The World They Live In (1)
"The usage is simple. Press the button and the metal core heats up. That heat vaporizes the blood."
When Zenia, holding the Blood Q, pressed the button with her thumb, a thin tube rose from the tip.
"It draws it in."
She put the tube to her mouth and inhaled; a few strands of her silver hair lifted and her eyes sharpened.
"So it drinks blood."
No matter how the form changes, the truth does not.
"Right. I'm half vampire myself."
A cool, menthol-scented plume drifted from her lips.
Grein said, "Drinking blood directly is disgusting, so it's designed to inhale it as vapor. It also acts faster—absorbed straight through the capillaries."
"Where do you get the blood?"
"From humans. By illegal means."
He didn't say the word "illegal."
"No excuses like 'we had no choice.' But once Zenia inhales the Blood Q, her senses are amplified at least a hundredfold. She can track every vampire within a two-kilometer radius."
When Zenia inhaled the Blood Q again, more of her hair stood on end and a few strands trembled.
"Seven vampires seven hundred meters northwest. Three at nine hundred meters south. There are some to the east, too."
Pauer ground his teeth. "A proper bat colony."
"The numbers have been rising. Just among the Almas we confirmed, there are already four. Do you know what that means?"
Rian answered, "A Lord."
"Right. One of the three vampire Lords is in Rodenin. In other words, a chance to end this damned war has come."
To wipe out vampires multiplying through injections, you must cut off the root.
Grein said, "Fight with us. It's not much of a reward, but we'll actively help uncover your secret."
"Do not worry. I have already sworn to take responsibility for the deaths I caused."
Maha's knight was, among gossipers, rumored to be a candidate for the Daegumho. The Genocide party brightened at the prospect of gaining a powerful ally, though Zenia remained an exception.
"Talk to me."
When Zenia went up to the first floor, Grein said, "As team leader, you must have something to say. Remember this: she is not a vampire."
He added, "And she's not human either."
Zenia was a Silverborn.
"I know."
The Blood Q—designed to vaporize foul blood for inhalation—was a tool that revealed that truth.
Leaving the others in the infirmary, Rian followed Zenia up to the cabin. The door was open; she stood, sword laced with Obscura B drawn, staring up at the moon.
"What do you want to say?"
Zenia turned.
"Why do you fight demons? Hatred? Revenge? Or some other reason?"
The demihuman's question was fitting.
"To protect someone I love."
Zenia fell into thought.
"And you? Why fight vampires? If you must hate someone, wouldn't it be humans?"
Humans were the most exclusivist of peoples.
"That's not entirely wrong. Both my parents were demihumans. I know human hostility, but…"
Zenia sneered. "Do humans even deserve hatred? As you know, even as demihumans, humans aren't our match. They're just prey. It wasn't humans who killed my parents—it was vampires."
The moonlight felt cold.
"We lived a simple life. Mom and Dad drank human blood, and sometimes we'd look at the moon…"
Zenia asked, "Weird to call that simple?"
"No. After all, humans live similarly." They live simply while devouring many peoples.
"But they gave us a tragedy."
"Purebloods?"
"They called us hybrids. They don't know love. They can't reproduce. They're a virus."
Her sword, the Dark Blade, hummed and trembled.
"If humans are food for purebloods, hybrids are insects they can't even eat. In the end my parents were captured…"
Zenia tore open her collar on both sides, revealing a lightning-shaped scar on her solar plexus.
"I was subjected to every experiment. That scar doesn't disappear even if I inhale the Blood Q. It's not part of my skin. They prodded my insides however they pleased. You know how that feels?"
Rian, of course, seemed to understand.
"Everyone in Genocide lost someone precious to a vampire. Pauer lost his wife, Grein his daughter…"
Zenia looked at Rian. "What did you lose? You say you fight to protect someone precious—then you're making light of this place. You're also a special case. If you fell into their hands you'd end up like me. You couldn't endure it."
What Zenia distrusted wasn't Rian specifically but all selfish humans.
"No matter how hard it's been, if you can console yourself, you're not ready to fight. To me, every proverb and verse in the world just disgusts."
It was the world of vampire hunters.
"I wanted to become stronger."
Rian spoke for the first time. "There is someone I truly want to protect. But that person is far stronger than I am."
Is Shirone still fighting the world now?
"I wondered how to become strong. But once that question comes, another follows: what is strength? There were many answers, and none of them felt right."
Zenia listened in silence.
"So I just kept walking. With each step I felt a little closer, so I just walked."
And so he cut down ten thousand demons.
"From the northern edge of the land back toward home… and then I arrived here. Am I stronger now? Can I protect the person I treasure?"
It was a crude, almost laughably simple method for someone named a candidate for the Daegumho.
"I don't know yet. But I'm still walking straight. Maybe I'll know when I reach home."
"And if you still don't know what strength is then?"
"I'll walk again." He spoke of an immense feeling with surprising ease.
"Strength isn't about what kind of swordsmanship you perform, or boosting muscle, or reading books, or quoting famous swordsmen…"
He had realized this while crossing the desert.
"It isn't that complicated. It only seems complex because you don't understand it. If I could walk across the whole world, if I could push through whatever stands before me…"
Rian pulled out his greatsword.
"It means I can go anywhere."
Zenia hovered back as if levitating and let the Dark Blade hang diagonally.
"There is only one place I must go from that point."
Shirone.
"To return to my lord."
As Dina took hold of Rian's body, he surged at Zenia in a motion that ignored inertia.
"Taha!"
Zenia spun to evade and slashed her straight sword at the back of Rian's neck.
'What—?'
As if his front and back had switched, Rian had already turned and was lifting the greatsword upward.
A clear metallic note rang out as the Dark Blade shot high into the sky.
Zenia tracked the sword's arc reflected in the moonlight, stared blankly, and lifted her head.
"Your situation, my situation—they're not as complex as they seem. If you push through, everything becomes simple."
Complexity grows when you lack the courage to do that.
"I have no intention of stopping. So don't you stop either."
Catching the falling Dark Blade, Rian reversed the blade in a graceful motion and offered the hilt.
"If I were to stop, then you would have to cut my throat with this sword yourself."
Zenia, who had been staring at the offered hilt for a long time, snatched the Dark Blade back as if tugging a fish.
"Hah, not bad. But remember this: I don't trust humans or vampires. I only trust the people I choose to trust."
Because he couldn't be the one to soothe her wounds every night, Rian felt a certain lightness as well.
"Let's go. We'll sweep the vampires away." Back in the cabin's underground facility, the Genocide group ate an early breakfast.
"Welcome back. Did the talk go well?"
Zenia tossed the Dark Blade and it slammed against a broad magnet fixed to the wall.
"We agreed to fight together."
It left room for doubt, but Rian already looked different simply for having persuaded Zenia.
"Come sit. If you're going to fight, eating is important."
They spread out boiled meat and fresh vegetables and held their meeting.
"We still can't pinpoint the Lord's location even with Zenia inhaling the Blood Q," Fasset said.
"To learn that, we'd first have to capture an Almas alive. But didn't the blood bank get shut down?"
Rian said, "Maybe vampires infiltrated the palace. Almas can endure sunlight. I have a contact in the constabulary; I'll go ask."
He would need to meet Benof anyway.
"Is that okay? It's already morning."
"One day is fine."
Zenia stretched and yawned. "It won't stay just one day from now on. You'd better adjust to the time difference fast."
For vampire hunters, morning was sleeping time.
"Fair enough."
Outside the cabin, morning sunlight poured through the branches.
'Is Irene safe?'
Last night's memories were dark as a dream.
"Lord, I have brought blood." In an underground den in Rodenin where vampires lodged, an Almas-ranked Masquer arrived.
With Tempest, who handled the blood bank, gone, he had to wander all night to fill the quotas.
An elderly man who seemed incapable of aging turned his gaze from a chair carved with grotesque bat motifs.
He was the vampire Lord, Benedict.
"Ugh!"
Just meeting his eyes sent a chill through the Masquer—because Benedict had made them.
"You are late. He was very angry."
"Forgive us! Hunters interfered…"
"I do not want excuses."
As his voice echoed through the dome-like brick chamber, every Almas guarding him dropped to their knees.
"An immortal being swayed by mere humans—this is a disgrace to vampires."
The Masquer still had one thing to say. "However, the opponent was Silverborn. And among the humans I met, there was even a Maha's knight."
"A Maha's knight?"
"You may not know, Lord, but among humans there are individuals classified as Class One."
"Class One, huh."
Vampires dominate the human night, but among humans there are exceptionally powerful individuals. Class One is the highest human classification—one Almas would find it hard to handle.
"Form a squad. We'll take other Almas and wipe those humans out."
Benedict shook his head. "There is a more important task now: awaken the remaining two Lords from dormancy."
Three Lords appearing at once was something that hadn't happened in two thousand years.
"For the time being, don't worry about hunters. Focus on gathering more blood."
As the Masquer bowed, a cold voice came from behind.
"If it is a Maha's knight, the matter is different. He's the human who even broke my comrade Baknyeo."
Benedict sprang to his feet. "T-this lowly place… how did you come—"
Faust, the vampire progenitor and third-ranked member of the Council of Ten, appeared with a beautiful smile.
"May we greet the True Demon!"
Amid dozens of kneeling vampires, he looked up at the ceiling and murmured, "That one will be our final piece of the puzzle."