Chapter 8 - Ray-Ray (New book begs for everything)

　　The hunters couldn't quite believe that their side had won.

　　Especially when they realized that the vampire who suddenly appeared on top of the fortress and was killed in a flash was the terrifying Baron, everyone felt like they were dreaming.

　　It was all over so fast.

　　The feeling is like a delicate flower in a garden that sees the gardener coming with a hoe and a plow and rake, and is worried that she's going to be wantonly tossed around when she's suddenly doused with water.

　　Then the gardener said, "It's done."

　　Although a few hunters were not far away at the time and witnessed the vampire's sudden attack, no one could say what happened.

　　Including Edward himself, one of the parties involved.

　　The mystery of the baron's death was not solved until another party, Evelyn, woke up and claimed that the baron had been killed by "skillful swordplay".

　　But this claim was denied by Edward with all his might.

　　"It can't be, I don't know any sword techniques!"

　　This fluke victory must have been his own blind cat's eye; most likely the idiot baron himself hit the blade when he instinctively reacted to draw his sword.

　　Based on Edward's presentiment, and after synthesizing various considerations, eventually, the group came to the conclusion that the dead baron was most likely a fake, and that the vampire had swindled his defeat to try to trick the hunters into going out in pursuit!

　　Everyone was then disarmed and threw themselves into a new round of defense.

　　.....

　　". .... Ray-Ray, this is what the master meant."

　　A few kilometers away from the city of Constantine, in the ruins of what is known as the "Old Capital", a vampire boy of 12 or 13 years old is holding a bat in his hand and listening to what it has to say.

　　"Okay, sis, I understand."

　　The teenager said to the bat.

　　The bat was certainly not the teenager's sister, just her sister's dependent.

　　The teenager is communicating with his sister through the senses of the bat.

　　He lifted his hand gently, letting the bat flutter its wings and fly away, then turned to the other side himself.

　　There, a dozen vampires in full black armor were kneeling on the ground. And behind them was a neatly organized legion.

　　"Lord Leonardo, what is the Countess's intention? Can you accept us?" The leader raised his head and fawned with a smile, but unfortunately, his eyes were lax and his pupils were dark, and this fawning smile added a few points of terror.

　　"I'm sorry, but the master will not accept you."

　　The sycophant immediately panicked, "How can this be! We've already lost our parents and we're all blind, so if Lord Countess won't accept us, we really won't be able to live!"

　　"Oh, about that, there's nothing to worry about."

　　The sycophant hears this, and as if there is still a chance for things to turn around, he piles on the fawning smile again, "Could it be that there are other ways for the Empire to house us?"

　　"No, you guys don't have to worry about 'living'." The handsome, girl-like teenager gave a warm smile, "You guys attacked humans without authorization, and that's something the empire wouldn't have tolerated in the first place."

　　"Huh? About that, we don't know."

　　"But you are a wild species, and the laws of the Empire cannot regulate you." Leonardo said, his smile disappearing, "But ah, when you attacked the humans, you seemed to have disturbed your master's master. For that, the master is angry."

　　A dagger had appeared in the teenager's hand, which was upside down behind his back.

　　The blind vampires couldn't see the change in Leonardo's expression, but they could hear the chill in the teenager's tone.

　　"We..."

　　"You should always know the Seven Commandments of Lilith, right? Since you have become Bloods, you should keep the commandments."

　　The teenager said, slashing his dagger down at the wrist of his other hand.

　　Blood gurgled from the white wrist and quickly transformed into a winged banshee.

　　One banshee after another appeared, and the blind vampires in the ruins couldn't see the sight, but the ones with a keen sense of smell had sensed the sudden additional scent of blood in the air.

　　"As penance, turn yourselves into dust and nourish Lord Lilith."

　　As Leonardo finished speaking, the Blood Banshees quickly pounced on the blind vampires in the ruins.

　　Screams rang out one after another, but soon fell silent.

　　Hundreds of vampires, instantly decimated by the blood banshees, and after doing so, the banshees flew back to the teenager one after another, and re-transformed into blood to return to their master's body.

　　Once the last drop of blood was back in his body, Leonardo licked his wrist, and the wound immediately healed without even leaving a scar.

　　Then he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

　　A few days later, Stigmata Skin scouts discovered the ruins and brought back the ashes and armor of the dead vampire.

　　Until this day, the hunters had been tensing up and down into a string of defense for nearly half a month, and everyone was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

　　Upon hearing the intelligence brought back by the scouts, all cheered for a while, then fell sparsely silent.

　　What is this?

　　An enemy that's been on the defensive for over half a month is suddenly dead and clean?

　　The entire guild fell into an inexplicable bitterness.

　　This bitterness continued until half a day later. A party of squires sent to the ruins brought back a large amount of belongings that had been left behind by the vampires who had died strangely.

　　After counting, the possessions were worth about twenty thousand Constantine gold coins.

　　Chief Steward Hite almost burst into laughter.

　　One of the possessions worth 10,000 gold coins was immediately divided, soothing the hunters for their efforts during this half-month.

　　The other half was sold into gold coins, and part of it was deposited into the guild. For the remaining eight thousand or so gold coins, Chief Steward Hite specifically went to remit forty large gold coins and then handed them over to Edward.

　　"I can't believe it's not even two months since I was able to return it to Lord Kayne."

　　"Uh, there's really no need to be in such a hurry to pay it back, and that's ten more..." said Edward, a little unsure if that made it impossible for him to live here.

　　"Can these ten pieces be used as a commission for the first year?"

　　"Commission?"

　　"We would like Lord Kayne to formally join the guild as a vampire hunter of the 'Skin of the Stigmata'."

　　"Huh? It's..."

　　"If ten commissions per year is too little, it can be raised to fifteen."

　　"No, no, no, it's not the money, it's the fact that I'm afraid I'd have trouble with a job like vampire hunter at this point in my life."

　　"This is too humble of you." In the past few days, Chief Hector had already confirmed repeatedly with Evely that the vampire suspected to be a baron was indeed beheaded by Duke Kayne.

　　A superb magical talent and a master swordsman at the same time? I'm afraid that there are not even ten such talents in the East and West continents. If Mr. Kayne can join the guild, I'm afraid that he can pull "Stigmata's Skin" into the first-class vampire hunter's guild by his own strength alone.

　　But Edward himself thinks otherwise.

　　Over the past half month, he had also used a wooden sword to compete with Ivory in the drill ground, and as a result, no matter how he tried, a sword move similar to that divine stroke was never made again.

　　Evelyn is also very strange, look at Kayne's sword posture, obviously received very professional training, however, the real fight, Kayne out of the sword without any rules, the only thing that is good is to react quickly, every time you can use a very awkward posture, can avoid their own sword moves.

　　"It may be caused by memory loss, so between life and death, Kayne is able to make use of the sword techniques she once practiced so diligently, but she can only revert to a basic stance during her weekday training."

　　Edward doesn't dispute this claim; after all, he himself knows that amnesia and all that is just a lie.

　　As for magical talent, he himself had only learned a few elementary magic spells now, and the path of magic was bound to be long and endless, so he definitely couldn't start being complacent now.

　　Thinking about it, it was mostly because of the saline thing that Chief Hector thought so highly of himself.

　　But it was a complete coincidence, who would have thought that the holy water of this world would be saline? There was more than likely no chance of something similar happening again, and one's capital had already been used up.

　　But seeing that Chief Hite was still sincerely inviting, Edward couldn't bear to brush off his goodwill, and after a few excuses that didn't work, he had no choice but to say, "I can join the guild as an official vampire hunter, but there's one condition."

　　"Go ahead."

　　"I would like the guild to create a training program for me."

　　"Training?"

　　"Over a period of time, have the hunters in the guild who are better than me, train me in all aspects of swordsmanship, archery, and magic until I can become a competent vampire hunter."

　　"This ...." Chief Hite was speechless, where else in this guild could there be someone better than you? The only one who can barely meet the requirements is mostly the president.

　　But on second thought, he thought that training was supposed to be a mutually reinforcing process, and such a training program might allow the Guild's hunters to learn Kayne's swordsmanship and magic.

　　He then agreed, "Of course, but please also ask Lord Kayne to pass on the knowledge you possess to other hunters as well."

　　Edward immediately agreed, "That's no problem."

　　Surely the Chief Steward was looking at his own knowledge, but unfortunately the saline had already contributed.

　　The two men negotiated a deal, paid off the deed to the loan, and then renewed the deed of employment.

　　In doing so, Edward officially becomes an honorable vampire hunter.

　　And got a super high commission of ten large gold coins per year.

　　The next day, because the crisis was lifted, the guild let the hunters take a three-day vacation, which was a way of loosening up everyone's taut nerves for half a month.

　　The hunters immediately took their share of the money from the battle and ran off to the city to eat and drink indiscriminately.

　　Edward, on the other hand, took out a large gold coin and was going to go ahead and exchange it for Constantine gold coins before going into the city to purchase some spell books, protective gear, and the like.

　　He invited Evelie to go with him as a guide.

　　The two arrive at the Constantine Bank, and Edward gets his first glimpse of the world of finance - the bank has no counters in the traditional sense, and naturally, no tellers.

　　The banker himself sits behind a large, ornate desk and conducts the customer's business.

　　Edward sat down in front of the gentleman, who wore a monocle of gold-rimmed spectacles, and handed over the large gold coin, which was hotly clutched by Evelie.

　　Along the way, the huntress snatched the large gold coins in her own hand like a little fortune hunter and clutched them tightly the whole way. This girl who came from a downtrodden noble family, and whose yearly commission nowadays couldn't even reach two hundred Constantine gold coins, naturally didn't have much chance to come into contact with this stuff in normal times.

　　The Old Empire Gold Coin, minted by the old Joy Night Empire a hundred years ago, has the world's character "One Hundred" on the front side, and the head of Empress Lilith on the back side, which is made of fine gold.

　　Although it is called "gold", fine gold is actually a metal that emits a dazzling light, but apart from this noble dazzle, its own color is more reddish, similar to copper rather than gold.

　　As a legendary metal, the hardness of fine gold far exceeds that of steel, and is even more unattainable by soft pure gold. Melting the two metals, fine gold and pure gold, together requires a complex process, and this minting process itself is not even less valuable than the fine gold and pure gold on this gold coin.

　　That's why after the old Joy Night Empire perished, no country went back to minting currency equal to it, and it kept this gold coin in circulation for a hundred years.

　　According to the bank's rules and regulations, the process of exchanging this kind of large gold coins was complicated, and the identity of the customer had to be carefully checked. However, the banker could see at a glance that this was one of the gold coins that had been exchanged to the "Skin of the Stigmata" guild only the day before, and Edward was accompanied by a hunter from the guild, so everything could be simplified.

　　Of course, the most important point was that this noble gentleman had a gorgeous dress as well as an unassuming temperament, which was the best proof of identity.

　　"Here are your two hundred Constantine gold coins."

　　Soon the banker, all smiles, handed over a large bulging bag.

　　"Leave fifty for pocket money, and please arrange for a squire to deliver the rest to the 'Skin of Stigmata' guild." Evely said, she had roughly calculated that what Kayne needed to purchase today would require about twenty to thirty gold coins, and putting fifty on her body would be enough.

　　"Okay, then, as the young lady commands."

　　Just as the banker was counting out fifty gold coins in front of the two men, a powdered, handsome as a girl's teenager entered through the door.

　　"Ah, Young Master Leonardo, please wait a moment, this guest's business will be ready soon." The banker greeted.

　　"Okay." The teenager then walked familiarly over to a couch and sat down, giving a polite salute as his eyes met with both of Edward's.

　　Edward saw this and returned the favor. After getting the money that was his, he left the bank with Evely.

　　Shortly afterward, Leonardo also finished his business and returned to the Uptown townhouse.

　　After greeting the Countess and reporting on his recent work, he went to his sister to help with some of the chores.

　　"By the way, sister, I saw that lord today."

　　"Oh." Sister Lindslette, who was busy polishing the teapot, responded casually.

　　"That one looks very approachable, why was the master seriously injured by him twice?"

　　"Don't ask too many questions, don't think too much."

　　"Oh, okay."

　　Leonardo obediently bowed his head and picked up a polished spoon and wiped it carefully.

　　At that moment, from upstairs came the Countess's sultry sigh, "Alas, Lynn, Ray-Ray, when shall I return to my master?"