A few moments later…

「…And it seems like the empress is just waiting for him to wake up every day. Just now I found her sleeping on his bed…」

Will speaks with his arms crossed while Alicia and Lian listen. Greaves glances at him every few seconds, apparently listening too.

「Here you are!」

The young waitress returns, placing a plate of baked beans in gravy with a side of sausages in front of Will. He counts a few drakes in his hand, and hands a couple of them to the waitress.

「Keep the change…」

Will says as she takes them, and quickly counts through them to find the amount significantly rounded up. Greaves scoffs.

「Myyy!… Thank youuu!…」

She departs with a smile and her hand on her cheek. With her brows raised slightly, Lian looks at the waitress, then turns her gaze back to Will with a snide smirk on her face.

「You're quite popular lately, aren't you, Will?」

Lian remarks while resting her cheek on her fist.

「I just don't want the small drakes littering my pockets…」

Will quickly excuses himself as he adjusts his glasses, and takes his fork into his hand.

「…Ah. Hot. Good.」

He forks some of the still steaming beans into his mouth, underestimating their temperature. Will huffs and puffs while trying to cool them down in his mouth.

「It's gotten pretty cold, huh?…」

Lian turns her black eyes towards one of the frosted-over windows, and the gently descending snow outside.

「Yeah… Aren't you cold, Lian? You only have those bracers…」

Will briefly looks at the window with her, then nods along. His attention turns to Lian's furry topdog bracers. She looks at them for a second with disinterested eyes.

「Mh. Not really.」

She casually shrugs, and her smirk grows a little.

「…You sure? Are your clothes warm enough for snowy weather like this?」

Furrowing his browns in concern, Will pauses for a moment before forking more baked beans into his mouth.

「They're not really as warm, as my people have a different metabolism compared to yours… Mutant like my dear idiot little brother or not, we heal injuries faster…」

Crossing her arms and leaning back, her gaze aimlessly drifts up and to the side with a little grimace of her lips.

「Different metabolism?…」

Will swallows and asks, tilting his head.

「…Yes. I sleep a lot less than you, too, though admittedly a little more frequently…」

Lian nods, turning her eyes back to Will while he eats and listens.

「…Our body temperature is also naturally higher, so if you are ever cold in your bed-」

「Khkakh!… Khakhh!…」

Thumpthumpthump…

Lian leans onto the table with her elbows as she adds. Will abruptly begins choking on his food and hammering his fist into his chest. Greaves looks at him with his brows furrowed.

「Will?… Are you alright?…」

Alicia asks while Will is still thumping on his chest. Red-faced, he nods in reply, and strains slightly while clearing his throat. Lian's sentence seemingly eludes both Greaves and Alicia.

「I'm fine… I just swallowed wrong… Khakh…」

Will replies while nodding, speaking with a greatly strained voice. He coughs once more, and Lian slides him over her tankard with her brows lightly raised in concern.

He returns a grateful nod and grabs onto it, lifting its rim up to his lips, and starts drinking.

Clunk!

「Hnnnnghhh!…」

A few drops of the tankard's content splatter in front of Will when he noisily slams it back down onto the table, grunting through his clenched teeth.

《…She drank from this!》

His face reddens further while clutching onto the tankard's grip.

「Will? Are you sure you're okay?… Greaves, maybe you should help?…」

Alicia asks again, then turns her worried gaze to Greaves. The two look at each other for a moment, before he turns his eyes to Will.

「Hey, are you actually choking?-」

「I'm fine now!…」

Greaves calls out, but Will quickly replies with his red face hidden by his hair. He adjusts his glasses, pushing them up his nose, and slides the nearly empty tankard back to Lian.

「…T- Thanks.」

Will nods towards her, albeit refusing to look her way.

「Mmmhmm?…」

Lian slowly nods back with her brows furrowed, and tilts her head a little in confusion, taking her tankard into her hand.

「…What about you, Will? Are you not cold?」

She asks, and casually takes a sip without the fact Will had just drank from it even registering.

「Ah, no… These robes actually keep the wind out pretty well. In fact, I'd wear only my robes when it was really hot out-」

「So you were naked!?」

While Will is tugging at his robes with his pinched fingers and replying to Lian, Alicia cuts him off, covering most of her face with her hands.

「What? No, Alicia, I meant aside from my underwear… Obviously…」

A little incredulous, Will narrows his eyes at her, shaking his head in disbelief as he lets go of his robes.

「…Anyway, they're warm enough for now. If it gets colder, I might have to buy a fur cloak, or something like that. I'd definitely not go anywhere seriously cold dressed like this.」

He adds, shrugging his shoulders, and resumes eating. Lian tilts her head sideways, then nods as she brings the tankard up…

…

A day later, late at night, on the streets of the capital…

Lily is walking through the magic-lit streets, light shining at her either from the lamps, or the ads. She takes a turn, and absentmindedly walks down the Main Street with her golden head hanging low. Multiple vampires bow, then jump out of her way to avoid her, as she doesn't even notice them. Her scarlet eyes simply stare ahead down at her boots.

「…Ministry of Fortune! Try your luck where fates are shaped!…」「…Huh?」

Straf's voice coming from above makes Lily stop in her tracks.

Briefly filled with joy, she looks at its source, and the joy rapidly evaporates when she realizes it's just another ad, but with Straf's voice. She lets out a disappointed, wistful sigh, and continues onward towards her bell tower. The sparse few humans that remain on the streets at this hour swerve around Lily in a wide arc, but she doesn't notice. Her eyes remain lowered.

Thump.

「Eh?」

Lily is forced to stop when a man's shape jumps out in front of her from the alleyway, blocking her path. Heavily confused and a little taken aback, her puzzled crimson eyes look up at the man's face, and blink at him. He glares back, scowling. Lily turns her attention to the object he's pointing at her. Her brows furrow slightly at the sight of the man holding what appears to be a streetlight, but small enough to be held in his hands. She blinks, only further confused.

A fraction of a second later, she identifies the object pointed at her as a Flashlight.

Click…

「Agh!」

A flash of orange light painfully blinds Lily, causing her to flinch. She turns away with her teeth clenched, and her eyes forced shut.

「Argh!」「My eyes!」「Ahh!」

Grunts of pain and discomfort come from behind Lily, as the equally confused bystanders watching the commotion are caught in the Flashlight's shine. The humans wince and cover their eyes, stumbling blindly for something to grab onto. The vampires watching on disintegrate into ashes in a burst of flames around their bodies, and drop onto the snowy cobblestones in small piles.

…Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

「Ngh!」

Lily winces slightly when she hears the Flashlight clicking softly over and over. The pale skin on her hands and neck begins to sting painfully.

「…What the shit!? Why isn't it!?…」

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The man with the Flashlight exclaims, backing a step away while Lily is still recoiling from the sudden attack. His eyes briefly jump to the piles of ashes behind Lily, then back to her.

「…Fucking die already!」

Click. Click. Click.

He pulls the trigger a few more times, lighting the little girl momentarily in an orange glow while she's covering her face with her palms.

Click. Click. Click…

「…Huh? What the fuck?」

He pulls the trigger again, and nothing happens, aside from a soft click coming from the Flashlight.

…Click. Click. Click.

Lily lowers her hands from her face while the man tries again to no avail. No more light comes from the Flashlight's housing, regardless of how hard he squeezes the trigger.

She turns her gaze towards the way she came, and looks at the piles of ashes scattered around the street. A few of the bystander victims freeze up when she idly glances at them. Lily then swivels her head back around to her would-be assassin, and looks up into his eyes.

「Normally I would have killed you quickly…」

The baroness declares, growling at the man in a low voice, glaring at him with pure hatred in her scarlet eyes, and splaying the clawed fingers of her hands.

Clank-crash!

He drops the Flashlight onto the hard ground, shattering the glass panes on the vampire lamp's housing, scattering ice-like glass everywhere into the snow. The man takes an unsteady, hesitant step back, and Lily follows him with a purposeful step forward. The man nearly stumbles onto his back over his own feet.

「…But you have caught me in a very. Bad. Mood.」

She adds, baring her fangs as her mask of civility slips. The man whimpers in terror, and tries to run…

…

A few hours later, in the early morning after sunrise, on the Main Street past the Ministry of Fortune…

「Huuurrkkkkkk!…」

A Ministry of Security agent vomits into an alleyway, holding his peaked cap by its brim, and leaning onto a nearby wall with his elbow. The rest of the agents are blocking off the street with their arms spread, trying their best to obscure the line of sight to the enormous blood splatter and piles of strewn viscera behind them. There is an abandoned Flashlight lying on the street not too far from a severed leg, both lightly dusted with specks of snow. The tip of the femur sticking out of the leg is pulverized flat.

「Ahhhh… Good grief…」

With his hands on his hips, Ursa utters out with a troubled expression on his face while looking down at the Flashlight.

「Excuse me!… Excuse me, let me through please!…」

Someone shouts from the nearby crowd of onlookers, causing the marshal to look over his shoulder.

「Hey! This is official business! The road's blocked! Move along!-」

One of the Ministry agents blocking the path shouts as someone tries to squeeze through them towards the scene.

「I need to see this! I'm working for the empress!」

Will shouts, pointing his finger towards the blood splatter.

「Yeah!? And I'm working for Redwing!… Fuck off, kid!-」

The agent scoffs, and nods his hatted head back towards the Palace Road.

「Wait!…」

Ursa calls out from behind him, approaching the guard barricade.

「…Let him through. I know him.」

He says when he looks at Will's face squeezing in through the agents. Surprised, they glance at Ursa, and raise their arms to let the young man in. He adjusts his glasses, jogging up.

「Will. It's good to see you…」

「Likewise, marshal…」

Ursa greets Will, and he returns the greeting with a polite nod. The marshal turns around, and approaches the Flashlight with Will.

「…Good grief. What a mess, and I don't mean the blood. Normally, the minister would be handling this, but… You know.」

The marshal remarks while they stand over the Flashlight, and helplessly shrugs his arms.

「I know… What happened, marshal?」

Will asks, adjusting his glasses as he looks up at the grim-faced man.

「Last night, some fucking idiot jumped out with one o' these and tried assassinating the baroness with it…」

Ursa replies as he moves his hands behind his back.

「…You can probably see how well that went for him.」

He adds while looking at a length of intestines trailing off into an alleyway, then turns his gaze to Will.

「And this is?…」

Will points at the Flashlight, furrowing his brows at the marshal.

「Ah. That's right, you wouldn't know… We call them Flashlights. The vampire hunter volunteers used those to clear out Murusburg from vampires some time ago. Very effective…」

Realizing that Will wasn't there for the raid, Ursa explains while gesturing with his hand at the weapon on the floor.

「…But apparently, Lady Baroness is simply immune to it. The witnesses, human witnesses, at least, say that she undeniably was defending herself… To a point.」

「To a point?」

Will asks, tilting his head. Ursa grimaces for a few moments while thinking.

「Let's be honest, it stopped being self defense and turned to torture very quickly. Legally, she's in the clear, though. No man or vampire would dare to stop her, anyway.」

The marshal shrugs, scrunching his mouth to the side.

「Couldn't someone take one of these and massacre all the vampires in the city then? What I mean is, why did it happen now?」

Will rubs his chin, furrowing his brows at Ursa, before turning his puzzled eyes down to the Flashlight.

「They're kept locked up tight at the Ministry specifically to prevent that… But someone got his hands on one anyway. That's what's troubling.」

Ursa nods as he replies, and looks around at the agents surrounding the scene. All of them are either searching for missed clues, or otherwise some elusive piece of evidence.

「…That someone being? Do we know?」

Will asks and looks at the blood splatter spanning almost the entire street's width.

「Uh-huh… Arrested once for minor assault, official notes state that the would-be assassin had a strong distaste for vampires after his family was killed by one. Guess it ran in their family.」

Ursa replies, nodding. He takes a few steps towards the blood splatter, then nods towards an alleyway with a severed head. Its face is twisted and frozen into an expression of pure agony.

「Grisly… Is it known how he got his hands on it? Broke in? Forced doors?」

Will winces, and turns his eyes away from the head, adjusting his glasses.

「Nope, aaaand nope. All we know is that we know nothing. Niklaus from the Ministry is hunting for possible suspects.」

Ursa shakes his head, then shrugs again, turning to face Will by the blood splatter.

「Marshal, I have to ask…」

With his tone turning slightly hesitant, Will lowers his head and adjusts his glasses.

「What is it? Go ahead. You've got a good head on you, and frankly, this isn't something I'd usually do. If you've got any ideas, spill 'em, kid.」

Ursa quizzically nods his head up at the young mage, standing with his hands behind his back.

「…Did you consider sabotage, or treason at all?」

Will asks with a discomforted grimace on his face as he lifts his head.

「Tsk…」

Ursa looks aside, staring at the distant, mostly obscured bell tower.

「…Mercia's grace. That was the first thing on my mind, kid, but I really didn't want to think about that. It's very likely he had help from someone in the Ministry.」

「I see…」

The marshal replies after a sigh, and Will nods in return, grimacing heavily.

「…Could I ask you to report this to her majesty? I'm a marshal. This really isn't for me. I've got the reaction force to manage.」

Ursa asks with a serious gaze, shrugging his shoulders. The early morning sun glitters on his breastplate, shining on the brass metal dragon affixed to it.

「Yes, of course, marshal. I'll do that right now.」

Will nods, adjusts his glasses, then bows slightly as he hastily departs back towards the barricade in the direction of the palace…