Chapter 72

The autumn wind was cold as the two young swordsmen crossed mountains and rivers, walking westward.

Eventually, the mountains all but vanished, and they reached a land crisscrossed by river branches like spiderwort roots, where the wind blew without pause.

They had arrived in the Kingdom of Netherland.

Creaking windmills could be seen everywhere, along with numerous reed beds that grew taller than a person.

The poor soil made the land unsuitable for farming, so the people here survived primarily by grazing sheep and cattle.

Ancient coastal cities flourished along the western shore, but the inland regions were hardly ideal places to make a living.

The Vanstein territory lay in precisely such a place—a barren land overgrown with reeds.

It was midday, yet the sun glowed dimly through what appeared to be a veil of mist.

Despite the hour, the strange day felt as though it were either dawn or early evening.

Somewhere amid the reeds, an old boatman sat fishing at a dilapidated, seemingly abandoned ferry landing. He looked like the last man remaining in the world, quietly awaiting the arrival of death.

The two young swordsmen pushed through the reeds and approached him.

“Hello.”

Rickart greeted him. Apparently not dead yet, the old man lifted the brim of his straw hat slightly and glanced at Rickart and Ice.

Then he looked back toward the river.

“May I ask you something? Is this the Vanstein territory? There weren’t any boundary stones.”

Rickart and Ice had reached this place by asking for directions along the way, but they had begun to encounter fewer and fewer people, leaving them uncertain whether they were still on the right path.

Without speaking, the old man merely raised a hand as wrinkled as an ancient tree and pointed toward the opposite bank.

“We’ll pay the fare. Would you take us across the river?”

“It would be pointless.”

“Pardon?”

“Every once in a while, just when everyone has forgotten, brave warriors come here claiming they will destroy the vampire count. But there is nothing over there.”

Rickart quietly studied the old man, then smiled faintly.

“We’re adventurers. We came to meet our client. Even we don’t know whether we’ll end up killing the vampire count.”

The old man glanced at Rickart and Ice again. Then he reeled in his fishing line, stood, and boarded a small ferryboat.

“How much is the fare?”

“Just get in. This is nothing more than a way for me to pass the time.”

Rickart looked at Ice and shrugged. They boarded the ferry together.

The old man sat at the stern and rowed with steady creaks of the oars. The boat slowly moved forward.

Then, in the middle of the river, fog suddenly began to gather.

It grew progressively thicker until they could barely see anything in front of them. It was a strange phenomenon.

Moreover, despite the river not being particularly wide, the old man continued rowing for an unusually long time.

Creak. Creak. Creak…

“It seems he’s using some sort of magic.”

Ice spoke in a dry voice. An ordinary person might have fallen over in shock.

Then, at some point, the fog lifted.

The old man had vanished without a trace, and the boat had somehow reached the opposite bank.

“Perhaps we just crossed the river to the underworld.”

Like Ice, Rickart showed little emotion.

It was a strange phenomenon witnessed by two equally strange swordsmen.

Rickart pushed hard against the riverbed with an oar, bringing the boat close to the bank. He and Ice then disembarked.

It was a cool autumn day. The hour was midday, and the sun shone brightly in the sky.

In the distance stood a hill, a rare sight in Netherland, and atop it was a small castle encircled by a wooden palisade.

They immediately headed toward it.

Before long, they arrived at the village beneath the castle, which resembled a small manor. Not a single living creature was in sight.

There were abandoned vegetable plots, empty cattle sheds, and doors creaking on deserted houses.

There were no signs that an army or bandits had burned the village and massacred its inhabitants.

It was simply a decaying village from which everyone had departed.

Rickart looked around briefly, adjusted the sword on his back, and headed toward the castle atop the hill.

“Let’s go.”

By this point, most people would have felt uneasy, but Rickart and Ice displayed no such reaction.

Perhaps they had lost all capacity for fear.

Or perhaps they were simply that confident.

They climbed the hill and reached what appeared to be Vanstein Castle. However, the wooden palisade had rotted and collapsed in several places. This place, too, seemed to have been abandoned long ago.

The castle gates had rotted away and lay scattered across the ground. Only the door to the keep, where the Count had presumably once lived, remained firmly shut.

Rickart crossed the weed-choked courtyard, approached the keep, and pounded on the door.

Surely no one had invited them all this way only for the castle to be empty.

Before long, however, the door rattled open by itself.

Rickart cautiously stepped inside.

He saw a threadbare carpet, furniture covered in dust, and cobwebs gathered in the corners.

From outward appearances, the castle was undoubtedly abandoned.

Yet an incongruous sound reached his ears.

Grrrgl. Grgl. Grrrrgl. Grgl.

The sound came and went at irregular intervals.

As Rickart wondered what it could possibly be, the torches mounted on the walls suddenly ignited by themselves.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Fwoosh.

They lit one after another down the corridor, as though showing them the way.

Rickart and Ice exchanged a glance, then followed the illuminated path together.

At the end, they entered a chamber so spacious that it resembled a great hall more than a dining room.

A fire burned in the hearth. Apart from a long dining table, the enormous room contained nothing else, making the space feel almost wasteful.

The table was laden with every imaginable fresh delicacy, entirely out of place in an abandoned castle.

Seated at the head of the table was the elderly boatman they had seen earlier.

Unlike before, his white hair was now neatly combed back, giving him an immaculate appearance. He wore elegant black silk clothing.

He rose and spoke in a refined, measured tone.

“Welcome, adventurers. Please enjoy the banquet.”

Had he been possessed by a ghost or placed under a spell?

Yet Rickart’s senses, as keen as a sharpened blade, told him that everything before him was real.

Rickart and Ice sat in the chairs prepared for them near the middle of the table, facing each other.

Rickart first examined the food. A freshly roasted suckling pig and fresh fruits that were out of season immediately caught his attention.

Where had the ingredients come from, and how had the meal been prepared at precisely the right time?

It was all exceedingly strange.

“I cannot eat human food. Therefore, do not trouble yourselves with showing courtesy to your host. Eat freely.”

Rickart looked at the impeccably groomed old man and asked,

“Are you Count Lehmann?”

“I am.”

“The vampire count?”

“Ha-ha-ha. Indeed.”

“Is this some kind of trap? Perhaps you wanted the fresh blood of young men.”

Count Lehmann laughed and shook his head.

Then the strange sound from earlier echoed once more.

Grrrgl. Grgl.

“My apologies. That was my stomach. I have not drunk blood in more than fifty years.”

“…”

Rickart blinked.

He could not understand a single thing about this situation.

What was he even supposed to say? Should he observe proper etiquette?

He was so bewildered that he found it difficult to speak at all.

“Time is relative. What constitutes an entire lifetime for one person may feel like a fleeting instant to another. I believe we have more than enough time for conversation. There is no need to be so bewildered.”

“Why don’t you drink blood?”

Ice asked abruptly.

“Asceticism is not the sole privilege of humanity. I seek a long death.”

“Why?”

Rickart asked.

“There are two paths by which one may take one’s own life. One is to flee as quickly as possible. The other is to carry one’s will through to its conclusion. I do not wish to flee.”

In short, he intended to starve himself to death.

What kind of situation was this?

Rickart began to wonder whether the ancient vampire was trying to bewitch him.

Moreover, high vampires were nearly immortal. To starve to death, Lehmann would have to go without blood for at least a century, perhaps far longer.

It was utterly incomprehensible from a human perspective, and imagining the patience required was more difficult still.

“Putting the method aside, why do you want to die?”

“It began with our father. At first, I could not understand him either. But now I do. This is our final act of defiance against God—a means of transforming the curse placed upon us into a blessing.”

Every answer seemed to produce even more questions, branching endlessly outward.

Perhaps his words were overly intellectual or philosophical, but they possessed a certain depth.

“What curse?”

Ice asked again.

“Humans often forget this, but we were all once human as well. Even the first vampire was originally a man. He was the first murderer, and for that reason, he was cursed with an inability to die.”

“But they die when you cut off their heads.”

“That is not death. It is an accident.”

Rickart shifted his eyes as he considered the answer.

Were those really different things?

A vampire could continue living indefinitely as long as it drank blood, so perhaps its existence truly was different from that of a human, who would inevitably die when his time came.

These were questions he could neither readily accept nor answer.

Lehmann appeared to have reached his own conclusion and acted upon it, but Rickart remembered why he had come.

“I’d like to ask about the commission. But before that, why did you give it to us? Between the fog earlier and this banquet, you seem quite capable.”

“As I said, it began with our father. He has not drunk blood for nearly six hundred years. However, my younger sister, Remania, defied his wishes and abducted him. She intends to steal his noble death from him. I may still possess a few minor abilities, but I have grown considerably weaker. I cannot defeat my sister. That is why I issued the commission.”

“If we kill him with our own hands, wouldn’t that be an accident?”

“An accident is preferable to having his death stolen.”

Rickart met Ice’s gaze across the table.

With his eyes, he conveyed a simple message.

This would not be easy.

High vampires were far more complex than Rickart had expected. He had assumed they were merely powerful monsters, but they seemed to occupy a realm of profound understanding that ordinary humans found difficult to reach.

Apparently, they did not live so long without gaining something from it.

Ice, however, was conflicted.

To become a Sword Master, he needed to take the final examination, and only special-class adventurers were eligible for it.

It was not easy for him to retreat when his goal was directly before him.

Lehmann quietly studied Ice before speaking.

“Do you know the true nature of the curse placed upon the first murderer—the first vampire?”

“It is guilt. A prison without bars from which there is no escape. Yet you have placed that same curse upon yourself. Even if you achieve your goal, your younger sister will not return to life. All that will remain is emptiness.”

In an instant, Lehmann saw through Ice’s true nature—something even Rickart did not know.

Ice was left speechless, his face filled with astonishment.

“Surprisingly, salvation may not be far away. It might be right beside you. Would you not agree, murderer among murderers, demon among demons?”

Lehmann turned his gaze toward Rickart.

Rickart quietly studied him, then gave a faint laugh.

When considering how long Lehmann had lived, he had existed far longer than Rickart’s previous life and the intervening period combined.

“I don’t know much about salvation either. Theology has never particularly interested me.”

“Yet you have seen someone who was saved.”

He appeared to be referring to the Nameless Man.

“I have. But I also learned that it isn’t something just anyone can accomplish. I’m not confident I can do it.”

“The purer the soul, the deeper its wounds. Love is a curse, yet it is also a blessing. You appear to fear the repetition of tragedy. But what else can you do? Even if your heart is torn to pieces, you have no choice but to accept it. Your salvation lies there. That is the blessing bestowed upon humanity: the ability to accept. Surely that is easier than starving for hundreds or thousands of years?”

Perhaps the last sentence was intended as a joke, for Lehmann smiled faintly.

It was truly strange.

Rickart could not understand everything Lehmann said, but he could tell that his words contained truth.

And yet those words had come from a vampire.

As though he understood how difficult it was for them to relinquish their suspicions, Lehmann quietly placed a small vial on the table.

It contained a small quantity of yellow oil.

“This is the sacred oil that enabled Illiya the Dragonslayer to rise. The pilgrim who gave it to him was none other than Cain, the first vampire. Our father received this from Cain himself, so there can be no doubt that it is genuine.”

“What does it do? Does it grant tremendous strength, as the legend says?”

“Perhaps it does, and perhaps it does not. Every medicine is also a poison, just as every poison can also be medicine. Cain reportedly said that Illiya’s cheerful heart, untouched by the slightest shadow, reminded him of sunlight he had long forgotten.”

Though they had not yet completed the commission, Lehmann left the vial on the table and rose.

“Go to Harklen. My beloved father, Armant, is being held there by the Rose Circus. If necessary, kill my sister and grant our father an imperfect death. If Father should succumb to my sister’s temptation, I do not believe I could endure it.”

Lehmann walked out of the hall.

Rickart and Ice were left alone.

The food on the table had grown cold. Rickart snatched up a bright red apple and took a bite.

He chewed it with a crisp crunch and savored the taste.

It was exceptionally sweet and delicious.

“We’re not going to discover later that this is actually human flesh or something, are we?”

Ice appeared deeply troubled, but he laughed when he saw Rickart.

He drew his dagger, sliced a piece from the roasted suckling pig, and ate it. Though it had cooled slightly, its flavor remained extraordinary.

Apparently unbothered, the two friends ate and drank their fill of the food prepared by a vampire.

Once they had stuffed themselves, drowsiness began to overtake them.

They took Illiya’s Holy Oil and went upstairs. Although the rest of the castle resembled a ruin, the bedroom was immaculate.

The two decided to take a nap there.

However, when they awoke after sleeping deeply, they found themselves beside the river.

The moon hung in the sky, surrounded by a hazy, iridescent halo.

It felt as though everything had been a dream.

Yet the questions Lehmann had raised remained within Rickart’s heart, lingering like that faint halo around the moon.