One day later, dawn at the village of Light’s Edge…

Now, the thought of soaking in a hot bath was a rather enticing anticipation for Elena. Even if it was very much true that her physical body upon Melodia was merely a manifestation of magic from her phylactery back home at the Ancient Cathedral, she still relished the sensation of boiling hot water and perfumed soap cleansing both grime and blood alike.

It was, for a lack of better words, simply sublime. Especially so, after a job well done. She wondered if Claire would share a bath with her, though she knew very well that her beloved was probably still fast asleep. The thought of asking had cropped up so many times in the past, and now that she was stained in vampiric blood, frost, dust and grime, she felt more confident than ever before to do so.

Despite these happy thoughts, she could feel something starkly amiss with her surroundings as she made her way back to the inn. It was enough to snap her back into the throes of reality, where traces of holy magics belonging to the Central Church lingered like a miasma in the cold air. She had not seen nor walked past a single villager, even at the village square where the markets were. And there were also signs of a violent struggle all around her, the sight of upended carts and smashed stalls, as well as litter and blood strewn and spilled upon snow and stone. Blood, that reeked of vampirism.

“Oh, no!”

With gritted teeth, Elena ran as fast as she could towards the village inn. Like the rest of the village, it was deathly quiet, the front door left ajar and the reception counter unmanned amidst blood, broken glass, and broken furniture strewn all over upon the floor.

“Please be safe, Claire…”

Ignoring it all, she dashed upstairs. Up to the third floor, into the room at the end of the narrow hallway that she had booked a few days prior. The door was left open like the others along the way, and Claire was nowhere to be seen.

“Damn it…!”

It was then, standing in this empty room, that Elena remembered. The traces of holy magic left in the air, and the Lightsworn guardsmen stationed at the gates who had dutifully let her through into the village upon her return from the wilderness. And she remembered as well, the worry in their eyes when she walked past them.

In light of what she was used to, it was far more nervousness than the usual. She left the inn and headed for the village gates with that on the top of her mind.

Later, at the village gates…

The Lightsworn guardsmen here were only human, far unlike the upper ranks who had transcended the mortal coil by means of holy magic so as to better serve Elicia and the Ecclesiarch of her Central Church. Having left their posts to group up together, they stood their ground, trembling in their armoured boots at Elena’s approach.

One of them, more or less shoved by his colleagues, stepped forward to address her. The white plate of his armour, and its gold trimmings, shimmered lightly in the morning sun as he trembled before her, when her crimson-eyed gaze fell upon him.

“I’m only gonna ask this once,” Elena stated slowly with an unnatural calmness. “Where are the villagers?”

“Um… Lady… ah… Vamp…”

When Elena wordlessly revealed a gloved hand wreathed in white-hot flames, the guardsman let out a gasp and fell upon his buttocks. While tears of dust trickled down her crimson eyes, she glared at him as he looked to his colleagues, who were backing away slowly as the air around them began to sear with a hellish heat.

“Lady Eris… Ser… Kuarloc… vampires… outbreak… Fort Maria…”

With a frown, Elena shot a glance at the Lightsworn guardsman’s colleagues, and they nodded furiously in agreement with their comrade’s words. Eris de Maria and the massive Dullahan known as ‘Ser Kuarloc’, were a duo of Lightsworn who served together at Fort Maria as the Vizier of the Ecclesiarch in the southern part of the Holy See’s dominion, and she knew very well what they were capable of. And if Claire and the villagers had been taken to their seat of power, there was only one thing to do.

The hot bath, with or without her beloved, would have to wait.