Part 2[แก้ไข]
---Ancient Vampire Citadel, Throne room of the Elliptical paths.
“---Ah….Ugh….AAaahh……!”
With a violent jerk of the body, Leticia regained her consciousness. Hot steamy sweat covered her body and her skin looked hot and flushed as a heavy sense of weariness took root in her body.
Shaking her golden hair that shone brightly with its own light, Leticia regarded her surroundings through her hazy consciousness.
“Haah… Haah…Where am I?”
The room that had no windows to illuminate it was steeped in shadows and there was only the smell unique to structures constructed out of stone masonry that stimulated her nasal cavities.
And it would seem that this was a place that she knew quite well for the smell in the room was very nostalgic.
Turning her head to give the room a sweep with her eyes, Leticia only realised where she was after making out the sparking crystals above her head.
“Elip…Elliptical Throne Room? How did I end up……”
“Ah, Leticia. You’ve awakened?”
Leticia hurriedly looked around her surroundings once more before making out the figures of Yō, Jack and Garol-dono standing beside her.
“Yō… Jack……! Eh?...... Even Garol’s here---”
“Oh, Leticia, it sure reminds me of the old times when I see you. It’s been twenty years since the last time we met right?”
Garol flashed a wide smile that showed his healthy looking set of pearly white teeth. Though on her first look Leticia might not have understood the reason of Garol’s presence in this place, a look at the chains holding her down to the throne seemed to have surmised everything she needed to know about the situation she was in.
“I see……I’ve become a Demon Lord once more, haven’t I…”
Leticia muttered with a melancholic look on her face as she could now relate to the reason for the feeling of having been battered up and the soreness she now felt on her body.
That sort of battering……it would mean that someone has already defeated my shadow?
But who could that be---Although the question had just formed in her mind, Leticia immediately arrived at the answer. Or to be precise, who could it be other than that person? Having reached that conclusion, Leticia couldn’t resist a slight smile even though she was in that sort of predicament.
“Come to think of it, it sure was shocking at that time when Canaria-san had said something like ‘I’ve defeated [Demon Lord Draculea]!’. I actually thought that she had you under her contract already……”
Garol’s words were hesitant before trailing away, leaving his sentence hanging and unfinished. Leticia had also bent her head as her expression grew dark.
The reason for Garol’s in-depth knowledge about the happenings concerning the Vampires was all thanks to Canaria’s explanation after having saved Leticia from the Citadel.
Leticia shifted on the throne as she gazed up at the ceiling---
“Due to various matters at that time, Canaria chose to let me escape this Game through the meeting of the conditions that would cause the Game to enter a [unlimited hold for the game] instead of clearing it."
“Oh so that’s how it is… Then, what about Canaria-san’s whereabouts? Did she also disappear without a trace three years ago?”
“Ah……Mhm Yeah. But you should know that sort of person must be enjoying herself somewhere no matter where she goes right?”
“Well, I guess that’s quite true as well.” Garol gave a hearty laugh at that.
Seeing his cheerful face, Leticia’s expression was more melancholic than before.
“Oh……right, Garol, what are you doing here?”
“Of course it’s to solve this Game of yours that I’ve come to this place right, Yō Ojou-chan?”
Hearing Garol call her name, Yō who was feeling and looking around the throne looked up at them.
“Nn. But we’ve only managed to solve the third clearing condition.”
Yō went back to inspecting the throne after saying that. The floorings had already been inspected and what’s left was to carefully inspect the walls of the stone room. It wasn’t long after that the sound of something sinking into a depression was heard.
“Found it! Jack! Which direction did it come from?”
“Hm, I think that should be from the direction of Virgo.”
“Thank you, please bring the fragment for Virgo over here and as long as we use this point as the reference for the other twelve sectors……”
*Kazhak* came the sound as the piece slid into place into the depression. Leticia who didn’t know of such a mechanism in her own Castle had also widened her eyes in surprise.
“Yō……isn’t that the item that we place inside the shrines? What are you doing with……?”
“Hm? Leticia doesn’t know about the contents of the Game?” Yō gazed back at Leticia in surprise.
Leticia’s heart almost leapt out of her mouth but with things the way it is…she grudgingly conceded at the point that there wasn’t a point to keep it a secret anymore.
“Actually about this game……it’s something that I’ve asked others to construct for me and the contents of the game are totally different from the original game that had the [Authority of Host Master].”
“Is that so? Then the mechanisms in this room really isn’t related to the Game after all.” Yō said while pushing in another piece of zodiac fragment before pausing to look back at Leticia.[3]
“Leticia, This Floating Citadel is originally a satellite---No. Hm… is a Castle that continuously revolves around the World right?”
The abruptness of the question caught Leticia off guard and her heart skipped a beat in surprise.
“Nn, yes. That’s because my race did not want to create trouble for the Phylogenetic Tree of the world and decided to observe from afar. For acts of Vampirism were also a cause for mutation in the other races.”
“Is that so? Then it would be an observatory satellite……Hm and that’s the thing that I can’t figure out.”
*Kazhak* The sound of the third fragment clicking into place echoed in the room.
“What I’m slotting into place currently should be the objects that allow the Vampire Citadel to fly in its actual orbit, which is also the answer obtained through the solving of the second clearing condition……the fragments of the [Celestial globe].”
At the same time that Leticia drew her breath sharply in surprise, the sound of the fourth fragment clicking into place echoed in the room.
---Let’s have a look at the third clearing condition of [SUN SYNCHRONOUS ORBIT in VAMPIRE KING].
Firstly taking the words of [SUN SYNCHRONOUS ORBIT in VAMPIRE KING] to apply to the idea of being in synch with the Sun’s orbit, we can follow up that thought with linking up ‘The circle of animals’ to the ‘Zodiacs’.
And from there, we can continue to grasp the meaning of ‘The broken constellations’, and the division of the Heavenly bodies by the [Twelve Zodiacs].
But if the line of thoughts were to end just there, one would end up with a strange phrase of ‘Presenting the Twelve Zodiacs’ which made little sense if we looked at it logically.
Since the clearing condition was to ‘Present the (broken fragments of the constellations)’, then the phrase of ‘broken fragments of the constellations’ should be a subtle way of hinting that it is a tangible object that can be presented to the throne.
As Yō inserted the tenth fragment, she beamed with pride as she puffed her petite chest.
“I then applied the same riddle solving method of [The PIED PIPER of HAMELIN] for this game. Just like the ‘false legend’ and ‘true legend’, something that can be ‘shattered’ and ‘raised up’. And when talking about the object of ‘the broken fragments of the constellations’ that can be ‘broken, presented’ and relating to the constellations---one can only arrive at the answer that it’s this Celestial globe.”
“Oh…my goodness, is that true…?!” Leticia gave her heart-felt exclamation upon hearing that. For she did not expect that Yō who had been distressed before the start of the Game to be able to solve the Gift Game hosted by her.