"...Honestly, he's... kind of weird," Selena spoke to her mother.
The queen's eyes seemed to sparkle in interest a little, and she said, "... Tell me more."
"..." Selena felt kind of awkward with her mother's interest in the new count, but even with those thoughts inside of her head, she looked at the window that was showing Victor's appearance, and she spoke:
"No matter how many times I watch this video, my thoughts about him never change."
"I'm listening."
.
.
.
Selena was silent for a few seconds to gather her thoughts and continued:
"He's very unpredictable, and he doesn't seem to follow any of the rules even though he's a count, he does what he wants, and people seem to accept that quite easily..."
"..." The queen was silent.
"He interrupted a duel between two of the other counts in the arena, a special event. Something like this has never been done before, and yet, he suffered no consequences. The king, the audience, everyone present just accepted what he did as if it was something normal."
"... And it is because of that, I said he's weird..." Selena seemed to be trying to think of better words to describe Victor, and soon her eyes opened a little:
"It may seem strange, but... My impression is that it feels like I'm watching a king..."
"..." The queen's smile seemed to widen slightly, but it quickly faded back to their usual size.
"And not just any king... Like an extremely charismatic king?"
Unlike the tyrant king, who, in less than a few years of his reign, lost his kingdom, either through a rebellion or through neighboring countries...
Or a kind king who, because of his kindness, would be exploited by enemies and even his allies...
A charismatic king is someone who is loved no matter what he does.
Yes, some of his people will hate him, some will not like him, but most...
Most beings will love him and support him in everything he does.
This type of king is the most troublesome to deal with.
Because no matter what enemies do to destabilize this man's kingdom, this task will be very difficult. After all, all of this king's subordinates love him.
An example of this type of king is the werewolf king who, despite being a tyrant, and sometimes making stupid decisions that could be considered 'bad' for his people...
The werewolves still like him... The werewolves will still follow and support him and give strength to the king.
Another example of this is the vampire king himself, Vlad.
Despite not showing himself to the public for a long time, the vampires don't seem to hate him, and they treat Vlad as if he were a god to them.
Which, in a way, he is. After all, he could be considered their parent.
But despite being the progenitor of the vampires, that doesn't mean he can change each being's individual thoughts.
'although... This man's family is not as tight-knit as it seems...' A cold smile appeared on Selena's face:
'To think that this sort of thing was happening in the family of a monster over 5000 years old... If I use it well, I can give this monster a taste of what I felt in the past.'
"...." A silence fell into place.
"My daughter, tell me your thoughts." The queen said in a way that caused her daughter to wake from her thoughts.
Realizing that she had fallen into her thought cycle again, Selena looked at the queen and said, "I'm sorry, I got lost in my thoughts."
"I know; you do it a lot." The woman flashed a small smile.
"..." Selena was silent, her cheeks turned a little red, she really wanted to change that side of her, the side that overthinks things, but it's impossible. She was just born that way.
"Is that all you have to report on the new count?" Her eyes twitched a little.
"Yes... I didn't interact with him much, and because of that, I can only say shallow words."
"I see..." The woman put her hand on her chin while she seemed to be thinking about something, and then she said:
"Selena, forget about our plan, and prioritize establishing a relationship with the new vampire count."
"...?" Selena made a strange face:
"But you put so many resources into this plan..." She felt doubtful because of this sudden decision.
"Resources are not lacking for us... And..." The woman's eyes glowed neon green.
"Vlad, that old man, his instincts haven't gotten any weaker."
"...?"
"I have to say that going this far to use that Clan's power to close this world down is a pretty preposterous action, just how many tons of energy did he use?" Her smile grew.
'Sending my eldest daughter as a distraction tactic didn't seem to work, and, even before I could carry out the plan, Nightingale closed herself off completely for a year.'
Thinking of a particular Clan, she cannot help but say:
"Ah~... It's a pity that we couldn't capture that clan for ourselves, they would be good acquisitions for researching time magic..."
"..." Selena did not understand at all, but her mother never said something useless, so she began to think.
'Time magic, Vlad, and lots of energy.' She connected the important dots of what her mother said, and soon the appearance of a man popped into her head:
"Alexios Alioth..."
"Yes... That old man used the power of that clan and closed the world for a year."
"...That explains the new count's changed appearance," Selena said. She didn't even care that she was away from home for a year, after all, for someone on her level... Time was no longer an issue.
"Because of that, I told you to ignore the plan and focus on establishing a relationship with the new count."
"...Okay, I'll do it." Selena thought it made sense, considering it's no use putting wasted effort into something that everyone knew was going to go wrong.
"Where is the new count?" She asked this because she knew that with the help of one of her sisters, the queen could know the location of any being in the world.
As long as this being wasn't special enough or was using magic to hide their location, it was an easy task for the witch queen to find an individual.
"I do not know." She answered honestly.
"...Huh?" She felt she had gone deaf all of a sudden. What did she mean she doesn't know!?
"It's the truth, I already asked Helena to investigate, and we didn't find anything..."
"Magic literally can't find him, he's like a ghost that doesn't exist." The queen's smile grew.
"...is he using some kind of magic?"
"It's quite unlikely, if it was a common location spell, I would even understand not being able to find it, considering any master level witch can protect from that spell... But even using 'destiny', I can't find him."
"...That's bullshit." Selena can't help but say.
'Fate', is the strongest witch locator spell. It is a spell that only the queen, along with one of her daughters, can use, and, just as the name implies...
'Fate' is a spell that literally reads a person's fate, and by doing so, the queen can learn about that person and their location.
Depending on the amount of energy and resources put into this spell, the queen may know 'everything' about that person.
Literally EVERYTHING.
Your past, present, and future.
From the moment that person was born until the moment of their death, the queen would know everything.
A ridiculous spell that was categorized as divine level by the queen herself.
But a spell of that level costs a ridiculous amount of magic and resources.
Resources worth 1 trillion dollars could disappear just by using 10 seconds of this spell.
By using this spell, she was literally burning MONEY!
"How many resources did you use in this spell?"
"Not much... If you convert it to dollars, it would only be 500 billion in total value."
'...That's not much?...' Selena felt that her mother's common sense of money had already ceased to exist.
"Why did you spend so many resources if you just wanted to know his location?"
She responded neutrally, "Trials and failures."
"Thinking something was wrong with the magic, my daughter and I tried several times and failed several times, and so, because of that, we spent this amount."
"Hmm... Did you try to use it on the beings close to him?"
"Yes, of course... But it didn't work either. Women like Scathach Scarlett, Annasthashia Fulger, Violet Snow, Sasha Fulger, and Ruby Scarlett just aren't detected by our magic anymore."
"..." A silence fell in the room.
The two women seemed to be thinking deeply, and then Selena broke the silence:
"By contacting that man, something changed in these women."
"Yes... They're being protected-... Wrong, the more correct thing to say is that he's protecting them?" The queen corrected herself, her eyes glowed neon green for a few seconds, and then she spoke:
"!@$%#@!"
"..." All Selena heard were statistics noises and a sound that was not understandable.
Selena knew what that was. She had heard her mother say it many times in the past, an ancient language spoken by the ancient gods, unlike humans.
The words of the gods have power imbued in them, they can shape their desires through words, and only beings with a great deal of magic and knowledge of the ancient gods can speak these words without suffering consequences.
The queen's eyes showed an expression of annoyance, "... You softened in training... How can you still not understand what I said?"
"Mother, I didn't soften in training... This level of magic is just too hard to learn." She was honest.
"True~, True~" And the spirits confirmed it.
"..." The queen left the subject as she crossed her legs in a sensual way and said:
"In my day, all kids learned this at 10 years old, and they didn't have the resources that you have, I don't understand why you can't learn it." She was talking about her daughters in general.
All her daughters thus far have never learned much about magic from their ancients.
Of course, that didn't mean they didn't know some things, but they were still not on their mother's level... They weren't on the 'satisfying' level for their mother.
"The new count's mysteries aside, have you learned anything about the werewolf king's youngest son?" She asked.
"...He is just an ordinary prince, son of a mighty king, an ordinary man, not worth mentioning." She spoke in a neutral tone.
"Well, I expected something like this."
.
.
.
.
The woman's smile grew, "... The sons of the two kings are incompetent..." She felt like laughing at this irony. It seems that 'success' is not genetic, "Fufu, and to think that none of these men's children would inherit their blood."
"Fate sure is a bitch."
"..." Selena was silent. She didn't like her mother's smile at all since she knew the woman too well to know that when she flashed that smile, she wasn't planning anything good.
"Hmm?" The queen suddenly looked to the side:
"Oh, I see, I will." She looked like she was talking to someone.
She looked back at her daughter:
"Continue your mission, I'll be in touch with you soon."
"Yes, Mother." Selena bowed in a form of respect.
Fushhhhhhh.
All the magic in the place seemed to be sucked into the queen's image, and suddenly.
... She disappeared.
When the queen disappeared, Selena raised her face, and, as she stared at the place where the queen's image was, her eyes seemed to shine for a few seconds while several thoughts went through her head.
Soon, she turned around, tossed her hair back, straightened her spine, and walked confidently toward the exit:
"This time, I will meet you in person... Alucard."
...
At a hotel in Nightingale, Liza was looking out the hotel window with a cold gaze.
"I don't like this place, this place stinks..." She looked at the tall, dark man:
"Can we go? We are done with what we did here."
Anderson looked at the woman who had the appearance of an Amazon, "Not Yet..." Anderson's voice was grave, his smile was wide:
"Alucard, you owe me a fight, and I'm not going home until that fight happens." Anderson got up from the couch and walked towards the exit.
"...Alucard..." The woman's face twitched as she heard the hateful man's name:
"Yes, indeed... He must pay for what he did..." She growled a little at the end and followed Anderson.
"..." Anderson's three subordinates who saw this demonstration reacted differently.
"... Why is she talking as if that man killed a member of her family...?" Julian, a tall, dark man, spoke to Juan, a tall, thin one.
"You know, she's never lost a fight before to a man... especially to a vampire... She's frustrated."
"Ohhh, I see, I see." Julian thought it made sense, considering ever since he's known the brunette woman, she had always had the attitude of a strong, confident Amazon.
Losing the 'fight' with Alucard must have left her frustrated.
"Let's follow him." Yuran, a dark, Egyptian-looking man, spoke up.
........
