"I can't believe it." Rafaela was staring at the vampire knights in amazement. "You really defeated Yvonne and her hunter tribe. You really wiped out every single one of them!"
"It's all thanks to Lady Eleanor and his majesty." Larson bowed toward us. "If it wasn't for their strategy, it would have been difficult to break into their fortress in Gallagher Town…and even if we did, they would have escaped through the network of tunnels below it."
"She didn't even leave any of her hunters to guard the fortress. Not even a token force. She left the security to her slaves and servants while bringing out her entire tribe to have fun." Eleanor sounded stupefied. "This Yvonne, is she crazy? Or does she not know how to run a fortress?"
"What about the children?" I asked. The hunter tribe should have children and elderly left behind somewhere. Several of the elders did show up in the forest, veteran hunters who hunted alongside their younger brethren, but they had been exterminated.
Even so, there still had to be elders too old and frail too hunt, as well as the hunters' children. I wasn't going to leave any loose ends. Even though it might come across as ruthless…
No, perhaps there might be a better way of handling things.
"The children and elders are all gathered in Gallagher Town," Stella reported. "We've infiltrated with agents and found them."
She looked at me disapprovingly.
"We are not going to kill them all, are we? Even though their tribe is…like that, the children are innocent."
"But we can't leave loose ends. They might come back and take revenge on us. Our mercy might come back to haunt us."
Larson also had a point. Even so, I was inclined to agree with Stella. I wasn't a saint, but I wasn't so monstrous that I would slaughter innocent children just to feel safe at night.
Then again, I wasn't a saint. I might as well come up with a less insidious but no less dishonest measure.
"We just need to make sure they never find out the truth," I replied, nodding to Larson. He saluted immediately.
"We will all take blood vows to ensure everyone keeps this a secret, if necessary."
"That will not be necessary. I trust you all. You handpicked these knights, didn't you, Larson? I'll trust your judgment."
Larson's chest swelled up with pride and he bowed.
"Thank you, my liege."
"Hmm, so what kind of story will you concoct?" Eleanor asked, a smile crossing over her pretty face.
"The greatest lies are those with a hint of truth in them," I replied with a grin. "They went for a hunt, didn't they? Just tell the children and everyone in the south that the hunters ended up being hunted by something in the forest. No, even better. Just tell them that all the hunters went into the forest and never came out again. It's the truth, after all. As for us…nobody knows what happened to the hunters, except that they disappeared."
"Sounds like a good idea." Eleanor nodded. "I like that plan. To add on a bit of things, we don't have to tell them anything. We'll just be visitors. They can find out for themselves and put the pieces together. As long as we stay silent on the matter, it's not as if they'll find any evidence to link us to it."
"Great idea," I agreed. "We'll do that then. I'll just say I managed to survive the forest and get out of it after the twenty-four hours were up. I'll stumble into the town, asking for help. If they ask me, I don't know anything. I spent the whole day in the forest running away, and I didn't see even a single hunter."
"We'll go with that then. Then we'll pick you up in a day or two." Eleanor nodded.
With my vampire knights keeping their distance, I hurried toward Gallagher Town. The servants, without anybody to order them, didn't know what to do. They watched from above the gates while I pretended to collapse outside.
"Help," I croaked. "I finally survived and escaped the forest. But I couldn't find anyone else. Just give me some water and a place to stay for the night…Lady Yvonne agreed to let me go if I survived the forest for a day. If she's back here, you can ask her if you don't believe me."
The servants looked at each other uneasily, but they clearly didn't have the authority to make any decisions.
To my surprise, it was an elderly hunter who emerged to give orders.
"Kill him!" she snarled, jabbing her walking stick in my direction. My eyes widened.
"What?! But Lady Yvonne promised…!"
"I don't care what the mistress promised! It has nothing to do with us! She's missing now…I'm betting that you killed her or someone killed her." she shrugged nonchalantly before smiling. "Which is fine, because it means I can succeed as a leader!"
"Hey! Who died and made you the leader?" This time, it was an old man who hobbled out, protesting at the old lady's declaration. They began to argue, even as more of the elderly hunters and children hunters came out to watch.
After a moment, the hunters stopped arguing when they realized I was still there. The elderly lady gestured angrily toward the servants.
"What are you waiting for?! Kill him!"
"But…" the servants looked baffled. "How do we do that? We don't have weapons."
Apparently, the hunters were worried about a rebellion, so they never equipped their staff with any weapons.
"Ugh! Do we have to do everything ourselves?" all the elderly hunters notched their arrows to their bows and aimed at me. I couldn't help but stare at them in astonishment.
"What the?! Are you serious?"
"Just die!" the hunters gloated and released their arrows. They were trying to kill me for no reason. I honestly didn't understand it. They were…they were not behaving like normal, rational human beings. It was almost as if they were caricatures, designed to embody the most exaggerated traits of villains. Being evil for evil's sake, just so nobody would feel bad when the main character slaughtered them.
This made no sense whatsoever.
Whatever the case, I had no intention of dying right here and now. So instead I conjured an ice shield to protect myself.
"How dare you defend yourself?!" the elderly hunters raged, frothing at their mouths. "You should just let us shoot you to death!?"
Were these idiots…insane or something? Who the fuck would do that?! Who the fuck would just do nothing and let other people kill them for no reason?
"Kill him!"
The hunter children were also shouting and hurling stones, rocks and other objects at me. They had evidently been influenced by their parents or grandparents and were now murderous psychopaths bent on killing people without a legitimate reason.
I had enough.
With a single gesture of my hand, I conjured a bunch of icicles and speared the hunters. Being old and frail, they no longer possessed the reflexes of their youth, so all of them were killed instantly. Not a single one of them survived.
���You…!"
"How dare you kill our grandparents?!"
"You're just fodder! A quarry! Our prey! How dare you fight back?!"
The hunter children were enraged. Instead of fleeing back to the fortress, they jumped off the walls to attack me, bearing knives, machetes and spears. I gaped at them as they landed on the ground and then sprang back up to close in on me, the metal gleaming in their hands.
Even if they were children, they were going too far.
This was it. I had enough of their nonsense. I wasn't going to roll over and let them stab me to death just because they were children. Taking a deep breath, I conjured another batch of icicles and massacred them. In a single move, I left not even a single hunter child alive.
They forced my hand.
"Seriously? What the hell is wrong with them?"
Most likely something ran in the blood of their tribe. Some gene of lunacy or something. Otherwise it made no sense to me. Rational human beings didn't behave like this. I had encountered many children in other towns and villages, and not a single one of them behaved so stupidly. At the very least they didn't try and kill other people for no good reason. Granted, these kids probably did that large-ditch suicidal charge because they wanted revenge for their grandparents. But they were already attacking me before then.
Shaking my head, I turned to look up at the trembling servants, who were at a loss when they witnessed the carnage. Putting my hands on my hips, I cocked my head to the side.
"So are you going to let me in or not?"
In the end, nothing much happened in Gallagher Town. The remaining residents were shell-shocked when none of the hunters returned, but slowly they came to terms with it and even celebrated. There was still some anxiety because a few of them feared that the hunters might return one day, but as the weeks and even months stretched on, they got bolder, delighted at their newfound freedom. This went double when the royal family finally sent new governors to take over the southern provinces when they learned that the hunter tribe had gone missing.
Clearly Yvonne and her tribe had been quite the tyrants.
Unfortunately, I didn't stick around long enough to see the changes and celebrations. A few days after that incident, my troops came to pick me up and we began the return journey to the Demonic Empire. This time, Rafaela accompanied us.
"Do you know where Chris Redfield and the other three mages are?" I asked her. She nodded.
"I'll bring you to them," she promised.
So we went up north, but not directly toward the capital. Instead, Rafaela led us around a detour that took us slightly east, or northeast. Going through several villages and towns, we were eventually guided to a remote manor that hugged the border between the Havan Kingdom and the territories of the west.
"This manor belongs to Marquis Mowbray," Rafaela informed me. I nodded thoughtfully, even though I had never heard of him before. "He's currently in charge of taking care of…displaced mages, such as your friends."
We stopped at the gates, only for four familiar figures to appear. Apparently they had been waiting for us this whole time.
"Isn't that…Klein? And Stella, too!"
"Hey, guys. It has been a while."
I waved at my friends. Chris Redfield, Wilson Willard, Rose Gardenia and Lance Turner. They all looked like they were in good health, which was a tremendous relief to me. I smiled and got off my horse, accompanied by Stella.
"You guys are all right!"
"Yeah. A lot of things happened." Chris winced. "It's a long story."
"We'll tell you more inside." Wilson gestured toward the gates, which were opening because of his wind magic.
"It has been so long!" Rose clutched Stella's hands. "It's great to see that you two are still in good health."
"Same." Stella nodded. "We were worried when we heard the news…about your disappearance, and we feared the worst."
"Nah, that's just exaggerations." Lance waved her concerns away. He nodded toward Rafaela. "We had help both inside and outside the capital. Even the royal family themselves are anxious about the whole thing and they wish to put a stop to the corruption."
"Hmm…" I frowned. "So what do they intend to do?"
"I'm not sure," Chris replied with a shrug. "That's way above our pay grade."
"Still, there are many nobles such as Marquis Mowbray who are against the corruption," Wilson added. "Unfortunately, with his territory all the way out here, there's little he can do. Of course, we appreciate what he has done so far."
"But it's not enough," Rose said sadly. "Our options are very limited."
"Nonetheless, we intend to do something." Rafaela stepped forward. "That's why we've gathered here. We're going to stop this mess once and for all."