Just like how petting an angry dog calms the dog down, apparently dancing calms a vampire. Noted.

  “Now,” I said with an exhausted exhale, finally letting go of her after several minutes of moonlit twirling. “Ready to talk like decent people?”

  “No,” she snapped, and then swung at me again, red-faced with embarrassment and rage. “Go die.”

  Yep. It’s GGs. Let me delete that note before I go.

  [Warning.]

  [Intent: Kill.]

  [No time to React.]

  [Passive Ability: Impaler Lord - Activated.]

  Her hand was a breath away from my face when a crimson-black spike, identical to the ones in the Castle, erupted from the ground and impaled her forearm, pinning it in place.

  “Agh!” she screamed.

  The shock slammed into my body like a dropped cathedral bell. My heart thundered so loud it drowned out everything else, my lungs stuttering as I tried to breathe.

  But somehow, despite sheer existential horror, my expression stayed perfectly calm, exactly as it had been seconds ago, making it look like I wasn’t even remotely concerned.

  “Who are you?” she hissed, struggling uselessly against the spike. “I cannot see how strong you are.”

  I didn’t hear a single word of this woman's angry interrogation.

  I just stood there staring like an absolute buffoon, brain empty, body frozen, doing nothing except desperately clenching so I didn’t piss myself if something even stupider and even more dangerous happened next.

  Out of desperation, seeing that I wasn’t making a single sound, or maybe sheer refusal to look helpless, she started punching the spike with her free hand. When that didn’t work, she tried dissolving back into shadow. But the spike didn’t let her go.

  Worse for her, I could feel what the spike was doing to her. Not see... feel.

  As if the spike was a part of me, a limb I'd always had and only now remembered. A strange instinct settled in my mind, an understanding that wasn’t mine yet felt native, reminding me of the feeling that the Crown gave me. It was the same type of awareness. The same type of power.

  A power that now held her in place, and more than that, it was drinking in whatever scraps of power she still had left.

  Which also finally connected something else I was wondering: the woman was nearly dry. Finally connecting the dots as to why I was even remotely able to restrict a 'Cataclysmic Host'.

  The poor woman and her power reserves were down to the last pathetic drop of their former might. Like a water bottle with only condensation left inside. A condensation that was slowly being drawn away from her.

  I wondered, briefly, what would happen if every last drop of her power was taken away.

  But reminding myself that I didn’t kill her earlier, and probably shouldn’t start now, I managed to regain just enough control over my frozen body to force words out.

  “Are you willing to talk?”

  “Yes, yes, yes, I promise,” she sputtered. The anger in her voice dissolved, probably siphoned straight out of her by the spike. “I’ll speak, or leave, or whatever you need me to do, just let go of me.”

  Hold on now, let's not make it sound like I'm sexually harassing you or anything.

  ‘Remove the spike, Ephe.’

  [Are you sure?]

  ‘Yes.’

  [Understood.]

  [Passive Ability: Impaler Lord - Absorbing Essence.]

  [Essence Absorbed.]

  [Passive Ability: Impaler Lord - Increasing in Power.]

  I blinked at Ephe’s calm little announcement as the spike shattered into several heavy chunks. They fell at Relia’s feet and crumbled instantly into black dust.

  Wait… isn’t that basically a roundabout vampiric ability? Fantastic. The Custodians were truly comedians now.

  But, to be fair, their gifted powers were the only reason I wasn’t currently marinara sauce on the poor calf behind me.

  ‘We call it even on this one, bastards,’ I muttered in my head, hoping they were listening.

  Relia clutched her impaled hand, trying to heal it. The wound knitted only slightly. What powers she had left were not enough.

  “Now, Relia,” I said casually. “I can see you’re almost out of power. Why?”

  “For the same reason that I tried eating,” she hissed, pain sharpening her tone as she lowered herself to the ground. “But someone else had other plans for me. Again. And again.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “What do you mean?” I frowned. “I was told to stop you from stealing what doesn’t belong to you. And I did.”

  “For a Vampire, you’re merciless to your own kind.” Relia clicked her tongue, looking away. “Fitting for a vampire of your power.”

  You know what? I’m done trying to understand how others see me.

  “Did a vampire of my… power… put you in the position of stealing cattle?” I asked, eyebrow raised.

  “Who else?” she groaned. “My kind of luck to meet two annoying bastards in one month after a millennium of nothing.”

  Damn. Ancient Grandma.

  “Can you tell me more?” I requested.

  “No.”

  Relia’s voice was dull, defeated. Then she pressed her forehead to the ground. “Just pass the sentence already. Let me be judged by the Justice of the Most High.”

  There it was again, that name... The 'Most High.'

  The one Ephe had mentioned once before. Was that like some type of God? But Stevin and Enna never spoke of anything like that when explaining the religions here.

  But more importantly… was this woman genuinely giving up? Was she that weak?

  No… If I spared her when I could have killed her, I wasn’t about to let her die by hopelessness now. She will not ruin my Directive by herself.

  “No judgment will be passed today,” I said, crouching in front of her. “But you will stop eating these cows and annoying these elves. Find something else to feed on.”

  She lifted her head, eyes widening at the fact she’d been forgiven twice now.

  “It’s difficult to search for food at night when I’m this weak,” she admitted, her voice thin. “These cows are the closest food source to the cave I recover in. Can... you help me?”

  “Can you promise not to attack me again?”

  She bowed again, pressing her face back into the dirt. “I swear to you, Elio. I will be forever grateful if you aid me.”

  It felt wrong in too many ways to see a woman bow like that, especially while her hand was still bleeding.

  “Fine,” I muttered, mostly just to get her to stand up already. “But I don’t even know what you feed on specifically.”

  “What else but blood and essence?” she frowned, until something seemed to have clicked in her mind. “W-wait… are you a Vampire Lord?”

  Hell to the nope. But would she believe me if I told her no? Should we bet on it?

  Want to bet on it?

  I cleared my throat. “No, I am not-”

  “It makes sense now,” she murmured, cutting me off. “That must be why I cannot get a read on you. My apologies, My Lord, if I have ever offended you.”

  See? Pay up.

  “You have not offended me,” I sighed. “But there is no blood or essence I can give you, especially here. Maybe if we were back at my Castle, but right now the only thing I have to offer is my own.”

  “Y-Yours?” she swallowed, eyes brightening with hope. “C-Can I really?”

  I suddenly felt like I was about to hand twenty bucks to a homeless junkie, fully aware they might not use it for what they said they would. And that’s not even counting the ocean of problems that could come with giving this woman anything.

  Still, if Stevin and Enna were treasure chests of information, this woman was a millennium-old library. And a powerful one at that.

  But I needed reassurances.

  “I’m open to that arrangement,” I groaned, sitting down. “But only under the following conditions: You do not attack me ever again. You aid me while I aid you. You answer every question I ask to the best of your abilities. You stay hidden while I travel during the day. And you take only what you need to recover, nothing more, nothing less.”

  “Is that it?” she asked, hopeful.

  “Of course not,” I shook my head. “Those are just the important ones.”

  It was barely morning, and instead of letting me get my well-deserved rest, the pointy-eared bastards dragged me straight to their Chief, and the elven ladies flanking him.

  At a table nearby, calmly enjoying breakfast as if I hadn’t pulled an all-nighter while starving, were Stevin and Enna. They smiled and waved toward me, right up until they saw my face. Then they excused themselves, slipping away just in time for the elven woman who gave me the job to enter through another door.

  “Did you succeed?” the Chief asked, eyes sharp with expectation.

  “Of course I did,” I muttered, tossing a fistful of black dust onto the floor.

  One of the women around him stepped forward, knelt, rubbed some of the dust between her fingers… then shook her head at the Chief.

  “Not enough proof,” the Chief declared.

  “Of course it isn’t,” I sighed, pulling a strand of white hair from my pocket and handing it to the woman.

  A satisfied smile spread across her face as she confirmed it.

  “Wonderful job, my friend,” the Chief said, clapping as he approached. He slowed when he saw the look I was giving him. “Y-yes, your reward. We’ll have it ready by tonight. Please, go and rest. Airina, take our guest to one of the rooms.”

  “Certainly, Father,” she said with a bright smile before grabbing my hand and practically dragging me away.

  “Here we are,” she announced, pushing me into a room on the upper floor and closing the door behind us. “Now… Your Grace, would you like company?”

  “Leave me,” I waved her off, absolutely uninterested in whatever she imagined was about to happen.

  “Next time then,” she chuckled softly, slipping out and somehow worsening my headache.

  I swear, not a single normal person existed in this world.

  “Did she leave?” a soft voice whispered from behind my clothes.

  “Yes, you can come out,” I sighed, moving toward the bed. My clothes rippled as the shadow of the Vampire I had very much not killed slid out from underneath them.

  My extensive list seemed to drive a hard bargain, but once she realized she didn’t really have a choice, she accepted most of the terms I kept adding over the hours of discussions.

  “Your Grace,” she said, turning back into her human form just as I shut the curtains. “I didn’t realize you held such a title.”

  “Lucky you, then. It’s all I hear lately,” I groaned, sitting down on the bed. “I’m going to sleep. Once I’m out, eat your fill, then get back inside the clothes and stay hidden. Understood?”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” she grinned, before her face softened into a grateful, charming smile. “And… thank you for not killing me.”

  “Mhm,” I muttered, already lying down, too exhausted to care.

  Naturally, that was the exact moment Ephe decided to remember she had something to say.

  [Directive ‘Continue Existing’ Followed - Registered.]

  [Optional Directive ‘Defeat the Vampire’ Followed - Registered.]

  [Final Optional Directive ‘Do not Kill the Vampire’ Followed - Registered.]

  [Reign Index Increased: 0.17% → 0.18% → 0.20% → 0.22%]

  [Old Directive Resumed: Escort your guests back to the Ashtara Kingdom.]

  'You had hours, Ephe. Fucking hours.'

  […]

  [The ‘Subject’ Needs Rest.]

  'Fuck you, Sass Machine.'

  [Sleep Well.]

  '…You know what? Touché.'

  “Your Grace?” Relia asked softly. “Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing at all.”

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