The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 257: Vampire 101 with the Vampire Lord

Chapter 257: Vampire 101 with the Vampire Lord

"So...what exactly is this eternal?" I asked Natha and the Vampire Lord.

Lesta had retreated to his room after finishing feeding Jade the jelly, and of course, Eruha followed him. Too bad; I kind of wanted to see their confrontation...

Soon, the Lord dismissed the vassals except for Atoye, and we moved to the front of the big fireplace where I stroked Jade’s sleepy head. I would usually feel sleepy right about then too--especially since I ate a lot that night--but what transpired earlier made me wide awake.

I looked at Natha, who in turn looked at the Vampire Lord, who was lounging casually on her chaise--again, this felt more and more like playing at a friend’s house than a state visit. Sada sloshed her wine glass while staring at the fire. "What do you know about it, Valen?"

"Umm..." I looked down at my ring finger, where a mark was carved underneath the ring Natha bought for me. "I heard it’s used by vampires to bind their mate?"

I could hear the Lord and the other vampire girl chuckle at my answer and I asked if I was wrong, but Sada shook her head. "Not exactly wrong," she said. "I guess you can use it for that, but that was not what it was originally for."

"Then?"

Instead of answering, Sada gave me another question--why did vampires like quizzing people so much?

"What do you know about us, Valen?"

That you like quizzing people more than answering them? I tilted my head and replied lightly. "That you’re an immortal, but your body can’t produce mana."

She smiled at my answer and nodded. "Mm, good, you mentioned the important things," she drank her wine first to wet her throat before continuing. "Yes, we are immortal. The Progenitor--my mother and Natha’s teacher--born from the Primordial One’s blood that dripped inside the eternal spring.

"For that, we are blessed with eternal life. As long as even a drop of our blood persisted, we would never perish."

Oh wow--so the only way to kill them is to burn them away so there would not even be a drop of blood left? It was really hard to completely make someone’s blood disappear, though. And...

"So you can just store your own blood somewhere to make sure you can still revive safely?"

You know, kind of like Liches with their phylactery.

Sada smiled and nodded. "As long as we can keep the blood fresh, because rotten blood means dead blood."

"It depends on the life of the blood cells," Natha whispered.

Ah, got it, doctor.

"But life is fair; although we can live for eternity, and very hard to be killed, we lack power--or rather, we don’t have it," the Vampire Lord continued. "And we can’t procreate the way other beings can."

Ah, right. Others had parents, but vampires had progenitors. The First Vampire, Natha’s teacher, was born from the Demon God’s blood, and so the other vampires were born from her blood, and her children’s blood, and so on.

"That means, we have no need for a mate,"

"Ah..."

I nodded at first, but then frowned in confusion. So what was this romantic-sounding ’eternal’ for?

"We don’t really need to procreate since we live for so long anyway, and it would only get harder if there’s a lot of us--not many sharable resources, you know," Sada laughed while patting her stomach. "But we do need a means to survive, so we were given the ability to extract mana from others.

"Nowadays, with the development in food and material processing, we can just extract it from food and mana stones, much like magicians who need to amplify their mana. But..." she sighed, rubbing her belly again. "Even all of the food I take today only amounted to a cup of fresh blood."

You mean all of that food from rare ingredients containing mana?! With the processing that made the properties increase? Whew...

"So, while we could technically live without it, blood is an essential staple for us," she continued. "But it’s a complicated matter to source it, because...well, not many are willing to let others suck their blood, obviously."

Well, that made sense. Even though it wasn’t something harmful, people would feel weird about having their bodily fluids ingested by others. It was also a crime to do it without consent, the Lord told me, which was why most vampires nowadays opted for the food option. The piece of gluttony that Lord An’Hyang gave them after the Primordial One disappeared helped with the absorption rate, but during the chaos after the great disaster, they had to consume blood to survive.

"It wasn’t really something I wanted to tell others, but during the war with the human realm, we used the prisoner as...well, you could say blood bank," she looked at me apologetically, but I shook my head to tell her I didn’t mind, so she continued. "And one day, one of my brothers fell in love with one of the prisoners."

I almost gasped, but managed to control myself by clutching Natha’s sleeve.

"You might not understand it, but for us, there’s something called compatibility; certain someone’s blood tastes better than others, and it differs from person to person," she leaned back in a contemplative, solemn state. "For him, that human’s blood was an ecstasy. I don’t know if the human tasted wonderful because he loved the human, or he fell in love because the human tasted wonderful."

She paused for a bit, the fire dancing inside her dull, red eyes as if she too, was still trying to find the answer. "Well, it doesn’t matter," she finally said. "What you should know is that, unlike us, other beings have a short lifespan. Especially human."

Oh...oh?!

"So he went to Mother and asked for a favor," Sada said with a deep, complex smile. "He could not cut his lifespan, but he asked if he could share it with that human."

"Are you saying that...the ’eternal’ made that human live as long as you?"

Still with that smile, Sada explained it a bit more. "To be precise, it lets the partner live as long as the bound vampire lives," she said. "The partner, the ’eternal’, would be the sole source of power for the vampire in exchange for that lifespan. And the moment a vampire perished, so would their eternal."

I took a deep breath and leaned back in my seat to take a break from this history lesson. Natha, as if knew beforehand, already prepared a glass of water for me. As he put the glass in my hand, my eyes fell on the mark circling the base of his ring finger.

"Is there a lot of vampires using this...eternal?" I asked carefully, to which the Lord responded with a crooked smile.

"Not as much as you think," she said. "It’s not an easy thing finding someone willing to bind themselves to you for eternity. And it’s not an easy thing to decide you want to bind yourself to one person your whole life."

Ah, if she put it like that...

"Of course, there are also those who use this ritual for power," she said with a sneer on her face, sighing while throwing her head back. "Vampires who want a steady supply of power, and other races who want an eternal life. They did it as a contract of mutual benefit, not anything as sweet as love."

Ah...that’s not romantic at all--I pursed my lips unconsciously, and the Vampire Lord laughed at it. "Well, at least you don’t have to worry about those two. No one stayed by someone’s side for half a century just for flimsy reasons," she said with a smile, but instantly followed with a scoff. "Though I don’t know what he’s been doing all this time without any progress."

Hmm...I didn’t know about Lesta, but Eruha was indeed hard to understand. No--now that I think about it, both of them were hard to understand, and never showed their real feelings or thoughts. Lesta gave a sense that he was easier to see through, but everything was just a facade.

Or perhaps...that was why? They were too good at hiding their own feelings, perhaps including from each other.

Hmm...maybe that was why Natha didn’t want me to learn how to make a poker face from them. Maybe he was afraid I would turn into those two.

"Whew...that’s some serious stuff," I exhaled and leaned into Natha’s side. When I came here today, I never thought I would end up having a whole history lesson about vampires.

"That’s right," the Lord nodded seriously. "Honestly, ’eternal’ is something rare to find these days, since we have more diverse options now."

"Mm, mm," I nodded, and then looked up at Natha. "Can I learn it? Will your teacher teach me that?"

"What the hell?" Sada glared at me.

Well, I mean...I had no intention to ever be with anyone else than Natha, and the thought of being bonded to him forever sounded like everything I ever wanted. Wasn’t that what a marriage was supposed to be, anyway? To be with your partner for the rest of your life.

The mark wouldn’t do anything for us maybe, but...

Perhaps...perhaps it would let me stay by Natha’s side longer than my natural lifespan allowed.

Natha grasped my chin and turned my head toward him, and as I looked into his moonlight eyes, I could see that he knew what I was thinking about. His lips curled before they were pressed to mine, spreading warmth despite the coldness.

"I said not in my drawing room!"

We parted as the Lord scolded us. Well, shouldn’t annoy the host too much, but I couldn’t help but giggle like a naughty kid getting found out doing naughty things.

"Maybe you should find your own eternal, Sis," Natha said, and I could hear his smirk before even seeing it, which granted him a throw of a cushion.

The Lord crossed her arms and replied snarkily. "My eternal is the food!"