Chapter 31: What is a vampire?

Lucius stood tall amidst the carnage, his dark leather coat rustling slightly as he looked down at the newly transformed woman kneeling at his feet.

"Return to your hidden settlement," Lucius commanded, his deep voice slicing through the quiet afternoon air. "Gather the people of Snake Valley under your absolute command. Open up a true faction for us in these mountains. Build a foundation, and wait for my orders."

Terissa slowly raised her head, a beautiful, sharp-fanged smile spreading across her lips. She understood the monumental weight of his command perfectly. .

"It will be done exactly as you wish, my Lord," she purred softly, bowing her head one last time before melting seamlessly into the dense forest brush, moving with the terrifying speed, that even she did not know she had.

With his new subordinate dispatched to secure his growing syndicate, Lucius finally turned his back on the ruined blockade.

He walked steadily toward the heavy mahogany carriage waiting on the dirt road. The older merchant, who had taken a brutal punch to the jaw from one of the thugs just moments prior, was currently resting completely unconscious on the plush velvet seats inside the cabin.

Dori did not follow her master into the enclosed space. Instead, the feral vampire girl happily climbed up onto the driver’s bench at the front of the transport, grabbing the heavy leather leashes of the massive land dragons.

She was more than willing to steer the beasts, preferring the open air and wanting to give her master the quiet space he needed to deal with the annoying noblewoman.

The carriage lurched forward violently, the wooden wheels crunching over the rocky mountain pass as they resumed their journey toward Stanford.

Inside the dim, spacious cabin, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense. Lucius sat comfortably on his side of the carriage, his long legs stretched out and his pale hands folded neatly in his lap.

His glowing red eyes were fixed entirely on Guinevere, who was sitting rigidly on the opposite bench. She was clutching her emerald green top tightly, her knees pressed together as she stared at the floorboards.

She was completely silent, her entire body trembling in a state of absolute shock. She had just watched the cold, apathetic mercenary turn a bandit leader into a beautiful, loyal monster right before her eyes.

The rhythmic thudding of the land dragons’ heavy footsteps filled the long silence, alongside the soft snores of her battered father resting beside her.

Eventually, Lucius decided to break the suffocating ice.

"You can stop shaking," Lucius uttered smoothly, his voice devoid of any hostile intent. "I already gave you my word. I will not hurt you or your father, provided you do not give me a foolish reason to do so."

Guinevere flinched slightly at the sound of his voice. She slowly raised her head, her bright, intelligent eyes locking onto his glowing crimson irises. The sheer, primal fear she felt was evident, but her innate curiosity as an A-rank magic conduit refused to let her sit in absolute ignorance.

"What... what exactly are you?" she stammered, her voice barely a whisper over the creaking wooden carriage. "You are not a dark mage. Dark mages cannot change someone’s entire physical race in a matter of seconds. And your eyes... they are exactly like hers."

"I am a vampire," Lucius replied honestly, seeing absolutely no reason to hide his true origin from a girl who was completely at his mercy.

Guinevere gasped softly, her eyes widening to the size of saucers. She pressed her back against the velvet cushions, her mind racing as she connected the terrifying dots.

"The rumors..." she breathed out, her chest heaving slightly. "The frantic rumors spreading from shop to shop back in the capital just this morning. People were terrified to enter the outer forest because they said a vampire had attacked the area. So... that was you? You are the one commanding the monsters lurking in the dark?"

"I am the one," Lucius confirmed calmly. "But you do not need to look at me like I am a mass murderer. No innocent humans got hurt in those woods. My children, the mindless bloods roaming the forest, are no different from the regular monsters that walk the wild or spawn in dungeons. They only hunt those who are foolish enough to wander into the dark looking for a fight."

Guinevere swallowed hard, trying to process the sheer magnitude of his confession. She possessed a vast knowledge of magical theory and history due to her noble upbringing, yet the word he used defied all logic.

"But what exactly is a vampire?" she asked, leaning forward just a fraction of an inch, her fear slowly being overshadowed by a deep, scholarly fascination. "There is absolutely no mention of such a creature in any of the ancient kingdom books. Not even the oldest archives of Eldia speak of a race that drinks blood and commands that type of undead."

Lucius let out a quiet, knowing sigh.

"That is because I am the very first," he explained, his tone carrying a heavy, ancient weight. "I recently arrived in this world, and I am the progenitor of my kind. But I do not intend to remain a myth. I wish to bring my people into the light. There is absolutely no reason for us to stay hidden in the shadows anymore."

Her intelligent eyes scanned his flawless, pale face. If he was a completely new, terrifying species capable of raising the dead and turning humans into fiercely loyal monsters, he completely disrupted the balance of the entire world.

"Are you with the people of the demons, then?" Guinevere asked nervously, referencing the dark realm the kingdom’s heroes were summoned to destroy. "Are you an agent sent to dismantle the kingdom from the inside?"

"I do not care about your demon lord or your human kings," Lucius stated coldly, a dangerous edge returning to his deep voice. "My enemies are simply those who stand in my way. Anyone who tries to put a blade to my throat or lock me in a cage will be slaughtered, regardless of what race they belong to."

A brief silence settled over the cabin once again. Lucius tilted his head slightly, a sudden, lingering thought crossing his highly calculated mind. Back when he first arrived in the royal throne room, the King and his knights had absolutely no idea what the word vampire meant when the summoning orb displayed it. They had treated it like a foreign, unknown curse.

"Tell me something," Lucius said, his glowing red eyes narrowing slightly. "If my race does not exist in your ancient books, where exactly did the people in the capital get the name vampire from? Why are the commoners suddenly whispering that specific word in the streets?"

Guinevere hesitated for a second, intimidated by the sudden shift in his aura, but she quickly answered to appease him.

"It was something the Princess of the kingdom uttered the other day during her public speech," Guinevere explained quietly. "She stood before the commoners and declared that a vile, demonic monster known as a vampire must still be lurking around the borders. She spun a tragic tale, saying the beast had attacked her and brought a dusting curse upon the royal guards. So, when the sudden appearance of undead monsters began happening in the outer forest, the people immediately linked it to her speech."

Lucius froze. The rhythmic bouncing of the carriage seemed to fade away completely as her words echoed in the deepest, darkest corners of his mind.

He remembered the pitch-black dungeon cell.

He remembered the heavy, suffocating smell of rot, the agonizing pain of the royal guard’s explosive fire magic burning his flesh, and the cold, uncaring eyes of the blond princess as she slammed the heavy metal door shut, leaving him to die simply because his class was unknown.

She had kicked him into a tomb to save face, and now, she was actively using his true racial name as a political scapegoat to rally her people in fear.

Slowly, a low, dark chuckle began to vibrate in Lucius’s chest.

The sound was entirely devoid of warmth or humor. It grew louder, echoing off the wooden walls of the carriage cabin as a sinister, incredibly heavy aura flooded the confined space.

Guinevere shrank back against her seat, her breath hitching as the temperature in the room plummeted.

’That manipulative, lying bitch,’ Lucius thought, his fangs descending slightly as his crimson eyes blazed with a terrifying, unadulterated fury.

She was painting him as the ultimate villain to cover up her own cruel mistakes. But the sheer irony of it all was beautiful. By giving the commoners a name to fear, she was actively building the terrifying reputation of his syndicate before he even revealed himself to the world.

He would absolutely get his brutal, bloody revenge on the Princess and the arrogant King of Eldia. He would watch their pristine castle crumble into dust and force them to their knees. But his highly analytical mind quickly reeled his anger back in.

He knew the strict reality of his current situation.

With only twenty-seven mindless blood, adding the new ones he had turned from the bandits, a feral girl, and a newly turned bandit leader, he had not grown nearly strong enough to wage a full-scale war against a heavily fortified capital filled with high-ranking mages and summoned heroes.

Not yet.

Lucius finally stopped laughing.

He dragged a pale hand through his dark hair, his expression settling back into a mask of stillness. He looked directly at Guinevere, who was staring at him like he was the physical embodiment of death.

"Thank you for the information, Guinevere," Lucius said softly, leaning back against the velvet cushions and closing his eyes to rest. "It seems I have a lot of work to do."