C172: Mysterious dagger
Arnold, Arriet, Florence, Jack, and the headless Rudolph stood in a loose circle around Roson's corpse, gazing down at it in silence.
Arnold approached Roson's body slowly and carefully, while around him, everyone watched in vigilance, their attention fixed on the body in case the Dhampir suddenly moved again.
He looked down at the woman's corpse. Steeling his mind, he gripped the hilt of the exquisite sacrificial dagger plunged into her chest and slowly drew it free.
Almost immediately, a frown creased his bandaged face.
‘I didn’t mean to use this.’
Inside the mindscape, Izzy eyed the dagger in Arnold's hand with puzzlement.
At the conclusion of the fight, her plan had been to have Arnold seize a silver dagger and kill the woman with it. Not this ornate dagger.
More precisely, she had employed Psychokinesis, guiding a silver dagger toward Arnold's waiting hand, positioning it for him to drive through the Dhampir's heart.
Yet, for some reason, it was this dagger that had flown into Arnold’s grasp, and he had driven it into Roson’s chest.
A Dhampir’s weakness was silver. That much Izzy knew.
Decapitation was out of the question, since their vessels did not possess sufficient physical strength to sever an adult's neck using only a handheld dagger.
So naturally, the only reliable method of killing a Dhampir was to pierce her heart with silver.
She would never make such an amateurish mistake simply because of the tension of battle.
On the contrary, since two minds had been controlling the flow of the battle, with Izzy's calculations and Isa's genius-level processing working together flawlessly, the very notion of mistake was simply impossible.
'Why did I experience this sudden lapse in judgment?'
Unless, of course, another extraordinary ability had been involved in the affair.
And upon first reflection, the sensation of the error felt similar to Davis's [Distraction] ability.
However, that man's hatred toward this woman was undeniable and genuine. This was, after all, the one who had killed his boss. It was out of the question that Davis would attempt to trick or mislead her.
Arnold crouched down beside the corpse and conducted a thorough inspection. He placed two fingers against the woman's cold neck, checking for any residual pulse, and observed her chest for any sign of breathing.
‘She’s really dead.’
No. The fact that she had died was not the problem. The problem was that she had died because of the exquisite sacrificial dagger.
This dagger, Izzy recalled clearly, was something she had discovered in a room beneath the mansion. It had lain before a strange altar-like table, where two swords crossed in an X shape and pierced through a human skull.
‘Another hidden ability that I know nothing about?’
The golden sacrificial dagger rested obediently in Arnold’s hand. Its ornate handle still gleamed beneath the moonlight, covered in intricate designs, while the sharp blade, engraved with unreadable runes, pulsed softly with a rhythm reminiscent of breathing.
‘Is it because the blade is made of silver?’
Izzy could not tell whether the blade was made of silver or some other material.
She was not the one who had crafted the weapon. Only a trained professional with the proper expertise would know such a distinction at a glance.
At first glance, the dagger appeared to be an ordinary ceremonial weapon, the sort one might find in a temple. No one would suspect that it possessed the ability that made people instinctively become cautious in its presence.
Earlier, before the battle had commenced, Izzy had poured a measure of Pure Yan essence onto it and smeared the blade with mouse blood.
Izzy knew a Dhampir’s sense of smell was exceptionally acute when it came to the scent of blood, so she had exploited that fact to deceive the female assassin.
With that, along with Davis’s flawless acting, they had constructed a scene in which Arnold plunged the dagger into Davis's chest and left him collapsed, appearing to be mortally wounded and dying.
In truth, she had only pressed the blade against the side of his arm. But from a distance, anyone watching would unquestionably have mistaken the gesture for a fatal stabbing.
In that same window of time, she had used Psychokinesis to stealthily steal Davis's own dagger, concealing it beneath Arnold's sleeve, allowing Arnold to potentially ward off Roson’s attack in case the Dhampir discovered the deception.
It had been a flawless performance. Through that performance, she had managed to safely expose the Dhampir’s location, reveal how many enemies she needed to deal with, and plan accordingly.
As for the sacrificial dagger itself, it had lain beside Davis throughout the entire engagement.
Izzy frowned, studying the sacrificial dagger through Arnold's eyes.
Upon closer inspection, with Arnold's Field Vision, Izzy could discern something distinctly wrong with the weapon.
‘The blade is too clean.’
Arnold had smeared the dagger with mouse blood earlier.
And mere moments ago, Arnold had plunged the dagger directly through Roson's back and into her heart.
Yet now, resting in Arnold's palm, the dagger's blade gleamed pristine and unblemished in the moonlight, without a single drop of blood remaining on it.
'Did... did the dagger somehow absorb her blood?'
Izzy’s eyes widened. Arnold’s hand trembled slightly around the handle, reflecting her genuine inner turmoil.
‘How? Why? What is the nature of this dagger?’
She had long known that this dagger was anything but simple, given its origin from Benjamin. But she had never once imagined that the truth would prove this unsettling.
Izzy forced herself to calm down, drawing several steadying breaths within her mindscape.
‘No. Since this dagger hasn’t meant me any harm all this time, I shouldn’t display any fear or open suspicion toward it.'
Was this perhaps another case of a hidden consciousness residing within the dagger?
‘Is there anything normal around me?’
First the doll. Now this. What was next? Hidden entity residing within the eagle-headed cane?
Izzy, even for her naturally cautious disposition, genuinely did not wish to discover the answer at all.
'If it is not broken, do not fix it. For now, I should leave this thing alone.’
Well, since Izzy herself was not the one directly exposed to any risk, and Arnold was, after all, merely a disposable vessel, she decided to continue keeping the dagger close at Arnold's side as a reliable weapon.
Besides, she had the impression that she had just stumbled upon an unexpected boon.
'This dagger could kill a Dhampir.'
She wasn’t entirely certain whether an ordinary weapon could kill a Dhampir if driven directly into their heart, but for the present moment, she would thoroughly examine this information before drawing any conclusions.
'And most importantly, it can absorb blood.'
Perhaps it specifically absorbed the blood of the Vampire Path? After all, it had not absorbed Glen’s blood when Izzy killed them inside the mansion, nor had it absorbed the mouse blood either.
Who could say? If she succeeded in uncovering this secret, the knowledge might prove invaluable to her in the future.
Izzy exhaled slowly and relaxed her shoulders, releasing the accumulated tension that had gripped her throughout the entire ordeal.
A troublesome opponent, this Dhampir was. Izzy had to deploy all of her puppets, her entire arsenal of weapons, and expend a number of silver daggers, just to bring this Dhampir down.
It had been a stroke of fortune that the woman finally displayed fear at the very end, after discovering Arriet's presence.
Izzy was not certain why she had addressed Arriet as "the Blind," but at that moment, it had been the least of her concerns.
Isa’s strategy of using Arriet paid off. Quite well, in fact; even Izzy was left dumbfounded.
‘Where on earth did she pick up those moves?’
It shouldn't be from Izzy, right?
With a little fear consuming Roson, Jack had managed to amplify that emotion exponentially using the cane.
Which was, admittedly, quite a setback, because she was now running out of Pure Yan essence bottles.
With the Dhampir consumed by terror, the rest had become easy. Davis would exact his vengeance on her with his own hands. Which he failed to do. A shame, but not a major problem.
Because of his failure, Izzy had fortuitously discovered a new capability of her dagger, so would not blame the man for failing to kill the Dhampir himself.
As for the life energy that this assassin had released upon her death... apparently, Izzy could not absorb it through her vessels.
Only the main body, currently in the mansion's attic, could absorb it.
‘I wonder, if I advance to a higher Stage, would I be able to absorb energy directly through my vessels?'
Assuming a Curse could advance at all.
Izzy tapped her chin thoughtfully, while simultaneously attempting to use Arnold to absorb the remaining life energy that was dissipating into the cold night air around the corpse.
The attempt failed miserably.
She shook her head in disappointment.
‘It is a huge waste, but it is what it is.’
Whoever created her, she felt as though they wanted her as miserable as possible. But perhaps it was just in her imagination.
Izzy returned to Arnold’s perspective.
Arnold carefully slid the dagger back beneath his coat, securing it in its familiar place against his ribs.
Meanwhile, Davis had positioned himself at an increasing distance from the group. Each time Arnold glanced in his direction, the man seemed to have drifted yet another several steps further away into the shadows.
“Where are you going?”
Arnold could not help but ask. He simply did not understand what had come over this thin, fickle man.
Initially, Davis had been the most vigorous and vocal advocate for revenge. But now, for some reason, he appeared deeply apprehensive, seemingly desperate to put distance between himself and the aftermath.
“E-err, ahaha. Junior, I’m…" The man jolted, hurriedly raising his hands. "I’m merely watching over our surroundings, ya understand! Simply ensuring that no other ambushers lurk about the area, that is all!"
He spoke in a trembling voice, his eyes darting toward the little girl, his pupils shaking uncontrollably.
Arnold frowned. He shook his head, but decided against pressing the matter further.
However, the little girl in the black dress seemed to have a different idea.
She closed her black umbrella, trotted lightly toward Davis with a cheerful expression, and beamed up at him with a bright, sunny smile.
"Hello, Mister Daviz! Night to meet you!"