บท 46: Chapter Forty Six: Talking with the Princess
Lucas as well as the Reogradia forces look to see two individuals floating over the carriage. The first is a young woman with long black hair down to her knees, pale skin, scarlett eyes, and pointed ears. She wears a beautiful red dress with accents of black, that leaves her stomach exposed, and with a cape-like bottom goes well past her feet. She also wears high heel boots with the same color scheme, along with black stockings. Thin, black gloves that cover from her fingertips almost to her elbows. She wears a dark-colored ring over the middle finger of her right glove, a thin black tiara with a red jewel in the center, and a pair of ruby earrings.
The other individual has golden armor that completely blocks his bodily features. The armor he wears resembles golden scales and his helmet looks similar to that of a fierce dragon. Each of the fingers of his gauntlets come to a blade-like point at the end, giving it the appearance of sinister-looking claws. In his right hand, he carries a large katana with a black blade, a golden guard, and a long white handle.
With a wave of her hand, the mysterious woman summons multiple spears made of beautiful crimson flames, and sends them into the enemy forces. Upon contact, the fire spears erupt into pillars of flame, incinerating their targets on the spot. Within a few seconds, all of the Reogradia knights and mages are wiped out, leaving little more than a burn mark behind. Eris and Hadrian then land in front of Lucas, and turn to face him.
Eris chuckles and says, "Wow, they really beat the hell out of ya didn't they."
A vile filled with a green liquid appears in Eris' hand and she tosses it at the young knight, "Is this… a healing potion?"
"Indeed," Lucas glares at the vampire and her servant, and senising his unease, Eris responds, "If I wanted you and the little girl inside that carriage dead, I would've killed you already."
Lucas sighs before gulping down the potion. Eris then moves towards him and quickly tears out the two arrows lodged in his body, allowing him to heal quickly, "Who are you two? Are you from Rimore?"
"You could say that. We are from Rimore, but currently we don't have any ties with the vampire kingdom," says Eris, "Now it's my turn for a question. Who are you two?"
The young princess slowly opens the door to the carriage, "Princess, it's not safe."
"It's like they said, Lucas. If they wanted us dead, we would be by now," says the young girl before turning towards Eris, "Thank you for defending my life and the life of my best knight. My name is Valery Amir, daughter of Gregoron Amir, and the third princess of the Mikhail Kingdom. This is my trusted bodyguard, Lucas Aeron."
"Oh? I believe I've heard of you. You're the princess that's a heavy supporter of the pro-peace faction with Rimore, if I'm not mistaken."
"Indeed. We were on a mission when we got attacked by the theocracy."
"I figured as much. Oh, where are my manners? My name is Eris Vermillion. The one in golden armor is Hadrian Dragonclaw."
"It's a pleasure. Forgive me, but I don't recognize your name. Did the Bloodstar family send you to meet with us in their stead?"
"I see. You were the ones that were supposed to meet with Serena and her parents. Unfortunately, the head of the Bloodstar family has been killed, along with his wife," Eris answers with a solemn tone.
Valery's eyes widen in shock as her expression turns to one of sadness, "No… they're dead? What happened?"
"The same thing that was about to happen to you. They were silenced by Reogradia. Serena was lucky enough to get away in time, and that's when I ran into her and saved her. She's currently training within my castle."
"I'm glad that Serena's alive. I met her once before and she seemed very nice. Wait, you saved her? Could I see her, please?"
Eris shakes her head, "Sorry, Serena might know you, but I don't. I can't fully trust you at this point," Valery looks down in sadness and Eris continues, "That being said, I believe that we should move somewhere else. The theocracy is smart. I doubt they'll send in a force without a backup plan in place."
Eris looks around with her familiars and notices that there's an abandoned village not far from their current location. After discussing it, the four of them release the horses, bury the dead knights, and move to the small town. It doesn't seem like it had been abandoned for long as most of the buildings are still in pristine condition. There's a mild amount of growth on the houses, but other than that, nothing that gives Eris the impression that the town was abandoned long ago. Then she finds the carcauses of farm animals spread out over what was once the fields. Then she finds a few farm houses that are destroyed and that seem to have claw marks on them. The four of them now sit in what was once the village meeting hall.
"This village must have had a monster problem," Eris says.
"Indeed. This village was once bustling with people, but then an ogre along with a group of orcs attacked. Eventually some hunters had to be called in to deal with it. But even now that the problem is dealt with, the villagers refuse to come back here," Valery answers
"It doesn't surprise me, considering what I've read about the... 'habits' of orcs and ogres," answers Eris with a disgusted expression, "I'm guessing that there were a few women taken?"
"You guessed correctly," answers Lucas.
"And when you found them?" asks Hadiran.
"They had completely lost the will to live," the human knight answers.
"Again, I figured as much. By the way, what's a hunter?" Eris asks.
"They're basically mercenaries, but they have a bit more freedom," Valery responds.
"You don't know what a hunter is? Who are you two exactly?" Lucas asks.
"I guess I might as well tell you, since you'll probably hear from me again in the future. Like I said before, my name is Eris Vermillion, and I'm the progenitor. The first vampire to ever exist and the strongest vampire on the planet. I've come to take over the kingdom of Rimore and save the vampire race," she says with confidence.
"No way," says Valery with a shocked expression, "So the prophecy was true? You're really the progenitor?!"
"That's right. I'm going to stop Reogradia before they destroy my race. However, before I do that, I need to increase my number of allies."
"Why do you say that? You were easily able to wipe out twenty of their best men in a split second," Lucas says.
"I did. However, I recently faced an army of them and they had some black crystal with them that I didn't recognize. When they used it, I was almost overwhelmed and defeated by the creature it summoned."
"The theocracy has a weapon that strong? Well that's not good. If the weapon is as strong as you say it is, then that'll make the surrounding nations even more fearful of them. And they'll use that power to pressure the other nations," says Lucas.
"That was my thinking as well. But as long as I and my subordinates are around, you'll have something that can counter those crystals, whatever they are. Right now, I'm just trying to get a grasp on the situations of the other countries."
"Well it's not good for any of us. My father also doesn't like the war between us and the vampires, but because of the pressure from Reogradia as well as some of our more powerful nobles accepting their beliefs, there's not much he can do about it," Valery says sadly.
Eris sighs, "Then I guess that there's no other option then to engage the theocracy directly. But if we do that, then the vampires might get an even worse reputation as the monsters that destroyed an entire country. Damn it! If we could somehow reveal the atrocities of Reogradia then maybe we can get the sympathy of other countries."
"Empress, even if we could get their sympathy, I highly doubt we'd be able to get them free of the theocracy's influence," says Hadrian, "After all, if the theocracy is as smart as we think they are, they could have spies imbedded in many different nation, they could be paying off nobels, hell, they could even be controlling a country's underworld. For all we know, they can destroy every country on this continent in one night and we'd never even see them coming."
"Our only option at this point is to root out the seeds of corruption. It can't be done overnight, but if we can take away Reogradia's influence, then we'll be able to isolate them. After that, Eris can spearhead the movement against the theocracy. And after defeating a wicked nation seeking to control the whole world, the vampire's reputation will be improved."
The entire room falls silent as the three stare wide-eyed at the princess after finishing her words, "That is actually a great idea," says Eris with a smile, "I thought that you'd just be another idealistic rich girl, but you're actually pretty cunning aren't you?"
The princess gains a confused expression, "Huh? Wait… did I… say that out loud?"
Lucas face-palms, "Yes you did."
Valery's face becomes flushed red, "Ah, forgive me."
"I don't see why we need to forgive you. It's a kick-ass plan," says Eris with a crooked eye.
"You see, her highness has a bad habit of blurting out whatever pops into her head. Sometimes they're smart, somtimes they're dumb, somtimes they're subtle, and somtimes they're flat out blunt. She gets embarrassed when she does this because it's gotten her into trouble on several occasions, both with her father, and with some nobles. Ha, there's this one time where we were meeting with a noble and she accidentally called him fa…"
"AAHH hey!! You don't need to tell her that!!" Valery shouts with an embarrassed expression and tone.
Eris and Lucas laugh at the princess' reaction and then the four of them go back to their original topic, "What the princess proposed is a good plan. But how would we go about doing it?" Hadrian asks.
"Hmm… I got an idea. How about you register as a hunter," suggests Lucas.
"If I do that in your kingdom then I risk getting attacked the moment I step into the city," says Eris with a blank expression.
"Then just wear a mask or helmet that hides your vampiric features. There's a rule saying that you can't look into a hunter's past, and not even Reogradia can affect the rules of the hunters guild. If you or your subordinates infiltrate the kingdom, you can investigate yourselves," says the princess.
"Are you sure about that? You know that we're technically enemies right? Are you sure that you're fine with a vampire and others running around your kingdom and tearing it up?"
"How can we be enemies if we're fighting for and want the same thing?" Valery asks in response to Eris' words.
The vampire chuckles, "Good point. Huh?!" Eris suddenly receives another link from one of her familiars and opens it to find more theocracy forces surrounding the village, "We have company."
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