ALL NOVEL Chapter 202
After receiving the spear Cabellach from a vampire girl, it became my and Friede’s job to charge ahead and break through the monsters in the dungeon.
Huff… HUFF!
“If I don’t use that, I’ll be hungry….”
The vampire, who fought bare-handed against monsters twice without Cabellach, declared an indefinite strike right after!
For a vampire suffering from severe blood loss after centuries of imprisonment, the blood I fed her was barely enough to moisten her lips.
That alone could satisfy her immediate hunger, but she wasn’t equipped for smooth combat without the spear Cabellach.
“…Yeah, you’ve worked hard. Rest behind me, okay?”
“Uh-huh….”
I had no choice but to understand.
With a face like a young laborer from the Industrial Revolution saying they’d be hungry if they fought, I couldn’t ignore that and force her into hard labor.
What would happen if she went on a blood rampage?
Think about it. Taking something away after giving it is the most infuriating thing. Does a vampire who hasn’t tasted the sweetness of blood in ages have the patience to hold back?
I don’t think so.
Until I really starve her, I can’t know for sure, but there’s no need to take unnecessary risks to find out. If she says she lacks food and wants to rest, it’s best to just let her rest.
Of course, if I gave back Cabellach, I could make her work on the front lines without worry… but am I crazy? To return a weapon I barely got my hands on?
That was a choice not worth considering.
So ultimately, it was up to Friede and me to make our way forward.
HAAAAAP!
…Well, it wasn’t particularly difficult.
These were monsters I had already killed several times while going down to the lowest floor. In fact, their numbers had greatly decreased since then.
Though our party had shrunk from four to two, aside from the reliance on potions for healing, honestly, it was easier now.
The power boost from the Holy Sword, which I could wield freely, more than compensated for the departure of the priest and archer.
Even the slime on the fourth floor, which I had to force my way through by relying on the Holy Barrier due to a lack of good countermeasures, could easily be dealt with just by shooting off the Holy Sword’s energy from a distance.
It wasn’t that she was a hindrance, but teaming up with those who couldn’t see the Holy Sword proved my point about having clear limits.
To move deeper than this, I needed to shake off the stigma as soon as possible and find the people I had thought to gather for a proper party.
It wouldn’t be enough to think of it as uncertain training and follow the orders like a good little soldier.
◆◆
“Hey, vampire. So, what’s your name?”
While swiftly retracing the path we had come from, cutting down the occasional monster, Friede suddenly remembered and asked the vampire girl’s name.
In fact, that was my idea.
Though it seemed unlikely, I wanted to check if she might be a character from the original story, so I wanted to at least confirm her name.
She might have lost her mind and regressed to the point of forgetting her own name, but that seemed unlikely.
Common sense suggests that if she could remember the name of the weapon she uses, she would remember her own name, right?
So I thought there’d be an answer if I asked… but asking her directly felt completely unreasonable.
How could a self-proclaimed mom not know her daughter’s name? The moment I asked, it was bound to bring up the “Are you really my mom…?” situation.
So I slyly asked Friede to find out the vampire’s name for me.
“Surely she has a name! Tell us. I can’t keep calling you ‘you’ or ‘the vampire’.”
…But I didn’t expect her to ask so directly, even using a tone akin to interrogating an enemy.
“My… name…?”
The vampire girl frowned at Friede’s tone but obediently answered the rude question.
“…Eleadra. Eleadra Kroine.”
Eleadra Kroine. A name that felt quite elegant, befitting a long-lived demon.
I didn’t know its origin, but just from the sound of it, it suited her appearance as if she had jumped out of an old portrait, don’t you think?
Anyway, I learned the name of this vampire now.
‘But it’s useless. I’ve never heard it before.’
If it had been a name I knew, it’d be different, but since it was a name I’d never seen in the original, knowing it didn’t amount to much.
Of course, I didn’t remember every character from the original work.
I might remember the main characters and those with significant presence, but how could I remember all the side characters who popped up briefly?
If I could remember all that, then I’d be crazy.
The original author probably forgot those people’s names too.
However, if the original author was the one who threw me into this place… then the situation might be different.
Thinking about it, a being capable of shoving a modern person into such a place could be anything but human, and their memory might be on a different level altogether.
…Well, anyway, at least I had never read or heard the name ‘Eleadra Kroine’ before.
So it turned out that even though I learned her name, it held no benefit. I didn’t expect much, but it was still a bit disappointing.
“Eleadra K, what was it…? It’s unnecessarily long. I’m just calling you Eli!”
In fact, Friede, who finally got to know the name, chuckled as if she hadn’t expected anything from the start, finding the grand-sounding name amusing, considering it belonged to a monster.
“I don’t like that. Only my mom can use it.”
The vampire girl—Eleadra—shook her head and firmly replied. The name Eli could only be used by her mother, she claimed.
‘So I can just call you Eli, huh?’
I wasn’t sure how often I’d get to call her that, but at least if I needed to address her, I could just call her Eli.
◆◆
Having broken through the path that took us days to navigate down in just half a day, we finally stepped into the cave where the entrance to the dungeon lay.
Me, Friede, and Eleadra. All three of us.
This part was as expected.
The reason dungeon monsters were stuck inside wasn’t because they couldn’t come out, but because they were trained to protect the dungeon in emergencies.
The mid-level and low-level dungeons had been teleported near the surface due to a surge in space magic, making them fit for those emergencies.
Thus, those dungeon monsters typically stayed put, concentrating on driving off invaders…
‘Unless they had forgotten their training and become so crazed, or if there was no reason for them to remain as guards.’
Eleadra was obviously in the latter category.
She was a prisoner who had been locked up. Given that she hadn’t originally been supposed to play the role of guarding, it was only natural she’d leap out without hesitation.
She had been deployed to invade the surface, and like those monsters in the deep dungeons, who looked for any chance to leap out, so was she.
‘…No, actually, those others are better. They might hit a snag halfway through.’
Monsters in the deep dungeons are always fixated on invading the surface, but they’re better than this vampire.
Because they still clung to the invasion path that had been completely uncovered, countries could station their best elite forces to block them.
The main duties of the royal army and the knights were basically exactly that.
After descending to a point where normal resupplying was possible, they’d build defenses there to hold back the demon and monster hordes that attacked whenever a chance emerged.
You could say that nearly all the core forces of the countries, aside from minimum security maintenance units and royal guard units, were stationed there.
My mother, Veloren, would still be there if she hadn’t retired. On the frontline where humans and demons wash blood with blood.
…I digress, but as long as the kingdom’s defenses hold, the monsters from the deep dungeon are unlikely to reach the surface.
What about this vampire, then?
With strength comparable to those monsters, she had crossed from the mid-level dungeon to the surface undetected.
To put it bluntly, if this monster wasn’t calling me “Mommy, mommy,” I would be committing an unprecedented terror act.
Even in her significantly weakened current state, she was still a powerful monster capable of taking on a couple of high-ranking knights—pulling off a covert operation to slip her into this world.
What if, by any chance, this vampire regained her senses and original power and began rampaging throughout the kingdom?
‘The country might go down… right?’
It wouldn’t be odd for Hervor to fall due to this one monster.
She wouldn’t even need to confront the entire kingdom directly; if she picked off the poorly defended areas and slaughtered, it’d spell disaster for the kingdom.
I don’t even have to look far; just look at modern Korea. If Seoul were hit with a nuke, the domino effect would lead to widespread destruction.
So why would this place be any different?
There’s no need to murder all the kingdom’s citizens; just obliterating a few cities would pose an existential threat to the kingdom.
The aftermath of such large-scale annihilation would sweep across the kingdom like a plague.
Thus, from the kingdom’s standpoint, it’s crucial to find and kill a monster capable of inflicting unmanageable damage before it wakes up… but how easy could that be?
Finding the signs of tens of thousands of troops is simple, but it’s terribly challenging to track down the path of a solitary powerhouse that can kill tens of thousands.
Certainly, if this monster’s original power wasn’t at some dragon level, then perhaps luring her into a trap and deploying the kingdom’s top sword or multiple high-ranking knights might allow them to take her down…
‘But that’s just wishful thinking. If you pull that many troops away from the frontline, how would you maintain the defense of the deep dungeon?’
Otherwise, it would lead to more chaos.
If the demons in the deep dungeon seized on the absence of that level of power and launched an attack, it wouldn’t matter if this vampire were the issue; it would merely be the signal for humanity’s extinction.
The monsters and demons would pour out of the deep dungeon, destroying everything in sight across the kingdom.
“……”
To put it simply, to exaggerate a little, the future of humanity was resting on my shoulders right now.
Thinking about that, I felt something heavy cementing itself in my chest, solidifying like a rock.
It was probably a feeling of responsibility.
I was the one who brought this monster to the surface, capable of causing such a disaster.
…Ha, the world is tough.
I merely set out on a mid-level dungeon exploration, and my party members are wiped out, leaving me with the burden of the kingdom’s fate on my shoulders.
Life surely isn’t easy.