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Walter not only excluded Jeongjae from his military strategies but also didn’t impose restrictions that would prevent him from moving freely within his territory. Therefore, Jeongjae could technically travel anywhere he liked, despite having nominal control over his territory. In fact, there were quite a few nobles who, even while holding their own territories, entrust governance to a representative and focus solely on political activities within the system.

However, due to practical concerns, Jeongjae was quite reluctant to leave his territory. It had barely been a few months since the enemy had attacked Harriet’s Territory. That attack, ironically, had obliterated an enemy fleet of 300 ships and 10,000 troops, significantly diminishing the enemy’s landing capabilities and, paradoxically, greatly reducing the need for coastal defenses in Harriet’s Territory.

But before that shock could fully dissipate, Dracula’s solo raid occurred. With personal casualties and the near massacre of his territory’s inhabitants, even the thought of leaving his domain sent Jeongjae into a state of anxiety.

“Boundary magic is operating correctly. No enemy intrusions confirmed. Alright, for now, everything seems fine…”

Since the Southern Alliance had been established, Jeongjae had maintained daily records of the territory’s boundary status and the states of pre-installed defensive spells to have grounds to summon the alliance should anything change.

That day, while carefully inspecting and recording the magic circles remaining around his territory and Harriet Castle, Jeongjae scratched his head with a puzzled expression.

“No confirmed intrusions… No suspicious cases… Hmm… Was there something? I can’t shake this feeling…”

The Demon King’s mental spells are generally not hard to dispel if you can confirm their existence. In fact, the spells cast by the Demon King are so weak that they often dissolve due to minor shocks or the natural passage of time.

However, as the daughter of the Succubus Queen, who had reached the pinnacle of enchanting spells, the true prowess of the Demon King lay in the ability to ensure the affected individual never even realizes they are under a spell.

Previously, Dracula had told Jeongjae that his spell was like a sturdy iron rope—difficult to untie or cut once bound, but recognizing its presence isn’t too hard.

But the Demon King’s spell, much like a spider’s web that you don’t even know you’ve walked into, quietly erodes the victim’s mind. This kind of spell makes it hard to realize one is ensnared, and by the time they sense something is off, it usually melts away cleanly, leaving them unaware of when they were caught or even what type of spell ensnared them, creating doubt about whether they are truly enchanted.

As soon as Jeongjae became aware of something unusual and instinctively tried to resist the spell, it was his exceptional mana resistance that allowed him to do so. Probably only someone like Rose Caprice, who possesses physical resistance to all sorts of curses, would have been able to respond more effectively than Jeongjae if they were ensnared by the same spell.

Anyway, the main reason Jeongjae forced himself to conduct this tedious documentation was that he felt he might genuinely fall into depression if he remained cooped up in the village anymore, especially given his currently unstable emotions.

Of course, Jeongjae had been working hard. He fought whenever the enemy attacked and devised diplomatic strategies to prepare for any potential invasions. Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being sidelined in the grand scheme of war, and the whole issue felt too enormous for him. Combined with the news of Jenis’s soaring success, which stirred his annoyance for some unknown reason, the Grand Mage’s mind was precariously shaken.

To prevent himself from losing his composure, he needed something to do, a valuable project to occupy himself with. Thus, Jeongjae chose the task of searching for and eliminating the large demon tribes’ hideouts. He was thoroughly searching through places near Harriet’s Territory where enemies might be hiding, accompanied by the guards, becoming engrossed in the destruction when necessary.

Given Jeongjae’s recent reputation, having expelled several formidable foes and earned absolute trust from the villagers, this search was met with full support and cooperation from the guards, regardless of how absurd it might seem. Seeing how passionately the guards were digging to uncover vampire hideouts, Jeongjae felt he couldn’t just abandon this undertaking.

Honestly, if he were to quit this task now, he had no clue what else to pursue.

That day, after finishing all inspections of the defensive magic circles installed in his territory, Jeongjae personally led the guards as they wandered around the territory.

“Stop everything for a moment.”

Having discovered a thicket resembling the hideouts of former tax evaders, which the current guards had used, Jeongjae halted the four guards following him.

Upon Jeongjae’s command, the guards tensed up and aimed their weapons forward. He carefully approached the thicket, extending his hand to brush it aside.

“If I were you,”

Jeongjae said, resting his hand atop the brush.

“I’d choose the option to jump out on my own.”

At that moment, a grotesque face emerged from the foliage and lunged with its teeth aimed at Jeongjae’s hand. Startled, the guards stepped back as the reptilian-like creature unleashed a monstrous roar, but Jeongjae remained unfazed, deftly avoiding the attack and then seized the neck of the emerging creature.

The Grand Mage easily yanked the vampire’s body out from the brush as if he were pulling out a weed and threw it backward. The targeted vampire fell right among the guards.

The guards assembled in that spot weren’t particularly smart, but they weren’t so foolish that they needed explicit commands even in such a circumstance. Before the vampire could flap its wings and rise, the guards stabbed it with their spears, ending its existence.

Jeongjae was assured merely by the sounds that his guards were executing their duties effectively and created a gust of wind, clearing away the bushes that had obscured his view. Behind the thicket, startled voices echoed from a tiny cave.

“Y-Yeah, we’ve been found. It’s… an ambush!”

“I-I thought this place wouldn’t be discovered!”

Those were bizarre and horrifying words that made one frown just by listening, yet they were unmistakably human voices. Convinced that these were the vampires’ voices, Jeongjae stepped forward into the cave.

Something invisible was blocking his feet. He casually kicked a magic circle, which was obviously crafted by the vampires with considerable effort, shattering it, and brushed off the remnants of dark mana from his robe with a displeased expression.

“Where is Dracula? What does that guy want hanging around here?”

Jeongjae said, glancing around while wearing his robe. One winged female vampire brandished a magic circle in a panic, shouting.

“Do you think we’ll tell you, human mage?!”

Jeongjae quickly scanned the small cave and confirmed there were just two vampires inside. He flicked his finger towards the nearest female vampire, and her neck snapped at a right angle with a shriek.

The twisted carcass of the vampire collapsed to the ground, eyes wide in a horrific expression as Jeongjae bit his lip, articulating his disgust.

“Two aren’t necessary to get answers. I’ll ask. What is your master intending to achieve by targeting our land, and where are you hiding as he commands you?”

Not invoking a magic circle nor uttering spells, merely using simple thoughts and movements of his fingers to slay a vampire, the remaining one trembled in fear, shivering.

Vampires bear an incredibly close resemblance to humans. They share the same root as humanity but have diverged so deeply that interbreeding isn’t possible, unlike orcs and ogres. Alongside succubi, they are known to be the only demon tribe capable of mating with humans.

Initially, when Jeongjae crossed into this world, he felt a psychological aversion to killing these species. It was easier to eliminate orcs and goblins, who lacked any proper language and primarily utilized their own, but instinctively found it troubling to slay a species that spoke humanity’s language and looked so similar.

However, Jeongjae had long found a solution to that problem.

A fierce hatred towards the Demon King’s army. A resentment towards the evil army that had brought the world to this state and stifled his second chance at life for three years.

Thanks to this fury directed at the enemy, Park Jeongjae learned not to regard anyone affiliated with the Demon King’s army as human. This extreme viewpoint rendered him unable to slaughter enemies freely on the battlefield due to his sensitive sensibilities without an extreme moral framework.

So now, Jeongjae felt no sympathy or empathy for the trembling vampire looking up at him like a scared rabbit.

“I-I’d be mistaken if I thought I could get answers out of you, even with torture…”

“Such loyalty.”

Jeongjae spat dismissively.

“But I’m not interested. If you won’t speak, I truly couldn’t care less.”

Jeongjae casually gestured horizontally into the air. The vampire had no idea what the Grand Mage had just done. Right up to the moment its neck was severed, rolling lifelessly on the floor.

Jeongjae glanced around the cave, hoping to find something that might offer a clue. However, all he saw were a few short knives and a few animal corpses that had been drained dry. Despite the dead vampires, he felt greater sympathy for the mice that had been bled dry than for the slain vampires, causing him to frown as he stepped out of the cave.

Outside the cave, the guards were still prodding the corpses of the vampires they had already confirmed dead with their spears. For ordinary guards, undead creatures are a fearsome enemy by their very nature, leading them to doubt whether the corpse beneath their feet was living or lifeless even after several prods.

As if fearing that the vampire might rise again, each guard cautiously pressed one foot down on an appendage of the slain vampire.

Jeongjae chuckled at the image of the vampire, once a bloody mass, now nearing the stage of being a mere pulp.

“That’s enough. Let’s stop here. It’s dead. Hey, Remy, you really only need to poke it, okay? Did you forget someone enchanted your spear? That kind of low-tier monstrosity can be killed with one good jab, so relax.”

Upon hearing Jeongjae’s words, a guard, having been corrected on his excessive verifying behavior, lifted his spear and nodded.

“Yes, my lord.”

Without personally touching it, Jeongjae used levitation magic to toss the meat lump of a corpse into the cave.

“Strike down, small blaze.”

As soon as Jeongjae uttered the simple command, a small Fireball magic circle appeared in the air, sending a beam of small flame into the cave. Soon the entire cave was engulfed in the spell of fire, incinerating all the corpses within.

Thanks to Jeongjae’s careful control, there was no risk of sparks flying outside the cave. After staring numbly at the burning cave for a moment, Jeongjae said to the guards.

“Today’s search yielded meaningful results. That’s enough for now, let’s head back to the territory. Everyone did well. I hope this act of slaying the vampires can at least slightly ease the vengeance from last week’s attack that caused the loss of your comrades.”

This was also the only reason Jeongjae had chosen to forgo killing the vampire himself and instead entrusted it to the guards. He fought for the people, but the reasons he could fight were driven by vengeance and hatred.

Meanwhile, Dracula, who still had not identified Jeongjae’s position, felt a considerable threat to his life as the formal search activities of Jeongjae commenced.

Like many mages, Park Jeongjae possessed a somewhat unpredictable personality. Naturally, the senior members of the Demon King’s army kept that in mind and remained vigilant, wondering, “What outrageous idea will this Grand Mage come up with next?” Yet, witnessing him silently holed up within his territory and then suddenly roaming nearby to hunt down vampires was far from the path that Dracula predicted he would take.

Dracula believed that now was not the time for a direct confrontation with the Grand Mage. In fact, on the day Dracula had raided Harriet’s Territory alone, if Jeongjae had shown even a hint of willingness to fight, Dracula would have undoubtedly lost.

Having realized this, Dracula had fled, but if Jeongjae had decided to pursue him without considering the territory behind him, that day, Dracula might not have escaped Jeongjae’s pursuit and assassination. Dracula survived that day because he worried that while he was fleeing from Jeongjae, a few vampires hiding in ambush might infiltrate the territory and massacre its inhabitants.

Now, there was no predicting how far Park Jeongjae would move while considering such things. For the sake of preserving his own life, Dracula could not afford to escape far beyond Jeongjae’s reach.

After directing his vampires through communication magic to lie low as much as possible, Dracula soon realized he had approached close to the boundary of Harker Count Territory.

Naturally, as he sought to evade the heavily fortified Harker Count Territory and escape towards the uninhabited mountain ranges, Dracula’s gaze fell upon the sun setting far beyond the horizon.

Realizing that the sun would soon set, he suddenly felt a desire for revenge on the man who had caused him so much suffering.

 

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