“So, where did we leave off?”
“Right, it was about what to do with our senior.”
Plona, who demonstrated that a vampire’s tear ducts work just fine, spoke calmly.
‘Oh, right.’
As soon as I glanced over the bars, I locked eyes with Selin, who was looking at me with a complicated expression.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to convey ‘What are you doing here?’ but she immediately looked down to avoid my gaze.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Anyway, how far does this restraint thing work?
Forcing or prohibiting specific actions isn’t that hard. But what about more abstract and emotional demands?
For instance, predicting the result of an order like ‘You must not suck blood without permission’ is easy. But is the command ‘You must not feel thirst without permission’ valid too?
If I’m going to use Selin as a tool, I needed to clarify this.
‘… But somehow, it feels a bit stale.’
After going through all this chaos, it all felt hollow. I couldn’t muster any motivation.
To be honest, I had been trying hard to convince myself that there was no real reason to hate Selin more than usual, but I have to admit, there was a degree of resentment behind my decision to restrict her.
I decided to drag things out, to choose a method that would cause Selin as much discomfort as possible, enjoying the sight of her slowly breaking down.
No matter how tough she might be, even Selin couldn’t resist the urge to suck blood.
If I tied her down with restraints so she couldn’t take her own life, and after starving her for about two weeks, thrown a human prisoner in front of her, would she be able to avoid drinking blood?
As someone with experience, I could confidently say it was impossible.
Moreover, even if she tried to resist, that wouldn’t be a problem.
Just like what happened to me with Raul, if I forcefully poured blood down her throat once, she’d understand the reality that she was no longer human, whether she wanted to or not.
But—
“Selin Soleis. I’ve changed my mind.”
I thought my feelings had been set in stone, and I had accepted that I could live with the decay.
But now that I realized that this could negatively affect ‘my people’ if left unchecked, I had to act differently.
‘I underestimated my own influence too much.’
It’s not like I suddenly woke up with a sense of justice or plan to deny the sweetness of revenge.
Revenge only breeds more revenge, and saying that violence solves nothing is all nonsense.
There has never been a day in my life where I felt more fulfilled than when I killed Raul and drank his blood.
If someone just lays there and takes it, they deserve at least as much back. No, I have to collect interest, or else I won’t be taken seriously by those pathetic beings.
Those who say revenge is wrong are either the kinds who stab others in the back and have eaten their fill, or they are just flower-headed idiots.
But now, I needed to act responsibly.
Even if I sought revenge, I needed to rationally choose the way I sought it.
If I act on emotion, dragging Selin to a worse fate than death, I might end up seeing Plona suffer because of it.
Not to mention, it wouldn’t be logical to spend time on Selin right when things are about to get busy in the future. Well, that might just be an excuse.
‘So what if it’s an excuse?’
I didn’t want to make my people suffer over this.
Completely eliminating options that would yield greater losses than gains, the compromise I settled on was just collecting the bare minimum cost required to achieve my goals.
“Since I can’t return to being human anyway, if you want, I’ll grant you the right to die while still being human in mind. What will it be? Make your choice.”
“… Is that sincere?”
Selin, who had been half resigned, and even Plona, who was starting to accept the bitter reality, looked at me in surprise.
‘This is as far as my compromises go.’
I couldn’t simply forgive Selin.
She was the first cause behind my fall from human to vampire and the symbolic figure I needed to surpass, and she was also an important prisoner in this war.
Yet, it wouldn’t be too hard to just kill her and finish it.
If she wanted to live instead of dying as a human, even as a soulless puppet, then that would change things.
“… If that’s sincere, I’ll gladly offer my neck.”
But as expected, Selin wished for death without hesitation.
Was she, bound by the vampire’s flesh, willing to die as a human instead of living forever as a tool?
This stood in stark contrast to Raul, who, while shouting about ideals and nobility, revealed his true colors when faced with death.
In both good and bad ways, Selin Soleis truly was the epitome of a knight until the very end.
“Do you need time to sort your thoughts?”
“No. I don’t need it.”
“Then I’ll send you off now.”
With just a few exchanges, the situation came to an end, leaving Plona in evident shock.
But this time, Plona silently stood behind me, understanding it was the greatest mercy I could offer Selin.
That unspoken agreement was proof that Plona didn’t confuse personal feelings with duty.
I felt a slight sense of pride, yet there was no need to witness the death of an old acquaintance. I could handle what came next alone.
“Plona, you go above first.”
“… I’m sorry. Is that alright?”
Normally, Plona would avoid dirty work, but this time, instead of insisting, she nodded willingly.
Once I confirmed that Plona had completely exited the underground prison, I took out the key I had prepared and unlocked the cage.
“Any last words?”
“Last will? Then please take care of Plona.”
“Unexpected. I thought you’d call her a traitor.”
In truth, from Selin’s perspective, that could be how she felt.
While Plona’s recent stab at Selin could be attributed to the influence of the constraint, before that, Plona had been an enemy of the same church and chose to side with me.
From my standpoint, she was a reliable ally, but from the humans’ perspective, it wasn’t completely wrong to label her a traitor.
So if Selin tried to say something unnecessary to Plona, I was prepared to silence her with restraints, but unexpectedly, those worries came to nothing.
“… Plona was always a bright and cheerful girl. Even when she joined the knight order at a young age, she handled harsh training without complaint, with shining talent and personality, she was a sun-like girl, without a single flaw.”
Selin laughed bitterly.
“Even when I asked her if she was struggling, she just smiled and said it was okay, so everyone thought that’s how she always was. Knowing she was kind, no one expected that she was so lonely and kept her pain bottled up until it festered.”
Is it naive to believe such a perfect human exists? If someone says it’s unnecessary for a work senior to know about such private matters, I wouldn’t have a reply.
But, I really don’t know. They lived in a whole different world than I did.
In this world, where superhumans abound, perhaps such perfect people could exist. Maybe it was commonplace in the knight order.
But now, the cause was no longer important.
The only truth was that Plona, more than skills in swordsmanship or magic, was just an ordinary girl wishing for a family.
“From the beginning, Plona followed you well. When I heard three years ago that she had betrayed humans, I couldn’t believe it… but today, seeing it for myself, I realized that she was just looking for someone to embrace the wounds that no one acknowledged.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Yeah, I regret it. So I have no right to curse Plona. It may not be something a knight should say, but I’m already not human. While I can’t bless the future of a vampire, I won’t hinder it either.”
Truly… nothing about her inflexible nature remains unchanged.
Yet, since I’ve done nothing futile, I might as well send her off painlessly in one go.
I stepped into the cage and stood behind Selin, who was bound on her knees, she calmly closed her eyes and straightened her back.
“Can I ask just one last question?”
“Go ahead.”
“When we lived in the Luminous Kingdom, what were you thinking to endure this thirst and refuse human blood?”
“At that time, I wanted to be human too.”
The one who made me realize that it was an impossible dream was you.
Selin’s head lowered slightly. I couldn’t see her expression from behind.
“At that time, you say.”
I sensed a faint regret and resignation in her hollow voice.
But she didn’t add anything else.
No excuses, no justifications, no apologies. Just a calm acceptance of her fate.
With that, I thrust my right hand through her back while she kept her eyes closed, awaiting her final moment.
As I crushed her pulsing heart, Selin’s body collapsed, losing strength. I caught her corpse to prevent it from falling and immediately bit into her neck, sucking the still warm blood.
Normally, a kin’s blood doesn’t taste good, but for some reason, Selin’s blood was even more horrific.
But, I held back the rising nausea and drank until the last drop, clearing out the grudge from my weak past.
The ecstasy I tasted when I killed Raul was nowhere to be found.
Was this how those who drank the bitter reality felt? It was a night mixed with relief and bitterness, filled with numerous thoughts.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.
