“One more shot!!”
At Lavina’s cheerful yet deadly shout, Eleonora instinctively bent her knees and lowered her posture.
Almost simultaneously, an arrow, or rather a gust shaped like one, whizzed past above Eleonora’s head, giving her scalp a chilling sensation before it exploded with a refreshing gust of wind.
Whoooosh—Boom!!!
As expected, the combination of the elf’s archery and wind magic showcased an artistic destructiveness that sent Eleonora’s ebony hair scattering wildly.
Eleonora’s golden eyes sparkled dully. She brushed aside the hair obscuring her view with rough gestures and casually extended her right arm, swinging a dagger dramatically.
Swish, the wrist of a vampire that had lucked out by dodging the devastated front line was severed.
With just her left hand lightly touching the ground, Eleonora tripped the leg of the vampire who had lost his hand.
Crunch, not just stumbling but the sound of shattering shin echoed.
Simultaneously, Lavina leaped as she nocked her next arrow, crossing paths with Eleonora.
Her movements were light and graceful, even without a sound.
Several vampires rushing to catch Lavina came into Eleonora’s sight. Embracing her fate, she cut down the foes approaching Lavina one by one.
And a new arrow was shot.
‘Fast.’
Eleonora thought, seeing Lavina was not one of the vampires from Helraig Duchy.
‘She’s not just some elf making potions.’
Putting aside her perfect aim, the skill to rapidly infuse large-scale wind magic into a small arrow and seamlessly redirect the marking vampires, even without the forest, was exceptional.
Though Lavina had once asked Aria to take her along and proven her worth by not being a burden, the cleverness shown in the heat of battle far exceeded that earlier moment.
‘It’s concerning, though.’
Eleonora could deeply relate to Plona’s sentiment that elves are hard to read.
Of course, she wasn’t stressing about it to the extent Plona was, but if Lavina were to ask whether she could fully trust her in any situation, she would also shake her head.
However, at least for the time being, Lavina was undoubtedly an ally, and she knew not to mistake the priority of that fact.
In real combat, split-second judgments can lead to life or death. There wasn’t any room for useless hesitation.
‘For now, I’ll think of her as a complete ally.’
Unless Lavina suddenly felt like betraying her, the chance of that happening here was slim.
Eleonora had no other means of attacking indoors against multiple foes better than Lavina, and now was the time to prioritize efficiency.
As Lavina was doing her best, following Aria’s orders, Eleonora decided her role was to keep cover so that Lavina could shoot arrows to her heart’s content.
Suddenly, a heavy pressure characteristic of dark magic was felt from behind.
Turning her head, she calmly assessed the situation.
Eleonora noticed vampires holding masses of dark energy gathering like storm clouds, as if to brag that they could also attack from a distance.
Their sights were not on Eleonora.
They were targeting Lavina. Understanding this fact, Eleonora threw herself into action without hesitation.
The moment the attack magic was unleashed from the vampires, Eleonora thrust her body between Lavina and the dark projectiles.
“What, what?!”
Even though all attacks hit cleanly, the vampires who cast the magic let out not exclamations of victory but screams of horror.
From the swirling smoke-like storm clouds, a thick, black tail suddenly burst forth.
“Guhk—”
The overwhelming mass of violence.
Before the tail even struck, four or five vampires were sent crashing into the wall with a splat.
“Wow, impressive.”
Lavina’s emerald eyes sparkled with excitement as she shot another arrow.
The Dragonkin girl, who had taken the blow of the attack magic in her stead without any defensive measures, was unharmed aside from her outer garment being torn.
“Dragonkin are different!”
The vampires, startled by witnessing the overwhelming magical resistance that could handle such mediocre attack magic, could not hide their confusion.
‘Stay calm.’
However, Eleonora wasn’t complacent.
She reminded herself not to forget that the reason she was holding her own much better than expected was due to the imbalance of information, meaning the vampires from Helraig Duchy had no experience fighting Dragonkin and thus didn’t know how to counter them.
‘I am the master’s property.’
She didn’t dream of single-handedly taking down all her enemies.
She had long since departed from wanting only to help Aria, now realizing her every action was a part of her master’s plan, allowing Eleonora to feel both more buoyed and yet cooler than ever.
‘Tools don’t make judgments.’
Eleonora held no pride or feelings of superiority like a warrior would.
She had no desire to show off or take joy in subjugating others. After three years of blood, sweat, and tears to gain strength, she held none of those thoughts.
‘Assigning meaning to actions and determining value isn’t my place.’
She dedicated herself solely to Aria and fought only for Aria.
Whether it was right or wrong was up to her to decide, and all Eleonora had to do was respond to her wishes.
To that end, she sought to grow stronger, and that was her only fulfillment.
Eleonora had not forgotten her purpose in fighting. Even now, her master was likely struggling to end this situation above. Nothing would be more pitiful than losing focus out of excitement and ruining the plan.
‘Just hold on.’
Most of the vampires felt weaker than her, yet there were certainly strong ones among them.
After all, if the master’s plan ended successfully, they might become allies, right? Fighting to the death would result in nothing but losses, whether they won or lost.
Eleonora cleared away any danger to herself and Lavina to conserve as much energy as possible while buying time.
Aria, holding the key to their plan’s success, seemed to consider defeat a mere possibility, wielding her dagger with unwavering confidence.
*
“What about this?”
A sword wrapped in black flames surged toward Plona.
The flash of white was dazzling as it tried to suppress the darkness, but once Slein gained momentum, the sword was simply too fast, too heavy, and had no openings.
‘…Annoying.’
Plona gritted her teeth.
The black flames enveloping Slein’s sword were likely some form of attack magic that manifested the darkness as fire.
It was certainly a sight she had never encountered, but in truth, the basis of that magic was incredibly simple.
It was the fundamental basis of vampire close combat. Wrapping the limbs in some form of dark magic to both defend the body and elevate offensive power.
This was the same principle behind Aria and Stella enveloping their hands in shadows to deliver punches. Slein had just fixed it to his sword instead. In the form of flames.
‘If it stays like this, I can’t last long.’
The flames, black as if they had swallowed the surrounding light, bore a weight beyond what one could imagine from Slein’s light movements.
Each strike delivered a shock like being hit by a charging cart.
Fixing the coordinates of magic on objects rather than one’s own body was not a particularly simple task, but just knowing that extreme swordsmanship could serve as a spell engine was quite threatening.
‘It would be best to get rid of that thing.’
The most effective way to counter dark magic in close combat is to negate it with holy magic. This had been Plona’s preferred method throughout her time as a knight.
However, that was no longer possible. Having become a vampire, she lost all their aptitude for holy magic.
If that were the case, what method would work in a vampire vs. vampire fight?
It’s simple. Use dark magic to retaliate and engage in a battle of strength. But this wasn’t something Plona could instantly adopt either.
‘I never thought my sword would become a weakness like this.’
The sword made of blessed silver, designed for holy magic users, inherently contained some essence of light spirit.
Applying dark magic to Plona’s sword, which had properties repelling it, was impossible.
That very property allowed her to defend against her enemy’s sword to some extent, but relying on half-baked luck wasn’t a fundamental solution.
This hadn’t been a conscious choice; she hadn’t decided to continue using the sword from her human days without thinking.
Had her opponent been human or a knight, the sword imbued with holiness would have been useful. It would have simplified countering what required substantial consumption of dark magic.
Given that she would be facing fellow vampires more often than knights, that was a strategic decision that carried ample benefits.
However, this time, the opponent had just been unfortunate.
The very first enemy she fought on the surface after three years was a vampire of high status, and considering the possibility that he would be an unusual wielder of the sword was a mistake on her part.
If only the opponent’s swordplay had been clumsy, she could have overwhelmed him with skill; if they had been bare-handed, she could have intercepted magic with magic, using distance to secure the advantage in close combat. It felt as if the enemy had been tailored specifically to counter her.
“I guess there’s no helping it.”
Plona let out a short sigh and stepped back, pushing Slein’s sword away.
In that brief moment created by retreating in the midst of battle, she used the time to return her sword to her waist.
A look of confusion crossed Slein’s face as he witnessed her suddenly sheathing her weapon in front of an enemy; it certainly was a strange sight.
“I had only intended to fight like this for hunting.”
Despite no longer being a knight, the primary reason she held a sword was to keep herself anchored to her fighting purpose.
Plona differentiated a fight with a purpose from one simply for a meal, unlike the previous battles.
Even though she couldn’t recklessly drain human blood due to restrictions, Plona had controlled her bloodsucking impulse through the act of wielding a sword.
However—
“Now, I’ll fight like a vampire, sister.”
Plona’s crimson eyes glimmered fiercely. The wild instincts she had suppressed forcibly seemed to awaken, creating a sharp and slimy atmosphere that made Slein instinctively halt his advance.
“To you, I will bring victory.”
With a crack, a burst of black static erupted from Plona’s chest.
The spark began to intensify from near her heart, rapidly flashing and eventually spreading to her limbs.
The overwhelming warmth created an illusion that the atmosphere was melting away.
When Plona spread her legs and lowered her center of gravity, dark lightning erupted from her entire body.
In the next moment, a beam of black light shot forth like a comet.
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