29 – Blood relative, she is.
How far did she walk toward the town square?
I saw a man throw his body towards a burning pile.
He stared at the fire for a moment, breathing heavily, then turned his head at the sound of my footsteps.
“…Are you a resident of the village, you?”
“That doesn’t look like it.”
He could see the armor he was wearing shimmering in the fire.
The splendor decorated with gold wire was telling me that it was not made by any blacksmith.
The numerous decorations on the sword he was holding made it clear that he was not a man of ordinary status.
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A clean face and slightly pale skin made his appearance stand out,
Eyes that didn’t look so full of energy, the tips of those eyes that drooped as if they were sleepy, clearly told him that he was tired.
“…Yes. I was traveling with my companion. If the blood moon hadn’t happened, it would have been a quiet and serene trip.
Seeing the horrors of the village I wanted to stop by on my way to travel, I had no choice but to come out like this.”
“How about a disaster?”
It’s okay.
The man wearily moved away from the fire and gestured to me.
“The smell of burning corpses is not very pleasant. Come over here and we’ll talk.”
He sat down on a stone bench in the plaza with his sword intact, took out a rag, and began to gently wipe the sword.
“Do you know vampires?”
Everyone knows, my lover is a vampire.
But I didn’t want to affirm it.
It was because I couldn’t figure out what this question was looking at.
“You’re not good at telling lies. And you’re not good at hiding the truth.”
He shook his head with a faint smile as he fed the cloth with the blood from the blade.
“If that’s what you’re worried about, no. I’m not from the cult, nor am I a vampire chaser. So feel free to answer honestly.”
“…Why are you asking?”
Queek.
His gesture stopped, and after looking at me for a moment, he stood up and put his sword in the scabbard.
“You… On the neck. Can you show me?”
“Ugh.”
Damn it, did I get caught!
I should have covered the wounds beforehand, but no way my neck was illuminated by the light…
“Oh, rest assured, it’s not like that! Here, I am too.”
When the cloth covering his neck and chin was rolled up, there were two holes in his neck.
The scars in a similar location, not much different from mine, looked quite familiar.
Then, could this man be in the same situation as me?
“Could you please, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll ask. Is your lover the one you’re trying to hide?”
“How did you know?”
“And you are not a vampire.”
She was in a position to give her her blood so quickly and always, I wasn’t on the side of craving her blood.
Although there have been times when I have hung on the threshold of death due to lack of blood, at least I have never tried to steal blood from anyone.
“…I’ve never wanted blood. At least not so far.”
“And it will always be. This is it. Nice to meet you. This is how I see one of the two main characters of Blood Moon.”
With a smile, I stretched out my hand and carefully grabbed his hand as he asked for a handshake, squeezed it once and let it go.
By the way, the main character of Blood Moon? Are there any conditions for this phenomenon?
“Tell me. What kind of person is your partner?”
“Companions? No, not even companions. Not even married yet. Hey, excuse me – you’re just like me…”
“That’s right. I’m Yuri, Irina’s partner. She’s a blood relative. Maybe your woman is too?”
He greeted me by saying his name without hesitation, and he started saying things I didn’t know.
“Blood relatives? What are blood relatives? Do you know anything?”
If you knew anything about my condition, and about hers, you should get his help.
“Don’t you know? Your lover kept it a secret…”
“It’s not like that – damn, do I have to say this.”
Does she tell a stranger everything that happened between her and me?
The person you’ve never seen before, and the person who sets the village on fire?
But he wasn’t hostile, rather he approached me as if he was very familiar with my condition.
So can I get some help?
“If you have too many questions, let me call Irina. Even I don’t know everything about my kin yet. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Niel Pietro.”
“Niel Pietro… Nice name. Nice tone. Then, excuse me.”
He took something out of his pocket, put it in his mouth, and blew his whistle loudly once.
Whirllyriric –
I squinted my eyes for a moment at the sound that resonated throughout the village, but belatedly realized the question I wanted to ask him and opened my mouth.
“By the way, what the hell were you doing in this town? What did you do to the people of this town?”
I turned my head to him, seeing a still-crackling fire and several barrels of unknown liquid lying there or overturned.
Still, I hadn’t taken off my mask.
“Ah, that’s… By any chance, do you have any ties to this town?”
“Anyway, even though I built a cabin on the side of the mountain and lived quietly, I always stopped by to accept requests or buy necessities.”
It seemed futile to see all the places I knew burning black and collapsing.
But at the same time, it looked so beautiful.
Embers embroidering the dark night sky soared high into the sky without any regrets, and the smoke scattered and disappeared.
“Vampires are raiding villages and cities. They are by no means few.
Of course, most of them fall into pitiful scapegoats to quench their thirst and desire, but those who are strong and those who survive being vampirized by chance will be haunted by the same curse.
Don’t become a monster who only sucks other people’s lives, wandering around looking for someone else’s blood.
And this town is going through the same process, we couldn’t just pass by.”
“…That’s why I burned it.”
Now it turns out that the liquid in the barrel was oil.
A piece of cloth wrapped around the end of a wooden stick and neatly arranged around it while still soaking it.
Is he setting fires all over the place?
With those corpses.
“You know, it’s not really… A nice sight to see people coming towards you, howling to kill you.
What they do for entertainment is turning their daughters and parents into vampires, locking them in a room and watching them.
Do you know how cruel it is to have someone who survived come out of the room crying and cursing his fate that he has changed?”
“Are vampires that cruel?”
“Oh, much more than you think. Those guys who live for so long taking someone’s life are blood-crazed and take pleasure in slaughter.
I don’t know if that’s their instinct, but nine times out of ten they brutally tear people apart and drench themselves in their blood, bursting out with hideous laughter.
None of the others is normal. Cancer, it’s not normal… What kind of nonsense is that to find strength and eternal life in the blood of innocent people.”
I wonder if he remembered something.
He shook his head vigorously and shook his body once.
“But don’t worry. It is only from the moment you meet the person you love that blood relatives begin to suck blood.
And after that, lovers, companions… Well, even marriages soon went away.
The blood relatives who confirmed their feelings were unable to eat anything after that,
It accepts only the blood of the one it loves into its body, and does everything it can to hold on to the one it loves more tightly.
I also fell in love with her, her heartbreaking love, and I’ve already been with her… Hmm. I haven’t counted the years since some time ago…
After patting his chin and thinking for a while, he took out a gold coin from his bosom and showed it to me.
“Do you know this coin?”
“Well, this is the first time I’ve seen it… Wait a minute, is this really pure gold?”
“That’s right. Hold on…”
He said, biting off the gold coin, then burst into laughter and showed me the coin.
“Aha, that’s right. Here. Can you see the teeth marks? It’s definitely a gold coin. Nowadays, all gold coins are gold-plated, but at least not in my time!”
The gold coin was definitely slightly dented.
‘I heard that if you bite gold like this, it will leave a mark. Hmm.’
I remembered what Elena said one day as she bit into a gold coin and rubbed her cheek as hard as she could.
“…I never studied history, but at least I can tell you that you’re not very recent.”
“Is that so? Hmm. I’m a little old too, hahahaha!”
“But for something like that… You. How old are you? You look so young. Like a young man… Even if you’re old, you only look like thirty.”
“Sure…Then I got her to confess her love to her, and sucked her blood from her to her… Yea, did that happen already? hahahaha…”
As Yuri rubbed her neck and blushed, I also touched her neck.
“That means… I’ve become a body that never ages, is that so?”
“If you want your love not to lose you, yes. You’ll be her immortal body. But she, did something happen to her?”
He stopped talking to me and stood up with a frown on his face. He put his mouth on the whistle once more.
“Where are your party now?”
“On the other side of town. I told you to clean out all the remaining vampires. But… Oh, what about your companion?”
“Helena is on the other side of me…”
In that moment, our eyes met.
“So, is the lover’s name Elena? She just in case. Doesn’t she know that she is her blood relative?”
Seeing him staring at me with strained eyes and demanding an answer, I hurriedly spit out what I knew.
“That’s right, I knew from you that I was a blood relative in the first place. I thought she just became a vampire, and I couldn’t let her die, so I fed her my blood.
Of course… After that, he only tried to drink my blood, and kept coming to me saying that he couldn’t be without me…”
After that, I couldn’t bear to say that they tried to pull out all the spirits as they were sitting on top of me.
When I think about those moments, I think it’s actually not a blood relative or a vampire, but a dark demon… It will make you think that way.
“Then she’s a blood relative. In the first place, vampires don’t like blood. Whether it’s human blood or animal blood, they can survive as long as they have flesh and blood.
But if it’s only you, it’s the same as Irina. Since then, taking only my blood, it’s like,
Suddenly, as soon as she heard his words, there was a word that passed through her mind, and she inadvertently spat it out.
And his and my voice overlapped, creating a harmony.
“”It’s sweet like drinking honey…””
His face grew more confident, and I couldn’t help but crumple.
Aren’t you caught up in something bigger than you thought, huh?
“Yes, and? Anything else?”
As he continued to keep his gaze on me, I continued to recall my memories as I remembered them.
“It must have been the blood of a deer, I drank it and vomited. I couldn’t even eat the food.”
“Yes, kin, damn it! And you don’t know that? You mean you just think you’re a vampire?”
“That’s right, that’s why!”
After blowing his snort once more, he took the whistle around his neck again and turned his body toward the path I had walked.
“Damn it, Irina’s a battle fanatic! She probably would have kept attacking even after realizing they were blood kin during a fight. Call her in now! I’ll blow my whistle too!”
“What?!”
“If you have the means to summon it, you’d better use it now…!”
Hui Iik –
Once again, the ear-piercing sound echoed through the streets.
I took a magic stone from my chest and blew energy into my hand.
“Please, don’t worry…!”
I threw it high into the sky as it started to glow, and the magic coal soared high into the sky, emitting blue light. It flew up vertically and emitted a strong blue light once.
Then the sound of something approaching, shaking the ground, could be heard in the distance.
The speed of the two figures rushing at full speed, waving their arms wildly from a distance in the alley, was truly astounding.
What the hell is stomping while raising a cloud of dust…
“Ah! Here you come. It’s Irina. The woman next to you is your…”
With her short white hair, she is recognizable from a distance. Her distinctive running posture.
How could I not notice her?
“Yes, Elena Heartfield.”
Did she notice me too? No, did both women finally realize that there is a man waiting for them?
Both women flew towards their respective loves.
“Yuri!”
“Niel! Niel!!”
Stretching out her arms and catching her who threw her body with all her might, she somehow tried her best not to fall…
I heard the sound of the man next to me being crushed on the floor, so I also lost my will to hold on.
It wasn’t long before I was able to see her again.
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She burying her face in her arms, running her hands over her whole body and crying, she is her word.