“Level twenty-eight! Sir Knight!”

“......”

This guy.

Since I’d met him as a ghoul, and since he’d been showing that submissive attitude to me while I was playing at being a knight, I’d just assumed he’d been an ordinary awakened.

No—more precisely...

A soot-stained tank top, frayed pants, a shabby getup.

A rough, delinquent look that didn’t seem like it had lived a good life.

‘The Viper Faction, or whatever—some cheap-sounding name on top of that.’

I’d figured he was one of those people at the bottom of the awakened ladder.

That was my lazy guess.

‘...Guess you really shouldn’t judge people by how they look.’

Level twenty-eight.

It’s only because my own level has shot up to something ridiculous, but—

even by my unit’s standards, the only ones higher than that are about squad-leader level.

The kind of level where the moment you join a guild, you could be put in charge of a squad right away.

And on top of that—

‘He’s saying he was level twenty-eight before he became a ghoul...?’

No matter when that was, it means he’d already reached that stage a long time ago.

If he hadn’t become a ghoul like this—

he might’ve even pushed into that stretch where the strongest in our unit tend to get stuck...

the cursed level twenty-nine.

‘He’s insanely strong.’

Thinking about it—

he said most humans had left this city.

And the other ghouls here were pretty strong too.

Most of the people must have left for someplace else just to survive.

But him?

He stayed here for the simple reason that he didn’t want to leave his hometown.

It was an absurd reason, sure, but—

‘If you flip it around...’

The fact he could choose to stay here for a reason like that meant—

‘When the choice is “leave the city or not,” you don’t even have to factor in whether you can survive...’

Which means, from the start, he’d been strong enough to somehow survive in a city packed with those powerful monsters.

“This Viper Faction team leader Kangil! I was deeply moved by you, Sir Knight!!!”

And.

That guy, right now—

“Twice... no, was it three times? Anyway—life!!! I’ll offer it up for the baron and for you, Sir Knight!!!”

was pounding his head to the ground in front of me, crying tears of blood from sheer emotion.

“...If you’re grateful, then do a good job from here on out.”

“Yes, boss!”

“...Boss?”

Well, anyway.

For whatever reason, the ghouls in this city were a lot stronger than we’d expected.

And thanks to forcing things a bit and bringing those things in as knights...

[The blood duel has ended!]

That duel, which could’ve turned into something really bad, ended up—

[Winner - Ariella Karshtein]

[In accordance with the duel’s oath, everything belonging to the loser is transferred to the winner!]

with our victory.

PAAAHK......!

The massive amount of blood that had spread out all around us vanished, and the space that had been soaked in crimson changed back into the dark city’s scenery once again.

And.

In the middle of that changed scenery was...

“Th-this... c-can’t... be...”

the twisted wreck of a noble.

***

“Th-this can’t be...”

“......”

Its muscles were grotesquely swollen.

Its body structure was warped into something that vaguely resembled a beast.

They said the blood of the Melchiorn Bloodline specialized in strength, and could also handle a beast’s power, if only faintly.

With its blood flow accelerated at an insane speed—

the strength carried inside that blood rampaged, and the result was what I was looking at.

“...Your knights looked like you, too.”

“A-ah... aah...”

“The ones who survived won’t even last half a day before they die in pain.”

And watching that, I couldn’t help but frown.

“Was making your knights die like that... something you did?”

When his knights started twisting like that, I’d assumed it was his doing.

The way he treated those who served him like disposable tools had made anger boil up in me for reasons I couldn’t even explain.

But—

“A-ah... n-no...”

“...You’re saying it wasn’t you?”

“Wh-what I did... wasn’t... me... Th-this, this kind of thing...”

He was saying it wasn’t him.

“You’re saying what happened to them wasn’t something you did.”

“D-damn it... why do you care so much about those bastards...?”

When I muttered blankly, he rolled on the ground in pain as he spoke.

“Tr-trash... bastards... Because of those things, I—I end up like this...”

From the way he talked, it didn’t sound like he’d cared about his knights in the first place.

“A-ah... it hurts. U-useless things... can’t you save me already...? Your master is in pain like this...!”

Not only did he not care that the other knights were dying in agony—

even in this state, he was still blaming them.

So it was hard to believe him at face value.

But then—

“I wasn’t sure at first... but I guess what I felt was right.”

At that moment, someone walked up beside me.

“What he’s saying... is probably true.”

“Ariella?”

Ariella.

When I looked at her like what are you talking about, she blushed like she was embarrassed and said,

“A-hem, ahem... Actually. I thought something was off from the beginning.”

“Something was off and you didn’t say it? Why?”

“Well... the information I gave you about nobles has been wrong kind of a lot, right? So... I thought if I opened my mouth again and it was wrong this time too, I’d just get yelled at for no reason...”

“......”

When I stared at her like I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, she shook her head hard and shouted,

“Anyway! The power those knights showed earlier probably wasn’t something he used.”

“......”

It was still ridiculous, but—

I decided to at least hear her out, and let out a sigh.

“Fine. Why do you think that rampage wasn’t his doing?”

“Honestly, accelerating blood flow and making the blood rampage isn’t the important part.”

“Hm?”

“For him too, but there are a lot of nobles who’d actually like it if their knights rampaged and got stronger. Whether they die from aftereffects later, most nobles won’t care if they did their job. They’ll get mad if they don’t do their job, sure.”

“Then what’s important?”

“The end.”

The strength those knights displayed was power from the rampage caused by accelerated blood flow—

but their end wasn’t death from aftereffects.

“The... explosions they caused are different.”

The blood that burst out of them ignited red, and with an enormous explosion, it turned everything around them into ash.

...Including the ones who spewed that blood.

And.

“Blood is the identity of the night nobles.”

That point seemed to matter a lot to Ariella.

“The blood of nobles began with four drops of blood the great Progenitor personally bestowed upon the heads of the bloodlines... and it has been passed down ever since. It’s been diluted so, so much... but at its source, our Progenitor is absolutely there.”

...The Progenitor.

“Being able to handle that power is why nobles are dignified beings, and it’s also why they don’t casually increase the number of nobles. It’s the same reason the difference is so huge between knights who receive blood with even a little of the Progenitor’s power mixed in, and ghouls who don’t receive even that much.”

And. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

After she got that far, she turned her head—

“Of course, blood is something that flows and flows. Losing that blood against your will happens all the time, and in most cases people consider it unavoidable. In reality, the blood that came from the Progenitor gradually disappears and gets diluted, so later generations of nobles tend to get weaker little by little. But...!”

She looked down at Rashir, collapsed on the ground.

“To willingly make that blood explode and erase it...”

“Ariella?”

“That... that kind of thing...!”

In that moment—

from her, a sharp, stinging heat...

“Blasphemy!”

I could feel a violent anger.

“To burn our blood passed down from the Progenitor means burning the Progenitor’s blood that still remains faintly inside it!”

“......”

“An act of blasphemy against the great Progenitor...!”

To them, that Progenitor was an object of faith.

And blood passed down from that object of faith was precious in and of itself.

“If there had been a noble who wielded a power like that, they would’ve been buried a long time ago!”

That was why—

it made no sense for a noble to make that blood explode.

Someone who used a power like that couldn’t even be called a noble in the first place.

“Someone else did it....”

Which meant—

“Another’s power interfered in a sacred blood duel between two nobles!”

Crunch!

“Did you break the oath, Baron Rashir!”

“Ggaaah...!”

With that rage in her eyes, she stomped on Rashir’s body and shouted.

“N-no, I didn’t....”

“What do you mean you didn’t!”

“My master of my soul... please believe me. I didn’t do it because I wanted to....”

Even as Rashir cried tears of blood from pain, he shook his head like it was unfair.

‘...Come to think of it, that’s probably true too.’

From the start, the moment you make blood rampage like that, no matter what kind of night noble you are, you won’t survive the day.

No matter how badly he wanted to win that duel—

‘There’s no reason to do that to himself, too.’

Better to become the enemy’s familiar.

There was no reason to choose death.

But.

If that’s the case...

‘Who, and why?’

With what thought did someone interfere in this duel?

“...Ariella.”

Originally, the moment we won this duel, we’d planned to grab only the items that contained Rashir’s mana and run.

But—

“Yes. I know.”

When I opened my mouth with that strange sense of unease, Ariella nodded as if she’d been thinking the same thing, and stepped forward.

“Hmph. Looks like my master can recognize it, at least.”

“A-ah... of course...”

In the duel between two nobles, Ariella had won.

And.

The spoils of that fight were everything that belonged to the loser.

“Since you’re a useless familiar who’s going to die soon anyway, tch.”

Even if he was fated to die naturally before long, Rashir was now Ariella’s familiar.

“Fine, then. Before I take your blood, I’ll ask a few things.”

“Aah, anything... anything...”

To figure out the cause of this bizarre unease I felt—

that meant we were now in a position where we could question him.

‘The city ghouls ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) didn’t know as much as I expected.’

When we first arrived in this country, there were all kinds of things I wanted to know—what the situation was like, and so on—

but I couldn’t learn anything properly.

But—

‘He’s a noble.’

One of the ghouls had once asked why I was asking him things a noble should know.

Back then, I’d brushed it off because I was afraid of being found out as not a proper noble’s knight.

But that wasn’t wrong.

If he was the noble ruling this area, he’d know a lot.

“First.”

And.

Even though Ariella was the one doing the questioning, she looked strangely tense, cold sweat on her skin, as she asked her first question.

“Do you... know the name Karshtein?”

...A first question, meaning—

the thing we most needed to know right now.

“I think I’ve heard it before.”

“...What?”

And the answer that came out of his mouth...was a shock to us.

“You’ve heard it before... what does that mean?”

The noble culture Ariella knew and the behavior nobles had shown in this world didn’t match.

“Y-yes, yes... I’ve definitely heard the name a few times. I mean...”

And the reason was simple.

“A bloodline that existed in the unimaginably distant past... and is gone now...”

“......”

If enough time passes, even culture can change however it wants.