#74
The Brokoslak Clan (1)
Harris headed east across the Ion Continent over the course of several days together with the envoys of the Elven Kingdom.
‘As expected, with the Church’s authority behind us, crossing the continent is nothing special.’
As the Church of the Main God wielded influence that transcended race and borders, with their guarantee, being permitted to travel anywhere was nothing at all.
After passing through several temples, the party arrived at the easternmost edge of the republic situated in the east and immediately headed for a nearby forest.
“Um... don’t we have to cross the sea?”
When Cecily voiced her doubts about their questionable destination, Lapori gave her a gentle smile.
“Crossing the sea directly would be dangerous and take a long time, would it not? Miss Cecily, remember this. The roots of every tree in the world are the World Tree, and High Elves are beings chosen by Her.”
To put it simply, High Elves could borrow the power of the World Tree to travel to any forest, no matter how far away.
‘It was the same when he tracked Hans. High Elves’ abilities are more impressive than I expected. No, since it’s using the World Tree’s power, I guess that’s only natural?’
Of course, the farther the distance they needed to travel, the more power it consumed, which was why they had come all the way here to reduce that distance as much as possible.
Still, depending on how one looked at it, it seemed even more convenient than the Church of the Main God, which could only travel long distances through temple gates.
‘Except only High Elves can use it, that is. So it’s a pointless comparison.’
After all, there were fewer than ten of them among all elves; it wasn’t as if they could be used solely for transportation.
“Now then, from here on, you only need to follow closely behind me. Please be careful not to get separated from the group.”
A cool energy spread from Lapori’s body and enveloped those around him.
Then, with Cecily and Harris—both first-timers—placed in the middle of the formation so they would not fall behind, the party followed Lapori at the head and made their way deep into the forest.
“Even so, we’ll likely have to travel like this for a few more days. There’s no longer any need to hurry, so let us proceed at a leisurely pace.”
On the way there, they had rushed to rescue Cecily as quickly as possible, but there was no need to push themselves so hard on the return trip.
To begin with, elves, being a long-lived race, were generally quite relaxed.
And so, before they knew it, they began their journey across the ocean, traversing a forest path whose atmosphere had turned dreamlike.
***
Heinz II entered Talaria, the capital of the Kingdom of Thalia in the western part of the continent.
Since he had activated “Concealment” to the utmost limit and focused solely on hiding the energy within him, no one noticed his true identity.
“That’s too expensive... Can’t you lower it a bit?”
“What are you saying! At this price, I’m barely making anything!”
Ordinary people living their everyday lives.
It was the sight of an ordinary city one could see anywhere.
‘There are vampires here and there... but not to an excessive degree, and even they are thoroughly hidden.’
Heinz leisurely scanned his surroundings as he walked down the street.
He was able to notice them because of his transcendent senses and because he was a far higher-level vampire, but their concealment was far more impressive than he had expected.
Then again, no matter how great their influence was, this was the capital of a kingdom with even a temple of the Church of the Main God.
It would have been difficult for vampires, beings of darkness, to operate openly.
‘I need to think about how to shake them up. It’s still too early to charge straight into their headquarters.’
Not only would the forces gathered there be formidable, but they were also an entrenched class that had been working in the shadows of this kingdom for many long years.
Causing needless commotion would be of no help whatsoever for what came next.
In the end, he had no choice but to gnaw away at them little by little from the outside and induce an opening. To do that, he first needed to bring over someone who would know their internal situation well.
‘I have “Refined Blood Essence,” so that much should be simple. Then first, let’s try winning over a suitable vampire.’
A little force and coercion would be involved in the process, but it would certainly not be a bad thing for the party involved, either.
After raising Heterosis, he had experienced the strengthening effects of “Refined Blood Essence” several times.
A single drop of his blood was no different from a miraculous elixir to vampires.
‘There’s a decent-looking target over there, just in time. I’ll start with that one and... hm?’
He sensed a vampire suppressing their presence by the second-floor window of an unoccupied house.
But the closer he got, the more familiar the energy he felt from that person became.
‘It’s faint, as if some measure has been taken... But could this be?’
How many vampire acquaintances did Heinz have in the first place?
Most of them had been wiped out in Ajantu, so the number remaining could be counted on one hand.
And among them, if there was someone who might be standing guard in a place like this, then surely...
And when he got closer and confirmed the person’s identity, it was indeed a vampire he knew well.
‘Rosilica. So you were here.’
A Remnant Blood who had been in charge of Heinz II’s education when he first became a vampire.
After the incident involving the theft of the Immortal King’s fragment began in Ajantu, her whereabouts had been unknown, but it seemed she had somehow been reassigned to the capital.
‘I thought she might have died in the clash with the Church, but she survived somehow?’
He had heard that quite a number of vampires had been killed, as there had once been a large-scale clash.
Seeing as she had stubbornly survived all sorts of hardships starting from Ajantu, it seemed she had one tenacious lifeline.
Heinz quietly used “Invisibility” as well and slipped into the building where she was.
“Haaah~ What kind of fate is this, in the middle of the day? My skin’s been getting rough lately. How long do I have to live like this?”
After silently infiltrating the house, Heinz caught sight of Rosilica grumbling nonstop.
The dark room, with blackout curtains covering every side, was filled with all kinds of blood magic barriers drawn in blood.
Starting with barriers that erased the presence of those inside, there were auxiliary devices to facilitate outside surveillance, and alarms and defensive barriers against intruders were a given.
‘Of course, they mean nothing to me.’
He grasped the barriers with “Blood Mystery” and easily ignored them with the power of “Concealment,” approaching behind Rosilica.
‘There is a notification device that activates if the watcher dies, but it doesn’t have any function to report the internal situation in real time. How convenient.’
He lightly examined the barriers from behind her and released “Invisibility.”
However, since he was still suppressing his presence, she failed to notice Heinz’s appearance and continued watching outside the window.
“I need to sleep nice and deeply during the day so my skin doesn’t get dama—”
“Rosilica.”
Her body flinched and froze for an instant, but only for a very brief moment.
“I’m sorry~! My mouth got the better of me... Hm?”
Rosilica, who had immediately turned around and begun apologizing, flinched when she saw Heinz’s face.
Since he had appeared while ignoring the barriers and even knew her name, she had naturally assumed he was a superior, but when someone she had never seen before was looking at her, she seemed flustered.
“...I’m sorry, but who might you be...?”
However, perhaps because of the various factors from before, she remained tense and cautious as she asked carefully.
Since his appearance and physique had changed greatly from when they had been together before, it was only natural that she did not recognize him.
“It’s Heinz.”
“Heinz...?”
He had no particular intention of hiding his name, so he spoke honestly, but she seemed to think it was merely someone with the same name and only tilted her head without much reaction.
“Are you perhaps a guest of our clan?”
Perhaps sensing that he was a powerful individual she could not handle, Rosilica continued to act politely while keeping her guard up.
“Yes, a guest.”
“Ah! Then this isn’t the right—”
“Though I wasn’t invited.”
The moment those words ended.
Swish—!
Five streams of blood lashed sharply toward Heinz from the tips of her right hand.
At the same time, her left hand stretched toward one axis of the barrier to signal an abnormality, but...
“Ghk?”
Blood-colored chains that had already extended from every direction wrapped around her entire body, thoroughly blocking not only her movements but even the flow of her mana.
“Impossible! Could you be a True Blood? ...This is Brokoslak territory! This is a violation of the pact!”
Faced with that absolute gap, she seemed to think Heinz was a True Blood from another clan and shouted in a panicked voice.
But Heinz was thinking of something else just then.
‘Wait. Maybe this...?’
Since he happened to be inside a high-performance concealment barrier, he slightly revealed the vampire energy he had been hiding with “Concealment.”
Using extreme blood control and overwhelming command of blood mana, he extracted only the desired portion separately and exposed just an exceedingly small fraction of it.
And Rosilica, a vampire sensitive to blood, immediately noticed the scent of blood contained within it.
“Uh... huh? Our clan? No, it’s somehow different... Huh?”
He had focused as much as possible to draw out only the energy closest to the original, but it seemed perfect imitation was still impossible.
However, that alone was enough to throw her into confusion.
Taking advantage of the opening while her thoughts were in disarray, Heinz quietly opened his mouth.
“I am of a collateral line of Brokoslak.”
And as he always did, he began spinning a tale based on various plausible pieces of information.
There were quite a few factions in the world of vampires.
Branches formed by those who, for one reason or another, had escaped the interference of “blood subordination” and built independent forces of their own.
Even if their roots were the same, differences gradually emerged over generations, and in the end, they became completely separate forces.
Heinz brought them to mind and appropriately unfolded his story.
In short, he said that they had simply split off from the same roots, and that he, as a collateral line that had been persecuted until now, only wished to seize the initiative.
He also added that this was not an invasion from the outside but competition taking place within, and that he had no intention whatsoever of harming the clan as a whole.
It was truly a parade of utterly absurd nonsense.
However, since he had constructed the story based on actual facts, and since Heinz had subtly used “Blood Mystery” to add a faint suggestion to his words, she could not harbor any major doubts.
‘But then again, if you examine it, it isn’t exactly wrong.’
For one thing, his roots being in Brokoslak was true, wasn’t it?
“Um... I’m only a mere Remnant Blood, so why on earth...”
“Follow me, and I will grant you power. All you need to do is help me with my work a little.”
The reason he was going through such a troublesome process was to reduce her resistance as much as possible.
After all, the subordination of “Refined Blood Essence” did not have a brainwashing effect that made even the mind absolutely loyal.
“...I’m sorry, but I...”
She opened her mouth to refuse.
It was only natural. How many people would let go of the rope they had been clinging to so well until now and follow someone they were seeing for the first time in their life?
“Ah! I’m saying this in case you misunderstand.”
But before she could finish speaking, Heinz’s amused voice blocked her words.
“You don’t have a choice.”
He had merely said various things so she could give up comfortably and obey quietly.
Once she was subordinated through “Refined Blood Essence,” there would be no turning back, so she would have no choice but to follow him regardless.
Heinz’s hand reached out toward Rosilica, whose expression had gone stiff and uneasy.
***
In the end, he was able to smoothly obtain the cooperation of Rosilica, who had resigned herself to her fate.
She still seemed reluctant, but apart from that, she appeared satisfied with her own strength after being empowered by “Refined Blood Essence.”
Through her, he obtained internal information on the Brokoslak Clan.
Of course, since she was still a Remnant Blood, there was not much high-level information, but as she had stayed here for a long time, he was able to glean quite a few useful pieces of information.
One of them concerned “Freesia Brokoslak,” a True Blood who oversaw the surveillance network of the capital, Talaria.
“Lady Freesia is a rather unique person. She often takes walks during the day. How should I put it... she enjoys receiving attention from humans...”
A flighty noble young lady who wandered all over the capital in splendid attire and enjoyed things like shopping.
That was the false identity the True Blood used.
“I heard her detection range is incredible. If she’s in the commercial district, it reaches all the way beyond the city gates. In truth, she could probably monitor about half the capital on her own.”
Hearing that, her appearance and impression felt extremely familiar.
On the first day Heinz II had arrived in the capital to have Heinrich enter the Church of the Main God.
She was the True Blood he had run into then, forcing him to flee.
‘Ah... I remember. She was the vampire who used a Mystic Eye.’
She had suddenly appeared behind him and questioned him about devouring his own kind, and he had escaped by canceling the summon while thinking they would see about it next time.
‘And now we meet again like this.’
Memories of that time came vividly back to him.
In truth, since he had avoided her right away, he could not really say he held a grudge, but she was not someone he had any good feelings toward either...
‘Let’s see each other’s faces after all this time.’
A cold smile formed on Heinz’s lips.