Chapter 43

“Are the First Graders nothing but monsters...?”

A Unit 43 Member spoke up.

“Belle shatters windows with pressure alone... and Amon keeps forging swords from blood...”

“Right... just monsters, like you said. And among them, the top ranker—Mago—that bastard...!”

“Protect Belle!”

Captain Karasma shouted.

In the chaos, Belle alone slept a sound sleep.

The Special Task Force guarded her and held the vampires back.

“C-Captain Karasma! These things, their strength is...!”

There were seven Special Task Force agents.

Seven vampires.

But the raw power each vampire carried was beyond human endurance.

All the agents could do was fall back and deflect the blows.

On top of that, they had to protect Belle, who was combat-ineffective.

Their stamina was nearing its limit.

“Hold them!”

At that moment Madam Anne’s voice rang out.

The vampires attacking the Task Force pricked their ears in unison.

“Protect me!”

The instant they heard the order, they wheeled and sprinted toward the voice.

The voice had come from the building.

Straight down from it.

Mago and Amon came into view.

Those two were the target.

The vampires dashed at full speed.

“C-Captain Karasma...”

“Stop them! They’re all heading for Mago!”

“Mago, Madam Anne will just step outside again anyway...”

“Amon, do me a favor. Those vampires.”

Mago turned his back on him.

“Looks like eight, but I’m alone?”

“Seven, to be exact. I have to chase Madam Anne right now. If I take my eyes off her, who knows what she’ll pull.”

Mago sprinted toward the building Madam Anne occupied.

“Hey, hey...!”

The vampires veered and chased Mago.

Then—

One of the vampires on Mago’s tail was skewered by Amon’s sword and fell.

“This way...!”

Amon yelled, voice trembling.

“Six left...”

He counted the remaining pack.

“Should be six... but it’s not.”

One was missing.

By the time he realized, it was too late.

“Amon Coster! Behind you!”

Captain Karasma’s shout rang out.

“Ghk...!”

A vampire that had slipped around back raked Amon’s spine.

The muscles of his back tore to shreds.

A crimson fountain burst forth.

“Blood with Blood...”

Blood spread in an instant.

As it hardened, it became countless thorns.

The vampire that had targeted Amon’s back ran straight into the thorny blood at point-blank range and was shredded.

“The price...”

Amon began the incantation.

“Amon! Don’t you dare! Think of the people who have to listen...!”

Belle, eyes now open, cleaved a vampire in half and shouted.

“This is the history of the Coster Family. Belle, what do you know—”

“More like a dark history. You can use it without spouting that nonsense!”

Belle moved to Amon’s side.

Back to back, they kept the vampires at bay.

“You’re one of the Three Great Families too—you can’t ignore tradition. We have to carry it on.”

“Tradition, my foot... it’s just showing off.”

* * *

“So this is where you crawled to. Madam Anne.”

It was her warehouse.

The same warehouse where she had penned the hybrids.

“Didn’t expect you to walk into the prison you built yourself.”

“Huu...”

A long sigh drifted out.

Madam Anne crouched in the shadow of a corner on the warehouse’s third floor.

She clutched her abdomen and shoulder, slumped over.

The spot where Amon’s sword had struck.

No wound remained—everything had already healed.

But stamina was another matter; she looked empty.

Her breathing far rougher than before.

“How did you dodge the lightning?”

she asked.

"How did you dodge the lightning?"

She simply echoed the question.

"Well..."

"Even Marcello can't pull that off. You were just a hair faster than my fingers, that's all."

"Mago, with power like that, you'd do well to join the Demon King's Army."

"Are you joking?"

"I'm dead serious. Your side will lose in the end. The Demon King's forces aren't just orcs, goblins, and black-winged beasts that flap around in the sky. They still have a whole arsenal of hidden strength. Their plans began twenty years ago. You humans are fated to be crushed..."

She stared blankly out the window.

The dark clouds were beginning to lift.

A thin shaft of sunlight poured through the gap.

The light spilled into the warehouse.

"The sun's come out..."

"Yes. It's all over."

With that, she turned away.

"Wait—where are you going...?"

"Whether I beat you to a pulp with my sword or slice you clean in half, you'll just keep regenerating. I'm still deciding how to kill you."

She was trapped inside the warehouse.

With the sun up, she couldn't leave.

She couldn't even load her lightning—nothing.

She had lost control of the situation.

"Mago. Non-human races who possess both strength and intellect—like me—are flocking to the Demon King's Army. The very ones you humans call monsters. The mermaids of Atlantis, the beastmen and elves of the Eastern Forest. I could go on forever."

"So?"

"This won't stay a war between the Demon King's Army and the Imperial Army. It'll swell into a war between non-humans and humans. When that happens, you'll be outnumbered. What then? That scenario isn't in the Imperial Army's little playbook, is it?"

I didn't answer; I just started down the stairs.

Amon and Belle, who had been fighting the vampires, lay sprawled on the ground, catching their breath.

The vampires that had been outside had already burned to ash, drifting away on the wind.

"Only Madam Anne is left," Amon said.

"Slice her up and she just grows back. We can't drag her out of the building either—she'll counterattack while we try."

"Exactly... Mago, any bright ideas?"

"Crush her flat. That'll do it."

"Crush her? You mean bring the whole building down on her?"

"That's what it'll take."

"How?"

"Madam Anne stocked up on fireworks—probably back when she was planning some festival in the red-light district before the war broke out."

He pointed at the Anakonda building.

"There's plenty of powder inside."

* * *

"Move it, move it!"

The Thief Boss barked the order.

"Yes, boss!"

His right-hand man hauled an orc barrel up to the warehouse.

"Hey, hey! Easy when you set it down!"

"Aw, c'mon, boss. This stuff won't go off that easy."

The right-hand man flashed a grin.

The clamor outside jarred Madam Anne awake.

Barrel after barrel of black powder was being stacked right in front of her.

The lids had been left off, almost as a taunt.

"Damn it..."

She gnawed at her long thumbnail.

She saw at once what the Task Force intended: bury the entire warehouse—and her with it.

Her anxiety spilled into restless movement.

"If I just sit here, I'll be crushed to death... Even if I regenerate, being buried alive under tons of earth would be its own kind of hell..."

The thought of dying and reviving endlessly beneath the ground twisted her face.

She spotted Task Force agents stripping fireworks down to the powder and funneling it into the barrels.

"Damn, damn... what do I do..."

Her eyes darted frantically.

In the middle of scheming, she caught sight of the Anakonda building—and the terrified humans cowering inside.

"Right..."

A solution dawned on her.

She nodded, lips curling into a smile.

'I can fly to Anakonda. I'll be exposed to sunlight for a few seconds, but that's not enough to kill me. Once I land, I'll drink those humans dry and recover. Just get there...'

She checked on the Task Force again.

They were busy prepping the powder.

If she was going to move, it had to be now—while no one was watching the warehouse's third floor.

She fixed her gaze on the window.

Two deep breaths.

She braced for pain.

She slid her right foot back and unfurled both wings.

'If I fail, I'll burn. But...'

"When I succeed, it'll be the humans who die."

Madam Anne stomped hard.

The wooden plank floor splintered beneath her.

She burst through the window and soared straight for the Anakonda.

"Damn it..."

All the Task Force could do was tilt their heads and watch her fly away.

Flames licked across Madam Anne’s skin.

By the time her wings were holed and shredded, she reached the Anakonda’s wall.

A clumsy landing sent her tumbling across the floor.

“Enough...”

The humans guarding the Anakonda jumped in alarm.

She snatched the nearest one, fangs diving for his throat—

A red sword sheared off her right arm.

* * *

I ground my heel into Madam Anne’s neck.

“Ghk...!”

I stared down at her shoulder.

The body that had sprouted fresh flesh the instant it was torn or broken

lay still.

A moment in the sunlight had robbed her of strength.

“Mago...!”

I bared my fangs and snarled, but the brute power she boasted was gone.

Her wrinkles looked deeper than ever.

“I suppose it never occurred to you that the civilians were shown through the windows on purpose. The gunpowder was bait, Madam—too precious to waste on one vampire.”

A voice rang out behind me.

“M-Madam Anne!”

“Madam Anne... y-you can’t die...!”

“White Hair! Move that foot!”

People from inside the Anakonda.

“Nice try, Mago. In front of humans you’re still noth—”

Madam Anne’s lips curled into a smile.

“Shut your mouths, all of you.”

I leveled my sword at them.

“Sympathize with a demon beast again and you’re the enemy.”

The threat sent them shuffling backward.

“Ahaha... Mago, are you sure about this? Can you handle the fallout?”

“I can. Stop over-thinking.”

“I told you before—the Demon King’s ranks keep growing.”

“I said stop thinking.”

“Aren’t you curious who told me? You know what you have to do if you want the answer.”

“Let you live?”

“Exactly, Mago.”

“So you’ll do anything to buy another sunrise.”

“A mosquito survives on blood; a little bargaining is nothing.”

She burst out laughing at her own joke.

“I know bigger secrets—who whispered them, why other races flock to the Demon King, what the Demon King truly wants. All of it.”

A sly grin spread across her face.

“Find me one man in the Imperial Army who holds half as much. No—there isn’t one. A fine trade, no? Kill me and you get nothing. Drag me in alive and the reward is enormous.”

“Quiet. I’m thinking.”

“Good, Mago. Decide what’s best. I doubt killing me is it.”

A moment later

I hauled her down to the first floor.

I stepped over the threshold alone.

I left Madam Anne inside, still clamped by my grip.

Light bathed me; she remained in darkness.

A single door divided us.

I scanned the street.

The Task Force saw me holding her severed left arm.

Civilians from the Anakonda trailed outside.

“She’s the last vampire, right...?”

“I haven’t had blood yet! I have to drink before she dies—!”

This time someone blocked them.

Navy uniforms.

The insignia: seven.

“Leave this to me.”

The 7th Squad Commander spoke.

Checkpoint Garrison.

They had just arrived after hearing the red-light district was in chaos.

The 7th Squad threw themselves between the crowd and us.

“Mago! It’s over...!”

Amon turned and shouted.

“Mago, finish it. Kill her and let’s go home.”

Belle’s face was hollow with exhaustion.

“Don’t listen,” Madam Anne hissed behind me. “They don’t know what I know.”

Her whisper crawled inside my skull.

“Task Force! I possess intel you—”

She screamed the instant she saw her chance.

Before she could finish,

I yanked her out of the dark

and hurled her into the blazing sun.

“M-Mago...”

Her skin blackened the moment the light touched it.

“I never thought you’d be this stupid...!”

Her blackened skin crumbled to ash.

It scattered like embers on the wind.

“I’ll tell you everything, just—”

Madam Anne lurched upright, reaching toward the Anakonda side.

I kicked her back before she could get close.

She rolled across the ground.

“Graaaah—!”

Next went the muscle.

It burned away just as readily.

Stripped of skin, she was a horror to behold.

“Madam Anne, what you know? I know it too.”

“Gurk—ahhh—!”

“Actually, I know more than you ever did.”

“P-please... save me...!”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Please...! Mago, it’s... it’s not too late. P-please...”

While she screamed, I kept silent.

Bone-dust rode the breeze and vanished.