Chapter 7

Chapter 7 - One Who Understands Three Worlds (7)

"You came again!"

Eugene waved his hand and entered.

"You come visiting without even getting sick of it."

Grumble.

Before the displeased response even finished, the girl's empty stomach answered first.

"Do you still intend to be stubborn? Aren't you hungry?"

"I don't need it."

The current time is evening. Previously he gave them food around lunchtime, but this time he brought it in the evening to maximize their hunger.

Since this was the third time he was giving food, perhaps the mother and daughter had learned as well, as they were waiting on their knees in front of the iron bars.

Had they gained a certain degree of mental stability that their usual posture was coming out? The mother and daughter's posture was precise, and pride could be felt from it. Rather than submission of the weak, the expression 'formal sitting' was more fitting.

"You must usually attend to that young lady like that, hmm?"

"That is correct, My Lord."

The mother, Lara, said.

The master's class can be seen just by looking at the attitude of those serving them. Even if they were maids, if they usually served this politely, it wouldn't be a minor family.

"You must be hungry, so please go ahead and eat."

"Thank you, My Lord."

The mother, Lara, politely received the food.

"Thank you, Sir Knight."

The daughter, Rani, responded with a smile.

"Did I say I was a knight?"

"You aren't a priest, and you look strong but are merciful, so aren't you a knight?"

It was a simple yet somewhat logical syllogism.

"It is true that I am a knight."

"My Lord, our child is still young so..."

"She didn't exactly do anything wrong, so why are you doing that?"

He patted the unnecessarily tense mother Lara and stepped back.

As he unwrapped the clean leaf packaging, a fragrant yet slightly stimulating smell wafted from inside.

"Wow!"

Rani let out a voice of admiration.

"It's a special meal today."

After making a long slit in the middle of a freshly baked oval bread, he stuffed it with mild-flavored goat milk cheese, vegetables, and roasted rabbit meat.

The sauce was ketchup. Made by boiling down tomatoes, rock salt, button mushrooms, honey, and vinegar. Though it was a bootleg version, the sweet and sour taste was enough to insist it was ketchup.

"It is so! So delicious! Sir Knight."

Rani expressed her thoughts with a happy face, but Lara quietly mumbled while minding her master's mood. However, Lara's face was also extremely bright.

"It's food I'm seeing for the first time. What is it called?"

The girl asked.

"A hot dog. Though I modified it to suit the circumstances here."

"I have never heard of it."

The girl also seemed quite interested.

"Do you want to try it? There's some for you too."

"I refuse."

"You really are incredibly stubborn."

"It's not stubbornness, it is pride."

"Well, I can see it's an amazing mental fortitude."

If Eugene himself were in that position, he would have eaten it readily, whether out of hunger or curiosity.

Grumble-!

Now she didn't even seem embarrassed by the ship's horn that loudly sounded frequently.

"I wasn't really expecting much anyway. Instead, I brought something else."

Eugene got up from the chair and stood in front of the iron bars.

"My Lord, if by chance you have something to deliver to the young lady, please give it to me."

"I understand it's hard work being caught in the middle, but I have to deliver this personally. Step back."

"Yes."

Lara bowed her head and stepped back.

"To deliver it personally, do you have the key?"

The girl asked.

"As if. Would they give the key to someone who just comes to clean, when you are precious prisoners to be used in an important event soon?"

"Then stop. No matter what you pull out, you cannot shake my resolve. I will not go to you on my own two feet."

The girl was leaning against the wall as always. Far from the iron bars.

"Being captured by the dogs of the Lord God faith is already a humiliation, but I would rather starve to death than prolong my life on sympathy."

"If you say that, what does that make those two?"

"Lara and her daughter are excellent servants. It's just that the duties we must bear are different. I was not insulting them."

At those words, the mother and daughter bowed politely.

Priest, knight, noble.

Everyone had a firm logical system established in their own way, so they harbored not a single doubt about what they considered right.

"Let's wait and see about that."

Eugene grabbed the two iron bars right in front of him. In exchange for the wide gaps, the bars were thick.

"What are you trying to..."

The girl's face, which had been consistently calm, was engulfed in shock for the first time.

Screeech.

The thick iron bars simply bent and stuck to the adjacent bars.

Lara too, while hugging her daughter, watched with disbelieving eyes.

Eugene, having displayed monstrous strength, pushed his upper body into the widened gap with an unbothered face.

Thud!

"Oops. I don't fit."

Even though he spread two iron bars, his robust physique caused his torso to get caught.

He stepped back and gripped the bars that were stuck together in twos. Since his hands were as large as his physique, he could easily grab two at a time.

Screeeeeeech!

As he applied force, a total of four iron bars were pushed to the side.

Ping!

Seeing one metal pin fixed to the ceiling pop out, he stopped applying force. Because sufficient space had already been created.

"Oh, Divine Ancestor."

Seeing Eugene enter through that gap, Lara closed her eyes and murmured.

"Do you guys also believe in God?"

"Pardon?"

Lara, who asked back with a dumbfounded face, was startled.

"Uh, yes! We believe! We believe too! However, the Divine Ancestor is not a god. Though they are a great being comparable to one."

She answered, startled. She was polite before, but her attitude seemed to have elevated even further.

Rani, held in her mother's arms, looked up with sparkling eyes. Like seeing a hero from a myth her grandmother told her about.

Eugene, standing in front of the girl, sat on one knee and pulled a chalice from his coat.

"If you intend to tempt me with wine, give up."

"I intend to provide blood, though? I wondered if you'd be tempted by that."

"Are you serious?!"

The girl looked at Eugene with wavering eyes.

"You are saying you will give your blood?"

She became excited, as if her consistently cold demeanor had been a lie.

"Why? Do you want to drink it?"

"Rejecting the blood of a knight as strong and merciful as you is not being proud, it is being stupid."

It seemed the point to move a noble girl's heart wasn't giving food like the Lara mother and daughter, but displaying monstrous strength.

"I'm sorry, but I have no intention of doing so."

The girl's face became noticeably disappointed.

His master had told him that high-ranking vampires could even use magic through bloodsucking.

Even if she were a half-blooded Dhampir, a noble is a noble. There was no knowing what problems might arise if he gave her his blood.

"Then whose blood are you saying you will give?"

"How about this?"

Eugene pulled a field mouse from his coat. It was caught using a trap Homi set, and being plump, it should have a lot of blood.

"..."

The girl's face, which showed goodwill just a moment ago, stiffened hard.

"It's not a dead mouse. It's a fresh one put to sleep with medicine. It was washed cleanly, so there won't be any bad smell."

"Are you intending to insult me! How dare you present a lowly creature crawling in the sewers to a noble!"

Even after starving that much, her voice resonated loudly, making one wonder where the strength came from.

"Calm down. Because I don't intend to just give it like this."

Slicing vegetables and dressing them up to serve as a salad is cooking; throwing raw vegetables is something to get cursed at for, isn't it?

He had no intention of telling her to just suck the blood of a field mouse.

However, the girl, filled with rage, didn't answer. It seemed the goodwill built up with difficulty had been entirely blown away in one shot.

Eugene pulled a dagger from his coat. It was a ceremonial item used in the ritual of offering a lamb on the monastery's feast day.

Flash.

A streak of light was drawn in the dark underground.

The field mouse's head fell off, and fresh blood poured out.

"Oh!"

Lara, who had frequently sliced meat in the kitchen, marveled at the clean cross-section.

It might not seem like much, but cleanly bisecting something so small and squishy while holding it in one's hand is difficult even for an experienced butcher.

Trickle.

A red spring filled the chalice.

Seeing the twitching feet of the rat held upside down, the girl's anger gradually rose as well.

"The value of a dish lies in the ingredients, yes, but more importantly, skill and sincerity. Even fish or eggs that aren't hard to obtain can have their value soar tenfold or a hundredfold when they pass through the hands of a craftsman."

He thought of the omakase that was popular in South Korea. He heard there was a top-tier dish in China made by boiling a chicken for nearly a month.

"What nonsense is that? Fish is fish, and an egg is an egg. The dignity of a dish is determined by its ingredients!"

The girl said fiercely.

"Well, that might be true here."

It was a world where food culture fell far behind compared to Earth.

"I will say it again, I have absolutely no intention of insulting you. It's just that the only thing I could capture alive right now, that has a lot of blood and is small enough to smuggle in, was a mouse."

The girl turned her head sharply. It seemed this level of excuse was insufficient to resolve her anger.

Eugene, having collected all the blood, held the chalice with both hands. He made the legacy of his mother flowing in his veins, the witch's power, boil up.

-The other side of the world is full of mysteries. It is a frightening space that cannot be reached while maintaining a human body and mind.

He remembered the words he heard in his mother's warm embrace during his childhood.

Ordinary mothers tell lullabies or fairy tales to their young children, but Eugene's mother was a witch.

She used to whisper secretive and mysterious knowledge.

-Fear it but do not avoid it, revere it but keep a distance. If you do so, the world will reward us with mysteries. That is the reason we can possess a freer and deeper perspective than the narrow-minded servants of God.

But did Eugene's mother know?

That her son was a soul who had navigated through the deepest part of that frightening and mysterious place.

A great witch who even cured leprosy.

A saint who was said to have communicated directly with God.

A legendary wizard who brought forth an oasis in the desert.

That he was someone who had observed the other side of the world more clearly than even them.

Eugene recalled the sight of the abbot blessing water and turning it into holy water.

He imitated that now. Containing a different will instead of reverence for God.

"In nomine. Patris."

One short phrase changed everything in this space.

The eyes of the girl, who had turned her head in humiliation, widened as she stared at Eugene.

"Et Filii. Et Spiritus."

Every time his lips parted, the stench of the underground dungeon was driven away. Like petty ghosts before the radiance of God.

"Sancti. Amen."

The cold noble girl showed a surprised face three times today.

First, in awe of Eugene's divine strength.

Next, in anger at him pulling out a field mouse.

"In nomine. Infernum."

Now, in the ecstasy of the fragrance wafting from the chalice.

"Et amissa animabus."

The chalice held in the praying Eugene's hands.

An indescribable power was dwelling in the blood contained within it.

It wasn't something like the grace of God shown by renowned bishops.

It was far thicker, darker, and sweeter than that.

Wriggle.

A bug the size of a pinky nail crawled out from the chalice.

Wriggle, wriggle.

A second and third bug crawled out and fell to the ground. The parasites contained in the field mouse's blood had been swept up in the dark blessing.

The tiny parasites were imbued with demonic energy and reborn as demonic creatures.

The bugs fled to the drainage ditch flowing with filth, as if overwhelmed by Eugene reciting the dark sacrament.

They had no eyes, no nose, no mouth, and no anus. Because they were creatures that shouldn't exist in the first place.

Even left alone, they wouldn't be able to harm the world and would starve to death.

Gulp.

The girl couldn't take her eyes off the chalice Eugene was holding.

Purified by the dark benediction, it tempted the girl like the blood shed by a god. That fragrance was so alluring it seemed to pickle her lungs, brain, and even her soul after passing through her nose.

"Drink it while it's fresh."

Eugene offered the chalice.

'May I really accept something this precious?'

Unable to even think of receiving it with her dirty hands, the girl merely thrust her face forward.

"Haaa."

Her dry lips parted, and pure white fangs were revealed. Between them, a long red tongue protruded.

A posture excessively bewitching for a girl in her late teens. As expected, a Dhampir is a Dhampir.

Drop.

As Eugene delicately tilted the chalice, a single drop fell onto the tip of the girl's tongue.

Her sunken eyes trembled, and her nostrils flared cutely. Her small, pitch-black bare feet curled up tightly.

When Eugene held out the chalice to touch the girl's chest, she accepted it like a holy relic.

Gulp, gulp.

She drank it preciously, as if she couldn't spill a single drop. Including the sleeping pills contained within.

The contemptuous look calling it the blood of a lowly creature had long vanished.

"It's a success."

Looking to the side, the mother and daughter were already asleep companionably.

Clatter!

The sound of the chalice dropping was heard from behind as well.

'They said blood has an intoxicating effect like alcohol on vampires or Dhampirs.'

The eyes of the girl, who was leaning back with a blank face, closed, and she slowly fell sideways.

Usually, one falls asleep easily when full. Tasting the best quality blood along with sleeping pills in a starved state, her consciousness dropped in an instant.

As he touched a few bricks leading to the secret passage, a small entrance soon appeared.

"Nice."

Eugene smiled triumphantly and stepped inside.

* * *

Meanwhile, Homi discovered something strange from the oak tree.

She saw something squirming on the eastern horizon of the village.

Jump!

Homi immediately climbed down the tree.

In this era, the moment you leave civilization, you face countless dangers. Minor ones like wild dogs or wolves, to large and small monsters, bandits, deserters, and robber knights.

Even merchants accompanied by mercenaries refrain from traveling at night, so there was no way ordinary people would be wandering around at night.

Homi immediately recalled the Dhampir prisoners Eugene told her about.

She ran to the cabin as the warning of her instincts dictated.

She packed Eugene's left-behind sword, the money they had saved up, and a first-aid bundle containing hemostatic agents, bandages, and painkiller powder.

There were many things she wanted to take, but right now, running to her master's side was the priority.

Homi climbed the oak tree and observed again. Now the ones approaching the village could be seen somewhat clearly.

A well-armed group of cavalry was galloping over.