Chapter 56

As Do-Jin’s eyes flew open, he was instantly thrown into confusion. He was supposed to wake up in a capsule. Instead, he found himself in a place he could never have imagined.

Where the hell am I now...?

A change in location should at least come with some context. The last thing he remembered was jumping into a massive drainage tunnel in the waterway, then blacking out. Now, he was lying in the middle of a barren wasteland he had never seen before.

Do-Jin turned his head in all directions, trying to make sense of the situation. That was when he saw her, someone extremely familiar. It was a vampire with long, pitch-black hair, standing there and staring up at the sky. However, something was off. She was supposed to be grinning like an idiot, always bouncing around with that carefree, clueless energy, yet she didn’t seem alive right now.

She looks more like a stuffed animal.

Even a mannequin would look more animated than she did.

“Hey,” Do-Jin called out.

As if on cue, a system message appeared before him.

[Replaying memories contained in the blood.]

[Owner of blood memories: Carneth Tirund and Karin Tirund.]

Carneth Tirund was the duke’s full name. By process of elimination, Karin Tirund must be the pathetic Elder standing in front of him.

No fucking way... So when Elder called Duke Tirund “Father”...? Was it because she really was his daughter?

Do-Jin’s eyes widened as the realization struck him.

Suddenly, the hazy memory changed scenery. A bed warped into view, and behind it came the rest of the room, presumably a mage’s workshop. Karin was lying there, pale and frail, death practically looming over her. Before her, a man resembling Duke Tirund in his younger days was shedding tears of blood. He kept muttering to himself as if in a trance.

“I will save you... No matter what, Karin, I swear I will...!”

“This is the only way. The only way... to keep her alive.”

A Magic Circle floated around him, glowing with his unique magic, Blood.

The forbidden ritual began. The duke’s entire territory was consumed by a vampiric curse, and Karin awoke as a vampire with her memories of her human life completely wiped away.

“This... This isn’t what I wanted!”

The duke wailed at his half-baked success, but the tears he shed were no longer tears. Only blood trickled from his crimson-stained eyes.

Although Karin’s body remained frozen at eighteen, her mind and emotions continued to develop. But even that growth unfolded in a lifeless gray. Crushed by regret, the duke had stopped expressing emotion altogether. The vampires around him, caught in that emotional void, became little more than lifeless dolls. Growing up among them, Karin was no different.

Then one day, she stared long and hard at something, something imagined, something she’d only read about in books: the world of humans. Shifting her gaze between the book, the images in her mind, and her own reflection, she tilted her head in quiet confusion. She touched her lips, realizing something didn’t match. Karin longed for the happy human lives written in those books.

She began imitating them, mindlessly copying the lines and actions in those stories. Scene after scene played out like a panorama, and gradually, her awkward mimicry became something smoother, more natural. Eventually, Karin appeared as the bright, smiling girl that Do-Jin knew, but only half her face was smiling. The other half stayed frozen, blank and expressionless, just as it had always been. Even then, she kept looking off into the distance, gazing longingly at those imagined humans, shimmering far away like a dream she’d never reach.

So that blinding smile of hers... it was all an act. Every bit of it

, Do-Jin thought.

The blood memories were a mess. They were fragmented, scattered, and disjointed. Whether it was because they were incomplete or because Karin’s mind was unstable, Do-Jin didn’t know. It was like watching a child scribble their pain onto a canvas, desperate to express something they didn’t understand. He could feel her loneliness, her emptiness, the ache of everything else she had suffered through.

[Memory replay is coming to an end.]

The scenery gradually faded into the distance. Do-Jin’s eyes snapped open as he found himself sprawled across a massive bed. The moment he came to, the system messages that had been waiting for him came crashing down like an avalanche.

[True Blood from the oldest vampire, Carneth Tirund, has been infused.]

[Blood of Vampire Elder Karin Tirund has been infused.]

[WARNING]

[Irreversible contamination in progress.]

Still caught in the feelings stirred up by Karin’s past, Do-Jin felt a cold sweat break out across his back. Not only had he taken in the blood of the very first vampire, but he also got a free sample from an Elder on top of that. Now, he was dealing with some irreversible contamination.

He remembered all too well how something like this in his previous life had sent him straight down the path of being a complete fucking cripple. With a sinking heart, he started frantically scrolling through the mountain of messages.

What the fuck is with all these goddamn warning signs?!

For what felt like forever, he could see nothing but red flags screaming at him. At long last, the notifications took a turn. Thankfully, it wasn’t all bad news.

[Contamination has been suppressed by the owner of the True Blood.]

[True Blood effects have been halted.]

[As a result of True Blood, mana aptitude has improved.]

[As a result of True Blood, physical regeneration has improved.]

[As a result of True Blood, Intelligence has increased by 30.]

[New Trait Acquired: Mana Affinity]

[New Trait Acquired: Enhanced Regeneration]

Apparently, the duke had manually suppressed all the downsides of the True Blood infusion and left only the benefits intact. As a result, Do-Jin had gained two new traits related to mana and vitality.

Mana Affinity enhanced his overall ability to sense, control, and use mana. Enhanced Regeneration gave him a steady bump to natural healing speed. That unprecedented +30 Intelligence was the equivalent of gaining six levels’ worth of bonus points in one go.

Holy shit!

It made sense, though. Not even in his past life had anyone ever gotten their hands on the True Blood of Duke Tirund. It was like a high-grade, elixir-level treasure, the kind of thing no one could put a price tag on. And now that the side effects were gone, his growth was practically guaranteed.

Still, the fact that just drinking some blood had landed him with two traits and a straight-up 30-point stat boost was insane. Even if this was supposed to be some grand reward for a fate-altering quest, he couldn’t help but acknowledge how broken it was.

Alright, moving on...

Once he’d finished assessing the situation and calmed down, Do-Jin swept the system messages aside, and right on cue, the door to his bedroom slammed open. It wasn’t because someone had kicked it down. It had just swung open on its own. Without warning, a black fog surged in, swallowing him whole. Before he could react, he was being dragged away by some unseen force.

This game seriously doesn’t give me a single fucking break.

***

“You certainly took your time.” A deep, resonant voice rang out. “Well? How does it feel, having peeked into our memories?”

The speaker was a terrifyingly handsome man whose long black hair matched Karin’s. He looked exactly as he had in the memories of the Duke Tirund himself. Do-Jin had more or less expected something like this, so he wasn’t particularly shaken.

He took a calm look around, realizing they were in the duke’s study.

A few candles flickered dimly. Do-Jin assumed they were placed there for his sake, since vampires didn’t exactly need light to see.

Taking a seat in the chair in front of him, Do-Jin asked, “Did you show me those memories?”

The duke gave a small nod.

“Can I ask why?”

The question made the duke raise an eyebrow, as if he hadn’t expected it. “There isn’t really much of a reason. My daughter asked me to keep you alive and that was just part of the process.”

“If that were the case, I don’t think you would’ve asked for my thoughts on what I saw.”

If the only goal was to save him, Karin’s blood wouldn’t have been needed. The duke’s True Blood alone would’ve been enough, maybe even unnecessary since he was an Archmage and the most powerful vampire in history. The fact that he used both his blood and Karin’s meant he wanted Do-Jin to see those memories.

And more than that, aside from the very beginning, almost everything I saw was Karin’s memories. It was as if he deliberately filtered everything else out.

Do-Jin simply wanted to know why. So, he pressed the duke again. “I want to know why you showed me those memories.”

Duke Tirund let out a faint sigh. “You must’ve realized it by now. My daughter, Karin... ever since she became a vampire, she’s been growing increasingly unstable. Maybe it’s because she lost all her human memories and had to build an identity from nothing. Or maybe it’s because her heart no longer beats.”

The duke’s expression hardened. “But then, for the first time in centuries, she showed real emotion. She acted the way she did before she got sick. And it was because of you.”

He lifted a hand and pointed at Do-Jin.

“The look in her eyes when she worried about you, it was real. This is a child who spent her entire life imitating emotions from books because she had no memory of what it felt like to be human. Yet this time, she came to me, not because she was copying someone else, but because she genuinely wanted to. That’s why. That’s why I showed you not only my memories but hers as well.”

The duke’s crimson gaze bore into him.

𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

“You are... in a way, a clue. A clue my daughter has been searching for her entire life. The key to reclaiming something she lost long before she even knew it was gone. At least, that’s what she believes. But if you, after seeing her real self, end up disappointed in her...”

“You’re afraid she’ll spiral even further out of control?” Do-Jin asked him.

The duke nodded. “And if that happens, it would be better to quietly send you back to the Central Continent.”

Feared by many names and known as a monster among monsters, the Duke of Tirund was, at the end of the day, still a father. He loved his daughter so dearly, he turned himself into the very first vampire just to be with her, and not even a thousand years had dulled that love. Faced with the duke’s quiet plea, Do-Jin fell into thought.

When Do-Jin finally answered, his voice was calm and serious. “What I felt after seeing those memories... was sorrow.” He paused, exhaling slowly. “When she woke up as a vampire, she might as well have been an infant. A newborn, with nothing, no memories, no identity, no guidance. And yet, from the very beginning... she was alone.”

The duke remained silent.

“I have no doubt you love your daughter, but in all the memories I saw... I never once saw you show it to her directly.”

The duke’s lips began to part slightly.

“Your daughter was always alone. She read alone, imagined things alone. She copied the people in books, smiled and cried all by herself.”

The duke’s fists clenched. “That’s—”

“I know.” Do-Jin cut him off. “I know what you were doing all those years. You were building a nation in the darkness. A kingdom where your people, who could no longer live under the sun, could survive.”

The duke’s voice was quiet when he spoke again. “That was the only thing I could do for her. I was the one who turned her into a monster that could never live among humans again. The least I could do was create a place where she wouldn’t have to be alone.”

There was no emotion in his voice, just a plain statement of fact.

Do-Jin nodded. “I understand. But maybe if you had shown her even just a little bit of what you felt... then those memories of yours wouldn’t have been so heartbreaking.”

Duke Tirund fell silent, lost in thought.

Every time I looked at Karin, there was nothing but regret. I’ve turned both of us into monsters. I kept my distance because I was ashamed of going against the natural order for my own selfish reasons, but... maybe that’s not what I should’ve been ashamed of in the first place.

As the duke wrestled with his thoughts, Do-Jin decided to lay out the rest of his feelings.

“Well, at least there’s something to be grateful for.”

“Grateful...?” the duke echoed.

“Yes. You may suck at expressing it, but there’s no doubt you love your daughter. That much is real. Now all you have to do is actually show it. It’ll be awkward at first, sure, but it’ll get easier with time.”

He shrugged slightly. It was a casual but sincere gesture.

“And hey, considering she basically grew up all alone, she turned out pretty well. Okay, sure, she’s got a touch of emotional instability and maybe a little chronic depression, but nothing too crazy. Given the environment, I’d say she turned out great.”

The duke simply stared at him, baffled. Do-Jin’s sheer audacity, shrugging off a thousand years of history between a father and daughter like it was nothing, left him speechless.

“It’s not the worst-case scenario. That means you still have the chance to change, and you’ve got plenty of time to do it.”

At that, the duke’s gaze slowly softened. What Do-Jin had just said hit him like a punch to the gut because for Tirund, time had always been the enemy. Time was what rusted him and his daughter down, what broke them little by little over the centuries. But Do-Jin had rekindled the hope in him that, even if they’d rusted and cracked, they could slowly put the pieces back together.

What a strange human

, Duke Tirund thought.

Not only had he shaken up the daughter who’d been lost for ages, but now, he was shaking up the father who’d been buried in regret for just as long.

Or rather... I was just waiting for someone to shake me.

Up until now, living had simply meant enduring. But for the first time in a thousand years, it felt like it wasn’t about enduring anymore. It might take ages to do what he couldn’t back then, but he had a chance to rebuild this relationship.

Just like he said, I’ve got time. More than enough.

In that moment, a message flashed before Do-Jin’s eyes.

[Unbelievable Feat!]

[You have earned the favor of First Blood, Duke Carneth Tirund.]

[Probability of vampires identifying humans as hostile entities has significantly decreased.]

Then, as if to add to the good news, the duke spoke again. “Stay in the Principality for a while. I owe you a great debt and I’ll need time to prepare a reward that matches it.”

This guy had already injected him with True Blood and personally negated its side effects, and now he was talking about more rewards? Do-Jin barely stopped himself from grinning. This was turning out to be one hell of a payday.