The Vampire Empress.

“Ayaka, to your left!” I shouted to the cute little elf who was dressed in an adorable white dress, carrying a tiny wand in her hand as she pointed it towards her left, creating a bright red magic circle that turned into a fireball, blasting the boar that was running towards her in mere seconds.

We were now in a middle of a forest somewhere, hunting boars together with several knights whose swords were being swung towards giant, fleshy red boars. The knights were having quite the intense battle for some low-level boars which made me doubt whether they were actual members of a royal knight brigade or some low-level brigade.

Even the knights back at the vampire clan would probably annihilate them without flicking a single finger, they were powerful enough to break a silver sword with their fingers, let alone some pesky knights who couldn’t even defeat a boar at this level.

Though, Ayaka sure impresses me each time; her cast speed was far faster than the average mage according to the books I have read, she can cast a fireball within five hundred milliseconds or exactly half a second which is something only mages with two to three years’ experience can do.

“Mama, did I do well?” Ayaka turned towards me with a bright smile that warms my cold, bloody heart.

Her smile looked wonderful, beautiful. It made me want to protect her, spoil her to death. She has been the reason why I couldn’t swear in front of the knights lately, my attitude is being forced to take her into consideration which made me smile bitterly as I jumped off from the branch, patting the cute little elf’s soft hair.

“You did well, Ayaka,” I kissed her forehead as she jumped in joy before I turned towards the knights with a sigh, “How many boars have we killed?”

“We have killed a total of twenty boars, my lady,” one of the knights replied.

“Hmm—that’s a bit boring, twenty boars out of sixty within three hours,” I heaved an exhausted sigh. We were practically killing one boar every ten minutes which is quite inefficient if we want to reach home within daylight, “All of you back off from hereafter, I will take care of the remaining.”

After declaring those words, I soon closed my eyes while releasing a bit of mana towards the distance before blue flames appeared over the darkness. Those blue flames were practically souls in a sense, or presences that can be detected through mana, and from the look of it, there were a lot of them nearby.

There were around probably thirty or more boars nearby, it was hard to get a proper estimate since there were too many blue flames in clusters and even scattered away. The only way to get them to gather towards us is by enticing them and what else would be more enticing than the blood of a vampire?

Opening my eyes once more, I soon ran towards a tree, hopping around its branches before reaching the top where I hopped straight upwards, utilizing wind magic to propel me high up in the air while unleashing a tiny bit of my wings to keep me floating as I materialized my scythe, creating a small wound on my finger before dripping the blood down to the floor.

Almost immediately, the ground shook violently as a large dust cloud appeared over the distance. Dozens of boars were running towards our direction which as my expected result, the blood of a vampire indeed enticed them.

“My lady…?!” one of the knights who were below me shouted, all of them looked at the wave of boars approaching our direction with horror. They could hardly handle two boars together let alone a pack of them, their bodies trembled as they entered defensive positions which made me giggle.

They looked like ants trying to defend themselves against a human which looked hilarious to my eyes, but I had no time to laugh as I pointed my finger towards the wave of boars, casting an image of a burning forest inside my mind.

With the assistance of mana, a large magic circle that engulfed the entire forest in front of me appeared, extending until the end of the wave as the scenery around them turned reddish. The reddish hue grew in intensity with each passing second as the trees slowly burned.

“[Fire Magic: Inferno]” I mumbled before the clouds above the magic circle turned gloomy, followed by two tiny whirlwinds that descended straight down towards the fiery forest. The whirlwinds absorbed all the fire on the forest, leaving the forest itself unimpacted as they turned into two gigantic firenadoes that rampaged throughout the square radius.

The firenadoes roared around the square radius that was set, turning the peaceful forest into a fiery hell as I closed my eyes and watched the blue flames vanish one after another. It was like I was watching someone blow candles on their hundredth birthday as the blue flames kept dissipating away before the last remaining flame dissipated which signaled me to open my eyes.

After receiving the signal that the last boar died, I immediately sliced off both connections of the spell to my mana which caused all the spell circles to vanish. The reddish hue vanished like it never existed, the burning forest didn’t look like it went through hell at all, the only thing that was left was the corpses of the boars.

“You can start counting the kill count,” I descended towards the knights who were all staring at me with their jaws down to the floor, their eyes were about to explode from the shock which made me laugh as they looked at me like I was some kind of demon king who descended down before them.

After ten seconds of shock, all of them snapped back to reality and saluted before running away towards the corpses where they started counting the dead boars one after another—except for one cute knight, Ayaka who was looking at me with sparkling eyes, “Mama! How did you do that?!”

Excitement and anticipation for my answer could be seen plastered all over her face, this girl had the potential to become one of humanities’ greatest enemy if I so desired to make her that way, and her reasoning if she ever becomes one would still be justified, after all, she was tortured by these pesky humans that I am saving.

“You will learn it in the future, my sweet darling. Someone like you who has more talent than me is bound to fly above the clouds,” I lowered myself to her level and smiled before she hugged me super tightly with a bright smile that continued to warm this empty heart of mine.

Never in my lifetime had I expected someone to breach all the defenses on my heart nor was I expecting a cute little elf to breach it within a day, it was unimaginable for me in the past but the impossible happened before me.

“Mama, I want to become like you!” she happily said.

“You will never become like me, Ayaka,” I kissed her forehead, “That is because you are going to become someone who will be far better than I could ever achieve.”

After our short little conversation, the knights soon returned with one to four boars on their back with one of them who was at the front rushing towards me with a salute, “My lady, a total of one hundred and twenty-six boars were killed.”

One hundred and twenty-six boars, that’s a large number but how long would that sustain a population of five hundred people—is my question since we want to keep the population alive as long as possible since they will be a great workforce to bringing this town to its peak.

“How long do you think that many boars will sustain the population?” I looked at the knight in the eye as he started sweating nervously.

“According to my calculations, if we ration the boar meat to six plates for every family or every six people then we would have enough to last for one to two months, my lady,” he answered.

I nodded in satisfaction—one to two months is more than enough for us to have most of our operations resumed, a Planta Mana only takes two weeks to grow which means we can have the mana from the earth vein flowing back to the upper land within three weeks then by then, our first seeds of food will grow and then money will come flowing again.

“Bring all the boars back to town, inform Iona and Felice to handle the rationing. Make sure to tell them I want to most efficient and satisfying plan for rationing, we only need the food to last at least one and half months. If they need me, tell them I will be watching over the farmland in the meantime,” I said before he saluted once more before leaving.

Those brats really are afraid of me though, a single glance and you can tell their bodies tremble just standing in front of me. Their sweat could literally create a river if I kept them standing in front of me for an hour, am I that scary—what if I were to go on a rampage, would their sweat be replaced with blood instead?

Heaving a sigh, I then turned towards my angel who was paying attention to the entire talks with serious gazes which made me smile as I kissed her on the cheek before asking, “Do you want to have some fun, Ayaka?”

She looked at me confused but nodded anyway which made me giggle over how cute she was, after receiving her affirmation, my eyes turned towards one of the trees as I tightened my grip on Ayaka before jumping onto the tree’s branches.

After jumping over several dozens of branches, I soon reached the top of the tree where I immediately jumped off from the tree, releasing a tiny part of my wings which was just enough to be hidden by my hair as I assisted myself with a bit of wind magic to help me fly towards a certain direction.

Our eyes were pinned towards the beautiful bright sky that curved near the edges of our eyes, the wondrous melting sun that looked like lasagna with cheese. The warm, white clouds that covered the sun like blankets, everything above the skies looked beautiful.

I couldn’t fully utilize my vampiric wings since it would arise a lot of suspicion from the humans, therefore I could only use it to assist my wind spells, propelling me upward each time I glided near a level where I felt was dangerous, in a sense, I was endlessly gliding.

“Mama, look!” Ayaka pointed towards the sun with sparkling eyes.

“Does it look beautiful?” I looked at her with a smile before she nodded in rapid motion, her golden eyes sparkled more than usual as I closed my eyes with a giggle, “If you want, you could turn this entire world yours. All you need is power; wouldn’t you want to become a ruler who can look at the skies freely?”

“Mama, what is a ruler?” her head tilted to the side.

“A ruler is someone who looks after their people, whether it’d be from the skies or from the depths of fire. They are the ones who the people trust to protect them and guide them to survival,” I smiled, “Of course, they are not invincible. They have the people’s trust and with that trust, they use it to turn everyone’s worlds filled with darkness into a world of rainbows.”

“Waa—” she shouted, “Then can I become a ruler?”

“You can, as long as you keep training, no one will ever stop you from becoming one,” I replied, of course, what I am telling her is not only the way of a tyrant but the way of a wise ruler. A wise ruler would use the people’s trust while a tyrant would use their own strength to become the leader of the people.

My ideal is not to become a tyrant nor a wise ruler but rather a combination of both; to become one who others cannot simply contend against whether it’d be in power or knowledge. You can become a wise ruler, but your downfall will be your strength; you can become a tyrant, but your endless pool of blood will be your downfall.

After some time in the air, we soon glided down towards the farmland where dozens of knights could be seen digging the land with their swords which made me laugh super hard inside. Indeed, I did instruct them to go shoveling with their swords but for them to take me literally… Pfft—.

“What the heck are you all doing with your swords?!” I shouted at them.

“Your Highness?!” one of the knights who was enjoying his time shoveling turned around with surprise, “We are doing as you instructed us to do!”

“PFFFT—get out, use your brains a bit. Are you all muscleheads who only know how to use a sword or do you all know how to use magic as well?!” I shouted with a sigh, “This is not how I envisioned all of you to work… haaaa…”

After saying those words, I materialized my scythe before closing my eyes as I created an image of a perfect farmland on my mind. After perfecting the image, I soon opened my eyes as a large magic circle appeared over the land. It was a brown magic circle that slowly descended.

Two seconds after the magic circle reached a certain level, the ground started to rise and curve. Forming into the perfect farmland that I envisioned, one that stretched far and beyond. It didn’t even cost me much mana as well.

“That’s how you are supposed to do it,” I sighed before looking at them, annoyed as they stared at me with their jaws wide open like the other knights.

“Err… Your Highness,” one of the knights rose his hands before continuing, “None of us are capable enough to do such a grandiose spell… not even the strongest sage in the royal attack force would be able to perform such spell without exhausting themselves.”

“Haa?!” I looked at them with surprise, “Is everyone in this world weak?!”

“No, Your Highness…” another knight intervened, “You are just too overpowered…”

Makes sense—or so I would want to say! Heck, overpowered?! Do you want your heads sliced off from your bodies right now?! This much magic is overpowered, oh please—go find a hole to hide on and never come back.

If Ayaka wasn’t here, I would definitely go on a rampage but oh well… if I am indeed overpowered then all those deeds those magicians did that were written on the books must have been overexaggerated, as expected of life.

“Anyway, all of you are to return to your stations after washing up somewhere. Every single one of you will be reassigned to assist the distribution of goods to the population,” I sighed before all of them saluted at the same time and left.

After all of them had left, I soon turned my attention towards Ayaka whose eyes kept sparkling as she looked at me filled with anticipation, “You want to learn how to do something like that, is that correct?”

Without latency, she nodded as I heaved a sigh, turning my attention to the other farmland behind me which was still uncultivated, “I’ll teach you but don’t try to expend mana that your body cannot output, do you understand?”

“Anyhow, do you remember what I told you about how to cast magic?” I asked before she tilted her head.

“Uhmm… result matter?” she replied as I nodded.

“The best way to cast magic is to image out the results that you want, not the process to get to the result. You can think of a flowery garden and mana will create that flowery garden for you, or if you want, you could envision a world of fire and mana will do just that for you as long as you have the power and capacity to do so.”

“Hmm… so like this?” she looked at the uncultivated land with a frown before a medium-size magic circle appeared over at the land, the medium size circle slowly descended to a level near the same as mine before a bright and blinding light eclipsed all over the land, dissipating as a wonderful, neat farmland like the one I had created appeared.

I didn’t know what to say; it felt like my heart was being attacked, to think that this girl easily managed to cast such a spell without me even going to detail on how. Isn’t she the actual overpowered person and not me?!