The Blood Race (2): The Vampire Recruits' Unexpected Arrival
The sun had risen, and the hunt had begun.
“Archbishop! Hurry up!”
“I’m doing it…”
A month earlier, the Archbishop had summoned the World Tree while mocking us, but now he was dragged in to dig and cast tracking magic.
No trace of his former majesty remained.
As the only Lich in Necropolis capable of using proper magic, he fished out a handful of magic stones from his pocket, clenched them tightly, and chanted.
“From the earth to the earth. From the sky to the sky. When they meet, the path will open.”
“That’s kinda cool.”
The more I looked, the stronger the urge to command the magic unit grew.
The skeleton mages could probably level up to Lich later… but that was still far away.
Wooong…
The magic circle drawn in the air above the note shone brightly and pointed in one direction.
“Good, let’s keep going straight.”
I had brought an army, but friction might occur if people were present, so I decided on a small elite group.
The members were me, Yeomje, and Lahan.
“Ttacttac-i! Keep your ears open! Let’s go by truck!”
- Ttacttac!
And there was Ttacttac-i to drive.
For the first time in a while, Ttacttac-i, sitting in the driver’s seat of the truck, began driving toward the direction the tracking magic pointed.
“Let’s try using magic again from here. Archbishop!”
“My name is not Archbishop…”
“Even if you know my name, I’m the Archbishop. Get used to it.”
We kept using tracking magic intermittently to pinpoint our location and soon reached the place where the note had been sent.
“Already at Eunpyeong-gu…”
“Eunpyeong-gu sits right on the edge of a dangerous zone. That’s why monsters haven’t disappeared and survivors are almost nonexistent.”
Just as Yeomje would say. Thanks to his former Special Agent Bureau days, information flowed smoothly.
The destination was a small park nestled on a hillside.
“Anyway, this is it? Let’s dig up the ground.”
“Leave it to me. I come from the engineering unit, so I’m used to shoveling!”
Lahan said that and began creating multiple shovels at once, simultaneously starting to dig.
No, if the shovels are floating in the air to dig the ground, being from the engineering unit is irrelevant.
Anyway, the stones and rocks that kept appearing were shattered by Yeomje as we dug, and soon concrete floors were revealed.
“What is this? On the park floor?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to break it?”
“Then break it!”
I didn’t know why it was blocked like this, but in a society that had already collapsed, it held little meaning anyway.
The moment Lahan created a massive boulder and brought it down, a foul stench hit us.
“Ugh… what is this smell!”
“It seems like a sewer.”
“You guys aren’t bothered?”
“We undead aren’t sensitive to smells, so it’s fine.”
I didn’t want to go in… but I wasn’t the only one reluctant.
It wasn’t that bad. After all, I had to get back in the same truck as those guys who were buried in stink. I might as well just go.
After Lahan, the Archbishop, Ttacttac-i, and Yeomje went in, we descended inside along the stairs Lahan had made.
“There’s no water inside.”
“Recent rain hasn’t come, and no domestic water is used, so that makes sense.”
Yeomje said it curtly.
Of course. With the water supply cut off, there was no reason for water to accumulate if it hadn’t rained.
The smell… actually became less intense inside. It had probably been washed away every time it rained.
I was holding my nose and breathing through my mouth, though.
“Quickly, quickly.”
Once more the Archbishop cast tracking magic, pointed to one side of the sewer, and we walked toward it.
Before long, faint voices began to drift in.
“My lord—.”
“Don’t doubt— that person is—.”
Right, these guys.
The atmosphere wasn’t great, as if they were arguing among themselves. Getting closer, I saw a makeshift wall made of bricks with cracks and broken corners piled haphazardly.
Had they turned this place into their lair?
“No, we sent the note yesterday evening, so why haven’t you come yet?”
“You might have lost your way a bit.”
“No, my lord knows the locations of those connected by blood, so…”
I pressed my ear to the wall here to listen better.
But the wall was weaker than I thought.
Creak… thud.
Bricks tumbled loudly as the inner view was revealed. In the narrow space, seven people huddled together.
The sharp-eared, red-eyed beings all turned to look at me.
“My lord? No, it’s not my lord!”
“Got caught! Everyone run!”
“No, isn’t the lord pretending?”
“Whose soul is that? What kind of soul is that?”
Someone was terrified, another was suspicious, and several stood frozen in shock.
One of them tried to flee quickly, but Ttacttac-i blocked his path with a foot.
“Waaah! I’m dead! Save my lord!”
The fallen man writhed with his thin limbs. It was a pitiful sight.
But that was beside the point. I had to do what needed to be done.
“Hey! Who left this here at my house yesterday!”
“Eh? That note… the handwriting is definitely from Horua.”
The red-eyed beings’ gazes gathered on one person at those words.
A tall man with white hair and a Kaiser mustache.
“You?”
“No! I was definitely… serving my blood lord…”
“No! That’s my house!”
Heeek!
As I shouted, the others surrounded Horua and began beating him.
“Hey, I said it wasn’t me!”
“We would have found you first if we had come! Why come to your house to rest!”
“No, I was just… ow! My bones!”
The man was beaten until he was pitiful, then knelt before me and apologized.
“I have committed a sin that deserves death!”
“No, how did you even intrude into my house?”
“Our clan can stretch shadows far to search the surroundings or move objects. That’s why we could leave a note at your lord’s house. But…”
“But?”
“The farther the shadow wanders from the body, the greater the loss of power and senses. We mistook your lord’s aura for our own because it was felt from afar.”
So that was it. Hmm, no malicious intent after all.
“Still, I should hit them more…”
“Stop it. There are people here.”
“We don’t match our actual age to our appearance. This one is the youngest among us from the start!”
Oh, that’s right?
Even from a glance, they weren’t human. It seemed they were a race whose age couldn’t be judged from appearance.
“Let’s hear the story. Why are you living here?”
“That is…”
“No, first, let’s go outside. I’ll hear the story at Necropolis.”
It didn’t seem right to talk inside a sewer.
We quickly left and loaded the strangers into the truck bed, then returned to Necropolis.
“So this is… your lord’s domain.”
“Why am I the lord?”
“Just seeing the size of my soul and the death energy it contains tells me you’re not an ordinary person.”
Is that so? Well, whatever.
It seemed different from dwarves or elves who showed no special reaction to souls. Dwarves never spoke of souls, and elves treated their own race as superior regardless of souls.
“Ttacttac-i, take them to wash and bring them to the reception room.”
The reception room had been newly made recently for officially meeting the various members of Necropolis.
A while later, after the vampires had washed and changed into clothes from the dwarves, they entered the reception room. They looked much cleaner than before.
The guys marveled at the well-decorated reception room, then lined up in a row.
“The vampires serving Blood Lord Noksi greet the great one.”
“Mm.”
“If we are not driven out, we wish to entrust our bodies here. Our lord will reward us later.”
Entrust? It’s rather bold to say that first.
Still, they looked so pitiful, so I couldn’t say much. You could see how starved they were.
“Before that, I have a question. If you’re vampires, does that mean you drink blood?”
“Yes, that’s right. We have become like this because we have not drunk blood for a long time.”
“Is any blood fine?”
“As long as it is blood with magical power, anything is okay. However, the more intelligent the body, the stronger the being, the more power you can gain.”
Even non-human blood is fine?
If I accept them, I couldn’t leave them to starve, so I asked a few more questions. They said even monster blood would suffice for survival.
“Then why did you come to Earth from that Blood Realm?”
“We came to conquer Earth.”
“Horua!”
“Quiet, Rilsi. If we hide this, nothing will work.”
It seemed they were even divided among themselves.
Of course. Coming to someone else’s neighborhood and immediately declaring you are the boss of this place wasn’t right.
But hiding was worse.
“That alone isn’t a complete explanation.”
“More precisely, our Blood Realm was taken by the eighth god, False Heaven.”
Oho. They were the ones who lost in the land grab.
“Then you don’t serve any god?”
“We do not serve any of the ten gods.”
“So you’re an independent force.”
“That can be seen that way.”
It was true we wanted to claim Earth, but it wasn’t different from refugees who had fled after losing their homeland.
The problem was that their king wanted to take Earth…
‘Well, the Blood Lord will arrive sooner or later.’
So it would be better to give them a favor now, create a debt, and build a friendly relationship later.
If they had no intention of living peacefully with us, we could fight then. After all, they would be full-scale war either way.
‘As long as they don’t touch my land, it’s fine.’
If they later spout nonsense, we can beat them then.
As long as we don’t sloppily monitor the vampires, it should be okay.
“I will accept you. But there is a condition.”
I looked at the guys one by one.
“Do not drink the blood of those living in my territory. Obey my commands. Even if your lord comes, follow my laws on this land.”
“We will remember.”
“If you disobey, we will all turn into undead.”
“…We will remember!”
In this way, the seven vampires became new guests of Necropolis.
And the very next day.
I realized that raising vampires to feed was much more troublesome than I thought.