The Vampire Empress.

Chapter 27. Prelude to War.

The soft sound of my pen dashing through the paperwork silently echoed throughout the room. An ominous feeling crept its way up to me. I couldn’t understand what or where this ominous feeling was coming from, but it was like piercing deep into my emotions.

It was like a silver itching, my hand despite smoothly and softly drawing my signature a few moments ago suddenly started shaking for no reason. The paper was almost instantly drenched in black ink as the door suddenly slammed open to the ominous feeling where then, Iona and Felice, could be seen standing there with pale looks on their faces.

The two of them looked disheveled, almost as if they had gone into a battle, their swords looked like they were unsheathed recently. My heart rumbled for no reason as I scanned the two of them before noticing someone missing, the little girl, Ayaka was not there.

“Where is Ayaka?!” I shouted out of impulse, “WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?!”

“I…” Felice immediately kneeled down, bumping her head on the ground as she dropped her sword with a fearful gaze, shivering together with Iona, “We are sorry, my lady! The young lady was kidnapped by ten dark-hooded figures who were as skilled as most of the brigade members!”

My hand almost instantly slammed on the table as I shouted, “WHAT DID YOU SAY?!”

My entire world started to collapse, everything looked to be frozen. My body wanted to run away and find her, but my consciousness was barely stopping me from running. I didn’t know what to do… I was confused over what to do… should I get angry, should I go into a fury rage…?! My world was almost as if covered in murky, dark clouds all of a sudden.

“Aya, calm down,” a voice whispered into my ear followed by a hand that patted my shoulders, wrapping themselves around my neck as a soft head rested above mine, “You won’t be able to do anything if you were to go into a fury rage right now. The most important thing for you right now is to calm down, assess and digest the situation.”

“Bu-but…” I bit on my lips, gripping the table in front of me before heaving a deep sigh as I slammed myself to the back of the chair. I understood what she meant, entering into a fury rage would only make things worse… but my heart… felt annoyed.

“There, there. We will find our little girl soon, alright?” she continued to pat my shoulders before looking at the two with a serious gaze, “Seeing as the two of you had the guts to return back here after the incident, I can only assume the two of you found at least a single clue to the identities of the kidnapper, is that correct?”

Felice stood up and took out three badges that seemed to be a bit dusty before placing them on the table as she replied, “These were all the badges we managed to snap off from the kidnappers in an attempt to fight back, we don’t really know which organization these badges are from….”

The badges were simply a silver black badge in the shape of a shield with two engravings of a sword paired with a rose lily that made it look ominous. According to my knowledge, no kingdom in this continent used such badges nor was there any organization from what the books also said.

“Ara…” Helesta frowned, “This is quite the situation, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” All of us looked at her confused.

“The kidnappers sure are brave to attempt to try and cause a major war on the continent. Remember the war that is ongoing with another kingdom?” she looked at us with a bitter smile to which all of us nodded, “This badge matches a secret organization from the Resa Kingdom which, according to my intelligence units, is their information-gathering unit who goes around and gathers information around the continent.”

“Are you saying that the Resa Kingdom is the one who did it?!” I looked at her with a frown before she shook her head.

“The issue is these badges are not from the Resa Kingdom. To be exact, they are replica badges that are made to fool the people who have only seen the badge afar without having the chance to even hold it. The badges from the Resa Kingdom have a special spell embedded in them that makes them react to any darkness type magic, for example, mine and yours,” she responded, “The fact that these badges are not reacting to our passive mana means they aren’t genuine.”

“Why would someone…” I was about to ask before suddenly a realization came to my mind. Right, the Melaisa Kingdom is said to be in an ongoing war with the Resa Kingdom.

“That’s right. It’s quite the creative tactic to make the other kingdoms try and attack the Resa Kingdom for committing atrocious acts against another kingdom that should be passive from their war. To think that those brats dared to do it here though…” her eyes showed a flash of red for a quick second.

“Fine… so now we know which kingdom or organization is involved in this entire kidnapping situation, but how can we save Ayaka?!” I looked at her, biting onto my lips.

“You don’t have to worry about that, the little girl should be safe and is probably on the way to returning here right now. It’s a little secret of mine but I assigned several guards around each and every one of us here expecting a situation like this to occur especially considering that war is ongoing on another kingdom.”

“The kingdoms on this continent tend to love to drag others into their puny battles and I can’t afford to take the risk whenever someone important to me is suddenly taken away in danger,” she smiled before flicking her finger as ten figures with sharp horns peeking through their masks appeared out of thin air, almost like magic.

All of us were surprised as even someone who has plentiful of cheats like me couldn’t even detect a single one of them approaching. Helesta was the only one who was calm about the situation as she asked, “What is the situation with the person who I told the others to protect, is she doing alright?”

“Ophelia and Rose’s units were in charge of protecting the young lady, both units were actively watching when the incident happened and are now following closely on the kidnappers who seemed to be heading towards the forest. They are still going to wait until their hideout is found before taking action, as per protocol, Your Majesty,” all of the figures kneeled before this stunningly, beautiful and majestic version of Helesta.

Hearing the report made me feel a bit relieved inside. The storm raging inside my heart was quelled to a tiny extent but the anger that resided inside of me was welling as I thought of the kingdom that tried to kidnap Ayaka… the sole thought of Ayaka being kidnapped made me feel angry, not just at others but also at myself.

I prided myself in being strong both physically and mentally, yet… I was unable to prevent such a situation from happening. I wasn’t even prepared for such a situation to happen. I was too confident, way too overconfident that she would be safe as long as she was within the town’s vicinity.

“Go catch up to the units and tell them not to dispose of the kidnappers, leave some evidence before heading to the Prime Minister of the Kingdom and also to the King of this Kingdom and give them a short brief.”

“Also tell the Prime Minister to announce that the Demon Kingdom will declare a full-fledged war against the Kingdom of Melaisa for breaking the continental isolated war protocol and causing chaos upon the continent,” she said in a single breath, causing the air around us to be tense.

All ten figures saluted before vanishing out of thin air as if they never existed in the first place. I looked at Helesta who simply smiled at me before continuing to hug me as she showed a childish look, “How was it, did I look good like that?”

“You?” I chuckled, “Not a single bit good. Though about that declaration of war… are you serious about it, won’t that cause some damages to your kingdom even if the Melaisa kingdom doesn’t hold a candle to yours… it will still cause lives to be lost on your side.”

“Don’t worry about that. We have protocols for situations like this. To be exact, we aren’t the ones who will be fighting the war but rather, we’d be the ones who will aid the Kingdom of Resa in firepower and defenses,” she smiled, “The Demon Kingdom is far too large to engage in a war which is why the continental protocol has declared that we are only able to engage in a war as long as we are only aiding a side and not participating in it actively unless we were the ones provoked first.”

“I did want to go there and demolish the kingdom for attempting to harm our little girl but keeping peace in this continent is also an utmost priority for me, sorry…” she continued to snuggle my back. I understood her situation, she was from what I was told, the strongest person in this continent… basically, a walking catastrophe.

Even though I couldn’t exact my revenge on the kingdom, knowing that the Kingdom of Melaisa will still reach its demise makes me feel a bit better…

Amidst my thoughts, she looked at Iona and Felice with a wry smile, “The two of you should stop kneeling on the floor, rather, go and isolate yourselves in the meantime. Think of what you can do if ever a situation like such would happen again.”

The two of them both nodded before heading to their respective rooms as Helesta looked at me with a smile, kissing me on the cheeks as she said, “Let’s go prepare a meal for our little girl, she would be hungry once she comes back from a tiring situation like this.”

Unconsciously, my cheeks blushed before I nodded softly as the two of us walked to the kitchen and started preparing a meal… unbeknownst to me that a storm of anger was actually rising inside of the seemingly calm Helesta.