111
Chapter 111
Pisamo.
Short for the Blood Lovers' Club.
It was an Alliance comprised of the Vampire Tribe and the Moon Tribe.
And the Vampire Lord invited us to join their Alliance.
Today was the first time I'd heard about this Alliance.
Ms. Vampire had never mentioned it to us before.
She had only told us that they maintained friendly relations with the Moon Tribe.
Perhaps she hid it because she was embarrassed by the Alliance's name.
"Teddy Bear, as long as you express your intention to join Pisamo, you can consider yourself a member immediately. I have already asked our Tribe's Elders for permission, and although I haven't asked the Moon Tribe yet, they will gladly agree to your Dungeon joining anyway. They already have such a friendly relationship with you that they trust you with their Princess, so why would they refuse?"
Well, the Moon Tribe would probably agree to it happily.
Since we were on such close terms.
More importantly, he actually knew that Tosuni was the Princess of the Moon Tribe.
"Now, what will you do? Will you join our Alliance?"
For reference.
Pisamo was an Alliance made up of only two tribes.
The Vampire Tribe and the Moon Tribe.
I was told there were no other tribes besides them.
I heard that the Vampire Lord had invited Leaders of other tribes to join before, but he was coldly rejected every time.
I didn't even need to hear the reason to know why he was rejected.
The Alliance name was just way too awful.
It's beyond tacky.
Who would want to join with a name like that?
I swallowed these thoughts and kept them to myself.
Unnecessarily revealing my true feelings might ruin our relationship.
"Why do you hesitate to answer? Is there something wrong with our Alliance name?"
"Gom-gom, gom-gom-gom-gom? Gom-gom-gom-gom! Gom-gom-gom-gom-gom!"
No, it's a very cool name!
I wanted to join as soon as I heard it!
I wasn't hesitating just now, I was silently admiring the Alliance name!
"...Is that true?"
"Gom-gom!"
"Haha. You are a Teddy Bear who knows what's up. I like you even more now."
The Vampire Lord's anxious face brightened up again.
He's so easy to please, this Mister.
Anyway.
I gladly decided to join the Alliance.
What reason was there to refuse?
They promised to spare no support.
I could endure a tacky Alliance name for that.
As I accepted the proposal, Ms. Vampire, who had been watching us, breathed a sigh of relief.
For some reason, she had been a nervous wreck until just a moment ago.
Would something terrible have happened if we refused?
"You are the first to like our Alliance's name since the Luna Rabbits."
The Vampire Lord muttered with a satisfied look on his face.
Those rabbits had quite unique tastes too.
Knowing the Luna Rabbits, they probably genuinely liked it, unlike me who was just sweet-talking.
It seemed the Moon Tribe hadn't talked about the Alliance not because they were embarrassed by the name, but simply because they felt no need to mention it.
Anyway.
Just like that, we became affiliated with the Tribe Alliance named Pisamo.
The others didn't need to join separately.
Because you don't join the Alliance as an individual.
I had joined the Alliance as the representative of the Doll Tribe.
Perhaps pleased that a new tribe had joined the Alliance, the Vampire Lord wore a content smile the entire time we were moving.
Walking beside him, I carefully posed a question.
"Gom-gom gom-gom-gom gom? Gom-gom-gom-gom?"
By the way, what happened to the tribes that rejected your recruitment offer? Did you take revenge on them or something?
That was what I was asking.
The Vampire Lord cleared his throat and answered.
"Ahem, what revenge... I am not such a petty man."
So he really was a man after all.
He wasn't a woman who just happened to have a deep voice.
More importantly, that sounds like a blatant lie, doesn't it?
Why are you avoiding my gaze while answering?
As I was giving him a suspicious glare, Ms. Vampire, who had been walking alongside us and listening, chimed in.
"Lord, you shouldn't lie. Since the Teddy Bear is now part of our Alliance too, you must be honest."
"What do you mean? I have been completely honest about everything."
"Didn't you launch a full-scale attack and annihilate most of the tribes that refused your offer a few days later?"
"...It seems you've misunderstood something about me all this time. We didn't take revenge because they refused our offer. We merely wiped them out because they mocked our Alliance."
"Isn't that revenge?"
"Absolutely not. It was merely a punishment because leaving such fools alone would cause our Alliance's prestige to plummet."
The Vampire Lord then shifted his gaze to me.
And he continued to speak, still wearing a benevolent smile.
"Don't pay too much attention to my niece's words. Even if you, Teddy Bear, had rejected my proposal, I would not have retaliated in any way. I hope you don't misunderstand me as a bad guy for nothing."
Gom....
I'll trust that would have been the case.
Since she said he wiped out most of them, not all of them.
***
The 2nd Floor of the Dungeon.
We were in the middle of serving the blood Tosun's Mom had gifted us to Ms. Vampire and the Vampire Lord.
Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind.
Could it be, just maybe.......
Was there a possibility that the Ms. Vampire we had met all this time was a Doppelganger?
The Ms. Vampire we first met, the Ms. Vampire who performed the Resurrection on Ailee, the Ms. Vampire who was with us when we fought the Lycanthrope—could one of them have been a Doppelganger?
Contrary to what the real Ms. Vampire said.
Could it be that the Doppelganger had actually existed for a long time?
For now, according to Ms. Vampire, they were all truly her.
However, the real Ms. Vampire right here also mentioned that she receives the Doppelganger's memories.
Therefore, I couldn't help but suspect that for some reason, she was tricking us by pretending the Doppelganger's memories were her own.
Since even her familiar, Ailee, couldn't recognize who was real.
Of course.
That suspicion didn't last long.
"Ailee, look at this."
"Yes?"
A massive amount of blood flowed from Ms. Vampire's fingertips.
The blood undulated and transformed into the shape of an anchor.
"This is...?"
"It's the Soul Weapon I took from a Human a while ago. I asked a Vampire in our castle to modify it a bit. Now, I can turn it into blood and store it inside my body, and I've even finished altering it so that it won't be absorbed by the Mana Stone inside me."
[Soul Weapon]
┗Pw.80
┗Rnk.Rare
It was the anchor-shaped Soul Weapon I had seen before.
So she still had that Soul Weapon.
If I had known she was carrying it, I should have used it to figure out whether she was a Doppelganger from the start.
Even if it copied everything else, it wouldn't have been able to replicate a Soul Weapon.
I didn't know if a Doppelganger copying a Human possessing a Soul Weapon would copy the Soul Weapon as well, but it didn't really matter.
Because that Soul Weapon wasn't bound to Ms. Vampire.
For that reason.
That Ms. Vampire was definitely the same Ms. Vampire who had been with us.
The Ms. Vampire we met the second time.
In other words, the Ms. Vampire who performed Resurrection on Ailee was the one who possessed that Soul Weapon.
Then naturally, the Ms. Vampire we met the first and third times must have also been the same person and not a Doppelganger. After all, the Ms. Vampire who revived Ailee wouldn't have any reason to lie.
Knowing for certain that she was the Ms. Vampire we knew put my mind at ease.
"To modify a Soul Weapon like that, they must be an incredible person...."
"They are a little... no, a very crazy fellow, but their skills are truly outstanding. Anyway, I am currently experimenting with it, thinking that if I keep carrying the Soul Weapon inside my body like this, I might eventually be able to use it."
A single living creature cannot possess two Mana Stones,
but a Soul Weapon might be an exception in special cases.
Strictly speaking, a Soul Weapon is a completely different substance from a Mana Stone.
Also, if the Soul Weapon isn't absorbed by the Mana Stone inside the body, it might mistakenly believe there is no Mana Stone inside and gradually adapt to the body. Furthermore, while you originally cannot use someone else's Soul Weapon, the modified Soul Weapon might have become ownerless. In that case, she was experimenting to see if it would eventually accept her as its master.
─Or so Ms. Vampire added to her explanation.
She hadn't modified it just to carry it around comfortably.
It seemed she still hadn't given up on using the Soul Weapon.
She truly had a persistent personality.
Did she really like that Soul Weapon that much?
Ms. Vampire continued to explain things to Ailee.
It seemed there was still more to explain.
I didn't eavesdrop on the rest of their story.
Because I had something important to do right now.
What I needed to do starting now was a Doppelganger inspection.
Because some Doppelgangers might have secretly slipped into our Dungeon by now.
I held up a mirror to each member of the Dungeon, one by one.
Naturally, the non-living members were excluded.
As a result of testing everyone like that.
Fortunately, not a single Doppelganger was found.
I should continue doing these inspections periodically in the future.
You never know when Doppelgangers might infiltrate like a Virus.
***
After drinking heavily from the blood Tosun's Mom had prepared, Ms. Vampire and the Vampire Lord took a nap.
I briefly came down from the 2nd Floor to the 1st Floor.
It was to praise Chunsam, even if it was a bit late, for teaching me how to expose Doppelgangers.
I hadn't been able to praise him earlier because the real Ms. Vampire and the Vampire Lord had visited.
All I could tell him was to stay inside the Labor Camp for the time being.
"Don't be so scared. It was my first time actually meeting him today too, but he wasn't as scary as the rumors say."
Ailee had come down to the Labor Camp first.
Chunsam was shivering with a terrified expression, and Ailee was in the middle of reassuring him.
What's this?
Why is our Chunsam scared again?
Gom-gom-gom-gom- I approached them with quick little steps and stopped in front of them.
"Oh, Bear Baby, you're here?"
"Gom-gom, gom-gom-gom?"
"It seems Chunsam recognized the Lord earlier. That's why he's so scared."
"Gom?"
How did Chunsam recognize the Vampire Lord?
As I expressed my doubt, Ailee immediately added an explanation.
"Come to think of it, you probably don't know, Bear Baby."
"Gom-gom?"
"Actually, the Lord crossed over to the Humans' Continent a long time ago. Long before the Barrier's Annihilation."
"Gom-gom."
Right, that happened.
This was information I had vaguely guessed.
During my first meeting with Ms. Vampire, I had eavesdropped on her talking to herself and made that assumption.
"And when the Lord was on the Humans' Continent, he became incredibly famous among the Humans because of a certain incident. To the point where he was designated as a Demon King Class monster, and Subjugation Warrants were distributed en masse to all nations."
"Gom-gom-gom?"
"What kind of incident it was, is─"
"Are you trying to talk about the incident where I remodeled a village into a large-scale Human Farm?"
Someone interrupted, cutting off Ailee's words.
I quickly turned my head in the direction of the voice, and the Vampire Lord was standing there with a benevolent expression.
What the, weren't you taking a nap?