Chapter 294: Alucard has changed. And this is terrifying.
A few hours later, Victor was standing in front of Agnes' mansion.
Beside her was Kaguya, who was talking to Oda about things related to Clan Blank.
"Take this." Oda gave Kaguya a sort of badge.
"That is..."
"As of today, you are being appointed as the second leader of Clan Blank."
"...why?" Kaguya did not understand this sudden decision, she was just an ordinary member until a few days ago, and now she has been appointed by the Clan leader himself as the next leader?
"He's an irregular, and he's quite fond of you, if you're with him, you're going to need that badge."
"…Interests, huh?" Kaguya narrowed her eyes.
"The Blank Clan has no choice but to serve the Snow Clan; after all, we have the same origin..." Oda looked at Victor and continued, "But as Shinobi, it would be right for us to choose our own master.. . As you did."
"...."
"... If you don't want to, just refuse, but the second leader position is good, you know? You will be able to access Clan Blank's techniques and summon subordinates if you need to..."
"Tsk." Kaguya clicked on the tongue, "Fine, I will take it."
"..." He flashed a small smile behind his mask.
"Remember, if you need help..." Slowly Oda's body began to be covered by darkness:
"We will be here, after all, we are a family." He disappeared to the floor.
"..." Kaguya silently observed when Oda left, then, a few seconds later, she displayed a small smile as she huffed a little and turned her head and looked at her master, who was looking a little changed.
Victor had already solved every possible problem he found in Snow Clan town, he organized all the documents, made suggestions for new rules, and changed some rules that he found irritating and inconsequential.
After finishing his work, he handed over the leadership of the Snow Clan to Hilda, after Agnes, she was the most capable woman within that mansion.
After all, Hilda has been following Agnes since the beginning, she is an incredibly old vampire.
Even from Adonis' memories of when he was human, he saw that Hilda was already an adult and the Chief Maid.
"You are going?" Hilda asked.
"Yes."
"..." Victor's eyes were drawn to a closed window, he could feel that Agnes was watching him.
"I see... That's a shame, you're very competent. I wanted to keep you around for a few more years." Hilda was honest since she really didn't have to work very hard when Victor was around these days.
And all the changes he's made to the Snow Clan have been quite…satisfying…in her opinion.
Victor stopped looking at the window and looked at Hilda:
"It's not like I'm going to disappear. After all, I'm pretty close to the Snow Clan."
"Yes, I know. You are Violet's husband, after all."
He flashed a small smile, "… Indeed."
Kaguya slowly approaches Victor and says:
"Master, the girls asked to let you know that they are all in Scathach territory." About the girls, Kaguya was talking about Victor's Maids.
"…And what about Eleanor?" Victor asked this because he promised the woman he would go to her territory, and then all this incident involving Adonis happened, and he got quite busy, but he didn't forget the promise he made to the woman.
"She's in Scathach territory too... But she warned that she only has one more day, after that she will go home, she can't wait any longer."
"I see..." Victor touches his chin and thinks:
'Will one day be enough to solve all problems?'
The answer was...
Of course not.
He had to explain to his wives about what had happened, and…talk to Violet about her father.
He also owes an explanation to Natashia and Sasha, considering that in the Adonis incident, he just arrived at that place, gave several orders, and left. The other time he returned to the Fulger Clan, his appearance was completely changed, but because of the incident they were in, he didn't have time to explain what happened.
"Well, next stop, Scathach mansion?" He spoke with a small playful smile.
"..." Kaguya covers her body with darkness and enters Victor's shadow.
He turned and walked a little further to the front of the Snow Clan mansion.
He looked at the Nightingale moons for a few seconds, and then he spoke without turning his back:
"Hilda."
"Yes?"
"Take care of Agnes for me."
Hilda narrowed her eyes a little, but she took this as a kind gesture and said:
"...always."
"..." Victor exhibited a small smile.
"I'll see you later." Victor's hair that reached his waist began to float as if defying gravity as clouds charged with lightning began to appear in the sky.
Looking at his hair, Victor thought:
'I have to cut this... Actually, I don't think I need to...' Victor focused his thoughts a little, and magically, his hair started to shorten until it was the same length as he had a year ago.
'Better.' He nodded to himself in approval.
Rumble, Rumble.
His body is covered in lightning.
RUMBLE!
And with the crash of lightning.
He disappeared.
Hilda looked at the clouds with a slightly shocked look, surprised at his speed.
She looks at a closed window as she gives a small inward sigh and feels her master step out of the window.
When Hilda started walking towards the entrance of the mansion, she heard:
"...Finally, he left..." A Snow Clan maid spoke in secret.
"I will finally be able to rest." All the people around this maid nodded in agreement with her significant concerns.
"...I didn't even have a chance to talk to him properly..." Yuki pouted.
"Don't be sad Yuki, I have a feeling he will come back here in the future." She flashed a gentle smile as she patted Yuki on the back.
"!!!" The people around them felt a chill down their spines when they heard what the smaller maid said.
"Don't say such a curse!" A man spoke.
"What if he listens!" The maid next to the man spoke.
"What if he comes back!" Another man spoke.
"...." Yuki and the smaller maid looked at the group with a blank look.
"What are you doing?" A stern voice was heard by all.
Yuki's body and the smaller maid visibly shuddered, and they gave a cute cry:
"Kyaaa!"
They quickly back away and look back to see the stoic Chief maid.
gulp.
They swallowed hard as they finally realized they wouldn't be able to rest. Unlike Agnes, who was sloppy, Hilda, who was now in charge, was quite stern like Victor.
"Go back to work."
"YES!" All of them said at the same time, as they quickly turned and started to run away.
...
"That's bad..." A man said while looking at a computer screen.
"All the groups I was secretly investing in were destroyed." The man touches his chin.
"This is your fault, how can you not predict that monster's movements?" Another man's voice was heard.
The first man who was looking at the screen looked at the man who had arrived, he was a black-haired one who had a lifeless appearance, as if he were a dead man:
"General James, have you finally decided to visit me?"
"I had to do this, I couldn't sit still while all the investments I made were lost." He spoke in a neutral tone as he looked at Niklaus.
"Sit down, please." Niklaus pointed to a chair.
"..." James nodded and walked towards the chair.
"Where's your bodyguard?" Niklaus asked in a neutral tone.
"That little girl is waiting outside."
"I see..."
The moment James sat down, Niklaus clicked a button on his keyboard, and soon several images began to appear.
Images of vampires, werewolves, and humans who were part of the organization they were investing in suddenly fell to the ground with their heads and hearts pierced.
"...This way of acting..." James narrowed his eyes.
"Yes, the Shinobi Clan subordinate to the Snow Clan… The Blank Clan."
"So it wasn't that man who acted this time, huh?" The reason James thought so was that from Victor's personality, he knew that he preferred to handle things personally and was not someone who sent subordinates to do things for him.
"You are wrong."
"Hmm?" James looked at Niklaus uncomprehendingly.
"The one who attacked this time was Count Alucard." The image changed to a man sitting on piles of bodies, he was looking quite changed, but they still knew him at a glance.
"Alucard..." James growled in a hateful tone, but soon his expression turned cold.
"Something changed..."
"..." James was silent.
"Alucard would always take things into his own hands. He is a warrior like Scathach, despite having somewhat unpredictable actions, one action he had that we can always predict is that... He always fought on his own. "
"He would never use his subordinates."
"He is that kind of being."
"But..." Niklaus' expression darkened.
"Something Changed..."
"Without getting his ass out of his chair, he made two big moves, he erased the influence of the organizations that we had using on Clan Blank and Clan Fulger, and he influenced the economy of witches to put pressure on youkai."
"By doing so, he managed to arrange a meeting with the leader, the representative of the Youkai, Genji." This was frustrating for Niklaus since he didn't know why the Youkai leaders themselves decided to go to Nightingale, considering that there were few youkai who liked Nightingale's endless night.
And the nine-tailed fox was definitely not one of those beings.
"…Huh?" James looked at Niklaus as if he were looking at a fool.
"That's not Alucard's attitude."
"I know. Because of that, I said that something has changed."
"...." A silence fell on the place.
The two men seemed entirely lost in their thoughts.
'This kind of attitude is not something common to Alucard. This kind of attitude is something more like an older vampire who has lived for thousands of years, a vampire like Theo... Who uses anything for his own benefit.'
'If Alucard somehow learned to act like that, it will become quite irritating.' A being with Alucard's power and the attitude of an older vampire? It was quite irritating to deal with, and the level of difficulty to deal with beings like that didn't even compare to before.
After all, before, Alucard was just a 'simple' idiot who attacked everything himself, that was Niklaus' opinion.
'He was strong... Wrong, he's strong, an irregularity... But he was stupid, if he gave me enough time, I could deal with him, but now... Now, things have changed.' Niklaus had no idea how that was possible.
To be honest, he felt quite lost. After all, a being doesn't change overnight.
Thoughts, ideologies, instincts, intelligence, this is something you build over time. You can't change it with a snap of your fingers.
It's impossible.
… But Alucard's recent attitudes only prove one thing, he's changed...
And he didn't know how the fuck that was possible, and that was what terrified him the most.
Yes, he would be honest, this time, he's scared.
'I need to clip his wings before he gains more influence... But how?' He didn't see a possible way to do it.
The hybrid project is at a standstill, the first experiment codenamed: Nero. Is missing.' Because of this, he cannot continue with the experiment.
And the hybrid he's got on his hands; he's in a bed dying and basically useless right now.
And unlike the hybrid he had that was created in a lab.
Nero was a hybrid born from the union of a vampire and a werewolf, a natural hybrid.
Niklaus used Nero as an experiment to increase the number of hybrids, but the success rate was very low.
'I could use the hunters' item to create vampire hybrids, but... They are too weak and not worth the effort. I need a werewolf-vampire hybrid, I need the disease that this species causes vampires, a disease that not even the almighty Vlad can handle quickly.'
In fact, there was a path... But it was a path of no return that he didn't want to risk just yet.
"Tsk."
Originally, Niklaus' target was not Alucard but Vlad.
Niklaus only became Alucard's enemy because of the wrong decisions he made regarding the man.
"Where is the prince?"
"... Which one?" Niklaus woke up from his thoughts and asked.
"The vampire one."
"...Theo..." Niklaus made a difficult expression.
"What happened?" James asked.
"...I don't know, he's missing."
"Missing?" James made a strange expression.
"Yes, I haven't heard from them in days."
"..." James touched his chin and began to speak, "Forget about it for now."
"We must decide what to do now."
"Forget Alucard." Niklaus spoke.
"...But he will gain more influence..."
"This is inevitable, we cannot fight him without outside help." He was talking about beings like the gods or other supernatural beings like Youkais, demons, or Angels, but if he decided to ally himself with some of those beings, he would have to give something in return.
And these beings would definitely ask for something from Nightingale, which is something he doesn't want to give.
Because of this, his alliance with wolves and humans was more beneficial. The wolves he is allied with are not interested in Nightingale and just want the organization's help for a matter involving their own kingdom.
And the humans just want the elimination of Alucard and all vampires in the human world.
The goals of these two allies did not conflict with Niklaus himself.
"For now, we should focus our efforts on the experiment that got away."
"… When was the last time she was seen?" James asked.
"It was in Greece, after that, it disappeared completely."
"...Alucard was in Greece." James' face darkened a little. Why was that man was all over the place? Is he omnipresent or something?
"...Wha-." Niklaus looked at the man in shock.
"I did not know that."
"Of course not, you were at Nightingale when this event took place."
'So this must have happened when the king used that Clan's power, huh?"
"Why was he in Greece?"
"I do not know." James spoke in a simple tone.
"...." Niklaus narrowed his eyes.
"Don't look at me like that, the number of demons possessing human bodies is increasing significantly in the last few days. The entire inquisition is busy defending humans."
"...." Niklaus raised his eyebrow.
'Of course... Fuck, I completely forgot about the war that is going on in hell... Should I do what Theo said? But if I use the hybrid now, I won't have this chance in the future again...'
"You seem to know something." James narrowed his eyes.
"Hell is at war, and one of the leaders of hell wants to destroy the human race, this rise of demons is probably related to one of the leaders of hell."
"Diablo, the incarnation of evil."
"... That's true?"
"Believe it or not, I gave you the information." Niklaus spoke in a neutral tone, then continued:
"Just know that demon-related events will continue to escalate."
"...Fuck, if just vampires weren't enough of a problem."
"..." Niklaus felt like rolling his eyes at such hypocrisy. He knew that, unlike the demons that actively attacked humans, most vampires didn't. It was the Inquisition that actively hunted vampires.
James gets up from his chair, "I have a job to do." He looked at him with a serious look.
"Yeah, I know." Niklaus flashed a small smile.
James turns and walks towards the exit but suddenly stops walking and speaks without turning around:
"Give a warning to the prince of wolves."
"...?"
"Your little brother is accumulating subordinates, he will do something soon." This was information he had recently heard from one of the hunters who were in the Amazon.
Anderson was traveling around the Earth, going to places that had werewolves without an Alpha and recruiting everyone into his pack.
And the last time he heard about Anderson was in the Amazon in Brazil.
'...Anderson? Why?' That man's personality is not that of someone who likes to accumulate a lot of followers.
'Did something change when he fought Alucard?'
"I will let you know."