35 Chapter 35: Among Us 3

Both Red and I rushed toward the master bedroom after receiving the signal from Yellow. She was standing a few feet away from Green's headless corpse, holding her mask in horror.

"T…this…" she spluttered. "When I came, Green was already like this…"

"…that's not good," I said. A total understatement, but that sort of conveyed perfectly the kind of shock I was supposed to feel.

"The imposter…!" Red growled. "So Cyan wasn't the imposter?!"

"I…I don't know!" Yellow clenched her fists, trembling violently. She did her best to compose herself and maintain a dignified appearance. "But who else could have done this?!"

"We'll find out," I vowed while glancing at the safe, and then at the corpse. To my complete lack of surprise, the Blood Diamond was no longer present in Green's hands. Hmm…curious.

Red studied the body for a bit and I stood by his side, pretending to take notes. After a period of time, Red then rose to his feet, apparently satisfied, and gestured for Yellow and I to follow him.

We descended from the master bedroom toward the main hall and took our seats at the huge table. Without further ado, Yellow banged her fist on the table.

"So who was it?" she demanded. "Who killed Green?"

"That's what we are here to find out," Red replied. "From the wounds, it appears that Green's death isn't recent. It happened at least an hour ago."

"I was in the study room then." Yellow turned to peer suspiciously at me and Red. "What about you two?"

"We were both in the storage room then," Red replied. "Then we went to the armory about 30 minutes later."

"I can testify," I added. "I was with Red the entire time."

"No, but that's impossible…!" Yellow protested. "How can that be…?"

"Why is it impossible?" I asked. "What do you mean by that?"

"I'm not the one who killed Green, so it has to be either of the two of you. But how…?"

"Yellow, you're acting kinda sus," I told her bluntly. "No one has even thrown out any accusations yet. Why are you so defensive?"

"I'm not acting sus!" Yellow shouted. "Stop trolling me!"

"Black isn't trolling you, though?" Red pointed out. "He's right. You're acting sus right now. Calm down."

"How do I know the both of you aren't collaborating to kill all of us?!" Yellow retorted. "No one ever said that there was more than one imposter! What if the both of you are imposters?"

"That's a fair point to make," I conceded. "Except that if it's true, we wouldn't be holding a trial like this. Since we clearly outnumber you, we might as well kill you outright. Why go along with this charade?"

"That's…"

"In any case, I know for sure that I'm not the imposter," Red declared. He glanced at me. "And I'm confident Black isn't the imposter as well."

If only you knew, my friend…if only you knew.

"Well, I'm not the imposter!" Yellow practically shrieked.

"No one said you are," I told her flatly. "Why are you so defensive? This only makes you more sus."

"If you say sus one more time, I'll kill you…!"

Then Yellow gasped and raised a hand to where her mouth would be, if it weren't for the damned silver mask. But it was too late.

"Kill me, huh? Like how you killed Green?"

"I didn't kill Green!" Yellow was on the verge of hyperventilating. She then swiveled to Red. "Wait, how is it possible that you were both together the entire time? Wasn't Black supposed to go to electrical to fix the generators? Did you follow him to electrical as well?"

"No," Red admitted. Yellow then pointed a finger at me triumphantly.

"Aha! Then you must have killed Green after you fixed the generators and brought the power online! That's the only explanation!"

"Now hold on a second," Red cut in and I could almost imagine him frowning. "That makes no sense. Black showed up in storage a few minutes after power came back on. There was no way he could have fixed the generators, left electrical in the basement and went upstairs to the master bedroom on the second floor, and then appeared back in storage in the basement in that short amount of time! Not unless he could teleport!"

"Are we vampires supposed to be able to cast teleportation spells?" I asked.

"Not that I've heard of," Red replied. "I haven't heard of teleportation spells before. Closest I've heard are shadow spells that allow you to cut across locations by moving through the shadows themselves."

"How do you know Black doesn't know shadow magic?" Yellow demanded. I shrugged and held up a hand, freezing a small ice rose in the palm of my glove. Then I turned it red by infusing it with blood.

"I can prove that I know ice magic and blood magic, but how exactly do you want me to prove that I can't cast shadow magic spells?"

"That's fair," Red agreed.

"You can't just wave that away!" Yellow protested hotly. "And besides, it doesn't prove anything! Even if you can't use shadow magic, you could have killed Green before going to electrical and fixing the generators!"

"That can't be right." Red frowned. "When we found Green's body, he was right in front of an open safe. The safe could only be opened after the power was restored. So whoever killed Green could only have done it after Black fixed the generators."

"Ugh…!" Yellow was probably sweating profusely inside her cloak and behind her mask.

"Speaking of the safe…" I turned to stare at Yellow. "What are you hiding?"

"W…what are you talking about?" Yellow demanded and backed away instinctively. "I…I don't know what you mean!"

"I don't remember seeing that bulge in your pocket before." With a flick of my hand, the blood-red rose transformed into a whip and sliced through the air, cutting open the pocket of Yellow's cloak. The Blood Diamond clattered onto the ground. I cocked my head and stared at the gleaming jewel for a second. "Is that from the safe?"

"That's…that's…!" Yellow spluttered, unable to deny it. "No! It's…! It's mine! I just…brought it along for this conclave!"

"Hmm, okay. Then where were you hiding it before? I'm sure it wasn't in that pocket…"

"Let me have a look." Red stepped forward, red mana suffusing his fingers before he cast it over the Blood Diamond. He then looked up. "Green's fingerprints are on this. And when I inspected his body earlier, I noticed that someone had tampered with his hands. He was clutching something, but someone pried his fingers open to take it."

"I…I…" Yellow stammered. "O…okay! I admit that I took the Blood Diamond from Green! But I swear, he was already dead when I took it! That's the truth!"

"You lied to us once already," I said, shaking my head. Diamond was truly a woman's best friend, but in this case, it betrayed her. "How are we supposed to believe you now?"

"No! I swear, I'm really…!"

"You're so sus, Yellow."

She screeched uncontrollably, triggered by my taunts, and lunged at me. Red reacted immediately and blasted her with a spell. Yellow coughed before she was hurtled through the main doors and into the Andromeda Blood Barrier. I watched with no small amount of satisfaction as her body was torn apart and she disintegrated.

Yellow was not the imposter. One imposter remains.

Unfortunately, Red was still unaware of that. He shook his head and turned back to me. Even without taking off his mask, I could tell that he was dismayed.

"It's just the two of us left now," he grumbled. "How…how could this conclave have gone so wrong?"

"Perhaps it's because our target was wrong to begin with," I replied. Red stared at me, not understanding.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Maybe we shouldn't have tried to assassinate the new Demonic Emperor. We should be focusing on the warlords instead. They are the bigger threat."

I swear, Red was glaring at me.

"Black, you're acting kind sus now."

"Ah, sorry." I sighed dramatically and shook my head. "It's just that…I don't know how else to explain this, you know? It's like…the gods have spoken."

"The gods don't decide our fates for us," Red declared fiercely. "We decide our own destinies."

"Well said." I nodded enthusiastically. Then I took off my glove and showed him the back of my right hand. "So…how do we decide this?"

For a moment, Red froze, not understanding. Then blood-red mana exploded around him as he tried to blast me with a spell.

"You! You are the new Demonic Emperor!"

He too late. The entire hall was instantly frozen solid, including Red, whose body was covered in ice. He struggled for a moment, flexing his blood aura to shatter the ice.

"You're the imposter! You tricked us!"

"Well, you guys tried to kill me," I replied before beheading him with Blood Angel right before he could fully free himself from the ice. "This is only self-defense."

Then I stabbed his head with the crimson blade to obliterate his brain and kill him once and for all. Outside, the Andromeda Blood Barrier fizzled and then vanished completely.

Taking off the silver mask, I pushed my glasses up my nose and smirked.

"Well, that's one less conclave I have to worry about."

*

Over the next couple of hours, I got rid of the corpses of Red, Green and Brown, utterly destroying them so as to wipe out all trace of them. I kept the Blood Diamond, not knowing what it could do. Well, I was sure Claude could tell me. Judging from Green's delight and Yellow's greed, it must be something very valuable.

Then using Nocturne, I melted into the shadows and emerged from the shadows outside the castle. As convenient as Nocturne's shadow magic was, it had a range limit. I couldn't transport across vast distances. I could only move through the shadows within a limited vicinity. And it consumed quite a lot of mana too, so it was not practical for long-distance travel.

It was something used only when I wanted to be stealthy or to escape a persistent and swifter foe.

There was no sign of any of the escorts. I wondered how long before the respective regiments would discover the demise of their lords and lady. They had been ordered to stay away and not set foot into Bournemouth Castle until they received instructions to a contrary. How long until they realized they wouldn't be receiving those orders to escort them home? Probably a week or so?

By then, I would be far away from here, and they would never suspect that the new Demonic Emperor was behind all this.

"Well, that's enough adventure for now."

With part of my goal completed, I returned to Claude's castle. With the deaths of one of the anti-Demonic Emperor conclaves, I should be able to breathe easier now. No doubt there would be a few of them getting in my way if they found out my intention to visit Lindley in Ixia. Not only that, the demise of a single conclave would strike fear into their hearts.

I had proven that the new Demonic Emperor was not one to mess with. Not enough to catch the attention of the five powerful warlords, given that I had only eliminated a few lesser nobles who had foolishly discarded forgone the protection of their escorts for secrecy, but enough to warn the other nobles who harbored aggression against me for their own ambition that they might be next. At least that was what I hoped.

Also, this opened up the potential to add to our forces. I made a mental note to ask Claude to investigate if there were any nobles who vanished mysteriously in the last few days, and then to extend an invitation to their currently leaderless regiments to join us. There were probably a few like the vampire knight I overheard complaining in the tavern, forced to endure their lords and ladies' folly even though they didn't want to revolt.

"Stella should also have completed part of her training by now," I mused to myself. If that was the case, there was little reason to put off my original mission.

It was finally time to go to the island of the undead.