Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

”Got it, in that case just tell me what you have heard about those two from that fool”, said Daimon to the girl from the church of light as he sat on a chair made out of wood which Tessa created for him.

”Mmm, it was strange, the very first times I listened to some of it, was because he randomly raised his voice, it was as if he was discussing with himself, about ”why there wasn’t any hints about it”, that was a couple of months before he started openly showing interest in the princesses from the alfear and dwarf races”.

”To be honest I didn’t find it strange because he had already chased after a whole bunch of girls from different backgrounds that could benefit him, for example that one from the Penddra family, so I thought it was just going to be more of the same”, said Sera to then make a short pause, because she could feel the accusatory gaze from Femi.

The dwarf princess is quite straightforward after all, so it was easy to know if you were up to her liking, or if she hated you, like in this case, Tessa on the other hand was much more reserved, though it’s obvious that she felt angry since Sera, as a fellow woman, assisted Adam into manipulating other girls as he saw fit.

”Ahem, please don’t look at me like that missy, I also have my own circumstances and even when I raised complain after complain to the Arch cardinal about that subject, the answer I got every time was either ”Everything is for the glory of light” or ”They should feel honored to play their part for the sake of light”, and my orders were to help him achieve his goals in secret of course”.

”You can’t even imagine the number of headaches I suffered because of that guy, some of his targets had family, or even future lovers and I had to see quite a lot of them being slaughtered just so that he could put his hands on them… even children and elderly people that weren’t even mages or knights”.

”After that, I started to actively ”help” in order to prevent such tragedies, even if it meant resorting to use potions, curses or even blackmail to separate the ”obstacles” in that guy’s path from the targets, and sending them to another galaxy, because that was everything I could do”, said Sera with a self-criticizing voice.

Not all of Adam’s targets were ”victims”, there were some that didn’t even need to be charmed to fall for him, like that girl from the Penddra family for example, in her case the effect of his ability was to raise the favorability that her family had for him, but that girl truly liked him, well, she went nuts when he used it also on her, maybe just for fun, or perhaps because he wanted her to prioritize his life over hers, to use her as a shield if needed, like he tried to do with Jasmine.

”Humph, the church of light is full of hypocrites that preach about life, peace and all kinds of pretty words, while in reality they only care about their own benefit”, mumbled the dwarf princess, still the gaze she was directing at Sera softened a bit, because there was genuine regret in her voice, if she was one of the bastards from the church of light which she knows about, she wouldn’t feel any guilt about it.

And would just have excused herself by saying that she was just following orders, but that wasn’t the case here.

”In a sense, you two actually saved a lot of lives because when you became Adam’s target, he didn’t seem to have the time to play around, that’s why that girl from the Penddra family hated you so much, because of you, Adam stopped paying her any attention for months”.

”As you probably already guessed, your meeting with him was staged, those ”slavers” that attacked your groups in that field exercise from your academy, were prepared by Adam with the help of… the church of calamity, so that he could save you and leave a strong good impression”, she said, which made both Tessa and Femi slightly grit their teeth.

Not at Adam’s actions, they had long known he was a piece of trash, so this didn’t surprise them, however they were accompanied by staff from the academy for that field exercise, among which there was at least one member of each of their families.

In other words, there was a high chance that someone from within their own family, cooperated with Adam, Tessa could still somewhat understand it, because her father, the king of the alfear has a lot of concubines, because the royal lineage had to be ”spread” and ”improved” and a lot of children, meant a higher chance of a talented descendant to appear, unfortunately none of them could compare to Tessa, the only offspring from the original alfear queen, who passed after giving birth to her.

So, there was a lot of drama in her family, though since her lineage was so valuable, never had they attempted against her life, until now, because Tessa considered being turned into Adam’s toy as something akin or worse to death.

Femi on the other hand, clearly looked more affected by it, because her family is really close, she was loved by all her relatives, or at least that was supposed to be the case.

”Don’t jump to conclusions yet, even miss Aurora was tricked into allowing that piece of trash near Jasmine, and you two know how much she loves her, so while sure there might have been some bastards collaborating with Adam, that doesn’t mean all of them are involved in what happened back then”, said Daimon to those two, whose stiff expressions eased up as they nodded at Daimon, an exchange that didn’t go unnoticed by Sera, who continued with her explanation.

”After his staged rescue succeeded, that guy was so happy that his tongue slipped, and he mentioned that those two were his ”ticket to the next level”, unfortunately after that, he simply complained that it was ”annoying to be forced to go through the slow route”, time after time”.

”However, I did obtain a couple of extra pieces of information from the Arch cardinal, first when I was ordered to gather some insanely expensive materials, that despicable woman said that the no price was high enough for ”the sword that carries light”, and the materials that I had to obtain were related to blacksmithing, so my guess for the dwarf princess is that he wanted a connection with the dwarf king and queen who are some of the most renowned magic blacksmiths in the four galaxies”.

”As for the alfear princess, I wasn’t given the mission regarding the preparation on that side, but I managed to eavesdrop a conversation between the head inquisitor and the captain of the sacred guards who I knew were working on it, where they talked about how hard was to find the materials for the ”holy ritual”, does that ring a bell for you?”, she asked to Tessa who shook her head in response.

”The alfear don’t believe in a god perse, but instead adore nature, though as descendants of elves of course we have records about the guardian of nature and balance, the World Tree which would be the closest to a ”god” for us, supposedly there is a leaf that came from it, somewhere in the royal treasury, but I don’t remember having read or heard anything with the word ”holy” in it, in our historical records”.

The reason as to why the alfear were in a close relationship with the church of light, is because they didn’t tolerate negative oriented races, so they had the same enemies in common, also non-royal alfear had a high chance to awaken light affinity, so there was that too.

While those two were trying to discern why Adam was so interested in them, Daimon also did his own investigation on the subject, by directly talking with the one that spent the most time with him, in other words the angel girl, Ariel.

’Anything you would like to say about this subject?’, he said, to which the angel administrator who usually remains silent and limits herself to observe the situation, actually answered without a second of delay.

’I actually have doubts about that, I do remember Adam complaining at every given chance about why couldn’t he just directly lay his hands on those two, but there was no active mission which involved them for him… something does come to my mind though, at some point in one of the many short reunions that Adam had with that Arch cardinal woman, there was a short two-minute period in which I was left out from both listening or seeing Adam’s actions’.

’To be honest I didn’t pay any mind back then, because those reunions were often so that, that woman could tempt Adam, only for him to be rejected when he tried to cross the lone, so I lost interest on them at some point and stopped caring about it, after all, he was proving to be a failure of a host’, she said, which made Daimon frown behind his mask.

Adam was the type to be overly reliant in his system, without Ariel he was nothing, as his short one-sided fight against the nethereal sisters proved, but apparently, he had found some kind of opportunity outside of the missions from his system, and that was probably related to Tessa and Femi, it should have been something he valued as much as the global raid mission of Neptune.

”Now that I think about it, what’s the story behind those tokens used to open the gate to the second layer of Neptune, in fact why is the church of light cooperating with the church of calamity?”, said Daimon, this question was directed to both Sera and Ariel.

”As I told you, I have very limited knowledge in fact the same applies to the vast majority of the church members, I only know that those things were left behind by the founders of the churches, alongside a prophecy and a single magic scroll that burnt to reveal the place where the ”chosen ones” would appear, the same applies to the church of calamity as far as I know”.

”The prophecy which goes around something like ”The victor from the ultimate encounter between light and darkness will bring those that follow him to eternal glory”, is the reason as to why both churches completely cooperate when it comes to the chosen ones”.

”The idea is to build a stage for a confrontation worthy of the term ”ultimate”, between them, which is why they are prohibited from trying to kill each other until then, though minor confrontations are allowed in order to prepare them for it, also, since the church is forbidden to directly interfere in it, Neptune was chosen to be the place for the final battle”.

”Anything else regarding the history of the church, its origin and the chosen ones, is only known by the Arch cardinal and the one that will occupy the charge after them…”, said Sera, which made Daimon raise an eyebrow at her.

Not because he doubted her words, but the complete opposite, she has talked about a whole bunch of subjects that should have been tied to secrecy with some kind of contract for sure, the only reason as to why she didn’t tell him anything else, is because she didn’t know more about it.

”Speaking of which, what is actually your position in the church of light and regardless of it, how come you freely talked about such secret subjects, without any care in the world?”, asked Daimon.

To be honest, he expected Sera to keep some things to herself using such an excuse, but no, she honestly answered to the best of her capacities, and that was strange.

”I guess it ultimately must come to this, I’m a daughter of the Arch cardinal… in a sense”, she said, which of course took all the presents by surprise.

While the one leading the church of light doesn’t have to abstain from being in a relationship, the Arch cardinal only has a daughter, who is also the one that will inherit said position and she is much older than Sera, not to mention that she is a peak Arch rank, meaning a whole major realm above Sera in terms of strength.

Daimon knows it because, she is from the same generation as Liz, and that fiery fox girl has mentioned their clashes to him, a couple of times before.

”To be more accurate, you could call me a degraded ”copy” of the Arch cardinal’s daughter, one that was created to be offered to the chosen one if he appeared in this generation”, she added.

”Woah, wait a second, are you telling me that the church of light managed to create practical and proper artificial human life, when both necromancers and those crazy guys who try to combine magic beasts to make new races, have failed at every given chance?”, exclaimed Arianna.

The closest to ”creating” an artificial proper life, are undead like Rita, and as you know, before being Daimon’s head maid, she had no emotions and was supposed to only listen to her master’s command, for the simple reason that undead have no souls, the most advanced and elite ones like Rita, develop a new ”identity” based on the tiny bits of the personality, from the corpse that was used to make them, and that’s it.

Sera on the other hand, has shown to have the capacity to think, take decisions and she also valued her life, so if anything, she would be comparable to the current Rita and Horals, and just by that Daimon directly discarded Arianna’s theory.

Even he has no idea of the reason behind the change that Rita and Horals underwent, in order to stop being undead and evolve into whatever they are becoming, so there was no chance that Adam’s system had that capacity, not at the level at which he was at least.

”That’s also not exact either, but the method for my conception was not the usual indeed, I would say it was a bit similar to the blood conception technique used by vampires, simply put, the church developed a ”room” which acts as an extension of the body of the Arch cardinal”.

”It was originally used to give the Arch cardinal a larger mana pool, but it ultimately turned into an artificial womb, where the results of combining the lineages of very specific members of the church with the one of the Arch cardinal, which descends from the original founder up to this day, are birthed”.

”I was conceived by combining the lineage from the head inquisitor of the same generation, when the Magic Emperor invaded the four galaxies, who was famous for his strong ”will”, even remaining unaffected by the fearful sensation of dread, caused by the difference in power, in other words I have resistance against abnormal mind statuses”.

”Of course, the strength of this innate ability was adjusted, so that I could handle the chosen one’s ”charm” at its initial stages only, so that I couldn’t go against the orders of the church, which is why I only have the star stigma in one of my eyes, as you can see”, she said as she opened her right eye for Daimon to see.

”I’m starting to pity the church of light, nothing is going their way recently”, jokingly said Daimon, to which Sera chuckled.

He killed their champion and hope, to begin with and the ”tool” they had raised to serve said champion, had rebelled against them, since a long time ago based on what he could tell.

”I managed to develop myself more than what I should have been able to, in secret of course, so I broke out from their control without them noticing, as that’s the specialty of the ”Radiant Will” lineage, unfortunately even if that was the case, my life and death was linked to the chosen one’s beck and call… or so we thought”, said Sera as she gazed at Daimon.

Earlier when he kept that crystal feather pendant, she felt an impending sensation of doom overwhelming her, in other words, her life wasn’t linked to Adam, but to the existence of his system.

”And even if that wouldn’t have been the case, as a ”copy” my lifespan was limited, and I could have only reached the middle stage of the Arch rank, that was the highest restriction placed in me so that I could never cause trouble to the church of light”.

”And those troubles were solved when you became a participant of the challenge in the Blood Prison realm, right?”, casually said Daimon, to which Sera smiled.

”Yes, and you solved the other problem by killing Adam, though I guess my life is now in your hands, but I think you are the type to rather have allies than disposable pawns, so I consider it a win”, she concluded.

Sera’s story was quite something, but leaving aside the fantastic aspects of it, what really mattered, is that it meant that the church of light had a deeper roots than what he expected, they weren’t just sucking up to Adam, unlike what one would believe.

After all, they had the means to link someone’s life to the existence of a system, though they did it by accident, it is still quite the feat, though it pales with Thalia’s one, which allowed her to detect system users.

”Wait a second, and what about that other woman, since you guys secretly work together, is she a copy of the daughter of the one leading the church of calamity then?”, asked Arianna, to which Sera shook her head.

”No, she is a copy of the one leading the church of calamity herself, her restrictions remain the same though, with the difference that she is unable to go against them unlike me, on the other hand she has it easier since that devil guy has no interest in her, and he prefers to do the dirty work himself instead”, she said.

”In that case, this cooperative attitude is because you want my help to destroy the church of light, or something along the lines of it?”, asked Daimon, making Sera be lost in her thoughts for a second.

”I mean, you are going to destroy it anyway, considering that their ideal is creating a place where negative oriented races doesn’t exist, I wish to tag along because I want to know why did they create me, after all they could have simply asked the descendants of that inquisitor to have as many offspring as possible, to use as pawns to watch over the chosen one”.

”And yet, they went through the trouble of using dozens of thousands of years, to develop an imperfect artificial life creation process, with the help of the church of calamity, so there must be a reason for it”.

”What do you say?”, she said.

Sera’s reasoning is simple, more than revenge, she wants to live on her own terms and she wants to know the reason of her existence, and she has determined that Daimon can give her that, so she is willing to cooperate with him.

”I say we have a deal”, said Daimon, as he had countless ideas in which Sera’s support could come in clutch, flash through his mind, also it would be a lie to say that the idea of using the terror contractor skill on her didn’t come to him, but she honestly didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.

Daimon might not consider himself nor does he desire to be a goody two shoes, but he promised Aisha that he wouldn’t become a piece of trash, and up to this day he has never given hell to anyone that didn’t deserve it.

That being said, it’s not like he could instantly trust her who used to assist one of his enemies, just because their objectives aligned, so he didn’t forget to add.

”It will be later, but we’ll still sign a contract for our mutual benefit and just to be clear about it, I’m not like Adam, if you break it, I will know it and you will die”.

”Mm~”, Sera happily nodded, the idea of working with someone instead of for someone, was quite the change for her.

And she wasn’t the only happy one here, because the moment she agreed to that, the unmistakable sound of a notification, reached Daimon’s ears.