Chapter 438 - How They Drowned

"You're evil," The vampire said after I poured water on her.

"If you are wondering how I killed your king, you just found the answer. Now, we will ask you questions and you will answer everything truthfully. Or I will ask our water mage to drown you all. You and every vampire that we fished out of the lake," I threatened her again.

"Please don't! Vampires can't swim! We can stay long enough underwater using blood as our energy, but we can't swim! If you do that while we are vulnerable, we will die!" the vampire shouted.

"Then you should answer everything truthfully."

More importantly, I was right that the vampires can't swim. If only Albert would bet on it, I would get some money. But I guess it's fine as well this way.

But how come vampires can't swim? Let's see their bodies.

Hmm? They are far weaker than before. They must have used all the blood they have to survive underwater.

If I have to guess, when they start drinking blood, the blood they drunk will become energy for their body. And that will make bones and muscles denser and more solid. Like steel. Which makes them too heavy to be underwater and unable to float. They can only sink into the water.

And but once they used all the blood as energy, their bones and muscle will return back to normal and they should be able to float.

Well, that's just my guess. Whether it's true or not, I can only know about it once I experimented on the vampires. Though even if I do that, I doubt the result will be something useful for us human. And it's not like they are our ally, so I don't need to help them.

Maybe I should start doing experiment on the monsters around me. The werewolves, the angels, and the elves. That way, if there's something wrong with them, I can help.

I'll just do that when I'm free. Seems like I will be busy from now on. After all, it will be the time to raid the lab soon.

"I'll be the one asking questions since she's afraid of Roy. Now, can you tell me how you were drowned?" Albert asked.

Well, even if it's anyone else asking, he can still tell if she spoke the truth or not. But if she believes that a lie is the truth, Albert's lie detection skill won't activate. So, unless she was somehow brainwashed by someone, Albert's lie detection skill can be trusted.

"…we were being chased by the Vampire Queen's army all the way back here. We tried to go upstream, but there are more Vampire Dukes among them, while we only have one Vampire Duke, me. And since all of us have used a lot of blood, we don't have the energy to escape or fight back, so we dive into the river hoping that we can survive long enough until they leave," the vampire said.

"By the way, can you swim if you hadn't drunk any blood at all?" I asked.

"We can float, but as we mostly used blood as our energy, we won't be able to move anyway," she replied.

I guess I'm right that they can float after using up the blood they had consumed.

So, they must be waiting underwater for the vampires chasing after them to leave, but the vampires under the Vampire Queen waited for them long enough until they used up all the consumed blood, and started floating and being carried by the torrent. After that, the vampires chasing after them left while thinking that this group of vampires will die anyway.

Albert also seems like he figured out about it as well. So, they must have been entered the river for a while for them to used up all their consumed blood. How long was it until they consumed everything?

"What should we call you?" Albert asked the female Vampire Duke.

"…you can call me Carrie," the vampire said.

"Alright, Carrie. Tell me everything ever since you left the battle against us," Albert said.

And then, the vampire told us what she and the remaining vampires from the army experienced after leaving the battle.

As someone with the highest status, she led the vampires back to where they were before attacking us. To their hometown before they decided to move after feeling Angela's process of breaking through. They wanted to live close to where such powerful magic is coming from.

Unfortunately, the Vampire Queen's army has taken that place from them. So, Carrie and the rest had no choice but to escape unless they want to fight with the Vampire Queen. Since their king has died, Carrie had no way of victory.

And then, the enemy vampires started chasing after Carrie and the others. Since they are outnumbered, and has used a lot of consumed blood on the battle against us, the only route they can go is back here.

Carrie managed to kill one Vampire Duke, but there are too many enemies and they don't want to drink the blood of other vampires even if they are the blood of their enemies. After witnessing what happened with their former allies in the battle with us, they don't dare to do it. That's why they choose to keep escaping, until they are cornered and exhausted all their energy.

They arrived at the artificial river we created, and gambled with their own lives hoping that they can survive by diving into the river. And that's how they ended up getting fished out by us.

"…you have no place to return in the end. Thinking of conquering a new place to call home, you had no place to return to in the end. That's stupid," Albert said.

"…what will you do to us?" Carrie asked.

"First, I want to ask you about the Vampire Queen. How did two sides ended up fighting each other? If possible, I want to cooperate with the Vampire Queen instead," Albert said.

Cooperate with the Vampire Queen? I guess since we have a lot of monsters with us, he's thinking of getting monsters to help him. But this time, it's for him and not for me.

But they are vampires. How will Albert convince them to not attack humans?

"…I don't know. As for us Vampire Dukes, we picked the side of our king just because we knew him the longest. But how long we know him doesn't matter in the end when we truly don't know the real him," Carrie said.

"I guess I will need to meet the Vampire Queen then," Albert said casually.

"Wait, you're not going to force me to go there with you, right?" I asked Albert.

"No."

"That's good."

"But you will voluntarily help me with it. For example, I will tell my chef to teach Lina the recipes of the cakes we—"

"I'm in! Let's go!"

I have to choose between food, or avoiding battle. In the end, I picked food. But it doesn't mean that I'm confident that I can win the battle.

…alright, I'm actually really confident that I can win. Especially since we can ask expert level mages to help, and it seems that the Vampire Queen is not someone who tells her subordinate to drink the blood of their own kind.

And also, I could even kill the Vampire King who had strengthened his power after drinking the blood of a Vampire Duke.

And with the Blobby under the sea, I can use portal to sink all the vampires. They can't swim anyway. I can just ask Carmen to come with us. Or even if it's just weaker water mages who works for Albert, it should be fine.

"Our goal is not to fight them. Try to befriend them instead," Albert said.

"You think that's possible if you take these vampires in?"

I pointed at Carrie and the other vampires in the cages. Some of them have woke up and looked at us.

"Let me do the thinking. You don't need to do anything. Hopefully."

This time, Albert asked Kayla to release Carrie from the cage. Since it won't be a problem because we are here, she did it.

"So, I have a proposition to you. Not just you, but all the vampires here. All thirty-five vampires that we found here. Would you like to live in my world?" Albert asked.

"…what?"

"You might not know about this, but we are from different world. We call this world as Monsters World, and our world as humans world. We can come here because a summoner can use portal to transfer between two worlds. And you know the strongest summoner here," Albert said as he pointed at me.

"…what do we get from living in your world?" Carrie asked.

"Chance of survival. At least as long as you obey the rule, you can live however you want," Albert said.

"…let me talk with the other first," Carrie said.

"Sure. Take your time," Albert said.

Is he so free nowadays? Seems like he didn't do much these past few days. Or maybe he had done everything yesterday so he can have several days off.

Well, if the vampires agree to live in our world, as long as they don't cause trouble for us, I won't have to be a vampire hunter.

…but vampire hunter does sound cool.

I'll just leave the negotiation to Albert.