episode_0013

Looking back, at first, it was just an ordinary noble family.

A happy home.

Warm living.

An occasionally strict but internally warm father and a gentle mother who embraced me.

Food only vampires could eat and warm blankets.

Growing up every day, receiving plenty of love, was my life.

It was during this time that I learned lively emotions like happiness, joy, and hope.

However,

I lost that life when I was in middle school.

My father, whom I thought was the strongest in the world, lost his mind trying to protect me.

Seeing him like that, my mother grabbed my shoulders and said with a desperate voice,

– You must never come out. Absolutely, never. Promise me, with Mom.

– No, what happened to Father? His head just now…

– Just quietly hide here. It will be over soon. Don’t make a sound until Mom takes you out. Absolutely. You must never come out.

I don’t know what happened after that.

When I fell asleep, I was already alone in the snow

And when I somehow managed to return to the mansion after starving for three days,

The mansion had vanished, leaving behind a crater.

It seemed as if the entire mansion, its surroundings, courtyard, and garden had evaporated without a trace.

“…”

What a young vampire orphan can do after losing her parents is to flee, revert to being a beast, and survive by tearing up tree roots.

Even so, the girl did not give up.

She forced herself to swallow the bitter taste of tree bark and tore apart the wolves attacking her in the dark forest.

She might have gazed into several pits around her with hope that her mother might still be alive.

Among them, desperately, even though her body was pierced by silver arrows or torn by malicious traps visible to human eyes.

Eventually, she was captured by dirty slave traders and was sold through various merchants as a matter of course.

Unfortunately, her young girl’s body caught their attention.

‘…Nothing more than beasts.’

She could only embrace herself.

There are memories of calling out to my mother, of having my wrist slashed, and of being unable to even breathe as the English needle was inserted.

Some even resorted to sprinkling failed potions on themselves or attempting self-flagellation in order to save cheaper potions. Yes, I had now completely fallen into being a slave. I was nothing more than a young vampire receiving treatment worse than the slaves of the former aristocrats.

Moreover, just because the slave master found her beautiful, she concealed her identity as a vampire and forced that burden onto me. But has it all ended now?

The young vampire was handed over to the noble slave master and was simply brought in as a pretty sex slave. Due to strict security, escape was not an option. The only freedom granted to her was gazing at the blue night sky through the thick iron bars. Now, she had to live hiding her true identity from her new owner, the slave master currently monitoring her, and even from fellow sex slaves in the same situation.

No one understood or empathized with her feelings. Thus, the young vampire’s heart festered. There was no place to comfortably pour out her heart. On top of that, the bloodthirst intensifying every night was worsening as her body matured day by day.

A thirst that humans could never sympathize with. It felt like her tongue would tear if she didn’t lick even the dust on the wall, and inside her throat, sharp razors and nails tore at her flesh.

There were memories of wanting to tear her throat apart due to such agony. Enduring such pain for 5 years. Would you believe it? However, that too was soon reaching its limit.

Seeing someone bleeding from being scratched by the iron bars next to her, she realized that her time was running out, as those memories continued to overlap even a week later.

If she were to be exposed as a vampire to anyone, the Imperial family with crosses emblazoned would immediately send out troops to hunt her down.

“…”

With those words, it’s as if my body will be pierced by silver arrows like my mother and father, bleeding out my vital organs while impaled on a spear, to be hung vertically, swaying back and forth, at the empire’s main gate tomorrow morning, presenting my naked corpse to all the citizens. Oh, by the way, the end of that is execution by fire.

Every night, dreaming of dying in such a way, she wanted to die.

Punishment involved being pierced and immobilized by iron bars through the back, waist, and limbs, having her head cut off once and forcibly reattached with ropes before being fixed to a cross.

Thus, the only thing Yuria could choose was enduring starvation.

Without letting human food touch her tongue,

without changing her expression, she had to chew and swallow slimy, disgusting smoke every night.

Sometimes, she had to unleash her smoke to avoid people who suspected her.

In this way, even as a grown vampire, she restrained herself and deteriorated from within, despite eagerly consuming blood at an age when she should have been flourishing.

As each day passed, she had to hold her bloated stomach and stop the drool flowing from her mouth, and the effort to avoid suspicion made the smoke she had been trying so hard to control increasingly impossible.

At times, she even secretly contemplated self-harm.

The relentless struggle against overwhelming bloodlust and unending hunger was an unbearable burden for Yuria, who already bore many scars at her young age.

However, when such thoughts became more intense, the woman was sold off as a concubine to a marquis.

Rumor has it that he was suffering from an incurable disease, yet he desired her to the point where she couldn’t comprehend his intentions.

Even though she was now plain-looking and on the verge of emaciation,

Yuria couldn’t help but remain wary of a man who persistently brought her into his mansion until the very end.

“…?”

Surprisingly, the man’s actions defied Yuria’s common sense.

Her life was saved.

She received blood.

He sheltered her in his warm embrace.

He knew she was a vampire, yet he concealed her true nature and pretended not to know in front of others.

A nobleman who had gained notoriety as a lunatic in another territory was now considered a normal man who regarded himself as a filthy savior.

However, the doubt remained. The girl had too many scars to simply believe in human words.

Perhaps those who detested vampires the most were nobles and imperialists. Thus, Ian continued to monitor her within his family.

As a result of his genuine surveillance, there was not a single mention of Yuria.

Why? How come?

Right now, she was a vampire with no place to go, even in the status of a slave.

If he were to reveal himself as a vampire, and if he were to report a special kind of vampire to the Holy Kingdom, he would at least receive a lifetime of wealth and leisure.

The Ian Gongja rumored by word of mouth would undoubtedly choose the latter without hesitation.

There was not a single reason for her to choose him.

With about 70 gold, he could at least buy two or more servants of at least B-rank quality.

Having come here to learn the cost of living and various other things, his actions became even more incomprehensible.

However, at some point, Yuria’s distrust of him melted away like snow.

He taught her common sense and human knowledge.

Originally, knowledge of accounting and warehouse logistics was completely unnecessary for a sex slave.

One by one, he taught her various skills to survive outside and handle various tasks easily.

Looking back, Ian had always intended to save himself from the start.

Using strategy to break through the slave market from the beginning, passing blood through himself, and a double play through Lady Bingung. As someone who had engaged in various illegal activities in the underworld, his actions were justified.

But that wasn’t all.

He protected his own life with that small body and proved his bravery.

After coming to the mansion, he taught her the most basic mana breathing techniques, magic, and similar things.

Naturally, as a noble, Yuria understood that this was Ian’s form of education.

Even if the mana breathing technique was used to exploit her as a sex slave, repeatedly practicing low-level magic rituals would ultimately be meaningless to her.

Ian. Even though he couldn’t solve even a few problems, he ruffled her hair, pulled her close, and warmly smiled at her.

His embrace was warm.

This was something she knew even when she received a life-saving favor from him.

After that, it didn’t quite fit the image of a sex slave.

It was undeniable that he favored her without needing further explanation, even going as far as to have academy professors called in to educate her through his connections.

Yet, despite such efforts, she could barely solve half of the problems Ian solved with his magical formulae.

Then, when she finally opened a magical circuit and created a magic loop, he applauded and hugged her tightly.

For some reason, being in his embrace seemed to make her blood-sucking impulses subside as if by magic.

The next day,

she experienced a blood-sucking impulse so intense it felt like her heart would burst.

It was like having a mouthful of needles and swallowing them whole.

The thorns sliding down her throat felt like they were piercing her skin, agonizingly thirst-inducing.

But she could endure it.

She thought of Ian’s face, almost reaching his room.

The moment his temporary maid revealed her bloodlust.

Naturally, it was an irreversible event.

The momentarily irrational girl attacked the maid.

And the fact that her opponent was not just an ordinary slave but a maid with a powerful backer made things clear for her future.

To a knight commander, a vampire was a symbol of terror and a troublesome being, each individual possessing vastly different strength, capable of tearing dozens of ordinary people apart with their bare hands.

In other words, from the perspective of a knight commander, it was only natural to subdue a vampire who had attacked his daughter. He had even reached the point of feeling relief at the prospect of simply executing her.

“Oh, no.”

Naturally, she knew that vampires were horrifically tortured by their own words before dying.

The horror of the fingers and body being torn apart by blades struck her body in an instant, long after.

In a state of panic, she sank down like a young girl, feeling sorry and wanting to cry out for help. In one corner of her mind, she was so desperate that the memory of the handkerchief in her pocket kept surfacing.

I’m going to die. Just like them.

“Stop it.”

But there, unexpectedly, it was none other than the noble Ian who embraced her. She wanted to explain herself. She wanted to live.

“That…”

Words wouldn’t come out. The gazes of the other servants piercing through the gap felt like cutting into her body like blades.

Sensing this, Ian calmed her hot, trembling hand with his cold one. Then he grabbed her shoulder and guided her inside the room.

“I…!”

She couldn’t continue speaking. Her throat felt dry, and tears streamed down from beneath her reddened eyes.

It was then that he extended a saving hand.

“It’s okay.”

Despite seeing her bloodshot eyes driven by impulse, he unhesitatingly held her hand and hid the girl inside the room.

Trembling, as if consoling overwhelming emotions, he comforted her.

For the first time, she almost instinctively sought refuge in his embrace.

“…Ian, Ian, Ian.”

She asked for his name and stored the resonance in her mind.

Instinctively, her body began to yearn for this man.

But she restrained herself. It was time to suppress her instincts. She couldn’t pounce on someone in recovery.

Tears fell, one after another.

The shock of conflicting between reason and instinct tortured the girl’s heart.

She had disappointed Ian. She had let him down. Ultimately, was she going to be resented by yet another important person because of herself?

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I apologize…

Everyone who had treated her well, like her parents, had died.

Ian was the last one.

Please, please don’t leave.

At that moment.

“Breathe, Yuria, breathe. Slowly. That’s right.”

What caught the crumbling Yuria like a sandcastle swept away by the waves was none other than Ian’s warm embrace.

He comforted her.

He offered sweet whispers and kisses without hesitation.

Accordingly, it was from that moment that she also vowed to dedicate everything of herself.

The first bloodsucking had the customs of nobles who sincerely loved each other.

As much as the nobility was high, it was emphasized repeatedly.

Already, Yuria’s heart was even larger than that, and she inadvertently busied herself with sinking her fangs into his neck.