As if measuring something, Baigarten’s gaze quickly swept over Sarka’s expressionless face.
After a brief silence, Baigarten asked in an oddly heavy tone.
“……Can’t you accept this kind of fervent courtship? He says he’s on your side.”
That voice somehow seemed to be probing stealthily.
Like casually holding out a sweet-smelling snack to check whether the beast would show interest in it.
However, Sarka responded with his consistently indifferent attitude, exhausted and annoyed by the bothersome gnats.
“Should I treat someone’s beloved pet dog like a person just because they raised it like a child? A <human> is a <human>.”
It was a cold and dry answer that wouldn’t let even a needle’s eye through.
While Ruslan quietly stared at Sarka, Baigarten let out a small sigh with an ‘I thought so’ expression.
Sarka had a slightly tired face, still carelessly casting his gaze—containing no emotion whatsoever—into empty air.
It seemed none of the desperate and heartfelt story Ruslan had poured out had flowed into Sarka’s ears.
His face, still looking like it was carved from ice, was expressionless, and his dry gaze looked indifferent to the point of boredom. All the words and emotions Ruslan had spat out seemed to have hit that ice wall and broken powerlessly, flowing down to the floor without leaving even the smallest trace.
Ruslan unconsciously swallowed dry saliva.
Why was that boy so mercilessly cold?
Anxiety and unease welled up at his bizarre level of indifference. It felt like facing a giant glacier.
No matter how tightly you gripped it and tried to melt it, the palm that touched it would freeze instead.
While Ruslan anxiously observed Sarka’s complexion with a tight chest, Baigarten, who had been fingering his chin area while lost in serious contemplation, glanced at Sarka.
In an oddly troubled tone, Baigarten probed casually.
“……So, you’re not going to erase his memory?”
At the subtly testing voice as if rubbing it in, Sarka slowly turned his gaze to look at Baigarten.
“……”
A short silence flowed. Sarka had the expression of a child indifferently thinking about whether to release or not the gnat he’d trapped inside his palm, not caring either way.
Sarka, who had been blankly meeting Baigarten’s measuring gaze, finally responded slowly.
“……I don’t really care……but seeing you act like that makes me not want to erase it. ……Try begging on your knees. I’ll think about it.”
“……So you’re saying you won’t erase it even if you die.”
At that indifferent voice, Baigarten swiftly resigned without leaving a shred of lingering attachment.
Baigarten let out a deep sigh and straightened his upper body.
While tapping the cane on his knee with his fingers—tap, tap—Baigarten frowned. His gaze could be seen moving quickly here and there as if lost in deep thought.
Sarka still had the attitude that he wasn’t the least bit curious about the circumstances of whatever the two animals sitting in front of him were buzzing about.
Baigarten, who had been lost in thought with a serious expression for a long while, glanced at Sarka as if he’d reached a conclusion, then turned to look at Ruslan.
When Ruslan inadvertently looked back, Baigarten let out a deep sigh, then extended his solid hand to heavily grip Ruslan’s shoulder.
“Was it Ruslan? ……Let’s talk just between us for a moment.”
Baigarten’s eyes looking straight at Ruslan were serious.
Ruslan hesitated and looked toward Sarka, but Sarka just called back the book that had fallen on the floor with a flutter, with an expression of ‘do whatever.’
Ruslan, who had been watching Sarka indifferently flipping through pages to find where he’d been reading, stood up hesitantly.
Baigarten took Ruslan to the next room, then closed the windows one by one and drew the curtains.
Watching Baigarten’s actions as he went around checking if anyone was nearby and locking the door, Ruslan abandoned his suspicion of ‘Is this person also a vampire?’
Unlike Sarka who had sealed the room without lifting a finger, Baigarten diligently went around checking each lock, then pulled over a chair and sat down.
At his polite gesture extending his hand toward the opposite chair to courteously invite him, Ruslan also quickly sat down in front of Baigarten.
“……”
A short silence flowed. Baigarten had an expression showing he didn’t know how to start the conversation.
With an expression mixing awkwardness, difficulty, slight confusion and anxiety, Baigarten hesitated for a long while. It seemed hard to organize how far to speak and how to say it.
Baigarten, who had been repeatedly running his hands through his hair while tapping the cane handle as if doing complex calculations, finally opened his mouth heavily.
“……Alright, <Ruslan>.”
Baigarten turned his head and said in a serious voice while meeting Ruslan’s eyes directly.
“……I understand your circumstances. I understand that you’re friendly toward vampires. And that you won’t carelessly blab about Sarka’s secret.”
Ruslan nodded firmly.
Baigarten looked at Ruslan, who wore a determined expression as if to say not to worry, with a complicated gaze. The man’s eyes were bitter and dark.
Baigarten’s gaze seemed to pity a small chick that had crawled into a beast’s maw without knowing any better.
A young creature flapping its downy wings excitedly, not knowing what kind of fate would befall it.
Baigarten, who slowly opened his mouth again, added in a low tone with a heavy voice.
“But that guy isn’t a vampire friendly to humans like your grandmother.”
Ruslan swallowed and looked at Baigarten.
Baigarten still silently looked into empty space with an expression pondering how far he should speak. A terrible conflict made his teal eyes hazy.
Baigarten, who soon closed and opened his eyes as if resigning himself, muttered in a pained tone.
“……Since it doesn’t seem like that guy will erase your memory right away, I have no choice but to explain. When he erases your memory later, today’s conversation will be cleanly erased too, but…… for now…… it’s better to do it.”
That voice seemed like he was convincing himself. However, there was still more anxiety and doubt mixed in than conviction. Baigarten had an expression showing he didn’t know if this choice was right either.
Baigarten, who bit his lips several times as if conflicted while blankly staring at Ruslan’s face, finally opened his mouth slowly as if he’d made up his mind.
A thick, low voice like a baritone solemnly declared with careful weight.
“Vampires weren’t exterminated. ……At least not the Empire’s vampires.”
Ruslan swallowed dry saliva and tensed his shoulders.
Ruslan’s eyes, which began focusing on Baigarten while even holding his breath, shone blue.
With a rigidly hardened face, Baigarten very carefully chose short words.
“……We…… made a treaty.”
“A <treaty>……?”
Ruslan asked back in a tense tone. Baigarten nodded slightly with a heavy gaze.
“Instead of attacking each other anymore…… we agreed to protect each other from each other’s enemies.”
“……!”
Ruslan’s eyes widened.
His chest began pounding loudly.
Baigarten seemed to be deliberately speaking ambiguously, but Ruslan caught several things just from the nuance of the words.
<Treaty> wasn’t a word attached to a promise between one or two people.
It was a regulation between at least two <groups>, or <nations>.
Then……
It meant that the vampire who survived from the Miral Mountains
wasn’t just Sarka alone.
“……How many…… survived?”
Ruslan asked in a trembling voice while clenching his fists tight.
Baigarten silently stared at Ruslan for a long while, then answered briefly.
“……Many.”
It was a meaningful voice.
Ruslan felt his heart pound and surge. His whole body heated up while his hands and feet grew cold. Tension and exhilaration mixed together, making his stomach churn.
To Ruslan who swallowed and concentrated, Baigarten continued speaking in a careful tone.
A voice eerily locked with taut tension and secrecy resonated through the air bleakly.
“……But not all the vampires who survived…… are friendly toward humans.”
Ruslan swallowed. Baigarten explained slowly, choosing his words with a cautious gaze.
“……The Empire’s vampires are largely divided into two groups.
The <Coexistence Faction> that peacefully coexists with humans, and……
The <Purebloods> who despise and hate humans and dream of a society of pure vampires only.”
The low voice flowed into Ruslan’s ears as if it had substance and circulated hotly through his blood vessels. His head spun.
Ruslan was certain of one thing.
At least the number of surviving vampires was a large-scale <group>, far more than Ruslan had been thinking.
The fact that ideological conflicts arose and factions split meant they had formed a <society> to some degree.
It meant they’d maintained a stable scale enough to form an independent society, not primitively gathered or scattered here and there.
……In the Miral Mountains? Were vampires hiding inside there?
That race that had survived for 600 years?
While Ruslan’s head busily turned, Baigarten took a breath, then slowly spat out a sentence compressing all that background.
“Sarka’s father was <Coexistence Faction>, but…… his mother was <Pureblood>.”
“……!”
Ruslan’s eyes widened.
His busily turning mind suddenly filled with Sarka’s face. The boy whose insides had always been unknowable like a glacier.
Ruslan instinctively held his breath and concentrated.
Baigarten narrowed his eyes and slightly jerked his chin toward the direction where Sarka would be.
“As you can see, Sarka…… was influenced more by his <Pureblood> mother than his <Coexistence Faction> father. He followed his mother when he was very young and grew up in his mother’s family.
Until two years ago, so when he was 14…… Sarka was thoroughly educated as a <Pureblood>.”
Ruslan nodded with a tense expression.
Baigarten explained while frowning.
“Purebloods think humans are like dogs or pigs you raise at home. Sarka is a typical Pureblood. Even if you told him to slit both our throats right now and bathe in blood, he’s the type who’d only consider what kind of bath salts to use. What I just said isn’t a joke or exaggeration.”
There wasn’t a trace of laughter in the sharply edged voice.
Recalling Sarka’s gaze looking at him exactly like looking at a filthy mutt, Ruslan also couldn’t take Baigarten’s words as a joke.
Baigarten formed deep wrinkles between his brows, then continued speaking in an uncomfortable tone.
“……But two years ago, due to complicated circumstances, Sarka’s mother passed away, and Sarka returned to his father who was <Coexistence Faction>.
Sarka’s father was famous for completely respecting humans even among the Coexistence Faction.
Naturally, he was determined to teach his returned son how to respect humans too.”
Baigarten, who had been continuing his words, slightly frowned.
“……Naturally it wasn’t easy. That guy’s mother’s family was famous as the most extreme place even among Purebloods. To them, humans were beings that shouldn’t survive unless they were livestock or slaves. They regarded all humans like inferior insects.
For a guy who grew up his whole life in such a family, when you tell him that from now on you’re a friend to humans so get along with humans as equals and play patty-cake nicely, what do you think Sarka’s reaction was?
……The backlash was truly ‘tremendous’.”
Baigarten shrugged one shoulder with a cynical expression and pointed in the direction where Sarka would be as if to say imagine it.
Ruslan could easily picture the ‘tremendous’ argument. Though he didn’t know the details, it would have been no different from a tremendous ideological war containing 600 years of conflict.
Baigarten let out a long sigh, then continued speaking gloomily with a bitter expression.
“……After a year of fierce arguments, when Sarka stubbornly refused to bend, Sarka’s father decided to take drastic measures.
……It was a very extreme and radical decision.
Specifically, to send Sarka here to <Esteban School>, a school for humans, and force him to live a <human’s> life.”
“……!”
Ruslan let out a small gasp.
Ruslan thought he could now glimpse beyond the mask of the boy named Sarka.
Like the lower part of a giant iceberg submerged below the surface faintly revealing itself.
When he unconsciously looked up while tensely bracing himself, Baigarten showed a cloudy smile.
With a serious brow and solemn jaw containing the deepest possible gloom, Baigarten gloomily declared.
“……Our misfortune started right from here.”
