Ch.68Chapter 68. I Can’t Stand It Anymore

In the middle of the camp, a pile of dry firewood was stacked high, gathered from who knows where.

The crackling sound of splitting wood filled the surroundings as massive flames shot upward, but fortunately, there was no wind, so the fire remained tame.

Lin, who had always been forced to sit alone even within the hero’s party, enjoyed quietly watching the flickering flames.

Those unpredictable movements always captivated his attention, allowing him to momentarily forget his hunger and pain.

However, before this enormous blaze, Lin experienced the disappointment of everything transforming into unwelcome noise.

“Haha! Don’t stare too deeply into the fire. You might become so entranced that you won’t even feel the heat.”

The expedition leader’s arm, beer mug in hand, wrapped firmly around Lin’s shoulder.

The beer mug came right up to Lin’s chest as the expedition leader stretched his neck forward to drink from it.

“Just like love.”

The slightly curly hair brushed against Lin’s nose.

It was extremely fucking annoying.

A whole pig was sizzling as it roasted by the fire.

The expedition leader personally cut the meat with his knife and distributed it to his members.

However, the portions given to the seven or so members were no larger than a child’s fist.

“Give me more.”

One member held out their plate again, but the expedition leader clicked his tongue.

“Finish what you have first, then ask for more.”

After saying that, he tore off a very large hind leg with his hands and placed it on a plate for himself and Lin.

“That’s too much.”

“Eat heartily. We’ll be up late tonight, so you’ll need plenty of energy.”

After winking, the leader, who was licking the grease from his fingers, looked around and noticed Tigria was missing.

He narrowed his brow and scanned further out but couldn’t find her.

“Where did the mage go?”

“She said there was something interesting inside the ruins.”

“Is it related to the murderer?”

“She just… said there’s ancient energy lingering there, and she wants to learn more about it.”

“Hah, mages are always like that.”

As the expedition leader tore into the hind leg meat, the other members began eating as well.

Taking one large bite that consumed nearly half their meat portion, the members wore expressions of disbelief.

They were women as instinctual as their thin principles.

While some shamelessly dug their fingers into their mouths to remove meat stuck between their teeth, others would chew carefully, then spit out any small bones they found onto their plates.

“What a spectacle. Discipline has gone completely to hell.”

The expedition leader made no attempt to hide his disgust.

He leaned toward Lin as if sharing a secret, causing the smell of meat to waft from his mouth.

“As you’ve surely heard every night, to make women like that obedient, you need to strike their lower mouth to keep them quiet.”

When Lin frowned, the expedition leader flinched and straightened his posture.

“Of course, that’s not a respectable approach for someone like you. I’ll be more mindful in the future.”

Lin sighed and rubbed his face with his dry hands.

He didn’t want to know why the so-called expedition leader was being so cautious around him or why he was acting so friendly, but an unpleasant feeling kept rising within him.

While the expedition leader was still smacking his lips, the members had already finished eating and were eyeing the remaining meat, wondering if they could take more.

Unable to watch any longer, Lin took out his knife and went around, giving each person a reasonable portion of the untouched hind leg meat.

“How kind of you.”

When Lin returned to his seat, the expedition leader immediately cut another large piece of meat from the pig for him.

“That’s just too much.”

Another member voiced their complaint after seeing this.

It was quiet but clearly audible.

The expedition leader laughed in disbelief, then stood up with his beer mug.

“Well! Now that we’ve filled our stomachs a bit, let’s make a toast! Everyone raise your glasses!”

Complaints erupted from all around, as this interruption came just as they were about to eat the meat Lin had given them.

The expedition leader deliberately pretended not to hear and raised his glass even higher.

“Those gathered here are the few survivors of my proud expedition team. We once numbered over thirty, but now only seven remain.”

Despite calling for a toast, the expedition leader was staring intently at Lin alone.

“Each one joined this expedition with their own circumstances. All had lovers and families waiting for them back home.”

His voice began to tremble.

The way he clutched his beer mug with both hands was truly chilling.

The members were also disgusted, but their expressions quickly changed at the expedition leader’s next words.

“And without exception, I fucked every single one of them.”

“What…!”

“Captain!”

“They said they came here for their families, for their loved ones, so I tested how pure they really were. But they all ate the meat I offered without suspicion, and after the aphrodisiacs and drugs I seasoned it with took effect, they all panted beneath me. After that, they would happily come whenever I invited them to dinner. Every single one, without exception.”

The members rose from their seats.

Lin couldn’t hide his disappointment as he watched the distributed meat being thrown into the sand.

“It’s true that I succumbed to my desires and rolled around with those women, but not anymore. Please believe me.”

Why is he asking me to believe him?

Lin also stood up.

But before Lin could open his mouth, the expedition leader’s index finger stopped him.

“Please listen a bit longer, my little kitten.”

“What bullshit! You bastard, hand over the relic! Like you said, I need to bring something back to atone to my lover!”

“Relic? You mean this?”

As a member shouted and drew her knife, the expedition leader pulled out a jewel from inside his clothes.

It was a jewel with a brilliant orange glow contained within a boundary of deep darkness.

“What do you plan to say when you take this back? That you got it by letting the captain penetrate you all the way to the end?”

“You… bastard…!”

The member who charged forward in rage was struck by the expedition leader’s beer mug and fell backward, completely stiff.

It looked comical, but the member didn’t move afterward.

Most likely, she was dead.

“Do you know how precious this jewel is? While before I only saw your filthy bodies, this relic has allowed me to see souls.”

Lin was seeing it clearly too.

Through his only special skill as a reincarnator—not a status window, but item description viewing—he was quickly reading what power the jewel possessed.

[Count Night’s Jewel]

Item Description: A jewel made by extracting the essence from a vampire from the Zramun Archipelago, which existed even before the ancient kingdom.

Effect: Transforms the owner into a vampire after being possessed for a certain period. The completion level varies depending on the owner’s aptitude, and grants the vampire’s unique characteristics of ‘Soul-Seeing Eyes’ and ‘Blood Sucking.’ If aptitude is too low, only survival and reproduction instincts are enhanced.

Now he understood what detail had changed.

So the expedition leader was indeed the culprit, and it explained why all the blood had been drained from the corpses.

He had simply taken on the role of Denarua from the game due to the jewel’s influence.

But something was strange.

In the game, the expedition leader also had the jewel.

Perhaps due to his low vampire aptitude, he was only portrayed as being more lecherous than before, but in reality, he had completely transformed into a vampire.

The gap between the game and reality was growing larger.

“All of you have dirty, murky souls. There was absolutely no blood worth drinking, so I violated you and personally consumed you, but it felt like nausea coursing through my veins!”

As the expedition leader ranted, the veins in his forearms were abnormally prominent.

His eyes widened frighteningly, the whites growing larger—he was unmistakably an ugly vampire.

Despite facing such an expedition leader, the members drew their weapons and slowly tightened their circle around him.

It wasn’t for nothing that explorers were known to be as money-crazed as mercenaries.

“Then I met you. You fell from the sky with the mage.”

The expedition leader trembled as he recalled that moment.

“Aaah~. Aahn♡”

“That bastard’s got a hard-on!”

“Crazy bastard, he was bi?!”

It was a sight too horrible to behold, but Lin couldn’t close his eyes.

If he did, he felt something blunt might touch his backside.

“Hoooo~, this is my pure devotion to you! Do you not know how pure your soul is? A soul filled with light and warmth! Yes, just like the inside of a woman…! Ahhhh!”

The crotch of that crazy gay man was twitching.

Lin couldn’t take it anymore.

As he hurriedly tried to search through the porter’s bag, a sharp blade pressed against his chin.

“Hey, Captain. Hand over the jewel. Then your gay lover won’t get hurt… Urk!”

The head exploded before the sentence could be finished.

“Blood has splattered on such a handsome face.”

With a snap of his fingers, the blood that had sprayed onto Lin was sucked into the expedition leader’s mouth.

But the expedition leader grimaced.

“Still tastes awful. You filthy whores! My little kitten, do you know something? That mage you were with had an empty soul. It was just an outline. But with each passing day, a very faint light has been seeping in. That must be because of your purity.”

He spread his arms and exclaimed grandly.

“This feeling is a first for me. When I see your face, my heart beats faster, and I want to avert my gaze but also keep staring! It would have been better if you were a woman, but it doesn’t matter! Come into my arms. I’ll make you live happily, panting for the rest of your life.”

“No thanks.”

Finally, Lin spoke.

Naturally, his answer was a refusal.

“Are these people completely insane?”

Lin was genuinely disgusted.

And disgust was not an emotion that the chains would restrain to protect Lin.

“Catch him first! He’s the captain’s weakness!”

The members, blinded by greed, were also out of their minds.

The members targeting the jewel with flushed faces, and the expedition leader puckering his lips as if to kiss Lin.

It was absolutely

unbearable.

“Ha, fuck this.”

For the first time in his life, Lin uttered a curse.

It was both a signal and a trigger for someone’s anger to explode.

“Multiple targeting.”

That someone was the mage Tigria.

Her voice, filled with power, echoed loudly from the sand-buried royal palace ruins.

“Generation, heating, evaporation, decomposition, ignition.”

“Mage?! Where are you?!”

“Dispersion!”

As the magical formula was completed, Tigria swung her hornbird staff.

Simultaneously, explosions erupted beneath the feet of every expedition member.

KWAAAANG-!!!

“AAAAAAHHH!!!!”

“Hot…! Can’t breathe…!”

The members collapsed helplessly as they burned.

They were no different from ordinary people, except for their greed for money.

“KIEEEEEK!”

The expedition leader also flailed, unable to extinguish the flames on his body.

Not missing that moment, Lin grabbed the jewel he had dropped and ran straight toward the palace.

However, the expedition team wasn’t the only one affected by Tigria’s magic.

“You mere doll! How dare you!!”

She had also detected Denarua, who had been waiting near the camp for a chance to rescue Lin, and caused an explosion there as well.

“Ahhh! This is love! It burns! But I shall endure it!”

“I’ll cut you down this instant!”

The expedition leader chased after Lin, while Denarua pursued Tigria at the entrance of the palace ruins.

As a result, it appeared as though both vampires were chasing Lin.

“Oh shit…! Really!”

Lin sincerely wished Ravin and Lucy were here.