Volume 2 - CH 12

All around her was [Darkness]. She couldn’t see anything: Fontaine clasped her small hands together after managing to escape from that terrible place.

“ … C-Chris…-chan?”

Though she thought that Christina was pulling her hands and so called out, nobody responded.

There was a dark forest from which even the sounds of insects chirping couldn’t be heard.

A little ways away from her, she could see the house where the monsters lived, but right now there was no one but her. Fontaine looked around uneasily.

“ …… ”

Fontaine couldn’t help but want to help herself, she didn’t understand at all why that person had left her all alone, and felt despair.

Why would anyone leave a child like her alone in a place like this? The monsters called Vampires were scary. But, this dark forest was scary too.

She hated being scared, and wanted to run away. Yurushia had said to run away as well. Saying she’d forgive us if we escaped.

But…

“ …Why did you ‘let’ us run away?”

Fontaine did not understand.

Fontaine was born a noble, but did not feel any aristocratic [Pride]. She would not even mind living as a commoner.

As far as she was concerned, it made no difference.

To Fontaine, all of the things in the world belonged to her.

She didn’t understand the [Boundaries] between herself and others. She didn’t mind if her own things were taken away, but also didn’t mind taking away from other people.

The important things of others, she didn’t understand how important they were to that person. She would even take the lives of small animals in her play.

But even Fontaine understood that if she didn’t eat, she would starve to death. Dying was scary.

As a child, of course it was natural for her to be protected, but the parents who should have protected her were already dead. After that, the protection from the Duke person was weakened, and then the people after that who should have protected her, the twins and Christina, were so frightened and she never ever considered that she would ever have to protect herself.

So, moving along the sequence of protectors:

“Mistress protects me!”

Not only did she face that horrible monster without fear, the Princess even had a smile on her face. Since she was her [Master], it was natural to be protected by her.

Having reached that conclusion, rather than flee to the forest, Fontaine walked towards the place where hopefully Yurushia and the vampire still were.

The fear faded away before she knew it. Thinking about it, because Fontaine’s concept of the boundaries between individuals was very thin, she believed so.

{Because my life is important to everyone, I don’t need to fear for it.}

Since Fontaine saw her life as most precious, she didn’t doubt for a moment that it was important to everyone else.

She boldly returned to the gate of the mansion. No vampires found her on the way back.

As she took a cake from the wagon on the way and walked to the garden while munching, she noticed someone behind them.

“ …?”

A small breath was approaching. Not a person, a [Thing], Fontaine held her breath as it appeared from the cold darkness.

A black dog emanating frost; a vampire familiar, Death Hound.

“Hiiiaa!?”

Her face distorting in fear, Fontaine instantly broke into a run.

Two… no, three… four more dogs appeared from the darkness and had begun to harass their weak prey like a pack of wolves.

“W-why!?”

She couldn’t understand why she was being attacked. She couldn’t understand why nobody was helping her. Weighed down with despair and fear, Fontaine moved towards the girl that was her master, crying in the darkness.

“S-save meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

There was no response, only the sound of tearing and a muffled scream as the sound of ripping spread through the night.

＊

“It’s not real… It’s not real… It’s not real…”

Ninette was squatting in the shadow of the wall close to the main gate of the mansion, her teeth chattering while she held her sword.

Tightly clutching her sword hilt as her knuckles turned white, Ninette continued to mumble curses quietly.

“It can’t be…”

Not only did that monster exist, but that monster took the shape of a noble and she had been forced to participate in that sort of tea party and the Princess had to provoked the monster and the Princess looked like she was having fun and because of that her own life was in danger and all of it was unbelievable.

“I hate this.”

{I don’t wanna die. I wanna go back to my [Easy] life.}

Ninette hated troublesome things. Her twin brother was willing to be subservient to others for his own comfort, but Ninette felt doing so was too much work for her.

To have the fine eye of consideration to be a maid was too troublesome.

To train in the sword to become a knight was too troublesome.

To go along with her elder brother’s plans was too troublesome.

To humble herself in front of other people was too troublesome.

To work was too troublesome.

She just wanted to live an effortless life.

If one was strong with a sword, they were recognized by only that, those escort knights would clean up any enemies who attack the duke’s daughter and settled everything. If she became captain of the knights when she grew up, she could just leave all the guarding to her subordinates and live easily.

In that sense, Ninette was [Better] relative to the others.

She had already made plans for her own future, somewhat.

That was why, facing the thought of dying in a place like this, Ninette couldn’t take it.

“Princess’… fault.”

Using the sword as bait, Ninette was fished into a dangerous place.

She wanted to swiftly run away.

Even though that Princess had said to do so, Ninette could not run. She had depended on her parents then her brother until now, after abandoning all her thoughts for the sake of living an [Easy] life, she did not know how to put in the effort to [Escape] alone.

“Heee!…”

Quiet footsteps could be heard from the back of the dark forest.

They were small footsteps which she had not heard until then, Ninette was able to hear the flood of footsteps like ripples, and monsters with the figures of people filled the area and were quickly approaching.

“…”

Her mouth was so dry that it was hard to breathe.

Thousands or more [Monsters] wearing the clothes of commoners… Some of them smiled with bestial smiles as they noticed where Ninette was hiding.

Although in her hands was a sword imbued with tremendous magic, she was just a child, and Ninette, who had only ever wielded the sword in play, couldn’t imagine herself defeating even one monster.

Ninette understood.

She would die. The monsters would push her down and tear her apart and eat her intestines while she was still alive.

“… Damn it all…”

Crying her final tears, she cursed her parents, cursed her brother, cursed her comrades, cursed herself for involving herself with Yurushia, and with trembling hands, brought the point of the sword to her throat.

At that time… Ninette took the only [Easy] option.

＊

A huge chapel. This place which stood in the grounds of Count Oberu’s estate, singularly out of place for a place where monsters lived, was decorated brightly and looked incorruptible.

“ …… ”

[Someone] had brought Christina from a corner of the garden, where she had been hiding from the butlers in the shadow of the trees.

She hadn’t been treated roughly yet. Expressionless maids and butlers surrounded the altar of the chapel indifferently, staring silently at her, and Christina felt like she was about to go mad from fear.

*Ki~i…*

The opening of the chapel door broke the silence with its faint sound.

“…!”

As she saw the appearance of the person, Christina’s eyes grew wide with despair.

The unusually beautiful Countess, followed by several servants, was carrying Noah, whose vacant eyes were filled with fear, like a doll.

What had happened to Noah…? Perhaps he was caught in his hiding place just like her.

The expensive butler’s clothing prepared by the ducal household had been torn in many places. From where she was, she could see a plethora of [Tooth] marks on the boy’s white skin.

Looking at his face, his blood was probably sucked out for [Fun] rather than for mere hunger.

Looking at his face caused Christina to twitch in fear as the Countess pierced Noah’s cheek shallowly with her fang, licking the fresh blood overflowing from his cheek with her bright red tongue.

Christina looked with pity as Noah trembled every time the Countess licked her blood.

However, when the vacant eyes of Noah met Christina’s, a small amount of life came into his eyes, and the boy put on a disgusting smile.

“ … Her blood, if you please, is definitely more delicious than mine.”

The words that sold out not only his companion, but his human dignity, shocked Christina, and the Countess put on a joyous smile.

“Hohoho, even though I was surprised by that Saint-dono, you fellows really adorable.”

The interest of the Countess moved away from Noah momentarily to the girl he had betrayed, Christina.

“T-that’s right, please make me your comrade, Ma’am! I want to take the blood of that girl who swindled others with the name of a Saint, Gugyaaaaaa!?”

Breaking off Noah’s words mid-sentence, the Countess chomped down on his shoulder, slowly chewing the bone, instead of sucking his blood.

“I hate stupid children, you know?

Noah was paralyzed with the pain and fear, while the Countess had a smile like a beast on her face.

“That person…”

The Countess’ eyes turned towards Christina’s mutter.

Christina was trembling. Her tears and trembling was not fear, but anger at Yurushia.

“Because of that person, this happened. Just a mere concubine’s child. Athena-sama and Ophelia-sama were sent far away: all because of that bastard child!”

Christina’s mother was good acquaintances with the Duke’s late first wife. Her mother worshipped Albertine, her daughter Christina was thought of as a [Tribute] to Albertine.

Even though there wasn’t a single good rumor about Athena-sama’s generosity, Christina craved the beauty and dignity of a high noble and waited excitedly for a day to serve them.

It all fell apart with the death of Albertine. She ended up serving Yurushia, who had seized all of the benefits Athena-sama was supposed to receive.

In the beginning, Christina did not hate Yurushia, who she had not met.

But, after seeing that Yurushia was so unconditionally beloved by the Duke, her mother, and everyone else in the household, when she compared Yurushia to herself, whose bright hopes, warm home, and noble position had all been lost, only hatred remained.

“That person… Kill them.”

Having lost her sanity to fear, she made her bitter confession of tears, and the Countess tossed Noah aside. A delighted smile coming to her face, she softly spoke to Christina.

“A~ah… at last, you’ve become delicious…”