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Within the shadows of the night, a bat emerged near Allan's manor window, speaking to him with words instead of screeching as a normal bat would do, or simply flapping away to hunt insects or eat fruit.

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The bat even seemed to know how his investigation went…

"As useless as ever, mortal… Need our assistance? Our lord has anticipated your failure at seeking information from the oddities."

"Bloodsuckers…" muttered Allan, gnashing his teeth as he glared at the figure of a bat in the window.

He knew what this creature was.

Of course, it was not a normal bat.

'Bloodsucker' was often the insult given to a certain race of Demons that lived at night, feared the light of the sun, drank blood for nourishment and food, and held outstanding abilities…

Vampires.

Said to have been born from the blood of Anir and Kelsus, the Vampires are one of the strongest and most ancient races of Demons, who hold great authority and power.

They had such influence, power, resources, and history that even in the Continent of Anir's Hands they had their bloody claws seeped into human, elves, and dwarves societies.

Although the power of Bestellen's church is strong enough to suppress them in most of the central areas and nations, making them only control the underworld of the nations living in the outermost areas of the continent, near the oceans that connect to the Demon Continent.

This little bat was one of such Vampires, a Subordinate Vampire, a former human converted into a Vampire through the Blood Ritual made by a Vampire.

And the one that converted him was an ancient vampire, a figure that has lived since the creation of the world, since its birth within the lakes of the blood of Anir and Kelsus.

Vampires whose strength, power, influence, and resources are akin to a God, that even the Bright Gods, on their weakened states, have not been able to fend off their continent yet.

These Vampires were named Progenitor Vampires, often also taking the title of Pure-Breed Vampires, the first Demon to be considered of this race, born when Kritias was young.

"Lord Damon seems to be interested in working with you, mortal. You should appreciate his interest, you don't have to throw such an insult to my face, insolent insect," said the bat rather boldly, talking to an aristocrat of such high authority as Allan without caring at all about what he could be capable of.

"Damon Holstein… That monster…" sighed Allan.

He knew and remembered very well this Vampire.

After all, it was thanks to him that the Seashore Town was being so fruitful.

Due to his incredible amount of resources and extensive manpower, Damon Holstein has taken over a few nations within the shadows of the underworld and had even used such resources to hasten their growth and make them flourish.

He had even gone to the extent of making the church of Bestellen wary of his existence, so the Empire of Bestellen would not try to conquer these Nations, as they were below his protection.

But why?

Why would such a strong Vampire, whose power is comparable to a God, go to such lengths to protect and nourish the growth of such nations and cities?

Did they want humans, elves, and dwarves to accept the other races and live in harmony?

Perhaps they shared the same ideals as Ervas or Veronica?

No.

That was extremely far from the actual truth.

Vampires have two factions in all of Kritias.

Those that obey no God and embrace their monstrous and vampiric instincts, hunting innocents to drink their blood and turn them into Subordinates, the Chaotic Faction.

And those that obey the Dark Gods and serve them as their allies, managing to control their impulses and finding ways to maintain themselves nourished without bringing suffering to innocents, the Honorable Faction.

The Honorable Faction of Vampires only lived within the Demon Continent, and the Chaotic Faction was spread all over the world, thriving wherever they could hunt others and drink their blood.

Some progenitor Vampires chose to be at the side of the Gods, while others decided to be by themselves and their subordinates and to take over the world on their ideals and desires.

Due to Damon being part of the Chaotic Faction, his intentions were not good.

He had no intention of helping others out of goodwill.

No, he was helping others to acquire benefits and fresh food for his ever-growing family of bloodthirsty nightcrawlers.

Due to this, he had set into motion such plans for hundreds of generations, using nations for his own goals, seeing them fall over and over again, just to find a new one and make it rise to the top.

By nourishing such nations and making their populations enormous and diverse, he had a large and fresh catalog of blood to choose from, and there was always fresh blood being produced for his family, he built such nations as cattle.

Behind the façade of this peaceful town, there was the true intention of this place.

And why would there be such a large amount of slave trafficking then, you may wonder?

Because this was also a plan of the Vampires.

Although the aristocrats would still make slaves, the amount would not be near as ridiculous as it currently was.

This was because 60% of such slaves were used as food for the Vampires.

A secret that only the higher-ups within Seashore knew about, something that not even Willian was aware of.

Some aristocrats negotiated and held bonds with Vampires to facilize the selling of slaves as food for them… one of such scums was Allan.

However, it was not as if these aristocrats enjoyed this.

Even as a corrupt aristocrat and merchant, Allan was aware of the horrible sins that doing such a thing was.

But he had no choice, he had to do this to maintain order and security in his city, even if it was for the cost of the lives of slaves, which were often homeless people living in the slums.

It was thanks to underground organizations such as the Dark Tails that he was able to get a good supply of slaves every month to satiate the bloodthirsty Vampires.

However, now that a strange group of people had emerged, doing outstanding things which he could not even understand, he wanted to know their true purpose, and find out if they would threaten the 'peace' of this city.

Now that his first attempt at spying failed, he felt a bit fearful.

Never in his entire life has Allan seen all of his spies being completely annihilated, at least one or two would always come back even in the worst of scenarios.

That all of them disappeared simultaneously and incredibly swiftly seemed completely out of his mind.

Not once in his entire long life has he gone through such a depressing failure.

He felt lost.

If he were to send more, wouldn't the spies disappear the same way as these ones did?

Based on this, was there even any hope for him to find out what these people were or wanted?

However, it seems that Damon Holstein had also noticed such creatures, or at least, the Vampires that inhabited Seashore that served him, as Damon did not live in Seashore, but in a faraway place.

Allan heard the Vampire talk about Ervas and Veronica as 'oddities' which seemed to indicate that the Vampires had already noticed them and had found them 'odd'.

Without any other option and while also trying to cope with this situation, he ended up accepting the fact that he would have to ask the Vampires for their help.

"Do you feel bad for accepting our assistance, Allan? Even after all the atrocities you've done to your own people, you still hold on to your sense of honor? You should throw such things away as soon as possible, Lord Damon does not like honorable people, he thinks that such people are only selfish and hypocrites," said the bat.

"Selfish and Hypocrite? Look who's talking…" said Allan with scorn as the bat roared as it showed its sharp fangs.

"Ggrrr…! Don't talk about my lord in such tone, mortal!" roared the vampire, clearly angered.

"My apologies… I… Well…" sighed Allan.

"Do you accept or not? I don't have the whole night to wait for you to make a decision!" said the vampire.

"I accept… but… it would be ideal if things were not aggressive… investigate them first. Finding out what they are, what they are capable of, and other things might end up being more useful to force them into cooperating with me," said Allan.

"I see… So those are your intentions… My superiors are well aware of what those oddities had done in this city, even if they had only come for a few days… They are indeed dangerous to an extent, and maybe unpredictable… Some of them had even realized that they possess monstrous amounts of Mana…" said the vampire.

"W-What?!" asked Allan.

"Indeed… they are not simple people… they are something else, something higher… Even we Vampires will need to remain wary of them… But I am sure that my superiors should be able to deal with them if there comes the need… especially because there are Dhampirs within them, which we deplore," said the bat.

"Your Vampires hate for Dhampirs has nothing to do with me…" said Allan.

"Well, you're our honorable ally and seller of food, why wouldn't our interest be shared with you, as we share yours with us?" asked the bat.

"Tch… You can leave now, I cannot relax with a bat watching over me in my window…" said Allan.

"You had made the correct choice, mortal…" said the bat, flapping its wings and flying away.

Allan drank several cups of whiskey as he fell unconscious, this was his best way to cope with such things…

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