Chapter 466: Living the Live of a Bug

Vampires don’t need food other than blood.

And paradoxically, that makes them the most trustworthy when it comes to storing food.

If you wouldn’t trust a cat with fish, you could always trust it with grain, it’ll protect it just fine, snacking on the birds that come to steal it.

Viltear’s cellar was full of preserved provisions: barrels of alcohol, round wheels of cheese, hardtack, even sausages.

Not much, but plenty for two people living as parasites.

“All packed? Let’s go!”

“Yees~.”

With her arms full of food, Hilde slid down through the tunnel.

I sent her down first, then followed, dragging the lid shut behind me.

I pulled the earthen cover into place, heaving against the slab as if slicing through the ground with a sharpened blade.

With a swipe of my hand, I smoothed the edge.

The earth is one.

Even if separated for a moment, to Mother Earth’s eyes, it’s all the same.

With Earthweave, I sealed the hole completely.

The floor of the cellar looked as if it had never been broken.

Now that is technique.

Why must every “great skill” be about shaking the world or splitting wind?

The truest skills are those woven into daily life.

Hilde placed the food at the center of the tunnel and spoke.

“Vampires really are dull, huh~? We stole food right beneath their feet, and they didn’t even notice.”

“They’re just dull to everything except blood. If there had been a spill, they’d have noticed right away.”

“Good for us though. Free snacks.”

We were in an underground burrow, but I had shaped it decently with Earthweave.

The ceiling was just high enough to raise your hand while sitting, and there was even a mat and makeshift table.

If I’d had more time, I would’ve expanded it into a proper underground house, but this was right under their home, wouldn’t want to collapse it.

Pity.

“You’re surprisingly skilled in civil engineering. When did you learn all this?”

“Basic stuff. What’s surprising is that humans have forgotten it. Making a hiding place used to be essential to survival.”

I grumbled as I threw a card onto the ground.

The Nine of Spades.

From the false idol representing the Tree of Genesis, a sprout emerged, soft moss spread across the floor.

I laid a blanket over it and sat down, satisfied by the plush texture, and picked up my food.

“Here. We’ve been working too hard. Consider this your vacation. Let’s rest here, recover, and then move on.”

“Waa. A vacation in a cramped dirt hole, eating moldy cheese—how luxurious.”

“Ahaha. Seeing your joy puts me at ease. Please, make yourself at home.”

Even in this dire setting, Hilde and I nibbled our food casually.

It wasn’t uncomfortable.

We’d been in worse.

Where?

In the Military State of course .

“Eating cheese in a dirt tunnel like this… makes me realize even that one-room flat with canned beans in the Military State was luxurious.”

“Munch. All of a sudden?”

Stung by my sneak attack on the Military State, Hilde swallowed her food and countered.

“If this tiny burrow is better than the Military State, why do people keep fleeing from this country? If they just peacefully offered blood to the vampires, they could live safe and sound, so why risk everything to escape?”

“Because there are insane vampires like Luscynia. Better to run than live under someone like that.”

“Then what about you? You could’ve stayed here as Tyrkanzyaka’s beloved consort and lived comfortably, so why did you run?”

Hilde suddenly struck at the core of it.

Right.

If comfort was the goal, staying with Tyr would’ve been easier.

Even from a human standpoint, there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with her.

It’s not like she’d have harmed me.

“Well…”

The Duchy is a paradise for livestock.

An emotionless, eternal ruler who diligently cares for humans.

She never sleeps, never rests, tirelessly upholding order.

In terms of quality of life alone, it’s leagues above the Military State.

If there’s a heaven, this might be it.

And yet… I chose to leave.

“Tyr may have wanted me to stay as her consort forever… but that’s a wish I simply couldn’t grant. And when she tried to bind me by force, I had no choice but to run.”

“Well explained~. Then you understand why humans try to flee too, don’t you?”

Hilde wiped her lips with the corner of her blanket and declared confidently.

“Humans, powerless as they are, still think they’re special. That’s why they can’t accept being treated like livestock.”

“But not everyone runs. There are still people living in the Duchy.”

“It’s one of two things. Either they don’t realize they’re livestock, or they’ve resigned themselves to it. Even the most jaded person, if told, ‘You’re nothing but cattle, your worth is no more or less than that of a milk cow,’ they wouldn’t accept it.”

It’s an open secret.

Strictly speaking, humans in the Duchy are livestock.

But no one says it aloud.

No one even consciously thinks it.

They just treat vampires like powerful rulers.

Honestly, aside from collecting blood instead of taxes, it’s not so different.

But blood is… uncomfortably intimate.

“In the Duchy, humans are food. And that alone is reason enough to run. Do you know why the Sanctum still stands tall despite all its nonsense? Because at the very least, even in lies, their god offers humans dignity and salvation.”

The message was sound.

The messenger… unfortunately, was Hilde, a former member of the Crusader.

“It’s hard to empathize when it’s you saying that. You fled the Crusader yourself.”

Hilde shrugged.

“Well. Let’s call it… complicated circumstances. A bitter taste of truth. There was a bit of a mess, let’s just say~.”

“What kind of circumstances?”

“Curious?”

“Yes. Tell me.”

“Where should I begin?”

“The beginning.”

“It’ll be a long story.”

“Well, I won’t be bored then.”

Hilde smiled faintly, then closed her eyes and shut her mind, like lowering the curtain on a stage.

In moments like this, Hilde’s inner world turns dark and silent.

With the stage of the world momentarily drawn closed, she calmly selected her next role.

It was all happening in her mind, but it was like watching a mannequin calmly slip into a new outfit.

“‘I’ am a Crusader. A devout follower who submits to the will of God. For only He watches over me. Glory be to the Sky God.”

Wearing the oldest and most worn armor, Hilde raised the curtain once more.

The person now before me was the lost and wandering Crusader of her past.

Hilde—no, the “Blankfaced Crusader”—began her tale with a solemn and weighty tone.

“There was a time when ‘I’ was astray. ‘I’ defied the rules, disturbed the order, killed a man, and fled. Assassins, bounty hunters, mercenary bands—countless people chased ‘me.’ And ‘I’, unable even to consider paying for ‘my’ sins, could only run endlessly.”

“Are you acting right now? Your tone is like a stage monologue.”

“It was one of ‘my’ few talents. A petty skill that only stirred trouble… but it saved ‘my’ life, many times. ‘I’ pretended to be part of an assassin group, a fellow bounty hunter, a mercenary captain. ‘I’ snuck in, acted, betrayed, and clung to life, but eventually, ‘I’ no longer knew who ‘I’ was or what ‘I’ was living for.”

The “nameless paladin” fidgeted with an imaginary necklace.

Hilde wore nothing of the sort, but the gesture was that of a knight clutching a rosary.

“That was when God pointed ‘me’ out.”

“God?”

“Yes. ‘I have watched you,’ He said. ‘I have seen how you lived, how you fled, what roles you played. And I found pity in the lamb lost and acting as a goat.’”

It was a performance.

And yet, not just a performance.

If you spend five years acting without pause, even while resting or sleeping, that performance becomes a life.

“The Sky God watches over ‘me.’ He is the shepherd who guides the lost lamb. So ‘I’ must follow and obey Him like a parent—”

“Then why did you stop playing that role?”

“And yet~ it turns out, the so-called God didn’t even notice it was all acting, just kept dumping power on me~.”

The actor threw off her costume.

Hilde returned from being the “Crusader” and shrugged, as if it were nothing.

“All ‘my’ actions were part of the act. They picked ‘me’ for the Crusader, but from the moment they allowed a stage actor to wield divine power, the system was already broken! The shape of my  holy sword even changed depending on which Crusader ‘I’ was pretending to be!”

Hilde could shift the form of her holy sword.

A noble and steadfast greatsword.

A piercing lance to smite evil.

A shield to protect faith.

With her talent for acting, Hilde could shape her holy weapon at will.

“They made me part of the Crusader, but the moment they realized my Holy Power changed depending on my performance—they tossed me out! As if to say, ‘This isn’t what we asked for!’ Hah! The nerve!”

“But didn’t someone recognize the acting Hilde?”

“That wasn’t the Sky God! It was an outcast Saintess, desperate for anyone who’d pledge undying loyalty to her! The impressive one wasn’t God, it was the Saintess who could see the future!”

I tilted my head and asked,

“Isn’t the Sanctum and the Saintess basically the same thing?”

“No~. Yuel turned her back on the Sanctum, but she’s still a Saintess!”

That’s true.

Though for a Saintess to defy the Sanctum is nearly unheard of, Yuel was an extreme exception.

“The Sky God was just a kindly old man who handed out power if you buttered him up. The Saintesses who wanted to maintain faith began to distance themselves from ‘me.’ All ‘I’ wanted was someone to watch over ‘me.’ And then, the excommunicated Saintess Yuel called me to the Military State. ‘I’ was the despised Crusader, which meant… no one else needed ‘me.’ ‘I’ was a perfect fit for the exiled Saintess!”

Hilde cried out self-mockingly, but soon smiled warmly and sidled up to me.

She nudged me playfully and grinned.

“And then, while working as part of ‘Camarilla,’ ‘I’ met you, Father~. The job’s been absurdly demanding ever since, but I’m lucky ‘I’ got to meet you!”

Her tone was endlessly light.

As if she were freed from every burden, her words floated like feathers, seemingly without a care or conflict in the world.

But this too, must be another role.

“What role are you playing now?”