Ruby Side.
"Are you crazy...?" Madam asked after hearing Ruby's proposal.
Ruby just flashed a big smile that sent shivers down Madam's spine.
"...Yes, you're crazy..." Madam put her hand on her face and spoke in a tired voice:
"As expected of that woman's daughter, I think...?"
"..." Natalia, who had listened to the entire conversation in silence, just had her mouth hanging open in absolute shock...
'This... This is crazy! If this plan works, the whole supernatural world would be turned upside down... Wrong, the whole world would turn upside down, it will turn into chaos!'. Natalia can't help but think of disbelief.
"Why are you so shocked? It's a simple thought process. If you can't fix something, you shouldn't waste time trying to fix it, just destroy everything and rebuild from scratch. It's simple, practical, and faster, right?"
"...Don't take this so lightly; what you said could throw the three factions into chaos."
"And isn't that great?" Ruby's smile grew, "The more chaos there is, the more I can take advantage of it."
"...You really are crazy..." Madam sighed, then she asked, "What do you want to do all this for?"
"It's for my family, of course," Ruby replied, as she continued:
"As I was growing up, I learned a lot from the experiences I had and my mother's teachings, and one of the things I'm sure of... Is that I hate the current situation, the present Status Quo. If you will, I despise it."
"Hunters hunt innocent vampires for no reason, simply because we're a 'demonic' species, and of course, they do not discriminate. To them, even a baby vampire who hasn't committed any crimes is still a target for elimination... And they say they're doing it all for God'. A bunch of hypocrites."
"Then there's Younger vampires and their useless pride; they're worse than garbage, they're useless... Even the most useless human is more useful than this current generation of vampires. They disgust me."
"And do not get me started on the werewolves; always being so passive. They never interfere with anything and never progress at all, so their entire society never seems to have evolved... A bunch of barbarians."
"And at the top of my list are the Witches. I despise witches... Specifically the Queen of Witches, that woman stinks."
"What do you mean...?" Madam asked curiously.
"Don't you find this situation strange?" Ruby continued.
"Huh...?" Madam didn't understand what Ruby was implying.
"Witches are a 'neutral' faction; they are like a group of merchants who sell anything as long as someone has money."
"These women are connected to all factions, and because of that connection, they have a great deal of information available at their fingertips. Yet, what do they do with this information? Purely use it to make more money? Even though they are already wealthy? Just being greedy doesn't explain it." Ruby was quite skeptical about this.
"Information is power. Knowing or not knowing certain information can change the situation in the blink of an eye. Even an idiot knows that."
"Werewolves, Vampires, Hunters... She has information on all of these factions, but... We don't know anything about her... Didn't you ever find it weird?"
Madam didn't respond for a second and then just said, "...I don't get your point. The Queen of Witches never hid her society from all factions."
"Seriously?" Ruby smiled, and then she asked a question:
"So answer me this: who is the Queen of Witches? What does she look like? What is her name? How old is she? Did she have sex to have her daughters? Or did she just adopt? Does she have a mother? If she has a mother, then who is the father?"
"...That's..." Madam was silent. After all, she didn't know that either.
"We know about the Queen's daughters. We know their names, what their physical appearances are, but we know nothing about the Queen of Witches, and this woman is the ruler of an entire race; she is the Queen."
"We don't even know if the Queen was replaced over time with another Queen, we don't know the exact location of the Queen, we don't know her plans or how she thinks."
"..." Madam was silent.
"Isn't that weird? How is it that a woman who holds the power to interfere in all factions is not known to the masses? And why is it that no one cares about that?"
"Maybe she's just shy?"
Ruby's eyes twitched. "...Are you serious?"
"..." Madam didn't know what to say. She had never thought about it before, and, for some reason, she just found it all natural.
She found it natural that the Queen of Witches was not known. She found it natural that she herself had never seen the appearance of the queen... After all, the Queen is strong, right? Strong people like to stay hidden...
'Wait... That's weird.' Madam placed her hand on her chin and started thinking: 'Everyone in the supernatural world knows the king of vampires and king of wolves, but no one knows the queen of witches. In all my life, she's never been out in public. She's always isolated in her castle... And the day I won my title, I just saw her silhouette behind a cloth...'
Madam opened her eyes wide as she seemed to have understood something:
"That Bitch...Don't tell me she did what I think she did..." Then, wanting to test her hypothesis, she made a magic circle with her hand and placed her hand on her head.
Crack!
Suddenly everyone heard the noise of something breaking.
"...?" Ruby didn't understand what happened, she looked to Madam for answers.
"...a suggestion spell..." Madam's face twisted in anger. She didn't like knowing someone was messing with her head.
A suggestion spell, what does it do? It's a pretty simple spell; it slowly affects an individual's mind, similar to Vampyric Charm but more discrete.
One could use this spell even in conversation to slowly influence the individual's opinion in the user's wanted direction.
In this case, the magic was: Treat everything as if it were something natural.
"Oh?" Ruby showed a slight smile, "What did you do?"
"I was under the influence of a suggestion spell. I probably acquired it through products sold by witches or through living in their society for a long time? I do not know."
"Interesting." Ruby started thinking about several things, and in less than a few seconds, she said:
"This is weird."
"What is?" Madam asked.
"Would the Queen of Witches be so stupid as to use a spell that even you can identify? Not wanting to belittle you, but you're not one of the strongest witches."
Madam ignored what Ruby said, "...You're thinking wrong, Scarlett."
"Hmm?"
"All witches worship our Queen. The Queen of Witches is like a mother to all these women, meaning..."
"All witches are allies of the queen..." Ruby opened her eyes wide.
"Yes, and, because of that, she didn't mind using a spell that even I can identify." Madam snorted in disdain.
'That makes sense considering the other factions don't have much knowledge of magic... After all, they wouldn't learn something they couldn't use.' Ruby thought.
Madam wouldn't deny that in the past, she thought the Queen of Witches was like a mother to her too, but after living so long with witches, she came across several situations that she didn't like, and because of that, she deserted and became a clandestine witch.
Being a clandestine witch wasn't bad. You just had to hide and pray the Queen of Witches wouldn't find you, or you'd never surface again.
The Queen was not very fond of deserters. Either you were with her, or you were her enemy.
"I see... That's why you want to do this..." Madam understood why Ruby wanted to carry out that plan.
Ruby's smile grew:
"One thing my mother always told me was: 'Do whatever you want because I will always be your ally, my daughter...' And my beloved husband has the same kind of mentality as my mother."
"...In a way, she's a good mother."
"Of course, she is a good mother. Wrong, she's the best." Ruby displayed a small smile.
'I will throw this world into chaos, and I will rebuild it. Then, when this world is in the palm of my hand, I will give this whole world to my husband... So we can finally live without worrying about anything... '
In a way, Ruby was very paranoid about security because what happened when she was little had left her traumatized, and she would only feel satisfied when she controlled everything and everyone.
She was not comfortable knowing that there were beings who could suddenly appear in her house and destroy everything she loved.
"...W-Who is your husband?" Madam stuttered a little while asking the question. This couldn't be helped since, after seeing the expression Ruby was displaying, unconsciously, she was terrified...
Those lifeless eyes, that empty smile, it all scared the hell out of her!
Ruby snapped out of her reverie and said:
"Victor Alucard, the fifth Vampire Count..."
"Eh...?" Madam's brain seemed to have shut down.
"..." Ruby flashed a satisfied smile when she saw Madam's reaction.
"What is your answer?"
"Huh...?" Her brain restarted, and when her brain registered what Ruby said, she thought for a few seconds, then said:
"... I accept. If you do what you're planning, and this plan works, I want to be on the winning side." In the end, for Madam, it didn't really matter what Ruby did. She just wanted to do her business, earn money, and live carefreely.
And being on Ruby's side seemed to be the best decision for her. After all, the woman had the support of the strongest female vampire in the world and the new Count, who proved to have absurd potential.
Madam took a device from her drawer and threw it towards Ruby.
"... Good decision." Ruby raised her hand and caught the device.
"What is this?"
"That is all the information I know of Clan Horsemen. Consider it a gesture of good faith and to a lasting partnership." Madam displayed a small smile.
"Oh? A witch not charging money? Will the sun rise in the west tomorrow?"
"Shut up. Do you want it or not?"
"Yes, I want it... But." Ruby's eyes glowed blood red, and soon the entire room was frozen.
Ruby appeared behind Madam and then hugged the woman as she bit her neck!
"...!?" Madam couldn't react fast enough to try and use her magic, only activating it a split second later.
However, by then, Ruby had returned to the couch.
"Lady Ruby." Natalia handed Ruby a handkerchief.
"Thanks."
"What did you do, Scarlett!?" Madam roared.
"Don't worry, I didn't make you a vampire, I didn't do the proper ritual for it, and you're no longer a virgin. What I did to you was just insurance..." Ruby flashed a sadistic smile.
"Huh?" Madam did not understand.
"Animes are quite useful, you know? While watching a vampire anime, I saw that the protagonist could bite his victim, and the victim would stay in control of the protagonist like a puppet... I tried to replicate this in real life, and would you imagine my surprise! I managed to create a similar technique using Vampyric Charm." The six months she spent training was not useless.
She had to use several humans as experiments to learn this technique, all of which were criminals, though.
The training method was simple: she would go into a prison and peruse all the records of the criminals who had committed the most terrible crimes and use them as guinea pigs.
Utilizing her Vampyric Charm made that easy feat to accomplish.
Ruby still remembered how difficult it was to lose Sasha since she was quite persistent in knowing where she was going every time she finished training.
'Thank me, humans. I cleaned up most of the criminals in the world for you.' Ruby thought humorously.
"Now, every time you have thoughts of betraying me, I'll know, and with just a thought, you'll kill yourself. A very convenient technique, don't you think...?"
"Why did you do that!?" Madam growled as she held her neck.
"Hmm? Is it not obvious? I don't trust you. You already fooled me once, and I don't trust the witches' scrolls either." Ruby thought she should do this with the two budding hunters as well, but they weren't important enough to be wasting her time with them.
"No need to look at me like that, you'll hurt my feelings." Ruby chuckled a little:
"Just don't betray me, and you'll live. It's simple, right?" She flashed a smile that showed all her sharp teeth.
Gulp...
Madam gulped. She realized it was a bad idea to have tricked Ruby in the past, and if she knew it would come back to bite her ass in the future, she wouldn't have done that!
Ruby soon got up from the couch. She then snapped her fingers, causing all the ice in the room to melt, "See you soon, Esther." Ruby spoke without turning around.
...
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