Vampire Hunter D Volume 18- Fortress of the Elder God by Hideyuki Kikuchi Page B

there.”
    “Don’t make me laugh, you stupid flunky! There ain’t a chance of an incompetent like you making it out of here alive. Either those clowns out there will shoot you full of holes, or our wonderful god is gonna gobble you up. It’s fine if you wanna pretend you’re running the show, but I doubt you can even wipe your own ass.”
    “You little son of a bitch!” Weizmann growled, his hand going for the motor gun by his hip. The cylindrical magazine rested at his feet.
    “You want a piece of me?” Jan said, getting a firm grip on the hilt of his broadsword.
    “Hold it right there. This is disgusting,” Maria said, stepping between them. “We’ve got three sick people in the next room. They can hear every word you say. If you’re grown men, try acting like it. So, good-looking, you sure you don’t want to come up with some way to get all of us out of here first?”
    “I’ve got something to do before that,” D replied.
    Maria shrugged her shoulders. Though she had experience changing men’s minds, she knew in an instant that this time it wasn’t going to work. That being the case, she had to look for the next best alternative.
    “Then we could always take off on our own. What do you think, warrior?”
    Bierce nodded. He shared her sentiment.
    “The best thing to do would be either to go by boat under cover of night or scale the mountain behind us, I suppose.”
    Having said this, he looked at D to gauge his reaction, but all that lay before him was the Hunter’s icy beauty. D had promised to protect them once he’d taken care of his previous engagement. If they were to nullify that, they would mean nothing to him.
    Looking at the door to the treatment center, Bierce said to Maria, “We can get out of here, but can we bring them with us?”
    Heaving a sigh, the woman shook her head. “That’s the tricky part. All three of them are running high fevers now, moaning and groaning. They need two or three days of complete bed rest. If we had some medicine, they wouldn’t be in such pain, though.”
    Silence descended—it was the silence of everyone waiting for someone else to save them.
    “Leave ’em.”
    It wasn’t clear who said this. Nor could they even tell which direction it’d come from. They all eyed each other uncomfortably. The remark had made one thing perfectly clear.
    “That’s a hell of a thing to say,” Jan said, glaring all around him, but his voice had no force behind it.
    No one responded.
    “At any rate, when we leave, we’ll all be going together,” Weizmann finally said, and the rest of the group nodded in unison.
    Turning to D, he said, “Seems your job is to defeat this god thing, but what are your chances?”
    “You mean to tell me you only take jobs you know you can do?” D replied frostily. “I can’t say that I’ll come out on top. I can’t say how long it’ll take, either. So you folks have to choose your own path. But since a Noble’s after you, I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”
    The officer was at a loss for words, and everyone looked down at the floor. Weizmann himself had come up with the lie about him being pursued by a Noble.
    “But first, you have to wait until this job is finished. Whether you make a break during that time or stay here is up to you. You’ve got a leader for that.”
    No one looked at Weizmann.
    “I’m off. I leave the rest to you.”
    As D walked away, no one called out to him. He was right. Everyone had to look out for themselves. This was the Frontier.
    -
    III
    -
    After turning a fourth corner, D suddenly halted.
    “What is it?” asked a hoarse voice from the vicinity of his left hand.
    “The path is changing.”
    “I don’t sense anything at all.”
    “That’s how the believers brought it human sacrifices.”
    “Hmm, you’re just full of fun facts, aren’t you. Well, it sure seems they don’t wanna let you reach the god. Looks like that time with the Sacred Ancestor took a lot out of