In the courtyard behind the royal castle was a stone monument to the Sun Giant Talos and the goddess Vida, and this was the spot in Talosheim that was said to receive the most sunlight.

In fact, the sunlight was very strong in the courtyard for some reason. It was as if it was summer. It was possible that the stone monument to Talos and Vida was the cause of this.

“Ugh, ah, hic.”

“Hah, ah, th-there, it’s so deep!”

“I… kuah*, ah, it’s hot, it’s like my body’s burning!”

“I-I can’t take any more, don’t pour any more into me, it’s going to overflow!”

TLN*: These lines are meant to be erotic. This particular one, however, has “i” and “ku” separated by the three dots. Together, they form “iku”, a phrase that means, “I’m coming” in certain contexts. Not sure if the author’s done that deliberately or not.

In that courtyard, there were beautiful women gasping for breath with their skin exposed.

“… I can stop anytime,” Vandalieu said to the four beautiful women… Bilde, Basdia, Eleanora and Kachia. What a tempting sight, he thought.

They weren’t doing anything particularly immoral or flirtatious.

There was a reason for this.
“N-no!” Eleanora cried. “I can still keep going!” White smoke was rising from her white skin, but this had all began when she said that she wanted to acquire the Sunlight Resistance skill in preparation for the war in spring.

Sunlight, silver and light-attribute magic attacks are universal weaknesses shared by all Vampires. The Status Effect Resistance skill does not offer them any defense against them, and skills like Sunlight Resistance and Silver Resistance cannot be acquired.

However, circumstances were different for Eleanora. As Vandalieu had acquired the Title of Eclipse King, it was possible for her to acquire the Sunlight Resistance skill.

The Mirg shield-nation’s expedition army that would approach in the spring would surely attack during the day. No human would dare fight during the night, knowing that their foes were monsters that could see in the dark.

There would probably be Vampire assassins mixed in among the expedition army’s forces, but they would cover themselves with a thick coat or full plate armor in order to prevent the sunlight from reaching their skin. There would be nothing more conspicuous if they were to do this in the middle of a town, but among the expedition army, they wouldn’t stand out at all.

Also, the Vampires would likely participate in the expedition posing as the private forces of noblemen or as mercenaries rather than as part of the regular army, so the fact that they wore different equipment from the regular army wouldn’t cause any problems.

Vandalieu had thought that it would be fine if Eleanora learned from their example and wore a heavy coat and veil or a suit of plate armor, but she was used to being agile in battle. Wearing some metal armor would slow her movements down only a little, but there was still time until spring so she had decided that it would be better to acquire the Sunlight Resistance skill.

And so, in this place where the sunlight was strong despite winter being close, she was busily sunbathing in order to acquire this resistance skill.

The sunlight was burning her as she was dressed in a stimulating way, having only her chest and her waist covered by pieces of cloth. She was healing her burns with her Rapid Regeneration skill, and Vandalieu was supplying her with Mana when she ran out.

It was quite the Spartan training regime, but for some reason Eleanora had shown incredible enthusiasm at the idea.

Vandalieu hadn’t been spoiling her lately, so he had decided to let her have her way.