NOVEL NEXT Aria left the Duchy.
Martini Sahelrn, who packed all the necessary items for Aria until the last moment and sent her off with a guide to the border, stood for a long time gazing in the direction she had departed.
Stella, the Maid who stood by Martini’s side, murmured emotionlessly.
“She’s gone.”
“Yeah. The humans moved faster than expected, but it’s useless to blame arrows that have already left the hand.”
The Progenitor grows stronger the more blood they consume.
And considering that this country is home to those who thrive on blood, if the Duchy, possessing an underground ranch, decided to gather blood, it would be dozens, even hundreds of times more effective than the young Progenitor struggling alone.
But the Duchy’s protection ends here.
From now on, the young Progenitor must face the difficult road alone.
“Was this choice the right one?”
“Well, I don’t know. But I believe this is the best judgment. It’s amusing that this conclusion came after careful consideration but involves such a gamble.”
Martini felt pessimistic about the future of the Vampires.
It has been a staggering 1900 years since the first Progenitor she served as a lord passed away.
The Sahelrn Duchy formally took on the shape of a nation only about 300 years ago, yet Martini had been protecting this land for a long time before that, looking after the Vampires who followed her.
“This is our fate, or rather, my burden. However, I cannot cling to the past and abandon the future. I must act before it’s too late.”
The sin of underestimating human determination.
That was a mistake made by the Vampires, including Martini, in the past.
Vampires were once humans too.
And they knew human weaknesses all too well because they were humans.
The race war that ended 300 years ago. When the long war that unfolded over two centuries came to a close, humans were treated as almost nonexistent among other races.
Even when the Elves, Dragonkin, Beastmen, and Vampires fought to near extinction and humans, who had been long hiding, began to emerge, none of the Vampires or other beings took seriously how serious the situation could develop into.
After all, they were merely humans. Inferior creatures that could be easily knocked down.
Occasionally, a strong individual would appear, but they didn’t live past a hundred years, returning to dust.
Once they dealt with immediate threats, humans could be brushed aside at any time.
Time always favors those on the opposite side of humans. That was where the problem started.
Humans, who had been hiding for a long time and sharpening their blades, swiftly devoured the prime lands of the Terra continent.
No matter how weak humans were, there could not be an equal fight between those with diminished warriors due to long wars and the humans, who endured various oppression and humiliation while stockpiling their full power.
Humans easily grabbed hold of the continent’s fertile lands and resources.
And from that point onward, the gap between humans and other races began to widen.
However, even in that situation, the other races remained oblivious to their arrogance.
Humans had already started running, yet other races were busy tripping each other at the starting line. It was like the psychology of rabbits standing beside the turtle that had already set off.
As other races hesitated, wary of each other while they struck first against humans, those same humans steadily established roots in the continent’s heart and began to bloom their civilization at a terrifying speed.
By the time the arrogant, foolish rabbits remembered the turtle that left early, it was already too late.
Regretting it after the fact means nothing, but Martini couldn’t count how many times she regretted that she should have decisively crushed the humans back then.
The weak ones, who were once mere prey, were now armed with silver weapons and armor, wielding divine magic against dark sorcery, threatening the Vampires instead.
The world had changed drastically from the time when the night’s kin roamed freely.
The existence of Martini, called the strongest Vampire, has so far delayed the humans from actively turning to offensive, but she knows she has reached the limits of her growth and can no longer become stronger.
The strongest Vampire who no longer grows and the continually advancing humans.
At this rate, in the not-so-distant future, human power will surely surpass the Duchy. Soon, they will come to conquer the Duchy with the strength to even defeat night’s Vampires.
Knowing this, the Duchy can only watch as humans continue to grow.
The era when Vampires could engage in short battles against humans was long gone since they cannot act under the sun.
“However, at that time, the fourth Progenitor appeared.”
Initially, Martini did not attach much significance to the emergence of the Progenitor. She had briefly met the third Progenitor in the past.
The third Progenitor she remembered was a beast wearing the guise of a human. Not meant to insult, it was truly like that.
Progenitors are born with the intelligence and form of an adult.
But even with intelligence, they aren’t born with knowledge.
Therefore, from the moment they are born, the only thing a Progenitor possesses is a thirst for blood, and once they have tasted it, they become a beast that moves solely to satisfy their bloodlust.
Of course, as time passes, their thirst for blood also diminishes gradually.
The Progenitor’s thirst originates from the instinct to gather Life Force from True Blood, which is as good as life itself.
After repeatedly feeding and accumulating enough power, they gradually gain the ability to resist the impulse.
But conversely, this means that the bloodlust encountered in the early years, the time when accumulated Life Force is at its lowest, is extraordinarily intense.
The reason it’s said that although they can understand language, dialogue is essentially impossible is precisely because there’s no room for common sense to slip in when the only thought in the Progenitor’s mind is to suck blood.
The distinction between what is edible and what isn’t.
That is the only criterion the young Progenitor has to differentiate anything other than itself—a fact Martini understood.
Her master, the first Progenitor, would often reminisce about how it had lived like a beast for the first few years of its life.
It was only after gaining strength that it found leisure, and only after gaining that leisure did it develop curiosity and sought knowledge. Only by doing so did the Progenitor become a truly intelligent being.
The Progenitors, who became Vampires with experiences and memories of living as humans, started from a different vantage point.
Thus, when news broke about the appearance of the fourth Progenitor, Martini thought this might be a turning point for the future of Vampires, yet she chose not to act.
The only Vampire without weaknesses.
An ancient being with unlimited growth potential at the cost of being intrinsically flawed.
If only she could have it as an ally and buy enough time for it to grow, it could be a very meaningful variable.
But the counterpart is a beast that can’t communicate. There’s no guarantee it would become an ally; unless captured, it would be an unpredictable nuisance.
She had heard something from the first Progenitor and felt something from the third Progenitor.
If such a being were taken in carelessly, before it could be taught and raised, instilling a sense of crisis in humans or other beings could very well hasten the end.
So, without searching for it, if the Progenitor were to be chased and wished to cross the Duchy’s land, sending it away with just its life saved would be best. And should the Progenitor manage to survive long enough to show signs of growth, then it would be better to approach then.
That was Martini’s judgment and the choice made by the Sahelrn Duchy. Until the fourth Progenitor, Aria, passed through here.
“It was alien… in every way.”
The first hint of doubt arose from the reports of her subordinates who rescued her.
When they went to rescue the Progenitor, she was already engaged in battle with the Imperial Army alone, and the circumstances suggested she had single-handedly slain dozens of them, an unbelievable account.
Even among the regular soldiers, the Imperial Army is no trivial matter.
In the Duchy, inhabited by strong individuals within a species with extreme disparities between the strong and weak, even common soldiers might be brushed aside, but for a Progenitor not yet a year old, relying on regeneration and pressing forward, four would be the limit.
It should have been so. The fourth Progenitor, younger than she remembered the third Progenitor, should have had no chance.
But the fourth Progenitor survived.
Though she was desperately rescued from a near-death state, she had caused several casualties to a battalion-sized Imperial Army and survived.
How is that possible?
Martini wanted to see this with her own eyes. Thus, once she awakened, she held a private meeting.
Doubt soon changed to certainty. The fourth Progenitor was distinctly different from the youthful images of Progenitors she had seen and heard about.