Chapter 69: Special Mission
“There’s something ominous about this place.” Lilith said as they approached the castle-sized building behind the massive gates.
“Again with your ‘something feels off’?”
“You can trust a vampire’s intuition! We are very powerful in that aspect.”
“Let’s hope your intuition is wrong…”
Sometime later, Leo pressed the doorbell at the gates.
A calm voice resounded the next moment, “Hello, this is the Scarlet Household. How may we assist you on this fine day?”
“Hello, my name is Leon, and I am here for the special mission.”
“Ah, Mister Leon. We have been anticipating your arrival. Please, come inside.”
Beep!
A noise resounded as the metal gates began opening by itself.
Leo walked into the territory and approached the castle in the distance.
Before he could even arrive at the building, he noticed the front door opening, and an old man wearing a butler uniform stepped outside.
This old man had a head-full of white hair, and his eyes appeared to be closed from a distance, but when Leo got close enough, he could tell that it was actually slightly opened.
“This humble one’s name is Edwin, and I am a loyal servant of the Scarlet Household. I will be giving you a brief explanation of your mission before you begin. Please follow me.”
Leo silently nodded before following Edwin to the guest room that was larger than his entire dorm room back in the academy.
Once they were seated, Edwin began to speak, “Tell me, Mister Leon, what do you know about this mission?”
“I am supposed to guard someone for the next three days, right?”
“That is correct. Your mission is to stay by my Young Lady, Lia Scarlet’s side, for the next three days. However, your mission isn’t as simple as ‘guarding’. You see, the Young Lady is a little special. She’s not very social, and she hates it when people look at her face, so try to avoid eye contact with her. She might get a little aggressive if you do, but you are not allowed to lay your hands on her. If you harm even a hair on her body, we have all the rights to execute you.”
Leo swallowed nervously after hearing Edwin’s words.
“When you say ‘aggressive’, how severe is it…?” He asked a moment later.
“Oh, it’s nothing you should be worried about. The Young Lady is only 18 years old, so you can expect things that girls around her age would normally do.” Edwin said with a mysterious smile on his face.
Leo raised his eyebrows, as Edwin only made things sound more suspicious.
“I told you there’s something off about this place. My intuition was right.”
Leo could hear Lilith chuckling behind him.
“Alright, anything else I should know before I start the mission?” Leo then asked.
“No, that’s all. The only thing I have left to say is— good luck, and stay safe.” Edwin said before standing up and walking to the door, gesturing for Leo to follow him.
After spending a few minutes navigating through the large mansion and the long hallways, they eventually stopped in front of a large metal door that looked vastly different from the other rooms in the building.
Leo swallowed nervously after seeing the metal doors, and he asked, “Is it too late for me to give up on this mission?”
“Hahaha! I like you, Mister Leon! You’re quite the joker!” Edwin suddenly laughed.
“…”
“But in case you’re not joking, of course, you are allowed to quit. However, this special mission has been approved by both the Scarlet Household and the Adventurers’ Guild. Even in normal missions, there are consequences for quitting, much less a special mission. You could be restricted from being promoted for a year, that is the most lenient punishment. Worst case, you can even be demoted or have your Adventurer’s License revoked. Do you still wish to quit after knowing this?”
Leo took a deep breath after hearing about the consequences of quitting this mission.
‘How bad can it be? She’s just an 18 year old sheltered rich girl. In most cases, the worst thing about rich girls would be their rotten personality.’ Leo recalled his experience with the rich girls in the academy.
Lilith, who took a sneak peek inside the room, suddenly came out of the room with a wide grin on her face.
“I believe that both of us had underestimated this mission. If I were you, I would use Dark Shield before entering,” she said to him.
Leo’s eyes widened with shock, and the uneasy feeling in his stomach got much worse after hearing her ominous words.
“Are you ready?” Edwin asked him.
“Yes, I am.” Leo nodded his head.
As he approached the metal door, Leo used Dark Shield like Lilith had suggested, covering his body like a protective suit.
‘As expected of someone with S-Rank Dark Magic Affinity. His Dark Shield is quite admirable, but it won’t be enough to keep him safe.’ Edwin stared at him with a profound expression.
Once the door was fully opened, Leo stepped inside the room with Edwin closing the door behind him.
Leo’s eyes widened with surprise when he saw the interior of the room. All of the walls were made of metal, almost like the training rooms in the academy, and there were blood splatters on every wall.
There was no furniture in the room except a large metal bed, and sitting on this large bed with her back facing Leo was a petite figure with silky black hair that flowed down her back like a waterfall.
“Are you my new playmate?” The figure suddenly spoke in a nonchalant voice.
When Leo noticed that she was turning her head, he subconsciously turned to look away.
“Lilith, let me know if she does anything crazy,” he said to her.
“Well, she’s staring at you like a predator who just found a new prey.”
“Hey, why aren’t you looking at me? You haven’t even introduced yourself and you’re already ignoring me. That’s not very polite.”
“…My name is Leon, your new bodyguard, and I was told that you don’t like eye contact, so I am trying my best to avoid looking at you. I apologize if I appear disrespectful, but that is not my intention.” He explained to her.
“That Edwin had exaggerated things to tease you. It’s not that I dislike eye contact. I just dislike how some people look at me after seeing my face. If I don’t mind the way you look at me, I have no reason to be angry.”
“…”
Leo didn’t know how to respond to her words.
‘Is she super ugly or something? This is definitely a trap!’ He couldn’t help but have this thought.
However, he couldn’t control his curiosity, and he eventually started to turn his head in a slow motion.
A few moments later, when he finally laid eyes on the girl sitting on the bed, Leo’s eyes widened with surprise.
Contrary to his initial beliefs, this young lady wasn’t ugly at all. In fact, it was the completely opposite— she was a total beauty, and breathtakingly so.
She had a doll-like face with skin so smooth and pure that it was like porcelain. Her eyes were round and innocent-looking, but her gaze was sharp and filled with intelligence. However, the most shocking feature was the color of her eyes, which seemed to have been dyed in blood.
They were crimson, just like Lilith, who was floating right beside her at this moment, almost as though she wanted him to compare the two of them.
When the young lady saw the look on Leo’s face, she calmly stood from the bed and walked around around the bed before walking towards him with slow and steady steps.
Seeing the young lady standing up, Leo could finally see her height, and she was just slightly taller than Nina Wraith, being about a head and half shorter than him.
Leo held his breath and mentally prepared himself just in case she was going to hit him.
Once the young lady stood a few feet in front of him, she stopped walking and tilted her head slightly to look into his tranquil eyes.
“You’re not afraid of me? Are you actually blind? Don’t you see my crimson eyes?” She asked him in a calm voice.
“I see them just fine. Why would I be afraid of you just because of your eyes?”
“Because all vampires have red eyes. Aren’t you afraid that I might be a vampire?” The young lady suddenly retrieved a long black dagger from out of thin air, and in a motion that was almost too quick for Leo to see, she brought it right in front of his neck.
‘Oh… So that’s why…’ Leo realized the situation.
However, he had gotten used to Lilith and her red eyes, so he didn’t really feel anything when he saw her red eyes.
“Well, are you a vampire?” Leo suddenly asked her in a calm voice.
The young lady didn’t immediately respond to him.
After a moment of silence, she lowered her dagger and said in a clear voice, “No, I am not a vampire.”
“Then I have no reason to be afraid of you.” Leo said.
“You’re a weird one. You know, the previous 102 people that came before you all drew their weapon when they saw my eyes for the first time. Do you want to know what I did to them?” she suddenly asked.
Leo looked at the blood spatters in the room without moving his head and mumbled, “I have an idea.”
“Let me hear it.”
“You killed them?”
A new expression suddenly appeared on the young lady’s beautiful face for the first time, and it was a dangerous smile that almost looked inhuman, “I didn’t just kill them. I tortured them until their last breath.”