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Episode 7:
The Children Enshrouded in Darkness
THE SECOND THEY WERE COVERED IN A BLINDING darkness, a small hand grabbed onto Fantine and started leading her away from this scary place.
“Ch-Christy?” She assumed it must have been Christina’s hand she was holding, but no one responded to her.
Fantine was in a dark, silent forest. Even the bugs were quiet. She surveyed the area through the darkness and spied the manor and the rose garden she had just been in through the gaps of the trees.
“Uugh, whyyy?” Now that she had nothing to be afraid of, she had already forgotten how to be afraid, so now Fantine bemoaned her savior who had left her in this random spot.
She couldn’t comprehend why they had left her, a child, in such a dangerous place. She was glad they had saved her, but Fantine believed they should have taken full responsibility for ensuring her safety too.
Е̌ n̂u m а̀ . і́ d̀
Vampires were scary. Monsters that turned into animals were scary. But this forest was dark, so it was scary too. She hated being scared, so she wanted to run. And that rich girl had told her to get away. She said she’d forgive her for what she’d done if she could just get away. But…
“Why do I need her to forgive me?” Fantine didn’t understand what Yulucia could have possibly meant.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
She didn’t understand what adults said when they spoke. Fantine was born a noble daughter, yet she could never understand what it was that other people wanted from her.
That was just how it was for Fantine.
In her mind, everything in the world belonged to her and there were no compromises. By nature, Fantine felt the boundaries between herself and other people were ambiguous, and since everything belonged to her, she never got attached to anything, nor did she ever feel like she had taken anything from anyone else. She could not understand how other people might care about a thing, nor just how important something could be to someone. She didn’t even hesitate to take the lives of small animals. Everything in this world was just fun and games to her.
But Fantine didn’t want to die either.
Е nùmа̇ . і́ d̄
If she died, then she wouldn’t have anything anymore. She didn’t like to feel hunger, distress, or pain either. And so, death was what she feared more than anything. Since everything belonged to her already, the thing Fantine treasured most in the whole wide world was her life.
It was natural for children to be protected. She didn’t need parents who wouldn’t protect her. The twins may have taught her how to eat and Christina may have taught her how to make money, but she didn’t need them anymore if they weren’t going to protect her.
Fantine had been scared when the vampires attacked because she had realized that the other three weren’t strong enough to protect her life, since they too only had their lives, which she didn’t even care about. But she wasn’t scared now, because she had already found the next person who would protect her.
“My lady will protect me.”
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She had that rich daughter in her life. Yulucia had just laughed at the monsters even though they were scary. Since she was Fantine’s mistress, it was only natural that she would protect Fantine’s life, since it was the most important thing in the world.
Having come to that conclusion, Fantine didn’t run away from the forest or try to hide in it. Instead, she started walking back toward the manor without a single doubt in her mind, since she was sure that that was where Yulucia was.
Ŵе̃b́n о v̈ е ĺ Е n u m̆ ӑ
“Hmm-hmm!” Fantine hummed as she passed through a gate that had been left wide open. A black lump kind of scared her, so she avoided it on her way to the manor. That was when she spotted a tea cart that had been prepared but not served, and started eating the food off of it with her hands.
Thanks to her audacity, she had managed to avoid running into any vampires or lycanthropes. It only made sense when she thought about it. Fantine’s life was the most important thing in the world, so of course those vampires would be respectful of her. Fantine even started to believe that she had been wrong to have been afraid as she walked through the courtyard while munching away on a cookie. But that was when she noticed something was following her.
“Who’s there?” she called as she turned around. She heard something that sounded like a dog’s panting in response.
When it stepped out of the darkness, Fantine gasped at the chill in the air and murderous aura surrounding it. She let out a strangled scream.
It was the kind of black dog that breathed out cold air and was a familiar for vampires: a death hound.
“Ahhhhhhh!” Fantine stumbled as she tried to run away, her face contorted with fear.
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And then a second and a third death hound stepped out of the darkness. They began to toy with their prey, whose movements had slowed due to the cold.
“Why?! Why?!”
Fantine couldn’t understand why these dogs were attacking her.
Fantine couldn’t understand why no one had come to save her.
Fantine couldn’t understand why they were trying to take her life, which was the most important life in the world.
In her hopeless terror, Fantine screamed out through the darkness for the girl who was her mistress: “Help meeee!!!”
Е̂ ńu̇m̌а̂
But no one answered her scream. The only sounds that could be heard in the darkness of the night were several muffled shrieks and the sound of something being torn to pieces.
***
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“This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening!!!”
Ninette crouched in the shadows of the wall near the manor’s back gate with her drawn sword at the ready. Her teeth chattered and her body shook all over. Holding the grip of the sword so hard her fingertips turned white, Ninette continued muttering to herself like a curse, “This can’t be happening!”
This was just supposed to be a tea party. She had just wanted to sleep and only decided to come along because she had been given her sword back.
Е́ ńŭ ma. і̂d
This couldn’t be real. None of this could possibly be happening. There couldn’t be those kinds of monsters, or monsters who had transformed into nobles, and she couldn’t have been invited to that kind of tea party, and her lady couldn’t have possibly provoked such monsters or laughed as she mocked them, nor could Ninette’s own life possibly be in danger right now.
“I hate this. No, no, no, no!”
She hated everything about this. She didn’t want to die. Ninette wanted to go home and have an easy, comfortable life. Ninette had always hated bothersome things.
Her twin brother Noir wanted an easy life too, but she hated how he didn’t balk at deprecating himself to make that happen.
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She hated being a lady-in-waiting who had to be considerate of her lady’s every little need, so she’d tried training to become a knight instead, but she hated having to train to use a sword.
She hated how she had to go along with all of her brother’s schemes.
Е ň u̇ m̂ă . і̂ d
She hated how she had to make herself beneath people and scrape and bow to win their favor.
She hated that she couldn’t eat unless she worked.
She hated thinking about what she’d have to do to get what she wanted.
She hated, hated, hated, hated it all.
She just wanted to live an easy, comfortable life.
Ninette never asserted herself, always living in her brother’s shadow, because even having emotions was usually too much of a bother. However, that didn’t mean she didn’t want anything at all.
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She hated bad-tasting food, so she wanted to eat delicious food.
She hated sleeping in cold places, so she wanted a warm room.
She hated not having a comfortable life, so she wanted money.
That was why she had needed such a powerful sword. With a strong sword, she could still be strong without any training and everyone would accept it. When she grew up, she would become the dame commander of the guardian knights, make her subordinates deal with all of their lady’s enemies, and Ninette could just sit back and relax.
In a way, Ninette was the most “normal” of the four of them. After all, she had a vision for the future, although it was an imperfect one.
She would serve their lady, make the maids and housemaids all do the annoying stuff, leave all the thinking to her brother, and live a life of comfort even when she was all grown up.
Ẽn u ṁ а . ïd̈
But something about that plan had all gone wrong.
She’d suddenly stopped being able to buy stuff by using her lady’s name. She’d started getting fed the same kind of meals the housemaids were given. Her lady had stopped asking her to do easy jobs and she was asked to do hard chores all the time instead. She had run away from the work too.
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Where had she gone wrong?
Why was she going to die in a place like this?
Whose fault was all this?
“It’s all my lady’s fault.”
Ěn̆ u̇ m̃а . іd̂
She had lured Ninette to such a dangerous place with the sword as bait. It was all her fault.
She wanted to run away as fast as she could. She had to. Her lady had said as much. But Ninette couldn’t run away.
Not because she couldn’t leave her brother or her friends behind; that didn’t bother her at all. Up until now, she had relied on her parents for everything. Once they were gone, she had relied on her brother instead, then the grand duke, and had abandoned all thought in the process. The fact of the matter was, Ninette didn’t even know how to escape from this dangerous situation.
“Eek!”
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She heard quiet footsteps from the dark forest surrounding the manor.
Normally, they would have been inaudible. Such a tiny sound would have been lost in the forest, but now Ninette heard a dissonance that sounded like the fluttering of a swarm of bugs.
Е̇n um̊а
And then a single person—no, two, three people—stepped out of the darkness. When Ninette realized all of them were fanged monsters, she nearly passed out.
She was silent. Even so, she couldn’t faint. Because she had lived her life without the ups and downs of emotions, she wasn’t able to conjure enough panic to faint.
A vampire’s rank and strength were dependent on their age. It also depended on the circumstances of their own birth. If a noble with powerful magic or a wizard became a vampire, their rank would change even if their strength didn’t. This was because magic affected not only the fluctuations of their power with age, but their appearances as well. Thus, Mylene used those of lower rank as her butlers and ladies-in-waiting.
And now four of these low-ranking vampires dressed in commoners’ attire, incapable of hiding the ugliness of a vampire, had spotted Ninette in her hiding place, looking down upon her with vulgar grins.
Although Ninette was in possession of a powerful magical sword, she was still a child and had had no training to speak of. These were foes she could not possibly defeat.
Her mouth felt dry. She could hardly even breathe.
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Ninette understood that she was about to die. These monsters were going to torment her, tear her flesh into shreds, and devour her entrails while she still lived.
“I curse you!”
She shed tears in her final moments as she cursed her parents who had been arrested, her twin brother, her useless allies, and Yulucia for having gotten her involved in this kind of world. She cursed them all as she brought the trembling tip of her sword to her throat.
It truly was the only way for her to find peace now.
***
There was an enormous chapel attached to Count Auber’s manor.
Еn ů m ӑ. id
On holidays, the pious people of the count’s lands came with their children to pray to the goddess Kostor. It was the holiest place in all the land.
“Sniff… Sniff…” In that chapel, Christina was trying to hold back her sobs as tears streamed down her face.
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After Christina had been shrouded in darkness, someone had left her in the corner of the garden. Despite her confusion, she’d managed to hide in the shadows of the trees, but one of the maids had spotted her when she had moved and dragged her into this chapel.
Nothing had happened to her yet. She’d been brought to the altar and emotionless maids surrounded her now. All they did was stare at her in silence. Christina felt the dread that something horrible was about to happen.
Christina hadn’t seen any of these maids at the first garden. The only thing these maids had going for them was that they matched Mylene’s ladies-in-waiting in terms of looks. However, these fifty low-ranking vampires were powerless, had no rank, and had been chosen for their appearances, thus gaining them their mistress’s favor.
And their mistress was…
Ѐ ňům а . i̇_d
Creak…
The faint noise of the door opening interrupted the girl’s sobbing.
“Eek!”
Sleek hair the color of night. Inhuman beauty. Countess Camilla entered the chapel with thirty lycanthropes behind her—werewolves, weretigers, wereboars, and wererats.
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Seeing Camilla and the boy she cradled in her arms like a doll, Christina let out a wail of despair.
It was Noir, and his eyes were devoid of light.
E n ú m̊а.і d́
He had been caught just as Christina had, but they had done something terrible to him. Underneath the rips and tears in his expensive butler’s uniform, she could see countless wounds left by fangs on his pale skin.
However, Camilla only had lycanthropes with her. Christina guessed that since Noir was still alive, the marks had all been left by Camilla having her fun with him.
“Hee hee.” As Christina recoiled with fear, Camilla made a display of licking the blood off of Noir’s cheek and then playfully bit his neck so that she could lick up the fresh blood.
Noir shuddered each time her fangs and tongue touched his skin. Christina reflexively turned her face away from the revolting sight before her. However, Christina’s reflection in Noir’s empty eyes brought a bit of life back into them. A nasty grin spread across his face.
“M-my lady! You should drink her blood instead! She’s much tastier than me!”
Christina was speechless, her eyes round with shock as Noir not only betrayed his friend, but surrendered his dignity as a human. Camilla laughed with delight.
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“Ho ho ho. You two are so much more adorable than that unpleasant Saint.”
Sensing that Camilla was now more interested in Christina, Noir clung to what faint hope he had found amid his despair.
Noir had wanted to live an easy, comfortable life too. However, his idea of what that meant was different from his younger twin sister Ninette’s. His idea of an easy life was to live with a middling amount of power.
It sucked being born the eldest son of a noble family.
It sucked having to be in a position of responsibility.
Commoners probably imagined that kings could do whatever they pleased. However, with power came the heavy pressure of responsibility. Mistakes would simply make your life miserable. And so, rather than becoming the most powerful person in the land, Noir believed the easiest path in life would be to receive responsibility from the bigwigs while foisting the most annoying tasks onto those beneath him. If anyone made a mistake, it would be his underlings’ fault and the bigwigs would have to take responsibility for it.
Ĕn üm а. і̌d̊
Noir’s idea of an easy life was to divide out all of the annoying tasks to other people and live a life where he alone had nothing stressful to deal with. He didn’t care if that meant he had to butter someone up to make that happen. He would even flatter a homeless person if that meant avoiding something that could possibly give him a headache. His family had been ruined and he and his twin had no one else they could turn to, so in Noir’s mind, becoming Princess Yulucia’s chamberlain was the best way things could have turned out.
Yulucia only gave orders that were easy enough for even a child to do. Even when he messed up, Yulucia only just frowned and never reprimanded him. He could just leave all the most troublesome tasks to the castle housemaids.
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Noir then realized that he could do pretty much anything he wanted just by mentioning Yulucia’s name.
So that he didn’t get in trouble if it did end up being a problem, they first bought Ninette’s sword. That arrived without incident and nobody scolded them about it either, so he used his mistress’s name to then procure everything he wanted, one thing after the other.
The food he was served was much better than what had been served at his family’s home, and he could order the maids to change his sheets and clean his room for him. Noir thought that his position as the princess’s chamberlain was wonderful.
But that easy life started crumbling away just a few months ago.
Е n ùm̈ а̊ .і̀ d
Yulucia stopped summoning them to her.
She stopped giving them chores to do.
He stopped being able to give people orders in Yulucia’s name.
They stopped allowing him access to places he’d been permitted to go before.
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They stopped cleaning his room for him.
They lowered the quality of his meals to less than what he had been served as the son of a baron.
Е́ n̂ u m̃ а̄ . і̇d
He lost all of his responsibilities.
Nevertheless, Noir hadn’t tried to apologize and change the state of things. As a baron’s heir, he had received enough education to know that if someone could prove he had spent the grand duke’s money without permission, then he would be in for the biggest headache of all.
Yulucia kept quiet. So long as Noir didn’t admit to anything, nobody else would accuse him either. His sister and the other girls did nothing but complain about the food and their treatment, so he sold all of the items they had bought using the embezzled money.
He was going to run out of money at some point, so he would need to find someone else he could leech off of before that happened. The only reason he hadn’t abandoned his stupid little sister was so that he could sell her when he needed the money.
But before it reached that point, Yulucia summoned them for the first time in a long time—to criticize them.
However, Yulucia forgave people so easily. So his kissing up to her worked, and she even brought them along to a tea party, which was rather unusual.
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But it had actually been a punishment.
There were monsters as far as the eye could see here. Yulucia alone seemed unruffled by the situation. She used strange magic, and the next thing he knew, he had been left by the gate. However, one of the monsters had caught him and sucked his blood. He knew he was going to die. But then, in his terror, he found someone to take his place.
“I-I have an idea, my lady! You should make me one of your allies! I will gladly suck out all of the blood of that fake deceiving Saint and—ahhhhhhhhh!”
Noir was cut off as Camilla bit his shoulder. This time she wasn’t sucking his blood—she was actually biting into his flesh.
“I hate foolish children.” Camilla smiled affectionately with the visage of a beast. Noir could do nothing but scream in pain and terror.
Meanwhile…
W e b̆ ǹо̂ v̄ е l Е̇ṅūm̆ а̄
“This is all because of her.”
Camilla slowly turned her gaze toward the mumbling Christina.
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“It’s all her fault I’m here now! She’s only just some mistress’s child! And yet it’s all because of her that Lady Adeline and Lady Aureline were sent so far away!”
The now-deceased Duchess Albertine Cowell had been friends with Christina’s mother. Her mother had worshipped Albertine and raised her own pretty daughter to be given to the duchess’s daughters.
Adeline and Aureline didn’t listen to gossip and were tolerant toward those who idolized them. The young Christina knew of their beauty and magnificence as nobility, so she worshipped the girls just as her mother did and looked forward to the day when she would become able to serve them.
But then Christina lost all that.
Ẇ е́ b̈ǹо̀ v̈ е̌ l̂ En̄ǔ ḿа̃
Her parents were killed with Albertine, as they had followed her orders and gotten involved in the demon-summoning incident. The house of Viscount Celda was ruined and Christina was orphaned.
The Grand Duke of Versenia assumed guardianship over not only the kidnapped children, but all the children of those arrested for their involvement, like Christina and the other prospects for Yulucia’s attendants. He searched for places of employment for those who wanted it, but there weren’t many who wanted to take in the children of criminals. They spent gloomy days in the orphanage of a church.
However, Christina held out hope. Although the house of Duke Cowell had been dissolved in all but name, Adeline and Aureline remained in the former duke’s manor in the capital. So once Christina turned five years old, she would still be able to become their lady-in-waiting-in-training. Or at least, she was pretty sure she could.
Right before that happened, though, because of an incident they had caused, the girls were sent to study abroad in the neighboring Kingdom of Sigoules indefinitely and Christina lost her chance to serve them. However, Grand Duke Forte had closely overseen the entire matter and decided to take in the last four children who had yet to find a caretaker to become apprentice attendants to his daughter Yulucia, who was close to them in age.
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Yulucia von Versenia, the princess of the Holy Kingdom.
This child of a mistress had stolen everything that should have belonged to Adeline and Aureline, whom Christina had respected and loved so dearly. Glory, everyone’s favor, their father’s love—everything.
Е́ n ûm̊а̇ ..і_d̈
Of course, Christina hadn’t hated the girl at first, before she even knew what she looked like. However, she then saw how Yulucia was loved unconditionally by her father, her mother, and everyone in the castle and how she was hailed as the Saint by everyone in the kingdom. When Christina compared her to herself and how she had lost her warm home, her parents’ love, and even the mistresses she yearned to serve, Christina felt nothing but resentment toward the girl.
This was why she had put the idea into the stupid twins’ heads for how to embezzle money. This was why she had told the peculiar Fantine about Yulucia’s most treasured items and so she could rough them up a little bit.
Christina’s heart was a maelstrom of the emotions she had felt up until this moment. Now that she was about to lose her very life as well, she burned with pure hatred.
“I will kill her… I will kill Yulucia!”
In her terror, she was now beyond reason. Seeing Christina’s confession flowing out of her like bitter tears, Camilla was so overcome with emotion that she cast Noir aside and rushed over to the girl. Camilla tenderly took Christina into her arms.
“Ahh… Now you finally look ready to eat.”
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