The Young Vampire
After we returned to the inn, the girl was in such a wretched state that a bath had to come first. Ashel was the only one who could help her wash, so I left it to her. Once the girl had been cleaned up, I tried talking to her.
"Can you tell me your name?"
"..."
"If you're hungry, that's fine—just say so. I'll have a meal prepared right away."
"..."
But the conversation was a one-way street. She watched me the way a frightened herbivore watches a predator, fidgeting, her mouth clamped shut. Vampires ought to be able to speak the continental common tongue. Was she simply wary of me?
"Vampire. Do you intend to keep that mouth of yours shut forever?"
Varos, standing behind me, spoke with clear displeasure. The pressure in his voice made the girl flinch and shrink even further into herself. I frowned and looked back at him. He hurriedly bowed his head.
"My apologies."
I turned to Ashel on the other side.
"Was she like this when you were bathing her as well?"
"Yes. I tried speaking to her, but she wouldn't say a word..."
This was awkward. Even in the real world, I'd never been the type who got along well with children. I had no idea how to handle this. I needed her to talk if I was going to take her to Elrod Forest or anywhere else.
"Are you from the vampire tribe that lives in Elrod Forest?"
"..."
No reaction. She just looked like she didn't understand what I was saying. If she were from the Elrod Forest tribe, there should have been some response... So she was a vampire from somewhere else?
...Now that I think about it, that's a problem too.
I couldn't just dump a vampire who wasn't even from Elrod Forest into some other tribe's arms. That wasn't her home. I'd been so focused on going to Elrod Forest that I'd completely overlooked that part. I sighed, looking at the girl who still refused to open her mouth.
"I have no intention of keeping you captive. If you want, I'll take you back to wherever you came from."
"..."
"Say something. Or—there's a tribe of your kind living in Elrod Forest. I could take you there instead."
"...!"
That got a reaction. For the first time, something flickered in her eyes. Her pupils trembled, and at last she opened her mouth, stumbling over the words.
"There are... my people... living in Elrod Forest?"
I jumped on it immediately.
"That's right. A peaceful vampire tribe lives there."
"W-where is Elrod Forest...?"
"West of this city, quite far... actually, not that far. Do you want to go there?"
Please say yes.
The girl rolled her eyes this way and that, then gave a tiny nod. I nodded back, bursting with inward relief.
"Good. Then I'll take you there right away."
"..."
"But aren't you hungry? I doubt you've eaten properly. We could talk over a meal, take it slow..."
...Huh?
I stopped mid-sentence, frowning. Her breathing had gone ragged. She was twisting her legs together, fidgeting even worse than before. This didn't look normal. What was going on?
"Hey. Are you all right?"
She shook her head violently, as if trying to snap herself out of it.
"I-I'm fine... but..."
She did not look fine. I stood up to get a closer look at her condition, and she reacted violently, scrambling backward to put distance between us. I froze, startled.
"D-don't come closer."
"..."
"I can't... I can't hold it anymore. That sweet smell... stay away..."
Tears were streaming down her face as she shook her head. Something clicked.
Right. Young vampires...
Vampires were a race that could subsist on blood as their primary food, and they were born with an instinct to drink it. Adults could suppress that instinct as they grew, but young vampires struggled with it. I remembered the lore: the urge would erupt periodically. That was why the adults would share their own blood with the young ones, to sate the craving.
"You want to drink my blood?"
I rolled up my sleeve and held out my arm.
"Drink."
"..."
"It's all right. You can drink. Come here."
I made my voice as gentle as I could. Her expression went slack, as if she were being pulled under a spell, and she slowly approached.
A sharp sting shot up my arm. The girl seized my forearm, drove her fangs in, and began to drink in greedy, desperate pulls. Varos and Ashel watched from the side, eyes wide with shock.
"H-how dare you... Vampire, drink my blood instead of Lord Ron's."
"Leave it. Stay where you are."
I stopped Varos as he started rolling up his own sleeve, and sat down in a chair. For a while, the only sound in the room was the girl drinking. I looked down at the crown of her head as she hung off my arm, feeding with single-minded hunger, feeling a mix of awkwardness and embarrassment.
...Is this okay, though?
She'd been at it longer than I expected. Super Regeneration should keep me fine, but still.
"...Hahh."
She finally pulled away, exhaling a breath thick with satiation. Then, belatedly embarrassed, she glanced at me and mumbled:
"I'm sorry..."
"It's fine."
I wiped the blood from my arm and checked the puncture marks. The wound had already regenerated—not a trace remained.
After that, her wariness toward me seemed to ease, and we were able to talk properly. The girl's name was Rudika. She wasn't from Elrod Forest. She was a vampire from a place far to the north of Calderic. This was how she'd ended up captured and brought here as a slave:
"There was a fight between the tribes. A bad tribe killed all of ours and took all our houses."
The explanation was sparse—she was young—but I understood well enough. The vampire tribes living in the mountains had gone to war, and hers had lost and been driven out. The few survivors had scattered and left the mountains. The group Rudika was with had been wandering in search of a new home when they ran into slave traders.
"The humans said the adults were too much trouble, so they killed them all. My mom and dad too. Then they caught me and my sister."
"..."
Those "humans" would have been Valkylov's slave hunters. Adult vampires could use Blood Arts, so they would have been too dangerous to control—hence the massacre. Hunting down isolated minority tribes living hidden in the wilds—barbarians, elves, beastkin, it didn't matter—was another way those bastards sourced their slaves. It wasn't news, but just listening to it made my blood boil.
...A sister, though?
So she wasn't alone. She had an older sister? Rudika went on.
"My sister got caught first, trying to protect me. I was hiding, and they caught me later."
"I see."
"Th-the humans kept saying 'auction,' and they said my sister was moved there first. I think my sister is at the auction place."
Her voice had grown urgent. From the way she talked, she didn't even understand what an auction was. I looked at the desperate light in her eyes and let out a silent groan.
She wants me to save her...
Rudika continued, on the verge of tears.
"C-could we ask the people in Elrod Forest for help? I have to save my sister. She got caught trying to save me..."
So that was why she'd reacted when I mentioned her kind living in Elrod Forest. A hopeless idea, of course. I was silent for a moment, then nodded.
"Don't worry. I'll save your sister too."
Rudika's face lit up.
"Thank you! Thank you so much..."
...I'd said it casually enough, but this was going to be a hassle. I couldn't just take this one girl and leave her sister still in captivity.
I suppose I'll have to go to Domihawk City first.
I did have that invitation to the auction, as it happened. First we'd go to Domihawk City, learn more about the auction, and decide what to do from there.
After spending a night in the city, we set out for Domihawk City first thing. It wasn't far from Cubex, so the carriage ride wouldn't take long.
Slurp.
Throughout the journey, Rudika kept feeding on my blood. Vampires could eat ordinary food just fine, but she'd apparently developed a taste for mine and wouldn't touch anything else. I ate my own meal with one hand while Rudika hung off the other arm. Varos watched her with open disapproval.
"Vampire. Cease this discourtesy toward Lord Ron and drink my blood instead. Do you even know who it is that so graciously offers you his blood?"
I'd already told him it was fine, but he was persistent. Rudika pulled her mouth from my arm, stared at Varos, and shook her head.
"I don't want to... You smell bad."
"...What?"
Varos looked faintly stunned. So vampires had preferences when it came to blood. Apparently elf blood wasn't to her taste. She preferred human blood, then?
...Human.
A thought occurred to me. I'd been assuming this body was human, but was that actually certain? Ashel looked human on the outside too, but her race was the White Moon Clan, not human. This world had any number of races that resembled humans. Could I be one of them?
Then again, this body doesn't seem to have any special abilities...
Eh. I was probably just human. I dismissed the idle thought and went back to eating.
After the meal, we climbed back into the carriage and set off. Two more days of travel and we'd reach Domihawk City. Rudika, sitting beside me, started nodding off, then her head drooped. I watched the scenery outside the window, as I always did.
We'd been traveling for a few hours when—
"...?"
Super Senses picked up a faint presence. Some distance ahead. Curious, I sharpened my senses further, then frowned.
Combat?
The clash of steel. Flesh tearing. Screams. The sounds of a group fight, unmistakably.
This is a highway.
Had some other traveler been ambushed by bandits? The noise grew closer as we approached. By the time the scene came into view, the fighting had apparently ended—there was no more sound.
I looked at the scene spread out in front of the carriage, and my expression hardened. Familiar faces, for one. A slave wagon. Valkylov members surrounding it, and that long-haired executive. For a moment I wondered what they were doing here, then it clicked. They were transporting slaves to the auction in Domihawk, and our routes had happened to overlap.
And for some reason, beastkin lay scattered around them, blood sprayed across the ground. The Valkylov men still hadn't sheathed their swords. They were staring at our carriage. I stepped down from the halted carriage with Ashel and showed myself.
"...Hm?"
The long-haired man saw my face and broke into a wide smile.
"Ah, young master. Fancy meeting you again in a place like this. Were you on your way to Domihawk?"
I didn't answer. I scanned the beastkin strewn across the ground. Half of them were already dead. The rest were wounded, gasping, glaring at the Valkylov members. I looked back at him.
"What's going on here?"
He answered as if it were nothing.
"Ah, well, we were ambushed, you see."
"Ambushed?"
"These animal whelps apparently cooked up a plan to attack us and rescue their kin locked up over there. Nothing of consequence. Happens from time to time."
He jerked his chin toward a cage. Young beastkin were locked inside—the same ones who'd been imprisoned in the basement of the slave trading post with Rudika. The men snickered as they started grabbing the fallen beastkin one by one and dragging them.
"They attacked us without knowing their place, so they'll pay the price. The dead ones are dead. The living ones can look forward to being sold as slaves right alongside the rest."
At the long-haired man's sneering words, a beastkin woman ground her teeth and shouted.
"You savage humans! You're the ones who invaded our home first! You're the ones who killed our people who'd gone to the forest's edge and kidnapped our children!"
It was a desperate cry, blood seeming to boil in her throat. I looked at her, then back at the long-haired man. He smiled, walked over to her, and stomped her head into the dirt.
"What a joke. Isn't that how the natural order works? The strong trample. The weak get trampled. Like this."
"Ghk...!"
"Ah, my apologies for subjecting you to such an unsightly display, young master. Please, pay it no mind and continue on your way. We'll be a while cleaning up."
He said this, then giggled as he ground his heel into the head he'd pinned. One of the young beastkin in the cage cried out, sobbing.
"S-sister! Sister...!"
"Oh, was this your sister? How nice—the two of you can be sold as a matching set. The gentlemen with all sorts of tastes will take good care of you both."
A devil's laughter rang in my ears. I looked at all of this, then glanced up at the sky. I recalled the thought I'd had at the checkpoint, when I'd first found the slaves.
It's just momentary self-satisfaction...
So what? If a person could only live with perfect consistency, would that even make them a person? If you never once acted on what you felt, could you even call yourself human?
This had crossed the line of my patience. I lowered my gaze and spoke to the long-haired man.
"How about you let them go."
He turned his head toward me.
"Let them go...? I'm not sure I follow. Ah—does the young master wish to purchase them here and now?"
"No."
I spoke again.
"I won't give you a single gold coin. Leave them and get lost."
Silence fell. The Valkylov members who'd been dragging the beastkin all stopped and stared at me. The long-haired man's eyebrows twitched. He opened his mouth.
"What do you mean by—"
"You can't do it?"
I nodded.
"Then that's that."
I turned to Ashel.
"Ashel."
"...Yes."
My voice rang cold across the quiet highway.
