Chapter 11 Missing
To be fair, this had been Harry's fault.
Completely concealed, he had taken Shalltear's arm when she had been in the middle of a battle. Truly, what had he been thinking?
The moment time resumed, the vampire had felt something restraining her arm and had attacked the invisible foe without a second thought, the lance piercing Harry's shoulder at the same time he apparated them away, his cry of "Wait!" coming a second too late.
For a moment, he had lost concentration about the destination he wanted to arrive at… and a moment was all it took.
He had apparated them to Albedo's side of the battlefield alright, but they were way too close to the enemies pierced by spears. Put simply, they were in range of the destructive spell now.
"Shit! Expulso!" he exclaimed, putting as much magic as he could behind the spell. He watched Shalltear's surprised gaze for a moment before his surroundings were filled with darkness, pain coming in unending waves. The feeling was similar to the one the cruciatus caused, and while he could endure most of it at the beginning, the agony he felt was doubled at the end, making him release a sharp cry of pain.
Logically, he knew it only had lasted some seconds, it was his spell after all, but speaking from the victim's point of view the whole ordeal had felt like an eternity. Once the darkness finally lifted, he could see the infertile field covered in corpses, most of them with holes that signaled the place where the spears had pierced them. Other than that, they looked relatively unhurt.
[Mantle of Destruction] was a spell that consumed the living force of a being, forcefully taking it out of the system. The pain was caused by the energy being dragged out from all parts of the body at the same time, so it caused great HP damage while leaving the body physically intact.
The others had already been injured when Harry activated that spell, so in the end the only one left standing was him, even if his legs were trembling and the pierced shoulder was throbbing with pain, blood sliding down his arm and torso.
"Hadrian-sama!" came the chorus of female voices filled with panic. The concealment spell he had placed on Aura was starting to dissipate, since he could now see a distortion in the air when she moved towards him; along with the other two guardians.
"It's not too bad" he tried to make light of the situation, but couldn't give more than one step before losing his balance. Stupid, shaky legs.
Albedo was only too willing to support him, coming at his uninjured side in a blink. Shalltear took a step closer to do the same, but was stopped by Albedo's World item pointing threateningly at her.
"Don't you dare touch him! Haven't you done enough-?!" Albedo started to say as she brought her weapon even closer to Shalltear's frozen body, but Harry placed his bloodied hand over her arm to stop the movement.
"It was my fault Albedo" Harry calmly admitted, interrupting her mid-sentence, Albedo froze immediately, her gaze focused on the spot of her arm he had dirtied with blood "Shalltear, lift the curse please?"
The wound would have begun to heal on its own if not for the weapon's curse, one that made almost all healing magic useless against the injuries made by the item. As it was, the injury had been bleeding non-stop and he was beginning to feel a little bit dizzy.
"O-of course!" said the vampire before hurriedly closing the distance, one hand hovering over his shoulder while the other one grasped the Spuit Lance tightly. Harry could feel the malicious magic vanishing from the wound, and let out a relieved sigh once all of it was gone.
Summoning the elder wand, he did his best to help his inner magic heal the injury, until he ended with a pink scar-tissue. After that, he waved it over himself and Albedo's arm to clean up the blood before turning to address the vampire.
"I'm sorry Shalltear, this happened because I startled you. I should have taken down the concealing charms" he really had been stupid, and considered it lucky that the lance had pierced his shoulder and not somewhere more vital. Madeye would have surely killed him if he had done such a thing to him, so he was grateful for Shalltear's less lethal reaction.
As a djinn, his resistance against physical attacks was greater than other races, but Shalltear was strong and it was a divine weapon…
"N-no! It was my fault, to have acted with such hostility against Hadrian-sama… It's an unforgivable sin! Please, I beg you my Lord, bestow upon me a fitting punishment!" Shalltear was on her knees in an instant, a couple of tears rolling down her red cheeks as she hiccupped softly.
Harry didn't think she deserved any punishment; it had been completely his fault, to act so carelessly while in the middle of a battle. Back at the time, his reason for not taking down the concealment was so the enemy would remain unaware of his whereabouts, in the odd case they managed to survive or avoid the attack; but he could have used a [Message] to tell Shalltear to move further away or something.
Still, he remembered quite clearly that Albedo hadn't been able to rest or work properly after her… reaction to the reward-memory, until he had given her a punishment. Thinking something similar would happen if he just tried to dismiss the issue, he sighed before speaking.
"I'll decide on one at a later date, so please rise" once the vampire stood shakily, he turned to the elf that had stayed silent until now "Aura, please check the stats of the enemy, make sure everyone is dead. Shalltear, stay close to Aura and protect her if the enemy is faking it"
The two guardians agreed, immediately moving towards the corpses that lied dispersed on the battleground. They seemed to be chatting between them, but were too far away for him to discern anything.
"This was my fault, is a punishment really necessary?" he whispered, closing his eyes briefly.
"If I may voice my opinion, I consider it the right thing to do, it'll be better this way" was Albedo's answer, her soft voice coming from very close, so much in fact that he could feel her breath on his cheek. Ah, she was still helping him stand.
"Thank you for your help Albedo, I can stand properly now" He had gotten over his height issue a long time ago, but couldn't help but find the position uncomfortable since Albedo was as tall as him, and was much closer than strictly necessary.
"Please forgive my insolence Hadrian-sama, but wouldn't it be better to wait until you are fully healed-" the rage against Shalltear seemed to have been forgotten, too busy flirting as she lowered her voice and blinked slowly at him.
"It's alright, please don't worry" he interrupted, taking a step away from her to prove his point. His legs were still trembling slightly, but not to the point that he was unable to move by himself. Opening his bag, he accioed a potion that was meant to heal the nerves after the cruciatus, figuring it would be enough to reduce the effects that remained from the destructive curse. Not long after drinking it, Shalltear and Aura came back.
"They're really dead, Hadrian-sama" said the unnaturally serious voice of Aura, the place she was standing at looking oddly blurry. He waved his wand lazily upon her, taking down her concealment.
Now, what should he do with them? Use [True Death] and get rid of the corpses like he would with the old lady? Or risk resurrection so he could get more information? Ah, decisions, decisions…
…Well, Clementine had paid in levels her resurrection, so it probably would be the same with them. Resurrecting one at a time should be fine, so long he killed them immediately after using legilimency, right? Demiurge can experiment with the bodies after that, like he did with the others'.
Walking slowly and carefully, the effects of the dark curse weren't nearly as intense as before, but he had yet to regain his strength. He went and transfigured the corpses in different objects, placing them in his bag for the time being. Once that was done, he told Aura to stop the influence of her World-item, going back to the real world briefly before he opened a [Gate] to return to Nazarik.
A few days later, in the Slane Theocracy, a girl stepped out of the main room, finally liberated from the meeting of the Cardinals, a gathering of the highest ranking people in the country.
She had a unique hairstyle, with the left side being a different color from the right. One was silver, while the other was an all-consuming black. The color of her eyes was similarly mismatched. On her hand was a war scythe that resembled a cross-shaped spear, swaying slightly as she walked.
Although she looked youthful, barely 15, her age did not correspond to her appearance at all. She was a cross-blooded child, half human, half elf, and the Black Scripture's Extra Seat, known as "Certain Death". She was a guardian, responsible for defending the place where the relics of five gods were kept.
The girl walked with an oddly pensive look on her face, taking out a Rubik cube from her right pocket, she began to play with it mindlessly after hanging her weapon in her back.
"One face is simple enough, but getting two faces right is hard." she said out loud to no one in particular, even as she thought about the news the Cardinals had delivered.
The whole Black Scripture, disappeared? According to the surveillance team, they had been there one moment, gone at the next. The only exception had been Kaire-san, and only for a brief moment before the signal had been totally interrupted.
Sure, the surveillance team wasn't nearly as good as the Windflower Scripture or Thousand Mile Astrologer, but they had been in charge of following the Black Scripture since the others were busy trying to locate the traitor, Clementine.
The meeting had gone on and on, seemingly unending, the only conclusion all of them seemed to agree with was that something dangerous was in the Re-Estize Kingdom. The Cardinals didn't know what to expect, if their strongest had really been incapacitated as one of them seemed to believe. What kind of monster had arisen then?
In the end, they decided to leave things as they were for the time being, while the Windflower team returned to the country so they could try strong divination magic to help locate the missing Black Scripture.
Also, the people that used to be part of said Scripture and had retired would be asked to come back to work again, if only so they wouldn't be totally defenseless in the absence of their strongest team. Everyone had agreed on that course of action.
"But that doesn't solve anything, does it?" he talked with herself as she walked in the empty hallways, her gaze focused on the toy in her hands.
She wasn't worried about the members of the Black Scripture, if anything, her mismatched eyes seemed to sparkle with curiosity, delight, and battle-lust. After all, anything that could defeat the whole group would have to be strong, maybe God-kin or Dragon Lord.
"Could it be The Vampire Dragon Lord or the Elder Coffin Dragon Lord?"
The curve of her lips widened in a clear, predatory smile. She was itching to know whatever creature they had encountered; thinking that she may finally have a good, exciting battle.
AUTHOR NOTE:
Aaaaand there you go! I had fun with this one, much better than the previous chapter, really.
I'm not sure about what to do in the next chapter. I have some ideas, but I haven't decided how to include them in the story quite yet. Who knows, maybe I'll take a break and do a simple Omake.
Anyways, thanks for reading! Feel free to comment, review, follow, fav, kudo or do whatever you feel like doing. Or nothing of the above, if you're just here for a quick read.
See ya!
EDIT* Zesshi is going to appear, I swear to God I didn't write her just for the heck of it. I thought it was going to be sooner though, but… yeah, sorry for the wait, I know this chapter doesn't make much sense at first. She will appear~