Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 9 - Chapter 5.05

A glorious curtain call

The detective and her assistant departed, leaving Jeanne and I alone in the sanctuary.

“Now, what should we do?”

I took a second, dispassionate look at our current situation and what would follow.

A fleet of combat vehicles were moving to surround the castle at that very moment. They weren’t just any vehicles, either, but autonomous walking combat vehicles equipped with machine guns—unmanned weapons that the Mizoev Federation had used in countless wars.

It was said that they had once used the Silent Rule to suppress an international conflict without any casualties, but in truth, it had been quite simple. Their weapons had been unmanned, and they’d used them to destroy too many towns and villages to count. Ever since the great war, the Federation Government had bought up these weapons, and they’d deployed them during many global crises.

However, combat power of that caliber wasn’t enough to defeat me. Vampires were biological weapons; we were created to defeat enemies that weapons like these were no match for, and I was the greatest masterpiece to inherit those genetics. Even if the end of my life was approaching and I had to protect the weakened Jeanne as I fought, I was confident I would be able to break through that crush of weapons.

“The one troublesome element is that man.”

A figure stood among the horde of unmanned machines:

The Hero, Full-Face.

Among the current Tuners, that man was likely second-strongest in terms of sheer combat power, after myself. I had heard only recently that Full-Face had once defeated the World Beast, an enemy that had killed many Tuners in the line of duty. Apparently, the hero who had taken on the mission of hunting the last remaining vampires lived up to his title.

The man carried a silver attaché case with him wherever he went. Inside it was a button that would activate a special weapon stored in some unknown location, one which would surely do great damage even to me. The meaning was clear: It was a threat. There was no refuge for me anywhere in the world.

Once I’d wrapped my head around the situation, I bent down and spoke to the woman sitting on the floor. “What do you want to do, Jeanne?”

I had two options: Either carry Jeanne and retreat temporarily, or fight Full-Face here. If I chose the former, the safest option was to capture a Federation Government official somewhere and take them hostage. For the latter, I would simply go on a rampage.

“Which would you prefer?” I left the choice up to her.

Jeanne quietly shook her head.

“You mean we should stay here and do nothing?”

With a smile, she nodded.

“I see.”

Whether we fled or fought, our fate was sealed.

Our natural lives would soon end.

There were other vampires around the castle. Eating them would get us through this crisis. We’d also be able to stay alive by continuously gorging ourselves on human flesh and blood.

However, neither Jeanne nor I wanted that. I had lost my original mission and wish, meaning there was no point in living any longer. It was too late. Whether we ran or fought, the eventual result would be the same. In that case…

“Shall we meet our end here?”

I sat down beside Jeanne.

We didn’t converse, of course.

The only sounds were the rumbling of the approaching machines and the roar of the artillery.

“I wonder what I gained,” I asked Jeanne—or, perhaps, myself.

I had been born a demon and shunned by the world. Although my appearance was no different from that of humans, my life wasn’t blessed as theirs was, and it wasn’t even half as long. Still, in order to give my life meaning, I’d mimicked their approach and enjoyed the things they did.

One day, however, my hometown had been burned. My kin, my old friend—everyone had been killed. I later heard that it had been the messiah, the town’s former leader, who’d laid waste to the town. That he had done it to eat the corpses of his fellow vampires and live on all by himself. Had that really been true, though?

Could it not have been the work of the Federation Government, for example, or a Tuner acting on their orders? Had they set all of it up? I’d fallen for their scheme, let them give me a thirst for revenge, and they had turned me into a Tuner and given me the mission of destroying my own kind.

It was also possible that the messiah had secretly been colluding with them. He could have abandoned the town and sold us out to the government in exchange for his safety. Either way, I’d ended up killing him myself, fifteen years later.

It could have been done by a human who loathed us. While they might not have known we were vampires, humans had shunned us as a race. We might have been burned by a human who’d been spurred to act by that unhinged sense of justice.

Truthfully, though, the identity of the culprit didn’t matter. It made no difference whether it had been one of our own kind, a human, the government, or an agent of justice. In a sense, it had been the world. We were killed because the world hated us.

That was why I’d used all of my remaining life to make a stand against the world. My only wish had been to let Jeanne, whom I’d resurrected, die as a human. I didn’t mind if she forgot me. It didn’t matter if I could no longer stay by her side.

That had been the only way I could strike back at the world—letting a girl who’d been born as a rejected demon live as a human and walk boldly in the sunlight. It was what Jeanne herself had wanted as well.

In the end, I’d kept fighting for the sole purpose of deceiving the world.

“That’s right. My thirty years were all just so I could fight.”

Jeanne looked up at me.

I’d risen to my feet before realizing it.

You’re going? Jeanne asked, silently mouthing the words.

Yes, and I’ll be back.

“This place is still a bit too loud to die in.”

The noise of the guns had been constant for the past several minutes.

The world would refuse to allow us to exist right up till the very end.

How utterly infuriating.

“I’m sorry, Jeanne.”

It seemed I would have to remain a demon to the last.

I flew to the upper floor again, and this time I went past the balcony, soaring to the very top of the castle. At that height, nothing obstructed my view, and I could see the approaching army of walking combat vehicles. Their machine guns were all turned my way. A single attack was all it would have taken to obliterate any ordinary creature.

“However, you are different, are you not?” I asked my several hundred minions—no, my kin—who still stood quietly near the castle.

“Can you hear me?”

I refused to let them claim they could not. Not when they’d listened to the detective girl’s word-soul.

“Obey me once more.”

Lend me your aid.

“I speak as the king of vampires.

—Fight!

Fight against the unfairness of this world!”

An earth-shattering noise boomed.

It was a roar of voices.

My comrades had risen once more, with that shout signaling their counterstrike against the world.

“Come, the war is just beginning.”

I looked at the distant enemy.

Among the autonomous vehicles, there was one heavy tank larger than the rest.

A human sat in the turret—the only human on the battlefield.

I’d found my opponent.

“Ha! It appears the players are all in place!”

On this final stage, the greatest wish a villain could hope for was to fight the Hero to the death.

“Full-Face!”

Spreading my one remaining wing, I took flight from the castle.

I hadn’t chosen how I would die. This was how I’d lived.