Chapter 25 - Volume 2 (1/2)
Volume 2, Chapter 12: Children of the Night, Part 2
{[(TL Note: reader Discretion Advised! We Repeat! Viewer Discretion Advised! Some seriousness happens this chapter, so ask your parents first if you’re below a certain age. If you think we’re joking, we’re not, seriously.)]}
All around her was [Darkness]. She couldn’t see anything: Fontaine clasped her small hands together after managing to escape from that terrible place.
“ … C-Chris…-chan?”
Though she thought that Christina was pulling her hands and so called out, nobody responded.
There was a dark forest from which even the sounds of insects chirping couldn’t be heard.
A little ways away from her, she could see the house where the monsters lived, but right now there was no one but her. Fontaine looked around uneasily.
“ …… ”
Fontaine couldn’t help but want to help herself, she didn’t understand at all why that person had left her all alone, and felt despair.
Why would anyone leave a child like her alone in a place like this? The monsters called Vampires were scary. But, this dark forest was scary too.
She hated being scared, and wanted to run away. Yurushia had said to run away as well. Saying she’d forgive us if we escaped.
But…
“ …Why did you ‘let’ us run away?”
Fontaine did not understand.
Fontaine was born a noble, but did not feel any aristocratic [Pride]. She would not even mind living as a commoner.
As far as she was concerned, it made no difference.
To Fontaine, all of the things in the world belonged to her.
She didn’t understand the [Boundaries] between herself and others. She didn’t mind if her own things were taken away, but also didn’t mind taking away from other people.
The important things of others, she didn’t understand how important they were to that person. She would even take the lives of small animals in her play.
But even Fontaine understood that if she didn’t eat, she would starve to death. Dying was scary.
As a child, of course it was natural for her to be protected, but the parents who should have protected her were already dead. After that, the protection from the Duke person was weakened, and then the people after that who should have protected her, the twins and Christina, were so frightened and she never ever considered that she would ever have to protect herself.
So, moving along the sequence of protectors:
“Mistress protects me!”
Not only did she face that horrible monster without fear, the Princess even had a smile on her face. Since she was her [Master], it was natural to be protected by her.
Having reached that conclusion, rather than flee to the forest, Fontaine walked towards the place where hopefully Yurushia and the vampire still were.
The fear faded away before she knew it. Thinking about it, because Fontaine’s concept of the boundaries between individuals was very thin, she believed so.
{Because my life is important to everyone, I don’t need to fear for it.}
Since Fontaine saw her life as most precious, she didn’t doubt for a moment that it was important to everyone else.
She boldly returned to the gate of the mansion. No vampires found her on the way back.
As she took a cake from the wagon on the way and walked to the garden while munching, she noticed someone behind them.
“ …?”
A small breath was approaching. Not a person, a [Thing], Fontaine held her breath as it appeared from the cold darkness.
A black dog emanating frost; a vampire familiar, Death Hound.
“Hiiiaa!?”
Her face distorting in fear, Fontaine instantly broke into a run.
Two… no, three… four more dogs appeared from the darkness and had begun to harass their weak prey like a pack of wolves.
“W-why!?”
She couldn’t understand why she was being attacked. She couldn’t understand why nobody was helping her. Weighed down with despair and fear, Fontaine moved towards the girl that was her master, crying in the darkness.
“S-save meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
There was no response, only the sound of tearing and a muffled scream as the sound of ripping spread through the night.
＊
“It’s not real… It’s not real… It’s not real…”
Ninette was squatting in the shadow of the wall close to the main gate of the mansion, her teeth chattering while she held her sword.
Tightly clutching her sword hilt as her knuckles turned white, Ninette continued to mumble curses quietly.
“It can’t be…”
Not only did that monster exist, but that monster took the shape of a noble and she had been forced to participate in that sort of tea party and the Princess had to provoked the monster and the Princess looked like she was having fun and because of that her own life was in danger and all of it was unbelievable.
“I hate this.”
{I don’t wanna die. I wanna go back to my [Easy] life.}
Ninette hated troublesome things. Her twin brother was willing to be subservient to others for his own comfort, but Ninette felt doing so was too much work for her.
To have the fine eye of consideration to be a maid was too troublesome.
To train in the sword to become a knight was too troublesome.
To go along with her elder brother’s plans was too troublesome.
To humble herself in front of other people was too troublesome.
To work was too troublesome.
She just wanted to live an effortless life.
If one was strong with a sword, they were recognized by only that, those escort knights would clean up any enemies who attack the duke’s daughter and settled everything. If she became captain of the knights when she grew up, she could just leave all the guarding to her subordinates and live easily.