NAPE - 60

“There are a total of three families that disappeared from the family tree. They are very closely related to the Vampire Wars. This here… is the Executor Exstercold family, who once stood shoulder to shoulder with the Executioners. This is the Servant family, who started the war. And this is the Roer family, who joined them. Roer wasn’t really a big deal. They were easily swayed, so they cooperated with the eldest son of the Servant family, then tucked their tails and ran away.”

Jack erased the Roer family’s insignia with a bitter expression, as if he had lost his entire body.

“Hmm…. Where should I start? It’s going to be quite a long story. Right, you all know, don’t you? The three main powers in the vampire world. The Elder Council, the Executioners, and the Executors. The Elder Council makes the laws, and the Executors are the ones who monitor and punish. The Executioners… well, the name says it all. They are the grim reapers who deal with threats to the shadow world without any special procedures. The vampire world maintained its balance thanks to them.”

Jack circled the Servant family’s insignia with a twig.

“But there was someone who rebelled against this. The eldest son of the Servant family, Claireval. He wanted to be king. He gathered those who shared his ambition, then went to London and bit humans indiscriminately. He wanted to build an army. His idea was to overwhelm with numbers. At first, it seemed like he would succeed. London was in chaos for a while. The pureblood vampires kept a low profile, afraid of getting involved in troublesome affairs, and they ran around trying to prevent the shadow world from being exposed to the light. The Executors were busy trying to find the center of the rebellion.”

“I know the situation up to that point roughly. Do you know anything about the purebloods who were born at that time?”

Doyoon asked, wanting more intimate details.

“If it’s a child… a child was born into the Tudor family.”

“Not Tudor.”

“Not Tudor? Hmm…. Come to think of it, the leader did say that. That his younger sibling seemed to be pregnant….”

Jack’s eyes, which had been cloudy as if looking at a distant past, suddenly focused directly on Bibi. His face lit up as if he had discovered an ancient artifact.

“It’s you!”

“…….”

“Your eyes are exactly the same. Like the eyes of Claireval’s younger sibling, Luna!”

Startled, Bibi couldn’t hide her bewilderment and touched her eyes with her hand. She had never given much thought to her own pupils. She hadn’t even considered who she might have inherited them from…. Luna, the younger sibling of Claireval who started the rebellion.

Confusion descended like opening a gift box with a clown hiding inside. Looking at Doyoon, he also had a complicated expression.

“What I’m about to tell you is something that probably only I in this world knows now.”

Unlike the bewildered pair, Jack seemed very interested and lowered his voice gravely.

“Servant Claireval’s younger sister, Luna, was a pureblood vampire. She was a good woman. Beautiful, kind, and naive. Her only fault was being born into the Servant family. It was a terribly human-like family. Most vampires follow the maternal line, but that family followed the paternal line. It was very strange.”

Doyoon nodded in agreement with the word ‘strange’.

“You all know, right? There’s a wealth gap even in the vampire world. There are many ways to accumulate wealth now, but the majority of vampire families were just close to rural nobility. Among them, the Servant family were ambitious people filled with inferiority complex. Her father wanted to raise Luna as a prostitute. He wanted her to curry favor with the Elder Council members to raise the family’s status. If they raised her for three hundred years just to teach her how to seduce, that says it all.”

Doyoon frowned. A scene of a woman resembling Bibi trapped in a house automatically came to mind. Jack seemed to read his displeasure and lowered his voice.

“Right before starting the rebellion war, Claireval secretly sent Luna into the Executor family’s household. As a spy. That was probably the first and last time Luna went out into the outside world. To live as a maid for a long time in that violent, ill-tempered, and authoritarian Exstercold family. If it were me, I would have just thrown myself into the fire.”

“What happened after that?”

Doyoon asked in a low voice.

“As the war broke out, the vampire world fell into chaos. Luna, perhaps afraid of being discovered as a spy, secretly disappeared. Around the time most of the rebels were suppressed and the war was almost over, we found her. The pregnant her….”

Bibi could guess that she was the one in the belly of the woman named Luna. Should she continue to listen to this story without any preparation? Jack continued the story without any intention of stopping.

“I didn’t hear exactly who the baby’s father was, but I could guess. It seemed to be one of the Elder Council members. The place she was hiding was the Elder Council’s club. Claireval interrogated her fiercely to find out who the father was, but Luna didn’t say anything until the end. That day, Claireval was so enraged that he tried to set his own sister on fire.”

Bibi’s complexion worsened at the words ‘tried to set her on fire’. Why would people who shared the same blood be so furious with each other? She hadn’t even betrayed them….

“So what happened to Luna?”

Doyoon asked.

“You know how the Vampire Wars ended, right? The rebellion war was ended by the Executioners and the Executors. All those involved were executed.”

“Then….”

“Yeah. At that time, not only Claireval but also Luna was caught and killed while pregnant. That’s what I know, anyway. That’s probably why those pages were torn from the family tree. To signify that they no longer existed and should be forgotten from memory.”

“Where is the Executor family now?”

Bibi was curious about the current whereabouts of those who had killed her mother.

“The Executioner family still maintains its power, but the Executor family, Exstercold, fell with that war.”

“...Why? You said they won.”

“...I don’t know the reason either. Actually, when the Executors attacked, I abandoned my friends and subordinates and fled desperately. I’ve lived in the forest ever since… and at some point, they say they fell. So the vampire world is probably now in a two-power struggle between the Elder Council and the Executioners. Am I right?”

Doyoon nodded.

“You’re right.”

Silence filled the underground crypt for a while as they each sorted out their thoughts. Despite learning about her birth, Bibi wasn’t happy.

So, did she crawl out from the womb of her mother who died pregnant? Was her father even alive? How did she end up in the hands of the trainer and live like a dog? Frustrating questions arose one after another.

“Even though your mother was from a traitorous family, she was a good person. Believe me.”

Jack comforted Bibi with a face filled with regret.

“But… you didn’t actually see Luna die, did you?”

Bibi remembered the smile of the person who had given birth to her. She used to think it was a fake memory she had created, but at some point, it became very vivid. The gentle laughter fading into the darkness, the scent of her blood. Bibi wanted to believe her own memories more than Jack’s words.

“I know how to speak English. And… I clearly remember that there was a woman who gave birth to me, Doyoon.”

Bibi wasn’t good at organizing her reasoning, but she stumbled upon some kind of basis. Maybe there was still hope, maybe Jack’s words weren’t entirely true. Fortunately, Doyoon understood right away.

“Let’s go to the last place that woman was held. Where is it, Jack?”

“It’s on the outskirts of London. I’ll write down the coordinates.”

Jack wrote numbers on the dirt floor. Bibi didn’t know what they meant, but Doyoon nodded as if he recognized them immediately.

“Let’s go as soon as the charity event ends.”

They had found out everything they needed to know. There was no more business with Jack. The two gave him a brief farewell and left the underground crypt.

“Whatever the case, you are a descendant of a traitorous family. Just because time has passed doesn’t mean your blood has thinned.”

Jack warned Bibi from inside the underground crypt.

“Be careful of the Executioners. They never let go of their prey. That’s why I live in the forest too.”

To be so afraid of the Executioners that he only drank deer blood and lived in the forest. Jack’s current situation… could that be her future? Bibi felt vaguely uneasy.

________________________________________

After Doyoon and Bibi left, Jack took a broom and crawled out of the underground crypt. He mechanically swept away the traces of the hunting dogs that had turned to ash.

It wasn’t because he cherished the abandoned monastery. If he didn’t clean up like this, he might arouse unnecessary suspicion from vampire hunters. He was just doing what he had to do.

There was no mourning for the hunting dogs who had met a futile death. To pureblood vampires, especially someone like Jack, hybrids were just living tools.

As Jack diligently cleaned the surroundings, he suddenly sensed an anomaly and raised his head. He fixed his gaze on the dark forest. He couldn’t see it with the naked eye, but a cold and unpleasant energy was gradually approaching. Was it a surviving hybrid vampire? No, it wasn’t….