Chapter 187 Bloodbath (2)
“Don’t get so full of yourself.” Jonathan warned Ashton, “Confidence is good, but overconfidence can take you down in a mere moment. I’m speaking from a place of experience.”
‘Ashton smiled and nodded his head. At times he forgets that no one knows he’s a tribrid. If they did, they’d know why he was confident in his abilities. In a way, it was good everyone underestimated him.
Most of his enemies would take Ashton to be an easy target and attack him, only to fail and become his lunch. In fact, he was hoping something like that to happen. But for now, he would stay in the shadows, giving his targets enough time to spring a trap.
“I’ll take your leave now,” Ashton proceeded towards the exit, “if I am successful, you might not need to put your soldiers in action.”
“Godspeed, young man… godspeed.” Jonathan sent Ashton off with a nod.
***
A couple of hours later, the sun had disappeared, after bleaching the sky red. The werewolves were ready to leave for the subjugation question. There were around twenty of them, excluding the professors and Ashton’s teammates.
Since their numbers weren’t enough, a handful of other low-ranking students who wanted to experience the hunt had joined them. And now they were waiting for the vampires to show up.
Since the vampires were included in subjugation, it was obvious the hunt would have to take place during the night. However, not too many werewolves were pleased about ruining their sleeping schedule because of them. Frankly… none of them wanted to work with vampires. But given the situation, they were being forced to do so.
“They are here,” Virgil mumbled as soon as he got a whiff of the vampires’ offensive smell.
The smell of vampires was naturally repulsive to werewolves and vice-versa. Frankly, nobody knew what was going on inside Ashton’s head when he proposed the idea, proposing them to work together as if they needed to get to know each other.
Something was bound to happen if the werewolves and vampires stayed together for longer periods of time. It was simply in their nature to rip each other’s hearts out the moment they got close to each other. Maybe Ashton wanted them to learn and control that urge? It was possible that was his goal.
“My name’s Virgil, I’ll be leading the pups. Hope we can get along through this… ordeal.” Virgil introduced himself while extending his hand while trying desperately to not cover his nose with the other one.
The lady in front of him looked at him for an inappropriate amount of time before introducing herself as well.
“I’ll countess Camilla, the director of Vampiric academy of magic and warfare.” Camilla wrapped her fingers around Virgil’s hand while stroking it seductively, “I’m looking forward to… working on you- I meant, working with you.”
Well, in her defence, whatever she did could be considered seductive. And judging by her choice of… lingerie- armour, it was evident she was there to do more than just guide her students.
Her ‘armour’ was full of unnecessary openings, giving her spectators a clear view into her ashen skin, while only covering the body parts which it absolutely had to. In fact, whatever she was covering could be easily seen through with help of some creative imagination.
Her long slender legs were covered with the help of black thigh-high boots. As for her neckline… it was quite an objectionable thing to wear around children as it stretched down all the way to her navel area, where it became one with the tiny piece of cloth that was covering her crotch.
To top it all off, the ‘armour’ was entirely backless and was supported with a thin thread wrapped around her neck.
Behind Camilla stood around 25 vampires, 20 of whom were in their uniforms while the rest of them were their professors. To nobody’s surprise, except one, all of the professors were female and wore similar armour as the one Camilla wore.
Their choice of clothing, made Virgil question whether he was headed in a dungeon or in a brothel. The only ones who actually had proper armour on were the male professor and the students.
‘Ashton was right. These suckers are definitely planning on doing something.’ Virgil thought while shaking Camilla’s hand, ‘She is actively trying to charm me into doing her bidding. If it wasn’t for the armour Ashton gave to me, I would probably be licking the dirt off of her boots by now.’
Ashton had already conveyed what he knew about the vampire’s plans to Virgil. For obvious reasons, he didn’t go into much detail, but he told him enough to make Virgil stand on his toes.
Since a vampire’s charm was one of their many passive weapons, Ashton decided to give Virgil one of his armours that granted Virgil immunity from being charmed while boosting his defensive capabilities.
The rest of the party members were given potions especially crafted by professor Kakaroff for the same purpose. Since each potion was effective for around three hours, they had already gulped down one each to protect them from ‘falling in love’ with the vampires.
“If you don’t mind, could we get going? The sunlight might be weak, but it could still harm us over time.” Camilla mumbled in Virgil’s ears. .𝚌o𝚖
“Ahem… sure. This way please.” Virgil guided them towards the nearest portal before debriefing the students, “Alright, now that everyone is here, listen up! Tonight we are going to take down a village infested with ghouls.”
As soon as the name of ghouls escaped Virgil’s mouth, the red-eyed vampires began whispering to each other. At the same time, multiple hands shot up to ask the most obvious question… why were they fighting ghouls?
“I thought we were supposed to fight Night Creatures? Why the sudden change in plans?” One of the students asked.
“Who told you that? I don’t think I ever mentioned where or who, your students were going to fight?” Virgil stared at Camilla with confusion, “Madam Camilla, I suppose your students usually fight night creatures every year and thus they are saying this?”
“You are right.” Camilla nodded along even though that wasn’t the truth, “Every year we fight night creatures, which might be the reason the students assumed that was what we were going to do this year as well.”
Virgil nodded, knowing that Camilla was lying. They had intentionally spread misinformation among different groups of students from the werewolf academy regarding what type of creatures they were going to fight, while not telling what they were going to fight against.
It was yet another one of Ashton’s ideas to figure out whether there were any informants within the werewolves or not. Judging from what the Vampires thought they were going up against, it’ll be easier to find out who the traitor was among them.
“From the information, I received earlier from the guild earlier today, the average level of these ghouls is estimated to be around 3-4. Therefore, you don’t need to be worried.”
Virgil continued, “Even then if you’re worried or you feel like you can’t win on your own, your professors will be around to help you out. With that being said, let’s get going before it’s too late. I’ll inform you about the rest as we make our way towards the abandoned village.”