Previously
A fierce battle erupts at the vampire's castle as Ludvic's army clashes with Bivar's rebellious kin. Ludvic enters the fray personally, demonstrating overwhelming power by combining lethal swordsmanship with devastating fire magic to incinerate the vampires.
“No, nothing here!”
“Not over here either!”
“This side is completely clear!”
Ludvic felt the fury that had quieted beneath his frustration begin to simmer once again.
“He’s not here?”
The menace etched across his face made the soldiers scramble so fast their legs were practically a blur.
Merely recalling the terrifying might their king had displayed in battle was enough to quicken their stride on its own.
Yet all that frantic searching bore no fruit. Though they had combed through the entire mansion as if hunting a mouse, one person was nowhere to be found.
The master of this very estate.
Ludvic ground his teeth.
“That bastard Bivar… fled alone?”
Ariella clicked her tongue in disdain.
“Throwing his own subordinates to their deaths just to save his own skin? What a coward.”
If he knew they had been discovered, why had the vampires stayed behind to defend the mansion?
Because they had been bait all along. Their sole purpose was to delay Ludvic and his troops to buy time. Meanwhile, Bivar had undoubtedly slipped away on his own.
Despite the soldiers scouring the grounds thoroughly enough to spot a single stray hair, they had found no sign of him.
“Damn it!”
Ludvic muttered a low curse under his breath.
Even if they launched a pursuit now, the chances of capturing him were slim. Bivar was one of the oldest vampires here and exceptionally versed in magic. Obscuring his trail wouldn't pose the slightest challenge to him…
“Wait. Did that slimy bastard head over there?”
The Demon King turned his gaze toward where she was pointing.
“What?”
Ariella was leaning out the mansion window, her right hand raised to point in a precise direction.
“What did you just say?”
Ludvic stepped closer to Ariella. The two stood side by side before the window, their shoulders brushing without either of them realizing it.
“That way? But…”
Bivar’s mansion bordered a sprawling forest. It was a dense wilderness where keeping one's bearings was difficult, and taking a single wrong step could easily leave someone lost.
From Ludvic’s perspective, there wasn't a single trace indicating that a vampire had entered the woods.
The forest border was vast, with nothing resembling an obvious entrance, making it impossible to guess which direction he might have taken.
Even so, Ariella spoke with conviction. Her voice rang with confidence as she pointed unerringly toward a specific spot.
“I’m sure of it. Past the fountain, clearing the fence… He went in right through there.”
Ludvic couldn't wrap his head around it.
“How can you be so certain? It’s as if you saw it with your own eyes.”
For her part, Ariella couldn't fathom why Ludvic didn't understand what she meant.
“What do you mean ‘how’? Can’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?”
“This!”
· · ·
“This sensation! This feeling! Like my body is being pulled forward and backward all at once.”
Ludvic’s expression went blank with incomprehension, utterly at a loss. When he failed to follow her words, Ariella knitted her brows.
“Can you really not feel anything? I can feel it clear as day!”
The sensation wrapping around Ariella was intensely familiar.
If she had to describe it precisely, it was a blend of two distinct sensations she had experienced before.
“A few hours ago, when I suddenly woke up… it felt exactly like this.”
When the two vampire assassins sent by Bivar had crept close to Ariella while she slept, she had been jolted awake by a bizarre sensation washing over her.
A feeling akin to being tugged, or as though something within her body had abruptly snapped to attention.
At the time, she had still been half-asleep and couldn't quite identify what that feeling was. But now that she had time to reflect on it… she realized that energy was nothing other than mana, magical power.
More specifically, it was the faint residue left behind by a spell cast by someone else—the lingering echo of magic.
And Ariella had picked up on that trace.
“It’s the exact same echo. I can feel it right now too, coming from that direction.”
Just like that night, someone was using magic, and the resulting ripple was reaching her. Still, she couldn't identify the exact nature of the spell.
In truth, that ripple belonged to a cloaking spell used by demons.
That night, the two assassins had approached her under the cover of a cloaking spell to avoid detection. And now, Bivar was using the very same spell to flee unnoticed.
Ariella had caught that identical echo both times.
Yet that alone wasn't enough to be certain. After all, the presence in the forest might not have been Bivar.
However, there was another reason she was absolutely sure.
‘When we first met in the council chamber a few days ago… Bivar tried to suppress me with his mana.’
It seemed every mage left behind their own unique magical imprint, much like a fingerprint. Ariella had only recently realized this.
‘It makes sense. Before coming to the demon realm, I hadn't met other mages to compare them with.’
Ludvic, Bivar, Philly… Each carried a distinct resonance when casting magic, entirely unlike the others.
An unrepeatable frequency. A personal signature unique to each individual.
And right now, in the direction of the forest, both ripples were unmistakable: the wave of the cloaking spell, and Bivar’s distinct magical fingerprint.
Having felt both before, Ariella could single them out and track them. As she explained this to Ludvic, his eyes widened slightly, and he stared at her in utter astonishment.
“Huh? What’s wrong?”
Ariella asked, concerned.
He should have answered, but instead, he simply stared at her in dead silence.
This was no time to hesitate. They had to catch Bivar before he slipped away for good.
Before she could open her mouth to urge him on, Ludvic muttered in a tone bordering on a groan.
“Unbelievable… Is what you’re saying really possible?”
“Is what possible?”
“What you just said.”
Ludvic was deeply shaken. What he had just heard went far beyond the scope of his knowledge and experience.
‘If someone casts a spell near me right this second… yes, I can feel it.’
Indeed, when Bivar had tried to intimidate Ariella with his magic in the council chamber, Ludvic had sensed it and intervened instantly.
However…
‘Picking up a lingering magical trace left behind by a mage who has already fled the scene?’
While specialized tracking magic existed for following mana trails, it was so rare that hardly anyone mastered it.
Yet Ariella hadn't cast any such spell. She seemed to possess the ability innately, uncovering the trail purely through raw sensation and intuition.
‘It’s truly astonishing.’
His contractor would never spout nonsense in a situation this serious, especially given the character and conduct he had witnessed from her all this time.
“So, you can tell which way Bivar fled, right?”
“Yes.”
Ludvic nodded.
“Lead the way. We’re going after him right now.”
In the woods stretching out behind the mansion.
“Hah… hah…!”
A vampire, clad entirely in black, was fleeing at a frantic pace. It was Bivar.
Unlike what was typical for a vampire, he was drenched in sweat, his muscles trembling slightly from exhaustion. His expression twisted between panic and rage.
The creatures and beasts of the forest couldn't clearly see his strange vampiric form, as he had concealed his body with a cloaking spell.
Thus, across the untrodden forest paths, the footprints of an invisible entity pressed into the ground in rapid succession. Due to the magic, his steps made no sound at all, lending an eerie strangeness to the scene.
Even his ragged, gasping breaths were audible only to himself.
As he ran on in dead, desperate silence, Bivar gritted his teeth hard.
‘Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! How did it come to this!’
He had no idea where things had begun to unravel.
The assignment he gave the two assassins was supposed to be simple. Kill Ariella in her sleep, then slip quietly down to the underground dungeon to eliminate the Kobold imprisoned there.
With that, he would have disposed of the hounds tracing his trail and the rats that could testify against him, allowing him to return to his peaceful life as before.
And yet…
“They were killed?!”
He still didn't know how they had died. But thanks to the spell he had woven onto his subordinates, Bivar had known the very instant their breath was extinguished.
It seemed that as they targeted Ariella, they had walked into a counterattack instead.
Bivar ground his teeth in fury as the thought struck him.
‘That human! Could she have anticipated the assassins coming today?’
She hadn't anticipated it at all.
‘No, she knew beforehand and laid a trap for them!’
Naturally, no trap had been set in the first place.
‘That savage! I walked right into a plot hatched by that human!’
He had dismissed her as an annoying woman armed with cheap tricks, flaunting the Demon King's favor. Now, the mere thought of her sent shivers down his spine.
Thanks to this ordeal, Bivar’s perception of Ariella had completely inverted. She was no longer the harmless nuisance he had first imagined, but a terrifying monster beyond all conception.
END