Damn Necromancer

Chapter 430: Past

"P-perhaps…… My Queen……?"

The voice of the True Blood Count Camillos, who had been surging ferociously as if to swallow the blood-red swamp, cracked miserably in the empty air.

The mid-boss who had been acting arrogantly, calling the challengers insignificant livestock just a moment ago.

His pale face had now turned completely white as a blank sheet of paper.

Camillos's red pupils wavered wildly toward the woman in front of him.

Tacky floral patterned monppe pants.

A market basket dangling in one hand.

Anyone could see it was the appearance of a middle-aged woman out for a neighborhood stroll, but the fundamental fear engraved in Camillos's soul was screaming her true identity to the bone.

"Oh my."

Olivia rustled her market basket, peeled a lemon-flavored candy, and popped it into her mouth.

Her sunset-colored eyes nonchalantly looked down at the Count.

"Who are you again?"

"I-if you ask who I am…… I am Camillos, who led the 3rd Legion in the past, My Queen!"

"Camillos…… Ah. That loser? The guy who was always walking on eggshells around me and hiding in the back, right?"

"Kkeueueuk! M-My Queen! A loser, you say, I was merely being cautious……!"

"You've gotten very rude in the time I haven't seen you."

Olivia said coldly.

"Kneel."

Olivia's short single word.

That moment, the Count and the True Blood vampires who had been covering the sky pitch-black plummeted vertically like a swarm of flies hit by insecticide and smashed their heads into the marble floor.

Kugugugugung―!

The entire clearing vibrated, and bloody water splattered in all directions.

"……."

"……Uh?"

The 10,000 survivors watching that sight became perfectly speechless.

'Why is the mid-boss planting his head?'

'Am I crazy? Weren't they the guys roaring that they would kill us all just a moment ago?'

While the challengers were dumbfounded and murmured while lowering their weapons.

Blood-red tears flowed down from the red pupils of Count Camillos, who had planted his head on the floor.

'There's no mistake……. It is truly the Queen.'

The single word that had crushed his soul whole just a moment ago.

'Kneel.'

At those two syllables, Camillos's physical body free-fell regardless of his will.

He could not even twitch a single finger.

The very word 'resistance' evaporated from his mind.

For vampires, all hierarchies were determined by a single thing.

The status of blood.

The command of one with a high status of blood was an oracle and natural law.

The higher the status, the more absolute the command became, making it undeniable, and the more distant the difference in status, the more the lower entity was merely controlled like a puppet.

And that single word that had just smashed Camillos to the floor was…….

'A status possible for only one person in the world.'

The apex of all vampires.

The Blood Monarch, Olivia.

Camillos's shoulders trembled uncontrollably.

Grinding his forehead deeper into the blood-soaked floor, he sobbed.

"My Queen……. Heueuk……. It is truly you, My Queen……."

He began to scream with an unfair voice as if pouring out tears of blood.

"My Queen! Where on earth have you been, and why are you only coming now! After you abandoned us and left…… do you even know what massive chaos befell the empire!"

Camillos's voice was full of a thousand years of resentment and sorrow.

In the past, the Vampire Queen Olivia, who reigned with absolute power, evaporated one day without any sign, leaving only her crown behind.

The empire, having lost its focal point, was naturally engulfed in a blood-splattering civil war. From the day the Queen disappeared, the empire went crazy.

"The Queen is dead! The throne now has no master!"

The first to bare their fangs were the seven dukes.

Those who shared blood at the same dining table until yesterday drove stakes into each other's hearts today. Alliances flipped overnight, and betrayal was more common than a meal.

Rivers of blood flowed across the empire's capital.

The True Blood families that had lasted for a thousand years burned and collapsed one by one.

Territories were torn to shreds, and dependents turned to ash under the sunlight having lost their masters. The vampire race, which once ruled the night sky, thus bit their own necks with their own hands and tumbled into the abyss of downfall.

And the extremely few stragglers who survived at the bottom of that endless slaughter.

To them, who had nowhere to go and no master to follow, the system held out a sweet chain.

Throwing eternal life and a handful of authority as bait, it shackled them as the mid-bosses of the testing ground.

Thus, the Count who once commanded the 3rd Legion ended up reduced to a gatekeeper of an unknown gate.

"We only thought that you, My Queen, were disappointed by our incompetence and left! During those long years, watching the empire get dyed in blood and collapse, do you know how much we……!"

"Who cares?"

"……Pardon?"

The sobbing Camillos raised his head with a blank expression. Olivia crunched her candy and spoke apathetically.

"Why complain to me about you guys fighting each other and ruining yourselves. Did I tell you to fight? You got steeped in greed and ruined yourselves trying to take my crown. Isn't that right?"

"Th-that is……!"

"And you know."

Olivia rolled the candy with her tongue and raised one eyebrow.

"Who was it that gathered you guys, who had nowhere to go and nowhere to beg, all in one place? Giving you a race and even founding a country for you is enough, what more do I have to do? Do I have to change your diapers for thousands of years?"

"……!"

"You're all grown up, you should live on your own. Can't you eat without your mom?"

Camillos's mouth gaped open and closed.

"Th-that is true, but…… still, you disappeared overnight without any reason, My Queen, so……."

"Who said there was no reason?"

Olivia's brow furrowed slightly.

It was true that she threw away her crown because she felt bored herself, but even so, she had no intention of suddenly leaving without a word.

It was just that unluckily at that time, she was struck in the back by a monster called the Death Lord and forcibly sealed in the eternal sunset.

However, Olivia had absolutely no desire to explain that pathetic backstory to this insignificant subordinate.

"I just got bored so I went for a bit of a walk. Why. You got a problem?"

"A, a walk…… for a thousand years……?"

Camillos gaped his mouth in disbelief.

To think that the terrible thousand years of the empire collapsing and them rolling around as the system's slaves was merely treated by the Queen as a walk she went on out of boredom.

However, Camillos, who had been about to spew out his injustice, soon shut his mouth and deeply bowed his head.

'……Now that I think about it, the Queen was originally that kind of person.'

An absolute indifference that did not care at all about the pain of others.

That arrogance fitting of a True Ancestor among True Ancestors.

Yes, that was indeed the Vampire Queen he knew.

Kim Minwoo leisurely walked out with Hell Rhapsody resting on his shoulder.

"Hey, pointy fangs. Is your thousand-year-old melodrama over?"

At that arrogant attitude, bloodshot veins appeared in the eyes of Camillos, who had been pale as a blank sheet of paper.

"Wh-who are you! How dare a mere human run his mouth in this presence……!"

"He's my master."

Olivia's short single word.

And the next words that came out of her mouth were enough to freeze Camillos's brain.

"……Pardon? M-master?"

As Camillos, his pride in his bloodline cracked, asked back in disbelief, Olivia lowered her head as if annoyed and quietly whispered into Camillos's ear.

"The Death Lord. You know that bony old geezer, right?"

"……!"

"That human is that old geezer's successor. Why else do you think I was bound as his dependent."

Camillos's pupils wavered wildly like an earthquake.

The Death Lord.

The monster who had turned even the Vampire Queen into a dependent.

That human right in front of his eyes was the successor who had completely inherited that monster's power?

"……O master of the great Queen! I, Camillos, offer my belated greetings!"

Camillos immediately planted his head on the ground.

It was a perfect and natural acknowledgment of hierarchy forged by the law of the jungle of the True Blood clan.

"Yeah. By the looks of it, there was a slight misunderstanding between us."

"A m-misunderstanding, you say?"

"Yeah. If you think about it, your Queen is my subordinate, so you guys are no different from my subordinates too, right? But we fought and exchanged blows here? Between allies, that is. Isn't that right?"

Camillos blinked his eyes stupidly.

Hearing it, the logic fit together bizarrely well.

If he was the Queen's master, it was true that he was at the level of his own master, but…….

"The believers I brought got hurt a bit, and your vampires died a bit too. I made sacrifices and you made sacrifices, so let's call it cleanly even. Am I right?"

"Uh…… Yes. There was a m-misunderstanding……."

"Then you guys are definitely my subordinates now too, right?"

"……."

Camillos shut his mouth as if at a loss for words.

He suddenly had to become a subordinate under a human like this?

It was then.

Olivia stared down intently at Camillos with her nonchalant sunset-colored eyes.

The suppression engraved in blood.

The overwhelming majesty of a True Ancestor.

Crushed by an instinctive fear he dared not defy, Camillos eventually nodded his head urgently.

"Th-that is correct! Oh great master!"

Ttiring―!

[The True Blood Count Camillos and his royal guard swear submission to you!]

[You have acquired temporary control of the vampire legion!]

"Good. The contract is established. Then let's immediately deploy our new subcontractor employees into field work."

Kim Minwoo clapped his hands satisfyingly.

"You guys were trapped in this swamp for thousands of years, right? Then you must know the bottom terrain inside out?"

"Y-yes! We can find our way even with our eyes closed!"

"Good. If there's anything to gather in the swamp, sweep it all up. And act as sandbags appropriately so our believers can level up. Don't forget to donate 1 liter of blood every day too. Because I'm going to use it as potion ingredients."

As the command fell, the ferocious ecosystem of the Blood Swamp completely collapsed.

Splash!

Chwaaaak!

"Cough! Th-the bottom is too deep……!"

A pitiful, grand spectacle of hard labor unfolded, where the True Blood vampires, who should have been tearing apart and eating people, were walking on eggshells around Olivia, diving into the bloody water, and fishing up items with their bare hands.

"M-master! I have brought one magic stone here!"

"Stack it over there on the side."

The dumbfounded challengers also soon filled with joy and began to praise the God of Death.

"Ohhh! Oh great God of Death!"

"He has turned our enemies into our workers!"

As their faith exploded, Kim Minwoo's divine status numerical value rose once again as if hitting the jackpot.

[Warning! Control over the 2nd trial is collapsing!]

[The true ruler of the swamp, the Blood Lord, descends!]

At that time, a red system alarm flashed, tearing through the sky.

Kugugugugung―!

The deepest part of the swamp.

A massive whirlpool of bloody water soared, and from within it, a Duke-class vampire draped in massive horns and overwhelming blood-red armor descended.

"What kind of trash dares to work my subordinates like slaves in my territory!"

The Duke appeared, letting out a roar that seemed to tear the sky.

The 10,000 survivors gasped for breath, crushed by that overwhelming murderous intent.

'Oh. That guy looks really strong.'

It was the moment Kim Minwoo was about to readjust his grip on Hell Rhapsody.

"……M-My Queen?"

The moment the Duke's gaze, which had been burning with anger, touched Olivia's face, his roar cut off like a lie.

His massive wings stiffened rigidly in the empty air, and soon he plummeted to the ground next to Camillos and knelt down.

"Oh my. You were alive too?"

Olivia crunched her candy and raised one eyebrow.

Camillos tactfully whispered from the side.

"It is Duke Raiel, My Queen. The one who led the 2nd Legion a thousand years ago……."

"Ah. That idiot? The guy who hit on me asking to marry him and got brutally dumped?"

"Kkeueueuk! M-My Queen!"

Duke Raiel's face turned pale without a drop of blood, like a blank sheet of paper.

To think that his unrequited love, whom he met after a thousand years, remembered him as an idiot.

"Hey, Raiel. You're done grasping the situation, right? You go dig for magic stones too."

Kim Minwoo tapped the Duke's shoulder and said.

The Duke dropped his jaw as if dumbfounded.

"H-how dare a mere human assign hard labor to me, Duke Raiel……!"

"You won't do it?"

As Olivia's murderous intent was suddenly spewed, the color completely drained from the Duke's face.

"I-I will do it! I just have to scratch the floor a bit, don't I!"

The final boss of the 2nd trial, who had been spewing majesty just a moment ago, rolled up his tailcoat and jumped into the bloody water.

At the same time.

The control room of the golden altar overseeing the Ascension Ritual.

"Keo-eok……!"

The Archangel, who had been watching all this disastrous sight in real-time through the mana monitor, eventually vomited bloody water and let go of the string of his reason.

In the screen, the image of Kim Minwoo humming a tune satisfyingly while looking at the magic stone the Duke had mined was reflected.

"That is a Despair-rank testing ground, not a manpower office! Is this a situation that even makes sense right now!"

Truly, something that made absolutely no sense was happening.

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