"...!!!"

Unable to hide its shock, the beautiful child was staring at the daughter.

In those eyes were surprise and bewilderment.

And—

"...Kh!"

shame, and anger, filled to the brim.

That pale face had flushed slightly red.

"...Huh?"

When the ones who had been about to leave suddenly stopped walking, the villagers, who had been watching them anxiously, could not help but flinch.

They had been grieving and furious over losing their families, barely holding back their tears.

But deep inside, there had also been a strange sense of relief that at least they themselves had not been taken.

And yet.

Before they could even properly feel that relief, the others had stopped.

Fear returned to people's eyes.

"...No way."

The father, with a bewildered look on his face, stared blankly at them.

"W-what is the matter?"

"You've already taken everyone you came to take...!"

And then.

As if stopping were not enough, when they turned back and returned into the village,

the elders spoke with trembling voices.

"P-please, taking us would be useless! We're old, and we wouldn't even taste good...!"

"If you'll only spare us, we'll raise those children. Wouldn't that be better for such great beings as yourselves...!"

"That is true enough, but."

The red-eyed men, as though they had no interest at all in those elders,

said,

"One exception has appeared."

Then they looked around for a moment.

Soon enough—

"There."

as though they had found their target, they started walking somewhere.

"You." 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

...To the place where the daughter and her father were.

"Come with us."

Straight there.

"Eek!?"

When their hand seized the daughter, she recoiled in fright at the suddenness of it, not understanding what was happening.

At the same time, she instinctively turned around.

"Father!"

There, her father had barely managed to rise and was standing on his feet.

"..."

But then.

As he looked at the man holding his daughter's hand, her father wore a strangely subtle expression, one impossible to describe.

"...?"

At the sight of that, the daughter felt an unease she could not identify.

She could not explain it in words.

But when she had instinctively turned around, it felt as though this was not the sight she had been hoping to see...

that kind of unease.

"Should I call it unexpected."

Then, one of the red-eyed men spoke.

The one standing in the center among them, seeming to hold quite a high position, looked at her father and said,

"Or should I say it was only to be expected."

And then, the words that came from his mouth were a perfect explanation of the unease the daughter had clearly felt, yet could not understand.

"Your daughter is being dragged away, and you are not trying to stop us?"

***

"Father...?"

Her father was doing nothing as he watched his daughter being taken away.

He did not even look angry or grief-stricken.

"If I fought you here, I would not survive. Correct?"

"Correct."

"...And what you said about letting me go still stands?"

"That too is correct."

"In that case."

Still wearing that strange expression, he looked at his daughter for a moment and then said,

"The ones who can live ought to live, shouldn't they?"

At those words from his mouth—

"...!"

the daughter's eyes filled with shock.

"You may or may not know this, but the land around here is maintained under an unspoken agreement between your nation... that Empire, and our house."

Then, the red-eyed man looked at her father and said,

"Unlike bloodlines that border the lands of other weak human nations, our bloodline's territory connects only to the Empire among human lands. Inferior species though they may be, the Empire stands at the top among inferiors. Even for us, it is quite troublesome to enter the middle of their territory and hunt human livestock."

"..."

"That is why this land, where we can obtain human livestock without any such nuisance, is quite important to us. Important enough that a great one personally came here over something as trivial as rebuilding a single ranch. ...You seem to be someone connected to the Church."

Those red eyes were filled with irritation and disgust.

"With a stench this revolting, you are probably someone of somewhat significant background. If you happened to have ties to a high-ranking figure in the Empire, then touching you could enlarge the problem and throw this land into disorder."

"..."

"If you had grit your teeth and resisted to the end... our wise and merciful head of the house might have taken pity on that courage and made one more concession."

Their head of the house had already made one concession.

Sparing and sending back someone who could have served as livestock.

That being the case, it would never have been easy to win a second concession.

"But you do not even try."

The corner of the man's mouth twisted with ridicule, contempt, and a faint anger.

"This frontier land, and trash like you as well."

"..."

"As expected... all this does is remind me that I did well to cast off being one of the inferior species. To think that without the grace of the head of the house, I too might have become the same as creatures like you... it makes me sick enough to vomit."

And yet.

No matter how openly the man insulted him,

"..."

the father only stood there in silence, his head bowed.

"...Tch."

When the father showed no reaction, the red-eyed man turned away as though he had lost interest.

"Bring her."

Held fast in that man's grasp, the daughter was dragged off somewhere by force.

"...Father."

And.

Even while being dragged away like that, the daughter kept turning her head again and again to look back.

Far away, her father did not even meet the eyes of his daughter being taken.

He only kept his head deeply bowed.

"Why?"

As she continued staring at that sight, suddenly, a conversation she had once had with her father came back to her.

-She left.

When she had asked where her mother had gone, the words her father had finally forced out after deep thought.

At the time, she had not properly understood what he meant and had let it pass.

Yet for some reason, those words had remained lodged in her heart, and she had never been able to forget them.

-She abandoned us. By herself.

She had not understood it then.

But now she felt she finally could.

"Abandoned."

What that word meant.

And when he had said it—

...why her father had worn that expression.

All of it. All of it.

***

Crunch!!!

"You... bastard...!"

With a painful scream, and a face painted with utter disbelief, the huge man—

Boom.

"Viscount Valeri!!!"

collapsed to the ground.

Its body slowly began turning to ash.

"A sword that moves on its own...!?"

"My God, it still had hidden power!?"

After breaking through the enemy's defensive line as far as possible, I smashed the head of one noble who had seemed relaxed, as though it still thought I was nowhere close.

One of the kitchen knives Grandpa Park had made for me, and also a knife forged using the weapon of Hara-Bal, great warrior of the [Green Mane] tribe—

[Sori Cleaver]

[Charge of the Mudhorn]

I used [Sori Cleaver] to pierce through it.

The destructive power was comparable to an all-out strike from me.

"That takes care of one of them, but..."

Unfortunately, the situation was not exactly good.

"I've exposed the [Assistant Chef] I was saving."

I had brought down the noble in front of me.

But there were still three of them left, on the left, right, and rear.

The forces that had been blocking the front, too, had only lost their commander. Their momentum was still intact.

"...Well, I expected this."

The strike using [Assistant Chef] and [Sori Cleaver] was certainly powerful.

But the chance to use it to kill an enemy existed only once, when the enemy was still unaware of [Assistant Chef].

Now that they knew my kitchen knife could move on its own, they would not fall for the same trick again.

Which was why—

"I aimed for the most important spot."

I looked straight ahead.

Because I had just brought down that bastard Valeri-whatever, the cohesion of the enemy forces had weakened a little.

My own body could push forward a little more as well.

"Stop him...!"

And thanks to that—

"Do not let him approach the Marquis!"

the distance between me and Ariella was finally beginning, little by little, to close.

Boom!

As I cut down the enemies surging at me, I thought.

At some point, Ariella, who had been telling me about her past, had stopped speaking.

But.

Every time I took one step closer, that bastard's powerful mana scraped against my skin.

"They said a bloodline... is heavily influenced by its head of house."

I was not of Ariella's bloodline.

But my blood came from her.

The way Karhin handled Kirchhoff's realization.

Just like that, my blood was connected to Ariella.

And that «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» was not all.

"They also said blood contains that being's soul and memories."

Ariella had used that to instantly learn the languages and concepts of other species.

Back then, honestly, I had only thought it was an enviable ability.

But.

[Berserk]

[Accelerating blood flow...]

The blood coursing through my body accelerated, and the vampire blood that made up half of it expanded its influence over me.

My strength grew, my recovery rose, and even my appearance gradually began to change.

Just like when Karhin took on the form of a vampire.

As my body and abilities drew closer to those of a vampire, and Ariella's mana seeped into my body, stirring the blood within it, I realized one thing.

"...Ah."

The soul mixed into blood.

The power to read the memories of that soul.

Maybe this ability...

"This is...?"

was not such an enviable one after all.

Drip...

Suddenly, tears spilled from my eyes.

***

When the daughter was seized by the red-eyed men and dragged away, and at last even her father disappeared from view—

drip... tears began to stream from her eyes.

Tears that had never fallen no matter what happened in that frontier settlement kept falling endlessly, without stop.

Clank...

And then.

The men dragged her away and locked her inside a barred cage attached to some carriage.

The horse pulling the carriage gave off something like black smoke.

If there was one odd thing,

it was that not a single one of the frontier settlers who had been taken before her was inside those bars.

But.

Neither the bizarre monster pulling the carriage, nor the grotesque fact that none of the people taken before her were there, drew the attention of the daughter, who only crouched in the corner and kept crying.

And then.

After she went on crying like that, until at some point it felt like she had no tears left to shed—

"So you've finally stopped crying."

someone spoke to her while watching her.

And then.

The moment the daughter saw that face, she could not help but flinch in shock.

"You...?"

Completely mismatched with those beautiful and splendid clothes, a child was crouching off in the corner, just as she was.

"...Sadly, you too were abandoned by the parents who gave birth to you."

That child—

...was the beautiful girl she had seen only a little while ago, standing among those men.

"You could not bear the loneliness, and you were crying there all by yourself."

At some point.

Or perhaps from the very beginning.

That child, who had been watching the daughter from there, rose to its feet and walked toward her.

"You too..."

And then, wiping the tears from the daughter's face, it said,

"...are now the same as me."

The daughter looked into the girl's eyes as she looked back at her.

Beautiful red eyes like jewels, burning with a strange heat.

"But do not be too sad."

And.

Inside those eyes,

"We have a friend now."

within a world drowned in blood, she could see her own reflection.