—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
—————————————————————–
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Lassiel Reppert.
On the surface, she was an impressive figure. The Reppert family had served in the military for generations, producing officers in the navy, and was a humble military family.
Until Lassiel, the highest position the Reppert family had produced was the captain of a carrack, commanding about 100 men, and even that was in the distant past, going back several generations to Lassiel’s ancestors.
However, unlike her humble origins, Lassiel stood out for her exceptional talent as soon as she joined the navy.
Eventually, in her mid-twenties, she secured the position of admiral solely through her abilities, commanding the entire southern navy of the empire.
She was truly the epitome of rising to prominence and achieving success through her own efforts.
However, contrary to the success story she had written, her personality was quite lighthearted. She was always optimistic, and her daily life was like a third-rate delinquent from some backstreet, to the point where the gravitas of a naval admiral was hard to find unless she was wearing her uniform.
So much so that even her quartermaster, Crowe, shook her head in disbelief at her superior’s behavior.
‘Well, it’s none of my business,’ the person in question, who recalled that memory, simply shrugged her shoulders and left Elena’s office in high spirits.
Her tanned, brown skin, characteristic of the south, and her golden hair, as if molten gold had been poured, were an unusual combination, but combined with her white uniform exclusive to the naval admiral, it exuded a sense of healthiness.
Glancing down at her uniform, which accentuated her slender figure, Lassiel chuckled.
“I haven’t held a man’s hand yet, not because I couldn’t, but because I deliberately didn’t. Of course, I should start by holding Rudrick’s hand.”
Usually, sailors and women who did hard work were inseparable. Often, her quartermaster, Crowe, would disrespectfully tease her about not being able to hold a man’s hand at her age, but now Lassiel didn’t care.
She had solved the bothersome issue of her whereabouts by subtly pressuring the empire’s princess with her impertinent behavior, and now she could stay in the capital for the time being and slowly win over Rudrick’s heart.
Successfully marrying Rudrick and then gleefully bragging to Crowe, who was also still unmarried, would solve all her problems.
Humming a cheerful tune while imagining a happy, rosy future, Lassiel traversed the corridors of the separate palace.
Through the trilateral meeting with Princess Elena and Grand Duchess Eileen, she knew that Rudrick had become a disciple of the Imperial Court Mage.
Visiting the Imperial Court Mage’s research lab without prior notice would be considered rude, but Lassiel wasn’t the type to care about such things.
Her footsteps toward the research lab were unusually light.
With those light steps, she arrived at the research lab. In front of the lab door, Lassiel took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
Knock, knock.
Inwardly, she hoped to hear Rudrick’s voice telling her to come in, and she expected to hear Lorenzo’s elderly voice saying the same.
“Come in. It’s open.”
But the voice that came from inside the research lab was a clear, beautiful one.
“…Tsk.”
Lassiel clicked her tongue and opened the door. As expected.
A red-haired girl, leaning back in her chair with her legs crossed, greeted Lassiel. Her red eyes, the same color as her hair, curved like a crescent moon.
“Disappointed that it’s not Ric?”
“Of course.”
Sylphia’s eyes were smiling, but her mouth was not.
Lassiel’s usually easygoing eyes also narrowed sharply, and naturally, her retort that came out of her mouth was sarcastic.
“Where’s Ric?”
“He stepped out for a moment to feed the cat. It seems he started keeping a cat.”
“…Really? I didn’t think he kept pets before, how surprising.”
“Huhu.”
Sylphia laughed softly, covering her mouth.
“Sit down and wait. He’s been gone for quite a while, so he’ll be back soon.”
“It’s not like you to show kindness to others for no reason. What, did something good happen?”
Lassiel asked as she plopped down on a nearby chair, following Sylphia’s suggestion.
In her memories, Sylphia was fiercely selfish. It was only natural since she wasn’t human, to begin with.
It was a well-known legend that dragons, who lived for nearly an eternity, enjoyed playing games by blending into human society in human form.
But fundamentally, dragons were not human. Even as they imitated and tried to resemble humans, they could never truly become human.
That fiercely selfish nature was a manifestation of their true nature.
Lassiel didn’t understand how a dragon could come to love a single human being so much, but it wasn’t the kind of favor Sylphia would show to anyone other than Rudrick, as she treated all humans except him as mere insects.
“It seems you’re still unaware. It looks like I’m the only one who knows.”
“You really still have a nasty personality. Why do you always act like you’re the only one who knows things and show off?”
“Who knows.”
Sylphia smugly replied to Lassiel’s rebuke, unconcerned.
“I found out through smell. Whenever Ric stepped out to feed the cat and returned, there was always a faint scent of blood.”
“So what do you want me to do about that… Wait a minute.”
Lassiel’s words, which she was about to retort curtly, trailed off.
Suddenly, her mind quickly turned, and a series of hypotheses came to mind.
The first hypothesis that came to mind was that Rudrick had been scratched or bitten by the cat, causing an injury, which was why Sylphia had smelled blood. However, Lassiel inwardly shook her head.
It was because the word “blood” was deeply connected to someone who had yet to reveal themselves and was more closely associated with it than anyone else.
Arwen Nosferatu.
Excluding her, the four regressors had all gathered at the Imperial Palace or had visited at least once.
And the race of Arwen, the only one who had not yet revealed herself, was a vampire. And not just an ordinary vampire, but the progenitor and queen of all vampires, a True Ancestor.
Reaching a conclusion through an extremely natural process of reasoning, Lassiel narrowed her eyes.
“Then, could it be that the cat is…?”
“There was one person who hadn’t shown themselves yet, right? Ah, it would be inappropriate to call her a person.”
“…Vampire.”
Sylphia smiled brightly at the conclusion Lassiel had drawn.
“That’s right. The cat that Ric recently started keeping is probably just a cheeky, shameless bat who doesn’t know her place, transforming into a cat and living together with Ric.”
Her sharp words were delivered with a smile. But by the end, her voice became somewhat rough and sharp, betraying her discomfort.
As if to demonstrate Sylphia’s unease, her human pupils transformed into vertically slit ones characteristic of reptiles.
Lassiel gritted her teeth.
“So you’re saying that bloodsucker is currently living in the same room as Ric?”
“Most likely, yes.”
“…Ah.”
Lassiel sighed.
She couldn’t even try to put a positive spin on it.
The evidence of the situation was too clear to think that Arwen had miserly and disgustingly stooped to using such a dirty trick, throwing away even a shred of pride as a True Ancestor to approach Rudrick by disguising herself as a cat.
The fact that Sylphia had smelled the pungent scent of blood every time Rudrick went to feed the cat meant that Rudrick was already aware of Arwen’s identity and was periodically providing her with blood, just as he had done in the past before the regression.
“This is why it’s troublesome when someone is too kind. What does it matter to Ric if a vampire starves to death or not?”
“Oh my, we actually agree on something for once.”
Sylphia concurred with Lassiel’s lament. It was the first time their opinions had aligned, both before and after the regression.
Before the regression, Rudrick had willingly offered his own blood to Arwen as a product of chance, telling her to drink his blood instead. This time, regardless of how the events unfolded, it seemed to have led to a similar development.
And in the midst of their conversation, the person in question opened the door and made his appearance.
“…What’s going on?”
“Ah, we already met in Her Highness the Princess’s office, didn’t we?”
As if her previous demeanor had been a lie, Lassiel sprang up from her seat and strode over to Rudrick.
Rudrick faltered for a moment at the suddenly tense atmosphere, but Lassiel, sensing the wariness in his expression, smiled broadly and extended her hand.
“Lassiel Reppert. Until recently, I was serving as the naval admiral in the south.”
“I’m Rudrick Weiss. But if you say until recently…?”
“Ahaha, I quit my admiral position and am on leave. My quartermaster will suffer in my place. I plan to stay in the capital for the time being, so we’ll see each other often.”
Lassiel’s attitude changed as quickly as flipping the palm of her hand.
Rudrick, who had returned from giving blood to Arwen only to find himself face to face with Lassiel in the research lab, gave Sylphia a look asking what was going on.
Receiving that signal, Sylphia stood up and said, “Well then, Admiral? Rudrick and I need to get back to our research now. It’s nice to build rapport, but please do that another time.”
“Baron Andres. I’m in the middle of a conversation with the young master of the Weiss family right now. It’s a bit rude to interrupt.”
“We were in the middle of important research. If you want to build rapport, it would be better to do it after the research is finished.”
The relationship between the two, who had been chatting about seeing eye to eye just moments ago, rapidly cooled again. In fact, this was the original relationship between Lassiel and Sylphia.
And caught like a sandwich between the two, with a chilling atmosphere, Rudrick muttered, still unable to grasp the situation.
“…So what’s going on here?”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Everything going on