The Vampire’s Templar

To her credit, Lucienne worked fast. By the time Camilla and Kagriss got back, she found her already set with three choices from the catalogue of commissions. The only suspicions that Camilla had came from when she found out where Lucienne got the commissions from.

“These are all from the first five? You chose three from the first five?” Camilla asked. 

Lucienne nodded.

“Did you even look any further?”

The eyes that had met hers evenly now slowly shifted away. “Yes.”

Camilla folded her arms. “How many more?”

“…I think around ten,” Lucienne muttered, before she looked up with a mildly defiant look on her face with those set brows. “I-in my defense, I didn’t find anything better in those ten, and by the looks of it these three are fine. They pay fine and they’re totally within our capabilities…I think.”

She trailed off, unsure. Sighing, Camilla took a closer look at the commissions. Commissions in the guild system were sorted by priority. There were four classes, going from most urgent to least. The most urgent commissions were those in need of immediate action and the commissioner paid high prices to get that listing and the rewards were high. The guild restricted access to known, trusted members, so obviously the most lucrative requests weren’t available.

The first request was a class four, a hunt for materials from lightning criers. Class four was an ongoing request with no limit until the commissioner took it back or the funds allotted to the guild ran out. For this one, the commissioner was not anonymous but the name was nonetheless meaningless to Camilla.

Camilla paused here. “What the heck is a lightning crier? Obviously it has something to do with lightning. I’m not stupid.” She glared at Lucienne before the latter could speak.

Someone cleared their throat then and she looked over at a guild worker who suddenly appeared. It was one of the workers that manned the circular table that all the booths were connected to. The worker in question smiled brightly and Camilla nodded at her. “Hello.”

“Greetings.” The worker returned her nod. “I overheard your question just now and I can provide an answer, if you don’t mind.” When Camilla motioned for her to go on, she continued: “We classify mana beasts as well. Criers are beasts that tend to emit magic over distances as opposed to silencers that affect the areas around them. Thus, a lightning crier is any beast that can hit you with lightning from a distance. Does that answer your question?”

“Yes—”

“Great! If you have any more, I’ll be happy to answer them. However, there are also regularly updated notes about various documented beasts and herbs available for purchase.” The worker flashed Camilla a grin.

“…thank you. I’ll consider it.” 

“Always happy to help.” The worker bowed. “Anything else?”

When Camilla nodded, the worker went on her way to the next booth on the other side of the wall. With her gone, Camilla sighed. “So pushy…”

“I know…she offered to sell me the published notes as well earlier,” Lucienne said. The two shared a look of mutual sympathy and went back to the matter at hand—the commissions. 

“What’s the estimated difficulty and how do we find such a beast anyway?” Camilla asked, lowering a voice to a whisper. And when Lucienne made to answer, Camilla put a finger to her lips, indicating for Lucienne to copy her.

Just in case the worker came back, Camilla didn’t want her to hear. Of course, she ignored the disappointed stare that she caught from Kagriss out of the corner of her eye. So what if it was rude? Being pushy was a form of rudeness in her book. And she definitely wasn’t being intentionally immature either. Even if the twins looked surprised at her behavior.

“The estimated difficulty is based on previous, similar requests,” Lucienne said. “It’s written here that a cumulative force of about D-rank is suggested for the area. For reference, Lavitte’s group seems to be C-rank in total force. That’s why I chose it.”

Even though it seemed that Lucienne just grabbed the first one off the commissions catalogue, it turned out that Lucienne really did put in thought and effort to research. Camilla decided to apologize later.

Apparently the blood of a vampire noble was extremely valuable, according to Eva. Maybe she could let some out for Lucienne later? Of course, she won’t allow her to drink directly.

“What’s the area, anyway?”

Hearing her voice becoming a lot less dismissive and gentle, Lucienne looked a bit smug which made Camilla slightly irritated. “If we accept, I can show you on the map. It’s not far though. Three days on foot for us, if Elyss is willing. The mana there is apparently fairly concentrated and a large portion of it is lightning mana.”

At the mention of the high concentration of lightning mana, Camilla narrowed her eyes. All she knew was that high mana concentration had a greater chance of creating a mana beast, but that was as far as she got in knowing things for sure. She just had too little data to work with in human territory, and the last time she was here, she had a war to worry about.

 Still, it seemed logical that different locations had higher concentrations of different mana, and that influenced the appearance of specific beast types. What other research did the other races have that the humans simply lacked? What other knowledge?

Despite not being as crazy about learning new things as Arvel did, she still felt her curiosity piqued. Arvel would probably have loved to be here if he was willing to leave the Church. As Camilla’s thoughts drifted back to her slightly-estranged friend, she found herself wondering how he was doing.

“I wonder what kind of progress he’s made so far,” she muttered under her breath. With a sigh, she put those thoughts away again. Now wasn’t the time to be worrying about things so far away.

“Lady Camilla?”

“You can stop with that,” Camilla said, sighing. “Yes, I’m here. I think this is good—decent pay, well within our limits.” Even if she did have a little trauma remaining from her encounter with that deer. She and Kagriss had been lucky to survive. “But I don't think we should stop here. What are the other two?” 

Lucienne handed her the other two sheets and Camilla swept over them. Class two, C-rank, half a day away—the extermination of a den of earth silencers. Class three, D-rank, two days away—retrieval of a large amount of moonsap drinker root, specifics detailed in the published notes. 

She frowned. “Why is the first one not taken? Also, C-rank?” she asked. “Aren’t we considered D-rank?” Then she turned it over and understood when she read the details.

The earth silencers in question were naturally burrowers that used earth magic. That by itself was difficult enough to fight on their own if it was one large beast, but these were a family of moles originating from a single mole mana beast that managed to mate. Each had decently potent earth magic and their numbers made them much more difficult to fight.

Indeed, for most mages, these were probably difficult to fight, but…they had Elyss with them as well as undeath magic that could easily reap the lives of these moles without needing to dig up an centimeter of dirt, at least depending on the circumstances.

She smiled. “Good work, Lucienne.”

That smug look on the vampire’s look returned and Camilla regretted her praise. Holding back a sigh, she flipped the second one over. This one involved harvesting the roots of a certain mutated tree. That didn’t sound difficult, but the devil was in the details. Only, there were no details past the minimum required amount.

The instructions simply said to consult the published notes. Her hands shook at the utter shamelessness of it all. “Are you serious? We have to get one? I was planning on getting a copy anyway, but being forced to leave a sour taste in my mouth,” Camilla growled.

Lucienne shook her head. “And it did mine, but most of the other missions also just reference the notes. The first two I showed you were exceptions.”

“No longer you chose them. And Kagriss, are you upset about something?” She looked behind her, having suddenly felt a drop in Kagriss’s mood. She wasn’t quite as sensitive to the bond as Kagriss was, so when she saw Kagriss biting her lips to suppress a totally un-Kagriss pout, her eyes widened. “What’s wrong?”

She hmphed. “I don’t want to buy the notes.”

“I don’t want to either, but it has information we need,” Camilla said.

“But I don’t want to spend the money!”

Camilla didn’t know what to say to that. Never did she expect that to be her reason. “…really? You just don’t want to spend money; not something else you don’t want to tell me?”

The pout disappeared, replaced with a peeved look. “You don’t have to act like I’m crazy,” Kagriss growled, turning away when Camilla tried to interrupt. “I can feel it. And I’m not crazy. I don’t think we should buy the notes.”

“Why not?” Camilla asked.

The idea of not purchasing readily available information as long as it wasn’t too expensive was so outlandish that her eyes widened even more when Lucienne piped up. “Lucienne, you too?”

“Sorry, but I kind of agree with Kagriss here,” she said. “I don’t know why she doesn’t want to buy it, but personally, all this is a new experience for me. I sort of want to try and gather that information myself before that fresh, magical feeling disappears.”

Even though Camilla was ninety percent sure that wasn’t Kagriss’s real reason, Kagriss nodded in agreement.

Camilla crossed her arms, ready to take her stand. “But it doesn’t change the fact that it's less dangerous when we already have information. It isn’t a game; it’s a commission and our lives that we’re putting on the line.”

If possible, she’d rather not be a hunter. Her original plans were to retire and join some random community that could have used her help, or become a trainer for the Order. Any position that didn’t involve fighting.

But alas, everything that happened since happened, and she promised Kagriss to go hunting. She intended to keep her word.

“Lady Camilla, we want to as well!”

“See? Even they want to buy the notes,” Camilla said, pointing at the twin that had been mostly following the conversation in silence, wide-eyed. With such young people barely older than Fleur, risks were even less acceptable.

“No, we want to go on an adventure with Lucy,” Ariel said, clinging onto Lucienne’s arm. 

“…”

Lucienne looked back and forth between the twins on each side of her and Camille, shifting in the awkward silence that followed Ariel’s statement, seemingly racking her brains for something to say. “I understand that it’d be safer, but at the same time we are inexperienced. If we can’t properly gather information now and practice, how will we fare? We can’t rely on you forever.”

That was a good point that Camilla had to concede, even though the notes still worked as a reference. However, even though she was the leader of the group, the votes were stacked against her four to one. Camilla was willing to bet that Elyss would make it five to one.

When she, the person who needed the notes least, was the only person to want the notes, then perhaps she shouldn’t buy it. Instead, she could scout out the enemy and polish off her rusty skills, and show the others her ways as well.

The more she thought about it, the better the idea sounded, so she reluctantly nodded. “Very well; no notes…”

Instantly, the atmosphere cleared up. The difficulty that she had trouble breathing in from the stress disappeared in an instant as she took another breath of air. It was surprising how she hadn’t noticed the tension until it was all gone.

“However, that’s a conversation for later. Specifically, the commission about the roots and lightning criers. Class two is more urgent, so let’s play with some moles, shall we?”

The other nodded and especially for the twins, excitement filled their eyes. And Kagriss was slightly different in that there was more relief and anticipation, as identified through their bond. Camilla snuck her a glance, though Kagriss didn’t seem to notice or care.

With the second commission request in hand and the others soft-reserved in her name, Camilla registered the request and their request officially began.

It was decided that they’d depart for their new destination after one last night of staying in Dianene. A day’s journey away in a small agricultural village called Devorin, a family of mutated moles took up residence near the fields, threatening to destroy the seeds and the next year’s crops.

That night, each of them stayed out late to see more of what the city had to offer, each going their separate ways.

Camilla returned to the guild alone with some coins, hoping to gather some information from the regulars there. But as she reached the door, it was pushed open outwards and she came face to face with an elf, none other than Lavitte.

This time, he was wearing a feathered hat. 

“What a coincidence. Good evening, Lavitte.”

The elf took his hat off politely. “Good evening. What are you doing here? Have you taken a look around the guild yet?”

“I have. It’s an interesting idea, although I do have some questions about it. It’s not very pressing, though.” Camilla looked around and behind Lavitte, looking for the form of the vampire that stuck to the elf like glue. “Where’s Eva? The others?”

Lavitte shrugged. “Wherever she likes, though she’s probably blowing through all her savings again. Good thing I’m saving enough for the both of us for after we both retire. We’re going off on another request the day after tomorrow, so we have today and tomorrow off to resupply and loosen up…take care of business, things like that.” He looked up at the sky, squinting.

The two moons in the sky were especially bright, casting the earth in white light, making everything clear even during the night.

“What about you?”

“We leave tomorrow.” Camilla quickly told him about the series of commissions she had in mind, as well as her party’s stubbornness in not purchasing the published beast and herb notes.

Lavitte laughed at that. “Yeah, they do that sometimes. But I don’t mind. I’m often wrong. And I think that done right, they gain valuable experience. I wouldn’t have gotten where I am if I started out relying on notes.”

“They have a point, but I’d rather they didn’t…” Camilla muttered. “So what did you accept? I heard you’re a C-rank party?”

“Us? I suppose. Mostly with the help of Duura and the fact we have six people, really. I don’t think that a party led by someone as… esteemed… as yourself is only D-rank, though.”

Camilla smiled faintly, half at herself. If she had embraced herself back then, she wouldn’t be herself now, but at the same time she would’ve been a lot stronger than she was right now. A vampire lord that accepted herself resulted in a much more powerful one right off the bat as opposed to one that was still fragile and weak, like her. 

It was like others started life as an adolescent whereas she started as a toddler. Others don’t have to know, though. Not to mention she had been growing all this time.

“We accepted a C-rank. We thought it’d be a good match for us. What about you?” she asked again, a bit curious about what an old-timer like Lavitte had chosen.

Lavitte hesitated, but only for a split second. “Actually, our commission is like yours: one rank higher, so B-rank. It’s so high because there are a lot of unknown elements.”

“Oh? Can you tell me specifics?” Camilla asked, drawing a bit closer after looking around. She could keep secrets.

“It’s not confidential or anything…” Lavitte said. “A toarstone mine collapsed the other day and they don’t think it’s natural, so they’re sending a few to investigate it.”

Again, an unfamiliar word. “What’s toarstone? Where?” she asked. Then she frowned—she was acting a bit pushy, so she added, “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“Oh no, it’s fine! Like I said, not a secret or anything. It’s actually made up of three parties and our Fleeting Leaves is one of them. The mine itself is about a week and a half away. See those mountains?” 

Lavitte was about to point but stopped when he realized that he was in the middle of a city with buildings blocking the view. He chuckled to hide his mistake. “Hahaha… so anyways, toarstone is a rather stable source of mana. It’s wild mana, but for some reason, it’s very easily converted into other types of mana, which makes many things convenient.”

“I can see why. Must be expensive. Actually, is it what powers the teleporter?”

Lavitte nodded. 

Her curiosity satisfied, they moved on to other topics. 

They gossiped a little about their respective parties and individual members. After a brief midnight snack that did absolutely nothing for Camilla other than satisfying her taste buds, they parted.