Chapter 350: Welcome to my humble abode.
Victor walked along with Maria to the Supernatural Beings that were trapped in this place.
The two casually passed by various screams and sounds of people suffering, their attitudes unchanging as if it were completely natural.
"… Ugh… This torture method… Is it Roberta?" Maria spoke while looking at a man who had several torture tools dug into his private parts and had a kind of thorn penetrating his back hole.
"She's brutal..."
"She has certain complications when it comes to the 'sterner sex'..." Victor flashed a wry smile since, knowing his Maid's past, he understood why Roberta had so many problems with men.
'Come to think of it, I forgot to move this man to another room.' Victor thought to himself.
This wing was for the people who directly sought to profit from the situation involving Ophis, either by means of obtaining the daughter of a Big Shot from the world of politics or by having an interest in the little girl's blood.
Of course, there were those like this man who acted with lustful interest, all because of the rumor that the youngest daughter of the Vampire King, Vlad Tepes, was unparalleled in beauty even by the standards of Noble Vampires who were born looking quite attractive.
…Although it wasn't a rumor anymore. After the recent ambush Ophis suffered, her face was revealed, and at some point, her face was widely circulated in the Supernatural Community.
Victor personally went after the Witches who did this, and he captured those Witches, and… Well, he's done enough to know that the Witches would retaliate in the future.
After all, Witches were well known for protecting all of their members. Even Witches who committed crimes on the outside were dealt with personally by the Witches themselves in the Witch Realm.
He was already expecting someone important related to Witches to show up at his door because of this.
'Let them come, I'll be waiting.' Victor wasn't afraid to fight or to make enemies. He wasn't a coward.
Of course, those with lustful interests like the man Roberta tortured were being personally treated by Victor, and they stood behind a door that only Victor, Scathach, or Roberta could enter.
After all, few had the stomachs to see what was behind that door.
That would be the case for Victor as well, however, through absorbing Adonis' memories, he'd become a little numb to this type of scene.
You don't run a Vampire Count Clan for thousands of years being a Saint, after all.
Now, the question remained, how did Victor separate the innocent and the guilty?
Let's say that he was putting his Charm to good use, and now that his Charm was much stronger than before, all it took was for a person to hear his words for them to be coerced into doing something they usually wouldn't want to do.
This was definitely a demonic skill...
... A demonic skill, a demonically useful skill.
"... Master, you're going to use these people?"
"Indeed, they will be your new 'toys'." Victor flashed a small smile.
"...Hmm..." Maria made an uncomfortable face.
"What's the matter, My Maid?" Victor asked as he looked into Maria's red eyes.
"It's just... I'm disgusted to bite these people... But since I know it's for the Master's sake, I'll do it..."
Victor looked at Maria with an incredulous look, and then he laughed softly, "...Hahaha~"
"...What?" She pouted.
Victor stroked her head as he said:
"My beloved Maid, you aren't going to make Vampire Slaves."
"???" She looked at Victor with question marks in her head. She didn't understand what he meant, but she was secretly enjoying the caresses on her head.
"You must make Ghouls."
"..." Maria opened her eyes in shock as she looked into Victor's violet eyes.
"Remember that before you became what you are today, you were once a Ghoul."
"…But I thought I had lost that ability?"
"You didn't lose it."
"You just never used it." He flashed a small smile and continued walking along with Maria.
"My bite works in peculiar ways."
"... That's true. You even managed to eliminate that girl's race, effectively making her a full Vampire."
"Correct." Victor nodded in satisfaction.
"Unlike Nero, you were a Ghoul, a subspecies of Vampires, but, through my bite... Let's just say you evolved through the hierarchy." Victor explained.
"But the core of your existence is still a Ghoul."
"…So I'm dead?" She spoke with a dark expression.
"...." Victor showed a small smile and said:
"You're not dead."
"But-..."
"Shh... Let me finish."
"..." Maria looked at her Master.
"You know about that Demon-looking woman, right?"
"Vlad's ex-wife."
"Correct."
"She's a Demon... Correction, she was a Demon, who later became a Vampire."
"Vlad Dracul Tepes, the Progenitor of Vampires, personally bit that woman and altered her entire existence… But."
"Even after being bitten by a Progenitor and having her race changed to a Vampire, the core of her existence is still a Succubus."
"Core of existence?" she asked curiously.
"..." Victor looked upwards a little, tilting his head slightly as if thinking of a way to explain. This was the first time he'd tried to explain this to someone, and he was struggling to put it into words. After all, he didn't fully understand how it worked, it was merely an instinctive knowledge that he'd gained when he became a Progenitor.
Something like, you don't think about raising your hands, do you? Nobody taught you that, you just knew naturally from when you started to exist. His abilities as a Progenitor were something like that.
He knew what to do but had no idea how to verbally explain it.
"Example."
"Before you turned into a Ghoul, you were a human."
"At that time, the core of your existence was 100% human."
"Then there was the bite without the correct preparations, and you turned into a Ghoul."
"When you turned into a Ghoul, your core existence changed from being 100% human to 1% human."
"And a new attribute was added to the core of your existence."
"Back then, you were 99% Ghoul and 1% human. That 1% was what kept your memories, desires, appearance, and everything you were before."
"When I bit you," ꜰʀᴇᴇᴡᴇʙɴᴏᴠᴇʟ.ᴄᴏᴍ
"The same thing happened, only this time, the Ghoul was the one that decreased and became 1%, equal to the remaining human."
"My blood filled your existence, effectively turning you into a Noble Vampire."
"...." Maria made a difficult face as she thought about what Victor had said.
Victor gave her time to think, and soon the woman replied:
"That means the human 1% is what I am myself. These are my memories, my appearance, my desire, everything 'Maria' is in that 1%."
"And the 1% Ghoul would be something like the skills I had when I was a Ghoul."
"And now the rest is the 98% of me that is a Noble Vampire. It's all blended together and gave life to the existence I am today."
Victor flashed a small smile and said, "It's a little more complicated than that... But you're correct."
Then he continued:
"This change that occurs with the bite is something more fundamental. It's something on the level of souls, not just genes."
"...." A silence fell around, and when Maria saw the door approaching, she asked:
"...Could Master completely eliminate what made me a Ghoul from my body?"
"I don't know... But I think I can?" Victor spoke vaguely, as he wasn't sure himself. He had a feeling he could do it, but it would be something incredibly dangerous. After all, it was like you were messing with something that made you what you are.
"..." Maria looked at Victor in silence.
"Even if I could completely erase the Ghoul inside you, I wouldn't."
"Why...?"
"Because it's your story."
"You were once human, then you were a Ghoul, and now you are a Noble Vampire.... All these transformations are part of you, part of being known as Maria."
"Erasing that would be like effectively erasing a part of your history."
Even with Nero, he didn't completely erase the werewolf side of her body because that side was part of the girl's core existence. He didn't know the consequences that would arise from erasing it, considering that he would effectively be erasing something from Nero's existence.
All he had was a basic 'gut instinct' of how this skill worked, but it was something very vague, and for him to understand more, he would have to use the skill more.
'...Maybe I can train this with the prisoners.' Victor thought to himself.
"...." Maria opened her eyes wide when she heard what Victor said.
"I didn't know you thought so much about it..."
Victor showed a soft smile, "... It's very dangerous to mess with something delicate like that without knowing anything."
Arriving at the door, Victor took the handle and said:
"You're not dead. You're a Noble Vampire who was once a human and a Ghoul. The remnants of what you once were remain in your soul to this day, and it's those remnants that give you everything you have today." Victor thought of Maria's wire skill as he said this.
This ability was something she'd had since she was a Hunter, and even after becoming a Ghoul and later a Vampire, that ability hadn't been lost.
It had just been modified by her new self.
The ability to turn other beings into Ghouls still existed within her.
Victor believed that if Maria gave her blood to a being without doing any kind of ritual like common Noble Vampires, that being would turn into a Ghoul.
That being wouldn't die because it couldn't stand the Vampire's noxious blood.
"...And for my plan to work, I need your Ghoul powers today." He flashed a small evil smile.
Soon he opened the door, and the first thing he saw were the innocent Supernatural Beings.
Looking at the terrified faces they had when he appeared, Victor's smile grew very demon-like.
... Wrong, he smiled as if he was something more evil than a Demon, considering the Demons he'd captured were scared to death of him.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to my humble abode."