NOVEL NEXT A week before Aria and Raul attempted their escape, Plona, who had been dispatched again to the Bertica Kingdom, returned to Randell.
“Phew! It’s been a while since I’ve been to Randell!”
Plona soaked in the familiar sights of the town, feeling the fatigue of her long dispatch dissipate. Lately, it seemed she spent more time in the kingdom than in Randell. But she had just received news that the Progenitor of Vampires, which had been the cause of her increased workload, had been captured.
Now, she wouldn’t be busy for a while. With thoughts of taking a break to visit the orphanage and replenish her Aria supply, Plona’s steps were light.
“Good work, Plona.”
Dave Rakel, the captain of the Randell Branch, greeted her with a somewhat complicated expression as he congratulated her on her return report. The rare seriousness on the usually indifferent captain’s face made Plona tilt her head in confusion.
“Yes! But is something wrong?!”
“Nothing serious… Well, it’s better you know now than later.”
Plona stiffened as she noticed Selin beside her acting strangely. She was curious but couldn’t interrupt her superior’s words, so she patiently waited for what would come next.
“The Progenitor was caught. You heard?”
“Yes! But I don’t know why the execution was postponed!”
As far as Plona remembered, the protocol was to dispose of the Progenitor of Vampires immediately upon discovery. If things had gone as per the rules, the Progenitor would have been executed long ago.
Plona, just back from the kingdom, had no way to know why the execution had been delayed and why it was now going to happen.
“There are complex reasons, but… the important part for you is elsewhere.”
“May I ask what it is?!”
“…The identity of the Progenitor is Aria.”
“……What?”
Plona’s expression froze, and the temperature nearby seemed to drop a few degrees.
Selin, standing next to her, sighed, seemingly taken aback by Dave’s bluntness.
“…I’m so surprised! A name twin, I almost mistook it!”
“…Plona, it’s not a name twin. The Aria who worked at the orphanage, the one you admired, is indeed her.”
“No way!!!”
Forgetting she was in front of her superiors, Plona shouted. However, nobody rebuked her rudeness.
Instead, they exchanged looks of confusion, pondering how to convince her.
“I checked before I left—”
“Aria confessed it directly to me. The reason her eyes were yellow until that point was that she hadn’t sucked human blood yet, and the inspection results from the Luminous Kingdom’s Palace confirmed she is the Progenitor.”
“That’s… impossible…”
Realizing the conversation could spiral endlessly, Selin was left staring blankly. Her calm testimony seemed to carry a weight of sorrow, but there was no sign of falsehood or jest in her eyes.
‘My sister is a vampire? No way.’
But Plona couldn’t accept it. She couldn’t acknowledge it.
Aria’s warm smile was no act. That Aria, who had always been kind and supported her with a genuine gaze, could not be humanity’s enemy.
“B-but! Even if my sister is the Progenitor! She had yellow eyes! She hasn’t killed anyone yet, right?! Then there’s no crime, is there? Why execute her—”
“Plona.”
The tone was scolding yet somehow soothing. Dave quietly but firmly presented her with the unavoidable reality.
“Progenitors are to be executed upon discovery. It’s actually unusual that she’s still alive; there are no exceptions.”
“But, but….”
She knew this fact without needing it spelled out. But she couldn’t have imagined it would involve someone she relied on so much, someone she felt safe with.
Yet, no matter how she tried to calm her mind, it was impossible to accept this reality with a clear head.
“…I have to see my sister.”
“The Progenitor is being interrogated directly by Cardinal Raul Carlos. Visiting is not allowed.”
“Interrogation? I’d call it torture instead.”
Plona shot back with a sharpness unimaginable from her usual cheerful self.
While she had never spoken directly with Cardinal Raul, she understood what it meant for him to personally interrogate a vampire.
“Plona. Aria is a vampire. A very dangerous one, among just four in history.”
“My sister is my sister. You know she’s a good person, don’t you, Dave?!”
This was why they were going to check and dispose of things quickly. Yet, Dave felt overwhelmed by her unexpectedly intense reaction.
Using his authority to silence Plona would be easy.
But knowing how much she longed for human warmth, even if unspoken—having never known her real parents—made it hard for him to speak up.
The contrast between her former self, who was always bright but seemed devoid of spirit, and her lively recent self was stark, making it even tougher to deliver harsh truths.
Yet, he had to say it. Because this was reality, no matter how cold it sounded.
“She’s not a good ‘person.’ She’s a vampire. Vampires and humans can never coexist.”
“…Even if she hasn’t harmed anyone?”
“Have you ever asked a vampire, ‘Did you perhaps kill someone?’ before you fought them? In this world, there are only two types of vampires: those who have committed mortal sins and those who will. Or those who have harmed humans and those who will harm. The only good vampires are the dead ones. I understand you’re shocked because this involves someone you valued, but be calm. You might have been fooled from the very start.”
Plona fell silent and bowed her head under the relentless critique.
It’s true. She knew it was true, and she had believed it without a hint of doubt—all along.
As Dave pointed out, she had never considered what crimes the targets of her hunts, be they vampires or beastmen, had actually committed.
Knights follow orders; they’re not meant to judge.
Knights are the swords that protect humans, the enforcers of justice.
The judgments are made by the Luminous Kingdom’s Palace. They had deemed them enemies of humanity, so she merely wielded her sword according to orders, never allowing her personal will to shade her actions.
But now? The sweet smile? The caring gaze? All an act?
The Progenitor is the top priority for eradication, no matter the conditions.
Now, the very facts she had taken for granted, the sword she had wielded without question was to be aimed at Aria, and Plona couldn’t accept what had once been so natural.
She knew it was selfish to think this way, considering how many vampires she had blindly cut down in the past.
All those could have had their own reasons for existing, and some of them may not have truly been evil.
But even aware of this selfishness, she couldn’t see Aria and the other vampires through the same lens. It was simply because Aria was a much too special existence.
“…I still have to meet her.”
After considering and worrying several times, Plona insisted that there was no way Aria could be a threat deserving execution regardless of the conditions. The Aria she knew was warm and kind and had an almost flawless instinct for seeing the truth of human nature.
“I’ll meet her directly and decide if my sister is an enemy of humanity or not.”
If, if she were the same Aria she remembered. Plona found herself thinking about which she would prioritize—her responsibility to the Luminous Kingdom or her sister’s life.
There should be no exceptions to the rules. As a knight, Plona was meant to follow the Luminous Kingdom’s orders as she always had.
It was the obvious thing to do, but for some reason, she couldn’t come to a straightforward conclusion this time.
Ultimately, Plona decided to delay her conclusion for the moment. She could consider it further after meeting Aria.
However, despite all her efforts, she never secured a meeting.
It was not that Aria was merely detained; she was undergoing experiments labeled torture, right before her execution. The option for a visit was nonexistent, and nobody but Cardinal Raul Carlos could approach the imprisoned Progenitor.
In the end, with the execution day approaching, Plona found herself in despair, unable to meet Aria.
Would the only last chance to see her be watching from afar as the execution took place? Or could she force her way in for even a brief conversation?
But ultimately, that day, Plona never witnessed the execution scene.
As she anxiously shut herself away in her quarters, nervously biting her nails, an urgent news bulletin rocked the Luminous Kingdom: the Progenitor and Cardinal Raul had mysteriously disappeared before the execution.
What the public had thought was peace fell back into chaos. However, amidst the turmoil, a girl found her lost spirit regained, having obtained a reprieve.
“I’ll definitely come to see you this time, sister.”
When they meet again, will she be humanity’s enemy, or just a girl’s sister?
To find that out, the girl who gained a brief reprieve began to move.