'The reason the Grand Duke wanted to keep me around... was probably because I had value as a hostage to control Ariella.'

I only had value when I was within the Legion’s grasp.

Back then, I still didn’t hold that important a position in this land.

Even so, the reason the Grand Duke wanted to keep hold of me was because of Ariella, not me.

To force Ariella into something the Grand Duke wanted.

However.

Put another way, that meant if some other method was prepared to force Ariella, then there would be no need to keep a hostage like me.

“There was a disagreement... and if I chose to listen to the Count, then it was obvious I’d be the one to receive the Grand Duke’s reprimand. Which meant... I could demand a fitting price.”

“......”

“A few drops of the Count’s blood.”

If Ariella’s blood fell into the hands of this bastard, a [Blood Sorcerer], then it would be able to do all kinds of things with that blood.

...To the point where there’d be no need to keep me as a hostage at all.

......

It said a few drops of blood.

But I had a rough idea of just how much it meant for a noble to give that blood to someone else.

Ariella had made that choice to help me escape.

'Tsk.'

It left a bitter taste in my mouth, but there was no point dwelling on it now.

“You know what I’m about to make you do.”

“......”

“Spit it out. Every last drop of blood you’re holding.”

And then—

Pwaaaash...!

—from inside that body, a crimson liquid poured out and streamed across the ground.

'...How much did this bastard collect?'

There was so much blood flowing out it was damn near enough to form a river.

Crackle...

And.

Some of that blood vanished the instant it touched the light of my sun.

The vampires’ blood.

Ariella’s blood had probably been mixed in there too.

“So now you can’t use that power you were so proud of anymore.”

“......”

Now that it had lost all that blood, this bastard was nothing more than an ordinary person with somewhat good physical ability.

“Your power, I mean.”

Now that its strength had dropped, my control through my cooking had probably grown even stronger.

Looking at it, I said,

“It’s definitely a powerful ability. Against a monster that doesn’t have blood flowing through it at all, it’d be absurdly useless. But against anything with blood in its veins, it’d be effective no matter who the target is.”

“......”

“And.”

An ability that exerted control over blood.

Actually.

There was another kind of enemy this power worked best on.

“It might even be an ability that could become the natural enemy of those vampires.”

A race that regarded the blood flowing through its body as the sum of its identity.

This bastard’s power was probably more specialized for fighting vampires than that of any other awakened.

'With an ability this strong...'

Maybe even back when it was only an awakened in the low twenties, it could’ve fought a noble-class vampire head-on.

That was how favorable the matchup between this bastard and the vampires was.

“Second question.”

But.

Even so.

“Why did you betray humanity and side with those things?”

Instead of fighting the vampires with that monstrous power, it had chosen to betray humanity and stand with them.

I wanted to know why.

“...That traitor.”

“The reason I betrayed them...”

At my words,

I felt the gazes of the people watching Jinlei and me from a distance sharpen.

“General...”

Some of them, even, were looking at Jinlei with strange hope in their eyes.

...This bastard had been treated like a hero among them for a long time.

“Surely the General had some other reason...”

Even after being betrayed.

Even now.

There were still people left who believed there had to be some other reason behind it.

“A reason, huh.”

But.

Unfortunately.

“Hah.”

Those expectations of theirs—

“Do I need some other reason to want to wipe out the trash of this world?”

—were hopelessly empty.

***

“Do I need some other reason to want to wipe out the trash of «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» this world?”

At those words, the eyes of the people watching flew wide open, and fury filled them.

“General...!”

“What do you mean by that?!”

The ones who had clung to a sliver of hope for him until the very end.

They said that with faces twisted in incomprehension, but—

“Don’t act familiar with me.”

“......!”

“General, hero... just looking at vermin like you pretending we’re close is enough to make my skin crawl.”

Wearing a relaxed smile, he answered them that way.

“......”

This bastard’s power had been greatly weakened.

Its resistance must have been the same, which meant it was definitely in a state where it had submitted to my orders.

So that answer had to be the honest truth, without even an inch of a lie.

“Why?”

That was why I had no choice but to frown and ask.

“Aren’t you human too?”

“......”

“You’re human yourself, so why do you think humans need to be wiped out?”

At that, the bastard let out a low chuckle and said,

“I have seen the abyss of humanity.”

...The abyss, huh.

“You ordinary people wouldn’t know. There was a world hidden so thoroughly that people like you could never see it.”

“......?”

“Even before the ruin, in that world you knew nothing about, I saw and did things beyond anything you could imagine.”

At that, I remembered what the two Vice Chairmen had told me not long ago.

'They said this bastard had been a government operative from the beginning, didn’t they?'

I didn’t know the details, but—

“You people who just stupidly let yourselves be ruled would never understand. How filthy the underside of this world was, how vile the true nature of humanity really is!”

Back then, this bastard had seen the “abyss of humanity.”

“You know something? When ruin came to this world, I welcomed it with all my heart.”

“Why?”

“Because a species like this would be better off gone. No—because it needs to be gone. I’ve thought that for a very long time. But the rules of this world were too firmly built. No matter how much I looked for cracks and tried to dig into them... at best, the limit was cleaning out a few tens of millions. There was no way to cleanse humanity itself.”

The fact that he had some method to “clean out” tens of millions of humans was shocking enough, but even something that extreme—

“How about now?!”

—would have been nothing compared to the ruin that swallowed this world.

“There isn’t much time left now.”

When this ruin came, at least billions of humans vanished in an instant.

For someone who wanted the extinction of humanity, it had to be a welcome development.

“There are still survivors left, but just a little longer and every piece of trash on this land will be cleaned out!”

Given just a little more time, using this ruin, he probably could have wiped out every human being left on this land.

“So what you’re saying is... you sided with the monsters because humans are too much like trash?”

Hearing that, I frowned and said,

“For a reason that pathetic?”

“You wound me. Calling it a pathetic reason. To me, it was a fairly great reason.”

“You think the monsters you’re backing are any better than humans?”

I didn’t know much about that bloodline either, but from what I’d heard from Ariella and Karhin, vampires weren’t exactly a kind species either.

If you dug deep enough, they probably weren’t much different from humans.

“...That may be true.”

He seemed to know that too.

He gave a bitter smile.

“To be honest, at first I thought it didn’t matter what race it was, as long as it let me escape the embrace of these trash-like humans.”

“Huh.”

“At the thought that I could finally escape this trash and be reborn as a new species... I had even begun to develop an attachment to this race.”

If a vampire bit you, you could leave humanity behind and be reborn as another species.

For this bastard, that alone had been enough.

“But...”

Then, at that moment, a strange gleam entered his eyes.

“It was only after I gained the knowledge of a [Marquis] that I understood.”

“......?”

“Maybe, just as you said, vampires too are trash no better than humans once you really know them. But... it turns out that doesn’t really matter.”

He smiled like the thought made him happy.

“These pieces of trash too... are already set to be cleaned up on their own once they’ve outlived their usefulness.”

“What?”

“Trash cleans out trash, and then the trash that remains disappears on its own... what could be better than that?”

Set to be cleaned up on their own.

I wanted to ask what the hell that meant, but—

Throb...

At that moment, the weight on my body suddenly grew much heavier.

'...There’s no time.'

The burden from that sun was still pressing down on my body.

I didn’t have the luxury of dragging out a detailed interrogation.

“Looks like talking you around is going to be difficult.”

If I’d had the time to persuade him at my leisure, I would have.

But that bizarre obsession didn’t look like the sort of thing that would be easily resolved.

Which left only one option.

'Tsk. Not exactly my favorite method.'

I let out a sigh inwardly and slipped my hand into my coat.

“An order.”

What I pulled out from inside was several strips of jerky.

“Eat this dish yourself at regular intervals.”

This bastard’s power is lethal to anything with blood flowing through it.

If I let him live and send him back, he’d be a major threat to humanity.

At the same time, he was the deadliest thing possible to vampires, whose very essence lay in their blood.

If I succeeded in turning him into an ally, he’d become a weapon more effective than anything else against the enemies on this land.

'Keep him alive as a slave, or kill him.'

Which one I needed to choose was already decided.

“Every time you eat it, think about your loyalty to me.”

It was a method that left a filthy feeling in my mouth, which was why I hadn’t used it for a while, but it was also a method I had already decided I would use without hesitation on criminals beyond reform.

“That—”

But then.

As he looked at the jerky, the bastard said,

“You would do better not to.”

“What?”

He said something like that.

***

“You would do better not to.”

“What?”

At those words, I couldn’t help feeling puzzled.

As long as my cooking’s effect was still active, he should have been absolutely loyal to me.

“Are you refusing an order?”

“It’s not that... ah.”

And yet he was refusing my order. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

I was wondering how the hell that was even possible, but—

“It’s here.”

Instead of answering me, he looked up at the sky and said that.

And then.

Paaaaaaak!!!

“......!”

What I felt overhead in that sky—

an enormous mass of mana.

'This is—!'

The instant I sensed that overwhelming presence, I immediately tightened my grip on the weapon in my hand.

And then—

Slice!

I swung the blade straight for Jinlei’s neck.

I didn’t know what was happening, but this was a sudden variable I hadn’t expected.

I couldn’t afford to let Jinlei slip away without fully subduing him here, so I had no choice but to cut off his head.

But—

“This.”

Craaaack...

“What is this?”

Something dark crimson was gripping my hand.

“That’s why I told you not to.”

“What?”

And then, staring at that figure, Jinlei said,

“Thanks to your precious Count suddenly appearing, I’ve been pushed back to Plan B... but originally, the Grand Duke’s first plan was to conquer this continent through me.”

Still apparently under the effect of loyalty toward me,  he answered my question obediently.

“The Grand Duke is a greedy one.”

“......”

“Even if his interest has cooled by now, he is not the kind to hand me over obediently to someone else.”

And then.

His body—

[Ingredient Appraisal (Enhanced)]

[Remains of an Ancient Vampire Grand Duke]

[These are the remains of a great powerhouse who ruled long ago as the head of a bloodline.]

—wrapped in a vast red mist, was rising into the sky.