“………!! …………!!!”
Ruslan’s entire body twisted and went rigid. His muscles seemed to be squeezed arbitrarily and his veins seemed to expand in all directions.
Though his head burned with intense pain, his lips remained stuck together and wouldn’t separate. Ruslan’s whole body screamed to burst out, but all the screams only echoed inside his body like ringing in a tightly sealed container.
Sarka’s eyes looking down at the writhing Ruslan were cold. Like a child trying to crush and shatter a glass cup, he looked down expressionlessly at Ruslan’s convulsing face, only bursting out red light to inflict more vivid pain. As if to make him taste all the pain he himself had suffered.
Just before Ruslan’s eyes rolled back and his breath was about to stop, the force that had been twisting his muscles suddenly withdrew.
“Hup……, hup……….”
The pain disappeared. Ruslan still lay collapsed on the floor, gasping with rough breaths only through his nostrils, his lips still stuck together.
The nosebleed flowing from Ruslan’s nose slowly ran down his cheek and dropped to the floor. Looking down at the face glistening wet with tears and cold sweat, Sarka whispered cruelly.
“……Did you think I’d end it that quickly?”
Ruslan’s body trembled finely. Sarka wiped away the tears and nosebleed from Ruslan’s face with an affectionate touch as if mocking. Ruslan’s body swelled up, wheezing in terror.
Lowering his upper body again to bring his lips to Ruslan’s ear, Sarka whispered in a voice torn to shreds by excitement and madness. His hoarse voice trembled, soaked in the ecstasy of waiting too long.
“I’ve thought even in my dreams about how to kill you all so you’d suffer the most.
……Don’t worry. I won’t send you off so boringly.”
Ruslan’s dark blue eyes dilated with fear.
Sarka reached out both hands and cupped Ruslan’s cheeks. Sarka’s red eyes, looking straight into Ruslan’s eyes as he lowered his head as if to kiss him, rippled with a strange light.
A cool command seeped into Ruslan’s ear.
“Submit to me.”
“…….”
The focus instantly drained from Ruslan’s eyes. Ruslan’s eyes were dyed the exact same red color as Sarka’s, then slowly returned to dark blue.
However, that gaze no longer held fear or pain.
Ruslan looked up at his master with an ecstatic gaze.
An inexplicable happiness surged up from within Ruslan’s chest. Ruslan smiled brightly, feeling an unbearably fierce loyalty rising toward the boy before his eyes.
He wanted to hear his master’s command. He wanted to submit to him and fulfill everything he desired.
The boy was Ruslan’s god.
Such a beautiful god.
Ruslan’s lips were released from control. But instead of screams or pleas, only a beaming smile bloomed from between them.
Ruslan only exhaled breaths heavy with happiness, waiting for his master to please give his command soon.
The vampire looked down at his perfectly dominated slave and whispered coolly. In a voice with an eerie confidence that didn’t doubt for a moment that he would truly obey this command.
“Take me to the bell tower.”
Ruslan got up. His master stretched out both arms toward Ruslan as if a child being held. Ruslan supported his master’s body embracing his shoulders and carefully helped him up.
His master’s body, unable to maintain balance on his own and swaying, was too weak. Seeing his master groan painfully as soon as the muscles in his shoulders moved, Ruslan felt unbearable worry and sadness.
Ruslan wrapped his master’s arm, which staggered unable to step properly on the floor, around his own shoulder and encircled his master’s gaunt waist with his arm to help him stand upright.
His master put his weight on Ruslan’s body and barely stood on two feet, catching his painful breath.
After confirming his master’s body was stable, Ruslan faithfully moved his steps and began to guide his master.
Crossing the living room and opening the door to come out into the corridor, Ruslan walked diligently supporting his master.
Ruslan worried whether his master, whose breathing grew rapid and coughing as they walked, could endure safely until they reached the bell tower.
His master absolutely had to go to the bell tower.
Why he had to go wasn’t important.
The bell tower is……the bell tower is a good place. If you climb up there, you can look down on the entire school……and there’s a huge bell. If you ring that bell……all the students and faculty who’ve had emergency evacuation training will rush out of their dormitories and gather in the playground. Then his master could appreciate all the humans in this school at a glance……
……He would surely be very satisfied.
Thinking this, Ruslan giggled as happiness boiled over. He wanted to see his master’s satisfied expression. His master would be pleased. Nothing made Ruslan happier than that.
Ruslan descended the stairs supporting his master. His master was truly, truly too weak. Holding onto his master’s body that kept swaying as if it might roll down at any moment, Ruslan fixed him more firmly to his own body.
His master was completely relying on Ruslan. Putting his weight on Ruslan’s shoulder in a posture half-carried, he kept breathing painful groans and rapid breaths against Ruslan’s nape. He seemed to be having difficulty enduring the dizziness.
He had to soothe his master who was in pain several times, but still Ruslan safely brought his master down to the first floor.
Ruslan was relieved that the stairs tormenting his master were ending.
Ruslan wanted to let his master, who was already tired and dizzy, rest a little, but his master seemed somehow impatient.
His master, desperately gripping Ruslan’s shoulder and moving his steps, seemed to want to stand in the bell tower right this instant.
What could be so urgent? Was looking down at the humans from the bell tower more important than his master’s physical condition?
Ruslan was very upset, but nothing was more important than his master’s wishes.
His master panted yet clenched his teeth and struggled to move his steps. Seeing those anxious eyes, Ruslan became impatient too.
Let’s hurry and get out of here and set his master in the bell tower…….
It was the moment Ruslan descended the last step with his master and entered the central hall.
“……?”
Ruslan suddenly smelled a strange fragrance brushing his nose.
It was an odd scent. Somehow sweet, making him feel strange, something he seemed to have smelled somewhere…….
“……!!!”
His master’s body froze. He could see fear settling on his master’s face. Ruslan wondered why he was making such a despairing expression……
Huk…….
The moment the hypnosis was released, Ruslan inhaled with shock.
Sarka’s red eyes wavered, then returned to green in an instant as if paralyzed.
Sarka, frozen stiff, instantly lost his supernatural powers and collapsed helplessly in the pain that struck his entire body again.
Crash!
Ruslan fell to the floor, pushed by Sarka’s body.
The moment he looked up at the boy before his eyes, crushed under the prostrate Sarka, Ruslan contorted his face.
Violent revulsion swept through Ruslan’s entire body. Hatred and murderous desire surged up wildly from deep below.
Ruslan wanted to kill the boy before his eyes. He wanted to strangle his neck and slash that filthy face even more, tearing it to shreds. He would definitely do so. He would do so right now.
“……!!!”
However, the boy wasn’t looking down at Ruslan. He had turned his head, looking at the hall with a pale face. Ruslan couldn’t stand it. How dare that disgusting boy leave me alone and where exactly is he looking?
Ruslan turned his head to see what the boy was looking at.
Men armed with bizarre metal instruments were surrounding the stairs in a semicircle, aiming gun barrels at the boy.
“……Subdued. Shall we shoot to kill?”
One man asked, aiming his gun at Sarka’s brow.
Ruslan’s body froze.
Ruslan felt the hatred boiling up inside him suddenly disappear somewhere like air deflating. The unfamiliar emotions that had swept through his chest scattered one by one……
Like being doused with cold water, reason returned.
Ruslan’s body, coming to his senses, trembled violently. His head turned in an instant and began to understand the situation.
Ruslan confirmed the siege with trembling eyes while crushed under Sarka.
The number of men armed with strange instruments and aiming at Sarka was about five or six. Ruslan immediately knew from the seal stamped on those weapons that they were the Imperial exorcists.
The scent of Angel’s Fangs vibrated throughout the hall to the point of being headache-inducing. The man who appeared to be the leader answered the agent who’d asked the question.
“……Secure the hostage first.”
The men glanced down at Ruslan, then warned fiercely while still aiming at Sarka.
“<Sarka Hütivras>! We’ll fire the moment you move. Don’t move an inch!”
Sarka was already frozen white and couldn’t move at all, not because of that command.
Ruslan suddenly realized Sarka’s gaze was fixed somewhere.
Turning his head to follow Sarka’s gaze, Ruslan noticed that Sarka was staring intently at the leader’s face. Wondering why Sarka’s gaze had stopped there without even looking at the other men, Ruslan suddenly realized a chilling fact.
It was a familiar face.
That man was the bell tower keeper.
When he’d climbed to the bell tower roof, Ruslan had been caught by that man and suffered all kinds of suspicion and trouble. Ruslan thought he finally understood why the bell tower keeper had interrogated Ruslan so persistently that day.
Because he was an exorcist stationed at this school as Sarka’s surveillance agent.
“…….”
Frozen Ruslan blankly looked at the bell tower keeper’s face.
He was glaring at Sarka with a fierce gaze, aiming the gun barrel precisely at his forehead.
Only then, carefully examining the men’s faces, Ruslan realized they were faces he’d seen passing by thoughtlessly here and there around the school—guards, gamekeepers, and such.
Several of them were staff members who’d newly come in when Ruslan had enrolled.
In other words, personnel reinforced along with <Sarka Hütivras>’s enrollment.
Thinking about it, it was natural. With a minor vampire who possessed tremendous psychic abilities and wasn’t even wearing a <Controller> out in the middle of human society, there was no way they wouldn’t prepare any safety measures. There was no way the only one monitoring him would be a single <Guardian> who was merely a teenage student.
Especially Sarka’s father, who was ready to let his son taste <death> just for threatening humans with words, surely prepared sufficient safety measures when enrolling Sarka at this school so they could control him in case of emergency.
And he wouldn’t have told his son about it. That would be more advantageous for surveillance.
Ruslan was certain they’d been monitoring the dormitory following Sarka’s father’s instructions from the time the disciplinary action began.
Because they would know that if Sarka, maddened by pain, released the controller by any means and started attacking humans, a tremendous massacre could occur.
As soon as they received word that the door had opened and Sarka was coming down to the first floor with another human, they would have hurriedly released the Angel’s Fangs scent and lain in ambush.
Following the orders of the leader who always carried weapons and stayed in the bell tower to immediately shoot Sarka to death should such a situation arise.
“……Ha.”
Above his head, a faint breath burst out.
Ruslan unconsciously turned his head.
The moment he looked up at Sarka’s face, Ruslan froze.
Sarka’s face was empty.
While blankly looking at the bell tower keeper’s face aimed at him, Sarka muttered in a dim voice as if unconsciously spewing it out.
“……From the beginning……you never intended to trust me…….”
At that moment, Ruslan felt his head ring as if struck by a huge bell.
What settled on Sarka’s face wasn’t anger. Not fear, nor despair, nor shock either.
It was……a wounded expression.
Ruslan felt his entire body freeze solid.
“…….”
Sarka’s eyes blinked. As reason, crushed by hatred, suddenly returned, the boy slowly began to understand the situation.
From corporal punishment that began as the price of losing reason to anger, to the final death by shooting as the price of losing reason to pain.
Sarka didn’t despair. He didn’t feel wronged or afraid, nor was he filled with rage.
Sarka wore an expression closer to, if it had to be described, faint fatigue.
On his face where light emptiness and futility passed over, an understanding finally arose. A perfect understanding, wondering to himself why he’d only realized it now.
Sarka’s eyes were calm. He now had the face of someone who’d accepted everything.
The men approached. Sarka’s shoulder was roughly grabbed.
Sarka didn’t resist. He silently lowered his head and cast his eyes down.
On Sarka’s face there wasn’t even any grief about the futile death.
It was resignation.
Sarka fell silent calmly, like a beast meekly offering its neck to be slaughtered.
The men put their hands on his shoulder to help Ruslan stand up. However, Ruslan was still frozen, unable to tear his gaze from Sarka’s face.
Sarka’s eyes didn’t move. No emotion rose in his green eyes. His face like an empty shell was dry and indifferent.
That boy was simply submissively accepting the entire situation. As if regretting not having done so from the beginning.
While now meekly lowering his head to be shot to death by the gun barrels of humans he’d desperately tried to escape from two years ago.
The moment he discovered the men’s hands trying to twist Sarka’s arms behind his back, Ruslan shook off the men’s hands like an angry live fish and sprang up.
“What are you doing right now……!!”
