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Chapter 155 - 154 - How To Proceed?

Two days had passed since we fended off the Vampire attack on the Rustlands. The end result felt bittersweet at best. On the one hand, we had only let two Vampires escape. But on the other hand, we\'d suffered a large number of casualties ourselves. First off, effectively two-thirds of the eight hundred plus Adventurers were all killed, with almost no lower-ranked Adventurers left alive at all.

On top of that, the entirety of the Rustlands\' royal family save for Prince Ocroed, soon to be king-by-default, were killed, along with thousands of civilians. Not long after I drove off or killed all the stronger Vampires, the remaining Vampire Minions, who could sense that their leaders were retreating without any warning, ended up cutting loose, doing as they pleased and wreaking havoc everywhere. They made their way to the evacuation zone and killed over thirty thousand civilians before the Adventurers finally exterminated them.

Well, the initial number of civilian deaths had been closer to twenty-five thousand, but after the battle ended, a few Minions had gone into hiding and were attacking people covertly after the whole thing had seemingly died down...some Adventurers had pursued and eliminated them yesterday, with Atticus helping them navigate using Call spells. Additionally, some of my classmates and underclassmen were also killed.

The rest of the notable casualties included a few of Bronztan\'s S-Ranks, Neo Lapunder, Zira Rufaim, and nearly all the instructors except for Instructor Tabbs, Uensh and some of the non-combatant staff...apparently, Instructor Uensh only survived because she ran away, resulting in the deaths of some of the second years.

Thousands of deaths and heaps of damage...if the Vampires attack again, we were as good as dead. Sure, their numbers took a big hit, only four Vampires survived from the group that headed for The Empire, and only two survived from the group that came here, but they still had plenty of firepower left...all five Evil Numbers were still alive, along with ten of the Vampire Knights, twenty-three Vampire Generals, and a bit less than three hundred Vampire Minions.

Meanwhile, most of Silvland\'s Adventurers were killed when they attacked there, and the combined total Adventurers left alive in the Rustlands was a mere three hundred and eleven...of which, a little under two hundred were B-Ranked or below, mostly Bs, since the C and D-Ranks had been almost completely wiped out. That left less than a hundred and twenty A-Ranked and above, of which only eighteen were S-Ranked.

With Neo and Zira dead, the Rustlands only had eight S-Ranks left, while Bronztan had five of their S-Ranks killed, leaving ten left. Oh, right, I forgot about Les and Selesa, guess that\'s twenty S-Ranks...also, Selesa had apparently defeated a Vampire Minion that could absorb other Vampires and grow to a massive size...but the way she defeated it was kinda...disturbing. Though very fitting for her.

Looking at this result, there was no doubt about it...we would have lost this battle if it wasn\'t for the alliance with Bronztan and the knowledge we got from Atticus...the ambush hadn\'t been nearly as effective as we\'d hoped, but it still took out a couple dozen or so of the Minions, which probably saved us a good fifty or so Adventurers. The cannons and crossbows were completely useless, what a waste of time making those was.

Yeah, the damage and casualties we suffered were significant, but it could have been so, so much worse. If, or more like, when the Vampires attack again...we\'ll be defeated for sure. Even with my strength and speed, I couldn\'t kill all of them within my time limit, even if I use that boosted form by absorbing some Vampires, the increasingly damaging toll it takes on my body would eat up my stamina as my Healing Factor tries to repair the damage.

And once I reach my limit, I won\'t stand a chance against them, especially the Knights and Evil Numbers, I could probably handle a General or two with Karma, but more than that would be tough. We need to come up with a new plan, but...I\'ve got nothing at the moment.

We\'d also learnt something about the Store and Extract spells...some Adventurers had tried using Store to seal some of the Vampires away, but it didn\'t work. Well, technically it worked, they got Stored and all, but after a few seconds, the area around where they last were before the spell was activated on them would start cracking as if the air was made of glass, before shattering and the Vampire would reappear. I decided to test it out and had Persia use Store on me.

It felt really weird, like I was trapped in a really trippy and hazy dream...but if I really focused, I could resist it, and reappear again. I asked Elina if she could fix that, but she said that she had no idea how to go about doing that, since as far as she knew, it should be impossible to break out in the first place. We tried it out on some other Adventurers too, a few managing to break out. We could only afford a small sample size though, most people were in shock or too depressed to think about anything, a lot of them had lost loved ones.

Mika\'s parents were among the casualties, she was understandably devastated, and was currently staying at my place in the extra room, though she hadn\'t said a word or eaten anything ever since. She had apparently fought a Vampire Minion, but all things considered, I definitely won\'t be scolding or lecturing her about it.

Tomorrow, there were going to be a bunch of meetings regarding how we should proceed from here, but...I wasn\'t feeling too optimistic. As it stands, I\'m the only one who can hold their own against the Evil Numbers, and according to Atticus, I was just about as strong as Lazarus, or maybe a fraction stronger, after I preyed on the Vampire Knights\' life forces. I\'d probably surpass him if I sunk my fangs into an Evil Number, but it won\'t be as easy this time, Eighty-Seven would have reported what happened, so they\'ll be on guard against me.

Then there were the Vampire Crosses I\'d obtained, those were some pretty handy additions...Teleport was super useful, and Beckon was great too. As for the eight other Crosses I got from the Vampire Generals, they had already all faded, which was too bad since some of them would\'ve been pretty useful.

While I couldn\'t use the Crosses in my normal state, I could use them in both Vampire Mode and Soul-Eater Mode, and since the latter is a form I can stay in practically indefinitely, I\'d still have access to the Crosses even after I use up my Vampire Mode time limit, which was now about two minutes.

My body had gotten enhanced, but I hadn\'t gotten any especially significant strength or speed boosts...no, it was more like my body had become sturdier and more resilient, which was why my time limit had doubled for Vampire Mode, and for Karma as well. Oh, and my Healing Factor seemed to be working more efficiently too, I healed a bit faster at the same previous stamina consumption rate, which was great since my stamina had also increased.

It still hadn\'t quite sunk in yet, the events of the day before yesterday...after all, I hadn\'t fought for long in that battle, probably less than ten minutes in total, in fact. From the launch of the ambush to the moment I consumed Magna\'s life force, that couldn\'t have been more than ten minutes in total. After that, I was so drained from healing the waves of pain and damage caused by the boosted Vampire Mode that I was effectively out of the battle.

Oh, Rai and Key showed up a few minutes after I returned to my normal state, after they defeated the one Vampire General that somehow escaped me. Elsewhere, Siert had found Instructor Tabbs and Princess Cusnai, they\'d been knocked unconscious and were mostly drained of their stamina after fighting one of the Vampire Knights.

After I returned to my normal state, I didn\'t feel much of any urgency since all the strongest Vampires who\'d been a part of this attack had either been killed or retreated, it didn\'t really occur to me how dire the situation back south could be...in my head, I knew that our apparent numbers advantage wasn\'t really an advantage, but come on, eight hundred plus Adventurers against just about a hundred Vampire Minions...you can\'t blame me for expecting it to have gone a lot better than it actually did.

We only started heading back when Persia got the sense to ask Atticus about how the battle was going...and he informed us that some of the Vampires had reached the evacuation zone. I managed to fight through the fatigue and get on my feet, we got back to the north gate shortly after Selesa had finished off the Vampire that grew in size, and as we made our way into the Rustlands, Atticus told us that most of the Vampire Minions were dead.

The battle was essentially over, except for a few enemy stragglers. All told, I\'d estimate that the entire battle had lasted for not too much longer than half an hour or at the most, forty minutes...if I\'d been more proactive after my fights, I might have been able to prevent a lot more deaths on our side. Yeah, I know that\'s a moot point since I was too drained to have been of any use in a fight at that point anyway, but it was still frustrating.

Well, anyway, it was currently around late evening on the 23nd of January, two days after the battle. I was outside, just aimlessly wandering the area since I had nothing better to do. Very few people were outside, the evacuation zone had been lifted and the civilians were all permitted to go back to their homes.

The Bronztan citizens were in the process of returning to their own country, against the advice of myself and Erhtaph. But the queen was stubbornly adamant about the fact that they didn\'t want to rely on or owe anything to the Rustlands...just great, like we weren\'t lacking in numbers to begin with. With them leaving, the number of Adventurers here dropped to around a hundred and thirty, with just the ten S-Ranks.

The west area where I lived was hardly damaged, but the straight line from north to south was in pretty bad shape, and the areas around it weren\'t unscathed either. Some of the Vampire Minions had taken the shortest route to the evacuation zone; straight south from the north gate. But some of the others had the sense to go around and take longer routes, getting into the crowd through the more weakly-guarded areas...after all, the low-ranked and student Adventurers didn\'t have the numbers to guard the entire stretch of the evac zone.

Several buildings were severely damaged, blood splatter was everywhere, along with body parts and entrails, the stench of death everywhere. I was perched on the rooftop of the castle, giving me a bird\'seye view of the aftermath of the carnage.

What am I even doing here...might as well head back home now, I guess. I didn\'t bother flying or even using Lightning Boost, I felt so...unmotivated? Lethargic? Something along those lines. I felt like I wasn\'t as upset as I should be...unlike a lot of other people, I hadn\'t lost anyone especially close to me during the attack, was that why? For some reason, that made me feel guilty...if I\'d handled things better, who knows how many deaths I could have prevented?

I should have come up with backup plans for the ambush, and-...no, there\'s no point in crying over spilt milk, what\'s done is done, and there\'s no changing that, no matter how much I or anyone else wants to change it. I guess there\'s no point denying it anymore...when I came to this world, I couldn\'t have cared less what happened to this country, but now, I genuinely considered it my home, and I may not be all that sad about the thousands of deaths, but I did have a sense of anger about this nation being attacked like that.

On my way back, I ran into a familiar face, who was heading in the direction of the castle.

"Kuro, it\'s good to see you!" She greeted me with a smile.

Clari Ramigoll, the girl who\'d been the slave of the guy I posed as during the infiltration mission...I hadn\'t seen her for a while, last time I saw her she\'d gotten a job as a waitress in a cafe. Being around her was kinda awkward though...

"Hey, how\'s it going, Clari? Glad to see you\'re doing alright," I replied with a polite nod.

"O-oh, you are? That makes me happy..."

Yeah, this is why being around her can get awkward...she\'s totally in love with me.

"Uh, right..."

"I wanted to thank you again for saving me-."

"That\'s okay, you really don\'t have to...plus you\'ve already thanked me a bunch of times, so yeah...," I cut her off awkwardly.

"Even so...if not for you, I would still be an abused slave...instead of walking around freely right now, I would be cowering in fear in a tiny room...so, thank you."

"Well, uh...you\'re welcome, and you really don\'t need to thank me again after this, once was plenty anyway. Also, should you really be walking around right now, a lot of areas have been left in pretty gruesome states."

"I\'ve gotten used to horrific sights while I was trapped in The Valaque Empire...and my uncle called for me to meet him in the castle, so that is where I\'m headed," She explained with a smile, before adding, "I heard that you drove off the strongest of the Vampires that attacked us, you saved so many people!"

"Maybe...but a lot less people would\'ve died if I had handled it a bit better," I remarked with a sigh, "And the worst part is that I don\'t feel all that torn up or anything, a lot of people died two days ago, but since none of them included anyone especially important to me, I don\'t feel too guilty or anything."

Oops, didn\'t mean to share so much, it just sort of slipped out...my lack of emotion over this whole thing was bothering me more than I would have thought.

"Um...isn\'t that normal? Sure, I\'m sad that thousands of people died and so much damage was done to the streets and buildings, but deep down, I\'m just happy that no one important to me died...instead of thinking about the people who died, why don\'t you think about all the people you saved? I was grateful beyond words when you saved me, and I\'m sure a lot of the people who survived feel the same way, at least to some extent."

Maybe she was right...maybe I was just overthinking this whole thing. No matter how \'humane\' a person is, at the end of the day, humans are selfish creatures at their very cores. I was probably being selfish over the fact that I was glad that those close to me had all survived when so many others had died...but was that selfishness really a bad thing? Or was it just a part of what it meant to be human? I\'m getting too philosophical over this, time to stop overthinking...

"Thanks, Clari, I think I needed to hear that," I said with a grin, before patting her head and starting to head back, "Well, I\'ll see you around."

"O-okay, s-see you later!" She stuttered, her face turning red and her lips curving into a goofy smile.

Maybe the headpat was a bit much, shouldn\'t have done that...

I continued heading home, feeling a bit better about the whole ordeal...that said, I still had absolutely no idea on how we should proceed from here. The sun had nearly set, the sky a dark crimson by the time my apartment building came into view...and Fuo was walking out the front entrance.

"Hey, Atticus, what brings you here?" I inquired, calling out to them as I approached the building.

"Ah, Kuro, I was actually looking for you. And you are able to tell the difference between which of us is in control?"

"Well, yeah, her hair gets kinda wild when you\'re in control. Plus I can\'t think of a reason why Fuo would visit me, so it had to be you by default," I answered with a shrug, "So, did you want to talk about something?"

"Indeed. It is about the numbers of the Vampires. Starting from yesterday morning, there was a lot of movement from the Vampires. Since none were moving in this direction, I decided to wait till they were done before informing anyone, it is a better option than having to constantly update their progress. Of the three-hundred and thirty four remaining Vampires, a hundred and thirty four of them are currently situated in the north, in the nation of Platinberg. All the remaining two hundred are in Silvland. Those in Platinberg include two Evil Numbers, five Vampire Knights and ten Vampire Generals, the rest all being Vampire Minions."

In other words, there were three Evil Numbers, five Knights, thirteen Generals and Lazarus in Silvland...and a hundred and seventy-eight Minions.

"I see, I guess that\'s good news, the fact that they\'ve split up their forces...hey, do you have any ideas regarding how we should proceed? I honestly don\'t have a clue as to what we should do next," I inquired with a sigh.

"No, I do not...I have given it a fair amount of thought, but I could not come up with a worthwhile plan."

"Yeah, same here...I thought maybe our best option would be to sneak into Silvland with a small group of our strongest options and kill the Vampires one by one covertly, but there\'s two problems with that plan...first, killing Vampires silently is near impossible without knowing the exact location of their cores, and second, if a bunch of Vampires die in quick succession, the other Vampires will be able to sense that."

"Well, not quite...Vampires do not constantly sense other Vampires naturally like breathing or blinking, it is a technique that has to be voluntarily activated. Of course, it is a very easy technique to use, but even so, it is not constantly active. That being said, if a Vampire is using that sensory technique when another Vampire is killed, they will instantly sense it and know where the death took place as well as what rank the Vampire who died was," He explained, "However, when stronger Vampires are killed, that sensory technique may activate automatically, like a sudden jolt."

"Huh, that\'s useful to know...but the first problem I mentioned is still unresolved," I replied wistfully, "I guess there\'s no point in agonizing over it, I\'ll just sleep on it and hopefully we can come up with a workable plan during tomorrow\'s meeting."

"Yes, I concur...in terms of percentage, a far greater proportion of Vampires have been killed in comparison to the proportion of humans...and yet, the Vampires\' advantage has only grown greater," Frowned Atticus, his forehead scrunched up.

Uh-oh, was there a chance that he\'d defect to their side if things became completely hopeless on this side? No, not as long as Fuo has primary control over her body. Wait a sec, come to think of it, I hadn\'t seen Fuo in control of this body for a while, could it be...

"Hey, I was wondering...it\'s been a while since I spoke to Fuo, what, is she sulking over the fact that she couldn\'t do much against Eighty-Seven?" I asked, trying not to give away that I was being skeptical of his intentions.

"You are correct...her emotions are very volatile right now-...tch, screw you, your face is volatile!" Snapped Fuo, taking control, "Wha-!? Shut up, I know we have the same face, that\'s not the point-...! Grr, whatever! Sorry about that, as you can see...she is not in the best of moods."

She gave control back to Atticus at the end there...okay, guess I was wrong, looks like she\'s still calling the shots in their shared body, good.

"When you two argue, it\'s a fine line between hilarious and annoying...if nothing else, it\'s certainly unique," I remarked with a slight laugh.

"Tch, shut up, you excessively-strong freak. Er, again, sorry about that."

"Guess that\'s one way of saying overpowered. Well, I should go back in, I guess I\'ll see ya tomorrow."

...

...

And it\'s tomorrow...which is now today. Following my talk with Atticus, the rest of the evening and night were pretty uneventful, and it was now 7 AM in the morning, I\'d just woken up and washed up, and I was currently having breakfast with Persia and Mika, who was still glum.

Her father had been the landlord of this apartment building, but since he\'d died during the Vampire attack, the ownership would be transferred to Mika when she turned sixteen, till then it would temporarily be held by the government. The remaining royals and advisors like Erhtaph had the unenviable task of figuring out the next step in this war, but the government, which handled the internal affairs in the Rustlands, also were in a pretty difficult and tedious situation.

With so many people having died, many businesses and whatnot had to be accounted for to ensure that the economy and internal trade didn\'t devolve into chaos...it may seem irrelevant in the bigger picture, what with a cloud of doubt over the likelihood of survival, but the little things mattered, and that was especially true in a dire situation like this one.

"Mika, why don\'t you try eating at least half your food? You\'ve barely eaten anything over the last two days," Said Persia gently, stroking her back with a look of concern.

She\'d been consoling her a lot more than I\'d been, I just didn\'t know the right thing to say and got all awkward...and I really didn\'t want to say anything that might make things worse. But I also probably shouldn\'t keep completely quiet or it might seem like I\'m indifferent.

"That\'s right, you need your strength. Eat a few bites at least, you might feel better," I added softly.

"I\'m not hungry. I\'ll be in my room," She replied with a downcast gaze, leaving the table and heading into the spare room.

"I\'ll go talk to her. Shouldn\'t you go pick that up?" Inquired Persia, standing up with her food half-eaten.

"Huh? Pick what up?"

"Oh, can\'t you hear it? You\'re getting a Call."

Was I? Oh, yeah, I could kinda hear a faint buzzing coming from our room when I really focused. Cat Girl ears sure are impressive. I headed into my room and walked over to my Call spells...the one that was vibrating was the one linked to...Headmaster Yiserir.

"Yeah, hello?"

"Good, you finally picked up. We have a situation here..."

Don\'t tell me the Vampires were already on the move...

"What? Not Vampire-related, surely?"

"No, not exactly...I\'ll be blunt, we just received a, uh, guest through the west gate...a Rion Xester, from The Valaque Empire. He wants to speak to us, but will not do so unless you are present as well."

Oh? Last time, I\'d turned down The Empire\'s offer of an alliance because, well, duh. But this time, I\'ll-...okay, so I probably will still reject a full-fledged alliance, but maybe we could come to some kind of agreement or compromise...given the situation, I\'d be an idiot not to.

"Okay, then...I\'ll be there soon."

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