The Vampire’s Templar

“Sorry for being late,” Camilla said as they exited the remains of the forest, courtesy of her and Kagriss’s magic while wading through tides of lesser undead that tried to prevent them from reaching the tower. The other five members turned to look at them and Camilla blushed under their gazes.

The five had just finished dispatching the final six jack-classes that had been assigned to the entrance, yet Camilla and Kagriss had just now arrived. Technically, they were just on time in a sense, but on the other hand Camilla felt a bit guilty that she hadn’t been here for the battle, thanks to taking so long with Gulthra. 

None of them commented on their lateness while Victoria just nodded with understanding. “Good work. We hadn’t realized that they’d have such a trick up their sleeves, so it’s not strange that you were delayed.”

Although Camilla didn’t really want Victoria’s sympathy, she nonetheless forced a smile at the woman she once called mother, as she knew that now wasn’t the time to act immature and let her personal feelings show. “Did they use that trick against you too?” She peeked at Ismelda and Elise, the team that was the fastest at scoring their first kill, then at the two Violet Blossom guards.

If any of the other undeads were to use the gem, then it would probably be ones facing the guards. The ones that Ismelda and Elise fought were probably too pressured to do anything but stay alive, leaving no time to use the gem. On the other hand, the guards would be simultaneously too slow to prevent the usage, and the undead had the most to gain.

She didn’t remember sensing that strange mana from anywhere else on the battlefield, but she had been pretty busy with her own battle. The ferocious assault of the trio of monsters didn’t really allow her the space to let her mind wander, lest she be torn to shreds.

The two guards shook their heads, and the mother-daughter pair shook their heads as well. 

In other words, Gulthra was the only one with the research… 

Camilla conveniently left out Victoria in her questioning. “Well, regardless of the reason, I still apologize. Should we hurry and go in to make up for lost time?”

“Yes, but be careful. I only know that the tower exists and that it could end this whole war with the undead in an instant, but what is inside is completely unknown to me,” Victoria warned. “Also, the king is missing, so unless my guess is wrong, then it may be waiting for us inside.”

The others had no objections, so without further ado, Victoria led the way. She covered herself with a semi-translucent barrier tinted red. A moment later, a golden shield appeared in front of her, followed by a black one.

She looked back, meeting Camilla and Kagriss’s eyes, but Camilla looked away and did the same. Still, she smiled and pushed open the heavy gates that barred entry into the tower. Despite the thickness of the metal that made up the gate, they easily swung open thanks to Victoria’s strength.

As Camilla walked through the boundary, she felt a minute trace of magic from the open doors. “Kagriss, what are those?”

Kagriss tilted her head in thought for a moment before replying. “It seems to be a kind of lock, but it’s not a complete lock. As long as the formation remains, there’s a certain amount of resistance that will push against you if you try to open the door…”

“In other words, it’s a sort of test…” Camilla said. “Anyone that can’t pass by themselves or have someone to help them does not have the right to even enter the tower, let alone reach the last key.”

She couldn’t help but find that arrogant of the flugels to put such a high hurdle at the entrance, especially when the entrance was their only hope of revival. Kagriss told her that to even manage to open the door, the person had to be at least as physically strong as someone like Lucienne using reinforcement, which was a lot to ask. 

Then again, anyone that Victoria found would probably easily clear that bar, not to mention having the help of Victoria herself.

Just like how the tower glowed slightly in the dark, its white stones giving off a faint sparkling light, the interior of the tower seemed almost like a place in paradise. The pristinely white floors and walls did not reflect light like polished stone, but rather emanated a gentle light that almost coated the whole interior in a faint aura of holiness.

As soon as Camilla stepped inside, she felt a faint burn on her legs as the very tower rejected her. The holy mana that permeated the whole tower was like poison to her. Thankfully, the effect wasn’t too strong so it didn’t take too much of a toll on her, although a lesser zombie will probably have been paralyzed by now, slowly killed as the holy mana purified it.

Carvings, much like the reliefs she had previously seen in the dungeon, covered the walls, and Camilla couldn’t help but drag her feet, looking here and there. As she saw a scene of battle that reminded her of something she saw in the dungeon, she raised her head with a start.

“Wait, don’t look at the walls!” she shouted. 

Her voice dragged the other members back to reality and they looked at her strangely.

“What, why?” Elise asked before sneaking another peek. 

Ismelda gasped as she realized what Camilla was talking about. “Are you saying that the walls have that strange effect of giving you a headache?” Camilla nodded and Ismelda immediately looked straight ahead, much to the confusion of her mother.

“Ismelda, explain.” The proud leader of the Violet Blossom sighed. “There’s so many things I don’t know about this little outing of yours, Victoria. Is this effect one of them too?”

Victoria nodded. “It’s related to that thing I can’t tell you, because you’ll forget it anyway. I don't know how much the magic will force you to forget, so it’s safer to just not say anything more than necessary.”

“That kind of magic is always the most troublesome to deal with.” Unable to help herself, Elise snuck another look before she copied her daughter and looked straight forward, doing her best to not let her vision stray. She poke her guards’ shoulders. “You two as well; no looking!”

“Yes ma’am!”

They continued on through the long, curving tunnel. Like the dungeon, space was warped inside the tower, and it quickly became obvious that the tower was bigger on the inside than on the outside. It was nearly impossible to predict how big the true size of the tower was. 

For all they know, the final room that contained the key could be right around the corner, or it was far away enough that it will take them another half a day to reach.

During that time, everyone except Victoria, Camilla, and Kagriss did their best to not look at the walls and instead trained their vision straight away into the distance. With nothing to talk to, the atmosphere quickly descended into awkward silence, as it would be rude for them to talk about the reliefs out loud when more than half of their numbers couldn’t participate. The silence strained the nerves of everyone present, except Camilla and Kagriss.

“So war between the flugels and vampires was common way back then, it seems,” Camilla said. Because their communication was silent, Camilla and Kagriss could still talk to each other.

“For the most part, they were evenly matched, although I don’t think the vampires were using their whole strength.” To prove her point, Kagriss produced a map that had been included on the sculptures. Compared to the map that Victoria showed Camilla, vampire territory was much larger in the past, many times the meager amount available to flugels.

At the same time, however, the flugels always managed to keep their broders stable, so no matter what the vampires tried, they could not push past the Border Forest. Over time, the vampire stopped trying to expand and instead push out in other directions. At one point, vampire territory was almost double the size it was currently.

Camilla looked at Victoria, who were looking at the sculptures as well, trying to see if reminders of the past had any effect on her. Victoria’s expression was carefully neutral and blank, although here and there, she slipped up and a look of wistfulness appeared on her face.

That Victoria possessed bonds that could make her look like that was somehow incredible.

A quiet voice interrupted the silence, making everyone look toward the origin. To their surprise, it was Elise, who raised her hand with an embarrassed, toothy grin. “Hehe, actually, I have something to confess.”

Victoria massaged her forehead. “You looked, didn’t you?”

“Wow, how did you know?”

“...Well, knowing you, it wasn’t all that hard to guess. Your party will weep if they see how you really are, Elise,” Victoria muttered, while Ismelda covered her eyes. “So looking didn’t have an effect on you?”

“Doesn’t seem like it, nope.” With a shake of her head, Elise went about to prove it, staring at the wall and the sculptures on it, even describing the events out loud. “Huh… this is interesting stuff that I didn’t know before,” she said when she finished. “No wait…”

“What is it, mother?” Ismelda asked, still not looking at the walls, maintaining her caution. She clenched her fist at Elise’s final tone of voice, a tone low and hesitant.

“I’m remembering something. It’s really faint, but when I look at these events, it’s as if I…” Elise trailed off and she stared at the walls, biting her nail. “...it’s as if I was there when they happened.”

She sounded baffled.

At last, Ismelda got over her fear and looked at the sculptures too. First in small, short peeks, and then the peeks grew longer until she didn’t bother to look away. She tilted her head. “I’m not remembering anything.”

“That’s because you weren’t alive for it.” Victoria’s voice cut into their thoughts. “This is a history of the flugel race. Of the seven of us here, only Elise and I are old enough to remember anything from that era.”

Elise gasped at the word. “The flugels! Where are they? No, I remember that they were getting wiped out by the invading… humans!” She knocked on her head in an attempt to conjure up some of those buried memories. “The humans and their undead. None of this makes sense.”

The confusion that hit Elise, someone so experienced and powerful, was so disorienting that Camilla stepped back. While not nearly as troubling as seeing those hunters roll around on the ground in pain from their memories being tampered with constantly, it was the first time that Camilla had ever seen someone recover their missing memories.

Elise’s guards and Ismelda looked on in worry, and of them all, Victoria was the calmest.

“It seems that here, the spell does not work. I suppose it’s time to fill you in then, Elise. But until this is over, try not to think about the past too much. It should come back in time.”

Still clutching her head with an annoyed grimace, Elise nodded, took a deep breath, and straightened. It was almost unreal how quickly she recovered. “About time I find out what I’m really getting myself into, I suppose. Let’s talk while we walk.”

When her guards looked to be getting comfortable listening to the story, Elise shook her finger at them. “Stay on guard. I’ll tell you the important bits later.”

Although they looked downcast, the guards obeyed their leader’s order to the letter and continued to look straight ahead with sharp eyes, all while Victoria launched into the same story that the mysterious flugel commander had once told Camilla and Kagriss.