WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Genius Knight of a Fallen Race ◈

Chapter 40: The End of Long Years Is Tragically Empty

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Normally, it was nearly impossible for something running on the ground to catch up with something flying.

Unless nothing but wide open plains stretched ahead, mountains, rivers, and steep canyons would force long detours along the way. No matter how fast it ran, it could never close the distance.

Yet even with Shan on her back, Awin accomplished the impossible.

She swam across small streams, climbed low mountains, and leaped across gaps several meters wide between cliffs as she pursued the lord of Kastaman Castle in the distance.

When the vampire looked back and saw them, it beat its wings even more furiously in shock. Shan could not help laughing.

A high vampire was supposed to treat humans as prey, yet anyone could see who the prey was now.

The chase continued for about five minutes before it finally came to an end.

The vampire gave up flying and slowly descended to the ground.

‘Just as I thought.’

Flying monsters were broadly divided into two types: those whose arms were wings, and those with wings attached separately to their backs.

The former could fly as freely as actual birds, but the latter often had limits on their flight speed or duration.

Sir Darkal had guessed that it was because they could not use their shoulder and arm muscles to aid their flight.

In any case, since that thing had bat wings on its back, it could not stay airborne for long.

As Shan urged Awin closer, the castle lord shouted in a solemn yet sinister voice that did not suit its ugly appearance.

“You! I have a message for your master, so stop!”

Surprised that it wanted to talk, Shan slowed Awin instead of immediately attacking.

They were about thirty meters apart, too far for an ambush but close enough to converse if they raised their voices.

“What is it?”

“Tell your master I’ll change my offer! I don’t need a new territory! I’ll be satisfied if the area around Kastaman Castle is recognized as my domain, so make them stop this outrage at once!”

Shan considered those words for a moment before realizing that the vampire had mistaken him for Prince Elvin’s executioner.

Would it be better to agree, make it lower its guard, and kill it?

He considered it briefly, but decided there was no need.

More than anything, he wanted to see what a proper high vampire was capable of.

Since he had come this far, should he not have a real fight?

“And if I refuse?”

“You insolent human brat! Do you think the likes of you can oppose me? I am Kudrak, Lord of the Night, Ruler of Darkness, and heir to noble blood! I only retreated because you came at me as a group! One knight is no match for me!”

At Shan’s dismissive question, the vampire Kudrak flew into a rage.

The evil power in his voice carried the same force as the roar of a large monster, enough to suppress a human’s body and mind.

Neither Shan nor Awin flinched in fear.

That was thanks to Awin’s special bloodline, mixed with monster blood.

“A guy who ran for his life first is calling himself a lord and ruler...”

Shan muttered in disbelief, then urged Awin into a charge.

Kudrak glared at him with wide, blood-red eyes.

The moment their gazes met, Shan felt his consciousness being pulled from his body and drawn toward Kudrak.

It was the same kind of charm magic used by the vampire pretending to be a priest earlier, only far more powerful...

“Hoo.”

Yet all those mental effects vanished with a single deep breath.

The wall of Spirit within Shan, forged stronger than anyone’s through blood and tears, dispelled it all.

Still, it was better than the earlier vampire’s spell, which had not even made him dizzy.

‘What?’

Kudrak’s eyes widened in shock.

Over the past several centuries, he had fought knights at least ten times.

With the power he had built up over that time, even decent knights would be dazed for a few seconds or fall from their horses when struck by that spell for the first time.

To think there was a monster who could shake off his trump card with a single breath!

“Graaah!”

Since charm magic had failed, he had no choice but to try something else.

The enormous bat-like humanoid, nearly two meters tall, sprang into the air and brought his hooked claws down toward Shan’s head.

With the glide of his wings added to the attack, he was literally descending from the sky.

He was also far stronger and faster than the vampire from before.

Still, to someone for whom both of them looked similarly slow, it was nothing special.

Shan calmly thrust the spear in his right hand while using the shield on his left arm to knock aside the incoming hooked claws.

“Ghk!”

This time, Shan imbued the spear with the intent of destruction rather than penetration and impact.

His magical spear did not merely pierce Kudrak’s heart. It blasted a hole larger than a fist through his side.

Awin carried Shan another dozen meters to create distance, then Shan turned back.

The vampire stood there with his heart gone, his body hanging in tatters. The wound writhed as if it desperately wanted to regenerate, proof that the spear’s magic had worked properly.

“You dare...!”

Despite having no heart, Kudrak shouted quite clearly and waved a hand.

The pitch-black blood pouring from his chest surged upward.

It was an attack spell that almost no modern human could use for various reasons, practically the exclusive domain of monsters.

Blood magic, the vampires’ specialty.

“Oh...!”

Dozens of blood streams, refined into sharp gems, flew toward Shan.

After checking their trajectories, Shan raised his spear and began intercepting them.

He only targeted the attacks that might strike Awin, not the ones flying at him.

For ordinary knights, precisely controlling a spear over three meters long to strike down finger-joint-sized projectiles aimed not at themselves but at the horse they rode was beyond imagination, bordering on fantasy.

Even Shan had to concentrate hard enough for his head to grow hot, leaving him little room to protect his own body.

Tatata!

As blood crystals struck his plate armor, the sound was like hail pounding on a metal roof, and his body vibrated.

When one flew at his face, Shan tilted his head slightly and deflected it with the side of his helmet.

The armor was scratched and dented in several places, but nothing pierced through completely.

The defensive magic placed on it for the jousting tournament remained active. Shan had deliberately let some attacks hit him instead of blocking them all, and now he understood why people paid so much to have magic placed on armor.

After all, it could withstand even a knight’s lance charge, though that charge was deliberately imbued with the intent of impact rather than penetration.

Even this armor had been scratched this badly. Ordinary soldiers in leather armor would have been wiped out by that magic in a single strike.

Thinking Awin might have been badly injured if he had left her unprotected, Shan stroked her mane.

‘I need to get her barding as soon as possible.’

Like a person’s armor, horse armor had to be tailored to fit properly. Awin was much larger than an ordinary horse, so ready-made equipment would never do.

He had already placed an order, so he could only hope it would be finished by the time they returned to the capital after this job.

While Shan worried over his beloved horse’s safety, Kudrak stood with his mouth hanging open in shock.

It was one thing for Shan to block his trump card so easily, but Shan had taken attacks meant for himself head-on while only stopping those aimed at his horse.

Was that not practically saying, ‘I can block your attacks easily, but I’ll show you that I can take them too’?

“You, you bastard! What are you? Could you be Marquis Abel... No, that man should already be old...”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

At the mention of Pendia’s strongest knight, whom he would have to surpass someday, Shan offered a careless thanks and charged again.

Kudrak twisted his already ugly face and formed a large blood shield from the blood still pouring from his unhealed wound.

The shield was about a meter wide and two meters tall. Made from black blood, it looked as though it had been carved from obsidian.

Yet that decisive shield also shattered helplessly beneath Shan’s lance charge.

Shan used the leaf-shaped spearhead to tear Kudrak’s head from his body, then impaled it like a skewer.

“Can’t you talk like this?”

Kudrak opened and closed his mouth as if trying to answer, but only made wheezing noises. No meaningful words came out.

He seemed able to control his headless body, which kept trying to rise. Yet it repeatedly fell over, perhaps because it had lost its sense of balance.

‘Then silver... Ah, I left the powder behind.’

Shan clicked his tongue after realizing the baggage he had removed from Awin’s back contained the silver powder he needed.

Fortunately, he had another way.

When he placed a hand at his collar, the blue-silver substance covering his upper body wriggled like a snake and flowed into his hand.

“For a vampire, you’re getting a truly luxurious death.”

True silver was a substance that, like ordinary silver, possessed the power to destroy evil.

Shan shaped Thousand Forms, made of pure true silver, into a longsword and stabbed it into the headless body.

Like when he had scattered silver powder earlier, the body radiated white light and burst into flames.

Then Shan sliced through Kudrak’s shocked, ugly face with the blade, ending the life of the hideous monster that had lived for centuries.

* * *

After dealing with the castle lord, Shan gathered the vampire’s ashes into an empty sack and found a magic stone a little larger than his fist.

It was somewhat small, but Kudrak had been quite powerful, so it should be useful.

Perhaps Shan could ask Princess Serin to make armor using it as material in exchange for taking on her next request.

When he returned to Kastaman Castle, Shan was unexpectedly greeted by Roden, who looked rather exhausted, and mercenaries wounded in several places.

They had been guarding the castle gate, though Shan had no idea when it had been opened. When they saw him return, their faces brightened.

“What happened? Why did you leave the villagers alone?”

“The lesser vampires hiding inside rushed out all at once... We managed to subdue them all, thankfully.”

Shan’s expression hardened at Roden’s answer.

“Were you hurt anywhere?”

He had heard lesser vampires were something mercenaries could handle, but large numbers of them were too dangerous to ignore.

Even goblins could crush Shan to death if thousands attacked him at once.

“No. Fortunately, the mercenaries controlling the village all joined forces, so we managed to hold them off.”

They were all used to hunting monsters, so it seemed they had done their part.

Shan thought they deserved a little extra pay.

“Really, I should be asking whether you were hurt, Sir Shan. You went to fight the leader, and it looks like you had quite a fierce battle.”

Come to think of it, the scratches all over Shan’s plate armor did make it seem as though he had gone through a fierce fight.

In truth, it had been closer to a one-sided slaughter due to the overwhelming difference in ability and equipment.

Shan smiled awkwardly and handed over the castle lord’s ashes.

“Here. This is the one from earlier.”

“I’m glad you caught him. Then we can finally go inside and see whether there are any more.”

They had only avoided entering the castle in case there were more high vampires inside.

Shan and Roden positioned the mercenaries at the gates so no one could enter or leave.

Fortunately, after seeing vampires pour out of the castle, the villagers below fully trusted Shan and followed his orders. There was no need to station extra people among them.

Inside, Shan and Roden were first greeted by the bodies of people who had been drained dry by vampires.

They appeared to be the castle’s servants.

“Mm... This is horrible...”

Roden let out a low groan at the gruesome sight and offered a brief prayer. Shan followed suit.

Afterward, the two searched through the castle.

It was not difficult despite there being only two of them. There were only a few servants’ rooms, several utility rooms, and the castle lord’s quarters.

Unfortunately, the vampire was not particularly rich for someone who had lived for centuries.

Then again, how could someone who hid in the countryside and ate farmers every few months possibly become wealthy?

Kastaman Castle belonged directly to the king rather than any local lord, and had been left almost completely neglected because the land was too barren.

There was barely any tax revenue to squeeze from it, so it was not properly managed. The position of castle lord had been bought and sold repeatedly until monsters moved in, and no one had cared enough to notice.

Roden found a stack of papers while searching the castle lord’s room. After reading through them, Roden frowned.

“Oh, this would be dangerous if it got out.”

“What is it?”

“Letters Prince Elvin sent to a vampire, along with his diary.”

Elvin was not an idiot, so he had not written anything as blatant as a request to kill his older brother and his followers.

As befitted a high noble, the letters were filled with metaphors and euphemisms vague enough that it would be hard to press the issue if he insisted they meant nothing.

Yet the recipient had explained every letter in his diary. The fact that Elvin had exchanged letters with a vampire on such a subject alone would be enough to tarnish the prince’s name.

“Should we burn them?”

“Mm, that would be a waste... Let’s give them to Princess Serin. They’ll be more useful to her than to us.”

As they had discussed before, they could frame Prince Conrad for this affair and direct Prince Elvin’s anger toward him. That would make things easier for them.

Even if they did not, all they had done publicly was wipe out a nest of vampires, so Prince Elvin had no grounds to say anything. Behind the scenes, though, matters would be different.

Roden read further through the diary and clicked his tongue, saying he had found out why the vampires had emerged from the castle.

“What is it?”

“These people were deliberately capturing and raising lesser vampires to create high vampires.”

Ordinary vampires emerged from somewhere deep in the Demon Realm, wandered through mountains and fields craving human blood, and died. Only those lucky enough to consume the blood of dozens or hundreds of humans and survive became high vampires.

If one kept feeding humans to lower vampires, eventually high vampires would be created.

For that purpose, Lord Kudrak had imprisoned several lesser vampires beneath the castle after subduing them with charm magic. He took them out every night to hunt people.

The priest Shan had killed earlier was also one created that way.

“So when the castle lord ran, the charm magic was broken?”

“Probably.”

Neither of them knew much about magic, but even they could make that deduction.

The important thing came next. Surprisingly, this was not something Kudrak of Kastaman Castle had done on his own.

According to the diary, he was raising vampires there at the request of an organization called the Council.

“The Council? The name makes me think of the Magic Society.”

“I think it’s a gathering of high vampires.”

“What kind of monster has a gathering?”

Being a diary, it did not explain every detail of the Council’s members. Still, some of them apparently blended into human society and wielded considerable influence.

Shan listened quietly, then clicked his tongue.

“This is getting much bigger than I expected...”

A gathering of high vampires operating secretly among humans.

Someone might have vaguely imagined that such a thing existed, but it was an organization that had never been officially exposed.

After pondering for a while, Roden sighed and snapped the diary shut.

“Mm, we should hand this over to the princess too. Her information network is far better than ours.”

Of course, the princess was not someone who acted for their well-being. At least by carrying out this request, Shan had proven that he could become the strongest blade at her disposal.

If Serin was not a fool, she would naturally handle things in a way that kept Shan safe.

After gathering everything useful, Shan and Roden went outside and gathered the villagers. They gave them a mixture of truth and lies.

The castle lord and priest were actually powerful vampires who had lived for centuries and could disguise themselves as humans. Sir Shan had discovered the truth by chance and come to defeat them.

“My goodness...”

“Is that really true?”

“Didn’t you see all those monsters pouring out of the castle?”

“That’s right. There was even one that could fly. I saw the priest transform too.”

“No wonder there were so many vampires around here! Jami was bitten last month too.”

The villagers were shocked by the news, but they were not terribly shaken.

They had already heard some things beforehand, and there was too much evidence they had seen with their own eyes.

Only the families of servants who had gone to work at the castle and met a terrible end wailed in grief.

“Still, it’s shocking that the castle lord was a vampire.”

“Shocking, my ass! I thought something was suspicious from the beginning.”

“Anyone can say that now.”

“No, really! His skin was pale, and he never got along with people much...”

In truth, Lord Kudrak had not been particularly well liked among the villagers.

He had not oppressed them or squeezed them for taxes, but he had shown little interest in protecting them either.

Considering that a lord in such a rural territory normally served much the same role as the village head, public opinion could not have been favorable.

“Then who becomes the next castle lord?”

“Kudrak’s son, who was supposed to be the heir, has died too...”

“If he really was a vampire, that son probably wasn’t his real son either, you idiot!”

The son they meant was naturally the human boy Kudrak had brought in as a disguise.

Each generation, he brought in a child who resembled his human form well enough. Once the child reached the right age, Kudrak killed them and took their place.

Naturally, the heir he had planned to use this time had been drained dry by the vampires that escaped after the charm magic broke.

“Could it be...?”

The villagers, who had been murmuring among themselves, turned their eyes to Shan.

Their gazes were full of hope, as though they expected the powerful young knight to become their new lord.

In Pendia, a paradise for monsters, a powerful knight could be a dependable protector to the people simply by existing.

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