Crimson Bond (1)

Scarlet.

Her full name was Scarlet Ravierre.

A member of the vampire clan that had fallen at the hands of the demons.

She was a high-ranking vampire of the Noxcar bloodline.

She possessed a powerful blood ability, freely able to manipulate blood, and she was a pretty good person.

‘In our previous lives, we owed each other our lives quite a few times.’

Ian first met Scarlet during the Demon-Human War.

It was after the day Yuria lost her dantian to the Grand Duke of Gluttony and became crippled.

Ian had been working as a bodyguard for guildmaster Serana at Nightingale, an intelligence organization that helped them, to treat the badly injured Yuria.

That was when he first met Scarlet.

At first, when Scarlet came to the guild to buy information, they only saw each other in passing a few times.

But then, one day.

“I need help.”

Scarlet asked the guild for help.

“Find some mercenaries to fight with me. I’ll pay whatever it takes.”

Guild master Serana looked troubled.

“Scarlet, we’re not a mercenary guild, we’re an intelligence guild…”

“Anyone is fine as long as they’re skilled, so at least introduce someone. …… I’ve finally found where my family is. I can’t possibly manage on my own.”

“…… Even if you say that… You know, the current situation.”

At the time, humanity was being completely exterminated.

By the relentless invasion of demons pouring out from the Red Gate.

Almost everyone who could have counted as a mercenary was already dead.

Of course, even then, if you looked hard enough, there might have been some survivors.

But Nightingale was as ruined as Hisperion by that point.

They no longer had the intelligence network of the past, so there was no way they could find hidden mercenary troops here and there.

They wanted to grant Scarlet’s request, but they simply couldn’t.

“…… Is it really impossible? No matter what?”

“I’m sorry, Scarlet. It’s an important favor, but I can’t do it…”

“…… No, ah… is that so. I suppose there’s nothing we can do.”

“…… Sorry.”

Just as Scarlet was about to leave with an utterly darkened expression.

“I’ll go.”

Ian stepped forward.

“W-what!?”

He could still vividly recall Serana’s flustered expression.

“You, you!? Do you even know where Scarlet’s trying to go!?”

“Isn’t it where her family is?”

“W-well, that’s true!”

It was a place anyone could die.

Scarlet was planning to go deep into the demon realm, to one of the lairs of the most powerful great demons.

But it didn’t matter.

“I’ll help. I don’t need compensation. Demon blood is enough.”

It was because Ian felt emotions similar to his own in Scarlet’s eyes.

Her feelings for her loved ones. The desperate wish to never lose them, even if it meant giving up everything.

And the anger, hatred, and thirst for revenge against those demons who took her loved ones from her.

Perhaps that was why.

From the moment he first saw Scarlet, Ian felt inexplicably comfortable, as if she was a kindred spirit.

“…… That’s not fair, Serana. You had such a decent guy here all along.”

“N-no, he’s… not even my subordinate…”

“You?”

Scarlet ignored Serana’s excuses and slowly walked over to Ian.

“What’s your name?”

“Ian Greysel.”

“Ian Greysel. Good. I’m Scarlet. Scarlet Ravierre.”

Scarlet pointed to her fangs.

“As you can see, I’m a vampire, but I only bite friends when I have their permission. Nice to meet you.”

Scarlet reached out her hand for a handshake.

Ian firmly grasped and shook it.

“Thank you so much for helping me, Ian Greysel.”

After that, Scarlet and Ian often went out together.

Whenever Scarlet needed help with a difficult task, Ian volunteered to help, and sometimes Scarlet would join Serana and Ian on their expeditions, helping with artifact searches and protection to return the favor.

As they fought together more and more, they became more compatible—so much so that later, together they could even defeat greater demons far stronger than either of them alone.

“There’s probably no one else who can sync so perfectly with my Sword Spirit Release as you do, Scarlet.”

“Hmph. So cheesy… … But I don’t dislike your style either. I just wish you’d take better care of yourself. Try not to get hurt so much.”

They fought for each other’s precious things, and for each other’s revenge.

In that process, they saved each other’s lives countless times.

When Ian was poisoned, Scarlet used her vampiric powers to suck out the toxins, and when Scarlet was tormented by bloodthirst, Ian soothed her with his own blood.

When Ian was severely wounded, Scarlet purified her own blood to heal him. When a spear of sunlight steel—which was lethal to vampires—flew at Scarlet, Ian blocked it with his own body.

After surviving so many battlefields where either would have died without the other…

“…….”

It was a bright, moonlit night.

As usual, after finishing a battle, Scarlet was bandaging Ian’s wounds and they were chatting lightly…

At some point, their eyes met and Scarlet leaned closer to Ian.

“…….”

“…….”

Just before their lips touched.

“Scarlet.”

Ian grabbed her shoulders.

“…… I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

“………….”

Scarlet looked flustered for a moment, then frowned.

“…… This is humiliating! I was just trying to do something nice for once!”

Scarlet’s eyebrows drooped.

“It’s because of that woman, isn’t it…? Yuria Hisperion.”

“…… Yeah.”

“Doesn’t seem like you’re even actually dating her.”

“That’s true, too. … But to Lady Yuria, I’m all she has. Just as she depends on me for everything, I want to focus everything on her, too. … It’s a relationship that’s hard to explain in words.”

“…… Hmph. No, you don’t have to explain. … Now I can tell what you’re thinking just by looking at your eyes.”

“…….”

“I… want to talk about the old days for a bit. Will you listen?”

“As much as you want.”

He listened to her story then.

Truly a story of family.

The Noxcar bloodline was a clan formed over a very long time… one where all sorts of abandoned beings gradually gathered into a family.

Scarlet’s gaze drifted to a faraway place as she continued.

“We were really different from other vampires. There wasn’t any hierarchy. We were just… vampires who had nowhere else to go, gradually gathering together.”

She paused, her expression contorting with emotion, but quickly regained her composure and took a deep breath.

“It’s a really old story, but when I was a child, a plague broke out in our village. I got sick too… and, abandoned by my own parents, I was just waiting to die among the corpses, when my sister… that is, the Noxcar big sis who turned me into a vampire, appeared.”

At first, she said, the others terrified her. But—

“As time passed, I gradually realized. My sister taught me what a real family is. What it feels like to have a true home…”

Ian listened quietly.

“Old man Marcus in our clan was originally an elder of another bloodline, but got exiled for opposing human genocide. Ellie was born to a strict vampire hunter family, but turned into a vampire herself and almost got killed by her kin. Everyone had a similar story.”

But the Noxcar clan accepted one another.

“Blood or background didn’t matter at all… Everyone was so kind.”

Scarlet bit her teeth together for a moment, then continued.

“I lived together with all of them for a long time. Just like you and me now, we protected each other, treated wounds, shared stories… Those people were everything to me.”

Her voice trembled.

“But when the demons attacked our home…”

A harrowing story followed.

The demons hunted the Noxcar vampires.

They needed enormous magic power and powerful sacrifices to summon the Demon Grand Dukes to this world.

“In the end, I’m the only one left like this.”

Ian quietly took hold of Scarlet’s hand.

Scarlet had lost bonds forged over at least hundreds of years in an instant to the demons.

Ian couldn’t even begin to guess at that sense of loss.

When he lost Sophia, it felt as though his heart and his entire body was rotting away alive, but Scarlet had lost far, far more all at once.

If the pain was even several times as much as that… he didn’t want to imagine it. It was truly horrific.

“Revenge is all I have left. The demon bastards who killed my family—I’ll kill them all. Especially that High Priest of Greed—him I’m going to tear apart with my own hands.”

Ian nodded firmly.

It was a promise to help her.

Scarlet looked at Ian and smiled.

“But… lately, I feel strange sometimes. Especially when I’m with you.”

“……?”

“After my family died, I never thought I’d ever feel like this again. I thought only of revenge. But when I’m with you, it feels like I’ve gone back to the old days.”

“…….”

“That makes it all the more frustrating.”

“Uh, huh?”

“You’re already pretty much family to me. But I’m not that to you, right? Because you have something even more precious.”

“S-Scarlet… I…”

“It’s fine. I’m not trying to force anything. Just…”

Scarlet leaned onto Ian’s shoulder.

“Until my revenge is done… stay by my side like this. I don’t think I could endure it alone.”

Listening to her desperate voice, Ian found himself nodding almost unconsciously.

“Of course. I’ll always be by your side, Scarlet.”

“Sorry. I was a little bit selfish. … I envy that woman. But… I think now I can finally feel at peace about it.”

Even now, Ian could vividly remember the bittersweet smile that crossed Scarlet’s face in that moment.

* * *

‘That Scarlet is here…?’

The voice echoing from the darkness at the foot of the ladder was unquestionably Scarlet’s.

But since he’d only heard two sentences, he couldn’t be sure if it was really her.

It could just be a woman whose voice sounded similar, or perhaps he was hallucinating out of longing.

Worst case, it might even be some illusion or charm magic.

‘I’ll only know for sure if I go down and check for myself.’

― THUNK! THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!

Ian hurriedly climbed down the long ladder.

Even the narrow passageway was covered in tags designed to conceal magic power.

Apparently, the demons had gone to great lengths to thoroughly hide whoever was down here.

― THUD!

After climbing for a while, Ian finally reached the ground and turned to see the owner of the voice.

And there—

‘D-damn it…’

Hair as red as blood cascaded down to the ground. Scarlet irises.

‘It’s really Scarlet…!’

Scarlet was hanging, crucified on a tall cross.

“…… You are…?”

Scarlet looked down at Ian, frowning.

She had been sure the detestable demon captain would come, but now a boy she’d never seen before was here, and she looked utterly stunned.

“…… Who…?”

“H-haah!”

But Ian didn’t have time for a proper introduction.

He had to get Scarlet off that cross immediately.

“Hang on! I’ll get you down right now!”

“… What…?”

Scarlet looked confused.

“… What’s your game…?”

“What game!”

Ian frantically looked around for something to stand on.

‘Damn, there’s nothing!’

That’s fine. He had Vladiark.

― KLUNK!

He drove Vladiark into the floor and used it as a stepping stone to climb up to Scarlet’s eye level.

Then—

“I’ll get all of these out right now!”

― SQUELCH! SQUELCH! SQUELCH!

He started pulling out the nails one by one from Scarlet’s hands and arms.

“Ugh…! Ngh!”

“A-are you insane…!”

Ian was horrified as he pulled the nails out.

The nails weren’t just hammered into her hands and arms.

There were also a bunch driven into her chest and around her heart.

“W-what the…! Those bastards!”

He hadn’t expected the demons to imprison Scarlet in such a miserable state.

If he’d known, he would have rushed here immediately to save her!

He would have made those demon bastards die far more painfully.

“… You… what are you…?”

The boy, face on the verge of tears as he pulled the nails from her body.

Scarlet gazed weakly at him, tilting her head.

“… You’re not a demon…?”

“Of course not! And we’ll talk later! Talking would just hurt you right now!”

One especially large nail was even driven into her lungs.

‘How long has she been like this!?’

He couldn’t begin to imagine how much pain Scarlet had endured down here.

“…….”

Scarlet watched Ian with a complicated expression.

“Grr…! This thing in your chest!”

Ian grabbed the largest nail, lodged in the center of Scarlet’s chest.

“Ugh…!”

In that instant, a piercing pain shot through Scarlet, making her grimace.

“I’m going to pull it out in one go! Bear with me!”

When pulling things out of the body—be it an arrow or a blade—it hurt less to do it all at once.

― CRUNCH!!!

“Nh-ugh!?”

Scarlet’s eyes rolled back as the final nail came out.

― DRIP…

Losing her support, Scarlet slumped forward.

― THUD!

Ian caught Scarlet gently in his arms.

“Hang in there. Scarlet…!”

Ian, without thinking, called her name.

Scarlet’s eyes flew wide open.

“… You, you…! How do you know my name…?”

Scarlet had never told her name to the demons here, and no matter how she looked at him, the boy was a stranger.

“Ah.”

Ian realized too late—but now was not the time to worry about that.

“You need blood, right! I’ll give you some right now!”

Ian’s blood was also targetable with the Authority of Projection.

As long as his magic power held out, he could fill Scarlet’s belly endlessly.

“Let’s patch your wounds up before anything else!”

————-= Clacky’s Corner ————-=

Yep, harem route it is…

【ദ്ദി(⩌_⩌ )】

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