Chapter 836 – 836. Vampire Remnants (3)
In the dark vision, Cha Hanseong shivered from the cold chill rising from the floor.
“Kuh… !?”
As soon as he opened his eyes, Cha Han-seong immediately adjusted his posture.
Then he figured out where he was trapped.
“Prison… ?”
While looking around him with a dumbfounded expression, he realized that the weapon, Durandal, that had been stuffed around his waist was gone.
It’s not just Durandal.
All of the equipment, as well as the backpacks and luggage I used while traveling, were all gone.
‘… I got hit.’
He thought nothing of it.
He lost consciousness due to sudden drowsiness, and he showed a sad expression at the fact that all of his luggage and equipment were taken away.
“Shit…”
Rather than figuring out what had happened, he was mad at himself for having been stabbed in the back of the head in an absurd way.
“Woke up?”
Cha Han-seong was startled by the familiar voice talking to him and turned around.
It was scarlet.
“Hongah?”
Cha Han-seong went straight to Ju-hong.
I carefully checked her condition to see if she was hurt or not.
Understanding his gaze and behavior, Ju-hong shook his head saying that it was okay.
“I’m okay.”
“Really… Are you okay? If you happen to do something strange…”
“Huh. Are you okay. Aren’t you sick anywhere?”
“No. Not sure…”
Perhaps it was because I had been left lying on the cold stone floor for a long time, and my body felt a little stiff.
Other than that, it was fortunate that Ju-hong didn’t seem to have any serious trauma.
Cha Hanseong, who calmed down his agitation, finally asked Ju-hong.
“… What happened?”
“I don’t know either. When I woke up, I was here. Just like you, all your luggage and equipment were robbed…”
“Shit…”
Now that the situation has come this far, I have no choice but to admit it.
“Did we get stabbed in the back of the head?”
“… It seems so.”
Cha Hanseong nodded his head with a heavy expression at Juhong’s murmur.
Perhaps the innkeeper took sleeping pills for the meal he had prepared for Cha Han-seong and Ju-hong.
She was completely betrayed by the person who let her guard down.
He blamed himself for his own error in judgment.
“… It’s my fault.”
If it was an innkeeper, he wouldn’t be too wary that it would be all right.
Cha Han-sung confirmed that he was human through Durandal.
Because he was the same person, not a vampire.
So he let his guard down and he believed.
-Sorry, sorry… Really… I’m sorry…
As I was drowsy from the sleeping pills and my consciousness faded, the faint apologetic voice of the innkeeper came to mind.
He never thought that the innkeeper would have betrayed him.
“Why…”
Why did he do something like betrayal even though he was the same person?
Cha Hanseong muttered in a tone that he couldn’t understand.
“Because people are beings who can easily abandon others for the sake of themselves and their families.”
Cha Han-sung and Ju-hong turned their heads in the direction the voice came from.
I saw a woman sitting with her back against the wall under the dark moonlight.
And even the figure of a little girl lying on her lap.
“…”
The appearance of the two mothers and daughters was so miserable.
Her long, unmaintained blonde hair was sprung and parted, and her emaciated body and face showed extreme weariness from not eating or resting properly.
Nevertheless, her speech and demeanor are graceful and mild.
Cha Han-seong immediately recognized her as a nobleman from her appearance.
“If you do not mind… May I ask your name?”
To Cha Han-sung’s carefully asked question, the woman replied with a wry smile.
“The Viscountess of Brollton’s wife. My name is Tia Brollton. And this child…”
Tia snuggled her sweetly on her own lap and smiled her gracious smile at the sight of her own daughter sleeping soundly.
“My name is Letty Brollton. She is my daughter.”
“Brawlton…”
Ju-hong hardened her complexion when she heard the last names of the two mothers and daughters.
Doesn’t that mean that she is a lady and daughter of the Viscount Brollton, the owner of this Viscounty?
Cha Hanseong asked Tia carefully once again.
“This place… Where are you?”
“Why… Are you trapped here?”
“It’s just food and entertainment for the monsters who have taken control of this vassal territory and the lord’s castle.”
“… Yu-hee?”
When Ju-hong tilted his head, not understanding, Cha Han-seong asked for details.
“I wonder what happened to this viscount territory… Can you elaborate?”
“…”
Tia Brollton opened her mouth slowly with her aloof eyes that had already given up her everything.
◆ ◆ ◆
Everything a few months ago.
The story begins when a traveler visits the Viscounty of Brollton.
The Viscounty of Brollton is a small-to-medium-sized territory located in the southern part of the Pernias Kingdom, and it was not so affluent compared to other domains located in Pernin or the capital.
It wasn’t particularly poor or poor compared to other territories, but like other territories on the periphery, it was a mediocre territory with no special features.
Although he had the noble title of Viscount, it was merely a decoration inherited from generation to generation along with a non-characteristic territory from his predecessor.
It was not a title that Viscount Brawlton had acquired because of his outstanding political prowess.
Regardless of individual ability or ideology, the succession of titles that continued through hereditary succession was a bad practice in aristocratic society.
Viscount Brollton was incompetent.
He was incompetent, but not evil.
He inherited a title he did not want, but he did not run away from the position in charge of the family, the territory and the people.
He studied the management of the territory with all his heart and mind and did his best to fulfill the role of the lord.
It was because he had a wife who, like him, was born in a remote estate and married to him, and he wanted to be a father and lord who would not be ashamed of the daughter born to him and his wife.
While he was doing his best to take care of the Viscounty and look after the people, a traveler came to the Viscounty of Brawlton.
“I didn’t know then. Neither I nor his husband thought that the merchant was a terrible monster…”
“…”
“…”
Cha Han-seong and Ju-hong didn’t say anything.
He held his breath at Tia’s voice as she explained to him the terrible disaster that had befallen his family and the estate.
Tia continued.
“That man… He showed a miracle in front of us casually.”
It wasn’t until a week had passed since they came to Jajaklyeong that the travelers who had relied on their bodies in the sunless, half-destroyed temple moved.
On the day when the sun went down and the night fell, a tourist treated a farmer who was severely injured by a scythe cutting his leg while working in the field during the day.
It wasn’t magic, and it wasn’t a blessing expressed through divine power.
It was a potion introduced by travelers as an all-around elixir that could restore even damaged parts of the body to their original state.
For the villagers, who could not even receive proper treatment, let alone the blessings of the priests, the traveler’s leap was a miracle itself.
Even the effect of the elixir wasn’t just to quickly heal wounds.
“Some old people who took the elixir regained their youthful youth, and some people were cured of an incurable disease that they had suffered throughout their lives.”
“That…”
Hearing the story, Cha Han-seong had no choice but to harden his complexion.
It was because I realized what Tia was talking about as a traveler’s ‘leap’.
It must have been made by a vampire diluted with his own blood.
In other words, the miracles of the people of the Viscounty of Brawlton that she witnessed were all phenomena that occurred as their bodies became vampiric.
“It was stupid. The traveler… The monster warned her that her elixir would lose its effectiveness the moment it met the sun’s light, and it would be her death. However, the locals didn’t care about the side effects at all.”
They regained their youth, had stronger strength and stamina than before, and even healed the diseases that made them suffer.
There was no reason to give up.
The territories did not see or hear of the existence of vampires at all.
So, without any doubt, he accepted the vampire’s elixir.
If they had known that there was a more terrible restriction than the side effect of not being able to see the sun, the local people would not have drunk the elixir mixed with vampire’s blood.
“The young people… It just got weirder as time went on.”
The territories who drank the elixir lost their intelligence and became ferocious, so they attacked other territories.
As the vampirism progressed, he could not stand the vampiric urge that began to boil.
The estate fell into chaos in an instant, and Viscount Brollton, who belatedly grasped the situation, mobilized the knights of his family to try to quell the situation, but in the darkness where the sun did not rise, the traveler finally revealed his true colors as a vampire and killed all the knights.
Just mediocre knights from the frontier territory could not withstand the power of the vampires.
The monsters created by the monsters took hold of the territory and hunted people, and the entire vassalage collapsed in an instant.
“… Okay.”
Cha Hanseong nodded his head with a heavy face.
This was a situation Cha Han-seong also expected.
‘I was expecting…’
Tia, who experienced this hell firsthand, heard the reality through her own mouth.
“I don’t understand one thing, is that okay?”
Ju-hong asked as if something was unclear.
“The Viscounty has come this far, but why did I not know about the Kingdom until now? If at least they had dispatched wizards or knights…”
It was Cha Han-seong who answered her question.
“It takes more than two months to travel alone from Pernin, where the Knights headquarters is located, to this Viscounty of Brawlton. No matter how fast it is, it is impossible in less than 1 month. Maybe… This must have been the reason why the vampires were aiming for this place.”
It was an unavoidable practical problem.
A territory with a moderately large population, while located on the outskirts, out of contact with the power of the knights or wizards.
The Viscounty of Brollton was the best place for vampires to drink blood most quickly and reliably.
“Perhaps the vampire intentionally controlled information from the Viscounty to prevent it from leaking into the kingdom. And… The people of this territory must have already succumbed to the vampire.”
To think that he would naturally feed himself and Ju-hong sleeping pills and imprison them in the dungeon of the lord castle.
It was the worst mistake I ever thought of.
Just looking at the number of adventurers and merchants flowing into the dukedom located close to the capital Pernin in the south, it was immediately evident.
It could be said that the preparation of Eunhyeon and Eleanor, who had been collecting information from time to time in preparation for an unexpected situation, and the anxiety of Avros were precisely the result.
If this situation continues and the scale of the damage gradually expands, if the vampires have the power to attack the kingdom again.
Isn’t it the seed of disaster that could happen again.
Whether to say it was fortunate that he had discovered it in advance, or to say it was unhappiness, Cha Han-seong had a complicated feeling that he couldn’t explain.
“Yes…”
Soon Tia’s daughter, who had been lying on her lap, tossed over her and woke her up.
“Mom… Mind… ? Breath!?”
A girl who rubbed her eyes and slowly opened them.
Letty gasped in surprise at the sight of the two of them for the first time she saw them.
Her flinching girl instinctively covered her own mouth with both her hands.
“… ?”
The action was so unnatural and strange that Ju-hong tilted his head with a puzzled gaze.
It was like a child who was caught up in a mistake, an attitude that urgently tried to cover up his mistake.
What’s in her mouth
When the thought is crazy in your head.
“No way…”
Cha Hanseong also stared at Letty, hardening her complexion.
The girl was a vampire.
