Chapter 107: The Peace of Castlevania Shall Be Protected by Me, Ross!
The old recluse actually went out!?
That was Ross's first reaction when he read the notifications. Disbelief written across his face.
Across all of Castlevania's many entries, Dracula had died and been resurrected, resurrected and died, cycling through it endlessly and apparently happily. But even when he died, he died inside Castlevania. Even when the castle collapsed around him, he didn't come out, and frankly couldn't. So why had he suddenly gone out for a walk?
This was Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, not the spinoff Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. And certainly not the handsome-eighteen-year-old-high-school-student reincarnation version.
But then again: being integrated into the current Hunter world would cause a whole chain of consequences. Maybe something had genuinely drawn the shut-in out of the castle.
Unable to figure out why Dracula left, Ross stopped trying and returned his focus to Castlevania itself.
Dracula had arrived in the world. Castlevania had even "grown out" through some means. And it had now welcomed its first genuine batch of adventurers.
Looking at it this way, Castlevania was most likely in the human world rather than in Makai. If it were in Makai, the system would probably have described the intruders as "demons" rather than "Nen ability users."
But the landlord wasn't home. And he was being asked to temporarily manage the property. That made him the sub-landlord.
And even so: why was he taking over the monster faction? Wasn't he supposed to be the righteous vampire hunter?
Ross glanced at the Trevor C. Belmont character template still permanently mapped onto him and felt a certain absurdity that he couldn't quite name.
A fake Belmont family member, standing in for the absent Dracula, fulfilling the sub-landlord's duties to protect the peace of Castlevania.
He could only say that Chinese had a remarkable capacity for combining words. Even vocabulary this niche could be forced together into a sentence that would leave both Dracula himself and any actual Belmont family member completely stumped.
Unable to think his way through it, Ross stopped trying. His expression shifted quickly to something that was barely contained excitement.
The reason was simple. He had played the righteous crusader in countless games. But playing as a monster, as a BOSS, was an experience he almost never had.
In most games, players were required to identify with the righteous side and defeat the evil one. From a design standpoint, playable villain characters were rare.
From his experience, games where the player took the villain's perspective against a heroic opposition did exist: games like Don't Be Arrogant, Hero!, Dungeon Keeper, and Red Monster were solid entries in that space. There was even an asymmetric PvP competitive game called Evolve where players could control the BOSS unit against a team of others.
Too bad Evolve's operations were terrible and it shut down way too early.
But the villain-protagonist games Ross remembered most fondly were the Time Bokan duology on PlayStation. The protagonists' time ships were mostly built on animal and insect designs, and the villain trio, a fat one, a thin one, and the Demonic Sister who led them, had far more presence than the heroic leads. The ending theme belting out "Wuahahaha! Wuahahaha! Wuhahahaha!" was unforgettable.
Ross rubbed his hands together, pulled out Castlevania III, ejected the current cartridge, slotted in the new one, and powered on. The game's title screen appeared immediately.
But now, alongside the original OPENING and PASSWORD options, there was a new third entry: DRACULA.
He selected it.
Even the opening cutscene had changed. Instead of the cloaked Trevor accepting a quest and heading for the castle to defeat the vampire, it showed Dracula slowly rising from his coffin, a malevolent smile spreading across his face as he looked toward the outer grounds.
Once inside, the perspective shifted from the original 2D side-scrolling pixel style directly into a beautiful 3D first-person view.
Right. He was projecting into the real Castlevania. The 2D pixel style wasn't going to carry over.
"Can I switch the camera? First-person isn't really my thing."
Ross dug into the settings and found the third-person option quickly enough.
When the view shifted from first to third, he saw what he was actually controlling.
A pale, gaunt, shuffling skeleton soldier.
He instinctively pressed the side button to draw a weapon. The skeleton reached up, grabbed one of its own ribs, and wrenched it loose. A naturally curved bone boomerang now rested in its hand. Attack options: boomerang throw only. No melee. At all.
The weakest grunt at Castlevania's outermost perimeter was indeed exactly like this.
...Right. He needed to find out who the adventurers were.
In Ross's understanding, a Castlevania that had emerged from a Secret Realm would probably register in this world as some kind of ancient ruins that had broken free of its seal. Which meant the "adventurers" had a decent chance of being Ruins Hunters.
If he recalled correctly, Satotz, the mouthless first-exam proctor, and Ging Freecss, Gon's father, both operated in the Ruins Hunter domain.
If it was Satotz's group coming in, Ross would play a standard monster unit and have some fun with them.
If it was Ging Freecss, Ross would throw everything he had at him using every resource available. See what one of the world's five top Nen users was actually made of. Losing some monsters wouldn't cost him anything.
But when Ross maneuvered his skeleton soldier to the outermost perimeter of Castlevania and saw what the approaching party looked like on his screen, he couldn't help freezing up.
"Is it really just the four of us on this mission? The leader who issued it didn't even come. I'd say he doesn't rate this so-called Castlevania very highly."
"...Come to think of it, how long has it been since all thirteen were in one place?"
A man in loose Japanese robes, small mustache, a visible topknot, and two katanas at his hip, spoke with an unhurried lazy expression.
Phantom Troupe No. 1. Nobunaga Hazama.
"Two years and nine months. But even if everyone gathered, it wouldn't be like before. Numbers 4 and 8 have both been replaced by new members."
A short man, half his face hidden behind his raised collar, with sharp eyes, replied in a low raspy voice.
Phantom Troupe No. 2. Feitan Portor.
"More will arrive. The wandering knight says his airship was delayed, should be another half-day to a full day behind us. The collector has some interest in the treasure inside, should get here by this afternoon. Phinks agreed to come but had something sudden come up, unclear if he can still make it. The small one's been unreachable for a while now; picked up the phone just fine but probably got lost again. Everyone else either has other business or simply isn't interested in Castlevania. Oh, Machi: should the new No. 4 still be coming?"
A man of unusual height, stooped but still at least a head or two taller than everyone present, with various sutured scars across his face and two strange ornaments hanging from his large earlobes, ran through the roster of absent members and then turned to the smaller woman beside him.
Phantom Troupe No. 7. Franklin Bordeau.
"That one had both arms severed four days ago. I doubt they're coming."
Having just made seventy million Jenny off Hisoka, the high-ponytailed woman offered a few extra words in a good mood.
Phantom Troupe No. 3. Machi Komacine.