, grudge and even a bit of melancholy. At first, Canaria thought that it might have been caused by her addressing her so casually despite the obvious difference in status between them, but then she realized the circumstances behind Leticia’s angered question and her piercing gaze, which made connecting the dots that much easier.

 

「I see. So you are suspecting that I took those hair from one of your Vampire subjects? . . .  hmm, hmm, I guess that would make for a pretty coherent reason for why we came here. After all, it would be pretty difficult for a pair of vagabonds like us to get into a place such as this on a whim, so it would be more than appropriate for you to think that we might actually be spies sent out by the traitor’s descendants. Yes, that would be quite a scenario, am I right?」

 

Saying that last part jokingly, Canaria shrugged her shoulders with a slightly annoyed smirk on her face. In order to clarify the exact meaning behind that gesture of hers, Leticia then asked her directly:

 

「. . . Does that mean that the two of you are my enemies?」

 

「Hell if I know. I do not know how it works with you vampires, but when it comes to us humans, we are usually not that two-dimensional to be able to classify all of us with just the labels of 「friends」and 「enemies」, and the truth about us cannot be seen by doing something so simple and short-sighted as satisfying just the least common denominator or two, so if you thought that this is how it actually works with us, then maybe you should do something to expand the horizons of your own universe to make it a bit more multi-faceted, huh?」

 

「Huh? But Canarin, were you not the one who said that you only need two factors in order to construct a fully-functioning and valid view of the entire universe?」

 

「Eury. That is not what we are talking about right now, so do me a favor and keep that mouth of yours shut for a moment, okay?」

 

Asking Eury to not needlessly complicate the situation with her comments, Canaria smiled at Leticia and then finished what she wanted to say with a 「If you want to determine whether we are your enemies or not, then why do you not do so by talking to us for a little?」. Leticia, however, dismissed that entire notion as little more than a very distasteful joke and cut any further discussions with a wave of her hand.

 

「There is no need for us to talk, and I do not see there ever being one, because even if you have nothing to do with my brethren and subjects, I have no intention of letting you out of this room alive.」

 

Without doing anything to telegraph it at all, Leticia summoned a fanged shadow that covered the entirety of the floor between the throne that Leticia was sitting on and the space where Canaria and Eury were kneeling down. If she is capable of doing something like that without performing even a single gesture, then that would mean that ever since they came into the throne room, Canaria and Eury were like lambs waiting for the wolf to swallow them into its stomach. Most likely, if only Leticia felt like it, she would probably be able to have both of them devoured by that fanged shadow without them even noticing until it would have been too late to do anything about it. As the shadow continued moving along the floor’s surface like a grotesque centipede, Canaria and Eury closed the distance between themselves and then laughed back to back.

 

「So you are not even going to hear us out, huh? Well, whatever, I guess it does not matter anymore. All that I care about is talking to the very first 『Origin』 Candidate.」

 

「Hey, Canarin, cut that out! What are you going to do if you actually anger her with that for real?!」

 

「If that happens, then we will figure something out on the fly, like always! For the time being, it looks like at the very least we were able to make a rather strong first impression on her, so that should be good enough for staters, right?」

 

「A strong first impression?! Are you out of your mind?! You could not have made a worse first impression even if you actively tried! ! ! ! !」

 

「In my book, leaving a bad first impression is better than leaving no impression at all. At the very least we managed to introduce ourselves, so now should be a good time for a quick withdrawal.」

 

「Hou? And do you really think that I am going to allow you to do it just like that?」

 

Squinting her eyes, Leticia focused the sharp glare of her crimson eyes exclusively on Canaria and Eury, and when she did that, the two of them were frozen in place, almost as if they have been under the effects of sleep paralysis. But that was not all. Not only was the freedom of their limbs to move robbed away, the flow of blood in their veins has dramatically slowed down as well, causing the healthy red flush to disappear from their skins. Canaria suspected that this must be a type of Vampire curse that affects the blood flow of everything that the caster casts their gaze upon, but even so, she still showed a fearless smile as she placed her finger on her lips.

 

「Well, I guess this is going to be it for this particular visit, but do now worry, as we are definitely going to be coming here again in the near future. When that time comes, let us have a nice little chat about the Vampires that you care about. Until then, we bid you adieu. See you reel soon, Blonde My Fair Lady. . . . .」

 

Those were the last words that Leticia allowed her to speak. She snapped her fingers, and as if it was waiting for that exact command, the shadow at their feet charged towards Canaria and Eury, splitting itself apart from just a fanged mass into a thousand swords and thousand spears as well.