#072. The Vampire is Too Kind (4)

#072. The Vampire is Too Kind (4)

Hansel’s theory that Ian was a vampire held enough water to shake even Ian himself.

“Me… a vampire…?”

Actually, thinking about it, it made sense.

Ronoawe was an expert in bioengineering techniques for artificially creating and modifying beast-people, and in chimera creation.

He personally created a large number of beast-people and operated them as a combat unit, a feat that earned him high recognition and allowed him to play a leading role in the 2nd division of the Hero Party.

Such a man had a child in his younger days.

Was it possible that no measures were taken regarding that child?

His mother, Theresa, had fallen into despair and madness.

There was a period when she couldn’t properly care for her child.

The possibility that Ronoawe met with the original owner of this body during that time and conducted experiments?

Definitely existed.

If that was the case, he could understand why he was called a ‘failure.’

Because no special traits of a beast-person had manifested.

Because on the surface, he seemed completely human.

‘A vampire’s ability is no different from brainwashing.’

Lacking only fangs, he might as well be a vampire.

The root of the evil within me was… a vampire!

“…No, I don’t think so.”

“You deny it with all these suspicions? Why?”

“If I claim to be a vampire, people can conveniently say that everything I’ve achieved was because I was a vampire. In the future, I could use that fact to threaten people into obeying me when they don’t listen, making things even more difficult.”

“You could do that. What can you do if you were born a vampire? Deceiving others and obtaining blood to survive isn’t that great of a sin. Rather, it’s a justifiable means of survival. I mean, if you really did such a thing.”

“I don’t want that. The burden created by my choices must be shouldered solely by myself, not by the blood of the vampire clan.”

That is the only way to atone for the sin of the countless victims I have brainwashed.

If I am revealed to be a mind-manipulator, I am willing to acknowledge that fact and face my end.

But to be revealed as a vampire and then pawn off the excuse that I couldn’t help it due to the vampire nature onto the vampires?

‘I can never do that.’

The sins I made, the choices I forced, the victims born because of me.

If they were to hate vampires other than myself, blame them, and have the wrong people fighting each other…

The responsibility for all that conflict would ultimately return to me.

On top of everything I caused, a new sin would be born.

I cannot do such a cowardly thing.

“Did you all hear? My son is a human, not a vampire. If anyone here wishes for Ian to be a vampire, speak up now.”

A unanimous silence followed.

I trusted they weren’t silent for fear of being beaten to death by their mothers’ fists.

“Did you see? Ian is human. That is our answer.”

“Astonishing. If you knew how wealthy and magnificent vampires were, you wouldn’t say such things.”

“The only vampires we’ve seen are wretches tormented by instinct, agonizing between beast and man. We don’t envy such creatures. We pity them.”

Everyone nodded in agreement at the painfully accurate words.

Hansel looked at them all with envy.

“If only I’d been surrounded by people like you…”

“Enough drivel. So what are you? Human, or vampire? What is your purpose in deceiving us and leading us to the heart of the Bloodwood?”

“…I’ll tell you everything.”

Hansel began to recount the true past he had kept hidden.

* * *

Hansel’s mother, Gretel, had heard rumors about the Bloodwood.

“They say if you go to the vampires’ forest and offer to sell your blood, they’ll give you three meals a day and a place to sleep.”

“Even for women?”

“Well… they usually take men. They rarely take women.”

“Don’t vampires have men?”

“Why would a vampire man, with his wealth, good looks, and long life, want to meet a human woman?”

The story spoke of a vampire race that boasted an overwhelming allure, surpassing even the human ＞ beastman equation.

But in reality, not many people went to find the Bloodwood.

“My home and job are here. Going all the way to the Bloodwood is a bit much, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. Gretel, keep hauling bricks. You have to catch the soldiers’ eyes at the fortifications to get work.”

“This is a good job. I won’t find this in another territory?”

“…Um, what about our back wages?”

“Ahem. Don’t you know our territory’s in trouble? The soldiers will take care of it, surely.”

“Why are you looking at me like that? Ah, this watch? We’ve got more seniority. Gretel-mom will get hers next month. We’ll cover your food expenses, so just bear with it.”

“…”

And there were people who took advantage of this fact, exploiting single mothers in difficult and trying circumstances.

“Mr. Boota. I heard from the soldiers. Civilian laborers are paid their wages every month, right away. Give me back my money.”

“Why is that Gretel-mom’s money? It’s my money. Do you know the competition rate for this job? Six hundred to one. I saved you from starving like the refugees, and now you’re talking crazy. You want to be fired and live on the streets?”

“…I trusted your promises, and lost my husband. The result of unfounded trust was betrayal again. Twice is enough. I don’t need a third time. So give me the money now.”

Gretel did not yield.

The construction foreman drew a knife, refusing to return the embezzled money, and to survive the foreman’s rampage, Gretel grabbed a chair and fought back.

Foreman Boota died senselessly.

I lost the knife, the leg of a chair meeting my face, sending me sprawling.

The knife, risen above, spun once, twice, before the blade bit into my flesh.

It was a wretched turn of events.

“We’ve heard the situation. All we can offer is to erase this, give you time to flee. Mother Hansel. Do not return to this village.”

With their back pay in hand, the soldiers pointed the way out of the human lands, towards Hælim.

“Mother. Are you a criminal?”

“…Your mother is not a criminal.”

“Then why are we running?”

“Because I’m not strong enough.”

“Do you have to run if you’re weak?”

“…Yes. That’s why Hansel has to eat well and grow strong.”

“Okay. I’ll grow strong enough for both of us, Mother, so we don’t have to run anymore.”

When they reached Hælim.

Gretel realized they had been deceived.

The vampires took the boys.

And days later.

The vampire who came to the forest for a new child offered the trinket of a previous boy to a new one, sweet-talking all the while.

Being an adult woman with no value, she could perceive the gruesome truth.

“Ready to give up and leave so soon?”

“…None of the vampire’s concern.”

“The boy’s fate is a sorry one.”

“And being dragged off by you, only to be slaughtered in a few days, isn’t?”

“There are criminals in every race. That one is such. Not all vampires are criminals.”

“Spare me your cheap pity.”

“Then I’ll offer you expensive pity. I’ll take you in.”

The vampires, who only wanted the boy and not his mother, lost interest in Hansel and Gretel, but one especially meddlesome vampire was an exception.

“What do you want?”

“I don’t know, myself.”

“…Are you toying with us?”

“I am serious. So seek it out. Something I might desire. That will be the price for being taken in.”

Hansel and Gretel went to the heart of Hælim.

Vampire outcasts, near feral from blood starvation.

Vampires who lured humans to the brink of death, then discarded them when they were used up, toeing the line between legal and illegal cruelty.

Humans who came seeking vampire riches and treasures, only to meet their deaths trying to fulfill the unreasonable demands.

They saw much, they saw many deaths.

Pushing through those deaths, they reached the center of the Blood Mist.

In the grand castle, Hansel, Gretel, and their mother understood.

“Something’s wrong.”

“Yes… something is wrong. This isn’t an environment for people to live in. It’s no different than a dungeon that kills people with treasure as bait. Even for demi-humans, this isn’t a way to live like people.”

Gretel slammed her hand against the vampire’s dining table.

“I understand what you truly need. It is a life worthy of a human.”

“I have kept many a slave. Employed a hapless soul as my cook, his sustenance doled out in proportion to the time he laid his palm upon the iron plate. I took in a chambermaid, one who’d scrubbed laundry with frostbitten hands, shattering the ice pond frozen daily by a magician’s chilling spell. Is this not a life worthy of a human?”

“You gain a sliver of satisfaction from rescuing humans, but it isn’t what you truly crave. What you desire, what you truly need, is a human connection on equal terms.”

Gretel’s words stirred the vampire’s curiosity.

“Equal? A paltry human female, one who can’t even hunt her own blood, dares to imagine herself the equal of Marbas, who has lived seven hundred years?”

“If that were not so, then why are you surrounded only by those who prop you up, only by vampires who tremble before you?”

“Because the very nature of our beings is fundamentally different.”

“No. It is because you are lonely. You take people in, hoping to find someone who can face life with the same gravity as you, someone who could be your equal, even at great sacrifice. And then you are disappointed when they inevitably fall short.”

The High Vampire, Marbas, scoffed at the audacity of Gretel, a single mother with nothing but a child.

“Then prove it. Prove you are worthy of being my equal.”

Gretel faced the countless challenges Marbas demanded.

Sometimes he demanded erudition, sometimes etiquette.

With astonishing focus and stubbornness, Gretel overcame every obstacle, even daring to challenge him in martial arts.

“Impressive. You undoubtedly possess qualities that place you among the very elite of humanity.”

“Does this mean you now acknowledge me as your peer?”

“I cannot. My lineage has maintained its noble rank for generations. Prove that your own bloodline possesses similar qualities.”

Hansel was forced to accomplish everything that Gretel had achieved.

Unfortunately, it was a difficult task for Hansel.

He struggled to master etiquette and found the accumulation of knowledge burdensome.

He was neither skilled in martial arts nor adept at rhetoric or psychology.

Gretel encouraged and urged him on, but slowly, she began to lose heart.

Hansel, witnessing his mother’s disappointment, gritted his teeth and tried even harder, but all his efforts were not rewarded with success.

“This is where it ends. You cannot be my equal.”

“…No. It’s because half of Hansel’s blood is from the man who abandoned us.”

“Remarkable. To abandon your own child, even after coming this far?”

Marbas’s mockery caused Gretel’s expression to waver.

Hansel understood.

The unease that gripped his mother, usually so uncompromising, and the self-reproach stemming from the words she had uttered.

It was his fault for not being stronger.

A weak child kills his mother.

Such a child would be better off not existing.

“Mother isn’t abandoning me. I am abandoning Mother.”

“Touching. To try and cover up a mistake to protect your mother. But you must choose your next words carefully.”

Marbas’s eyes were like shards of ice, scraping coldly across Hansel’s entire being.

“A vampire’s words hold power. They can sway others, compel actions. We are careful with our own words, and thus demand commensurate responsibility from those of others. Do not speak words you cannot bear the weight of.”

Perhaps his disappointment was so great because his expectations had been so high.

Marbas spoke more words than he had in all the years Hansel had known him.

“Hansel. I was wrong. Beg me for forgiveness.”

“Mother has grown weaker because of me. Without me, she will be stronger. A relationship is maintained by the equal weight of responsibility that each partner bears for the words spoken to the other. Marbas. Thank you for looking after Mother and me until now. If my existence undermines Mother’s convictions, I will leave this mansion.”

His mother pleaded.

But Hansel did not.

Marbas clapped his hands.

“Let us test whether you can keep that word.”

Hansel was cast out beyond the Blood Forest’s borders.

‘Mother is free now.’

She was rid of a useless son.

She would be recognized for her superior lineage, becoming an equal to Marbas.

If she was an equal to that great vampire, she would surely live happily.

Three years passed in this way.

Then, Marbas appeared before Hansel once more.

His face was as desolate as Hansel remembered, utterly grief-stricken as on that first day.

“Mother?”

“Dead.”

“Why?”

“She was weakened by your presence, but she also could have grown stronger. After you were gone, she was endlessly frail, wretched.”

“…Is that so?”

“Once, I thought Gretel could be my equal. The potential was there, truly. But I understand now. An equal to a noble vampire is not someone with great potential. It is one who knows how to endure loneliness. Just like you.”

Marbas looked down at Hansel and asked,

“Do you resent me?”

“No. I’m grateful. You made Mother happy, even for a short while, and you kept me safe.”

“Do you not wish to regain that favor?”

“If you offer it, I won’t refuse. But I have nothing to offer in contract.”

“Why? Other humans would give anything to forge a connection with me. Their blood, their lifespan, future earnings, loyalty. What is your reason?”

“It wasn’t me who desired happiness. It was Mother. To me, happiness is nothing but a cursed spell that leads to foolishness, only to leave me miserable.”

“Your mother called you her happiness.”

“…”

“I see. You already consider even yourself to be a symbol of misfortune and curse.”

That day, Hansel saw Marbas’ true smile.

It was the smile of the most twisted being in the world.

“You pass. The despair you carry. The self-loathing. All of it is identical to mine. You desire nothing, and therefore you demand nothing. It is *you* who are my equal.”

That day, Marbas did not drink Hansel’s blood. Instead, he injected his own.

And so, Hansel became a vampire.

“Why did you do that?”

“Gretel failed, but her words weren’t entirely wrong. An equal relationship. That is what I desired.”

“I hate you now.”

“Nevertheless, I know a way to make you like me. Not long ago, I received an intriguing proposition from a human sorcerer named Ronove. He asked if, within the nearly eternal lifespan of a vampire, I wished to see an old connection brought to life once more. He offered to use a magic to resurrect the dead.”

“…!”

“Yes. Your mother can be revived. If Ronove receives the price he desires.”

To one who lacks strength and cannot even dare to hope, Marbas forcefully bestows strength and implants a hope.

Marbas extended a cruel offer, imbued with a hatred as equal to his own as Hansel’s own self-hatred was, to his equal.

“Bring me a woman. A foolish woman possessing qualities and maternal instincts equal to your mother’s. Then, you will gain a mother who cherishes and loves only you.”

“What do you gain?”

“Don’t you already know the answer?”

Equality.

Despair masquerading as happiness.

Perhaps this is a tragedy destined to fail.

Even so, an inevitable, fateful choice.

All of it, Marbas’s grotesque game to watch and relish.

“Ah. One last thing, I shall relay your mother’s last words. She wished for you to never return to the Bloodwood.”

Gretel died in despair.

The guilt of Hansel, who drove her to despair and failed to realize it, grew.

Just as when his mother had driven herself to death.

* * *

“That’s what happened between Marbas, my mother, and me. And the reason I was trying to take you to the heart of the Bloodwood.”

Hansel gazed down, his face impassive, at Theresa’s sword pointed at his throat.

“You can stab me.”

Ian knew.

That statement was true.

“I have no regrets about my life.”

That, too, was true.

“Marbas is a plague, plunging everyone he draws near into misfortune.”

Was true.

“To him, equality is the same as sameness.”

Unfailingly true.

“To become equal to him, you must live in a despair equivalent to his.”

That as well was true.

“It would be good if Mother lived, but it would be good if I died.”

All true.

“At least, it would be better than now.”

Hansel closed his eyes.

A boy calmly awaiting death.

One who chooses to die as a human, instead of living as a vampire.

He concealed nothing.

Seeing such transparency, Ian could tell.

Just one, the lie he had uttered.

“Revenge against Marbas?”

“…”

“Do you still feel gratitude towards him?”

He no longer liked Marbas.

Nor did he feel gratitude.

“I shouldn’t hate him. I’m indebted. And I haven’t even repaid that debt.”

Even in this state, Hansel couldn’t escape Marbas’s influence.

Perhaps someday, far in the future, he could break free.

But not now.

“Hansel.”

“Don’t. Don’t speak words that will shake my heart.”

I am a mind-manipulator.

A deceiver who twists and controls people’s minds.

“I said, don’t!”

Using this wicked power, I…

[Brainwash Activated]

[Target Subject – Hansel]

[Command – You and Marbas are not equals.]

Hansel’s mother, Gretel, risked her life to protect the equality between him and Marbas.

Gretel’s will, clung to like a ghost.

The boy’s almost foolishly pure faith.

The reason why he shouldn’t hate Marbas.

I crushed it all, from the very foundation.

Tears streamed from Hansel’s eyes.

Marbas was no longer the benefactor of Hansel and his mother, Gretel.

Like Team Leader Buta, from the distant past, who drove them to misery, he had become an enemy threatening their survival.