CH 225

When Eugene first decided to leave Brantia and return to the Caylor Kingdom, there was a single question that quite a few people had expressed.

- Why are you taking Princess Lilisain and the elven knights out of everyone?

Everyone could understand why Eugene was leaving behind Galfredik and Lanslo, as they could empower Luke as the new king of Brantia. Galfredik held great influence over the knights and mercenaries from the Caylor Kingdom, and Lanslo belonged to a family respected by all Brantian knights. As such, everyone found it reasonable that Eugene would leave the two behind and take Edmund instead, who was from the empire. However, Princess Lilisain and the elven knights had little to do with Eugene’s journey to the empire through the Caylor Kingdom.

Rather, it seemed more reasonable for him to take Partec and his men, as they knew Eugene the longest and had a deep relationship with him. If strength were the issue, the swordmaster Pranbow would have been an excellent choice.

However, Eugene saw through his original choice to the end and insisted on bringing Princess Lilisain and the elven knights with him. Everyone agreed that Eugene likely had a good reason for his choice, but it was rather strange for him to show such a strong stance on something. As such, a small curiosity remained in everyone’s hearts.

A similar question arose when Eugene decided to leave Maren for a while. Everyone suggested that he should take Edmund and Madrica rather than Princess Lilisain and the elven knights if his purpose were to subjugate evil lands. Everyone could agree that local knights who were familiar with Maren and the nearby land would be much more useful than foreign, elven knights.

Even so, Eugene insisted that only Princess Lilisain and the elven knights would accompany him on his journey. Edmund, who swore loyalty to Eugene, and Madrica, who appeared to be on the path to becoming Eugene’s next admirer, asked Eugene for a convincing reason, and Eugene answered them.

“Eland’s elves are the best when it comes to killing monsters.”

The two knights were unconvinced. They were proud, and rightly so as experienced, strong mercenaries. To that, Eugene gave a further explanation.

“When the two of you were first holding a sword in your hands, the elves were already fighting monsters in Eland.”

It was true.

Eland’s history could be described as an endless war against monsters, and elven knights specialized in hunting monsters rather than fighting in wars. And when Eugene was asked why he was bringing Princess Lilisain with him, he immediately quelled their doubts.

“Apparently, she has about a hundred stuffed monster heads in her room, and they’re all from the monsters she had killed since she was a child.”

This was why Eugene had brought Princess Lilisain and the elven knights over here from Brantia. It was a decision he had made with consideration of his goal—to hunt monsters and conquer evil lands. Elves possessed excellent eyesight, which enabled them to see far even in the dark, and they had great reflexes and instincts, which allowed them to react quickly in dangerous situations.

Born and raised in the forest, the elven knights of Eland were well-versed in masking their presence and concealing their tracks. Moreover, they already knew that Eugene was a vampire, and they thought no less of him for it.

It was much more comfortable to interact with them than with pesky human knights.

Above all else, he didn’t need to pay a single coin to work the elven knights, as they were Princess Lilisain’s guards! In any case, Eugene judged that the elven knights were the best choice for evil land subjugations and hunting roamers, and the elven knights had perfectly lived up to Eugene’s expectations.

***

Eugene, Princess Lilisain, and the elven knights climbed Mount Marcus without their horses. Naturally, the merchants and the villagers were confused by their choice. The biggest advantage of knights was that they could fight freely on horseback. However, Eugene and the knights climbed the mountain without care, and in just half a day, they discovered the location of the roamer groups throughout Mount Marcus.

They spent their night ‘hunting.’

Their night vision wasn’t as good as the vampires, but the elven knights still possessed excellent night vision. As such, the darkness of the mountain wasn’t a major obstacle for them. Moreover, their ability to climb mountains was incomparably greater than human knights and mercenaries. Large boulders and tall trees couldn’t block their path.

The elves ran around Mount Marcus as if they had resided on it for dozens of years, and as a result, five groups of roamers, a total of nearly four hundred monsters, were killed during their first night on Mount Marcus. There were even four larger monsters that fell that night, including a troll and an owlbear.

The merchants and villagers were shocked that so many monsters had been residing on Mount Marcus, and they were even more surprised that eight people had annihilated so many monsters overnight.

What came after the moment of shock was a deafening cheer.

“Long live the king!”

“Hurray to the elf heroes!”

The villagers wanted to host a feast for the heroes who had saved them from the monsters.

“I’m a little busy. There has to be other places besides here where the number of monsters has grown explosively. Shouldn’t I take care of those monsters there first?”

Eugene was busy, so he refused. The merchants and the residents were disappointed, but Eugene’s response was naturally understood as a king’s caring heart for his citizens. Of course, he had sold the mana stones and materials obtained from the hunt to the merchants at a price slightly above the market, but no one paid attention to such a trivial matter. Rather, the merchants were greatly touched that the king had traded with them instead of taking the goods back to Maren.

Eugene’s feats on Mount Marcus and his parting words, the excuse he had given to leave, spread to the nearby areas through the merchants. The spirit called this event the start of ‘The Vampire’s Heavenly Traits’,[1] though Eugene had no idea how she came up with the name and what it even meant.

“Your Majesty Eugene is valiant! Brave! Merciful! Everything about you screams the perfect lord!”

“There’s a reason why a pretty elf princess and a golden spirit are following him!”

“King Eugene will take down all the monsters in the dukedom!”[2]

Eugene had no intention to cause such a ripple effect, but by the time he arrived at the Tywin territory, the Dukedom of Maren was filled with talk about the last particular verse. The people were joyed, but the lords who had subjected themselves to the dukedom were nervous. The king was personally coming around to kill all the monsters, and the lords could only interpret his actions as a specific message to all of them.

- I’m being forced to do this because all of you are so incompetent. I will be visiting you soon. Get ready.

The lords became busy amidst their apprehension, which led to the strengthening of their loyalty and competitiveness. Thus, Eugene had successfully laid the foundation for the unity and development of the dukedom in his first official duty as the king.

Naturally, the person in question had no idea about all these.

***

“I greet Your Majesty.”

“…”

Eugene remained silent as he observed Camara Tywin. It wasn’t because he disliked it or harbored negative emotions toward the man. Rather, it was because he had changed so much in just a few years.

“Kieh? S-sir. Aide number one’s brother has become an old man. He aged so fast…” Mirian muttered with shock. Eugene agreed. Camara Tywin had grown much too old in appearance. When Eugene first saw him, he even wondered if the previous lord had come back to life. However, it seemed Camara had grown older in appearance due to the enormous pressure he had always been subjected to as a lord.

“You’ve… changed quite a bit,” Eugene commented.

“Just tell me that I’ve aged. I know,” Camara responded. He was obviously still the same man judging from the slightly rude tone. It seemed that the previous lord hadn’t come back to life after all.

Eugene responded with a smirk, “Your appearance has changed, but you are still the same man on the inside. But what happened? Ah, you can speak comfortably when it’s just the two of us.”

“Thank you for your consideration. I will do as you say. Your Majesty is still the same person on the outside and the inside. Ah, perhaps…” Camara hesitated.

Eugene nodded. “You must have heard the rumor. That’s right. I’m a vampire.”

“…!”

Camara’s eyebrows twitched as if he were surprised. He remained silent for a while with shock while staring at Eugene with quivering eyes. After some time, he finally opened his lips. “T-then when you first came to our territory…”

Eugene answered, “That’s right. I was weaker than I am now, but I was still a vampire back then.”

“So that was why you always wore a mask…” Camara muttered.

“This?” Eugene answered with a grin and took out the black mask. He no longer needed it, but he carried it around as a souvenir from the past.

Eugene continued, “At that time, I thought I could not be in the sun. Turns out it didn’t matter back then either. Anyway, sir, let’s talk.”

“Phew…! Where should I start?” Camara let out a long sigh.

He continued with a look of remorse, “It must be around this time last year. A knight accompanied by about twenty mercenaries offered to subjugate the dungeon.”

“You didn’t agree to it, did you?” Eugene asked.

“Of course not. How could I? I had never seen him before, and I wasn’t even sure which family he belonged to. I couldn’t let him in the dungeon like that,” Camara answered.

“Why? You did such a thing before. Was his name Maverick?” Eugene said.

“…That was because of Bertel,” Camara responded. His eyes were filled with remorse as he recalled his brother, who had perished at Eugene’s hands.

“Well, let’s leave it at that. So what happened?” Eugene asked.

“Yes. When I turned down his first offer, the knight changed the terms. He said he didn’t need any payment. He offered to investigate the unidentified areas of the dungeon, and he only demanded twenty percent of the mana stones and materials after he was done with the subjugation,” Camara continued.

“Was he not right in the head? What would he have to gain from that?” Eugene said. With twenty mercenaries, he would have to demand at least thirty percent. And even at thirty percent, he would have been left with nothing after paying the mercenaries. No knight would do such a thing since they had to risk their lives in an evil land.

“He said he was practicing true chivalry. Besides, his armor was quite luxurious. The mercenaries were absolutely obedient to the knight’s orders as well. So I thought it might be fine to try it once,” Camara explained.

“Hmm. So you accepted his offer,” Eugene said.

“Yes. I signed the contract. Three days later, he took porters and entered the dungeon. However… the dungeon entrance did not open even after ten days,” Camara said.

Dungeons and labyrinths were sunless, and subjugations would usually take around three or four days. Staying inside any longer was dangerous. One would lose their sense of time, and their perception would greatly diminish over time. Moreover, their morale would decrease, and they would even start to hallucinate.

It didn’t matter if the knight had truly gone to explore the unidentified areas; as long as he failed to return in ten days, it could only mean that…

“They were annihilated,” Eugene said. He realized that Camara was recounting the same story he had heard from the merchant representative in the village at the foot of Mount Marcus.

“That’s the conclusion we came to. Of course, I only thought that it was unfortunate at the time. It wasn’t like we had spent any of our money, and other territories would sometimes fail on their subjugations as well. However, the problem came after that failed subjugation,” Camara said.

“…” Eugene had a hunch about where the story was heading.

Camara continued in a depressed voice, “Until then, there had been no more than one or two deaths every subjugation. However… the death toll more than doubled in the subjugations following that failed subjugation, and it was the same with the number of people with severe injuries.”

“The monsters became stronger. Was that it?” Eugene asked.

“What?! H-how, how do you know that?” Camara muttered with disbelief.

Eugene answered with a cold gaze, “My knights and I had killed more than five hundred roamers on our way to the Tywin territory. But before I left for Brantia, I had never killed more than a quarter of that during my travels between here and Maren. What do you think that means?”

“…!”

“That’s right. Something has changed with the evil lands and the monsters. It’s not only here, but with all the evil lands in the world. Sooner or later, there will be monsters everywhere,” Eugene added.

“T-that’s…” Camara stuttered with shock.

Eugene rose from his seat and pushed his chair back. He looked down at Camara and spoke, “The Tywin territory’s dungeon. My knights and I will subjugate it. All of it. Every nook and cranny.”

“Ah…”

Eugene started to walk out with his back to Camara. However, he suddenly turned around due to a sudden curiosity.

“By the way, the knight who led the mercenaries to death. What was his name? What kind of person was he?” Eugene asked.

“Helmond. He said his name was Christian Helmond,” Camara answered.

“…!”

This time, Eugene’s eyes widened in shock.

Helmond.

It was definitely the name of one of the vampire clans.

1. The original text is a wordplay to a book, which was the first book to ever be written in the native script of the Korean language. Apparently, it’s a song to praise a king for his traits… ☜

2. It seems like they’re singing a song, which, as mentioned, should be a reference to the book. ☜