Chapter 62

With a dripping noise, cold fluid fell from a helmet.

The soldier wearing the helmet didn’t take much notice of it. This was a battlefield. A place where blood would normally be spraying through the air. If he was too concerned over a few drops of fluid, he would lose his life.

But that soldier soon began coughing. A headache followed without warning, alongside terrible nausea, dizziness, joint pain, a stomachache… He could even feel that he was developing a fever.

He coughed some more. “P-poison…”

His throat was in pain; he wasn’t in a state to speak loudly. And everywhere across the battlefield, troops were experiencing deterioration in their physical conditions just like the soldier… No, to be more precise, there was one exception. Isla and her group were the only ones unaffected.

It’s gone well.

Vandalieu gave a satisfied nod atop the second fortress wall after having used the trebuchets to scatter the virus projectiles packed full of water containing the pathogen he had made.

The soldiers and knights who were trying to regain their composure were unable to walk, kneeling on the ground while coughing and suffering.

Even Gordan and Riley, who had been striking down the boulders, were no exception. The ones who looked like mercenaries were still standing, flustered at the situation around them. They were likely to be the Vampires. It was convenient that they had all gathered in one spot.

The disease Vandalieu had created was a disease that didn’t infect those who by nature could be affected by Death-Attribute Charm.

It had no effect on Ghouls, Cemetery Bees, Pauvina or Vampires, but the humans that made up the vast majority of the Mirg shield-nation’s expedition army were infected through every possible infection route and the disease took hold within seconds.

That was the kind of disease it was.

“Guh… Antidote Potions… aren’t working…”

“Don’t lower your shields, the shield-nation will be disgraced if we fall to a poison like this!”

“Why, even though I have the Poison Resistance skill…”

Many of the soldiers had mistaken the disease created by Vandalieu for a poison. They couldn’t be blamed for assuming this, as their physical conditions had simply started deteriorating without warning.

But even as they drank the antidote Potions that they had been equipped with, their conditions improved for only a moment. This was only natural, as even if the antidote removed the toxins within their body, the pathogens continued to produce more.

“Cure Disease! This isn’t a poison, it’s a disease!” shouted High Priest Gordan. “You lot, heal the ones around you! Mages, hurry and stand up, will you!”

As expected, he was the first one to recover. As his passive life-attribute healing magic healed his disease, he also cast his own spells as he reprimanded those around him.

“Messara, h-hurry… up!”

Messara coughed violently. “W-wait, my throat…!”

Things weren’t so simple. Without the Chant Revocation skill, even talking normally with her body in pain was impossible right away, let alone reciting an incantation.

And on top of that –

“Wait…! W-why, this disease is supposed to be…!” Gordan, who was supposed to have made a complete recovery, began coughing violently once more.

“Unlike poison, diseases can be spread from other people. That’s obvious, though,” Vandalieu whispered as he watched Gordan suffering.

Gordan had indeed cured himself of the disease with his magic. However, there were thousands of infected people around him, coughing and sneezing without masks.

Each cough and sneeze would send large quantities of pathogens flying several meters. This had caused Gordan to become infected once more.

There are some diseases that cannot cause a second infection due to an immunity forming after the first infection, but there was no way Vandalieu would have gone out of his way to create such a forgiving disease.

“This is my special disease that mutates even faster than influenza,” Vandalieu murmured. “You can experience it repeatedly until you die.”

To escape from the disease in this place that was filled with it, one would have to wear a Magic Item with a continuous anti-disease effect, completely heal the disease in those in the immediate vicinity, or do everything possible to escape the battlefield and then treat the disease with magic afterwards.

Alternatively, they could try to survive until the period after which Vandalieu had set the disease to stop working, which was half a day, but that would be impossible.

Isla and her Vampires, who couldn’t contract the disease even if they stopped worshipping the evil god, were forced to make a decision.

“How could this be!”

Ternecia had taken measures so that Isla and the other Vampires could disguise themselves as humans to sneak into the army, but that army had been turned into a mass of pitiful, sick people in an instant.

The Vampires were unaware that the disease would disappear after half a day and that it wasn’t fatal on its own, so in their minds, the army was completely useless, not even something they could use for cover, let alone as a fighting force.

With this, they had to abandon their original plan.

Isla clicked her tongue. “Everyone, keep going! We’ll fly up to kill the Dhampir and hunt down the traitors!”

“Is that really alright? If we do that, the fact that we are Vampires will be exposed, will it not?”

“We’re already as good as exposed! Who would believe that there are this many humans with the Status Effect Resistance skill!”

The Vampires had noticed that this was a disease, not a poison. However, they didn’t know the exact effects of the disease that Vandalieu had created. Because of this, they had assumed that it was their Status Effect Resistance skills that were preventing it from infecting them.

Though it seemed that the expedition army didn’t have the time to notice it right now, they knew that if the army were to get time to think about it later, they would become suspicious of the Vampires.

“We’ll take care of things afterwards! Think about how to complete our mission first! Or are you bastards planning to become traitors as well?!” Isla was no longer trying to keep up appearances. Her tone was harsh, as if her master Ternecia had possessed her body.

The Vampires shook their heads vigorously.

They knew that if their responses were a moment late, they would be killed by Isla, who was known by the Title of ‘Ternecia’s Hound’.

“Then let’s get moving!” Isla undid her unique skill’s transformation and flew into the air. She threw away her full-face helmet that would only get in the way of using Bloodsucking, and instantly discarded her crude, weak armor that had given her a mercenary’s appearance using a contraption that had been built into it.

She drew her trusty sword with no sharp point, a weapon that would have been called an executioner’s sword on Earth, as she flew straight towards the second wall.

And then Isla sneered as she flew towards the expressionless, white face that was looking up at her.

“You’ve given us a lot of surprises but this is where it ends! Come now, and become rust on my sword, half-breed!”

But before she reached him, her vision was filled with white.

The Vampires around her screamed.

“It’s so hot! I-Isla-sama, the sun, THE SUUUUUUUN!”

It had already become dark in Talosheim to the point that Vampires wouldn’t face any problems, but the warm spring sunlight was shining down on them, burning them.

“The first part of the plan is complete. Commence the second part,” Vandalieu whispered as he watched Isla and her subordinates writhe in agony like live animals that had been tossed into a pot full of boiling oil.

Zadiris, after leading those who could use light-attribute magic to the western side of the mountain range, was waiting on standby.

A skull, large enough that one could wrap arms around it, was floating lightly above her head. It was Vandalieu’s familiar, a Lemure.

Lemures would normally be mostly transparent, but Vandalieu had used the Visualize spell to make it visible.

“I think it is almost time, but… Oh, it seems that they have come.”

The Lemure’s teeth had begun chattering.

On that signal, Zadiris and the others turned the nearby mercury mirror.

These mercury mirrors were a legacy left behind by Zakkart, a combination of knowledge from another world and the magic of this world. Because of these magical devices that reflected the sun’s light onto Talosheim, the city surrounded by mountains that would normally have short daylight hours had been known as the Capital of the Sun, and its farmlands had produced abundant crops.

But two hundred years ago, they had been destroyed by the Mirg shield-nation’s army. The mirrors of liquid metal had been broken and the pillars that supported them had been destroyed.

Vandalieu had repaired them using his Golem Transmutation skill. It seemed that Zakkart had built them with future maintenance in mind; after Vandalieu had fixed the structures, he had been able to restore their function with his Alchemy skill.

“Take aim!”

Vandalieu had also turned these mercury mirrors into Golems. Given commands like this, they would move as instructed.

“Everyone, align yourselves… Extreme Sunlight!”

Zadiris had become a Rank 7 Ghoul Elder Mage. From her hands emerged a light so bright that it could burn one’s eyes.

“Sunlight!”

“Sunlight!”

“Extreme Sunlight!”

The other mages, the Ghoul women, the Undead Titans and the Anubises, released similar spells.

Sunlight was a spell that released the light of the sun.

Extreme Sunlight was a spell that released sunlight that of a midsummer day, powerful enough to burn the skin.

Both were anti-Vampire spells that had been created by Alda’s priests, long ago. How ironic it was that Ghouls and Undead were using them under the orders of a Dhampir.

“Everyone, keep releasing your magic until you are out of Mana!” Zadiris instructed. “We will turn those evil-god-worshipping Vampires into ash!”

They were distant from the battlefield, but the sudden influx of Experience Points told Zadiris that their spells had successfully incinerated their enemies.

“Impossible! The relics left behind by Zakkart should have been destroyed! So how can this be?!”

Like silver, the pain of being burnt by the sun was difficult to endure for Vampires. It would easily overcome the Vampires’ immortality that otherwise rendered them otherwise impossible to kill unless their heads were cut off or their hearts were completely destroyed.

Their Status Effect Resistance skills and their high regenerative abilities would be of no use.

In fact, the Vampire Leaders, the weakest of the Vampires, were already back on the ground, unable to bear the sunlight. They were trying to crawl and hide themselves in the shadows of the grass.

“Isla-sama, we should also fly back down and regain our…”

“You fool! Can you not see that?!” Isla pointed at the Vampires below, who were being defeated one by one.

“You damn Vampires!” a soldier yelled.

“Damn it! They’re enemy reinforcements! Don’t let them regroup!” shouted another.

The nearby soldiers were mustering their strength and using their swords and spears to attack the Vampires who were trying to shield themselves from the sunlight in the waist-high grass.

For the soldiers of the expedition army, Isla and the Vampires who had exposed their identities by flying up into the air and being burned by the sunlight, were nothing but enemies. It was likely that they assumed that the Vampires were flying to Vandalieu to regroup with him rather than trying to kill him.

Even the humans, whom the Vampires had discarded as being a group of useless sick people, posed plenty of threat to the Vampires now that they had been weakened by the sunlight. Those who had been unfortunate to fall near Gordan had already had their heads turned into lumps of meat by his war club.

General Mauvid and Riley were unable to tell them to stop, of course, so they simply looked on with stiff expressions and eyes wide-open.

“Do you understand?! If you do, then hurry up and get over the wall!” Isla ordered her subordinates, protecting her body as much as she could by using water-attribute magic to produce white ice around her body that refracted the sunlight.

The other Vampires imitated her, producing darkness or fog with magic to protect their bodies from the sunlight, and then attempted to continue.

And then a particularly bright ray of sunlight streamed in from one side, striking down one of the Vampires mid-flight and causing him to fall with a scream.

The mercury mirror Golem had adjusted its shape to focus Zadiris’s Extreme Sunlight onto one spot, turning into a sunlight cannon. Even meat and vegetables could be cooked using this light alone. Of course, a little darkness and fog was useless against it.

“Spread out! Don’t stick together, if it hits you, you’re dead!” As Isla gave her subordinates a reckless order to avoid the sunlight and pressed forward, she saw countless enemies emerging from behind the second and third walls, flying up to meet her.

The one leading them was…

“How do you do? Perfect weather for sunbathing, isn’t it?”

The Vampires’ second target, Eleanora, smiling at them.

At the same time, on the ground’s surface, Ghouls and Undead suddenly appeared on the right side of the expedition army.

Vandalieu had never intended to rely on Talosheim’s sturdy walls and catapults to engage in a defensive battle.

Talosheim’s defenses were strong indeed, but since there were no reinforcements to wait on, he hadn’t thought that holing up in the fortress would make any difference.

And if things dragged on, the expedition army would likely request reinforcements from the Mirg shield-nation, and it would be terrible if the Pure-breed Vampires lost their temper and showed up personally.

That was why he would quickly exterminate them while they were still underestimating him.

To that purpose, Vandalieu had used Golem Transmutation to build a tunnel and a large cave in which his allies could wait.

“UOOOOH!”

“KILL THEM AAAALL!”

“Protect the children! Slaughter the intruders!”

“Don’t you dare set foot in our nation again!”

The morale of the Ghouls and Undead, who had been on standby underground for several hours, was high. None of them would had any problems with being in complete darkness, and more importantly, this was a battle to defend their home.

There was no way that their morale could fall.

“E-enemies!”

“Rise up and… face them! Uegh…”

The expedition armies attempted to fight back like the elite soldiers they were, but the disease was eating into their bodies and robbing them of their strength. Even as they tried to stand up and regain their formations, many of them succumbed to the violent nausea and spewed gastric juices all over the ground.

“Get up, get up, get up, get up, get up –” Vandalieu, still standing on the second wall, revived the Golems that were supposed to have been destroyed by the expedition army.

They groaned as they rose once more.

“Impossible, the Golems have started moving again!”

“GAH!”

The stone giants trampled over the expedition army, as if taking revenge for the earlier battle.

The Golems had indeed been destroyed by the expedition army’s men. But the spears and swords had not physically removed the boulders that made up their bodies. Though split and smashed, they had still been lying on the ground.

It was a simple matter for Vandalieu to take those materials and turn them into Golems again.

And then Vigaro and the others flooded in. At the same time, the crossbows and trebuchets stopped firing, but a slaughter that rendered that fact meaningless began.

“Follow my lead, warriors!” Vigaro roared.

The knights, who were unable to regain their formations due to the disease and the Golems, had their heads sent flying by his axe.

A knight, enraged by the death of his comrades, began to speak. “Damn you, cowards –”

“Shut up and die!” an Undead Titan shouted as he mowed the knight down with his enormous club.

They slaughtered the enemies that were suffering with the disease. Proud knights or even normal soldiers might have hesitated to do this. But the Ghouls and Undead felt no hesitation whatsoever.

They had a different sense of values from humans, and they felt it was the expedition army’s own fault for being foolish enough to come here without gathering information and forming a plan.

“Damn it, Screw Thrust!”

The expedition army wouldn’t go down without a fight. Many of them had forced themselves onto their feet despite the disease and were releasing martial skills.

One such soldier thrust his spearhead into Vigaro’s stomach with a rotating motion that increased its penetrative power. With his stamina drained, he had put everything he had into this attack as he knew that he wouldn’t survive afterwards, but the spear would surely find its mark –

“Huh?”

The tip of the soldier’s spear shattered into pieces. His opened wide as he stared at his spear that was now nothing but a long stick. Vigaro swung the shield held by one of his four arms at the soldier’s head, causing him to fly away and lay still where he landed.

There was an Orichalcum waistband around Vigaro’s stomach.

“That was some fine skill,” Vigaro murmured.

But no matter how good that soldier’s skill was, he had only been wielding the iron spear he was been provided. That spear was one that a blacksmith had made by hand rather than one made from molten metal being poured into a cast, but it had been unable to compete against Orichalcum, a substance superior to all other magical metals.

Instead of landing a blow, the soldier’s excessive force had caused the spearhead to break and shatter. Of course, Vigaro’s waistband didn’t even have a scratch on it.

“… Well, you’re the ones who came to fight us.” Vigaro did pity the soldiers, but he realized that they were reaping what they sowed and continued swinging his axe.

“Fuhahahaha! Here, allow me to turn you into mincemeat!” With terrifying laughter, Sam splattered the soldiers, not caring whether they were charging towards him, fallen on the ground or running away. He was still a Rank 4 Blood Carriage, but for the expedition army that was suffering from the disease, he was a formidable enemy.

“With my Mana as your source, flames, strike my enemies! Flame Bullet!”

A blue-faced mage fired the Flame Bullet spell at him. It was not a bad choice of spell, as the mage had seen that Sam was an Undead.

“Whoops!”

However, the red projectile grazed the spear that had been suddenly swung by Sam, and then it vanished.

“Could that be, Ice Age?!” the mage gasped.

And then he made an indescribable noise as he was run over and killed.

Sam gave a cheerful laugh. “This spear that I received from Bocchan is quite pleasant to use. I must thank him later.”

Vandalieu had destroyed Ice Age’s function as an Artifact along with Yupeon’s clone, but the spear was made of Orichalcum, which had even greater anti-magic properties than Mythril. No matter how elite the mage was, a single Flame Bullet couldn’t possibly overcome it.

“Jyuuh! As expected of my master, we are able to exterminate these supposedly elite enemies as if they were weeds!” Bone Man remarked. He was now a Skeleton Viscount, and he was slaughtering the expedition army’s soldiers.

“I agree! The soldiers that cut me down with a single stroke of the sword two hundred years ago are now like puppets made of dirt!” said Nuaza the Lich, joining him by beating his enemies to death. “But with the enemies’ heads being so low, it will cause problems with my back!”

“Fuhahaha, indeed! Let us see if we can find suitable prey to take another hipbone from!”

“Damn you! Don’t underestimate us!” a soldier shouted. He and some of his companions were standing in the way of Bone Man and Nuaza. They hadn’t completely recovered from Vandalieu’s disease; they were using the Surpass Limits skill to improve their stamina and immunity, making a temporary recovery.

Once the skill expired, the disease would take all of its effects and progression at once, and if they were unfortunate, they might even die. But they had decided that they would be killed anyway if they simply stayed quiet.

“Let’s go! We have to buy time for a retreat!”

The expedition army’s soldiers had already realized that this was a lost battle. They were still ahead in terms of the number of soldiers alive, but they were all infected and they were at a disadvantage in terms of fighting strength.

The only thing they could do was to slow down the enemy as much as possible, buying time for their allies to retreat.

“UOOH! Shield Bash!”

The soldiers stood in line, raised their shields and charged towards Bone Man and Nuaza.

“Boulder Breaker!”

“Jyuuh! Slicing Moon!”

The shields were broken by Nuaza’s Orichalcum mace and cut through by Bone Man’s magic sword. They had not been underestimating the soldiers or letting their guard down.

They had been provoking them. They had baited the enemy into spending the last of their strength to try and attack rather than escape.

“I-is this an illusion? Or has something happened to my head? There’s a naked woman in a place like this –”

Slice.

“No, this is reality. And who are you calling naked!”

“D-don’t mess with me! A crazy woman dressed like that –”

Slash.

“Please be killed quietly! Also, I am not particularly strange!”

Rita and Saria were swinging a glaive and a halberd, finishing soldiers one after another. They seemed quite displeased for some reason.

“Nee-san, the way we look doesn’t seem to be popular. Why is that?” asked Rita.

“Hmm, even though Bocchan praised us and called us cute…” Saria was puzzled as well. “We’re even wearing capes as he told us to.”

Even as they tried to solve this mystery, they continued to produce large quantities of dead corpses.

Now that they were wearing Magic Item capes, their stimulating backsides were covered, but the front of their bodies was still exposed. In fact, it was possible that the capes were emphasizing the exposed portions of their bodies.

“But there are other people who expose their bodies a lot as well, right? Like Kachia and Bilde,” said Rita.

“Basdia reveals quite a lot as well,” Saria added.

“I don’t reveal that much!” said Kachia in protest, from a spot a distance away from them. She was right, but the sisters didn’t respond to her words.

“Damn it, you monsters! Die!”

The surviving archer had fired arrows at them. The arrows found their marks at the sisters’ exposed stomachs and chests, but they passed straight through their targets.

“Ah, Nee-san, there are healthy enemies over there,” said Rita, pointing at the archers.

“Well then, I’ll back you up with my bow, so you charge at them, Rita.”

“Okay.”

The two of them didn’t pay any attention to the arrows and began their counterattack. Saria switched weapons to her bow, and Rita charged at the archers. She was faster than she looked.

“I-impossible!”

“I mean, you’re using iron arrowheads against our spirit form bodies,” said Saria, firing an arrow that pierced straight through a soldier’s armor and into his chest.

“Though even if you hit our armored parts, these arrows would just bounce off anyway.” With these words, Rita began robbing the archers of their lives with her glaive.

Isla stared at Eleanora with a look of disbelief on her face.

She was a Noble-born Vampire as well, so how could she be wearing such a calm expression in this sunlight?

Eleanora gave a small laugh. “It’s thanks to the power of the great one,” she said, swinging the sword… or rather, the weapon in her hand that had a black rod extending from the handle.

And then roaring, buzzing and groaning filled the air as the immobilized Noble-born Vampires were attacked by Knochen, Cemetery Bees and Rapiéçage.

“Impossible, you’re using insectoid monsters?!”

“GYAAAH!”

Surrounded by jaws that could tear through iron plates and cemetery bees who possessed stingers capable of piercing metal armor, the Noble-born Vampires fell in order of weakest first.

“How could someone like me be defeated by mere Undead! Iron Slash! Chaos Slash! Hundred Furious Slashes – GEH?!”

One of Gubamon’s Vampire Viscount who was proficient in Swordsmanship desperately unleashed martial skills, slicing through dozens of bones, but Knochen could not be stopped, sinking his countless fangs and horns into the Vampire.

Knochen let out a roar.

It had been a Rank 7 Bone Chimera, but as the Undead Titans and Ghouls hunted monsters and brought large masses of bones to be added to it, it had become a Rank 8 Union of Bones.

This Union of Bones, which was made up of thousands of bones, had no weak points. Unless all of its bones were destroyed, defeating it with physical attacks alone would be impossible.

But the bones that made up Knochen’s body were the monster bones that Tarea’s working team couldn’t use up. They would normally be used in weapons and armor; some of them were even harder than iron.

For defeating such an enemy, no matter how one looked at it, using magic would seem more practical, but…

There’s no way I can use magic in this situation!

The Vampires would have to recite incantations while taking evasive maneuvers to avoid the Extreme Sunlight cannon’s fire, fighting off the enemies coming at them and being burned by the regular sunlight. Only those with the Chant Revocation or High-speed Thought Processing skills would be capable of this.

Even as they moved, Rapiéçage thrust the stinger attached onto her tail into the solar plexus of one of the Vampires whose movements had slowed down, and the moment the Vampire screamed, she unleashed a lethal punch to finish him.

Rapiéçage was clearly inferior to these Noble-born Vampires, but this lethal environment of sunlight had dampened the Vampires’ strength.

Isla clicked her tongue. “I will take your head, at least!”

Now that things had come to this, she had decided to take Eleanora’s head and then retreat. Too many unexpected things were happening one after another, leaving her with no other choice.

Right now, she had to think about returning with this information, even if she would be executed for not accomplishing her mission.

That was the decision Isla had made, but the fact that she was still aiming to take Eleanora’s head despite knowing the importance of returning with this information was her downfall.

Even though Isla couldn’t use magic, even though Eleanora was not suffering in the sunlight for some reason, Isla held the conceitful belief that she had the skill to defeat Eleanora. Isla’s loyalty to Ternecia and the fear of her that was even greater than that loyalty had led Isla to make this half-baked decision.

“Die!” she screamed.

She activated her Surpass Limits skill. Forcing the pain caused by the sunlight to the corner of her mind, she drew closer to Eleanora at a rapid speed. A sneer emerged on her face as she looked at Eleanora’s weapon that seemed to be a metal rod rather than a sword.

It seems that he’s chosen to prioritize defense rather than attacking and brought this prey out here, but it’s meaningless before my executioner’s sword if this fool is all you have to defend you!

Eleanora calmly cast the Acceleration spell on herself before meeting her foe, Isla, who was clearly superior to her.

Isla was a Vampire woman who had, under Ternecia’s orders, hunted down numerous traitors and Vampires who had run after failing their missions. She had even lived for tens of thousands of years. She was feared for having executed over a thousand such beings in her lifetime; she even had the special Job of Slaughtering Executioner.

Her Swordsmanship was level 10, and her other skills were high in level as well.

However, Eleanora had a vastly more fearsome master than Isla’s owner.

Your neck, from the left.

“I understand, Vandalieu-sama.”

Eleanora placed her sword to her left and braced it with all her strength in order to protect her neck.

“Dark Night Decaptiation!”

Isla unleashed an original, lethal martial skill that she had invented on her own, one that had sent the heads of even other Noble-born Vampires flying in the past, but there was a loud metallic sound as it impacted Eleanora’s sword.

Her sword stopped instead of cutting Eleanora down.

“Wha – GAH!”

Her lethal blade had been unable to cut through Eleanora’s Orichalcum sword.

Isla opened her eyes wide in disbelief as her hands went numb from the impact, causing her to drop her weapon. But there was nothing surprising about it.

Even the Sword King Borkus with the martial skills of his superior skill, the Sword King Technique, had been unable to make a single scratch on the Dragon Golem simply because it had been made of Orichalcum.

There was no way that Isla, with her level of skill, could break through the sword of Orichalcum that possessed more physical hardness than Adamantite and more flexibility than Damascus Steel.

The moment Isla saw the smile on Eleanora’s face widen, her vision was filled with white once more.

And then she screamed.

Zadiris and the others could see what was happening through light-attribute magic. As Isla’s movements stopped, they had burned her with the Extreme Sunlight Cannon, along with Eleanora.

Unable to bear it, no longer caring about her appearance, Isla attempted to escape, but her movements were as slow as a turtle’s.

This is… time-attribute magic?! It’s Eleanora! But just when did she recite the incantation?! And she’s being burnt along with me?!

Unable to do anything, by the time the Extreme Sunlight cannon’s fire ended, Isla had become a pitiful sight to behold. The expensive Magic Item she was wearing remained exactly as it was, but the skin at the parts of her body that had been exposed were black and her bones were now visible.

At once glance, one would only be able to assume that she was a burnt corpse.

“W-why…”

As a higher-Rank Noble-born Vampire that was tough and possessed high Vitality, Isla was still alive.

But what was more unbelievable was that Eleanora was unharmed despite being exposed to the same sunlight. Her skin had become a little red, but even that was quickly returning to its normal white color.

“Are you talking about my sword? Or the sunlight?” she asked, grabbing hold of Isla’s burnt, black head.

Isla gasped in pain.

“This Orichalcum sword, my resistance to sunlight, everything was given to me by Vandalieu-sama,” Eleanora told her, raising not her sword, but her white hand with its claws extended.

Isla cackled. “I see. We have been defeated. You should kill me. But you all will certainly die! Ternecia-sama will definitely avenge us!”

“That’s rather scary,” said Eleanora. “Well then, can you please fight for us as well?”

Before Isla could ask what kind of foolish nonsense Eleanora was saying, her head was cut off. Fresh blood sprayed out.

“Get up. Come here.”

Before it could hit the ground, the blood coming from Isla’s neck turned into a Blood Golem and headed for Vandalieu’s open mouth.

“How is it, Vandalieu-sama?” Eleanora asked.

Vandalieu drank the rich blood of a powerful Vampire. Before replying to Eleanora’s question, he raised his eyes to look into the empty air.

“Even after death, I will not obey a Dhampir like… I-I will obey. I will tell you whatever you want to know, so please turn me into an Undead. I will serve you with whole-hearted devotion to repay you for the favor you have done by killing me.”

“It seems that it’s simple to work with a powerless spirit before it becomes an evil spirit. It seems that she’ll cooperate with us. The blood was quite rich and delicious as well,” said Vandalieu. He looked ahead once more. “Now then, I suppose it’s about time I head out as well.”

The slaughter scene wasn’t over yet.

『The level of the Bloodsucking skill has increased!』