Belial was strict. Knowing Sarka’s stamina was in no different state than the previous day, Belial asked just once. Whether he would slow down the progress.
When Sarka shook his head, Belial pushed Sarka without hesitation.
It was a merciless curriculum. Belial didn’t go easy on Sarka at all under the standard of ‘as long as you don’t die.’
Sarka didn’t complain about that method either. Taking it easy wouldn’t allow him to catch up with Duel School’s progress. It was a necessary harshness for Sarka to survive in this family.
Sarka desperately blocked Belial’s attacks all night long.
To break through Belial’s techniques, who didn’t care even if bones throughout the body shattered, he had to face it prepared to die. Sarka fought almost to the point of fainting.
He actually lost consciousness a few times, but Belial readily healed Sarka’s body and stood him back up.
However, while healing power could eliminate bodily wounds, it couldn’t replenish depleted stamina.
After repeating losing consciousness and waking up several times, when Sarka, whose stamina had completely hit rock bottom, could no longer overcome the dizziness and his knees buckled not long after being healed, Belial finally concluded that a different method was needed.
“…It might be good to get some help from medicine.”
Sarka, who had been panting and trying to steady his breathing, raised his head.
Red eyes carefully examined Sarka’s body.
Belial stroked his smooth chin and spoke slowly.
“As you said, we couldn’t make progress last month either, so you can’t return having learned nothing in this month’s lesson, can you?
If you’re okay with it, it might not be bad to use some of the inventions made in your mother’s laboratory a little.”
“……”
Sarka looked up at Belial with hazy eyes for a moment, then obediently nodded. It wasn’t a question he could choose.
Belial flicked his finger. A large bag flew through the air and landed elegantly.
Belial unlocked the bag and opened the lid.
Inside the bag made with a structure that unfolded in layers, various drugs were arranged.
Belial moved his fingers as if tapping piano keys, choosing carefully, and finally picked one up.
“This would be good. The side effects are a bit harsh, but the effect is that good. It’s one of my favorite works.”
It was medicine Sarka also knew. Not a favorite medicine, but useful in unavoidable situations.
Sarka nodded.
Belial filled a small gourd-shaped glass container with water and inserted and connected metal equipment and a hose. After scooping some amount from the herb container and filling the vessel, Belial placed heated charcoal on top.
A moment later, Belial held the pipe end and extended the mouthpiece toward Sarka.
“Inhale deeply.”
Sarka gazed down at the hookah quietly, then slowly accepted the pipe.
After putting the mouthpiece to his lips and hesitating a bit, he inhaled deeply as Belial instructed.
When Sarka, unfamiliar with the usage method, coughed at the harsh smoke, Belial, sitting beside him, swept down Sarka’s back as if soothing him.
“Slowly, slowly. Yes… that’s right. Keep going. Deep inside, until it seeps into your lungs…”
Sarka closed his eyes and tried to inhale the smoke as Belial instructed.
It was a type of stimulant that wasn’t highly addictive. Using a hookah to inhale produced a stronger effect. Humans classified and prohibited it as drugs, but vampires commonly used it as medicine. Vampires, whose body recovery power was far stronger than humans, had lenient laws regarding drug use.
Sarka didn’t prefer the method of reviving tired body sensations with the power of drugs, but there was no other way. As Belial said, he couldn’t waste two full months.
Belial soothed Sarka, who kept coughing, and had him smoke until all the herbs burned.
As time passed, Sarka could feel the stimulant’s effects beginning to spread throughout his body.
As if he’d never been tired, muscle elasticity revived, and his mind became as clear as it could never be clearer.
Sarka exhaled a long breath and put down the pipe.
Belial narrowed his eyes and smiled satisfactorily.
“…Then, shall we start again?”
Belial’s calculation was accurate. The stimulant maintained peak condition so Sarka could concentrate on training until dawn broke the next day.
When he finally mastered all the techniques Belial required and succeeded in blowing away the target, Belial clapped slowly.
“Excellent.”
Sarka panted and caught his breath, supporting himself on the table where the target had been placed.
Sweat pooled thickly on the floor, making it slippery. As soon as the stimulant’s effect faded, his arms began trembling. His stomach churned, then nausea rose. Sarka clenched his mouth as if covering it.
He almost showed the sight of retching in front of Belial, but fortunately nothing came out. Thinking about it now, it was fortunate his stomach was empty from vomiting in advance in the evening.
The nausea stopped, but Sarka felt cold and pain beginning to occupy his body due to the stimulant’s side effects. Sarka, whose trembling body curled up, gritted his teeth.
Belial approached, slightly lifted Sarka’s chin, and looked into his eyes that were beginning to lose focus.
Observing Sarka’s condition as he panted and broke out in cold sweat, Belial clicked his tongue lightly.
“It’s possible to completely eliminate the side effects with my healing power, but… what gets consumed in the end is your stamina. If we forcibly use up the stamina remaining in you now to push away the side effects, your immunity will hit rock bottom completely.
…It would be better to just rest. I’ll prepare bath water, so rest soaking in hot water until the medicine’s effects wear off.”
“…Thank you.”
Sarka barely showed his respects. His voice was terribly cracked.
Belial stepped aside so Sarka could rest comfortably without maintaining formalities any longer.
When guided to the bathroom, semi-slaves were waiting.
Sarka entrusted his blood-soaked clothes to their hands and half-collapsed into the steaming water.
The harsh stimulant that was potent even when swallowed while healthy completely turned his insides upside down upon entering his stamina-depleted body.
Headache and chills surged, and his heart beat frighteningly fast. The tinnitus became so vivid it was hard to even open his eyes.
Sarka felt the cold from the drug’s side effects gradually seeping vividly into his bones. Even though he was in hot water, his entire body was chilly as if he’d fallen into ice water. The skin touching the water was hot but the blood vessels and bones inside that skin were cold, like throwing ice into boiling oil.
Sarka gritted his chattering teeth and curled up his body.
Muscles throughout his body, strained during the duration of the stimulant’s effect, convulsed and contracted. If he didn’t release them now, he would suffer for several days.
Sarka’s eyes reddened. The semi-slave who had been kneeling and waiting moved to sit behind Sarka. As long as there was a semi-slave who knew exactly how to release his own body, a vampire was no different from being accompanied by the best massage therapist anywhere for life.
Sarka silently moved that semi-slave’s body. Befitting Belial’s subordinate who always received the highest ratings from guests, the well-trained semi-slave completely relaxed all muscles and submitted to Sarka’s control.
While having hands moving like perfect inanimate objects massage his muscles, Sarka suddenly realized he was thinking about that day again.
The day when he had entrusted his pain-stained body to unfamiliar, utterly clumsy hands.
Small hands that kept going wrong, unable to completely release their strength.
Gradually becoming familiar, seeming to become as skilled as a well-trained semi-slave…
Then at some moment, rebelling again, muscles that stubbornly insisted.
…Why do I keep thinking about that human?
Sarka was disgusted with himself.
As memories of that day intruded into his already painful and complicated head, everything seemed to get tangled and torn up at will.
It’s because my body weakened.
The sick and dizzy body reflexively recalled those arms.
The moment he was about to collapse losing consciousness, the two arms that had gripped him tightly.
The breath of relief that burst out when he recovered control.
When he tried to carefully remove the arms, muscles that stubbornly persisted desperately.
The two legs that awkwardly insisted on supporting his swaying body.
The navy blue eyes that looked down at him.
Before he knew it, Sarka was thinking about that night again.
The night when, after his father left, his mind stood on edge like a blade, and his barely recovered body seemed to sink back into a swamp of pain.
He half-crawled back to his room and fell asleep as if fainting, but not long after, he woke up shuddering from nightmares and pain.
His tongue and throat parched dry, judging it would be hard to fall asleep just lying there like this, Sarka arduously rose from bed.
Walking unsteadily relying on the wall, wanting to sit down every few steps, he desperately moved his feet.
Telling himself he had survived anyway, so he had to overcome humiliation again and continue surviving.
He forced his body, which seemed to be screaming, and walked tenaciously.
Leaning his body against the wall, about to collapse from dizziness at any moment, he barely grasped the doorknob.
The door opened,
And the moment the golden crown of the crouching human’s head entered his vision.
Sarka unknowingly lost strength.
Sarka, who had slipped down, gazed quietly at that human dozing crouched in front of the door, feeling himself weaken with momentum he absolutely couldn’t control.
He wanted to rely on this human.
He wanted to ask for help.
It was an absurd impulse.
He’d never thought about it once. Requesting someone to help.
Protecting his younger siblings, maintaining peace in the house, saving his mother—all were always responsibilities Sarka alone had to bear.
They were duties only Sarka could fulfill that no one could help with.
Sarka thought about the day he looked down at the food plate that human had brought.
Meals alone were always humiliating like prisoner rations.
But that day, after that human left, Sarka had to endure something other than nausea.
Looking down at the food that human had left behind, Sarka fought with himself for thinking he wanted to eat it.
No matter how hungry he was, he hadn’t wanted to touch meals someone brought, but that day he wanted to eat that.
When that human returned in the evening and tried to clear that plate, it felt unpleasant, as if taking back what had been given.
He unknowingly grabbed that human’s wrist like throwing a tantrum.
Like begging to wait just a moment, asking for a little more time.
He wanted to cling to that human.
He wanted to depend on him.
Like a young child grabbing an approaching finger without thinking and not letting go, he didn’t want to lose that hand.
Sarka was shocked at himself.
An emotion that should be called shame, no, rather better called fear occupied his entire body.
It was unconscious-level wariness that he shouldn’t show a weak appearance, and
Nevertheless, tension about impulses that escaped control.
Sarka was ashamed of himself who had collapsed for a moment. It was such a shabby appearance.
He couldn’t believe himself throwing such a childish tantrum in front of that human.
Yet, he hated himself for becoming wretchedly weak every time he recalled that human’s voice.
[I also have nothing to do with your circumstances.
Whatever world you were born into, whatever bloodline, how you were educated and raised, I don’t care.]
[I’ll protect you in any situation.
Whatever you do to me… I’m on your side.]
Words he’d never heard once.
Words he’d never even imagined.
Only after hearing that did Sarka feel a shock that penetrated his entire body heavily.
Everyone evaluated Sarka by bloodline, by family, by background.
Even his parents were no exception.
He was always evaluated by things Sarka had never chosen.
There was no way to escape a life of always being evaluated and treated by birth.
Before the human who declared he would completely ignore all of that, Sarka was dumbfounded.
The human who protected Sarka’s ‘life,’ which was difficult and strenuous even when desperately struggling to protect it, with absurd ease.
The moment those words flowed from that human’s mouth,
While thinking they were meaningless words, weak words…
An intense emotion he’d never felt before surged up fiercely.
Sarka knew the name of that emotion.
This is <possessiveness>.
Sarka thought he wanted to have the human who said such things.
So desperately he shocked himself.
Even if I do nothing,
Even if I fall to being a weak, shabby, meaningless existence,
A creature that vows to remain by my side regardless.
He’d never even thought such a thing was possible.
Sarka knew his value was only bloodline.
Sarka was an assembly made by combining his mother and father’s bloodlines.
A seed obtained through breeding with a purpose.
He merely survived because he was lucky enough to succeed.
If he had failed, he would have been killed directly by his mother’s hand.
Like the <Bloodless> whose very existence was erased.
Like those life forms born wrong.
Sarka knew he too was such an existence.
He’d never complained about that fact.
<Bloodline> was originally like that.
Just as the <Bloodless> were scheduled for lives where their existence was erased from birth,
Sarka too must endure the hatred and loathing predetermined from birth.
[People… should be judged not by <how they were born>,
But by what they <chose>… I still think.]
Meaningless. Even saying such things, nothing changes.
I never had <choices>.
Only a continuous series of resignations for survival.
Nothing left to choose remains.
[I <chose> to save you.
To… <trust> you.
So now the rest… depends on your <choice>.]
If I could <choose>…
Humans and vampires becoming <friends> doesn’t make sense.
The two races are born with too vast a gap of power from birth.
Power so great they absolutely cannot trust each other.
Even Sarka feared Belial who had power.
Though he didn’t want to admit it, he feared his father who had authority.
While hating, while detesting, he feared unbearably.
He even feared Sara, who had no power but had the authority to control Sarka’s life because she possessed Allend’s favor.
The moment he admitted it, he’d want to die from shame, but deep in his heart he knew he feared her.
Even her son, that nine-year-old kid who received absolute love from his father, Sarka feared painfully.
Because if he offended those two, he’d immediately be driven from this house and killed like being slaughtered by his aunt’s hands.
How could one not fear a person who holds one’s power of life and death, a person who has such <power>?
Even my mother, whom I loved so dearly and tried to protect even at the cost of my life,
I feared my entire life to the point where my spine would go cold.
The difference in <power> is like that.
[Do you think being <equal> is determined by the presence or absence of ability?]
[Then, what determines it? <A generous and tolerant heart>?]
[I think it’s determined by <the size of emotion>.
If we like each other equally, that relationship becomes <equal>.]
Every time he thought of those words, his stomach churned.
Like each other <equally>?
Sarka realized he feared even this human.
Because this was the first existence he wanted to have so intensely, wanted to grasp, even his fear was unfamiliar, clumsy, and awkward.
The emotion he harbored toward this human wasn’t goodwill, devotion, or protection,
But too intense <possessiveness> close to obsession.
Sarka never once thought to protect that human.
Yet that human tried to protect him even at the cost of his life.
That’s not <equal>.
Even though Sarka had removed annoying fellows bothering that human from around him, Sarka didn’t want to protect that human.
He just wanted to have that human.
But insignificant things acting noisy beside him irritated him. He terribly hated others’ hands constantly touching that human.
He hated anyone touching my <possession>.
This is <monopolistic desire>.
It wasn’t protection and devotion that human offered to him.
I want to have that human.
I hope he becomes completely mine alone.
If I put my mind to it, I can have him.
If I hypnotize and manipulate his mind, I can make him do whatever I want.
But that’s not what I want.
I have such things even now, always had them,
But they vanish emptily.
What that human did wasn’t controlled by Sarka.
That’s why he coveted it all the more.
But Sarka absolutely couldn’t know how to make that human eternally his.
It was something he couldn’t do with the abilities Sarka was born with.
Powerlessness surged at that fact.
Sarka didn’t know how to have that human.
So while anxious and unbearably uneasy,
If he noticed this obsession and madness, this beast-like possessiveness,
He feared that human would become frightened and withdraw,
That strange goodwill and blind loyalty would disappear.
He feared himself for fearing that.
I’ve become weak.
Shame occupies his entire body.
I’ve fallen to the depths.
Pride, honor, self-respect as a Complete Pureblood all shattered to pieces,
What remains is only a dog-like life with broken legs, bound in shackles, dragged around under his father.
Sarka was sad at himself for wanting that human so wretchedly.
Nevertheless, he absolutely couldn’t shake off that desire.
A creature that loves me not for doing anything, but just for my existence alone.
Desiring that affection similar to the ‘maternal love’ humans speak of is a too primal, selfish, and childish desire, but
Because it was something Sarka thought he’d never have in his lifetime, he strangely coveted it.
Sarka, who had been lost in thought for a long while, realized the water had cooled.
The cold that had been a side effect was gone, but now the cooled water was stealing body heat.
The semi-slave was still tracing over Sarka’s body as Sarka moved it.
There was no tension, will, or emotion in that movement.
Because it was trained that way.
Sarka slowly removed those hands from his body.
The semi-slave’s hands disappeared without any resistance.
Sarka was silent for a moment, then commanded quietly.
“Everyone out.”
The semi-slaves left the room without expressing any doubt.
Sarka dried his body alone and changed clothes.
He was in no mood to be attended to by anyone.
