Chapter 418: Elder, Ancilla, Neonate and Human (1)

The suspect in the Elder’s murder case—Lyre Nightingale.

She became Luscynia’s Neonate about ten years ago.

The one who turned her into a Neonate was her mother, Lily, who had become an Ancilla at around the same time.

It was said that the reason the mother and daughter became vampires was due to one of Luscynia’s “experiments.”

Later, Lily tried to flee the Duchy with some citizens, but was executed.

The citizens who escaped with her were sent to the compression chamber.

…Compression chamber?

Curious, I looked around the files for an explanation, but there wasn’t any.

Apparently, it was such a common term in the Duchy of Mist that it didn’t need explaining.

I did my best to ignore the ominous chill the word gave off and continued flipping through the report.

The first few pages were objective facts, but from there on, it was filled with subjective opinions and testimonies.

From that point on, I could just skim it.

Subjective views and testimonies, those I could verify myself.

After all, my Mind Reading would be far more accurate than anything written down here.

“Father, how’s the new stepmother? Do you like her?”

“She’s better than the self-proclaimed daughter who keeps trying to sell me off.”

Like a ghost that haunted me, Hilde had sniffed me out and was now circling around my seat.

“Oh, come on. It’s a good deal, you know~? Just wag your hips a little and you’ll get two whole countries for free.”

“I’d like it if I could actually have the countries, but I can’t, so I’m not too thrilled.”

“You say you’re not interested, but do you really think you can find the Divines without the country’s help?”

“Up until now, I’ve managed just fine… or so I’d like to say.”

It’s hard to deny.

Even just getting close to the Abyss had been a life-risking endeavor.

One misstep and the entire plan could’ve fallen apart—or worse, I could’ve died.

The Golden Lord of the Fallen Dominion, the Lightning Thief of Claudia… Same thing with them.

It’s hard enough navigating these brutal lands alone, let alone safely approaching the core of the Divines and getting back out in one piece.

If not for Tyr and the Regressor, I’d be long dead.

“Moving forward, it’ll probably be impossible to approach the Divines as just one person. I’ll give your proposal some positive consideration.”

“Yay~! I’ll be looking forward to it!”

“Don’t get too excited. I don’t know why you’re expecting anything from me though—I haven’t shown you a thing.”

“Well, you are the King of Humans, aren’t you?”

“That title is meaningless because of the Saintess of Origin. I’m just a regular guy now.”

The King of Humans was disavowed, torn apart, and stripped of all power.

Even if I wasn’t that version of them, if the King of Humans had truly built a perfect world, they would never have been betrayed.

Had that timeline continued unchanged, the nation would’ve shattered.

Strangely, Hilde had more faith in me than I myself did.

“Because the King of Humans can, in the truest sense, become any human being.”

…Wait, does she know about my Mind Reading?

I checked her thoughts just in case, but thankfully, she didn’t.

She simply had a baseless but pure belief in me.

“For Yuel to build a perfect country, she had no choice but to shape all humans like bricks. On the other hand, you, Father… you don’t need to do that, right? Whether it’s a great hero or a street thug, you don’t discriminate. You’re the only one who can unite such a diverse array of humans!”

“Okay… this girl’s really not seeing straight…”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know! Just putting Shei and Tyrkanzyaka in the same space for a long period of time is already an accomplishment in itself!”

They got along just fine before, though.

Not in this timeline, but in a previous one.

“To get back to the Military State, we’ll first need to investigate the murder here in the Duchy of Mist. The sooner we uncover the truth, the faster the trial ends. Hilde, you used to treat the Military State’s intelligence division like your own limbs, right? Do you know anything?”

“‘I’ know as much as you do, Father~ You know where ‘my’ information used to come from~”

Hilde snatched the files from my hand and rapidly flipped through the dozens of pages.

“The Military State has a system to gather information on its own to a certain extent in place, but for intelligence outside the country, we had to rely on Yuel’s ‘power.’ However, as you know, that power doesn’t work here in the Duchy of Mist.”

“And yet you still managed to trap Tyrkanzyaka in Tantalus when building it.”

“She was asleep outside the Duchy, wasn’t she? If darkness is swirling in one corner of the nation, even Yuel gets uncomfortable~”

As expected of a former head of intelligence—her ability to gather and analyze information was top-tier.

Hilde finished reading the documents in an instant.

“No matter how you look at it, Lyre Nightingale is suspicious. If this were the Military State, she’d have been arrested immediately~ Is there really more to investigate?”

“That’s exactly the problem. That’s what bothers me.”

“Such a rebellious spirit~ Now I see why the Sanctum insists on calling you barbaric and savage.”

– Thwack!

Hilde snapped the files shut and grinned at me.

“Then, who does Father suspect most?”

“Of course Lyre is suspicious. She clearly has deep ties to Luscynia’s death. But—”

I already know through Mind Reading that she’s not the culprit.

But all the circumstances point directly to her.

It’s too neat.

… Too unnatural.

That likely means someone… manipulated it.

“Do you really think she did all this alone?”

When I posed the question, Hilde eagerly followed along.

“You’re saying there’s a mastermind~?”

“It’s a theory worth considering, right?”

“Still, you’ve got guts, Father. You’re planning to investigate the mastermind behind the murder of an Elder in the Duchy of Mist? Whoever set up Lyre has to be, at minimum, another Elder. And one who could lie to the Progenitor’s face? That’s insaneeee~”

They’d have to be completely out of their mind.

But—

I grinned and asked back.

“Doesn’t it make you curious?”

“Hee~”

Hilde seemed itchy with curiosity too, lightly tapping the files and groaning.

She had once dealt with some of the deepest and darkest intel in the Military State.

Hilde believed in facts more than circumstances.

Even if the situation pointed against Lyre, it was practically impossible for a Neonate to kill an Elder.

Even if Lyre was a prodigy who had surpassed the limits of Bloodcraft—it was still implausible.

Hook, line, and sinker.

“Let’s start by questioning a nearby Elder.”

“We’re gonna investigate an Elder? Oh my! Ten lives wouldn’t be enough”

“Lives are always in short supply. Just like money.”

And so, our small investigative team—just me and Hilde—set out to question an Elder.

The Duchy of Mist bordered the Sea Of Leviathan.

On one side lay the ocean, and on the other, a mountain range.

The ever-humid air birthed fog and mist all year round.

It was not a land anyone would call livable.

Tigers prowled the mountains while Leviathans stirred in the waves.

Sometimes, the tigers—perhaps sick of lamb meat—would make humans their dessert, and when Leviathans stretched their limbs, storms battered the entire coastline.

The mountains and sea were treasure troves of resources, but the guardians watching over them were so powerful that survival itself was threatened.

As if that weren’t enough, even trying to farm the scarce flatlands came with the added complication of the mist.

It was precisely this inhospitable nature that allowed vampires to establish a nation here—and why humans accepted their rule.

With their strength, the vampires broke into those treasure troves and gifted their riches to the humans

Thanks to them, the humans of the Duchy gained pastureland and tidal flats.

Among these, the tidal flats—filled with drifting sea debris—were the Duchy’s greatest asset.

About an hour east of the Plenilune Castle, a vast muddy field stretched out.

The salty ground was scattered with shells and seaweed washed ashore.

Hundreds of humans, armed with rakes and baskets, busily picked up shellfish and seaweed.

Do riches spring up if you dig into the ground?

No—not here.

Wealth literally lay on the surface.

All you had to do was pick it up.

A literal miracle economy.

And managing this vast tidal flat was—

“The tide’s coming in soon! Move it, you lazy slugs!!”

—Kavila, The Bloodweaver.

It was rare for an Elder to work directly.

As a noble and ruler of the Duchy of Mist, she had come straight here upon arriving at the castle, standing with a sour expression and arms crossed as she berated a human she had grabbed.

“Are you picking those up for us? That’s your own feed, you livestock! Pick it up properly and with sincerity! At this rate, even clams with no legs would run from you!”

“L-Lady Kavila, there’s still two hours until high tide…”

“Two hours? That passes by in the blink of an eye! Close your eyes for one second, and half of this will be underwater!”

“No, but… that’s vampire time, isn’t it…”

The bearded human was clearly struggling to deal with Kavila’s fiery temperament.

At first glance, it looked like an overbearing noble throwing a fit on a whim.

And… well, it kind of was.

But the fact that a mere human could talk back to such a powerful and “cruel” Elder showed just how familiar Kavila was with humans.

What’s more, Kavila wasn’t some useless noble who was loud and did nothing else.

Her eyes narrowed suddenly as she looked out toward the sea.

The mist over the water made visibility poor—you couldn’t see the horizon, nor even the curve of the waves on the sand.

And yet… in that thick black fog, something ominous stirred.

Kavila issued an order to her subordinate.

“Chasey. Bring me the screaming monkey.”

“Right here, my lady.”

An Ancilla—a blood-bound retainer of an Elder.

In the Duchy of Mist, there were only about a hundred of them.

Depending on their rank, even the Primarchs of the Fallen Dominion or Generals of the Military State might pale before them… but even so, to an Elder, they were no more than errand runners.

The vampire called Chasey immediately brought forth a small doll made from monkey bones.

Kavila snatched it without even looking.

Her specialty, as the Bloodweaver, was puppetry based on black magic.

She breathed life into the doll with Bloodcraft.

The bones drank in the blood and the puppet began to move under Kavila’s will.

She whispered into the doll’s ear.

“Cry out, little monkey. Scream loud enough to drive them all away.”

The monkey bone doll grinned wickedly and turned its head.

Then it opened its jawbone before letting out an ear-piercing shriek like claws scraping bone.

“UWKEEEE! RUN! RUN—!”

The sound tore through eardrums like a siren.

The shellfish gatherers instantly sprang into action.

Men, women, young, old—all clutched their baskets to their sides and bolted towards higher ground.

Footprints stamped a desperate trail across the tidal flats.

“A tidal wave’s coming—!”

“Run for your lives!”

The ocean was still far off.

Even if a big wave came, it seemed unlikely that it would cover these massive flats.

But… the reason these lands were called tidal flats soon became clear.

Something enormous surged beneath the mist.

Not a wave, but a wall of water—a tsunami in every sense—was rolling in.

It had already passed the shore and now came crashing inland with terrifying force, overturning the land itself.

This wasn’t a natural phenomenon.

Mother Earth, who has the Authority to cause quakes and tsunamis, was innocent this time.

This tsunami was the result of one single Leviathan.

Kavila sensed the disturbance and asked.

“Chasey. Did you see it? Is it the Island Whale? The Cloud Manta?”

“…Forgive me. I sent a familiar, but it was swept away by the storm. Please do not forgive my incompetence.”

“A storm? Then it’s the Cloud Manta. Just my luck.”

Kavila wrinkled her face in irritation.

The Sea Calamity, The Cloud Manta.

A legendary beast said to release wisps of clouds from the tips of its wings as they flap.

One slap of its fin had stirred the ocean into chaos, and the backlash reached all the way to land.

The shattered sea, wrecked by the Cloud Manta’s rampage, sprayed upward like shards of glass.

Water surged overhead, mixed with stunned fish raining down among the flats.

By luck—or misfortune—one small child fleeing the flood was struck squarely by a flying fish and collapsed.

The child’s parents skidded to a stop, running back for their fallen child.

Tossing aside their baskets, they picked the kid up and hoisted them onto their back.

But the wave didn’t wait.

It crashed down over them.

At this rate, the whole family would be swept away, consumed by the sea.

“Hmph.”

Watching them, Kavila split open the back of the puppet and pulled out a bone needle as thick and sharp as an awl.

Clutching it in both hands, she channeled her Bloodcraft to its limits and drove it into the ground.

The sharp bone needle embedded deep into the tidal flat like planting a seedling.

Kavila murmured.

“Dragonspine Wall.”

– KRK-K-K-KRACK.

A massive spine erupted from the spot where the needle had struck.

A spine surged through the vast tidal flat.

The ribcage of some colossal beast rose and stretched outward, half-buried in the mud.

Like a seawall, the towering spine divided the flats and blocked the tsunami.

The wave smashed against the bone barrier and shattered.

It didn’t stop the wave entirely—but the water that slipped past the ribs was far weaker than before.

The spray crashed down over the family, but thanks to the weakened impact, they were able to hold each other tightly and withstand it.

Where there’s a rising tide, there’s always an ebb.

That’s the way of nature.

The tsunami that once seemed poised to overturn the tidal flats slowly receded over time.

Soon enough, the flats returned to their original form—save for the great beast’s spine dividing it in two.

If the Leviathans were terrifying, then what does that make the one who casually stopped one?

The humans who had survived thanks to that Elder looked up at Kavila in awe.

And to those awestruck humans, Kavila yelled.

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?! There’s still two hours left, isn’t there?! I’ve been doing this five hundred years longer than you lot! You’re just livestock—do as you’re told and quit talking back!!”

She stomped her feet like a child throwing a tantrum.

The reverence in the people’s hearts drained away instantly.