Baigarten could only grip his cane with trembling hands, unable to move. His expression showed he instinctively knew that if he stimulated the beast with even the slightest sound right now, the blood relative before his eyes would be torn apart.
Sarka began to explain affectionately, smiling with gently curved eyes, as if telling an interesting ghost story.
“……My aunt, who wanted to poison my mother to death……obtained a poison that drives vampires insane.
It was a terrible poison that made one crave human blood madly after drinking just one drop.
My mother……thinking it was a gift I’d sent, drank it without any suspicion.
Only after I returned home with the real gift……did my mother realize she had made a mistake.”
Alberich froze stiffly, not daring to take his eyes off Sarka’s face.
Sarka explained caringly. With an expression so calm it was enough to break out in cold sweat.
“There was only one way to maintain sanity after drinking that poison. To continuously drink <human> blood.
……But as you know, since human slaves were prohibited in vampire cities after the peace treaty……after drinking all the medical blood stockpiled in the city, my mother had no way to obtain more blood.”
Ruslan felt his heart beating rapidly.
Sarka didn’t erase his faint smile, speaking absurdly fascinatingly as if telling an interesting old story.
“……My mother requested additional blood from the human government, but permission wasn’t easily granted.
Your human government, finding the poison my mother drank suspicious, wanted to clearly identify the source of that drug before increasing the blood supply.
While the investigation was underway……my mother, unable to consume blood, gradually began going mad.”
Alberich made a suffocating expression.
Sarka whispered like a sigh while maintaining his smile.
“The family head tried somehow to detoxify my mother, but……my aunt didn’t let that succeed.
She used my mother who had lost her reason to murder the family head……and pinned that crime on my mother.”
Ruslan recalled Baigarten’s words that Sarka’s mother’s death should be seen as being purged after losing in a power struggle among Pureblood Faction vampires.
Sarka’s breathing began to strangely thin out. Sarka whispered in an odd voice as if his emotions were fading.
“When the vampire government tried to arrest my mother for the crime of murdering the family head, my mother even attacked the government forces and fled, becoming wanted.
The government forces didn’t want to kill my mother, a noble <Perfect Pureblood>, so they approached too cautiously to capture her alive.
But my mother had become……excessively strong from the blood she had drunk during that time.
Eventually my mother broke through the government forces’ siege, left the vampire city……and seeking human blood……began heading toward human cities.”
Ruslan could feel Baigarten’s body growing increasingly tense. Like watching a younger sibling who had put their head in a beast’s maw, his nape was drenched in cold sweat. His face showed it was impossible to predict when the fangs would sever his blood relative’s throat.
Sarka continued to hold Alberich’s gaze with bizarre concentration, whispering in a gradually lowering voice.
“……Eventually my mother crossed the border, and when I heard news that the government forces were wasting time arguing with the human government over pursuit rights…….
I went after my mother alone to stop her.
I found my crazed mother and tried to bring her back to her senses……and ended up fighting with my mother.”
The dilated green pupils barely moved at all.
Sarka whispered slowly like someone barely breathing. As if something was paralyzed, the inflection was disappearing from his tone.
“I sent the beasts I raise……and ordered them to cut my mother’s Achilles tendons, break her legs, and gouge out her eyes.”
“……!”
Alberich’s face turned deathly pale.
Sarka added calmly with chilled green eyes.
“If I didn’t do that, my mother wouldn’t stop…… and the moment she left the Miral Mountains, she would be killed by you humans.”
Ruslan swallowed.
He could see Alberich’s face becoming drenched in sweat.
Sarka whispered slowly while looking down at Alberich with gradually blurring focus, as if calmly recalling the past.
“……But my mother had become too strong from all the blood she had drunk…… even when I broke her legs, severed her thighs, crushed her knees……she kept regenerating.”
Sarka’s eyes narrowed, and his faint voice muttered like a sigh.
“……How many times……. How many times……”
“……”
Alberich, gripped by terror, seemed barely able to breathe.
Baigarten’s face grew increasingly pale, now almost looking like wax.
While intently peering into the shock rising in the boy’s pupils, Sarka explained slowly.
“……And finally she found the annoying existence obstructing her…… and tried to kill me.
She opened my mind…… dominated my body…… and tried to make me take my own life.”
Ruslan swallowed.
Alberich was like a child who had forgotten how to breathe.
Sarka, who had been intently watching the gasping child, suddenly blinked as if curious. His voice became affectionate.
“……What would you do, Alberich?
If your birth mother entered into your mind, and you could feel that she sincerely wanted you to commit suicide…….
……What would be filial piety? Granting your mother’s wish? Or…… stopping it even if it means tearing your mother’s mind apart?”
Sarka intently peered into Alberich’s eyes like someone curious about the answer.
Alberich couldn’t even let out a breath, let alone an answer.
The expression was gradually disappearing from Sarka’s face. He whispered slowly with an expression that looked almost like a mask. In an eerily exotic accent that had completely lost its inflection and become dry and tasteless.
“……I tore and…… hacked apart my mother’s mind.
My mind and my mother’s mind tangled and mixed together, peering into each other’s most intimate memories……
Until all the secrets and reminiscences we absolutely didn’t want to speak of…… were laid bare before each other……”
The air in the room was gradually freezing, clinging to the skin like frost.
Sarka, as if submerged in memories, parted his lips faintly and breathed slowly for several breaths.
After an eerie silence, breathing in another thin breath, Sarka muttered hazily.
“……And my mother came to her senses. Though it was only for a very brief moment…….
She realized…… that the bloody mass she was tearing to shreds was her own son.”
Alberich’s eyes were now becoming wet with hazy tears.
Sarka intently watched Alberich’s trembling cheeks like looking at an animal whose joints were breaking one by one.
Fine convulsions were also occurring around Sarka’s eyes. He whispered quietly.
“……I begged my mother.
To go back.
To request blood from the human government once more…… and research an antidote.
If only human blood was sufficiently permitted…… she could endure until we detoxified the poison paralyzing her reason and cleared the false charge of murdering the family head.”
The humans in the room now seemed to have almost forgotten how to breathe.
Sarka’s voice sank lukewarmly as if gradually losing temperature. Ruslan could see the focus slowly loosening from Sarka’s pupils.
“My mother replied. ……That it was already too late.
Because I hesitated to tear my mother’s body apart…… we had come too far.
Because we had left our residence without permission and crossed the border, and the danger of attacking human residences was too great……
To the extent that the vampire government had to hand over the authority to shoot us on sight…… to the human government.”
Ruslan couldn’t remember how to exhale.
Sarka blinked slowly. His eyes, glistening like a crocodile’s, were faintly wet.
Narrowing his eyes and exhaling, he muttered in a voice without inflection.
“……My mother was right. The underground passage where we were hiding was already…… surrounded by human exorcists.
The moment we exited…… we were fated to be shot dead by human hands.
My mother said…… she would lure them away…… so at least I could avoid such dishonor.”
“……”
Sarka remained silent for a long while with his mouth shut. No one could urge him on. A silence flowed as if time had briefly stopped.
Finally opening his mouth, Sarka blinked slowly. In a bizarrely echoing accent as if resonating in a cave, he slowly whispered one word at a time.
“While my mother fought your humans to create a gap for me to escape…… I ran across that mountain…… hearing my mother screaming.”
Lost in deep thought, Sarka blinked.
His eerily lowered voice whispered.
“I was fleeing……so I couldn’t even see…… how my mother died.
……Only later…… did I hear about it.”
Sarka breathed several breaths with his lips parted faintly.
Sarka’s green pupils, intently watching Alberich, became faintly moist.
In a voice that had sunk so low it was almost inaudible without straining one’s ears, Sarka whispered coldly.
“They brought the explosives you people use when mining diamonds from my family’s mines…… destroyed the mine where my mother was hiding……
Poured oil on my mother’s body still breathing beneath the debris…… and set her on fire while she was still alive.”
“……!!”
Ruslan’s body froze.
Baigarten’s body had now stiffened so rigidly it seemed it would burst if touched.
Sarka was staring intently at the boy before his eyes without budging an inch.
Alberich froze with a dazed expression, unable to move like a frog before a snake.
“……”
Sarka was silent.
The green pupils blinked slowly while intently watching Alberich.
After being lost in thought for a long while, Sarka whispered with a faintly wet breath.
“……Since then, I think about it every night.
How nice it would be…… if you humans suffered the same pain.”
That voice was very calm, earnest, and had become sticky with sincerity embedded in every syllable.
Like someone reciting a prayer, Sarka gazed intently into Alberich’s trembling pupils and whispered tenderly, putting sincerity into each word.
“……When your mother’s body is torn apart by beasts, your father’s head is crushed beneath rocks, your siblings go mad and try to kill you…….
And finally the corpses of everyone you loved burn away without a single strand of hair remaining……”
As if imagining each scene, Sarka’s focus blurred hazily.
While quietly observing the face of the boy beginning to be paralyzed with terror, Sarka slightly contorted his face and narrowed his eyes.
“When you realize all of that was because of one stupid <slip of the tongue> on your part……”
“……Huk……”
Alberich’s breathing became turbid. The boy seemed about to lose consciousness from shock.
Sarka’s green pupils, which had been observing the terror-stricken child, suddenly rolled slowly toward what lay beyond.
The teal eyes of Baigarten, who had been frozen pale behind Alberich, met the expressionless green eyes.
A faint smile suddenly arose at the corners of Sarka’s mouth as he intently peered into Baigarten’s eyes, unable even to breathe.
Sarka whispered as if exhaling a faint laugh, with an expression unable to hide his joy at the final imagination.
“……What expression will your younger brother make? <Baigarten>.”
“……!!”
Baigarten clenched his molars until they could be crushed. Baigarten’s trembling eyes were now looking at a beast right before devouring its blood relative.
Baigarten warned in a trembling voice while heavily suppressing his roughening breath.
“……You are threatening my younger brother right now, <Sarka Hütivras>.”
Like giving a final chance to a beast whose reason had completely shut down, that warning was desperate and frantic.
A light scoff burst from the beast’s lips. Sarka looked at Baigarten as if absurd and asked back in an amused voice.
“……What are you talking about. I’m saying I’ll spare your younger brother?”
Sarka slowly lowered his gaze to look down at Alberich and muttered affectionately as if forgiving a stupid, young dog.
“……What fault could this young human brat have? ……You people must have gossiped in front of a child.”
Sarka’s gaze rolled again and sank eerily to look straight at Baigarten.
The temple of Sarka’s twisted smile convulsed clearly. As if faint moisture was rising, the green pupils slowly began to be soaked in murderous intent.
In a gradually lowering voice, Sarka chewed and dropped each word frozen like frost.
“……You people must have gossiped about me and my mother in front of a young brat as if it were some vulgar gossip. You must have scored my bloodline and academic background as if evaluating the breed of a dog to raise, and critiqued my face as if appraising a prostitute who had been sold.
You must have held a festival as if slaughtering a wild boar that came down from the mountain after killing my mother. You must have given medals to the humans who burned my mother and held them up like heroes.
You must have been so delighted even in front of the lowly brat you cherish. To the point where this stupid, young human brat got excited without knowing their place.”
A chilling aggression began to frost over Sarka’s voice, which had become threatening and domineering.
The green pupils were ominously rotting, crushed by terrible hatred. Murderous intent blazed fiercely blue from the body of the beast that had decided to bite a person. From the mask-like face paralyzed with hatred, not even a trace of vitality could be felt, let alone blood.
Looking at Baigarten with maddened pupils, Sarka calmly declared as if bestowing final mercy. The quietly sunken voice trembled, filled with ecstasy as it pressed down between words.
“……So I’ll spare your younger brother too, <Baigarten Jung>.
I’ll make sure only your younger brother survives to the very end to witness both your death and your parents’ deaths, and clearly hear the screams you people make while burning.
I’ll throw your younger brother into the midst of the murderers’ kin who cheerfully gossip after massacring your family, make him laugh in humiliation, and one day make him hear words of condolence for your death from an ignorant brat with utterly innocent eyes.
……So remember today well, <Alberich Jung>.”
Simultaneously with spitting out those last words, Sarka’s gaze moved like a snake and pierced into Alberich. Alberich’s body convulsed as if impaled by fangs.
Sarka peered into Alberich’s pale face with a burning gaze and whispered as if casting a curse, putting strength into each phrase.
“……Please remember today every time you lie in bed each night. Don’t forget to recall the words you exchanged with me.
Because that day might have been the last goodnight kiss you shared with your family.”
“……!!”
At the voice that seemed to tear and rend everything apart, Alberich’s pupils dilated instantly and his body sank as if his legs had given out.
Ruslan instinctively knew that child would never be able to forget this warning for his entire life.
And that he would never be able to sleep alone again.
The moment despair filled Alberich’s unfocused eyes, a scream-like shout burst from Baigarten’s mouth as if he could endure no longer.
“Stop it!!!”
Roughly pulling his younger brother’s shoulder and twisting him away from Sarka’s gaze, Baigarten fiercely contorted his face.
Sarka raised his head in a snake-like motion and looked back at Baigarten.
The dilated pupils were shining like a blade that had completely shattered its sheath and emerged. The beast whose reason had snapped seemed to have forgotten the existence of the iron bars. The eerie murderous intent was completely freed from its shackles and blazed violently.
With the gaze of watching a beast that had begun chewing human flesh, Baigarten panted while looking down at Sarka. His thick nape was drenched in heavy cold sweat.
Baigarten, who had been looking at Sarka’s completely beast-like transformed face with trembling eyes, finally squeezed his eyes tightly shut.
While gripping the shoulder of his younger brother trembling violently, seized by terror and guilt, Baigarten declared in a heavily trembling voice.
“……You’ve crossed the line, <Sarka Hütivras>.”
That voice was soaked in despair.
Alberich still couldn’t take his eyes off Sarka, having lost his soul.
Baigarten, standing between the beast and his blood relative, made a devastated expression, crushed by a sense of defeat.
Finally, the failed keeper opened his mouth with complicated feelings to say the words he had long postponed.
Like pointing a gun barrel at a beast that had destroyed the iron bars and leapt out, the keeper quietly declared.
“……I will report this to <the Count>.”
Like a glacier shattering and water surging up, violent murderous intent surged from the green pupils.
Like a beast hearing a fierce gunshot.
