Red Roots

The Golden Prey-1

The Golden Prey

It is a great avenue to participate in a game once in a while. Every ten years, the kingdom celebrates by carrying out an annual hunting game. The target is a golden deer that eats only gold, but the main purpose of it being the most wanted prize is not because of its extravagant fodder, but the releases gained from hunting it. Something normal will not do any good, which was why it was decided for the first time in history to choose an out of the ordinary ferine.

Predators are bound to hound by the end of the day. Pushing that kind of natural instinct in will not do any good. Too much pressure then the next thing that will happen is a city full of rampaging vampires. Not that such a kind of savages, we won’t use humans to satisfied our hunger, even for blood. Though we won’t murder them, there are just some times when we need to go all the way, in order to unsuppress the killing urges.

On the plus side, it is also not a sin to murder something that is not exactly alive. Golden deer were built out of strong concentration of piles of mine gold.

“Madams and Lords, please welcome to the one hundred and thirteenth annual hunting game, held by the royal family themselves. Would participants this decade be registering and be prepared for our latest and freshly cut challenges. The Emperor, His Majesty Julius zi Britannia himself will draw the random chosen players. Before I start the list of rules, shall we put our hands together for an opening speech?” Rytho en Britannia shouts excitedly from a podium across from us.

Billions of vampires all over the empire are invited openly for this game. The stadium is wide enough to be filled by three hundred thousand rows and fifty thousand levels and still leave enough space to sit properly. There are even some spare areas that are hidden beneath the folds, ninety sloughs for novel families and seven larger podiums for each of the royal households, chattered in the middle of the rows. Everyone already set on their assigned sitting and anticipating the starter.

“Are you planning to participate this time?” Altore asks from my left side, sitting alongside with Elric and followed by Charlotte at the end of the row.

At the same time, Rytho turns his head to me, “Would everyone please welcome your one and only Crown Princess, Her Majesty Amethyst zi Britannia.”

“Yes,” I answer for both. I take a stand and step forward, making sure that everyone has a clear sight of me. My heavy silver gown clashes as I move, producing halcyon sounds. My crystal earrings blaze daringly when the light it them, peaking brightly from behind my thick, half-curled white snow strands. For this moment of celebration, I also wear my wonderful crown, clapping my forehead as a solid graded necklace, the blood rubies glaring at any eyes that land upon it.

I rest my hands against the vine railings in front of me and face my citizen, speaking steady and clear.

“Today, or until the next week, are not about the game. These days, Ladies and Lords, are about you and your needs. Our creative team has prepared the most violent, twisted and savage challenges only designed for your highest expectations. There will be murders, and there will be spilled blood.”

They cheer at the sounds of my promising tone, especially the Lords, who have been registering since the last hunting game finished. They are jumping all over the moon, no pun intended, though I have no doubt that some will try out of the level of excitement. Not even a single individual can be still as death once they get their minds into this, pun intended. This will be the moment they all have been looking forward to, pun very much intended.

I begin to open my mouth again and they start tuning down.

“There might not be any involvement of titanium in this game, but I can guarantee you that there will be some ways that might be going to force the participants to scream for life throughout the game. You can work together or you can trust yourself alone, but don’t forget to watch your back, because traitor can pop out just anywhere. This game will allow all the previous impossible chances to come out and play, so participants, you are highly demanded to beware. Now, who is ready to be face to face with cruelty?”

After my warning and generous smile, I can see that a few participants begin to concern. In the other side, the spectators are cheering and clapping even louder than before. “All Hail the Crown Princess!” they shout. They sure know that I do not joke about this, though. We have set the level of complication in this game even higher that the bar of the last decade’s as demanded from the citizen themselves. And high we do.

Returning to my royal sit, Rytho proceeds by taking over to listing out the rules.

“I can’t wait to rip that golden flesh with my fangs,” Altore mutters to me.

“Just fangs?” I title my head to face him slightly, while at the same time still training my eyes in the middle of the stadium. “You’re that confident that it won’t require a full set of your teeth to do it?” I ask, my tone teasing.

“You can’t expect anything less, or I might just get offended,” he replies with the same hint, a smile playing on his lips. For this occasion, he is wearing his imperial suit, which consists of the colour white mostly, and decorated with brilliant ruby gem ornaments everywhere, like the colour of his eyes. The outfit has lots of layers, including robes and scarves hanging on his broad shoulders, but what stands out the most is that recently-pierced earring on his right, chained with silver from edge to edge. It has a simple yet fancy design to it. “So, what makes you want to participate this decade?”

“What do you mean? I was involved on the previous hunting game before.”

He lets out a ‘pfffffft’-ing sound. “Being a Chessmistress is not considered as participating when you are missing all the actions.”

“The role can make quite an impact, and I tend to do the same again this time around,” I tell him.

“Oh, come on, Big Sis. You know you want to,” Charlotte exclaims from the end of the row. She is wearing a pale ivory full-bloom gown that ends on her knees. It has long sleeves from a medieval age style, and there are real rubies sewed on her bottom skirt. The look is completed with a red chrysanthemum on each side of her tied up hair.

“それはすべての*に、***に**のための**であるにもかかわらず、*々はすべてここに*る**の*い**があります , ” Elric adds up from her right side in Japanese. There is a strong reason why we all come here even though it is practically an early morning for humans, after all. “あなたは、この**を**にしたくはなりません、あなたがいないのだろうか？” You must not wish to waste this opportunity, won’t you?

Today he’s having a high collared suit, tailored to perfectly with white strings that blend well with the shiny fabric. Some silver lines are decorating his clothing, and he has small shaped swords as his jacket buttons. There are epaulettes on his shoulders in silver, holding on to his half-length cape.

Altore’s eyebrows are curling by that.

“What’s so great about humans that the two of you prefer so much, anyway? It’s not like there is any merit in defending them,” he says, recalling that in every conference gathering, Elric and I are almost in the same page. And I must say, that the two of us have become even closer after he has got back from his previous mission from the human continent.

“Brother, just admit that you are jealous, and I will tell you the reason,” Elric replies casually, causing Altore to blush.

“No, I’m not!” he snaps as Elric shares a look with me, a sneaky smile twitching on the edges of his lips. It seems like our little brother is in the mood for teasing.

“You’re not, or you won’t?” he questions. Charlotte sneaks a peak, seemingly looking forward to see her oldest brother’s reaction. Altore blushes even deeper when she plays that satire smirk.

“That’s okay, Brother. It’s good to be jealous. Sometimes I do too, when the two of you are so close with Big Sister. But what’s important the most is that you guys know that I am the closest to her,” she says.

“Really?” Altore arches an eyebrow. “And what makes you think of that?”

Charlotte says nothing, but lifts her doll up. Her full set of teeth shows up when she says, “The ultimate weapon, for the ultimate beloved.”

“That’s not fair. Yours only last this long because it’s not even alive,” he protests.

“Well, I don’t care about the being fair part, but at least I can take care of my gift,” she replies.

“Now, now, Charlotte. It’s not really Altore’s fault that he don’t know how to take care of a cub,” I tell her. “I guess I was putting too much life in it, and didn’t think that he would fail that horribly.” I mask a sad look.

“Hey, my skills are not that horrible,” Altore objects, knowing that I’m just teasing him as the rest of them. “Who knows how to take care of a newborn bear when he is only one hundred days old, anyway? Besides, I didn’t know back then that I had to feed it at least once a day. I had expected it to have much higher tolerance.”

“It’s a newborn, Altore. Of course it should have been fed more often,” Elric adds in, a disappointed shield on his face. Inside, the three of us are laughing out loud for him.

“ Alright, alright. Why don ’ t we just turn our attention back to the game, shall we? ” Altore grunts upsetly ─ well, not that serious as well. He knows that we are just bedeviling him.

Around the stadium,

“Ladies and lords, without any further delay, I would like to officially start the annual one hundred and thirteenth hunting game. Who will seize the chance to hunt down the golden deer this time? Don’t leave your sit yet, because things are about to get bloody,” Rytho declares elatedly from the podium across.

∞ ❈∯❈ ∞

“Participants in the field are allowed to strike each other without any limitation, except for erasing another participant permanently. Other means of methods, such as torture, internal bleeding, and body parts pulling are permitted. There will be no titanium allowed in the ground,” Rytho lists out the rules. “The Emperor will push the button that will allow the engine to randomly draw names and divide the participants into groups. Each group will consist of twelve participants. Chessmasters and Chessmistresses will be randomly set separately. Are you ready?”

A flat screen rolls down from the sky above his podium, fading in from blank to series of column. Father presses the button that was given to him and faces and names start to scramble quickly on the screen. After half a minute, the scrambling slows down and finally setting the groups.

The first group shows that Charlotte will be joining Vilvia as a fighter. There are some high ranks that got into the same group, along with a few more Varnaculars spread fairly.

Moving on, Elric gets the second group. He will be joining Lancel, who is posing as the Chessmaster. This will be an outdaring combination.

Altore gets to join the fifth group. Mauvet is there, taking part as another participant. It also turns out to be the group Vallénce will be acceding.

Meanwhile, I get to string along with older purebloods in group seven. Wallow of the ‘en’ household and Dablovo from the house of ‘el’ are among those entrants.

“Next up, our system will randomly choose each opponents of a group.”

On cue, the screen scrambles again. This time, when it stops, it shows two numbers face to face, two and eight. The first round will be on Elric. He rises up from his royal sit and climbs down one of the stadium’s pillars by locking his hand and leg around it in a standing position. Others move as well. Lancel joins an opposing group’s Chessmaster and enters his prepared pod.

There are two pods on the each end of the field, post up high to get a clear view. The game itself will start off like a chess board. Lancel gets the black one, while his opponent gets the white. The fighters will be the chess pieces, and the Chessmaster will be the King. Movements of the chess piece will determine who will be allowed to attack. If a piece gets close enough to the pod, he or she may launch attack on the King holder.