After that as well, life in the frontier settlement went on.

At first, she had been a child wasting away because no one cared for her.

But as time passed, she slowly learned how to survive on her own.

She was still shabby and filthy.

But most of the people around her were the same, so no one thought much of it.

"Abandoned."

Very occasionally, that thought would brush through her mind.

But she was still too young to think deeply about something that complicated.

And so time passed.

As time went by, the frontier settlement itself gradually improved as well.

Maybe, if things continued like this for a few more decades, this village too might come to look fairly decent, and the lives of its residents might grow much better.

That kind of hope slowly began to spread.

But.

It did not take very long for that hope to shatter.

Trudge.

Deep in the night.

Uninvited guests came to the tiny nameless village.

Sometimes traders came by, or people seeking to become new residents.

But these visitors gave off an atmosphere completely different from theirs.

"Who are y—"

And then.

The very first thing they did was—

Slash—

"Oh...?"

as an example to the rest, slaughter around ten settlers.

"There was a plague in one of the ranches, and all the livestock died."

And so.

After crushing the settlers into submission with fear and gathering them in one place, they said,

"You will fill that ranch for us."

As the village slowly began to take shape, its residents had begun to hope for the future.

-Only later did I learn.

That ordinary future they had imagined...

was something that could never have been given to them in the first place.

-That village itself... had been a gathering place for those the Empire had cast aside.

Beyond the frontier settlement lay the vampires' territory.

There was not even a single Imperial Army outpost between them.

A place easier for vampires to reach than for humans.

"Th-that can't be. Why are they here...?"

"The priest said this place was safe...!"

A place where the Empire gathered people who were utterly useless to it and offered them up as food for vampires.

"N-no...!"

"Help...!"

So many people were seized by those red-eyed men and dragged away.

Even the ones who had looked after the daughter, at least a little, screamed as they were hauled off.

And then.

"Let go of my daughter!"

Those who resisted them...

"Do not look."

with a sickening crunch, lost the ability to make any sound at all.

"...Huh?"

The daughter stood there with her mouth hanging open at the scene.

She was far too young.

She could not truly understand what exactly was happening right now.

She did not even properly understand what those beings were.

She felt only an instinctive level of fear and sorrow.

And.

"Quiet."

All she could do was sense her father standing behind her, covering her eyes.

Step...

And so.

After taking many people away, the red-eyed men stopped before the father and daughter.

Below the field of vision blocked by her father's hand, she could see the feet of the ones before them.

Their shadows, thrown by torchlight, seemed to grin slyly as though alive.

"This one."

If there was one bit of luck, it was that—

"Too young."

they wanted livestock that could produce food right away.

"Leave the ones that are too old and the ones that are too young."

Livestock meant to produce new prey.

Those who had lost that function, or had not yet grown into it, were not taken.

"If left alone, the old ones will raise the young on their own."

Like fishermen who released small fry even after catching them, rather than raise livestock themselves, they intended to increase future prey by releasing it back into the wild.

However.

"They do not take children. Nor the elderly."

The moment she heard that, the daughter flinched and grabbed the hand covering her face.

"Then what about Father?"

Young as she was, her father was also nowhere near old.

The hand with which she clutched his arm began to tremble.

"You..."

As expected, the red-eyed men standing before them looked at her father.

And then—

"You have an unpleasant smell."

They frowned and said that.

"This man... hmm."

"What should we do with him?"

"Judging by his age, we ought to take him."

For some reason, the ones who had been dragging people away indiscriminately showed a trace of hesitation before her father.

And then, soon enough—

"We'll have to ask the head of the house."

They turned away, went somewhere, and spoke to someone.

"An unpleasant smell."

Her vision was still covered, so she could not see whom they were speaking with.

But the daughter heard that voice.

"It seems you have some connection to the Church."

"..."

A small, delicate voice speaking as it looked at her father.

***

"Hmm. Someone connected to the Church, and yet staying in this forsaken land by choice."

Unlike the fierce-looking red-eyed men who had been coercing the villagers, the voice now coming from beyond her covered eyes was very small and delicate.

And also very beautiful.

"From the look of it, you seem to know nothing of this place. Which would mean you either gave up partway through your training, or left the service before rising to a high rank. Were you perhaps driven out after causing some sort of problem?"

"...Must I answer?"

"No. That is quite all right."

That beautiful voice spoke with an attitude so gentle and benevolent.

"I do not know what circumstances brought you drifting all the way here, but you are someone in whom that side's aura can still be felt... which means there is no telling what sort of relationship you may have with someone from the Church."

"..."

"We are quite satisfied with the current arrangement, under which we receive a steady food supply. So."

The voice seemed to stare blankly at her father for a moment.

Then, with a soft smile, it said,

"We shall let you go this time."

"..."

"I do not know what circumstances you may have, but it would be best if you returned to your homeland. And do not set foot anywhere near here again."

And so.

She sensed that voice beginning to move away.

"Hehe."

Before withdrawing completely, that voice said with a soft laugh,

"For an inferior species, your mental fortitude was impressive."

And just like that,

leaving behind only words the daughter could not understand, the red-eyed men withdrew from her father's side.

Then, a moment later—

"Ugh...!"

"...!"

From behind her came the sound of ragged breathing.

"Kgh... kuh... kuh-heok...!"

"Father!?"

When the daughter turned around, she saw her father with a deathly pale face collapsed on the ground, gasping harshly for breath.

***

"Cough, ngh...!"

When she first saw the pained look on her father's face, the daughter thought those beings had done something to him.

But that was not it.

That soft voice from before.

While facing that voice and speaking with it—

"Kgh...!"

her father had not been able to take even a single breath.

...Because if one wished to stay alive while facing such a being, there was no room to spare even a fragment of concentration on something like breathing.

Gasp.

Only after the conversation ended was her father finally able to suck in the breath he had barely held back.

The pain of it was so great that he even let go of the hand that had been covering his daughter's eyes.

Bracing himself against the ground, clutching at his own throat, he breathed in ragged gasps.

"..."

It was the first time the daughter had ever seen her father like that.

All she could do was stamp her feet in confusion.

And while she was doing so—

"Is that all?"

The red-eyed men looked around,

then turned away with a nod, as though there was no more livestock left to take.

"Then let us return."

"We must not waste any more of the head of the house's precious time."

With those words, they turned around and began walking out of the village.

The daughter watched them go.

"Aunt Anne. Sister Gidel."

Anne often scolded her and made life hard for her, but every now and then she would still share food with her.

Gidel used to bully her for speaking too elegantly for someone of low birth, but even if it came from jealousy and resentment, Gidel was one of the very few people who spoke with her at all.

The people who, at least sometimes, had looked in on how she was doing.

Even they were being dragged away with their heads hanging low, as though they had no strength left even to cry.

Watching that sight, the daughter felt her chest begin to ache.

She wondered whether there was any way to save even one of them.

But then—

"...Huh?"

among those walking away, she spotted a figure.

Huge, frightening red-eyed people.

And among them, one who looked completely out of place.

"A child?"

A small, young child.

And.

The first feeling the daughter had when she saw that child was this.

"Pretty."

Long black hair, seeming almost to reach the ground, holding a faint glow and falling in natural waves.

Each time the child took a step, that sheen scattered softly like river water, then returned to its original form.

The pale white skin glimmered softly like moonlight.

Even the faint veins flowing beneath it looked like beautiful ornaments.

Though it was obvious that child was still young, those delicate features carried a strange elegance and dignity far beyond that age.

The black dress adorned with fine lace made that already flawless figure look all the more splendid.

The bracelet around the slender wrist and the beautiful jewel hanging at the white throat made the child seem less like a living being and more like a work of art.

Most beautiful of all were those eyes.

When torchlight touched them, they burned brilliantly.

When starlight touched them, they seemed full of deep wisdom.

A mysterious feeling, as if the most beautiful jewel in the world had been set there.

The way that child walked with such grace made it feel as though that one alone lived in a world apart from everything around it.

To a daughter who had spent her life enduring the barren existence of a frontier settlement, it was a beauty she could not help but see for the first time.

A beauty enough to inspire awe.

"...Father."

But.

Because life in the frontier settlement was all she had ever known, she could not understand what that beauty and those clothes truly meant.

She only—

"Didn't they say they do not take children?"

"Th-they did..."

"Then we have to tell them."

With eyes full of worry, she looked at the black-haired child and said,

"That they seem to have made some kind of mistake."

"...A mistake?"

"Yes. It has a somewhat grown-up air, so I suppose they could ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) mistake it for one, but..."

At those words, her father, who had been collapsed there in pain, lifted his head and looked where she was pointing.

"But it is obviously a child... so..."

And then, the moment he saw the being there—

"They have to be told... that they mustn't take it."

"...!"

His face turned infinitely pale, and he hurriedly bowed his head.

"They didn't want to take children either, did they?"

"..."

"If we tell them they are mistaking a child for an adult, they will be grateful too. So I—"

As though she were about to get up and go tell them herself, the daughter began to rise.

Smack!

"No!"

Her father reached out and grabbed her.

"Father?" 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"That child... is a little different from you."

His hand was trembling violently.

Even while holding onto his daughter, he could not bring himself to lift his gaze, and kept staring at the ground.

"That is a child who lives in a world entirely different from ours."

"..."

"So you do not need to concern yourself with it... no."

Still looking only at his daughter's ankle, her father said,

"You must not concern yourself with it."

At those words, the daughter turned her head and looked at the child once more.

Walking there, surrounded by red-eyed adults on all sides.

"A child from another world."

Certainly, just as he had said, it looked unreal, utterly unsuited to the life she herself had lived.

It was as though only the area around that child belonged to another world.

"Even so."

She was still young and knew very little.

And because of that, what her father could see and feel, she could neither see nor feel.

But.

Perhaps because of that very thing, unlike her father, the daughter was able to keep looking at that child for longer.

...What others could not see, she could.

"You say I don't need to concern myself with it."

To the daughter's eyes, that child looked very beautiful and noble, yes—

"But that's..."

yet also like a young, delicate child sad with loneliness and solitude.

"That's too pitiful."

"What...?"

The daughter thought of her own daily life.

When there was hardly anyone in this harsh village who paid any attention to her, she too had felt lonely and forlorn.

If there was any reason she had been able to soothe that loneliness even a little, it was because of her father, who still came home late at night, and because of the other villagers who, even if it came with scolding, sometimes spoke to her.

But.

That child was different from her.

"That child..."

They had said they did not take other children.

Which meant that child was probably the only one there.

And since she had never seen that child in this village,

"all alone among them..."

it would not know any of the other villagers who had been dragged away either.

"How lonely must it be?"

Surely.

That was why it looked so lonely.

...And then.

At the very instant she said those words aloud—

Stop.

The leisurely footsteps of those leaving the village suddenly halted all at once.

"...?"

When the daughter looked that way with puzzled eyes, she met the child's gaze.

Like a doll.

Unlike the beautifully arranged expression it had worn until just moments ago—

"...!!!"

with its eyes wide open, that child was staring at the daughter in shock.