Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 815: The Secrets Of A Vampire

All at once, the elected were attacked in their room. Garcia was supposed to be the first victim, but she escaped death thanks to those who’d been sharing her room. As for the others, Helm’s belly was split wide open. Ironheart’s hide broke the assassin’s blade, and then his fist turned the man into mush. And unfortunately for Eren, the person who’d come to take his head was a woman–the gender he had little interest in. Unable to toy with her, he made the assassin swallow a vial of poison whole and watched as the woman bled from every orifice.

All those who persisted that night rushed out of their room to either slaughter Garcia or get to the bottom of this mystery by confronting the alleged killer. Ironheart, of course, chose the former, but running into Eren just in time, he was led by the leash of his words to the elevator that led down into the underground level.

While trying to use the elevator, Eren further noticed something interesting. The lift was all the way down into the vampire’s lab, but if he remembered correctly, it was supposed to come back to the ground floor after being underground for a while.

’Someone just went down there...’ He concluded, and he was right.

Raven and his group had just descended into the vampire’s lab, and the elevator hadn’t had enough time to come back up. But what were they doing down there? The answer quickly became clear.

’They figured it out, huh?’ He thought to himself, knowing full well that a fight might be going on downstairs. Turning his head towards Ironheart, he wondered whether it was even wise to go down there if the vampire and the heroes were engaged in a fight, but then another thought crossed his mind. ’I can’t tell him anything because of my promise, and he won’t believe it until he sees it himself, but then again...’

"You know what? Maybe we should give Garcia’s room a visit after all," he told Ironheart with a subtle smirk.

"That’s what I’ve been telling you!" The brute complained, but Eren had already started to walk away from the elevator; he followed him nonetheless.

In the meantime, as Raven and his group finally came face to face with the vampiress in her lab, she simply stared at them from a distance. Holding a cold, dead look in her eyes, she sat still in her chair amidst the plethora of empty glass tubes from which Raven had cured her subjects. But those very men and women were far from free, as their bodies now lay at the foot of Ditsy’s chair with a bite mark on their neck.

"You found me," she whispered.

"Ditsy, what the hell have you done?!" Garcia screamed, her voice trembling with trepidation.

The elf could not believe that her friend hid such a hideous secret. She was the killer, the murderer of the judges, but most important of all, the person who’d tried to kill her while she slept. Garcia’s eyes quivered to the thought, and her heart grew heavier by the minute, until it did not...

"Forget her," to everyone’s surprise, a demonic voice screeched from within the vampire’s lips. "She’s gone. I had no use for her after she’d enhanced my species enough."

Springing into action, Raven jumped in front of the elf with a dagger of darkness, and so did Amedith with his shield, followed by the others.

"She’s possessed by a horror...but how?" Unable to detect any form of corruption within the vampiress, he questioned how he could’ve missed the presence of a horror.

"HA!" Rising from the chair, the vampiress, now turned into a horror, laughed to herself and, with a raise of her hand, raised the unconscious bodies of her victims. Snarling like zombies with their eyes burning red, they turned towards the party and screeched like a group of banshees. "She rid me of that reek of corruption, and I spread that blessing throughout my flock. Now, what better host than a creature that already spreads its poison to others? A vampire, ahaha~ I knew she was the right person from the very start, so determined to solve the mystery behind our existence, only to end up as one of us!"

"So..." Clenching a fist over her heavy heart, Garcia heaved a sigh and fought the urge to break into tears. "All this time, you’ve been acting as she would have and even managed to convince the goddess to bless you as her chosen?"

Her last sentence sent a chill up everyone’s spine. To fool a goddess who festered on deception was a feat only heard of in legends, but they’d now witnessed it with their own eyes.

"Haa..." Spreading its arms, the horror’s body began to spiral with a cloud of darkness. Within it, only Ditsy’s red eyes could be seen and those of the many vampiric horrors standing by her. "I have possessed more than a thousand people in this city with my underlings. If I die, so do they, and if you so much as lay a finger on me, they will drop the act and start slaughtering their families. All while you’re busy here dealing with me."

Cackling at its own words, the horror’s body rose up high. Looking down at the hero and his party like a pair of puny ants, he smiled at them and continued to laugh.

"Go ahead, kill me if you wish to, but remember that you’d be making widows and orphans all around town."

"So we can’t kill you, is what you think?" Putting his weapon away and seeming unbothered by the horror’s words, Raven placed a hand on Garcia’s shoulder while still looking up at the shade. "Maybe you’re forgetting something."

"What?" Bewildered by the strange response, the horror’s laughter was cut short. Its dark eyes stared down at him, utterly lost as to what the hero could even have up his sleeves. And that’s when he said it.

"Have you ever considered that there are people out there in this world whose minds you cannot bend? Whose bodies you cannot control?"

"Impossible! Given enough time, my army will take over this whole world!"

"Maybe you’re right, but..." Moving his mantle back, Raven commanded the horror with the strength of past heroes. "I happened to know a few of them. So kneel!’

Slamming against the ground, the monster–to everyone’s surprise–knelt to the hero while groaning out loud.

"H-HOW DID YOU?! I’M BLESSED YOU CAN’T COMMAND SOMEONE WHO’S BLESSED!"

"You’re not the only one with an army," he said with a sudden change in the hue of his eyes.