Chapter 408: The Love of AnotherMother
Looking at Nero who was talking to Roxanne and Eve, Anna couldn't help but flash a motherly smile as she ate her food.
"Can you tell me what happened?" Anna was obviously talking about Nero's emotional outburst.
This kind of emotional outburst is not common for a simple sentence like, "My granddaughter... Or welcome to the family."
Anna wasn't exactly a lawyer dealing with personal issues, she worked more around politics or big corporations.
But that's not to say that her co-workers weren't involved in work involving children, families, etc.
She herself had heard several stories of orphaned children who went through difficult situations before being adopted by another family.
One of her co-workers was really emotionally shaken when dealing with a case involving this kind of issue.
Because of that, Anna suspected something had happened. She suspected there was something more to Nero's story... And her suspicions were proven correct when she saw Ruby's reaction.
"...." Ruby stopped watching the TV, and looked at Anna who was sitting next to her at the table.
"Are you sure you want to know?"
"..." Anna narrowed her eyes slightly, she knew that when Ruby said that, it was something her morals might or might not accept, or she might get annoyed.
Anna took some time to think as she ate, she was wondering if she should remain ignorant or know what happened.
Kaguya then appeared while holding a tray with drinks, leaving the drinks on the table, and served Anna.
Finished with her services, she bowed slightly and left.
Her entire action was natural and did not attract the attention of the two women, something that left her quite satisfied with her abilities.
Returning to Maid's group that was cleaning the house and talking, she asked:
"What happened to our toys?"
"...Lady Violet is still torturing-...disciplining them." Maria was the one who answered.
"They're not talking, huh."
"Yes... But soon they will." Who answered was Roberta who was close to Maria.
"We don't need our master's Charm to make some men open their mouths." The smile Roberta was making now was scary enough, but the women around her were used to it.
"And Lady Violet has torture techniques that are quite nefarious against other Vampires."
[But she is still very kind compared to me...] Roberta heard a seductive voice in her head.
But she chose not to answer the woman, she knew the woman only said it casually, and soon she would be silent and watch everything.
"She's not from the Snow Clan for nothing." Kaguya replied with a slight smile.
"I wonder how you were able to live mixing with society having that personality..." Bruna was the one who spoke to Roberta.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, when Master found you, you were controlling a Werewolf named Johnny pretending to be his lover with your skills, you were even mistaken for a Witch."
"Eh...? But I am a Witch."
"…Huh?"
"Before I turned into a Vampire, I was a Witch and I knew the basic spells but wasn't very proficient, but these mind control skills aren't magic... It's something like the Vampire charm, a special ability. ."
"Why did the Witches never find you then?"
"Because I always kept a low profile when finding out about the person inside me, it was instinctive."
"I can not believe it. The witches just ignored you, those greedy bitches?" Knowing of Roberta's abilities, Maria could see no reason for Witches to ignore her.
"Well, a snake's specialty is hiding." She commented with a small smile as her long, ankle-length hair began to move as if it had a life of its own.
"And…that little Wolf was the easiest target. His mind is weak, and his scent and presence as Alpha was the best cover I could ask for. He even took me to a clandestine hideout, I am truly grateful to him. Well… for his usefulness~."
[Thanks to him, I was able to meet my master~]
[I remember you were especially excited when you saw him disrespecting Aphrodite.] Roberta commented.
[It was a pleasant sight~] Medusa laughed.
"What an evil woman... I wonder why the master likes you." Maria said with a snort.
"For the same reason he likes you, ex-Hunter." Roberta poked at a sore spot.
"...fair enough." Maria laughed lightly, she didn't care, after all, it was true, she wasn't a flower to smell, and she knew it herself.
Each of the Maids had a history with Victor, and it was that history that made the man choose them as Maids.
Their talents were also a reason... But the main reason was that...
Their master liked them.
He saw something in them that only he knew, and because of that, he turned them into something more…something better.
And all the Maids knew that. They knew that their master expected something from them, and because of that, they always tried not to let him down, which was something extremely difficult to do.
After all, Victor was relatively easy to deal with, he was not very strict like Kaguya.
"Speaking of which, how are your minions doing?" Bruna asked Maria.
"I have temporarily stopped creating minions."
"Why?"
"We don't have enough space for them."
"Ohh..."
"And to create new minions, I just need to throw someone into that pool of Ghouls, and voilà a new Ghoul is born."
"What a frightening power, couldn't you cause the apocalypse if you wanted to?"
"Perhaps?"
"... You could not." Kaguya was the one who corrected them.
"...." The girls looked at Kaguya.
"The Gods would not stand by and watch the world be destroyed, the same applies to Vampires or other races."
"Oh? I don't care about the other races, but why would Vampires intrude?"
"If humans die, who will give us food? Letting the human population go extinct is basically culling all the fat pigs on our farm, it's illogical."
"Eh...? But didn't the ritual solve that problem?" Maria said, even after she became a Noble Vampire, she only drank her master's blood.
"This only applies to married Vampires, but few vampires are really willing to be together for several thousand years... and you are in a privileged position."
"Privileged position?" Bruna asked.
"Indeed. Our master's blood supplies all your needs, and it tastes divinely delicious and you can only get stronger by drinking this blood, not forgetting the fact that our master is your Progenitor, he created you..."
"But if you were a normal Noble Vampire who didn't have access to that resource, you would definitely look to humans for 'new' tastes."
"Because of that, the human slave market never dies, huh..." Bruna commented with a slight tone of disgust.
"Indeed. Luckily, most of the older Vampires are married, and that in itself is something to be thankful for."
'Although there are older Vampires like Vlad's royal guard, Vampires who have no family or commitment, most of them are harmless as long as the King doesn't order something.'
"Why?" Bruna asked.
"The older Vampires have urges for blood and cravings much stronger than a younger Vampire."
"Natashia is an example."
"...." The four maids became Chibi and looked up, and soon images of the way Natashia acted appeared like a movie.
"Ugh..." They couldn't help but groan in discomfort as they pictured several older Vampires like Natashia.
"But are there still Vampires like Scathach and Agnes who can control themselves?" Roberta asked, and soon she corrected herself:
"Well, they can control themselves most of the time." She just remembered Scathach's occasional fits of madness.
"Indeed, because we live in society, most older Vampires have learned to control themselves, but that doesn't mean there aren't Vampires who lose control...or Vampires who decide to live by their desires."
"...."
"...A special Vampire section at The Limbo wouldn't exist if that kind of problem were nil." Kaguya spoke.
"Remember that up until some 300 years ago, Vampires ran rampant in the human world and attacked everything and everyone. It wasn't until the King of Vampires made a rule and allied himself with a race of women that they decided to join together that this problem was suppressed." Maria spoke.
"The Witches, huh... I would never have guessed they were so 'young'." Bruno spoke.
"Witches existed thousands of years ago, but it wasn't until the war that put their race in danger of extinction that they decided to unite under a Queen who was the strongest Witch." Kaguya explained.
"Well, with their greedy personalities, I'm not surprised." Roberta rolled her eyes, she knew very well how Witches were when it came to magic, research and knowledge, they wanted to monopolize everything for themselves, and even sacrificing their companions was not impossible.
"Not to mention the factions still hate us, especially the humans." Maria spoke.
"Hate is justifiable, the prey instinctively fears its predator, and due to human rationality, that fear turns to hate, but... It was amplified over time because of the human leaders." Kaguya replied.
"We don't hunt humans as much as we used to, and most Vampire slaves are people who sold their bodies."
"..." Maria, Roberta and Bruna who lived in a life of poverty understood the decision of humans to sell their bodies.
They just needed to give blood to Vampires at regular times, and in doing so, they would have full support from Vampires, of course that support varied by the quality of their blood.
"Nowadays, because of globalization, it can be said that we are at relative 'peace' with humans."
"Oh? But don't Hunters hunt us?"
"Yes, but… They aren't every human on the planet. Conflicts do happen, but in the big picture they are just 'small' conflicts that won't influence all humans, mainly that our existence in the human world is an absolute secret, and only few people know about it, the common population doesn't."
"Don't forget that the majority of Snow Clan contributors are human, most of them being businessmen, politicians, and rulers... The temptation of eternal life is something any mortal cannot ignore."
"...." Maria nodded her head when she heard what Kaguya said.
She knew this very well, as a Clan responsible for Nightingale's foreign policy, Clan Snow was the Clan that had the most contacts with humans and other races.
The sound of the door opening was heard, and Violet emerged from the basement with a slightly irritated face.
"Lady Violet... How was the conversation?"
"They finally did, but the answer probably won't make my husband happy."
"...What do you mean?"
"Youki, the energy of Youkai, can only be used to their full potential in Japan, if you are not one of the three races that are capable of producing Youki by yourself, that power is practically useless outside that country."
"By races, you are saying."
"Foxes, Dragons, and Oni of the highest rank... Fox and Dragon being the strongest, because they are able to affect their environment."
"What do you mean by producing?" Roberta asked curiously.
"...Take foxes for example, their tails have the ability to take any energy around and transform it into Youki, they can even distribute that energy to their army."
"Something similar happens with Dragons."
"Ohh..." The four maids spoke at the same time as they remembered Haruna and Genji's fight that was filmed by some bored Gods or Witch and sold the copy in the Japanese supernatural world.
The two of them never seemed to run out of energy, and the amount Haruna had seemed to be more than Genji.
"So learning Youki is completely useless for my husband."
"Hmm, I wonder why Youki is only produced in Japan..." Kaguya was the one who asked.
"This is also a mystery to me. From what they explained to me, Youki is a negative energy that is produced by humans."
"Hate, fear, despair, etc. All these emotions produce Youki and spread around."
"Doesn't this mean that in theory, everyone could produce this energy? After all, it's not just Japan that humans live." Bruno spoke.
"Indeed, that's what I thought too... But even after I released a Vampire's restraints, and let him attack me... He only used physical or racial Vampire attacks, he couldn't use Youki or any other remarkable techniques."
"..." A silence fell over the place, and then Violet continued:
"I have a theory, but I don't know if it's correct."
"What's the theory?"
"Ruby says that for every action, there is a reaction. When I was listening to the Vampires explanations of Youki and reading the documents that you guys stole, I found something."
"Youki existed in the past, but it wasn't until a certain point in history that this Youki started to get stronger, and consequently the Youkai as well."
"...Are you saying there was interference from some kind of supernatural being?"
"Yes. This is not something very unusual, right? You killed a giant being, and from its corpse the entire area where it died began to change."
"When a Dragon dies, the nutrients in its body ferment the earth allowing new beings to be born."
"This is a quote from the Dragon books that were in my library."
"And I think that's what happened in Japan, someone, possibly a God, must have killed some kind of evil beast and that place became a prone place for that energy to focus."
"Which resulted in the Yokai being strengthened, and with the death of the yokai in that land, that energy was also released, and the cycle repeated itself."
"..." The maids didn't know if they were more shocked about Violet reading the book, or the tale she told, or the theory she presented that seemed to be very likely.
'Evil beast, huh… Yamata-No-Orochi?' Kaguya thought of the myth of her homeland, and all the myths alone were the one that fulfilled all the requirements for Violet's theory to become 'real'.
"I remember Morgana saying that the Youki was energy similar to demonic energy, but it was much weaker than demonic energy."
"..." The girls looked at Nero who at some point was close to them, then Nero started to explain what Morgana said about the Youki to the group.
Violet's eyes lit up slightly when she saw Nero, she didn't have the same attachment Ruby had to the girl, but her 'status' as Victor's daughter made her look at her neutrally.
And that neutrality turned to relative admiration, and kindness when she found out what the girl had gone through to protect Ophis.
Even though she didn't talk much, Violet liked Ophis, she was a very cute girl and she managed to get the best smiles out of her Darling.
Something that made her slightly jealous, but grateful, she even had pictures of Victor holding Ophis in her collection.
She felt a little sorry for what the girl had suffered just because she was born different too.
Even in all her insanity, obsession, and madness, Violet believed that no child should suffer what this girl did.
Because of these reasons, Nero was one of the few people Violet came to look up to.
'To suffer what she suffered, and to remain sane, and to be able to smile, even a little... It's not something anyone can do.'
And she was her husband's daughter, consequently, she was her daughter too... In fact, she was more her daughter because she looked like her!
As she thought about it, the sound of a Click sounded in Violet's head.
'... My daughter... My daughter... Mine and Darling's daughter... MY DAUGHTER.' A faint feeling of obsession began to grow in Violet's heart, a feeling directed towards her daughter.
"!!!" Nero shuddered slightly when he saw Violet's gaze, it was the same look Ruby gave her, only more intense, and unlike Ruby, whose look was a bit disguised and contained kindness and love, hers was much more intense.
'Shit...' Nero was feeling the intense love of his other mother.
And...
Her other mother loved people in a very peculiar way...