The moment the elderly woman lunged, all hell broke loose.

  Gilbert and Amory were the first to move, having already been suspicious of her crumpled figure. They moved forward, creating a barrier between the danger and their charges.

  The rabble-rousers came in second. They realized something was wrong fast enough, but they were just too slow to get out in time.

  The elderly woman’s face twisted grotesquely, revealing sharp canines and glowing red eyes, set in a wrinkled, predatory face. She was on her victim in an instant and sank her fangs in before anyone could stop her.

  Selene watched the entire scene with her mouth wide open, her expression caught between disgust at the bloody sight and amazement.

  Orion, on the other hand, had anticipated something like this happening ever since they left the Sanctum, so he didn’t waste any time.

  He didn’t know whether they could save the bandit. The little they’d been taught about what a vampire’s venom could do made him suspect there would be serious repercussions, even if they managed to pull him away.

  But then again, he wasn’t really worried about his safety. He had two vials of Bloodsucker’s Bane with him, and more importantly, the laser magic he had been working on for the past few weeks came in very handy for this kind of situation, so he didn’t hesitate to activate it.

  I = ζ?E? ? A was the final formula he’d come up with. It allowed for extremely fast adjustments to the power output (I) due to the variable E?, which represented the Light mana output, while ζ? allowed him to modify the "brightness," and A was the beam’s cross-sectional area.

  He could improve it significantly by refracting it through a crystal, although he had noticed some microfractures in the one he got from Lucina. That was why he had been so dedicated to finding a better focus, but for this occasion, he didn’t hesitate to run the spell through it.

  The beam of light that escaped his finger flew just past Amory’s shield, under Gilbert’s arm as he prepared to thrust with his lance, and into the vampire’s face.

  If it even is a real vampire. Everyone said they are graceful and hauntingly beautiful. This thing is terrifying.

  For once, his [Infinite Laser] wasn’t swatted away like an errant fly. Whether it was because he had put more than enough power into it to carve through a block of granite, or because it wasn’t his mother—an accomplished witch—who was on the receiving end, it didn’t matter. The monster didn’t even realize it was about to die.

  The speed it had shown was definitely enough to compete with some of the better guards at the Sanctum, but it couldn’t do anything when faced with c.

  The speed of light was the gold standard for a reason. Nothing else in physics could match it.

  A groan and a thump followed as the poor bandit hit the ground with the vampire still attached to his neck, unable to muster the strength to stay upright or remove it while blood poured down his neck.

  His companions didn’t hesitate to rush in, to their credit, and quickly freed him, though that only worsened the bleeding.

  The spurt of blood that followed was too feeble to have come from the carotid artery, but it still meant the man had only a few minutes, if not seconds, to live.

  Luckily, there was someone who could assist. Selene moved between the two confused yet cautious soldiers, her hands glowing bright white, which silenced the emerging protests of the bandits.

  “It is her Light that shows us the way, and through Her that life begins anew,” she began chanting, and the mana around her coalesced into a healing spell.

  That was not something they had reached yet in their lessons, so Orion hummed in appreciation. He wasn’t the only one to have pushed beyond the standard curriculum, it seemed. But I should have expected it. Selene is the only one who has a C-rank class like me. If anyone could push ahead, it’d be her.

  While she handled that, Orion launched another [Infinite Laser] at the vampire. He had learned not to get complacent after the harpy. Even with a punctured heart, she’d been able to wield her wind magic, and without Seraphina’s intervention, about half of his class would have died that day.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The vampire was supposed to be a necromantic creature, which made it vulnerable to Light magic, but he wouldn’t take any chances after seeing how viciously it had bitten into the bandit’s neck.

  The two soldiers startled as another flash of light passed between them, but Orion had eyes only for the vampire. Fortunately, it didn’t even twitch, and the laser simply carved through its temples and into the ground.

  “Well, unless it can shrug that off, I think it’s dead dead," he murmured.

  “What the hell,” Gilbert mouthed, looking between him, the vampire, and the light streaming from Selene’s hands into the man who was now no longer bleeding out.

  “All’s well that ends well?” Orion tried, and he received such an incredulous look that he had to stifle a laugh.

  Meanwhile, Selene helped the bandit up, who looked at her with a confused mix of reverence, fear, and realization that made Orion’s attempt to hide his amusement even more difficult.

  “Don’t laugh, Orion. This was very stressful for these poor people,” Selene told him with a smirk.

  “Yes, how terrible of me. It’s not like they tried to rub us not even two minutes ago,” he replied, and the men suddenly looked very sheepish.

  “Ay, look. We didn’t know you were witches.” One tried, “We wouldn’t have tried anything if we had.”

  “I bet,” Amory grunted, “you shouldn’t have tried to rob anyone anyway.”

  For a moment, he looked like he might try to take them all on. They were definitely disoriented enough that he could, especially since he was over fifty levels higher than the highest one here.

  But eventually, he shook his head and sighed. “Look, I know that there is an agreement in place, but you really shouldn’t do these kinds of things. You almost assaulted two members of the Lunar Sanctum. What do you think would have happened if you hadn’t been stopped?”

  The man sputtered, but he had no real answers. The others looked around in awkward silence until one finally looked down at the vampire and shouted, “That thing is burning up!”

  Indeed, the corpse had gone from lying on the ground with two holes in its head to smoking as more heat began to exude from it.

  Orion quickly created a Light Shield around them, but soon realized it wasn’t needed as the vampire started crumbling until only ashes remained.

  He let the shield fall as he walked over to examine the ashes. It looks just like a burnt fireplace.

  Still, just to be sure, he decided to scoop some into a crystal vial he took out of his pocket. It might have no use at all, or he might learn something very interesting. He’d only find out after proper testing.

  “Was this the one you divined?” He asked, still crouched.

  Behind him, Selene used a piece of cloth offered by one of the bandits to clean her bloodied hands. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure it’s not the only one, but the other either keeps moving around, or has much better protections.”

  Orion sighed. It would have been too easy to solve the entire case in that manner. “To be fair, this vampire didn’t really seem capable of organizing a multi-year infiltration campaign.”

  Selene snorted, “Yeah, a bit too rushed.”

  The stomping of boots on mud echoed shortly after, and several soldiers rushed into the area, probably alerted by the inhuman screech the vampire had let out.

  Amory and Gilbert took some time to explain exactly what had happened, much to the disbelief of the newcomers, but the two were higher up on the totem pole than these guards, so they could only agree to search the area for more vampires and lock up the men who had tried to rob them.

  They didn’t even resist once they were informed their punishment would involve helping with the food deliveries.

  Orion would have pushed harder to punish them, but honestly, he found the looks of utter bafflement they kept giving each other quite entertaining, as if they couldn’t even begin to understand how things had turned out this way.

  He also doubted they would resort to such blatant banditry again. Whatever agreement existed between Silverpeak and the camp leaders, they wouldn’t forget how close they came to death anytime soon.

  And I’m not even considering the vampire. If they had managed to overpower our guards and then us, they would have faced much worse consequences than just a little blood loss.

  Orion and Selene continued to wander through the muddy paths for a few more hours after that, curious about how these people lived. Some of them didn’t even seem that desperate, living off sturdy tents or even earthen structures that had obviously been built with magic, which meant that the overall situation south had to have worsened to a point where it wasn’t just the very poor and those connected to the Ranch’s trade who were suffering.

  “Anything suspicious? No, nothing out of the ordinary. A few more people are expected to arrive next week, as far as I know, but everyone has been relatively calm. Ya know, as much as can be possible in these circumstances,” a middle-aged woman said in response to Selene’s question.

  She looked carefully at the two guards still shadowing them, “It would be much nicer away from the cold. The days are better now, but the nights are still freezing. People get restless like that.”

  Orion smirked at the unsubtle attempt. He couldn’t really blame her. Food and water were being freely provided by Silverpeak, but the refugees’ conditions weren’t exactly ideal.

  He almost wondered why no witch had come to handle the matter, but that was quickly answered. The Sanctum was the ruling power of the region, that was true, but that didn’t mean it involved itself in every little thing.

  And while living in tents might have been a big deal for these people, for witches who only cared about practicing their crafts and worshiping their goddess, it wasn’t anything to get worked up about.

  Now, if the fighting ever spilled out of the southeast and into the Sanctum’s territory, which was unlikely considering the distances, they would change their tune very quickly.

  But there was a reason they secluded themselves on a mountain. The witches only intervened when something threatened their authority or when a major injustice against their beliefs was being committed.

  Anything else could be handled by the nobles they had sprinkled throughout the region.

  “Silverpeak is doing all it can to help,” Amory replied dully, sounding as if he was repeating something he’d heard a thousand times.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s not like we aren’t grateful for the help, but you know how it is. No one wants to beg, but we’ve got very little left.” The woman replied, and Selene nodded in understanding, even if she had no real idea what was being discussed.

  A few more chats later, they started heading back. Orion sighed and shook his head. “I think we might have done enough. The other vampire doesn’t seem to be making moves in the open anyway.”

  Selene deflated. “I was so sure we’d find them…”

  Once they finally left the tent city behind, much to the relief of the two poor guards who had been deputized to follow them, and who probably would need several days to recover, and after they had said their goodbyes, they began making their way back toward the carriage station.

  It wasn’t long before someone else blocked their path.

  This time, however, it wasn’t a bandit or a monster. A girl with innocent eyes and fair skin smiled up at them. “I heard you were looking for the vampires?”