"Well, I'm off." Dorothy washed her hands from the nearby well provided for the stalls before wiping her hands against her apron.
"Where are you going?" I asked, watching her fling her apron to the side before fixing her makeup.
Dorothy closed her compact powder. "I'm going to get that gil, of course."
My eyebrow rose. "Are you sure that you're not just going to slack off?"
Dorothy gave me an eye roll. "Watch the stall. I'll be back late lunch with our gil."
Dorothy was always bossy when we were young. I thought as I watched her disappear from the crowds of people.
I walked behind the stall and sat on the barrel before bringing out a small notebook and a pen. I listed the materials and ingredients that I needed to buy to make a simple love potion and acquire a pot of gil.
"Have you heard the rumors? Taxes are going up!"
My ears perked at the two maids buying fish at the stall next to mine. Since my fish was expensive, all thanks to Dorothy, I hardly got customers. But I was sure that it was more because of the pimples and warts on my face. They said that it was contagious, especially to young women.
Pft!
"Yeah. Apparently, the old Duke is sick, and the one who is taking over this town is his son-in-law since the little Duke of Hamill is still young."
"Poor Duke Hamill. It's all because his firstborn is a woman, and he didn't have a son."
"I heard that Lady Catherine is also sick, and her husband, Marquees Jorge Lays, is taking over everything."
"Marquees Jorge is nothing but a puppet to his mother. I wouldn't be surprised if they're the ones behind their sickness so they could have all Duke Hamill's riches."
"What will happen to this town now without the Duke?"
As I listened to their conversation, I jogged my memories and recalled even the tiniest information about this event.
The human nobility's hierarchy was simple from Baron, Count, Marquees, Prince, Duke, and the highest, the King. Usually, a Duke house such as Hamill would marry into the same status or even higher, but since Lady Catherine and Marquees Jorge fell in love and bore a son, Duke Hamill had no choice but to marry her off to escape the embarrassment.
Lady Catherine is the only family Duke Hamill had left, and everyone knew how he dearly loved his daughter. His wife passed on, and he didn't take in concubines or a second wife after that.
And if I was not mistaken, Duke Hamill and Lady Catherine both died of a mysterious sickness.
My lips stretched in a smirk. If only I didn't see Lady Catherine on a ball held by the vampires, and I would have believed that she died of sickness too.
It must have been a vampire who fancied her or must have been a Vampire Rogue, creatures who were consumed with bloodlust and thought nothing but drinking blood. Mostly they were newly turned vampires who couldn't control their hunger until they were consumed with nothing but the idea of drinking blood. Mindless creatures that attack everyone, friends or foes alike. They were killed and hunted not just in Seraphim but throughout the lands.
There was no turning back once you've become a creature of the night. No amount of magic nor spells could make you human again. And once you turned rogue, it was death for you.
Usually, a newly turned vampire requires constant feeding of blood every now and then. This could last a week or a month until they could control their thirst. But no one was still confident that you wouldn't turn into a rogue since it was easy to lose yourself when you drank the only thing that could sate your hunger.
It was the reason why there were strict rules in the Razim Kingdom about drinking blood and turning humans into vampires. All captured humans were treated as livestock. Never biting into their skin, only cuts to draw blood and drink from it.
But of course, there were still a few who didn't follow these rules and do whatever they wanted. As long as they were not caught, that is.
Something was exhilarating when you sunk your fangs into their necks and sucked their blood. It was one of my pleasures when I was a vampire, especially when Rhazien and I had sex.
It was like an itch dose with hot water. The climax in the sex. It was quite addicting, and many noble vampires held orgies for this and mostly had virgin humans as the highlight of the feast. But of course, to avoid turning into a Rogue, the humans were sucked dry or put to death when the party was over.
Fortunately, I knew a potion that could control a Vampire's thirst for a day. I called it Blood Potions. I've discovered it in my time as a Vampire Queen. It required a lot of trial and error, but it didn't take long for me to make one since I was a vampire myself. And that discovery helped newly turned Vampires from becoming a rogue.
Come to think of it, because of that, the Vampires grew complacent and made a vampire army out of the humans and, more importantly, held orgies every night. Since only purebloods could bore vampire children and seeing that the purebloods numbers could only be counted in two hands, not counting their children, the vampire community was dwindling compared to the humans and werewolves who produced babies like bunnies.
With Blood Potion, I saved the vampires population and the major problem with the rogues. But never did they thank nor acknowledge what I did.
Ungrateful bastards.
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