3 bar menu

Volume 2 Chapter 3 Part 10

「That’s right. 」

Dimitri applauded her.

「But that shouldn’t be possible… only Demons from the world of Diabolos can set up a Dimensional Barrier. And that is still limited only to the Demons with strong powers… 」

Siluca said so, but then a certain possibility dawned upon her.

「… unless the woman in the Dimensional Barrier is the Demon Lord’s Layer! 」

「You are most certainly a sharp one. You definitely deserved to be brought here. Her name is Adele. She is a woman who managed to defeat a Demon Lord during the time of Extreme Chaos… and the only woman whom I will ever love with all my heart. 」

Raising his hands diagonally and looking ecstatic, the Vampire King sung praises of the woman at the other side of the Dimensional Barrier.

「But… but Demon Lord Adele was defeated in the battle against the forces that supported Elam, and she should have died there… 」

「Don’t you believe what you see with your own eyes? 」

「I do, but that kind of thing is… 」
Siluca shook her head and observed the woman carefully. Beyond the Dimensional Barrier, she was most certainly alive. It was so faint that it was almost unobservable, but her breasts were indeed going up and down in rhythm with her breathing.

「Yes, Adele is still alive. And she is waiting for the right time to be woken up. 」

Dimitri’s expression shines like that of a child.

「Woken up? 」

Siluca thought that it was a word that could only carry a bad meaning with it given the context.

「Yes. You see, before she went to sleep, Adele told me that when the right time comes, she is going to wake up again. 」

「When the right time comes… 」

That was also a meaningful word. Right time could mean the near future, or it could very well mean an eternity later, or right in this very moment.

「Do you always bring the Mages who have come to you as messengers here, Lord Dimitri? 」

「No, you are the first Mage serving the Constance family who has ever set foot in here. 」

「May I ask why? 」
「Because you are in luck. It’s been 1,600 years since Adele went to sleep, and the time has finally come for her to wake up soon. 」

(That is definitely not what I wanted to hear…)

Siluca thought from the bottom of her heart. Why, among other things, would he even want to awaken the Demon Lord who had slept for 1600 years when she came to visit as a messenger of all times? And if he really succeeds in doing that, then what kind of Chaos would that bring down upon all of Artuk?

「Chaos… 」

At that time, the pieces of the puzzle began to fall together in Siluca’s head. That certainly cannot be a coincidence. Whatever is happening here, it must be connected to all the recent incident that have taken place around Artuk.

「Perhaps the purpose of Elmar, the captain of the heavy knights of Waldrind… 」

「You are so perceptive. It would be a shame to leave you as a mere mortal. Your intelligence deserves to be preserved for all eternity. 」

Dimitri’s eyes turned blood red.

「I’m very happy to receive such a compliment from you, but… 」

Siluca slowly moves away from the Vampire King while holding the magic wand in her hand. She heard that Vampires can suck out the blood of their opponents to make them lifeless and defenseless in an instant so that they could replace the sucked out blood with their own that they inject into the victim’s body, thus turning them into a Vampire and increasing the numbers of their household.

「Don’t worry. I am not the kind of man who accepts just about anyone into my household. I only pick those who have piqued my personal interest. 」

「I am happy to hear that you think so highly of me… 」

Living for eternity without growing old may not be such a bad idea, but there is something much more important to Siluca than that right now.

「Besides, as a messenger of the Earl of Artuk, I would like to ask you: do you know exactly what the purpose of Elmer, the captain of the heavy knights of Waldrind, is? 」

「You are smart, so you probably know what it is already, do you not? 」

Dimitri smiled at her. Of course, Siluca had her suspicions about it, just like he said.

「Is Lord Elmer your collaborator? 」

「If anything, I am the one who is collaborating with dear Elmer, because in order to unlock the Dimensional Barrier, a power of a Crest is required. 」

「You said that the time for Demon Lord Adele to wake up is close at hand, but you are the one who is going to decide then that time will come, right? 」

Siluca felt a quiet rage welling up inside of her. If everything that he just said is really true, then that would mean that the real mastermind behind this entire incident is not Elmer, but the Vampire King himself.

If so, the mastermind behind the incident is not Elmer, but the Vampire King.

「There is no doubt in my mind that the right time has indeed come. 」

「What do you mean the right time has come? Have you not been protecting this land ever since the time of Extreme Chaos? If you really did that, then why would you want to awaken the sleeping Demon Lord after 1600 years?! 」

「The thing that I have been protecting throughout all these years was not this country. 」

「Then what exactly have you been protecting?! 」

「Eternity. 」

Dimitri said quietly.

「Just like you said, I was born and lived in the time of Extreme Chaos. It was a truly, truly scary time to be alive. Chaos Disasters were occurying on a daily basis, and monsters were flowing the lands like a flood that could not be stopped. People were dying by the thousands like insects, and there was no one who would ever mourn their passing.

The terror and tragedy of the age of Extreme Chaos are left in various traditions and records. However, the Vampire King, who is a living witness of that era, must have experienced it in a way that cannot be imagined through word of mouth or writing alone.

「The human bones in the underground catacombs that you saw just now were picked up by me personally during the time of Extreme Chaos. I did that to mourn them properly, but also for them to serve as a reminder that I will never allow myself to end up the way they did. 」

Saying that, Dimitri stared at the palm of his hand.

「Yes, I vowed that I would never die. To do that, I must become stronger. I fought Chaos, destroyed it, and absorbed it onto myself. Before I knew it, my whole body was carved with Arts. Not just my skin; my bones, flesh, internal organs, even every single drop of my blood… 」

Artists were born in the time of Extreme Chaos, because there was so much Chaos in the atmosphere for people to take in. The same goes for Shamans. At that time, there was so uch Chaos around that any kind of magic could be activated easily.

「… And I survived. The darkness of Extreme Chaos has passed, and the world is now shrouded in twilight. I foolishly thought it would last forever. But I was wrong. I was reminded of this when Iearned what the son of the Archduke Doucet and the daughter of the Archduke Kraische planned to do. 」
Dimitri bared his sharp fangs at Siluca. She could feel that the fury of the Vampire King was rising.

「The birth of the Grancrest. The time when the Age of Chaos ends and the Age of Order arrives? Lords have always been fighting for power, and formed blood ties and alliances with each other, so it was inevitable that someday there would come a time when enough of the Crests would be mixed together for a Grancrest to be born… unless someone were to change the way in which the tides of the times are flowing. 」

「But when the Age of Chaos is over, we will no longer suffer disasters or have to fear monsters. Isn’t that what true peace is? 」

「Yes, it may be a new dawn for the world, but it means the end of eternity for me. And that scares me. Death scares me. 」

The vampire king said, holding himself in his arms. His whole body was trembling.