A blood duel.

This custom—an old vampire tradition—had a few rules.

And the most representative one was this:

‘You fight by staking your own blood.’

It sounds like nonsense, but—

put simply, every noble who enters the duel, only those who have that noble’s blood mixed into them can take part in this battle.

In reality, our side’s forces were only Ariella’s knights—

but among the forces Rashir had brought, there were plenty of ghouls mixed in too.

He probably made those ghouls himself.

‘And me, too.’

I’m not a retainer, but—

even I, with close to fifty percent of Ariella’s blood mixed into me, could participate in this duel.

Anyway.

Thanks to this {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} kind of bullshit rule, our side was at an overwhelming disadvantage in numbers in this duel.

We were making up for it with troop quality—

but once even that quality got caught up by those knights’ rampage, for us, already behind in raw numbers, there was no choice but for defeat to start looming.

And.

Put another way—

“Then we just fill the numbers we’re short on... isn’t that it.”

I grinned, and raised the dish I’d pulled out of the shadow.

“That’s...”

Ariella stared at that dish and muttered blankly.

[Servant’s Blood Sausage Soup Filled with a Hero-Grade Chef’s Sincerity and a Retainer’s Mana]

[A dish made with special blood containing the power of vampirization for a viscount-rank vampire.]

“Isn’t that... the blood you took from me not long ago...?”

***

According to what Ariella told me, the way you made a knight was to have the target drink blood first—

then fill that blood with the noble’s own blood, containing special power.

‘That’s where the difference between a ghoul and a knight happens.’

Those who have blood that carries no other power—only the mana of domination—become ghouls.

Because there’s no need to mix in special power, even vampire knights created by vampires can still make ghouls.

That was why ghouls sat at the absolute bottom of their society.

And then—

‘If that blood contains the noble’s own power.’

Those who gained the strength vampires were supposed to have through that power—

those were knights.

[Vampire knights] shoulder various penalties unique to vampires, but in exchange, they gain power even stronger than before.

The forces Ariella had held at her peak were strong enough that you couldn’t even compare them to an entire legion’s soldiers.

Of course, since it’s nobles who grant that kind of power, making knights is a grueling thing even for nobles.

In fact, back when Ariella was a junior baron, she could only make around five retainers a day.

She said that when she was weaker, there were even days she couldn’t properly make even one.

She said the numerical limit had increased quite a bit now—

but it still took a lot of strength to make retainers.

That’s why nobles only turn strong monsters—ones that seem like they’ll show sufficient power as knights—into knights, and keep the rest, the ordinary or weak monsters, as ghouls.

And.

When I heard that, something came to mind.

‘If the difference between a ghoul and a knight is whether there’s mana in the blood that contains the vampire’s own power, or not...’

Then.

If those who became ghouls were granted mana containing a noble’s power later—

then that would mean...

they’d become knights, wouldn’t it.

“Kangil!!!”

When I shouted up at the sky—

up there, the ones excluded from this ‘blood duel,’ hanging from enormous masses of blood—

I could see one of them looking down at me.

“It’s time to keep our promise.”

“...Sir Knight?”

The reason I started thinking this way was from not long ago—

when I met a ghoul who’d been human.

-Then... if that’s the case.

It was when, seeing the miserable state of someone from my own kind, I got pulled in by some stupid, pointless sensitivity and told it I’d grant one wish.

-Would you... make me a knight?

-What?

Back then—

it made that request of me.

-I know it’s an irreverent request. But... I used to be a reasonably strong awakened! I’m sure I could be useful to the count as well!

When I first heard that request, I thought maybe it came from the ‘slave’ nature that thing carried.

I’m a slave, so—

I want power that’ll make me more useful to my master... something like that.

But it wasn’t.

-I’m nothing but grateful to the nobles who gave me a new life as a ghoul. But... I, I...

-...?

-I don’t want to live and die as a ghoul.

No matter how much they were slaves, when they weren’t under their master’s direct command, they acted a lot like they had when they were alive.

-I thought about it when I almost got killed by another noble’s knight. Even if it was a trash life... I didn’t want to die like this. I want to become something higher... I want to be a knight.

-If you become a knight, does anything really change?

-A lot changes.

If ghouls were nothing but slaves in nobles’ society, knights—beings a noble made by granting their own power—received a certain level of respect.

If you became one noble’s knight, other nobles couldn’t lay hands on you easily.

And then—

-I heard that truly outstanding knights are rare, but they can even be appointed by a great noble and become a new noble themselves.

Depending on ability, it meant you could be reborn as another noble.

-Of course, I don’t think I can build achievements like that. But... I want to grab even that hope, at least.

-...

-I know a life as a slave, devoted to the nobles, can be valuable enough, too, but...

No.

It isn’t valuable.

That kind of thing isn’t a valuable life—it’s a miserable one.

And—

-If there’s even hope that it can get better...

A life that has even that tiny hope—

that’s the only kind of life you can truly call valuable.

“City ghouls, listen up!”

And.

Whatever else—

they were the ones serving me and Ariella.

...They were basically my people.

“I’ll give you a chance to become knights.”

“...!”

“But!”

Since I receive their service, I have an obligation to cherish them in return for that service.

An obligation to shift their miserable fate, even a little, in a better direction.

“I can’t say a knight’s life is safe. I’ll probably work you pretty hard. A lot of you will die in this battle today. But...”

I turned my head and looked at Rashir’s knights, fighting in agony, tears of blood streaming down.

“I’ll remember that death.”

“Ah...”

“Your deaths won’t be forgotten meaninglessly. If you offer your lives to me... then I will give you a price worthy of that.”

In the first place.

That’s what knights are.

Serving their master with strong power—

and the master who receives that service

gives a proper price for that devotion.

With my hand resting on the dish, I looked up at the ghouls hanging in the sky and muttered inwardly.

[Five Loaves and Two Fish]

In that moment—

KWA-A-A-A-A-A-AK...!

Inside my body, I felt an enormous amount of mana draining out in an instant.

‘Five Loaves and Two Fish isn’t power that creates something from nothing...’

Even if the efficiency was massively improved by [Large-Scale Cooking],

the copied dish still takes my mana.

“Knight—no. Master...!”

On top of that, this dish is a dish filled with Ariella’s mana.

Even Ariella, a powerful noble, struggles quite a bit to make nobles.

And I was the one who had to bear that mana.

There was no way it would be easy.

If this kept going, even my life force would eventually be converted into mana and disappear.

But—

‘The mana I’m lacking...’

I looked down at my feet, into the shadow, and thought.

‘I’ll make up for it with what you collected.’

[Lowest-grade mana stone x2834]

[Low-grade mana stone x1371]

[Common mana stone x832]

...

...

An enormous quantity of mana stones we’d gathered to activate that transfer gate.

Enough mana to send close to a hundred humans from Seoul across the sea to another land.

That mana flowed into my body.

PAAAHK...!

The mana in the stones vanished in an instant, and their light died.

But.

There were far too many city ghouls.

So many that even this amount of mana wasn’t enough.

And then—

in that moment...

[Shaped divine power responds to the user’s will.]

[‘25’ divine power makes the impossible possible!]

[A fitting price is paid to those who serve!]

PAAAHK!!!

A gray radiance flared and burst from my hand—

“This isn’t an order! Even after hearing me, if you still want to come with us...”

In that glow, I shouted at those ghouls.

“Then take this blood... as proof of my promise.”

In front of them, a small bowl had been set down.

‘Seriously. “Makes the impossible possible,” my ass.’

Not a full-sized, proper bowl—

just a tiny one, barely enough for a taste.

Divine power might “make the impossible possible,” but since that stat wasn’t very high, this was probably what he got by pulling a little trick.

But—

KOO-UNG....

Even at that small size, the effect was more than enough.

KOO-UNG, KOO-OONG...

Those excluded from the duel because of ‘the Progenitor’s’ blood, up in the sky—

their bodies dropped to the ground.

“Ariella. The order.”

“...My first order!”

Ariella spread her hand wide and shouted at them.

“My knights. Slaughter the enemies!”

“As the master commands...!”

And then—

“Obey the will of Ariella, the master of our souls!”

“In the name of our great master, Count Ariella, and that knight...!”

The countless ghouls that had filled the city.

No—

the knights charged at the enemy.

***

Countless ghouls that had been excluded from the duel.

The moment they became ‘knights’ with Ariella’s blood mixed into them, they gained the qualification to participate in this duel.

“Glory to our great master, Count Ariella, and that knight...!”

The element we’d been lacking compared to the enemy—

‘Numbers’—was now filled.

“...Knight!”

But.

Ariella, who’d ordered that charge, looked at me with an anxious expression.

“It’s certainly a considerable number, but... you know this too.”

“What?”

“...Like I said. Ghouls are those left behind after every strong being was already made into a knight.”

They weren’t weak because they were thrown away—

the weak ones were thrown away, and that’s what ghouls were.

Meaning—

“...Even if we go through all this trouble and make them into knights, they won’t be able to display sufficient power.”

Yeah, that did sound likely.

In the first place—

the reason we hadn’t made them into knights from the start was because of that.

The mana stones they’d gathered were for activating that transfer gate.

To spend that while making them into knights—

the efficiency wouldn’t be all that great.

Still, now we had the manpower.

I looked at the battlefield.

I could see the massive great beasts still holding the line, enduring even now against those rampaging monsters.

“If we’ve gained forces that can back those guys up, that’s enough.”

If this kept going, even those beasts would’ve been surrounded and hunted down by the rampaging knights—

but the moment a huge number of forces began supporting them, those great beasts could fight more freely.

“Still, expanding weak knights while spending this kind of strength isn’t—”

“...Wait.”

“...Knight? Are you listening?”

Yeah.

They were only meant to increase our numbers.

“...What is that.”

“...?”

I’d done it to break this situation while venting my own feelings—

swallowing extreme inefficiency to do it.

“Huh? No, that’s—”

At my blank voice, Ariella turned her head too and looked where I was looking.

“What in the world is that—what!?”

And what she saw...

-KRWA-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-AH!!!

The new knights who’d joined the battlefield were mercilessly butchering the enemies.