The Vampire Empress.

The route towards the town didn’t take any longer than an hour, we did encounter a few monsters from there, but they were weaker than the ones we encountered at the start, so I didn’t even bother beating the heck of them.

“Ugh… the state of this town is more horrifying than I expected,” I showed a bitter smile while looking at the extremely horrible state of the town. The walls if you can still call them walls had enormous cracks, holes that were large enough for two people to look inside the town.

At this point, it wasn’t just the management of the town that was lacking but also the motivation of the people. The guards didn’t even care about us when we arrived, the land was drier than Egypt’s desert and the heatwaves from the sun were like melting us mercilessly, just imagine the people living here, I don’t even know how they survived.

“Leo, can you call the chief of the town here?” I looked at Leo who saluted as he ran without waiting for my extra instructions as I turned towards Felice who was also waiting for my orders, “Felice, you will go call for the guard captains. If any of them disobeys, break their swords and if they retaliate, slice off one of their fingers. Do you understand?”

“Yes, milady…” she said without hesitation before moving to her assignment as I looked at Iona with a bitter smile.

Truthfully, I had no assignment for Iona in mind since she is the shiest among them and the orders I had for the two were to call people and even murder them… I don’t really know whether I should throw an angel to do those stuff.

“Iona, as a noble, what would you do in this situation?” I looked at her in the eye which seems to be spooked her a bit as she trembled.

“I—I would go help the people…!” she replied before I smacked her head with my hand, sighing.

“You will help the people through how? Words? Money? I am not assigning you to any job right now since I feel like you are the most useless out of the three but then again, Leo showed confidence in your so-called magical swordsmanship, which is why I am keeping you with me, but I want to hear your opinion… how will you help the people in this situation?” I asked before she averted her gaze a bit as if she was afraid of answering incorrectly.

She couldn’t answer even after ten minutes which left me sighing as I looked up at the skies with a bitter smile, “You know… you don’t really have to answer that question, even me in the past wouldn’t even bother answering a question like that.”

“But if you ask me right now, the best way to help the people in this situation is to listen to their voices. You have to listen to what they need the most, they are the people who suffered, and they are the people who know best what this town needs the most,” I looked at her with a smile, “And that leads me to your assignment, I want you to go around the town and ask the people: ‘What do you think this town needs right now to recover?’”

To think that I, the proud heiress of the legendary Vampire clan would be looking after humans—isn’t that such a twisted fate? The humans don’t even care about their own people, so why do I have to care for them?! All they look after is greed and I can tell that with a single glance. Even in the past, our clan was greedy but after reaching this far, we have changed a lot.

We cared little about money, or gold now. What matters to us is how we can assist one another in surviving the harshest predicaments? How can we lead our clan to survival? How we can keep ourselves alive… that is our goal from thousands of years ago and till this day.

“Hey shy little thorn, do you understand what I am asking? It’s a simple task, go around the town and ask people. As a knight, you can do it, right? After all, knights are people who should have the trust of the people,” I showed a smile, patting her head as she looked at me a bit afraid.

“Ye—yes! I can do it!” she saluted before I nodded in satisfaction.

“Then show me the results, within two hours, meet me in the town’s heart and give me your report,” I said before she nodded as she ran away like an adorable girl she was, leaving me alone together with dozens of knights that were under my command now.

After heaving a sigh, I then turned towards the knights with a serious expression, “You are knights of the Royal Knights Brigade C, is that correct? Then, all of you must know already that I take my work seriously and want to be as efficient as possible.”

“As such, I will task half of the brigade to move around the town and report to me all suspicious activities that are happening. Prioritize any activities that involve human lives such as slavery and drug dealing, once you receive information about slavery happening or drug dealing, REPORT BACK TO ME AS FAST AS POSSIBLE! DO NOT LET YOUR EMOTIONS OVERWHELM YOU! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” I shouted before all of them saluted at the same time.

With this many forces under my command, I can start progress on changing this town as fast as possible. This is the first time I have moved a lot since Teil has dragged me around, that reminds me, how is Teil after I left that world? How will the clan survive without the heiress?

I have so many questions in mind that cannot be easily answered without the help of that stupid God which makes me hesitate a bit from asking. As much as I hate Teil, she is the one who tends to bring up the mood of the world around me a bit—even though it was only a bit… oh well, I’ll think about it later.

“ALL OF YOU GET MOVING! The remaining half will stay with me and wait for the others to arrive, all of you will be on standby and will move immediately once we receive reports of illegal activities, prioritize all activities that will endanger human life, do you understand?!” I asked.

“YES, YOUR HIGHNESS!” they all screamed before half of them immediately started moving, they formed groups of four people each which impressed me a bit. How they moved made me realize once more that they were trained, professional knights.

They didn’t go alone, even without discussion, they understood who goes where and who teams up with whom. There were a total of eight groups of knights with four people in each group, each direction whether it’d be north, south, or southeast, west, or whatever had a group moving there.

After the knights were no longer visible, Felice soon came back with eight men. Four of them had their fingers literally sliced off which irritated me as it meant half of them retaliated, as someone who only had loyal servants, this was practically treason for me.

“Let me go! I am the son of a merchant!” one of them came shouting at me with the normal cliché. He was one of the people who had their fingers sliced off, the others were also screaming at me like I was some kind of pushover which annoyed me so much… they threatened to tell me to their fathers or mothers which made me laugh inside.

“Four people dared to retaliate under my orders, how dare you?!” I materialized my trusty scythe and without hesitation, sliced off their arms causing blood to spill as their bodies fell to the floor, “I am no saint when it comes to handling my territory.”

“A person like the four of you becoming captains for the guards, daring to retaliate even when someone of the Royal Knights came?!” I looked at them with anger, their eyes were filled with tears. They kept begging me to let them live, the same words that repeated all over and over: `Please let me live! I have a family!` or `I didn’t mean to retaliate!`

So what—You have a family?! How many other people in the town also have families?! I wonder how many people they threatened with their swords?!

“You are the person who said you will report me to your father, right?!” I looked at one of the guard captains who had his arms sliced off, he had the same look like a playboy with his golden hair and annoying brown eyes.

“YES! ARE YOU AFRAID?! HAHAHAHA! IT’S TOO LATE NOW, HOW ABOUT YOU BEG ME?” he said with eyes of delusion.

“How can I be afraid when I don’t even know your father?” I looked at him with disgust before Felice whispered a few words to me. Apparently, this guy is the son of a baron who lives in another town, his father was also a big fraud, but the kingdom was never bothered to take care of him since it would be a waste of resources which is why they are still alive till this day.

I felt a headache hearing Felice explain to me, to think that the kingdom never bothered to take care of corrupt nobles… it seems like that young ruler of theirs really isn’t someone who I want to help. Amidst my thinking, the four nobles who had their arms sliced kept on ranting about the great achievements they have achieved while screaming from the pain of having their arms sliced which seems pretty weird.

Their arms were literally sliced, and they weren’t even screaming in pain, I was expecting them to wail on the ground with tears but to think they would end up flaunting their parent's achievements instead of their own… is this the power of delusional noble sons?

“Are you four done talking about your parents?” I looked at them with a plain gaze before closing my eyes as I swung my scythe straight at their heads mercilessly, letting their heads fall to the ground as I looked at the remaining captains with an annoyed gaze, “The four of you from now on will watch over the four walls.”

“I won’t show mercy to any of you if you dare betray my orders. I will fund twenty gold coins straight onto the town to fix the walls which should be more than enough, make sure the twenty gold coins are used without a single waste. There will be a separate reward for the four of you once that is complete,” I said while dematerializing my scythe.

The four of them trembled from my orders which was understandable as I was unconsciously utilizing my aura as the heiress of the vampires which is way more overwhelming to humans than you think. The heiress of the Vampires is trained to have an aura that could even kill people who get targeted by it through suffocation.

“As for these corpses,” I looked at the four bodies in front of me before flicking my finger as I imagined their bodies burning which was immediately fulfilled by magic. Their bodies immediately turned into ashes without the animation, they just literally turned into ashes which amused me, “They do not need any burial.”

“Trash nobles deserve no burials, only the true noble will have a proper burial if I would even kill one,” I said without flinching before looking at the knights with a yawn, “Leo is taking a bit of a long time, I will send one group to follow up with Leo immediately. Does anyone want to volunteer?”

No one rose their hands which made me sigh as I threw six rocks up in the air before all six of the rocks smacked the heads of six people who I then said, “The six who were smacked with the rock will be the ones to follow up with Leo.”

“As for the rest of you, go sit somewhere. If you want water, come to me. I’ll splash your entire face with a fat bucket of water through magic,” I said while laying my back on the broken wall with a heavy yawn, “Wake me up if anyone needs me…”

After that, no one dared to bother me for an hour until one knight suddenly came rushing towards us with heavy breathing as he said, “My lady! We have found a slave trader about to leave the town to sell a group of slaves!”