Chapter 11 — Interlude: I Don’t Know What I’m Doing Here Either
Euphemia wandered through the forest. She had been struck by an overwhelming apathy towards life. With Lain’s death and the dispersion of her mana, Euphemia had absorbed it and become even stronger.
But what good was that? No matter how strong she became, there would always be someone stronger than her. As long as someone like Yogiri Takatou existed, there was no point. After learning of his existence, any sort of strength she might obtain seemed empty and meaningless.
She had no idea how many days it had been since she began wandering. She wasn’t hungry at all. Perhaps due to her new immortality as a vampire, she simply didn’t feel the need for food. She vaguely remembered coming across someone earlier but had felt no impulse to drink their blood, either. The people that she encountered were afraid of her at first, but once they realized she was mindlessly walking through, they carefully retreated.
In the end, her wandering brought her to a destroyed village. It was a place of half-demons, Euphemia’s home, which had been destroyed by Yuuki Tachibana’s attack. Her subconscious had brought her there without her realizing it, but there was nothing left. More than half of the residents had been slain, and of those who remained, Yuuki had enslaved all who possessed either power or beauty.
So, what could she do now? Seeing the tragic state of her old home, Euphemia returned to her senses a bit. Once freed from Yuuki’s domination, she had immediately thought of reviving her old village, believing that if she returned, others would too.
She didn’t know how long it had been, but there was no sign of anyone else in the area nor were there any signs that someone had come before her. Everything was exactly as they’d left it when they were first taken away.
“What are you doing now, Teo?” she murmured.
Her sister hadn’t been in the village when it was attacked, so she had never ended up becoming one of Yuuki’s slaves. But after returning and seeing what had happened there, she may have gone in search of vengeance. If that were the case, Euphemia could only pray that she hadn’t been killed. Her sister was just as much a beauty as Euphemia herself, so if she had fallen victim to Yuuki as well, she was likely still alive.
As her numb mind worked through these thoughts, Euphemia slowly began to move with more purpose. The first thing she had to do was clean up the village. Even if others came back, they would see only the tragedy from before and would probably leave again, discouraged.
One of the abilities that Euphemia had received after becoming a vampire was telekinesis. She used it to easily clear away the rubble and destroyed buildings, then gave proper burials to those whose bodies had been left behind. Once that was done, she began collecting materials to repair the buildings that weren’t too badly damaged. The village didn’t look much better after she had finished, but she felt it was a marked improvement on having collapsed rubble and bloodstains everywhere.
“Next, I suppose I should put up a barrier to prevent anyone but our tribe from entering...”
She intended to go and search for the surviving members of her village. But when she did, this place would be empty once again. Their valuables had already been stolen but vandals and other passersby could always cause further damage.
As Euphemia inspected the area, she realized that she could feel someone’s presence nearby. It seemed they were heading straight for her. A small spark of hope that it might be one of her people flashed through her mind. There were few who would come to a settlement like this, deep in the forest as it was. But she couldn’t feel too optimistic about it. She knew that half-demons were being targeted by something. With that in mind, she decided to await them at the center of the village.
The person who had come was a woman. Pale white skin, long black hair, red eyes, and a dress of black and red. Euphemia could tell at a glance that the woman was a vampire, and one from Lain’s bloodline as well.
“What are you doing out here?”
“You don’t know?” the stranger answered, surprised.
“If you came all the way here to meet me, I’m sure it has something to do with being a vampire. But unless you explain, that’s as much as I know. After all, Lady Lain died immediately after I became a vampire myself.”
“Ah, I see. To put it simply, I’m here to figure out who will take on the title of Origin Blood. The only ones who can do so are those who Lady Lain transformed directly.”
Lain was an Origin Blood, the pinnacle of the vampire species. Euphemia didn’t know much about them, but it seemed there were a number of other members of Lain’s bloodline as well.
“Is that so? I’m not at all interested, so why don’t you go ahead and take it?”
“Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. I can only become an Origin Blood when there is only one of us left.”
“Okay. So?”
“Could you die for me?”
“No, thank you.”
“As expected. Of course, I can’t just let you go even though you don’t want the position. You’re the last one, after all. After defeating the others and thinking that I was finally there, can you imagine how it felt to have one more hurdle suddenly pop up out of nowhere?”
“How unfortunate for you.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to kill you.” Without warning, the woman was suddenly in front of Euphemia, having closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye.
Euphemia had claimed that she didn’t want to die, but in reality, she didn’t care all that much. Her desire to restore the village and find the others was little more than a vague impulse, and not something that she was especially passionate about. If she died then and there, it would be fine with her.
The woman stabbed her hand towards Euphemia’s chest. Vampires were more or less immortal, but their weak points were their hearts. Even if the heart was destroyed, they wouldn’t die immediately, but since their power was drawn from blood, it would inevitably weaken them.
Euphemia made no attempt to avoid the attack. It was just too much effort to bother. Moving her body at all was an unwelcome hassle at this point.
The woman’s hand punched through her clothes and between her breasts. Her attacker let out a surprised grunt but it took Euphemia a moment to realize why. The attack hadn’t hurt her at all — it hadn’t even punctured the skin. The woman jumped back, immediately on the defensive.
“What are you?!”
“Who knows? But if you want to kill me, would you get on with it? I’m not going to resist.”
Irritated, the woman bit into her own wrist. Blood poured out from the wound, accumulating in the air in the form of a long, thin pole. She had made a spear from her own blood.
The woman readied her new weapon and disappeared from Euphemia’s line of sight. At the same time, there was a hard impact from behind. Euphemia turned around slowly and saw that the woman had tried to drive the spear into her back.
“What the hell is going on?!”
The woman vanished again and her spear lashed out at Euphemia from all directions. But it never cut deeper than her clothes. After a while, Euphemia’s eyes grew accustomed to the stranger’s movements, allowing her to follow them. The woman was running circles around her, attacking her again and again. It didn’t particularly hurt, but it was annoying to be hit repeatedly without a sense of the fight progressing.
Euphemia instinctively held up her arm, swinging her open hand as if to swat a fly out of the air. With a heavy slap, the woman was sent flying. Her lower body tumbled to the ground as the rest of her became a bloody mist, drenching their surroundings.
“Looks like I’ll have to clean up again,” she murmured as a torrent of information poured into her head. With the woman dead, the remaining property and rights that Lain had held were automatically passed on to Euphemia. She realized that she was now an Origin Blood herself.
She was the last one.
It wasn’t like she had wanted to become one, but it was something she could potentially put to use while searching for her people. As she sifted through her new memories for anything useful, she remembered the house outside the forest. Rather than a torn down place like this, which had nothing at all to offer, she thought it might serve as a good base of operations.
She decided to head there at once.
The house looked small and cozy, sitting on top of a quiet hill. It was, of course, much more luxurious than her old home in the forest, but it wasn’t especially gaudy either. With a moat and an outer wall, it looked like it could double as a fortress, but it didn’t seem like much work had been put into its defenses. It was more like a mansion or a secret hideout that might be housing a princess deep inside.
As Euphemia approached, the drawbridge descended and the gate opened, both of their own accord. The house seemed to recognize her as its owner. She walked through the gate and into the building, and immediately heard the sound of a girl shouting.
“Wait! Wait!”
Turning to look at the source of the voice, she saw a horse galloping as it was pursued by a young girl in a pink dress. She was doing her best, but it didn’t look like she was going to be able to catch it. At her speed, it was hard to even call her movements “running.” The horse was probably just confused by all of the excitement. As it ran around the inner garden, it eventually made its way to Euphemia.
“Stop.”
At her order, the horse immediately came to a halt, waiting patiently in front of her. This was unsurprising, since vampires had the ability to charm people and control animals.
The girl gasped for air, her evident exhaustion not dampening her anger in the least as she made her way over to the newcomer.
“Thank you very much! I had no idea what I was going to do.”
She seemed to have understood that Euphemia had stopped the animal somehow. As the girl thanked her, Euphemia instinctively knelt before her. The child appeared to be taken aback by her behavior.
“Huh? Umm, sorry. Who are you?”
“My name is Euphemia. I don’t know what I’m doing here either.” The girl was totally confused now. “By the way, are you not a vampire? Can you not control a horse this way?”
“Wait, I really am a vampire? I woke up in a coffin but I wasn’t sure...”
Euphemia wondered if this was one of Lain’s children. Although her face was totally different, she had a distinct vibe that was very similar to the former Origin Blood.
“Wait, wouldn’t that mean it’s dangerous to walk around in the daylight this way?!”
“It’s okay. After all, you feel just fine right now, don’t you? By the way, what were you trying to do with the horse?”
“Oh, I was thinking of riding it out somewhere. Come on! Move!” The girl pulled at the reins, but the horse remained still, awaiting Euphemia’s instructions.
“Follow her orders,” Euphemia told the animal, which became immediately obedient.
“Thank you so much!”
“Is there no one here to take care of this horse?”
“Umm, if I told you, you probably wouldn’t believe me.”
“Don’t worry; I’ll believe you.”
“I just woke up after being asleep for a really long time. When I got up, there was no one else in the house. It seems like someone was here while I was sleeping, so I think they must have been taking care of the horse then.”
Searching her memory for information about the house, Euphemia confirmed the girl’s story. All who had lived in the mansion were members of Lain’s bloodline. After her death, they must have fought over who would succeed her and eventually wiped themselves out.
“Anyway, I have something I need to do. I was going to go on a journey, but I couldn’t control the horse very well...” The girl trailed off.
“Shall I help you?” Euphemia offered immediately. For some reason, she held a certain reverence for this child. The rest of Lain’s bloodline must have left her alone for the same reason, even while fighting each other.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. I would be happy to.” Euphemia’s goal had been to find her people and rebuild their village, but it no longer felt that urgent. Her desire to help the girl was far stronger.
“Hurray! Thank you so much! To be honest, I had no idea what I was going to do. Having an adult around will be a huge help!”
“May I ask your name?”
“Ah! That’s right! I don’t even have a name! What should I do?!”
It seemed an odd thing for her to not have noticed before, but Euphemia supposed it hadn’t mattered much while she was alone.
“It will be pretty inconvenient for us to talk if I don’t have a name! Hmm, what would make sense? Mist...fog...drizzle...okay, how about Rislie?” Listing off some random words about the weather, she somehow seemed to find a “name” that she liked. “Nice to meet you!”
The newly named Rislie began to struggle to mount the horse. Apparently, she had been planning to ride it on her journey without even knowing how to get herself into the saddle.
“Where are you planning on going?”
“To the capital! I was given a message that said if I was going to leave home, I should go there first.”
Euphemia considered how long a trip to the capital would take from their current location. At the very least, they would be on the road for a few days. If the girl was planning on taking a horse and riding off without any preparations, she was being far too reckless.
“Understood. Let us return to the house for a bit and gather the supplies that we’ll need.”
If her memories were correct, there would be plenty of supplies and even a carriage on the estate.
“Oh, yes, that’s right! Of course we need to prepare!” Rislie clapped enthusiastically, accepting the suggestion at once.
It seemed Euphemia was going to have her hands quite full with this girl.
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