When he returned to his room, the servants who had just finished setting Sarka’s table were standing back.
When the servants who had followed him in set down the containers holding food for the animals, Sarka commanded stiffly.
“Everyone out. Don’t let anyone in until I call.”
The servants immediately bowed their heads and withdrew.
When the door closed, Sarka used telekinesis to close all the windows and draw the curtains. In the quiet room, Sarka passed by without even glancing at the table and opened the container holding the food.
“Adam, prepare the meal.”
At the short command, a small monkey moved immediately. The monkey brought the food and water bowls for the beasts and placed them in their respective positions.
While the monkey Adam poured clean water into the water bowls, Sarka sorted out the types Ember disliked from the food in the container and cut separately the parts she liked to eat.
When he finished preparing the food and placed it in the black panther’s bowl, the young jaguar tried to rush in without waiting for its turn.
Snap!
When Sarka snapped his fingers, the young jaguar stopped.
Sarka’s fingers moved in a stern gesture, sending a brief sign language.
<You must observe hierarchy.>
The young jaguar swallowed its saliva and obediently backed away.
Sarka placed a slightly smaller piece of meat trimmed to fit the young jaguar’s build in a separate dish.
The monkey took them and placed the black panther’s bowl at the head position, with the young jaguar’s bowl below it.
When the monkey also placed water bowls in their respective positions, Sarka walked over to the table and sat down.
Only then did the beasts move and sit in front of their respective food bowls. Sarka waited for a moment, then confirmed that both beasts were fixing their gazes on him without wavering and nodded.
“You may eat.”
The panther and jaguar immediately attacked their food combatively.
After looking down at the beasts tearing into their food for a moment, Sarka only then slowly turned his head. Looking at the dishes placed before him, Sarka reached out and opened the lids. Looking down at the slightly cooled food, Sarka reached out without enthusiasm and picked up a piece of bread.
He had no appetite, but if Sarka didn’t eat, the monkey Adam’s turn wouldn’t come. The guard thralls, the panther and jaguar, were allowed to eat with their master, but the servant thrall, the monkey Adam, was only permitted to eat after the master had finished eating entirely. If Sarka ordered it, he could force himself to eat first, but for that monkey thoroughly trained not to break hierarchy, it would only be an anxious meal. Thinking of Adam waiting while starving, it was better for Sarka to finish his meal quickly.
When Sarka expressionlessly picked up the bread and bit into it, the monkey Adam climbed onto the table and began to serve. The monkey picked up the napkin Sarka had forgotten and arranged it on Sarka’s lap, then lifted the bottle and poured water into the glass. When Sarka held out his hand, Adam placed the glass in Sarka’s hand with a courteous gesture.
Only then did Sarka feel a faint sense of stability seeping in. Everything in the room was operating neatly according to hierarchy and discipline. Looking down at Ember and Lily eating in their designated places, Sarka let out a faint breath.
The sound of the carnivores chewing their food was cheerful. Finding stability after a long time and being able to put food in their mouths, the two beasts seemed pleased. Listening to that sound, Sarka also silently moved his hands to continue his meal.
It was a tedious repetition of a process. Sarka steadily pushed whatever food he saw into his mouth as he picked it up and chewed.
Hütivras, befitting a prestigious family, employed quite decent cooks, and that human woman seemed to be making an effort to pay special attention to Sarka’s nutritional state, but from Sarka’s perspective, it didn’t matter what they brought out. Since he’d long lost interest in taste anyway, any food that was easy to put in his mouth and chew was sufficient. Even if they’d brought out rotten meat and gutter water, he would have eaten it with the same feeling. The only purpose of eating was to fill his hunger to some degree and to leave traces of having touched the dishes evenly.
Sarka chewed and swallowed the food that felt as dry as chewing sand, then immediately stopped eating once the plates were somewhat empty.
Sarka, who had finished his meal, snapped his fingers.
When he pointed to the plates for Adam, Adam, knowing his master had finished eating, finally jumped up to his own spot and settled in. Adam, who had cleared the empty plates, began eating his share from the fruit bowl Sarka had left.
Sarka quietly watched Adam diligently emptying the bowl. Suddenly discovering that one of the bowls contained nuts, Sarka reached out and picked up a walnut.
Sarka’s hand pressed down to crack the hard walnut shell. When he silently held it out to Adam, Adam bowed and received it with both hands. The small monkey confirmed the walnut and looked back at Sarka, baring its teeth in a smile.
Adam had especially liked nuts since he was young. Seeing the monkey’s face smiling while holding the walnut, Sarka’s heart became faintly pleasant for just a moment. It was pleasure that had been there for such a long time that it felt almost similar to pain. Rather than pleasure, it was closer to a brief tingling pain in his chest.
Sarka looked blankly at Adam peeling off the broken shell and eating the walnut.
Perhaps because he’d made him suffer so much, he seemed to have aged considerably in 2 years.
The lifespan of gibbons wasn’t long. An average of about 20 years, so this one born around the same time as Sarka was at an age equivalent to old age for a human.
The suddenly changed climate coming to Hütivras must be difficult, and the stress from the changed environment must be considerable. As he got older, he should provide good nutrition, but since he couldn’t come home often, this occasional checking in was all he could do. Perhaps his joints had become stiff this year—for the past few months, even cracking walnut shells had been difficult for him.
Thinking of Adam having eaten alone while he was away, Sarka’s heart grew heavy.
<Adam> was a monkey who had served Sarka since before Sarka could even walk. He was the servant thrall who had spent the longest time with Sarka, and also the head servant who held the responsibility of commanding and managing Sarka’s thralls.
The black panther <Ember>, the only surviving guard thrall, had also been trained under the monkey Adam since she was a cub.
In Leogrante, the number of thralls Adam commanded was easily in the triple digits at a glance, but most had died in the process of tracking his mother and fleeing from his aunt.
Now only the monkey <Adam> and the black panther <Ember>, just the two, remained by Sarka’s side. Only these two remembered Sarka’s childhood and shared memories from Leogrante.
Thinking of the thralls who had died, Sarka’s heart darkened again.
The process of fleeing to avoid his aunt and the exorcists’ pursuit was, in fact, a fight against starvation rather than combat.
As Father had said, a thrall’s fate follows its master. From the moment Sarka chose to flee into underground passages where hunting was impossible, he knew he’d chosen an environment where not even half of the thralls following him could survive.
He had to choose every few days which one should be given as food for which other.
He couldn’t choose based on affection and memories. He had to judge which individuals to feed and which to keep for the most advantageous <survival>. Sarka had ended the breath of the thralls he cherished most with his own hands and watched their corpses disappear into the mouths of other thralls countless times.
Ember and Adam were the ones who received Sarka’s choice until the very end in that process.
There had been much stronger thralls, thralls he’d given much more affection to. But beasts that were too large or ate too much were disadvantageous for survival.
Both Adam and Ember were small in build and ate little, and had cautious, tenacious personalities. Thanks to that, they survived to the end and were allowed to swallow the flesh of the thralls Sarka had cherished most.
Having kept them fed and alive to that extent, Sarka absolutely couldn’t leave these ones to starve. Even if he couldn’t let them live as luxuriously as in Leogrante, he didn’t want to bring them this far only to let them suffer the humiliation of starvation.
The same went for the young jaguar, <Lily>, whom he’d just begun raising.
After being accepted into Hütivras, Sarka had instinctively first tried to restore the number of his guard thralls. It was natural for a vampire who had barely escaped from the brink of death to try to secure beasts to protect him again.
But Father wasn’t pleased with the number of beasts increasing in a house with a human wife. He didn’t seem to like Sarka’s dominated beasts strutting around inside the house either.
He didn’t go so far as to tell him to expel the young jaguar he’d already brought in, but knowing that his father reacted irritably to his thralls, Sarka gave up on increasing the number of thralls.
If he’d known he’d be sent to Esteban School, Sarka regretted belatedly that he wouldn’t have brought Lily either.
Only a few months after bringing Lily in, relations with his father had deteriorated extremely, and in the end Sarka had to leave alone for the human school, leaving behind Lily who hadn’t even turned one year old.
Since jaguars are beasts that grow tremendously large later on, they need to be properly trained when young. With the master continually away during the most important young period for training, Lily would probably grow into a sensitive and withdrawn personality. She’d become a fierce and aggressive jaguar difficult to control.
While it was possible to change an animal’s personality with supernatural powers, forcibly changing an already fixed personality lowered the animal’s intelligence, judgment, and sometimes even lifespan. It might be fine for pets or livestock, but one should avoid carelessly manipulating the personality of a guard thrall who needed to make cool-headed judgments when the master was in a crisis situation.
If a jaguar with an already large build also became violent in temperament, she’d become a quite troublesome thrall to handle, but it wasn’t something he could back out of now.
Lily already bore Sarka’s mark, and forcibly erasing a mark once imprinted dealt irreversible damage to that beast. Now Lily too was Sarka’s responsibility, destined to share her fate with Sarka for life.
Abandoning the responsibility of caring for thralls who would be together until death was an irresponsible thing to do. Sarka thought that no matter how humiliating a situation he was in, he couldn’t order his thralls to endure starvation for the sake of his own pride. With his family and even the servants and attendants he’d employed all dead and gone, these beasts were all Sarka had left.
The most precious thing to a vampire is their thralls. Because they will never betray.
Unless the hypnosis is broken with <Fang Flower>.
Sarka’s hand trembled minutely as he recalled that term. Sarka silently looked down at his hand, then slowly clenched it.
Sarka recalled the eyes of the thralls glaring at him from inside the iron cage. He thought of the hatred and disgust contained in those murderous gazes.
Sarka acknowledged with difficulty the fact that he’d been hurt by their gazes.
He’d known. That they were beings who were loyal because I made them so.
But it was the first time he’d received such gazes from ones he’d practically raised together since childhood.
Every vampire knew the obvious fact that when a beast released from hypnosis met the one who had tampered with its mind, it felt bloodlust to the point of losing reason.
……When I knew this, why am I suffering?
Sarka thought he’d grown weak.
It’s a foolish thing. My thralls are creatures whose minds I directly reassembled. All the emotions those beasts send toward me are all fake emotions I blew into them.
Sarka knew what process he’d used to tear through their minds when he brainwashed Adam, Ember, and Lily. While grasping each one’s natural disposition and habits, he’d erased, redrawn, and built up their emotions and memories so they could most effectively be loyal to him. Their loyalty and affection were well-made lies.
Even though it was an obvious fact, strangely his heart felt like it was being clawed.
From childhood until now, they’d been the only beings who gave Sarka a sense of stability. The thralls who welcomed him home had never once disappointed Sarka since childhood. The thralls who sent unwavering loyalty and affection no matter what happened were sometimes closer than blood relations. Even during countless moments when he feared, doubted, and hated his blood relatives, Sarka had believed that at least these ones were unchangingly on his side.
……To be undone this emptily.
Sarka looked down at his thralls with a deflated feeling.
Originally <Fang Flower> was such a thing.
<Vampire power> was such a thing.
It could vanish this emptily.
It was a fact he’d known. There were no thralls that could be obtained eternally.
While I’m alive, they love me more than their own lives, are loyal to me, and long for me and wait, but after I die, they’re beasts who will devour my corpse without any lingering attachment.
He’d known this but had never really felt it, and only today did Sarka truly feel that fact.
To Ember, I am <prey>.
The moment the hypnosis is released, that beast will end my life without hesitation and tear and devour my flesh. I’m just suppressing and deceiving their instincts with force, but the truth doesn’t change.
No beast voluntarily becomes a vampire’s thrall. There’s no way they’d voluntarily yield control of their body and mind……
Suddenly Sarka’s eyes blinked.
As strength faintly left his clenched hand, Sarka unconsciously hesitated.
There had been a creature that tried to voluntarily……yield.
Shaggy dirty blond hair. A thin, stooped back and stubby fingers stained speckled with blue ink marks. Navy blue eyes that glanced while reading the mood.
Sarka’s eyes wavered as he recalled Ruslan.
Not a thrall, yet acting like a thrall.
A creature who was loyal and devoted as if hypnotized by me, even though I hadn’t tampered with its mind.
Sarka felt himself becoming sensitive to the point of irritation every time he recalled that human.
It hadn’t been that way from the beginning.
When they first met, he’d rather had no interest at all.
He was such an utterly insignificant being that Sarka didn’t even feel tense even after his identity was discovered.
He’d been a bit annoyed at the sight of him spouting the exact same words as his father, but he was such a lowly and stupid human that Sarka would become pathetic himself to take him seriously.
Sarka didn’t even feel motivated to hate that human or want to kill him like he did his father. He was so worthless that Sarka even felt a bit sorry for him, so Sarka just watched that human act presumptuously and wildly.
An eagle might peck a chicken to death if it’s annoying when it flaps in front of it, but if it’s a chick without even down feathers, there wouldn’t be much motivation. That was the feeling. Sarka just played with that human like a child plays with a dragonfly.
A dust-like being that could be killed or have his memory erased at any time if he put his mind to it, so he hadn’t played with particular motivation either.
Baigarten, who had gone on vacation, happened to come to mind, and it seemed like it would be quite a sight to see that guy flip if he dragged him into the room, so he kept him in the room for a bit.
He’d been thinking listlessly that after playing with him appropriately, he’d just erase his memory and send him back before Baigarten exploded.
He hadn’t even been curious what that human was thinking or why he was acting that way, so he had no interest.
But…….
Sarka’s eyes wavered.
Sarka’s eyes, sunken in deep thought, blinked.
What exactly was it?
Sarka recalled that day.
The night he’d given up on everything and decided to let go without struggling anymore.
Small hands that suddenly rushed at him pushed him down, and before he could even collect himself, embraced him……
Sarka, who had been sunken in thought for a long time, suddenly woke from his reverie when something soft brushed against his leg.
Ember and Lily, who had finished eating, were purring beside Sarka’s legs. Lily seemed completely excited from meeting Sarka after a while. A faint smile rose at Sarka’s lips at the jaguar’s aegyo rubbing its body against him while whining.
“Finished eating?”
When he reached out and gently lifted her up, Lily made a rumbling sound in her throat while rubbing her forehead against Sarka’s chin. When he held Lily and stroked her back, Ember also sneakily approached and rubbed her forehead against Sarka’s side. Having finished their meal and finding leisure now that their master had returned, the thralls’ expressions were relaxed.
Seeing those stable gazes, Sarka finally let out a faint breath and relaxed his expression.
Sarka, who had been scratching Lily’s neck as she snuggled against him, suddenly frowned at the tangled fur. When he looked carefully, all three were in terrible shape from being continually locked in iron cages. Sarka frowned and stood up.
“You’re all in terrible shape. We need to wash.”
When he pulled the cord, servants soon came up. Sarka had the servants take out the empty table and added briefly.
“I’m going to wash my thralls. Prepare bathwater.”
“We’ll……”
“I’ll do it myself.”
The servants hesitated, but Sarka cut them off sharply.
Originally washing thralls was the servants’ work, and now that they were hypnotized again and safe, there would be no problem entrusting them, but today he wanted to do it himself. He felt sorry for making them suffer starvation because of him, and he also felt affection for the thralls he’d seen after a long time.
No matter how carefully servants of low bloodline washed them, they couldn’t access their minds to check due to the mark, so there were limits to noticing discomfort. For these ones, the touch of Sarka, who had opened their minds and cared for them for a long time, would be most comfortable.
After coming here, Ember’s hair loss had become severe, perhaps due to stress from the environmental change, but there was no sign of improvement at all. She probably had even more difficulty finding mental stability with her master continually away.
They were only a few thralls. Since he couldn’t come often, while he was here he wanted to cherish them a little more.
When the bathwater was prepared, Sarka sent the servants out and rolled up his shirt.
