A Bloodsucking Demon in a Snowy Town (7)

It was a horribly warped entity, with many lives forcibly crammed into the small vessel of a human being.

Its vessel had split open and its contents were leaking out, so it would perish unless it took in more lives than were leaving it.

That was why it had crammed in even more lives, becoming a grotesquely bloated monster.

If only it had at least looked like a monster. But because it retained a human shape, the incongruity was all the more nauseating.

I had known that even before meeting it, but seeing it right before my eyes revealed an ugliness that made me want to look away.

For once, I resented my High Elf senses, which made everything far too clear.

"Quite―― a――reckless―― elf."

It made some kind of sound.

It had probably said something to me, but my overwhelming disgust made my brain refuse to recognize that sound as a voice or words.

Therefore, whatever Reihon had said was irrelevant.

The problem was that the arrow that should have struck him in the chest had not pierced him.

It had gone through his clothes, but stopped at his skin.

A simple wooden arrow would be one thing, but the arrowhead carved from a Grunwolf's claws and fangs could easily pierce even monsters.

I had no idea how it worked, but he was ridiculously monstrous.

"Spirit of Wind."

But if that was the case, I only had to change my method of attack.

The path for the wind was open.

I compressed the wind as hard as I could and packed it into the room, then released it so it would burst apart and blow Reihon away along with part of the mansion... or so it should have.

"With―― the Wood――"

Yet when Reihon made some sound and formed a sword seal with his fingers, the compressed wind vanished.

The wind spirit had certainly answered my plea and lent me its aid, so had its effect simply vanished all at once?

Shaken by a phenomenon that should not have been possible, my reaction was delayed for an instant.

Yes, for only the tiniest instant—the time it took to blink once.

But in that instant, Reihon closed the distance and tried to drive all five fingers into my stomach.

When I twisted desperately to escape, several of the fingers that grazed me tore open my flank with a savage slash.

Then, with my balance broken by that awkward movement, Reihon's kick sent me flying.

My body was knocked off the balcony and, carried by that momentum, struck the ground... or rather, it would have, if the earth spirit had not hastily transformed the ground into soft sand to catch me.

No, right—if I had been slammed into the ground like that, I would have suffered serious injuries even if everything had gone as well as possible.

Another reason I escaped with my life was that my beloved bow, which had hastily caught Reihon's kick, was made from a branch of spirit wood that was extraordinarily flexible and durable.

Had it been an ordinary bow, it would have snapped easily and failed to protect me.

...But, yes, that was truly pathetic.

I endured the pain and got to my feet.

If xianjutsu meant interfering with nature, then it might also be possible to interfere with the power wielded by spirits. But my disgust toward that warped presence had made me forget all about it.

That was why I had panicked and made a fool of myself.

The bigger problem was simply that I was weak.

The spirits who lent me their strength were powerful, and I thought I was good at handling that power.

I was skilled with a bow, passable with a sword, and capable of using magic as well.

Even so, I was terribly poor at putting those abilities together in actual combat.

Simply pitting strength and skill against an opponent and giving up when they failed was no different from the crude brawling of some strong-armed roughneck.

Well, fighting that sort of roughneck was probably the most enjoyable thing resembling combat to me.

But apparently, that wouldn't be enough to kill a vampire.

In that case, I had no choice.

I had to kill this vampire here.

And I had to do it before the guards came running after hearing the noise.

But I had to be careful not to misunderstand one thing: I was not here as a hero of justice to defeat an evil vampire.

Nor was I here as a representative of the High Elves.

Struggling to extend one's limited lifespan was neither wrong nor ugly.

Even if it was accomplished by using other people as nourishment and sacrifices, it was only natural for living things to survive by feeding on other living things.

At least, someone like me—a High Elf with a long lifespan—shouldn't casually deny it.

I simply could not accept it on a personal level, and Reihon's continued existence placed the people precious to me in danger.

That was why I was merely trying to kill him.

I had to be careful not to misunderstand that.

What I needed to do was not look at the vampire with contempt, but recognize Reihon as a formidable opponent and fight in a way that would let me kill him.

I might not be much myself, but all of my teachers were incredible in their own ways, so I should be able to manage at least that much.

I drew a deep breath and looked at Reihon, who was looking down at me from the balcony.

"You are surprisingly tenacious. To challenge me with only that level of ability, you are a foolish forest-dweller. Fear me, regret this, and tremble and weep as you become my sustenance."

The disgust had not changed much, but at last, the sounds he made began to resemble a voice, and I was able to recognize them as words.

Perhaps it was because I had been wounded in the flank and was bleeding.

My head had cooled considerably as well.

Even so, he had spouted a remarkably stereotypical line.

...Wasn't he embarrassed?

No, actually, the situation I had landed in—being looked down on by someone who would say something like that—was probably several times more embarrassing for me.

I smiled.

I found the ridiculous situation, as well as my own inadequacy, amusing.

But perhaps Reihon thought I was making fun of him. Apparently displeased by my smile, he let anger rise across his face, and before I knew it, he had closed the distance and cocked his fist.

He had been frighteningly fast the last time as well.

But still, yes, he was certainly fast, yet I had already seen that movement once.

"Earth!"

As I leaped far backward to escape the approaching fist, the earth rose up and transformed into stone spears.

Countless stone spears bore down on Reihon.

"With the Wood element..."

He immediately began chanting the words and forming a sword seal, but I had seen that once already, too.

I already knew it would be nullified.

There wasn't time to call out to the spirit, so I swung my hand down as though fanning the wind.

The wind spirit understood my intent and fired countless blasts of compressed wind from the sky at Reihon like cannon shells.

With Reihon caught between the earth spears and the wind shells, attacks from above and below, I held out my hand toward him.

It did not matter if they were nullified.

I did not need one huge blast that could blow him away. If I piled up enough small attacks to halt his movements, that would be sufficient.

Reihon had apparently taken me for a forest-dweller, an ordinary elf, but unfortunately, he was mistaken.

Since the attack had been nullified while still incomplete, perhaps he had not realized the scale of the attack that could have blown away the entire room?

I was a High Elf, a race more skilled than ordinary elves at gaining the aid of spirits.

Thus, the attacks exceeded anything Reihon had anticipated, pinning him in place and preventing him from moving.

"Ei, Dar, Pits, Ro, Force!"

What I uttered was not a plea for the spirits' aid, but an incantation for casting magic.

The spell formula transformed the mana I released into a mass of flame, which I fired from my palm.

The explosive fireball struck Reihon squarely and caused a massive explosion.

A powerful offensive spell like that could easily kill several ordinary humans.

Since Reihon was no ordinary human, he would naturally be able to withstand it.

Reihon charged through the flames, the claws on both hands glinting as he attacked me.

It must have hurt at least somewhat, because his face was twisted with furious anger.

But I had already predicted that from the moment I began the sequence of attacks.

So I was already prepared.

Having resolved to cut my opponent down, I channeled mana into my magic sword and wielded a technique from the Yosogi school.

A horizontal slash, followed by a vertical one.

That settled the fight.

Reihon must have had extraordinary confidence in the toughness of his own body.

I did not know how it worked, but the arrowhead carved from a Grunwolf's claws and fangs had failed to pierce him.

So he had tried to let his body stop my sword and forcefully devour me.

But I, too, had confidence in the magic sword I had forged with Kaushman.

As for my smithing skill, I had learned it from Azvardo, so that went without saying.

My skill as a swordsman was still immature, but even Kaeha had acknowledged the sharpness of the sword I had kept swinging out of admiration for her.

I had wielded that magic sword—and its sharpness—with the intent to kill.

No matter how hard he was, there was no way I couldn't cut him.

...Reihon, cut into four pieces, writhed on the ground.

According to what I knew from my previous life, vampires could revive even from ashes, but the vampires of this world were not like that.

They had no trouble with sunlight, could cross running water, and probably did not care about garlic or crosses, but in exchange, killing them really did kill them.

Perhaps being split into four would merely make him burn through his stockpiled lives and survive, but I had no intention of allowing that.

Reihon desperately moved his mouth at me, but since he had been split vertically as well, no voice could emerge from his throat.

But I could more or less guess what he wanted to say.

He was probably begging for his life, trying to bargain, or spitting words of resentment.

The wound in my flank was only now beginning to throb with a burning pain.

I really was not cut out for this sort of thing.

But precisely because of that, I thought I needed to become a little stronger.

If I continued living outside the forest, I would probably encounter something akin to a monster again.

I did not know whether it would be decades or hundreds of years from now, but there was no guarantee that my next opponent would be this manageable.

I channeled mana into my magic sword and thrust it into him with all my might.

Again. And again.