15.0

Somewhere from within the dungeon where Team Rectiser was imprisoned, a door swung open, filling the space with a loud bang.

Beyond the door that opened were rampant voices of cheering, screaming, and moaning. Whatever horrible noise the vampires made, all of it came blasting into the silent dungeon the moment the doors swung open.

Immediately, John and Aurelius placed their backs against the walls, taking great care to hide from any possible detection.

“What’s going on…?” Aurelius mumbled as he looked to John in surprise.

John simply placed a hand on his lips and indicated for his wolfkin friend to keep his silence.

“Hey, assholes!!! Having a great night?”

A loud voice greeted.

“Ugggh…stop rubbing it in our faces, idiot. It’s just our luck that Lieutenant Naild brought in a few human scum and we have to be here until the next shift arrives.”

“Yeah, them useless humans. They aren’t that strong, anyway. I don’t understand why captain hasn’t executed them already.”

Hearing the complaints from the other two, the first voice made a grunt of triumph, “There is a party ongoing, the captain is currently busy and the lieutenant is resting.... I thought you lot could use a break or two.”

Screech!!!

The sound of two chairs skidding filled the room. No doubt the two excited guards jumped at the news their fellow vampire brought.

“If that’s the case, we must go!!! Let’s enjoy ourselves before—”

“Ah, ah, ah… Before we leave, my friends, isn’t there something you two should do for me as a show of your gratitude? The other guys told me to keep you guys here so that they can have more of the service girls to themselves…”

Shing, cling, ding.

The sound of coins being furiously dug from pockets, then placed onto a pair of hands, resounded clearly in the dungeon. Apparently, such information to those two guards was warrant of such immediate ‘payment’.

“Thank you, gentlemen.”

“Don’t sweat it. You always come through for us. This much is nothing. Come on, let’s go before we waste anymore time,” one of the voices chirped, seemingly accustomed to such exchanges.

“And what about the new guy, Umer? Aren’t you two going to invite him too?”

“That bum? Ha!” one of the guards spat mockingly. “We’ve put him to watch the human females. He must have fallen asleep by now.”

“Don’t bother. You won’t get a single coin out of him. Let’s go.”

At that, the three vampires closed the doors to the dungeon and left for whatever ‘party’ that was on the outside. Leaving John and Aurelius, who lurked in the dark hallways to resume their activities.

“Aurelius, aside from the two guards that left, can you detect anyone else in the dungeon? That, Umer vampire, can you smell where he is.”

The beastkin’s nose twitched in the air shortly before speaking, “He’s around the corner…” then his eyes grew wide, “John, they were right, Matilda and Cacti are with him, they are nearby!”

“What about the others? Is there any other...vampire guards around aside from that one?” John spat out the last part as he unsheathed his mythril sword.

“I don’t hear any movement, no voices, no other active scents.”

“Hmm,” putting a hand underneath his chin, the gears in John’s mind rotated as he figured out the best course of action to take. “Can you retrieve everyone’s weapons alone?”

“Yes, they should be…” Aurelius’ nose twitched again, “They are about a few hundred meters to our right. Matilda and Cacti are just the path ahead of us, climb the spiral stairs and they should be just above.”

John’s eyes darted back and forth from where Aurelius pointed to, “Alright, I think we should split up. You get the weapons, I’ll go get the girls, the security here isn’t exactly tight. My sword can cut through steel. I can free them easily, and if needed, kill the Umer vampire.”

“You’re going alone?”

“Yeah, it’ll be faster this way.”

“I’ll come right after I retrieved the—”

“No, I will be fine. Focus on carrying everyone else’s weapons back. Bran and Kirk are defenseless. We’ll need everyone equipped if we want to leave this place, who knows what awaits us outside after we all leave.”

“Are you sure about this, John?” sensing something behind John’s stubborn decision, the wolfkin cocked his head. “I’ll—"

“Yes. We’ll save time.”

It was just he and Aurelius’ luck at the exact moment they left Bran and Kirk to retrieve the weapons and the girls, the guards that were in charge of the dungeons ditched their duties to go party.

He chalked it up to pure dumb luck that such a thing happened.

Even so, he had to be diligent, for the wild screams of joy and moaning he heard when the doors from above opened to call for the guards, told him all he needed to know what kind of debauchery took place in this den belonging to the vampires.

“Go straight back to Bran after this!”

With that said to the wolfkin, John and Aurelius split up.

He ran towards the spiral stairs that were before him, climbing it as the waves of his rampant thoughts swirled in his mind.

Splitting up with Aurelius would save them time and speed up their escape. John could have, and should have had Aurelius follow him along to free Matilda and Cacti if he wanted to be safe from Umer, the vampire who was guarding them.

But he had one selfish reason to go alone.

He had to see the monster for himself, alone.

His legs stopped when he reached the end of the stairs.

There he is...

At the very end of the hallway, a malnourished vampire with a pair of sharp fangs and pointed ears snored away like nobody’s business on a wooden chair. His skin, as pale as milk, the nails that protruded from his fingertips, those were the very sort of claws that had mauled his family…the Harvests…

The grip on John’s sword tightened. His breath had once again, became shallow upon the sight of the vampire.

“Should I kill him?” he asked himself as he took slow steady steps towards the sleeping monster before him.

Thump.

His heart pounded against his rib cage as John closed the distance between himself and the sleeping vampire.

Unaware of John’s looming presence, Umer the vampire looked so peaceful in his sleep, so benign that it could fool John if someone told him the vampires were pacifists.

John can’t help but wonder if his desire to end Umer’s life was an emotional response from what happened to the Harvests.

Sure, he had killed a few monsters when he was back in A’vetheas. Choosing to kill the three men back when he was with the Elven Princess on the night prior to his banishment. He was certain that ended the lives of the three men with the sole goal of protecting the Elven Princess.

He only acted such because his life, and the things he carried about, were at stake during then. Consciously deciding to kill someone was not something that came to him easily.

Even when Prishine kidnapped him, against his better judgment, John held back from sliding the entirety of his arming sword into the succubus’ heart. He knew that murder was not to be taken lightly. He understood that once a life was taken, there would be no undoing his actions.

This is a vampire… They killed my family, it is only…f-fair.

Until this far in his life, he truly never bore the desire to kill, even Alwin Zinrelle, who had betrayed him. John still had thoughts that the elf might have been better off if the Elder Dragon had left him alive.

Did he believe in redemption for the most sinful? Or was he simply too afraid to destroy a known evil entity?

John could not make out an answer for his hesitance to kill.

But now, staring at the living, breathing vampire before him, John, who had borne the grudge against vampires for taking his family away from him, felt no desire to end the monster.

What purpose will it serve? A vampire guard like this certainly does not look like the type that could escape the detection of someone like Fester Aquila, the prior hero of the empire, or even quake the boots of orichalum adventurers.

Certainly, the vampires that were responsible for massacre in Parac Village were far more powerful and far more skilled that a lowly guard like Umer the vampire.

The longer he stared at the vampire before him, a low boiling hatred appeared from the depths of his heart. He was unsure whether it was fear, anguish, shame, or the combination of all the above.

Yet, one thing was clear, the existence of vampires like the one in front of him was the reason Parac Village—was why the Harvests were taken away from him overnight.

B-but…it’s my right…to kill them…

From young, John tamed his lust for the opposite sex, he had full control over his mind and his thoughts, he learned restraint and discipline for the sake of others, he even honed his once unfit, obese body and slimmed down to the hunk figure he had today—under the provocation of the Elven Princess but that’s a story he rather not think too deeply of now.

He was, he used to be, the master of his own mind and body. And now, he could feel his discipline slowly deteriorate and nudged him to embrace his animalistic nature.

In this very moment, in his very first encounter with a vampire, he felt his bones trembling, he felt heat surging through his blood, a tame boiling rage was building, edging to overtake him, to give in to his passionate emotions.

To let the dark aura flow through him and eliminating the sleeping vampire.

“John? Is that you?”

“H-how did y-you find us?”

Matilda and Cacti’s voice rang in his ears, dragging John back to reality from his waning thoughts. John immediately jerked in response to their voices, his eyes blinking rapidly.

T-that’s right, I was supposed to bring them back before anyone finds out!

“I…” throwing a glance at the sleeping vampire, John brought a finger to his lips the two girls. “Stand back.”

Once Matilda and Cacti retreated, John raised his sword. With a few swift strikes with his mythril sword, he successfully sliced the lock on the cell door without making so much of a noise.

Freed from imprisonment, the two girls stepped out from their cell.

“Where’s Bran, Aurelius and my brother?”

“Down, we are leaving this place quick. I already have Aurelius retrieve everyone’s weapons. There’s a secret passage. We have to leave before anyone knows we are gone.”

“T-thank the A-angels you…” Cacti tried to speak, but held herself back as she placed a hand against her head.

A huge bruise upon Cacti’s forehead with several read streaks that undoubtedly were once open wounds. Matilda must have used healing magic on her, but like Kirk, the healing arts were not her specialty.

Instinctively, John used [Heal] as he moved his hands towards Cacti’s forehead, abating the wound, “Save your energy, we can talk later. We leave now.”

With the two girls in front of him, the three of them went down the spiral stairs without making a noise.

“Go, go, go. Just go straight to the open cell, turn towards the wall on your left. Bran and Kirk are hiding a hidden passage I came from.” John instructed the two girls as he looked to his side, checking the empty corridor to his left for Aurelius whether his friend finished retrieving Team Rectiser’s weapons.

What laid on the corridor to his side was an emptied vault, and down the passage that he and the girls were walking towards, came Aurelius, who was waving at them with his gray tail wagging happily in the distance.

Seeing how cheerful the beastkin was, John’s heavy heart lighten a bit.

Whatever notion he had regarding vampires and what they did to the Harvests was pushed to aside.

He would have plenty of time to think about the vampires later. Once Team Rectiser made it back to the academy facility in Meastes safely, John had all the time in the world to think his way through—

“A-Aurelius?” it was at Cacti’s frightful squeak, John snapped from his thoughts.

The wolfkin had vanished direct their line of sight.

“Cacti, where is—?”

Clang!!!

From behind John, the sound of loud metallic clashing resounded brightly in his ears.

“No…” a pained whispered escaped John’s lips when he saw the scene before him.

“Get away...from...them!!!”

A pair of sharp fangs had dug deep into Aurelius’ shoulders where fresh blood could be seen trickling down from the incision. The wolfkin’s twin scimitars, one pushed against the assailant’s rapier that was aiming for John’s heart, another dug into the assailant’s stomach.

It was the vampire stationed to guard Cacti and Matilda from earlier.

The one that John allowed to live.

The vampire named Umer.

John’s heart thumped loudly.

The fearful expression in Matilda and Cacti’s eyes, the horrifying expression that the vampire had in his eyes, the pained expression that Aurelius was showing.

It was almost as if this was the reenactment murder of the Harvest siblings.

For a moment, his breath stopped.

Aurelius' face was replaced with Miril’s boyish looks, Matilda became Mera, and Cacti embodied little Meli.

I… This… I…can’t… I’m…

“Go!!!”

“!!!”

It was at Aurelius’ deafening shout did John reverted to himself, pushing the two girls with his arms. John nudged Matilda and Cacti towards their destination.

“You two, go to where Bran and Kirk are. Hurry!!!”

John wasted no time and turned back to where the vampire and Aurelius were. He drew his arming sword, grasping it horizontally with his two hands as he charged at the vampire’s exposed neck.

Sensing that John was drawing closer to him, Umer the vampire released Aurelius from his fangs and pushed the wolfkin in John’s direction in an attempt to negate John’s frontal charge.

Fully expecting that, John slid his body and redirected his sword away from Aurelius who was sent in his way, making past his friend.

“Hah!!!”

With his upper body strength and the dexterity of a snake, John sent his arming sword into the vampire, successfully maiming Umer the vampire’s torso, splitting the vampire’s flex.

Pant, pant, pant...

The vampire retreated until his back collided against a wall, all the while keeping a fervent gaze at John.

“You let them go…human. Do you understand what you’ve done?” Umer growled at John as he raised his rapier in a defensive position as the wound John delivered regenerated.

“Don’t know, don’t care…” John muttered as he used [Heal] on the wolfkin. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

“Kill me? A vampire? Ha, you naive human, I don’t know where you’ve come from but...”

Not waiting for Umer to finish, John charged at the vampire once more. This time, he opted for a simple thrust at the vampire’s heart. He was not about to let the vampire buy more time to recover from his attack.

Krak!

His aim struck true.

Sliding past Umer, the vampire’s rib cage, John felt as his sword pierced through something soft, yet elastic as he watched the vampire lost all the strength to talk.

“...no one can defeat ...the Sovereign…”

Even with Umer’s fading breath, John was yet to back down. Instead, he twisted his sword against the vampire’s chest, mincing up the flesh and grinded it into mince before he pulled his weapon from the vampire’s chest cavity.

“Aurelius!!!” John called as he went to where Aurelius had fallen, immediately crouching his body as he pulled the beastkin’s arm across his shoulders.

“Ack...ack… T-that was quite the tenacity, John,” Aurelius spoke weakly as John helped him to stand.

“Wait...your body still needs to recover,” John said as he administered [Heal] with silent casting as he helped Aurelius back to where the others were. “That vampire sucked your blood and possibly your life force, even [Heal] can’t restore those things.”

“Ahahaha…you don’t have to worry about that, especially the second— Ack, ack, ack!!! Ack!”

Aurelius continued to cough despite the blue aura of [Heal] surrounded the wolkin’s chest, causing John to lower his brow in suspicion.

That’s weird. Why is he doing that? His blood supply hasn’t been fully restored, but [Heal] should stop his coughing. I mean, it saved me from the Elder Dragon’s attack in Reperane Woods. There’s no way it cannot handle a simple cough—

“John, Aurelius!!!”

Kirk came bursting from the secret passage with his armor and weapons fully equipped on him.

“Where’s the assailant?” Kirk, who woke up from his nap, asked, “Why is wolf boy...this?” Kirk vaguely gestured at Aurelius with his hands.

“I’m fine. Thanks to John.” Aurelius spoke as he detached from John, recovered from the rampant coughs that he was ridden with a moment ago. “John already dealt with the guy. How’s your rest?”

“Not bad, not bad. I can use more when we get out of this hellhole.”

So they do get along… John thought to himself as he watched Aurelius and Kirk strike up a conversation like it was nothing.

Creak...

The metal doors to the entrance of the dungeon swung open. However, unlike the last time, there were no elated voices or rampant music playing in the background.

All that entered John’s ears was dead silence.

A silence so cold that John could swear the blood in his veins slowed down the moment the metallic doors swung open.

This is not good.

“Aurelius, we have to—”

The moment John was about to warn his friends, long thick fingers pressed against his throat as if it threatened to crush him should he make another noise.

As if his body weight of 72 kilograms were paperweight, John was lifted from where he stood by the hand that had a hold on him.

Argk...argk...a-argk…

“Have to leave? Why? When the captain is holding a party for all of you,” a man’s bitter voice said to John, casting a crimson stare at the out of breath John.

“John!!!”

“Let go of him!”

Aurelius drew one of his scimitars while Kirk readied a spell.

The man raised a hand and halted the two of them on the spot, “Don’t move, or I’ll crush him the moment you do.”

Seeing the state that John was in, Aurelius and Kirk had no choice but to comply.

“Now, if you would, I would like to know how this friend of yours found his way to you.”

“I…”

“We don’t know…” Kirk immediately answered for both of them. “He just appeared before you came in.”

“Hmm? Is that so?” placed a hand underneath his chin to think, but quickly detached from his chin and pointed to Kirk’s body, “Is that the lie you will go with when Captain Rabugra asks you?”

…

…

…

An unnerving silence flooded the room as the vampire stood solemn. The monster’s gaze was so sharp that Aurelius and Kirk dared not to look away in fear that John might get hurt.

Cold sweat asunder their backs.

The vampire's nose twitched, seemingly to have caught on to something.

He must have picked up everyone else’s scent.

After all, the other members of Team Rectiser were just behind the wall to the vampire’s left.

“[Illuminate]!!!”

A blinding white light flashed before everyone’s eyes. Following that, the sound of metal whipped through the air, the sound of flesh being torn came after.

“Argggh!!!! Y-you lowly, pathetic, insolent, human child!!!” the vampire screeched as he took a few steps back from the attack, covering his right eye as he dropped John to the ground.

“Aurelius, Kirk, we have to go, now!!!” John commanded his two friends as his wide back faced against theirs, his mythril sword drawn and trickling with blood.

“J-John, w-what…”

Before Kirk could say something, John shoved Kirk into the secret passage.

Just like back he stuck with the ethereal people, John cast [Illuminate] as his last gamble.

He reckoned it might not work given meeting the ethereal people and Elijah Harvest might have been the work of his sheer imagination or some eerie magic field he walked into, but given the circumstances, it was either [Illuminate] or use the dark aura magic.

And picking from his two options was a no brainer.

Though still taken aback that his imaginary magic—not so imaginary now that it successfully blinded whoever was caught in it—John grabbed at Aurelius arms, used all his upper body strength in his attempts to shove his beastkin friend to where everyone else was.

“[Grim Suppression]!!!” the vampire, though blinded, had overheard what John spoke and acted before John could.

Immediately, the surrounding air condensed, creating a pressure from all around John and Aurelius, squeezing them with the force of a hundred tonnes.

“Return to w-whence it’s origins once w-was, [S-spellcaster’s Reversal]!”

As John and Aurelius buckled under the vampire’s dire spell, Cacti from within the hidden passage counteracted the effects of [Grim Supression] and redirected it back towards the vampire, causing the vampire to fall upon his knees like John and Aurelius did.

“Well done, Cacti!” Kirk praised the short girl.

“Come on,” Bran stretched his arms to help John and Aurelius—

The vampire opened his mouth.

“[S-stony Barrier].”

In the gap where John and where the hidden passage was, a solid brick wall erected and fully covered the only escape route for John and Aurelius.

“[Message] to Captain Rabugra, [Message] to Captain Rabugra, this is Sergeant Sakrut, we have a breech in the lower levels, four inmates have escaped with the help of an outsider, requesting backup—”

Ack…

John plunged his sword in to the vampire’s throat, stopping Sergeant Sakrut from speaking while Aurelius delivered fatal lacerations to the vampire's body, slicing up the vampire before John send yet another thrust at the vampire’s heart to ensure that their enemy was truly dead.

“…”

John remained silent as he watched Sergeant Sakrut’s body stop moving before him, all the while twisting his sword at where the vampire’s heart was at to fully grind it into nothing but meat paste.

The old saying, ‘a stake through a vampire’s heart’ was common among the folklore he read about vampires. Like all myths, it contained a nugget of truth, but it was not direct to only the vampire race as a whole.

In actuality, the saying it was a metaphor to for the common people, where the term ‘vampire’ meant enemy, and ‘a stake through the heart’ referred to showing no mercy nor leniency to them.

One must utterly destroy their enemies to prevent any unwanted repercussions that might come with weakness.

That was why he had no qualms when he killed the three men who wanted to defile Raina Valindra Eridi back then.

It was why he felt relief more than sorrow when Alwin, who betrayed him, was vanquished by the Elder Dragon in Reperane Woods. It was also why he went for the kill when Sergeant Sakrut tried to kill him.

But now...

All that flooded his mind was guilt, guilt that would eat away in his mind the longer Aurelius and he remained stuck in these dungeons.

In his moment of weakness when freeing Matilda and Cacti, he hesitated to kill Umer, the vampire who was on guard duty, simply because he pitied the vampire. He pitied the vampire for having left behind by his fellow kind.

John pitied the vampire who would have died by his own hand simply because of his hatred for the vampire race.

That was why he hesitated.

And now, he would pay the price for his hesitation.

The vampires are enemies.

Ground tremors could be heard from beyond the room, no doubt, a large group of vampires must have been deployed to capture him and Aurelius at Sargent Sakrut’s [Message].

It was his fault. Like what happened to the Harvests, though he did not directly cause it, John certainly was the catalyst for jeopardizing Aurelius’ safety.

This time, he would not allow history to repeat itself...

No more.

John pulled his arming sword from Sergeant Sakrut’s corpse, whisked whatever blood that was on his weapon and assumed a stance at where the sound of footsteps was growing larger.

...and if needed be, he will use the dark magic that he had been staving away ever since his exile from A’vetheas.

“Bran and the others left,” Aurelius, who had his ear planted against the wall that Sergeant Sakrut summoned, declared to John. “They wanted to break through it, but the wall was lined with some form of anti-explosion. Bran tried using avatar magic, and Kirk, acid magic, but none of it made any progress. They told me they are going to get help as soon as they exit.”

“That’s fine. It’s better if they leave. They don’t have to deal with these monsters.” John said as he used [Heal] on Aurelius with silent casting to best prepare his wolfkin friend for what was about to come. “You heard it too, right? The others…they are coming.”

“Yes,” Aurelius replied grimly as brought out his two scimitars. “I think we can take them, escaping though...that’s a different story, ha.”

“Aurelius…” John breathed.

“Hmm?” the wolfkin cocked his head and looked at his friend.

“I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”

“What are you talking about? How is this your fault? You are the one who came to save me…“

John shook his head softly, “These are vampires of old, the ones you read in stories… The undead blood drinkers, the reaper of man, the higher up they are in the hierarchy, the more powerful they become. To where there exist powerful ones that rival a hero’s strength.”

John took a deep breath looked to Aurelius.

“And these are the very monsters that massacred my family.”