Blood, Wolves, and a City of Death
To vampires, blood carried a far deeper meaning than it did for any other living creature.
It was more than merely the essential substance that made up the body; it was something that could stand for existence itself.
The blood of one’s lineage, the blood that flowed through one’s veins—these were nothing less than the core of identity.
Because of that, a vampire’s blood could be put to use in many different ways.
“To bestow my blood, then.”
“Yes! If you do that, the Wolf King will be fully subordinated to the Lord! It’s a kind of contract!”
“Hmm.”
Cabin was practically bursting with excitement, his face lit up brighter than anyone else’s.
When Penrix had said he would offer his loyalty, I had simply told him to do as he pleased.
He wasn’t my sworn enemy, after all; there was no reason to stop him from pledging loyalty.
Besides, once I left the mountains, I had no intention of ever coming back here, so it didn’t matter what happened afterward.
I had been thinking of brushing it all aside and heading for the Bernice Empire.
“Hurry! Lord! This is an enormous opportunity!”
Cabin shouted in a frenzy, staring at Penrix, who still lay flattened against the ground.
Once again, the real problem was Cabin.
The moment I said I would accept Penrix’s loyalty, he started practically forcing me to perform whatever this Blood Subordination was supposed to be, his eyes gleaming with excitement.
What Cabin called Blood Subordination was basically a knight’s oath, only far more binding.
It was, in a very literal sense, subordination.
The method was simple.
Letting my blood flow into the body of the one I wished to subordinate.
Anyone who received my blood would become absolutely obedient to me.
“If you subordinate the Wolf King, it’s no different from taking control of the west of the demon lands! And if Banua surrenders too…!”
Cabin clenched his fists, so thrilled by the thought that he could barely contain himself.
“My lord… please, your blood…”
What surprised me was that Penrix, unlike I’d expected, also agreed with Cabin about Blood Subordination.
Even after Cabin had brought it up, Penrix didn’t refuse or look troubled. Instead, he seemed to want it.
That settled it.
If the one to be subordinated wanted it, was there any reason for me to refuse?
“Then so be it.”
From the earlier battle, I’d definitely learned how to gather blood in my hand.
I collected the thick, sticky blood in my right palm and slowly reached toward Penrix’s massive wound.
Drip—
A single drop fell from my fingertips and landed directly in the gash.
Tap.
The blood that touched the wound vanished as if it had been absorbed straight into Penrix’s body.
Keeeeing—!
As my blood flowed into him, a cry of pain burst from Penrix.
“Ooh!”
I wasn’t yet sure whether the subordination had worked, but then Cabin’s voice of admiration rang out beside me.
What had astonished him was the change taking place in Penrix’s body.
The long wound ripped open across Penrix’s stomach began to close under the touch of my blood.
The speed of recovery was on par with, if not better than, the healing magic of a high-ranking priest.
Grrr—
Penrix’s cry of pain soon changed into a deep, contented rumble.
At the same time, I felt a powerful certainty that, from now on, neither Penrix nor I would be able to harm the other.
So that’s why he wanted to be subordinated.
As Penrix slowly regenerated, the look in his eyes was no longer yellow.
His bright yellow irises had already shifted to red.
I was watching those red eyes of his restore themselves little by little when another voice cut in.
“I-I can too…”
The owner of that thin, trembling voice was Banua.
Having finally come to his senses, Banua was looking back and forth between Penrix and me with a desperate expression.
“If you subjugate me, I can only do it once, but through a ritual I can show you the near future.”
The meaning behind that expression and that voice was simple.
Hmm.
It seemed he was terribly afraid of getting beaten, but the word “prophecy” caught my interest.
I wasn’t foolish enough to believe completely in the prophetic powers of some snake, no matter how much of a king he claimed to be.
But for now, if I could learn even something as simple as how much time Silvia had left, that would be enough.
“Very well.”
I began gathering blood in my right hand again.
**
Ronier, the city closest to the demon lands in the northern reaches of the continent.
In Ronier, a city where daylight never felt longer than night, tension always hung in the air.
That was only natural.
This was the so-called City of Death, where battles with monsters broke out all too often.
Thanks to the allied army stationed nearby, monsters rarely broke directly into the city, but the air in Ronier always carried the stench of death.
It was no exaggeration to say that the city had more corpses than living people.
There were the bodies of allied troops who had died in fierce battles against monsters.
The bodies of countless adventurer parties who had set out boldly, declaring that they would explore the demon lands.
And even the bodies of residents who left the city to hunt or gather and met with accidents along the way.
Because it stood on the border with the demon lands, Ronier had no choice but to become a place crawling with corpses and death.
“Cloudy as hell today.”
Boyan, who had lived in Ronier for decades, muttered to himself as he looked up at the sky, darkened by heavy clouds even though it was still broad daylight.
After the Wolf King’s furious howls from the demon lands the previous night, it almost felt as if even the weather had grown angry along with him.
Even to Boyan, a day this overcast was a rare thing.
It was so dark it almost seemed as if night would just keep going forever.
“Hrrm.”
Boyan stared at the gloomy sky and thought it over for a moment.
From years of living on the outskirts of Ronier, he knew this kind of weather always brought trouble.
Based on everything he had seen in life, wandering out to gather herbs on a day like this was asking for bad luck.
The sky was so heavily overcast that visibility was poor, and it wouldn’t take much to miss a monster creeping up on him.
I’d better call it a day.
Just as Boyan was gathering up his bundle of herbs and preparing to head back into the city, an artificial sound reached his ears.
It was neither the rustle of wind nor the fall of leaves.
It was footsteps.
Swish—
Boyan instinctively slid his hand behind his waist and stayed on guard.
He might have grown shabby and old, but Boyan had once served as a knight in the great Bernice Empire.
That experience was what had given him the courage to settle in Ronier, a city called Death, even in old age.
With a small dagger gripped behind his back, Boyan sharpened his senses toward the sound coming from deeper within the forest.
Step—
What?
It was a situation in which it would not have been strange for some monster to leap out, yet the figures emerging from the dark forest were not monsters.
They were two people.
One of them, moreover, was still just a boy.
“Who goes there?”
“Where are you…”
“We’re adventurers who went out to explore. The party was wiped out, and we’re the only ones left.”
At the white-haired man’s calm explanation, Boyan let out a small sigh and released the dagger he had been gripping tightly.
Just from the way they looked, he could tell what had happened.
The slender white-haired man was probably a mage or a priest who had taken the rear position in the party.
And the boy beside him was likely just a novice who had tagged along without knowing any better.
It was rare to bring a trainee into the northern demon lands, but perhaps this had been a party overflowing with confidence.
“You two made it out of the demon lands, did you? That’s something.”
“Is there a village nearby?”
“There is indeed.”
It wasn’t unheard of for an adventurer party that had entered the demon lands to make it back out, though it was certainly uncommon.
Of course, it was even rarer for only two such frail-looking people to make it out alive.
A sword…?
Boyan had naturally assumed the white-haired man was a mage or priest, but only now did he notice the sword hanging at his waist.
It was a white blade, matching the man’s hair.
And it didn’t even have a proper scabbard.
“Are you a knight?”
“I am.”
“You don’t look the part.”
Boyan gestured for the two visitors to follow him and started walking.
At the same time, he immediately understood why this adventurer party had been wiped out.
Of course they got wiped out. They put some skinny fellow like that in charge of the knight.
The knight was the one who stood at the very front, the first to clash with monsters.
And yet they had entrusted that role to someone so thin he didn’t look as if he had a single muscle on him.
Thinking how hopeless it was, Boyan moved toward the city in silence.
The white-haired swordsman was the first to break it.
“Are we heading to Ronier now?”
“Aye.”
“Ronier…”
The white-haired swordsman murmured to himself and fell silent, as if lost in thought.
Boyan didn’t bother to keep the conversation going.
He assumed the white-haired swordsman was probably overwhelmed with emotion at having survived and was sinking into his own thoughts.
*
As I entered the quiet city, a familiar landscape caught at my eyes.
Even though the sun was still up, the heavy clouds made everything dim and gray.
The buildings looked far more sinister and desolate than they had the last time I’d seen them.
So I really did come back.
Seeing the familiar structures of Ronier made it sink in all over again that I had truly returned.
To be honest, when I had been inside the demon lands, I’d lost a fair bit of my sense of reality.
I could feel through all five senses that I was alive, yes, but everything was simply too unreal.
Wolves and snakes living in the demon lands, not to mention vampires—no, a Vampire Lord.
The situation had been so far removed from the world I knew that, for a while, I had practically given up on thinking about it.
But now that I was looking at a place and background I recognized, it hit me at once.
That I had truly been revived not in a human body, but in the body of a Vampire Lord.
“That’s the inn. Got any money?”
“I don’t. Ah, could I perhaps borrow some?”
“Hah. Ridiculous.”
The old man’s reaction was exactly what I had expected.
Who would lend money so readily to someone whose identity they didn’t even know, someone who had just stumbled out of the demon lands?
“Can’t lend money to someone who might die any day, any place.”
“Hmm.”
“Y-you bastard…”
“Thank you for guiding us this far.”
As the old man’s words set Cabin off, I cut him off before he could snap at the man.
The old man glanced at Cabin once, then turned and went on his way.
I watched him disappear into the distance, then lightly touched the sword at my waist.
More tolerable than I expected.
He was the first human I had met since becoming a vampire, so I had been tense, but it was better than I’d thought.
As expected, after my fight with Penrix and Banua, I had become far better at suppressing my craving for blood.
That battle gave me a lot.
What I gained from the fight with the Wolf King and the Snake King wasn’t just the ability to control my impulses.
I’d become able to create a Blood Sword, and, unexpectedly, I had also gained the subordination of “two” beings.
On top of that, I had also managed to obtain the sword I was now idly touching.
This blade, boasting a gleaming white edge without even a scabbard, had been forged from Penrix’s fang.
It was Penrix’s fang, offered to me as a sign of loyalty after he had become my subordinate.
I didn’t know as much about materials as a blacksmith would, but I could tell at a glance that it was precious.
Unlike ordinary iron swords, it didn’t break even after becoming a blood sword.
And in the midst of all that, Banua’s “revelation” had shown me that Silvia was not yet in any immediate danger, so I had ended up with an unexpected bonus as well.
“Lord! Let me deal with that insolent human right now!”
“Quiet, Cabin.”
“Grrr…”
Cabin still seemed unable to let go of his anger over the old man, who was already gone from sight.
We had only just met a single human, and he was already reacting like this.
It really would’ve been easier to come alone.
Though that was, of course, a belated realization.
“First, we need to stay at the inn.”
Leaving Cabin to grumble to himself, I headed for the inn.
To meet the human Banua had told me about, I would first have to wait until dawn inside an inn in Ronier.
Silvia.
I repeated the name softly, and just thinking it made my steps quicken.
“My lord! Wait for me!”
I’d better fix that way of addressing me first.
That was what I thought as I listened to Cabin shout from behind and come hurrying after me in a panic.