Every step Garam took forward, the Kobolds flinched.
Were they instinctively sensing that the being in front of them was dangerous?
Fear hung over their beastlike faces.
"If you won't come, then I will."
Adding strength to the hand gripping the axe, he shot forward.
FWIP! FWIP!
He twisted his body to dodge the arrows the Kobolds fired wildly and swung the axe.
The axe sank into a Kobold's abdomen. When he added force to it,
CRRRUNCH—!
he split the Kobold apart, bone and all.
Blood burst from the halved body like a fountain, yet not a single drop of it reached Garam.
[Sub-skill: Absorb is used.]
The blood was absorbed before it even touched his body.
At the same time, vitality filled him.
'Control this well and I could fight indefinitely.'
With blood being absorbed, his body didn't know fatigue.
It wasn't merely a matter of mana recovering.
He could feel the mental and physical fatigue that piled up as he fought being relieved along with it.
"KYAK!"
One Kobold charged from behind him, drooling.
It came in aimed perfectly at his blind spot, but,
"I already noticed you."
Its own kin's blood was smeared on its body. With that thick smell stinging his nose, there was no way not to notice.
CRUNCH—!
The axe swung before the Kobold could react.
It shattered the skull and buried itself in the head.
Garam lifted the axe, Kobold and all,
WHOOSH—!
and threw it at the Kobold just ahead of him.
The Kobold flew along with the axe, and at the same time Garam poured power into the axe.
CRASH—!
The axe in the Kobold's head, or more precisely Garam's blood, became dozens of spikes like shotgun pellets and swept away the other Kobolds as well.
Counting that last one, the Kobolds he had killed passed ten.
D-Grade monsters or not, it was impossible for a single hunter to carry out such a one-sided slaughter of monsters.
Especially against pack monsters like Kobolds.
"Hoo. Fine control really is no joke."
And Garam had done it.
Without even properly using the True Progenitor's power.
"Absorb deserves a lot of the credit, though."
If he hadn't been absorbing Kobold blood endlessly, he might already have collapsed from exhaustion.
"There are a lot of monsters today, though."
Monsters that attacked in packs usually numbered five or so at most.
But the Kobolds he'd met this time formed a pack of more than ten.
"Maybe it's an unusual gate. If it gets a bit more dangerous I should try fighting in the True Progenitor's form."
That slaughter had been fought with sub-skills alone.
He hadn't even brought out the True Progenitor's form.
"Before that, let me pick these up."
Garam dug the mana stones out of the fallen Kobolds with the axe in his hand.
Carmilla watched him and let out a sigh.
[Good grief, using the True Progenitor's power just to collect mana stones.]
With a bastard like this as True Progenitor, the future of the Vampirs was bleak.
***
"Where did all the Kobolds go?"
Garam muttered as he looked around at the utterly desolate surroundings.
It had been a good while since he'd swept the Kobolds aside one-sidedly and moved deeper into the gate,
yet there wasn't so much as a Kobold's shadow anywhere around.
[Have the Kobolds all gotten scared? Like a certain someone who lives somewhere?]
Carmilla floated in the air, looking down at him.
"Probably not."
Making monsters feel the emotion of fear usually wasn't easy.
Unless their own pack was on the verge of being wiped out, as earlier.
Kobolds from other packs wouldn't be frightened by seeing that.
At this point it felt more as though other hunters had wiped the Kobolds' seed from the earth.
"Tsk. Maybe I should try a different gate."
He'd never imagined the monsters inside a gate would be cleared out this fast.
Considering respawn times, going elsewhere would be more efficient than staying here.
Thinking that, Garam turned around.
And at that moment,
WHIFF-
[Hey, do you smell something?]
"Yeah."
A certain smell drifted over.
The smell of blood, which they could catch because they were Vampirs.
But it wasn't a human's; it belonged to their own kind.
And it was a smell that should never appear in a gate like this.
"Why is there a Vampir here?"
This gate was an environment where sunlight beat down hard enough to sting the skin.
Any Vampir that wasn't the True Progenitor would be reduced to ash the moment it came in.
[It's a little different. Too alien to call it a Vampir.]
"Alien?"
[It's similar to a Vampir but something's different. Let's go and see for now.]
Garam nodded at Carmilla's words and hurried on.
What kind of Vampir was here didn't matter.
Killing that Vampir mattered more.
"What the hell is that?"
Kobolds numbering dozens at a conservative count, no, perhaps as many as a hundred.
And from their center came the alien Vampir smell he had been catching since earlier.
"What in the world—"
It was strange enough that the Kobolds, who should have been scattered all over the gate, were gathered in one place.
They lay prostrate facing one direction, as if drawn up in ranks.
A monster far larger in build than the other Kobolds sat there, giving off the smell of a Vampir.
"That's a Kobold King."
The elite monster of the Kobold line.
Unlike D-Grade Kobolds, the Kobold King was C-Grade, and among those it belonged to the boss class.
The same level as the Silver Wolf at the Full Moon Temple.
"But something about it is different."
The Kobold King seated in front of the ranked Kobolds looked a little different.
Its fur, which should have been yellowish brown, was stained red in patches,
and a red gem was embedded in the center of its chest.
[That's it. The Vampir smell is coming from there.]
What Carmilla pointed at was the red gem embedded in the Kobold King's chest.
Garam could feel it as well.
A Kobold King with a strange gem set in its chest, commanding a hundred Kobolds.
Normally it would be no surprise to flee at once and call for support, but
"Slurp."
to Garam it looked more like a well-laid meal.
A hundred Kobolds.
Dangerous enough that he'd have to stake his life on it, certainly.
Even so, a chance like this was too good to waste.
'Kill all of them and take the mana stones, and how much money is that?'
And above all,
the thick smell flowing from the direction the Kobolds were bowing toward.
It smelled unbearably delicious, as though urging him to come at once.
[Don't tell me... you're going to fight that? You'll croak doing that.]
'Be quiet and just watch.'
VWOOOOOM
He completely unleashed the power that lay deep inside his body.
The scent of blood lingering at the tip of his nose.
In step with it, Garam's eyes behind the mask stained red and wings of blood spread out.
Full strength from the very start.
"Urgh, the blood consumption really is no joke."
It felt as though the mask on his face and the axe in his hand, both made in advance, might come undone at the slightest slip.
TAP—!
Unable to waste any more time, Garam charged straight into the Kobold pack.
"KYRAAK?"
"Ssss!"
He drew breath and swung the axe.
SLICE!
The Kobold was cut clean in two as easily as if by a sharp famed sword.
Earlier there had at least been the feel of hide catching on the blade.
Now it was no different from paper.
"KEEEEK!"
"GRRRRR!"
Realizing they were under attack, the Kobolds rose from the ground all at once and threw themselves at Garam.
Arrows and swords came flying in.
An assault that would have annihilated even a D-Grade hunter party, but
Garam dodged easily, or batted the incoming arrows away with the wings at his back.
'The wings move like hands.'
They were nothing but bare framework, but precisely because of that he could move that framework as freely as fingers.
He swatted every arrow aside with the wings and swung the axe.
"I'll take them all at once."
He was absorbing blood from every Kobold he killed, but it wasn't enough.
Blood was being consumed faster than he could kill Kobolds and absorb it.
Flames burned atop Garam's axe.
His only area attack.
Crimson Flame.
"Hoo."
He breathed out and swung the axe.
FWOOOOSH—!
The Crimson Flame became a huge wave and swallowed the Kobolds.
"Huh, it's this strong?"
To think that ordinary skills were strengthened too while in the True Progenitor's form.
A single blow.
In a Crimson Flame far deeper than usual, the color of blood itself, the Kobolds charging at him couldn't hold out even a few seconds before turning to ash.
Garam gathered all the blood at once and absorbed it.
CRRRACK.
Robbed of blood in a single instant, the Kobold corpses withered like mummies.
"Hoo. With this I can hold it another minute or so."
Thanks to the blood of some hundred Kobolds, he had gained a little slack in how long he could maintain True Progenitor Form.
An extra thirty seconds.
Even excluding the blood used on Crimson Flame, he had enough slack to use True Progenitor Form once more.
That was more than enough time to kill the Kobold King in front of him.
"All right then, hurry up and croak, and hand over that gem."
The smell flowing from the red gem kept stirring his appetite.
Carmilla had definitely said the True Progenitor had no urge to drink blood.
And he hadn't felt such an urge even once in three days.
Yet strangely, whenever he looked at that gem, he had the illusion of hunger.
"KRAAAAAGH!"
Enraged at the annihilation of its subordinates, the Kobold King rose from its seat with a howl.
Its eyes were stained red.
The Kobold King had an overwhelming build of easily two meters.
Compared with the small short swords the other Kobolds carried, the weapon the Kobold King held was a cleaver the size of a grown man.
"Vicious-looking thing."
Garam moved forward to kill the Kobold King in front of him.
[Sub-skill: Domination is used.]
[The target is weakened.]
"Huh?"
In that instant, Domination had activated on the Kobold King.
There was only one case in which Domination was used automatically like this.
When a Vampir stood in front of him.
And as if to flaunt exactly that, the King lifted up a Kobold corpse,
CRUNCH.
wrung the corpse out, and poured the blood into its mouth.
"KRWAAAAGH!"
"Carmilla, is that thing a Vampir?"
[It can't be...]
What stood in front of him was not a Vampir.
And yet Domination had activated.
"Is it because of that gem?"
That gem was turning an ordinary monster into something like a Vampir.
The huge cleaver came down toward Garam's head.
CRASH—!
Garam ducked and dodged it easily, but
"Holy shit—"
one casual swing had gouged out a whole handful of earth.
"Take a hit from that blade and I won't be sliced, I'll be minced."
This was no ordinary Kobold King. At this level it was top class even among C-Grade boss monsters.
As the Kobold King raised the cleaver to strike down again, Garam slipped inside its guard and drove the axe into its enormous belly.
"GRRRRR."
The Kobold King groaned as though in pain for a moment, then began swinging the cleaver wildly as though nothing had happened.
[Looks like there's no way to handle this. What are you going to do now?]
"Of course there's a way."
The reason the Kobold King hadn't taken much damage from that attack was simply that his weapon was small.
Which meant its attack power might have gone up, but its defense was unchanged.
'No, if anything its body has weakened.'
Judging by sheer physical toughness, it was weaker than an ordinary Kobold.
As proof, the Kobold King's body was crumbling like broken glass, outward from the red gem set in its chest.
"So wringing out that Kobold and drinking it was to restore its body."
The Kobold King's body was collapsing fast enough that it had to resupply blood constantly.
"If you're a Vampir, that actually makes you easier to deal with."
[Sub-skill: Domination activates.]
[Sub-skill: Absorb activates.]
VWOOOOM.
The axe buried in the Kobold King's belly returned to the form of blood and gathered back into Garam's hand.
Not stopping there, he drew the blood out of the wound.
SPLURSH—!
Blood gushed from the Kobold King's body.
At that, its body began to collapse faster.
"KRAAAK? KRAK?"
Feeling its own body weaken, the Kobold King dropped to its knees and collapsed.
"Hoo. Then let's finish this."
He raised the arm holding the axe into the air and gathered blood.
KRRRRRK—!
The axe grew far too large to hold in one hand.
"This is the end."
As if in a final struggle, the Kobold King forced itself up and charged at him.
It looked as though it meant to ram him outright, but
CRASH—!
he moved the wings at his back and caught the charging Kobold King.
"This bastard's body is thick."
To finish it in one blow, aiming for the head was the answer, like in a certain movie with a purple alien.
And the axe happened to be about the right size for it.
His calculation done, Garam swung the axe at the Kobold King.
'Crimson Flame!'
FWOOSH—!
He kindled flame atop the axe, layering Crimson Flame over it so the Kobold King couldn't block easily.
CRUNCH—!
And drove the axe into the Kobold King's neck.
With the revolting smell of burning flesh, its head came away and the Kobold King collapsed.
An absurd feat for a hunter only three days past his Awakening.
"That's damn incredible."
To kill a Kobold King, which C-Grade hunters needed a full party to bring down, this easily.
And as a D-Grade hunter, at that.
It felt like a lie that only days ago, at the Full Moon Temple, he'd struggled even to land the finishing blow on a dying Silver Wolf.
The True Progenitor's power certainly was strong.
[Sub-skill: Absorb is used.]
[Normal skill: Cleaving Slash acquired.]
[Sub-skill: Blood Point (C) Lv1 has risen to Blood Point (C) Lv 3.]
[Sub-skill: Absorb (C) Lv1 has risen to Absorb (C) Lv 5.]
[Skill: Crimson Flame (C) Lv3 has risen to Crimson Flame (C) Lv6.]
[When a sub-skill's level rises beyond a certain point, the sub-skill's Grade can be raised.]
He absorbed the blood of the Kobold King along with that of the other Kobolds.
Mana and vitality filled him in one rush.
Normally his physical fatigue should have recovered along with it,
but the overwhelming weakness caused by True Progenitor Form didn't fully recover even by absorbing blood.
"Hoo... I'd better hold back on this unless things get truly dangerous."
This time he'd been lucky.
Thanks to a hundred Kobolds his duration had increased, and the rebound had been on the lighter side.
But what if a one-on-one against a boss monster came?
Then he'd be stuck with a hard limit of one minute that he absolutely could not exceed.
"So it isn't completely all-purpose."
Still, it remained a broken technique.
"Urgh!"
A burning pain rose up from his chest.
It was better than the first time he'd used True Progenitor Form,
but the physical pain hadn't gone away.
Even so, being able to become A-Grade for a moment made it a profitable deal.
[Sub-skill: Regeneration (C) Lv1 activates.]
Once Regeneration had made him just barely able to move,
Garam approached the dead Kobold King.
"Now let's check what this gem is."
The strange gem that had been giving off the smell of a Vampir since earlier.
Garam pried the red gem out of the Kobold King's chest.
[You have obtained a lowest-tier Blood Point Stone.]
[Absorbing a Blood Point Stone can create a new sub-skill or raise the level of an existing sub-skill.]
[There is currently no skill that can be created with a lowest-tier Blood Point Stone.]