‘Thanks to him, I survived.’
Of course, saying she survived thanks to Bernardo didn’t mean she was ready to make peace with him. More than anything, that hardheaded flint of a man wasn’t going to just go along with it willingly.
‘Sure, Bernardo might be a good-hearted holy knight who wants to save Todd. But if he starts going easy on vampires too? That’s no holy knight—he’s a heretic.’
Right now, he was just mentally overwhelmed from the sudden flood of information.
Once he regained his senses, he’d definitely go right back to attacking—because in his mind, vampires had to die. Period.
‘This is my chance…!’
She hadn’t fully recovered her strength yet, but this was the perfect moment to land a decisive blow. Vasha lunged at Bernardo.
“Kgh!”
Bernardo tried to shake Vasha off.
His holy energy seemed to be working—compared to when their swords first clashed, Vasha was noticeably weaker.
But Bernardo wasn’t in perfect condition either, so it wasn’t easy for him to get rid of her.
As they grappled back and forth, Vasha sensed something strange in her aura.
[…Young Master, chzzz, auction….]
“…What is that?”
She heard a faint noise in the distance—like a radio breaking up from poor reception.
‘Is this a message meant for the holy knight?’
The charm she had given Todd was made based on the Lamphas religion’s communication magic, so Vasha quickly realized what the strange sensation was.
‘If I just focus a little more and tune in to the magical flow, I might be able to eavesdrop completely.’
If she could just match the frequency of Bernardo’s holy energy, she could reverse-trace it and listen in.
Vasha instinctively sensed that the message was important.
She focused all her energy on locking into the magical signal, forgetting to even keep an eye on Bernardo.
Believing she had let her guard down, Bernardo finally threw her off.
Just as he was about to counterattack—
—that’s when Matteus’s message finally came through to Bernardo.
[Young Master! Something terrible has happened! A vampire army has appeared at the auction house and is slaughtering everyone!]
“…What?”
The sword Bernardo was swinging toward Vasha halted mid-air.
Matteus’s next words made Bernardo’s eyes widen in shock.
[Leading the vampire army is ‘The Magician’—Menorah Strigon! Strigon has appeared!]
Matteus’s shocking report made Bernardo stiffen.
If what he said was true, this was an unprecedented crisis.
Bernardo’s expression hardened.
And Vasha, who had eavesdropped on the entire transmission, was just as shaken.
“What did he just say? Something showed up at the auction house? Strigon?”
Vasha asked, her face pale with horror.
Her already fair complexion had turned deathly white—almost blue.
And who could blame her?
He said Strigon.
She’d only just heard about Strigon from Todd a few hours earlier—
A merciless extremist among vampires, and the first of the Menorah, a powerful force under the Vampire Lord.
Bernardo, still stunned by the news Matteus had delivered, snapped out of it like he’d been slapped, jolted by Vasha’s reaction.
“Wait… You heard that?”
Matteus’s message had been transmitted using a sacred relic of Lamphas, meant to only be heard by the recipient who infused it with holy energy—namely Bernardo.
Even other holy knights or bishops couldn’t have heard it.
So how had a vampire, who couldn’t even use holy energy, managed to pick up the message?
There was something seriously off about the vampire in front of him.
And on top of that—today of all days—the Menorah and a whole swarm of vampires just so happened to gather at the auction?
Since when had vampires ever shown up this often, or in such numbers?
And Menorah, of all people.
They had disappeared over a hundred years ago when the Vampire Lord vanished.
Especially Strigon.
He was the one who never showed his face.
The last known record of his appearance was 300 years ago.
That incident had been archived by the Lamphas Church, and every holy knight had memorized what Strigon looked like.
But even so, none of them actually expected to ever face him.
For Strigon to show up now, here, in Noctiluca… there was no way that was coincidence.
To Bernardo, this felt like a trap Vasha had been setting from the start.
He pressed in, demanding answers.
“How did you bypass the magic of Lamphas? No—more importantly! The auction house! Are you connected to the Menorah? Was this all planned from the beginning, even luring me out here?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Vasha scowled.
She was already overwhelmed trying to process the shocking news about the auction house, and now Bernardo was pestering her with wild accusations—it was enough to make her snap.
And on top of everything else, Todd still hadn’t contacted her using the charm she’d given him.
That was even more worrying.
‘I hope he managed to escape safely. Maybe he didn’t even have time to use the charm because he was too busy running for his life…’
Still, the fact that the contract was intact meant Todd was likely unharmed.
‘That’s at least something… but how long can Todd hold out…?’
But to Bernardo, Vasha’s concern looked nothing short of hypocrisy.
He blocked her retreat as she tried to run and shouted.
“Don’t play dumb! You’re a vampire like them—don’t pretend you don’t know!”
“Damn it. You think all vampires are chummy and exchange holiday cards or something?”
“W-Wait! What’s going on right now? What happened at the auction house? Who—or what—is Strigon?”
Melina, who hadn’t heard the message and was completely out of the loop, looked around in confusion.
But neither Bernardo nor Vasha were in a position to calmly explain.
As if things couldn’t get worse, more bad news came crashing down.
“Lady Vasha! Something’s happening at the auction house! The sky is red, and smoke is rising!”
Oliver burst into the drawing room, his usual composure nowhere to be found.
Despite being a wreck from the aftermath of the fight with Bernardo, he had forced himself to the banquet hall to deliver the news, his face ashen with fear.
The Renfield estate was far from Noctiluca City, where the auction house was located.
If even from here the smoke and flames were visible, then what was going on at the auction house must have been catastrophic.
It would be dangerous even for ordinary people.
And worse—Laurus, the frail elder, had been there.
Everyone in the drawing room went stiff at the word fire.
“Damn it…”
The vampires were destroying the auction house and plunging the city into chaos.
Vasha gritted her teeth.
As much as Bernardo was suspicious of how conveniently everything was unfolding, Vasha herself was stunned and overwhelmed.
She had just finished talking about Strigon with Todd—and now Strigon actually appeared?
Sure, there’s that old saying: speak of the vampire and the vampire appears—but this was way too on the nose.
The conversation she had with Todd about how to escape if Strigon ever showed up felt like something from a distant past now.
‘So it wasn’t just pointless worrying after all, Todd…!’
Still, even Vasha couldn’t have imagined she’d encounter Strigon so soon.
So blaming Todd was pointless.
What she needed was to assess the situation as fast as possible.
‘Why now, of all times? Why today, at the auction house?’
There had to be a reason it had to be Noctiluca’s auction today.
There’s no way they could’ve known Todd would attend—so they must be targeting one of the auction items.
And if the Menorah themselves had come for it…
‘Van Drake’s legacy!’
That made sense.
Van Drake’s legacy was essential for Vasha to pass her trial, become a high-ranking vampire, and recover her memories.
But…
‘Not if I have to fight Strigon for it.’
Vasha wanted her memories back, more than anything.
That’s why she’d followed the instructions from that scrap of paper all this time.
But if going up against the Menorah meant dying before she even got the chance to recover those memories—then it wasn’t worth it.
