NOVEL NEXT WORLD The little mouth moves back and forth.
In her hand is a small piece of jerky. It was nothing more than dried pork salted to preserve it, but the girl held it tightly as if it was something very precious, biting down on it and chewing it thoroughly.
After swallowing the last bit of meat, the girl stuffed the remaining jerky piece into her mouth. As she reached out to fill her empty hand with more jerky from the container, our eyes met since I was staring at her intently.
“…I’m grateful. Thank you.”
Her hand, which was about to go into the container, smoothly turned around and closed the lid. The Dragonkin girl Eleonora hesitantly returned the jerky container to me with a slightly sad look in her eyes.
For some reason, that expression struck me as quite funny.
The bold girl who once told me to just kill her if I wasn’t going to take care of her, now looking all sad about a piece of jerky, despite knowing I was the Progenitor of Vampires.
Seems like she has a strange sense of priorities. Well, she is the one I picked up…
“Don’t be shy, just eat. No one else is going to eat it anyway.”
As I opened the container again and shoved a piece of jerky into Eleonora’s mouth, she puffed her cheeks like a squirrel and continued to munch away with her head down.
Her previously droopy tail now fanned out energetically, proving she was still quite hungry.
Of course. She couldn’t be full after picking up just a few scraps of dried meat.
I was just watching her eat because I had nothing else to do, but it seemed she thought I was giving her the side-eye.
…Thinking about it like this makes me feel a bit bitter. No matter how much I’ve given up on being human, I’m not the sort to nitpick about a kid’s meal portions. At least, not with my allies.
After all, it was just preserved food I had bought for my human disguise. Even if a bandit threatened me while holding a knife, I wouldn’t be able to eat it, but aside from that, there was no real reason to eat human food that provided no nutrients.
If someone out there wants to eat a decorative item I was only keeping because it wasn’t bothersome enough to throw away, then they can eat it all by themselves.
If food had a consciousness, it would prefer to be consumed meaningfully rather than rotting away, so it’s a two-for-one deal, right?
Besides, it doesn’t feel right to suck the blood of such a scrawny little kid.
Regardless of Eleonora’s consent to drink her blood whenever I want, a little kid who looks like she’d faint from anemia after just one sip feels off for a lunch box.
I’m sure it’s not a rejection based on some decaying moral compass. I know better than anyone how long it’s been since I cooked humans, so maybe it’s some preference for blood I didn’t even know about.
Now that I think about it, there were strange differences among people even up to now.
Whether or not the blood contains great power, overly fatty blood isn’t that appealing, and humans whose bones feel hard through the muscle aren’t exactly thrilling either. So, yeah, there’s definitely something to it.
Naturally, it’s a luxury to wonder if it’s a three-star or five-star blood.
People without the taste buds of a Vampire couldn’t even imagine its flavor. This is the kind of taste that you wouldn’t even know if one of you dies while eating!
Anyway, to sum up, Eleonora is too skinny. It makes sense since she’s been held captive at a Slave Trader for two years, so it’s expected.
With such a small frame, I still can’t believe she’s 14 years old. I thought she’d be about 10, but she talks quite well for a kid that age.
It’s some kind of talent to see such a tough and resilient Dragonkin looking like a dried fish.
Anyway, I don’t have a hobby of sucking blood from mummies, so even if Eleonora’s meals aren’t a gourmet feast, I’m more than willing to ensure she gets enough.
Since I have plenty of money and won’t need to eat preserved foods myself, I hope she eats well and gains weight so she becomes a bit more useful. If I decide to use her as a combatant someday, I’d need her to grow enough to be useful.
…By the way, will that day ever come? Will there really be a day when a properly raised Dragonkin is something to be envious of?
Thinking about it makes me feel a bit dizzy. Even assuming she has to be an adult to be useful, that means I have to wait at least three years.
At that time, I feel like I was too emotional in my judgment. Knowing nothing about tomorrow, I have to endure three years — it’s like the cold sweat of a stockholder grasping a stock about to be delisted.
The more serious I brood over it, the more I feel my tears quivering, and my hands and feet are trembling. While I shout for long-term investment, Eleonora’s stock is fluctuating wildly, shaking my heart as well.
It can’t be helped. No matter how much I endure, if it eventually turns to toilet paper, then there’s no hope whatsoever.
Do I regret it, and can I just let go of her now? It’s rare for me, whose entire world is like an enemy, to have someone trustworthy with enough potential, so letting her go would feel disappointing.
Well, there’s no point in worrying now. Now that I’ve boarded the Eleonora coin, I have no choice but to live on trying desperately to make sure that little girl grows into a useful ally, whether it turns into food or not.
Still, imagining a fully grown Eleonora breathing fire in a human village calmed my restless heart a bit.
Yeah, this isn’t too bad. As I claimed myself, Eleonora isn’t such a burden after all.
She can keep up well without tiring on our grueling mountain trek all day, and she doesn’t complain about being exhausted.
While she was stubbornly clinging to me asking to be taken along, the original passive side of her personality seems to have returned, and since that time, no matter how hard it gets, she keeps her mouth shut and doesn’t whine even once.
Of course, if she actually collapses from exhaustion, I’d be in trouble, so I make sure to keep her pace in check, incorporating some rest, but aside from meals, there’s not much else to be concerned about. I’m a Vampire who knows it’s spring even before the flowers bloom.
“I’m really full now, Master.”
“…Like I said before, you don’t have to call me Master when there’s no one else around.”
Although I hadn’t met anyone else since picking up Eleonora, our relationship externally was that of a master and slave.
As a Dragonkin, Eleonora can only pass through human towns as a slave that follows her master. Plus, thanks to the choker given by Martini, I only appear human, so it’s a completely natural setup.
In other words, the master-slave relationship was just a business necessity. I’m not some old crank who would expect a 14-year-old girl to treat me like a master 24/7, nor do I want that.
“No. I promised to follow you to the end, so you’re still my Master.”
But this makes it the third time. Again, Eleonora stubbornly refused.
She seems like she doesn’t have much of an opinion, but when something clicks with her, she can be surprisingly persistent.
“…Fine then.”
Now I’m getting a bit tired, so I’m throwing up the white flag.
Even if there’s no tree that won’t fall after being struck ten times, I don’t have the patience to strike it ten times, and this is the moment when my limits are revealed. If she’s okay with it, let her be.
By the way, at this rate, my preserved food will run out soon.
Maybe in four days at the most? If we keep moving at this pace, it’ll be close.
If things really get bad, I can catch a wild animal and eat it, but since I only know how to suck their necks dry, I’ve got no clue how to butcher livestock.
“Do you know how to prepare meat? Like draining the blood and butchering and all that.”
“…I’m sorry. I’ve never learned that.”
“Well then, let’s hurry.”
After asking Eleonora just in case, she shook her head.
If she doesn’t want to starve, she has to move. About 15 minutes after I told her not to be shy and to eat up, that conclusion felt quite awkward, but anyway, we began our arduous march for food.
*
Thanks to not stopping our feet, we managed to arrive at a city called Luft just before running out of supplies.
Since we had been climbing mountains all this time, this would be the second large city with castle walls. It was the first time since entering the city that we would go through a guards’ checkpoint.
“My name’s Lana. Mercenary…”
The guard mumbled as he read the alias written on my fake identification.
I couldn’t help but be nervous, but I pretended to be calm.
I should be fine for now. I had already confirmed that the forged identity provided by the Duchy wasn’t flimsy enough to get caught by such a meager inspection.
“Alright. Moving on, Miss.” The guard glanced over to Eleonora. “What about the little one?”
At this point, things got serious.
There were no magical contracts that enforced her obedience, nor was there a contract asserting my ownership over her.
Naturally. I hadn’t legitimately purchased Eleonora from the Slave Trader; I had just intercepted the product meant for sale after taking down all the offerings.
Thus, unlike me, there was no physical evidence guaranteeing Eleonora’s identity.
So normally, such inspection wouldn’t raise any flags, but if we happened to raise suspicion and were asked to verify the slave contract, we would be done for.
To avoid such a disastrous situation, I had to give everyone the certainty that no one would doubt Eleonora was my slave.
Of course, if I wasn’t confident, I wouldn’t have taken her in. Or else, I’d have avoided cities like this.
A mercenary visiting another territory with a slave. What would it take for a mere mercenary—none other than a nobleman—to not look out of place with a slave in tow?
Based on the vast data I had collected through observing the scum I’d seen until now, I deduced the answer.
“She’s my slave.”
The answer was: just be rude. I replied nonchalantly and roughly pulled back Eleonora’s hood.