"Ugh, work is taking longer than I thought…" Violet made an annoyed face as she looked at Ruby and spoke in an innocent voice,
"Hey, Ruby. Are you sure you want this? Can't I just burn everything?"
Ruby squinted, "...Why do your solutions always involve burning something?"
"Violence is always the answer. Look at my mother, my husband, and your mother."
"...They are not good examples to be followed! And you, coming from a house of politicians, shouldn't be saying that! What if your subordinates decide to revolt?"
"It's okay, it's okay, we'd just burn them all." She spoke with the same innocent smile,
"...I am really questioning the king's decision to leave international affairs to your clan."
"Although my mom is the way she is, she does a good job…probably." Violet's thought was, if no one complained, then it's okay, right?
"…" Ruby was silent and went back to doing her stuff while she was making a list of what she was taking from this lab.
"So, can I burn everything?" Violet asked again with the same innocent smile and even created a small fireball.
Crack.
Ruby broke the pen she was using to jot things down:
"You can't! Now, back to work!"
"Tsk, petty. I should have gone with my husband, I could do this and that with him."
"..." Ruby was speechless:
"We're in enemy territory, you know? This is no time to do those things."
"...That's why you'll always be a virgin."
"…" Veins started to pop in Ruby's head.
Violet climbed up on the table and pointed at Ruby,
"No matter where, no matter what time, no matter what world we are in, we should always practice the art of dual cultivation," she seemed like a priest who was preaching the right way to live.
"... "Ruby was speechless, and she was really questioning the sanity of Violet now.
Feeling many looks on her back, Ruby's face turned a little red, as she pulled Violet off the table and said:
"Back to work!"
"Yes, Yes~." Violet flashed a sly smile.
…
Victor was walking down the booby-trapped hallway while holding Sasha like a princess, he had a small smile on his face and gave off the impression that everything was under his control, and nothing could shake him.
Sasha, despite enjoying all this and being close to Victor, had some doubts:
"Darling, how can you avoid the traps so well?"
"Oh, I'm not avoiding the trap." Victor continued with a smile.
"Huh...?" Sasha didn't understand what Victor meant.
"Every time I step into a trap, I go back in time, and it seems that trap was never activated." Victor explained with an innocent smile.
"..." Kaguya and Sasha were silent.
"Bullshit, if you don't want to tell me, you don't have to push yourself." Sasha pouted, irritated.
Seeing Sasha's pout, Victor couldn't help but think she was very cute.
"Hahahaha." He chuckled lightly and hugged Sasha even tighter.
"Darling?" Sasha didn't understand why Victor suddenly hugged her, but she wouldn't refuse his affection!
Victor stopped hugging Sasha and said, "Very well, honey. I will explain what I am doing."
"Oh... tell me, tell me!" She looked like a child who was having fun, she wouldn't deny she was having fun too. After all, this feeling of 'adventure' was very good for her, who had never experienced it.
"Of course..." Victor displayed a small smile and pointed to a spot with his finger:
"Look."
"I'm going to walk to that place, and I'm going to demonstrate at a slower speed what I'm doing."
Victor put Sasha down and said, "Watch my movements."
"... Okay." Despite being a little annoyed at having lost her princess carrier, Sasha was curious about what Victor was up to.
Victor walked to the spot where he pointed, and all of a sudden, his foot seemed to sink a little into the ground.
Click.
A trap would trigger, and in the same second the trap would trigger, Victor disappeared from his place and appeared a few inches behind before stepping into the trap.
"Did you see?" Victor turned to face Sasha and spoke with a small smile to Sasha, who was watching him with a serious look and an expression of shock.
"...Yes..." Sasha wasn't going to lie; she was shocked. What he had just done required a very thorough control of the lightning's power.
"Oh, just for context, I'm not using the power of lightning." Victor decided to amend this first, so Sasha didn't get the wrong idea.
"Huh?"
"I'm using the movement technique that Scathach taught Lacus, I'm applying it in a way similar to lightning."
"HUHHHH?" Sasha didn't understand a thing Victor said.
"..." Victor was silent while he thought about the words he said and realized that he explained things very badly:
"Basically, when I drank your mother's blood, I got something."
"..." Sasha's eyes twitched a little when she heard what Victor said.
"What did you get?" Her voice was cold as ice. Victor even felt as though he were talking to Ruby.
"My control over the lightning improved, I could make small movements with the lightning imbued in my body." The example Victor was talking about was when he dodged the guards the day he went to visit the king of the vampires, Vlad Tepes.
"But when doing small tests with lightning, I found it was more beneficial to use the Scathach's movement technique for small movements, but for high speeds, I use the power of lightning along with the Scathach technique, something like this."
Rumble, Rumble.
Victor's eyes flashed gold, his body began to be covered by lightning.
Soon, Victor disappeared.
"Eh...?" Sasha was shocked once again, she didn't see anything that happened, she couldn't see clearly even with her perception enhanced by her powers!
"Sup." Victor lightly touched Sasha's shoulder.
"Darling, you're fast-... Eh?" Sasha was shocked when she saw that Victor appeared with a pair of sunglasses and several toys that are used for playing on the beach.
"... Where did you go?"
"Oh, I went on the surface for a few seconds, and I picked up some random stuff from the abandoned houses."
"…" Sasha opened her mouth wide.
"...this is fucking bullshit!" Sasha stomped the ground hard, but, as she was in a safe place, the traps didn't activate.
"..." Victor took his sunglasses off his face and looked at Sasha with a neutral gaze.
"Why do you get better so fast?" She looked a little frustrated, "When I think you can't surprise me anymore, you just go out there and improve my Clan power like it's something normal and quite easy to do!"
Sasha was a little frustrated at the pace Victor was improving and making things seem so…easy.
It was like he was using a cheat code, and no one could beat him because of it.
But what she still didn't understand was; This is the existence called an irregularity, Victor is a monster in every possible way.
Thanks to the blood of the Night King, he learned things more efficiently, and thanks to his mentality of always wanting to get better, he was always thinking about what he should do to get better.
And not to mention, he had the potential of three vampire count houses combined in his body.
An irregularity was in front of her… Wrong, a monster was in front of her.
"...You got it wrong, Honey."
"...?" Sasha didn't understand, "What do you mean?"
"I didn't get better. I didn't get stronger. I just combined an ability with the power of lightning and ended up creating a better ability." Victor spoke in a flat tone like it was something very easy to do.
"...." This was even harder than improving strength! She really wanted to strangle Victor right now.
But it couldn't be helped since, in Victor's mind, he still wasn't strong enough, and his goal seemed so far away.
He wanted to face Scathach Scarlett in a fight, but with his current strength, it was just impossible. He needed to get older!
That was an absolute rule.
And because of that thought and that pattern he's set himself, he didn't realize how irregular he was.
"..." Sasha looked at Victor's face and felt his feelings. Seeing that he was really speaking his mind, she understood that Victor thought what he did was no big deal.
"Sigh...Darling, you are really clueless."
"...?"
"Just to clear up that stone head of yours," Sasha spoke with a serious face.
"What you've done now is not at all common. You basically combined my power with the skill Scathach taught you. Do you know how difficult that is?"
"…Really?" Victor turned his face away since he really didn't think it was a big deal. After all, Scathach could do the same if she had the power of lightning.
"Yes! It's abnormal!"
"Oh..."
Kaguya stepped out of Victor's shadow and displayed a small smile, "As expected of master, he breaks common sense so easily, he doesn't even notice."
"..." Victor narrowed his eyes when he heard what Kaguya said, isn't this Maid getting too bold lately? Or was it just his impression?
"Right? It's frustrating sometimes."
"I understand you... But you're abnormal too." Kaguya looked at Sasha with a neutral gaze, she didn't even call Sasha 'Lady Sasha' like she used to.
"Me...?" Sasha pointed to herself, confused.
"You do not realize?" Kaguya squinted, "You've gotten much faster than you were before, all because you drink my master's blood every day."
"...Huh...?" Sasha turned her head in confusion.
"...Ugh." Kaguya felt that she was the only one who could understand the feelings of common people.
'Oh... I'm not common anymore, I drank the master's blood...' She just realized that she had no right to judge Sasha.
"Anyway, this conversation is taking longer than expected, let's keep moving."
"Yes!" Sasha jumped on Victor again, and soon she was held like a princess.
And Kaguya reentered Victor's shadows.
...
The group spent a few minutes walking until they arrived at a gigantic door which seemed to be very old and was quite dusty.
"A door?" Sasha spoke out loud as she held onto Victor's neck.
"...Hmm, I have a bad feeling about this..."
Suddenly two eyes appeared in the doorway and looked at Victor and Sasha.
"Two eyes? Is this alive?" Sasha thought curiously.
"I knew it." Victor's smile grew, and just as he was about to summon an ice greatsword, he heard:
[Wait, Master.] Kaguya suddenly stepped out of Victor's shadows and looked at the giant wall with a neutral gaze.
"Umu?" Victor looked at his maid.
"As I thought... This is a Nurikabe."
Victor, "Nuri-What?"
Sasha, "Nuru?"
"..." Kaguya looked at Sasha with a neutral gaze, as she seemed to be blaming Sasha with her eyes.
"Aren't you very perverted?" She displayed a small smile.
"S-Shut up..." Sasha turned her face that was a little red.
"...?" Victor didn't understand the dialogue between the two; he wasn't a man of culture enough yet.
"Cough, back to the subject, this is a Nurikabe, it is a Yokai."
"Yokai?" Victor didn't know what that was.
"It's basically something like demons for Japanese mythology." Kaguya summed it up enough for her master to understand.
"Oh..."
"But despite having this 'evil' reputation, some Youkai are peaceful, just like this big guy." Kaguya looked at the wall.
"Originally, there were peaceful Youkai who protect specific places. It's not known if they did this intentionally or not, but there are good Youkai as long as they aren't provoked."
"I see…" Victor put Sasha down and put his hand to his chin as if he was thinking about something.
"Hmm, what should we do then?"
"We just need to say hello. It depends on the Youkai's personality if it will let us pass."
Kaguya held up three fingers and said, "There are three personality types, the angry, the benevolent, and the shy."
"..." Why were those descriptions so childish? Victor and Sasha thought but didn't speak aloud.
"We should congratulate Nurikabe according to his personality, and we only have two attempts if we fail, well... He will attack us."
"Hmmmmm." Victor was finding this all troublesome. Couldn't he just blow it up?
"I don't recommend doing that, Master."
"Hmm?"
"Nurikabe has high resistance to the elements, he is a troublesome opponent for you."
"Oh...?" Victor's smile grew.
"Fuck..." For the first time in a long time, Kaguya spoke a bad word. She forgot that her master is weird.
"Wait, Darling! Don't attack him!" Sasha clung to Victor's back and pulled him along.
"Why!?"
"He hasn't done anything, he's literally standing there. Why are you going to attack him!?"
"Hmm... Why? Because he's strong?"
"Stop that bad guy mentality!"
"..." Victor's smile almost broke when he heard what Sasha said.
"Fine..." Victor sat on the floor and said, "Do what you want, I'll stay here."
Sigh...
Kaguya and Sasha sighed in relief.
They looked at the wall:
"If Nurikabe is benevolent, if we just bow down, he'll let us through. If it's the shy one, make a gesture for him to get out of the way, and if he has the personality of the pissed off one, you should just make a teasing gesture."
"...This Youkai is troublesome. Why doesn't he just get out of the way?"
"Well, he doesn't want to?"
"..." Somehow, Sasha was about to agree for Victor to blast the Yokai to the beyond, but she was a noblewoman! If possible, she'd try to talk first before attacking!
At least she thinks she is.
"You can try it first, Kaguya."
"... Okay." Kaguya walked towards the wall:
"Generally, this type of Yokai has a benevolent personality, so if I bow to Japan's traditions, it must let us through."
Said and done, Kaguya bowed perfectly and soon returned to her original position as she looked into the eyes of the wall.
"MMMMHH." The creature made a strange sound, and its eyes got a little red, it was like it was irritated.
"Well... Looks like it wasn't that one." She flashed a small apologetic smile.
"…" Sasha facepalmed.
....
