With these kids' ambush ruined and the two groups separated at the start, we plowed through the larger group with surprising ease. It seemed like pretty much everyone's levels were higher than any of these kids. In addition, in the confusion we were able to reduce their numbers so quickly that by the time the smaller group caught up, we were able to devote two thirds of our group to handling them.
The smaller group were all comprised of taller robed figures. They were obviously higher levels as well, but when outnumbered three to one, the difference wasn't nearly enough and they were cut down.
I stood there in the blood soaked battlefield.
Broken bodies littered the trampled grass.
The members of the investigation group were going around checking the bodies. A few were injured in the fight, but there weren't any deaths on our side.
On the other side...my most optimistic estimate put the survivors at half. None from the second group were left alive.
Crack!
"Hey!"
I yelled in shock.
One of the adventurers just stomped on a dying little boy's neck. I clearly heard his spine break.
"He couldn't fight back! Why did you have to kill him?!"
The guy turned to me, but simply scoffed before he started to search the body.
"Hey miss."
I turned to the voice. It was the investigation leader. He put a hand on my trembling shoulder as I did my best to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill out.
(This isn't right. This isn't right at all!)
"I know what you're thinking, but they were the ones who tried to kill us first."
"But, but we've already beat them!"
"And what? You want to take them as prisoners?"
(That's right!)
"Isn't that what we should be doing?"
"That's the works of soldiers and knights. Besides, how do you expect to keep them from causing trouble? We have rope but we can't risk them snapping them."
That was a legitimate question for sure. Even more importantly, we didn't have a choice but to guard the kids if we kept them prisoners. And the more people we left to guard them, the less we had to continue the investigation.
"How about this?"
Touching the ground, I infused the soil with a bit of magic and reshaped it into heavy stone shackles.
"Hmmm..."
The leader took the shackles and his muscles flexed. After a moment the stone shackles crumbled in his hands.
"Make them a bit thicker and it'll work."
[Claret?]
Now that I had some busy work to do, I turned my attention to my loyal familiar.
"What is it Master?"
[Could you check the forest? See if any of the spirits know anything about this group or where they came from.]
The shadow spirit looked at the limp bodies scattered around the ground before looking at the forest.
"I'll see if I can find any."
Leaving those ominous words to me, Claret took off to the skies.
For me, since I had his approval, I quickly went over to the unconscious kids and wrapped their forearms with thick and heavy shackles, tightly fit to reduce the chances of them being able to wiggle their way out of them. Since they were made of a single solid piece of magically fused stone, nothing but brute force or the application of [Earth Magic] could break them.
Then I lined them up in a row and bound their feet as well just in case, connecting these together so that they couldn't move apart as is. The ones that had serious injuries but were still alive I quickly healed up but only so far as to prevent their deaths.
Quite a lot of them had broken bones other debilitating injuries, but none of them seemed to be a threat to their lives. Aside from that, it was better, while a bit cruel, to leave the non-life threatening injuries alone to prevent them from trying to start any trouble.
(The rest though...)
By the time I finished this, the dead had already been piled up and one of the other adventurers was covering them with dirt while chanting some sort of spell. It wasn't even a real burial, but just a half-assed attempt to hide the bodies it looked like.
Not wanting to look at the bodies any further, I turned back to the row of unconscious assailants.
Many of their hoods had come off at some point. The view simply confused me.
While we were fighting, I distinctly saw fangs and red eyes, on many of them. Even if the fangs were strangely short, they were telltale signs of vampires like myself. But looking at the kids more closely revealed things that shouldn't have been possible.
Some were short and wide set. Some were taller and thin. Quite a few had ears that were barely pointy at all. The ones that stood out the most though, had furry ears on the top of their heads, not the sides.
Just to make sure, I checked one of the cat eared kids. He definitely had those strangely short fangs and red eyes.
[Alicia? What are these kids?]
[...]
[Alicia?]
Strangely, I didn't get an immediate response. Thinking about it, it was strange that she didn't give me any information about these kids during the fight either. While she was a person who respected people's privacy properly and didn't use [Scan] on random people, there wasn't much reason to avoid that on people attacking us.
The only reason I could think of was that she didn't think that these guys were worth giving me information on due to how weak they were. But that didn't quite feel characteristic of her in the first place.
[Oh, umm, sorry Scarlet.]
[Ah, no, it's fine. Is something the matter?]
[No. Or rather, maybe?]
The little girl was confusing me. Usually she was only hesitant on things she felt was being selfish, even if it was far from it.
[There's something really strange about these people.]
[You noticed something too?]
It seemed there was a reason why she was being quiet.
[I've been looking through their information over and over, but...here, it's faster if you look.]
With those words, a window showed up. It was the stats page for one of the kids, truncated to only the first few entries. It didn't even take a split second for me to notice the issue.
[There's only garbage for the race name...]
Rather than a proper race name, the race entry was filled with only some random, incomprehensible characters. It was completely unreadable.
[It's not just that one either.]
Alicia pushed out the stats for several others, and they all had the same set of incomprehensible characters.
(No, they're not all the same. There's a little variation between them.)
[I can't figure out what its supposed to mean. I've never seen something like this before.]
I hadn't either. Anything in the stats page was always something easily readable. That was the entire point of the stats page after all. It summed up a person's abilities and qualities in an easy to read manner. Having an entry that was impossible to properly read was betraying that point.
[There's more too. I looked around trying to figure out why the race entry was so weird, but it doesn't make any sense. Look, there's even this!]
The frustrated little girl showed me another kid's status screen. This time it extended to the skills list, but it looked like it stopped part way in. I simply looked at the last visible entry.
"!!!"
It was almost miraculous that I didn't shout out loud at what I had seen.
[Right? It's weird!]
Under racial skills, there were the entries for [Blood Sucking (Vampire)] and [Natural Weapons (Vampire)]. But the strange thing was that they were greyed out. Both of them.
[How is this possible?]
(How indeed.)
Those were the racial skills for vampires. It wouldn't have been strange for these kids to have those skills if they really were vampires, but for some reason the entries were greyed out. The only reason I could think of for that was that they weren't actual vampires. But if they weren't, then how did they even get those skills in the first place? It was the trait of vampires to acquire the skills of those they feed on.
[Do they have some sort of skill that lets them acquire new skills?]
[No. I couldn't find anything like that anywhere. And also...]
A list of hidden skills showed up. For the most part they didn't look too unusual. Until I noticed something odd.
[They don't have [Sunlight Weakness]?]
I double checked and confirmed it. One of the signature traits of vampires was missing in the hidden skill list. On the other hand, [Light Weakness] was still around, so it wasn't like they were completely missing the core vampire skills.
[None of them have it. These people. They look a lot like vampires, but they're not vampires.]
It was the conclusion that I was forced to come to as well. On the surface, they seemed to be just vampire children, but looking deeper, there were so many things that contradicted that.
"To think we'd find something like this here."
I turned around in surprise. I was concentrating so much on investigating about these children than I didn't notice the investigation leader approaching behind me.
"You know what they are?"
"No. Not what, but I have heard about them."
"..."
It seemed like this wasn't quite a mystery only for us then.
"I don't know how long ago it started, but sometimes you hear about people who look like vampires, yet aren't. They can walk under the sun and don't seem to drink blood."
"You mean this is a recent thing?"
(An entire race? Being recently discovered?)
"Strangely enough, yea. Though I say that, the first sighting seemed to be before I was even born though."
A new race appearing out of nowhere, and recently at that? It didn't make any sense.
I couldn't help but wonder if maybe these were the results of humunculi experimentation or something. Though aside from those two greyed out skills, there didn't seem to be any real issues with these kids' bodies.
Whether there were any mental issues though, I wouldn't be able to find out without talking to them once they wake up of course.
I needed to know more. A lot more.
"Still, these bindings are good. I doubt any of them will be able to escape like this, these alone aren't enough."
The leader pulled out a strange little wooden box from his magic bag. It was only as big as his fist, though those were pretty huge in of themselves. It felt like those meaty palms could envelope my entire head if he tried.
Once he opened the little box up, a smaller, metallic object small enough to fit inside the palm of his hand revealed itself. It was roughly rectangular and had a faintly glowing crystal embedded in the centre. All around it, the metal was engraved in an intricate pattern. When the leader palmed the object and inserted a little bit of mana into it, the ingrained lines let off a little bit of light and a faint, almost imperceptible aura quickly expanded from the little device. The faint aura seemed to continue endlessly. At least further than I could see from so close inside.
The leader started to give instructions to the little object. Or rather, it sounded like he was giving orders to someone through it.
A little voice came back, confirming that it really was some sort of magical communication device.
It sounded like he was calling to get some people sent over to pick up our prisoners. As I didn't really have anything to contribute on that side, I went back to continue examining the little kids.
No matter how much I looked, they really seemed like ordinary kids of various races who were somehow imbued with some of the most notable vampire traits, yet also done in some half-assed manner. The fangs were too short and they didn't have access to the primary vampire skills. Their nails didn't seem to be strong enough to be used as weapons either. At most they were sharp enough to scratch ordinary people and weak monsters, but not anything that could be used in combat.
"Master! I'm sorry!"
Claret flew down from above and fell prostrate as she asked for forgiveness.
I quickly checked my surroundings. The leader was handing out instructions to the other adventurers and none of the others were paying any attention my way.
While still a bit wary about attracting unwanted attention, I turned to my familiar spirit in a way that I hoped wouldn't look suspicious.
[What happened?]
"I couldn't fulfill your order."
The shadow spirit looked particularly ashamed regarding this. Frankly, too much for my tastes.
[Raise your head and tell me in details.]
"Yes master."
Finally after me expressly ordering her, Claret got up and went back to floating in front of me. But she still refused to raise her head.
"I went to the forest ahead as you ordered, but I couldn't find any spirits to contact."
[There weren't any there?]
"Not a single one inside the forest. I even asked around the few spirits that were in the surrounding area, but aside from the occasional group that entered or exited the forest, they didn't know anything."
[And those groups that go in and out of the forest?]
"Yes! It seems like they all have vampire-like auras! I think these ones here were some of the groups that the little ones spoke of."
[I see. Good work.]
"Master!"
Claret finally raised her head, her expression a mix of surprise and joy.
[You might not have been able to do exactly as I asked, but you managed to understand that it wasn't possible and did the next best thing. There's nothing to be ashamed about being unable to do the impossible. In fact, you should be proud instead of your accomplishments.]
"Master!"
The foolish spirit of mine flew right into me, wrapping her arms around my back as she started to rub her cheeks against mine.
Claret really was a handful, but the pure innocence of hers was so incredibly endearing. I couldn't bear to keep her depressed, especially when it was about something she couldn't help.
[So Claret, do you know anything about these kids?]
Once the old spirit calmed down a bit, I asked her my next most important question.
"Aside from the fact that they came from somewhere inside that forest, nothing."
[So, not even what they are? Why they seem to have some vampire characteristics?]
"No. I hadn't even heard of such things. Even you yourself spent a long time researching that sort of thing before, remember?"
Again, something regarding my predecessor, rather than me.
[...No, I don't.]
"Oh, umm, right. Well, for as long as I remember, you've always been looking for a way to get a family. To make one of your own flesh and blood like how the mortal races do it."
When she explained it that way, I did remember her talking about such a thing before. The previous Scarlet was extremely interested in the idea of families and wanted one of her own.
(Actually, now that she mentions it...)
The fact that my predecessor worked so hard on this yet had nothing to show for it as far as I, and especially Claret, could tell, suggested that it wasn't possible for vampires to be born any way aside from the natural way. That was, to come into existence spontaneously as a fully mature being.
But the very existence of these kids that attacked us earlier contradicts such a thing.
The only explanation I could reason out was that someone figured out how to either convert existing people into pseudo-vampires, or they discovered how to create new vampires, even if they were only existences that could marginally be considered such a thing.
As I thought. I really need to find out more about the origin of these kids.
The problem was, humonculi were illegal. If it was suspected that I was interested in such a thing, it could end my career as an adventurer. It could even end my ability to overtly act in any civilization in this world.
At the very worst, I needed to at least act like I wasn't particularly interested in humonculi. Especially if these kids ended up being exactly that.
"Hey Miss, we're going."
"...Huh?"
When I looked up, the leader was standing over me with his arms crossed.
"You focused so much on these kids that you weren't listening to what I said?"
"Oh, umm...yea..."
It was best to let him believe that. Though to be honest, the biggest part of why I wasn't paying attention was because I didn't think what he was saying concerned me.
"The injured and a few others are going to stay to watch over the prisoners until the guard get here to take them back to the city while the rest of us are going to move on to the forest to find the bandit hideout. The ones staying behind will concentrate on healing their wounds, and once the guards collect the prisoners, they will follow after us."
"I see."
It sounded like a risky strategy, but we were against the clock, so it made sense.
"Depending on how things go, we'll either take on the hideout with just us, or wait for the rest to join up. Got it?"
"Yea."
"Good."
With that, just under two thirds of our group marched off while the rest stayed behind, one of our healers tending to the wounded while the group kept watch in case one of the kids tried something.
"And next time pay attention."
"..."
I didn't have any words to return.
Despite it still being dark, we continued through and had entered the forest. The light of the stars and moons had quite a lot of difficulty in penetrating through the canopy. While I was fine with that, the others weren't.
Several of them took out various lighting implements, from lanterns to some sort of magical tool that emitted light. Those things were pretty annoying. Especially the latter, but the light from even regular lanterns made it harder to enjoy the environment. Not like this was the time to enjoy it, but the way the shadows continuously flickered all over the place as the light sources moved around constantly was annoying as well.
That said, the presences within the forest was even more space than that of the plains surrounding it.
It was as if most of the monsters here were wiped out already.
Considering that so many kids lived in this forest, if there were a lot more in the hideout they lived in, that would most likely be the reason why there were so few monsters in this area. They had already hunted them all to the point of near extinction.
Well, it wasn't that bad, to be exact. Just that the density of monsters was low enough that you weren't likely to just walk into one randomly. There were still enough that they could be hunted by determined and experienced hunters, or people who cheated with [Sense Presence] like me.
That said, the bandits did basically nothing to hide their tracks inside of the forest. The tracks were so obvious that even a complete amateur like myself had no trouble following them.
Footprints that numbered so many that the ground was covered in them, lines carved in the ground that suggested something was being dragged, and tons of broken foliage littered a tight path. The tracks were so obvious that I was a little worried that another ambush was waiting for us.
But I couldn't detect such a thing.
It wasn't just the monster presences that were few in numbers, but any others as well. Nothing that felt like a patrol or people standing watch.
I couldn't help but think that maybe everyone that wasn't needed to guard the bandit base itself had already been sent out and we had dealt with them or something.
But wishful thinking like that was a quick ticket to the grave if I didn't keep them in check.
Even still, I did hope that there weren't many more kids that were forced into banditry to survive. Whatever the reason why those kids were involved in the first place. There was the off chance that we were wrong and those kids weren't a part of the bandit group we had been following, but the chances of that were so minuscule that I wasn't worried about the possibility. They were more likely being raised as additional bodies to be used by the bandits, and it wasn't something I liked in the slightest.
For now though, as the night deepened while we followed the bandit tracks, I could only hope that the village survivors were still alive and in decent health. And that there weren't more kids being raised into banditry.
I really worried about the future of the ones we had captured, and hoped that when they were judged, they were given leniency due to being kids. Though considering the societal level of what I had seen so far, I wasn't able to put in much hope.
Ninetailed_Furball
Hi everybody! It's your usual furball! (/◕ヮ◕)/
Sorry for the slightly late release, but at least it's here now! (^.^)
Hope everyone enjoys the chapter!
For now, I have to wake up in four hours for work, so ciao! (^^)/
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