441 – A story from a distant place. Intermission
The principality’s vampires have the ability to sense blood. It’s a predator’s ability to find its prey, and it’s the only area a vampire, with its dull senses, is sensitive to. Therefore, writing in blood could be a signal to urgently summon a vampire.
That was the signal that Valdamir received. In particular, the signal pulsated in the distance, a symbol that Valdamir had known only to his family and was meant to call only him. In this rapidly changing situation, information is precious. Baldamir moved to obtain the information his retinue had uncovered.
A bit far away. Moving to avoid the attention of other vampires, Valdamir replayed the trial that took place a moment ago.
To a vampire, about 10 years is an instant. His thoughts soon traced back to the cause of the trial.
An elder with a pale appearance and sharp fangs… Even what killed Baldamir.
The thoughts stopped at the point of death, a little further back than that. At that point Luskinia came to me with blood pouring from the corner of her mouth.
The blood magic is shaking as if there is an injury somewhere. Baldamir also feels that he cannot control the blood rushing through his body. Losing control means there is a possibility of being controlled by another Elder. Ruskinia was now in a very dangerous state.
“hahahahaha! Baldamir. “I found it, I found it!”
His appearance of maddening laughter was still there. Baldamir turned his body to greet him.
Ruskinia. The troublemaker of the principality. If you trace back the problems that occur in the principality, about half of them reach him.
Don’t other Elders publicly protest because they killed so many humans?
Didn’t his family break out while inciting fear?
I executed him according to the law, but he came back a few days later and started an uproar.
Since Baldamir was always the one to solve problems, the two would often run into each other. Elders are not very interested in other elders, but these two were exceptions. Because if we don’t pay attention, the country may stumble.
Valdamir asked, firmly believing that he had had an accident again.
“What kind of accident did you commit again? “We need to deal with it quickly, so get to the point first.”
“I don’t remember having an accident! Well, I definitely had an accident this time! “If revolution were an accident too!”
If the accidents that have happened so far were not accidents, then what did they do this time? Ruskinia cried out, collapsing into her chair as Baldamir mentally prepared a response.
“I figured out a way to escape the bondage of her blood! After all, I’m a genius!”
Clearly, this was an accident. That too was a major accident. If Baldamir were alive, he would have felt dizzy.
“It was a success in the end.”
“And you, who knew this but kept your mouth shut, are a more insidious friend than me!”
“Are you the only one who can do it? “I wanted to casually share blood with her wife and her daughter.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Baldamir explained once again to Ruskinia, who asked sincerely.
“You embrace a woman without feeling love or s*xual desire. Even if you think you can do that as a memory. You even had to cut and scrape my own body to have a baby. “I don’t think you would be in a position to be conniving with someone.”
We can’t sympathize with each other anyway. Words are only a means of expressing legitimacy. Baldamir also spoke without any intention of making anyone understand, but Ruskinia’s reaction was different from usual.
“Love? Did you say there is no love? “What about me, a piece of wood like you?”
Luskinia is unexpected by nature, but that’s because she intends to immediately carry out the ideas that come to her. She was the one who used only the means to her ends so that they would not be hindered. One of the means was to have her mistress give birth to her child. Because there is no one to disturb you.
But now something… It’s emotional. Valdamir said, feeling a little uncomfortable.
“Was there any basis to judge that it existed?”
Vampires do not know love. They don’t feel the excitement or excitement they feel when they have someone in their heart. The heart does not beat, and every drop of blood flowing throughout the body is controlled by one’s own will.
So, vampires have neither blood nor tears. If it has to be done, do it. For example.
“Lily, your mistress, wife, and demihuman. Didn’t you execute her yourself? “I definitely remember her resenting you when she ran away.”
A vampire takes on the task of executing a wife who broke the law, a task that a human would not even ask for, let alone undertake. Because that’s what a vampire is.
It was also expected that Ruschinia was not affectionate with her wife and her daughter. She couldn’t possibly feel affection for a vampire if he had her child in some way. Even if Ruskinia personally executed her wife, she did not find it strange to anyone. Lily was her descendant before she was her wife, and her blood belonged to Ruskinia, so she had to collect it.
Ruskinia even greedily drank even a drop of her blood. Everyone had no doubt about Ruskinia. Although he was a vampire, he was a crazy person who made her lover give birth to his child, but he was still a vampire. He moved as everyone expected. Like a heartless vampire that doesn’t know anything, he took away the flowing blood of his family.
However, Luskinia now expressed her feelings from back then.
“Even I, a genius, make mistakes.”
“It was a mistake.”
“Okay. I didn’t know what love was. No, more accurately, I ‘misunderstood’ that love existed and that I didn’t have it! In the first place, there was no way thoughts could have names. “You didn’t understand anything.”
In Ruskinia’s eyes as she looked at Valdamir while saying that… There was sympathy. It was a look that Valdamir had never seen before.
“I just needed her blood. But if things continued like this, it was clear that she would die someday. So she was made a vampire.”
Even Baldamir understood this. So she took no action. Luskinia continued her words.
“But she changed so much when she became a vampire. I can’t even taste her blood, and that stupid expression she made when she scared me is gone. Even a drop of blood flowing through your body became mine, but that made it even less worth keeping by your side. “With my own hands, I destroyed something that was mine.”
“So, I tried to fix her blood, even breaking it. Know.”
“No, you don’t know. Still.”
Luskinia opened her eyes brightly. Valdamir felt an unfamiliar feeling in his eyes. She was originally a crazy person, and would calmly put her ideas into practice. His actions always had unexpected results. Valdamir, who judged that this madness was also necessary for the country, would stand by and almost help.
“Emotions? That’s nothing. We’re just giving a grand name to the driving force that makes us do something. Searching for delicious blood is an emotion, and feeling sorry when you lose that blood is also an emotion. We didn’t lose our feelings. Because the concept of emotion itself did not exist from the beginning.”
However, is madness something that can be explained by reason? Valdamir had a feeling that he couldn’t explain to Ruskinia now.
In other words, he really felt mad.
“We are just giving up. The leader controls my blood and moves me, so I can’t even have any impulses. There was no motivation from the beginning to do something that went against the will of the leader. That’s why we’re known to have no emotions, and if you ask us, that’s true.”
“Have you regained your feelings?”
“Look. You still don’t understand! “There are no emotions from the beginning!”
Luskinia sat down and stretched out her upper body. It was a move she didn’t need, but he did. The reason was ‘he wanted to do it’ was enough.
“We’re just trying to do something. However, a gigantic being called Progenitor dominates the blood. If you deviate even slightly from that, you won’t even be able to try! It’s not just nonsense that you can’t feel because you don’t have emotions. Strength! “It is the logic of the power that rules us!”
“Be careful what you say. You seem excited now….”
Excited? Are vampires horny? Even as he spoke, Valdamir felt a sense of alienation. And he realized it too late.
Ruskinia has truly thrown off her shackles.
“Did it really succeed?”
“It’s only half of it! If that stupid kid had done it right, it would have been perfect. But, it failed!”
“If it’s a child.”
Luskinia snapped her fingers. And on the other side, in front of Valdamir’s office, a piece of meat that looked like a corpse was floating and moving. Valdamir, who knew the personal information of all vampires, knew that the bloody person was Lir Nightingale. Also that she is Luskinia’s daughter.
And the fact that it was used to break the bondage of the Elder.
Ruskinia said with a mocking tone.
“He’s not good enough. I succeeded in controlling my body, but I couldn’t dominate it. But it was good even for a moment. My dominance created a loop. A cycle in which the people I dominate dominate me. In the end, the bond was broken.”
“It turned out just as I hoped.”
“Just as I hoped…. “That’s the way it is.”
Allows domination by subordinates. It was a dangerous and foolish idea, like something out of Ruskinia. What if the subordinate was incompetent? Or what if he was capable but also malicious? If Liir had killed Ruskinia out of malice, the ring of dominance would have been given to Liir. It was luck that he survived….
“Thanks to you, that thing is dying, but it worked because I wrote it well. Okay. It had to be….”
Valdamir spoke while listening to Ruskinia’s absent-minded muttering.
“To summarize, it means that you have succeeded in taking off the shackles. I get it.”
“Do you understand?”
“It is an unexpected situation, but since the founder is not there, we cannot make a judgment. Let’s suspend judgment about breaking free. “It seems that there is no Elder who would do what you did, but the risk remains, so the method must be kept a secret.”
It is an impeccable judgment that has satisfied everyone in the principality so far. But Ruskinia did not agree.
“I thought you might be able to understand, but I guess there’s nothing we can do.”
Ruskinia stumbled and got up from the chair.
“We are loyal to her ancestors and adore her. But to her ancestors, we are nothing. “They are just limbs that do as they are told.”
“Loyalty is not about expecting something in return. “We have already been paid.”
“Is that the best? “Do you really think the founder wants that?”
Luskinia looked at her dying daughter for a moment, then quickly turned her head and spoke.
“Then why does the founder sleep outside the principality? Will it keep us away for decades or centuries? Why leave the country to you and wander the world?”
“How dare you judge the meaning of the founder?”
“That’s it! “That’s the problem!”
Ruskinia shouted with all her might.
“I don’t ask. I don’t argue. So there is no need to be there. What you are doing is not loyalty. It is disloyal, neglectful, and indifferent! That’s why the founder is leaving all of us, including you! By neglecting and ignoring!”
“….”
“Thank goodness! Thanks to this, we were able to move away from our ancestors and live on our own! “Maybe the ancestors wanted that too!”
“It is a hasty assumption….”
“I need it! Otherwise, nothing will change!”
Valdamir always makes decisions based only on certain facts. Speculation only suggests possibilities, and until more certain facts are revealed, only the means are prepared and judgment is postponed. It’s a bit slow, but suits a vampire who doesn’t die.
So far, Ruskinia has shown signs. Valdamir was withholding judgment even then. Since it concerned the Elder, he tried to put it off until possible Tir Khanjaka’s return.
“To be truly loyal, you must first break this bondage! Loyalty that is tied to a bridle has no meaning!”
However, if it becomes clear, we will handle it without delay. That’s Valdamir’s way.
“Attacking our progenitor is the only loyalty we can have!”
So Baldamir killed Ruskinia.
Baldamir looked at the pattern drawn at his feet. Sword and shield. It was a pattern symbolizing the former figure who had sworn to become the first ancestor’s first sword and a shield to protect the ancestors.
Long ago, he lost everything.
A time when the empire established by a human king collapsed, and everyone claimed to be its successor. The king who defeated the defeated king was given heavenly luck, but he lacked the power to rally everyone. As the number of people challenging the king and God gradually increased, the King’s family, who found it difficult to handle them, made a surprising decision. My country was divided into pieces and distributed to the military leaders.
That decision, which seemed to be cutting off my own flesh, was a self-defeating and clever trick. The tips of the swords that were supposed to be pointed at the monks were pointed at each other. Eventually, the era of military rule unfolded and the weak were eliminated.
Valdamir, who inherited the principality at a young age, was also a victim of the times. He was a man who would become a hero, but he could not overcome the trend of the times. In front of a powerful enemy who took advantage of the vacuum of power and force, he lost both his territory and his people. He fled in disgrace, losing even his honor, but was chased down and lost his life. With his ugly and hideous appearance, he almost fell to the ground with a knife stuck in his chest.
It was inevitable that when he saw the pure white girl who appeared at that time, he thought she was a messenger of God. He prayed ugly even while he was dying.
I will give my all, give me a chance to turn this life around.
The girl was not an apostle of God. Rather, it was closer to the devil. Didn’t even give me a chance to turn around. It only gave us a chance to paint over life after death.
The girl, who was neither a progenitor nor a vampire at that time, shed her own blood and poured it into Valdamir’s wound.
Reverse Heaven Trial dot comIt was a time when too much blood was shed. So much so that even if a vampire swallows it, it won’t be noticeable.
While they were not even aware of the danger, Baldamir devoured a country. The least revenge he can do.
After that, what is left for Valdamir?
Loyalty? Dear? Repayment?
No, vampires have no emotions. The moment he became a member of the founder’s family, those human feelings faded.
What Valdamir has is duty. Only after throwing off the shackles was Valdamir able to face the heavy sense of duty that had driven him for over a thousand years. Although it was not according to Ruskinia’s suggestion, Baldamir also gained freedom thanks to the progenitor who eventually threw off his shackles.
Now, the only thing left to worry about is how to use this freedom.
Before thinking about it any further, Baldamir decided to deal with the matter at hand first.
“… “It’s unexpected.”
Baldamir came out of his thoughts and spoke to the shadow hovering near the pattern.
“We even considered the possibility that someone may have sent a false signal… “I never thought the person who drew this pattern was even a vampire.”
It’s not a coincidence. There’s no way he got caught. It was written by a person who knew exactly what Valdamir’s symbol was and its meaning. A human known to have suffered a blow from a doggo used the pulsating blood technique.
This is something that is difficult to achieve in reality. Thinking of the possibility of explaining it, Valdamir looked at the boy, no, the girl in front of him and asked.
“What is your business?”