With all their preparations complete, just before they left Hasra, a man from Prince Elvin arrived, exactly as Princess Sherin had warned.

He introduced himself as Baron Rosk, a handsome, well-groomed man in his late twenties.

“Prince Elvin wishes to take me into his service as a vassal?”

“Indeed. I hear you are acquainted with Sir Lug. He speaks very highly of you. Of course, as you won the tournament, that is only natural.”

For all his affable smiles, there was a sense that he was sizing Shan up.

Shan took a drink of tea to shield himself from that uncomfortable gaze, then gave his prepared answer.

“I am grateful for the offer, but first I would like to prove myself further as a knight-errant.”

“The champion of the Hasra joust needs to prove himself...? Surely you aren't planning to slay a dragon?”

“If the opportunity arises.”

A look of bewilderment crossed the baron's face, as though he could not tell whether the boy was serious or merely answering a joke with another joke.

It lasted only a moment before Baron Rosk asked in a somewhat ominous tone,

“This is merely a precaution, but you haven't sworn vassalage to Princess Sherin as well as receiving your knighthood from her, have you?”

The baron's probing was quite pointed. He said someone had seen Shan and Roden visiting the mansion of Count Pales, Princess Sherin's maternal uncle, late at night some time ago.

“I have not sworn vassalage to her. If I had, I would have made it known.”

A knight ought never to be ashamed to name his liege.

But since Shan truly had not entered into vassalage with Princess Sherin, he had nothing whatsoever to hide on that point. Theirs was strictly a cooperative relationship.

Meanwhile, his poor acting left his eyes and facial muscles behaving so erratically that it only confused the other man further.

After staring at Shan for a while, the baron gave a low groan and shook his head.

“Yes, I suppose so. Hmm... Very well. Do contact us if you change your mind.”

Baron Rosk left Shan an invitation and departed the Wievers mansion.

Roden, who had been standing quietly behind Shan, snorted.

“Certainly has a prince's arrogance. I wasn't expecting him to come in person, but even the messenger he sends is a man like that?”

“A man like what?”

“Baron Rosk is a notorious lecher and a complete scumbag. You can tell what sort of man the boss is by the company he keeps.”

Something like personal malice toward the baron colored Roden's voice.

Rather than pry into his private affairs, Shan brushed a spider off his shoulder.

“Anyway, this makes it even clearer. We mustn't let go of our connection to Princess Sherin.”

“Why?”

“Because they can't match her intelligence network! The two princes can't even decide whether she's an enemy, while she has both of them in the palm of her hand. Just look at how she predicted this visit.”

Roden propped his chin on his hand and tilted his head, saying he could not imagine how she managed it.

“Perhaps she controls the princes' confidants by giving them a poison only she can cure... It would explain why she said it didn't matter if everyone found out about this vampire hunt.”

According to Princess Sherin, even if they hunted down the vampire of Kastaman Castle, Prince Elvin would never guess that the information had come from her.

Hadn't she said he would suspect Conrad instead?

As a staunch adherent of the Old Faith, Conrad could hardly have taken Shan into his service. Elvin would therefore assume he had simply heard about the vampire somewhere and secretly leaked the information.

In other words, the scheme would foil one of Prince Elvin's moves while also sowing discord between the two princes.

“Come to think of it, this Prince Conrad really doesn't do much. Hiring a vampire, trying to win me over, suspecting the princess—that's all the younger prince's doing, isn't it?”

“When you're already on top, maintaining the status quo is enough to benefit you. Clever moves are for the weaker side, the one at a disadvantage.”

Presumably, he meant that the king's eldest son, supported by wealthy and powerful provincial lords of the Old Faith and the strongest knight in the kingdom, had no need to concern himself with underhanded tricks.

The two soon finished chatting and headed for the stable.

They brought out Arwin and selected the best available horse for Roden. Once they loaded the baggage they had prepared, they were ready to leave.

“Not too heavy, Arwin?”

Arwin snorted at Shan's question as though the load were nothing.

Considering she carried roughly twice as much as the horse beside her, her physical prowess was truly remarkable.

Clad in plate armor befitting a knight, Shan said farewell to the household and set out, with Roden behind him in his usual mail.

It was time to hunt a vampire.

* * *

In Raben, a small city in north-central Pendia, there was a tavern frequented by mercenaries.

In truth, “mercenaries” was a grand name for them. They were closer to a gathering of idlers who had grown sick of fighting monsters while farming and run off to make fighting monsters their profession instead.

Any genuinely capable mercenary company would have headed east, closer to the Demonlands, or to the west or south, where there were more travelers.

“Nothing happening today either, eh?”

“Who killed that earth ghoul in old Ettin's field?”

“Who knows? Maybe he dealt with it himself.”

“Dealt with it, my ass. If that old geezer tried, he'd only have added more fertilizer to the field...”

As the mercenaries idly talked away their boredom in the absence of work, the tavern door banged open.

They turned, thinking someone had arrived just in time to relieve their boredom, then hastily took their feet off the tables and sat up straight.

The newcomer was a boy knight in full plate armor.

'Whoa.'

'A knight!'

'He's young.'

'What's he doing here?'

While everyone stared with interest and wariness, not daring to speak, the huge man standing behind the knight spoke first.

“I am Roden, squire to Sir Shan of House Barendil! We are recruiting brave men for a vampire hunt!”

“A vampire... sir?”

“Why would a knight need to hire mercenaries for something like that?”

A handful of mercenaries were more than enough to deal with most vampires. Young as he looked, wasn't it strange for a knight to hire help to kill one?

His next words immediately answered their questions.

“Our quarry is no ordinary vampire, but a greater vampire capable of disguising itself as a human!”

“Oh...”

“There's a monster like that around here?”

“Count me out.”

Some listened intently, hoping a substantial job would bring a substantial reward, while others remained distinctly unenthusiastic.

The knight's obvious youth did little to inspire confidence.

Knights and mercenaries were like shepherds and sheepdogs. If they went vampire hunting and that young knight died without putting up a fight, wouldn't they be in danger too?

Then one of the better-informed mercenaries studied Shan closely and cried out in surprise.

“Ah! Could you be Sir Shan, the winner of the recent Hasra joust?”

“Indeed. I see word has already reached this far.”

As Roden answered for him, exclamations of wonder rose among the mercenaries.

“He won the joust? At that age?”

“That's right. There's been an uproar because the winner was a boy not even fifteen. An Altoan, at that.”

“Well, I'll be.”

“That would make him younger than my youngest sibling.”

Some dismissed jousting as knights playing games, but everyone acknowledged that anyone who could win such a tournament possessed extraordinary skill.

With a knight that powerful leading the party, it was a different matter.

“When do we leave?”

“Immediately. We head north.”

“What's the pay?”

“Is there a hunting bonus too?”

After a series of negotiations, Sir Shan found himself in command of sixteen mercenaries in no time.

There were few highly skilled mercenaries in such a small city, and their intended purpose hardly required large numbers. This was enough.

Roden handled all the negotiations. Everyone marveled that a man who looked like a hearty knight could be as shrewd and sharp with figures as a merchant.

A little later, the newly hired mercenaries received another shock when they saw their knight's mount.

With its mysterious metallic sheen, a frame a full head taller than other horses, and its elegant proportions, it looked like a horse the Goddess herself might ride.

“Wow, that...”

“It's a Horace warhorse. Apparently it was the prize for winning the capital's joust.”

“Sir Shan's warhorse is extremely particular about people. Do not approach carelessly.”

Everyone nodded at Roden's warning, but the desire kindling in their eyes was hard to conceal.

Stealing and selling a horse like that would earn more than a lifetime of mercenary work.

Of course, with its owner—the jousting champion—standing right there, they could not even dream of trying.

With the hiring agreements settled, the party left the city at once and headed north.

Only then did Roden reveal their destination to his mercenaries. He had been concerned that their target might have informants in the city.

“The vampire we're hunting is in Kastaman Castle.”

“Kastaman Castle...? A greater vampire lives there? That's news to me.”

“Ah, come to think of it, I did hear that the area was crawling with vampires.”

“Really?”

Even locals who lived relatively close by seemed unsure. Clearly, it had concealed its identity well.

Had Princess Sherin not somehow intercepted communications between the lord of Kastaman and Elvin, they would surely never have uncovered it.

“Our target is the lord of Kastaman.”

“What?”

“But, sir, that's...”

Kastaman Castle was more a manor, far too small to be called a proper domain, but its lord was a noble nonetheless.

Had they been hired for a feud between nobles? What happened to hunting a vampire?

Seeing the mercenaries' obvious dismay, Roden addressed them sternly.

“It is merely a monster that purchased the lordship of Kastaman Castle and is posing as a noble. Even if something goes wrong, you will bear no responsibility.”

“U-understood.”

Faced with Roden's solemn expression and gaze, the mercenaries accepted the explanation and backed down.

By appearances alone, the squire looked more knightly than the knight himself. They could not muster the nerve to defy him.

* * *

The mercenaries soon had an opportunity to witness the abilities of their distinctly unknightly-looking young knight.

Half a day's journey north of Raben, just as they were about to make camp, a bear appeared before them.

“What the—it's a bear?”

“Careful. Those things are more dangerous than most monsters.”

Monsters occupied most of the carnivores' places in Pendia's food chain, but a few apex predators, such as bears and tigers, had weathered the competition and managed to survive.

Naturally, animals that survived fighting monsters were all the larger and fiercer for it, making them dangerous opponents even for armed warriors.

They were not impossible to kill, but fighting one meant accepting the likelihood of serious injuries, and perhaps even death.

The bear was gaunt and irritable, apparently ravenous. As it approached with angry huffs, the mercenaries edged backward.

Watching this, Shan dismounted, stepped forward, and gave an order.

“Everyone, get back.”

“Yes, sir!”

Who would dare disobey their employer's orders? As everyone withdrew, the hungry bear lunged straight at him.

It interpreted the retreat of all the threatening opponents before it, leaving only the smallest individual behind, as a herd of prey offering up one of their number as bait while the rest escaped.

That mistaken interpretation sealed its fate.

Shan stood calmly with his new spear, then drove its point squarely into the approaching bear's head.

Despite the little force he used, the blade plunged through the bear's thick hide and skull, tore through its brain, and killed it.

'Nice.'

Shan looked down at the fallen bear and smiled in satisfaction.

Without any spirit at all, the spear pierced flesh and bone as smoothly as cheese. It was also sturdy enough to withstand the enormous bear's weight without breaking.

A spear like this seemed more than capable of inflicting a mortal wound even on a large monster.

'I knew choosing a spear was the right decision.'

He had considered choosing armor rather than a weapon, but since A Thousand Forms was difficult to use in front of others, he needed a weapon he could wield openly.

Besides, its size limitations made it difficult to turn A Thousand Forms into a long spear like this.

Only when he pulled the spear from the fallen bear's head did the mercenaries around him erupt in exclamations, as though a spell had released them from immobility.

“Wow...!”

“So that's a knight?”

“A bear doesn't even stand a chance.”

Though they had heard he was the jousting champion, his youthful appearance had honestly left them a little uneasy. Watching him fight dispelled those worries entirely.

Even his green eyes, beginning to glow faintly in the gathering darkness, somehow looked reassuring.

For dinner, they butchered the bear and roasted its meat.

Being game, it was tough and strongly scented, but fresh meat was a luxury on the road. No one complained.

“I hear its paws are a delicacy if you cook them a certain way.”

“Can you really make a dish out of something this tough?”

“Huh? Well, that's why it's a special dish...”

The mercenary had begun answering without thinking, then stiffened when he realized the question had come from the boy knight.

He quickly recovered and answered with an ingratiating smile.

“I don't know much myself, sir, but a traveling peddler told me. Those Ajun folk like cooking bear paws...”

“I'd like to try it sometime.”

“If I ever learn the recipe, I'll be sure to bring it to you, sir.”

Since hiring them and setting out, the knight had kept his mouth shut and left everything to his squire. Now that he spoke, the other mercenaries were surprised but pleased.

An employer they could talk to was more reassuring and easier to deal with than one they could not.

Fortunately, having just seen him kill a bear with a single thrust, none was foolish enough to look down on Shan or try to put himself above him.

In fact, keeping silent until now before finally speaking to them had been calculated with precisely that in mind.

Naturally, it had been Roden's advice.

That very night, however, something happened that made their newfound friendliness seem pointless.

Waking to a dreadful scream, they discovered that the two mercenaries who should have been standing watch were missing.

When they reached the source of the screams, they found one of them howling with one leg crushed.

“P-please spare me, please, spare...”

“Hah...”

Roden sighed as he grasped the situation.

Just behind the man lay the other sentry, dead with his skull smashed, while Arwin stood nearby, furious at having been woken.

They had tried to steal the horse and flee while everyone slept, only to meet a terrible end.

Stealing an employer's horse—especially a knight's—was, of course, a grave crime for which they could hardly protest summary execution.

But everyone knew everyone through someone else, and they hesitated, unsure what to do.

Mercenaries frequently sent to fight wars against other people, such as those in Libert, might have been different. These local mercenaries fought mostly monsters and were not particularly accustomed to killing people.

Finally, unable to bear their pathetic indecision any longer, Shan stepped forward himself.

Everyone gasped as the boy knight, who had been speaking so amiably with them only a short time before, calmly drew his sword and struck off the man's head.

“Leave the bodies well away from camp. The monsters will carry them off.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

The mercenaries exchanged looks, marveling at his ruthlessness. Young or not, a knight was a knight.

* * *

“That's Kastaman Castle.”

On the second day after leaving the city, one of the mercenaries serving as a guide pointed to a castle atop a hill.

Kastaman Castle was the very picture of a typical feudal manor.

Below its hilltop stone walls, a church, mill, and village stood protected by a palisade. Farmland and meadows where sheep grazed surrounded them.

“Good. Everyone proceed as planned.”

“Understood!”

“Let's go!”

With that shout, Shan and Roden led their armed mercenaries straight into Kastaman Manor.

The peasants working under the blazing midday summer sun cried out in alarm at the sudden appearance of an unknown force.

“Bandits! Bandits!”

“Elli's father, come quickly! Bandits are here!”

“No, wait. I think that's a knight up front—”

One of the sharper-eyed peasants noticed Shan's attire as he approached at the head of the party and restrained the others.

By then, Roden was shouting in an enormous voice that boomed from his thick torso and powerful throat.

“We are an army led by Sir Shan of House Barendil! We have come to destroy the vampires of this domain! Humans are to make no rash moves! Anyone who flees will be considered a vampire's minion!”

Confused by this unexpected announcement, the residents stopped short of running and looked at one another.

Seizing the opportunity, Roden immediately gestured to the mercenaries behind him.

“Quickly, round them up!”

“Yes, sir!”

The mercenaries herded the villagers working in the nearby fields inside the palisade, then blocked every possible escape route.

Twelve of the fourteen took on that task, while the remaining two continued to accompany Shan and Roden.

“Having mercenaries to order around certainly makes things easier, doesn't it?”

Roden spoke quietly beside Shan, who was watching with a peculiar expression.

He was right. Had they come alone, controlling more than a hundred people would have been difficult.

They would also have struggled to counter any number of tricks if the lord or his agents were hiding among them—slipping back to the castle to warn of the attack, for instance, or inciting the villagers.

“It does. Though it feels a little strange.”

“Why?”

“It reminds me of the past.”

Hadn't it been just like this when the Steel Lion Legion massacred the people of Willow Village?

There had been no knight back then, of course.

Just then, a priest came running from the church between the village and the castle and shouted furiously at the scene.

Even this needlessly brought Priest Ador's final moments to mind.

“Unknown knight! By what right do you oppress the weak like this? The Goddess is watching you!”

“As it happens, we've come to carry out the Goddess's will. Please cooperate, Father.”

“Cooperate? What do you...”

Shan dismounted from Arwin and approached the bewildered priest, holding out a brightly polished silver coin.

The priest's eyes wavered violently at the sight.

“It's just a simple tes—”

Before he could finish, Shan bent swiftly at the waist to evade an incoming attack.

The priest's right hand, perfectly normal a moment before, had turned marble-pale, its nails long and sharp as hooks.

Abandoning its human appearance entirely, the vampire glared with luminous blood-red eyes above a batlike snub nose and growled.

“How did you find out?”

“So there really was more than one.”

Priests of the faith of the Goddess were supposed to be the most vigilant against the infiltration of intelligent, humanlike monsters such as greater vampires.

Princess Sherin's advice had been right: if one had remained hidden for so long, the local church was likely in league with it in some fashion.

“I-it's true!”

“Urgh!”

Though they had heard the explanation, the sight of the priest actually transforming into a vampire terrified the two mercenaries behind Shan, and they leveled their spears.

Privately, they also felt relieved that they truly had not been dragged into a feud between nobles.

Yet their vigilance proved unnecessary. The vampire lunged with beastlike agility, only to fall in several pieces beneath Shan's drawn longsword in an instant.

That was all the mercenaries saw. They knew nothing of its attempt to cast hypnotic magic through its eyes, or how that magic had been rendered meaningless before Shan's tremendous spirit.

Shan watched curiously as the entrails and chunks of flesh scattered across the ground writhed, trying to rejoin.

“A greater vampire's regeneration really is incredible...”

Not even a troll could do this. Its vitality was not merely supernatural, but downright transcendent.

Come to think of it, he should have stabbed it with the spear to test the strength of its regeneration-suppressing effect. Fortunately, the castle's lord still remained, so he could test it on him.

Roden followed up by scattering the silver powder he had brought as though sowing seeds. The dismembered body, still struggling to reassemble itself, burned white.

An intact greater vampire might have been another matter, but cut into pieces like this, its resistance to silver was greatly diminished, allowing them to finish it off this way.

Afterward, Shan and Roden instructed the mercenaries to perform a simple test on the villagers: press a silver coin firmly against their skin.

Like werewolves, vampires were among the species that reacted adversely to silver. Greater vampires had some resistance, but could not avoid at least mild inflammation.

That was enough to expose them.

“Unnecessary killing and looting are strictly forbidden. If I receive any such reports when we return, you will be severely punished. Keep that in mind.”

“Of course, sir. Some of us are even distantly related to people here.”

The mercenaries bowed obsequiously as they answered Roden's warning.

That was precisely why they had deliberately hired locals rather than mercenaries from the capital.

Of course, doing so carried some risk of recruiting a vampire's agent.

After issuing their instructions, Shan and Roden took two mercenaries and headed straight for the castle where the manor's master would be staying.

Just then, they saw something black burst from the top of the castle and fly away.

“Wait, that's...”

“Could it be?”

Vampires had once been called bat-men, much as werewolves were named after wolves, because they resembled a hideous mixture of human and bat.

But very few developed wings capable of actual flight. Apparently, the lord of Kastaman was one of them.

That alone proved that, even among greater vampires, its power was on an entirely different level from the one they had just killed.

Watching it rapidly recede into the distance, the mercenaries cried out in alarm.

“Th-that thing!”

“What do we do?”

“What else? Catch it.”

Shan took the spear hanging at Arwin's side, then used his dagger to sever the ropes securing the baggage to her saddle, letting it fall.

Suddenly relieved of her load, she pranced lightly beneath him.

“I'll leave things here to you! Don't enter the castle!”

“Understood!”

Leaving Roden's reply behind him, Shan urged Arwin into a gallop after the vampire flying away in the distance.