The next morning, Li, with the help of everyone on the farm, put up barrels of grain in front of the cottage, right beside the rough, well trodden dirt of the main road. Even Tia had helped, balancing a barrel on her back and carrying it over. Though that was all she could muster for the day. She was highly lethargic today as well, preferring to sleep and lounge around.

Valery's transport had arrived as the morning sun reached its peak, right before it became hot, and he had brought his usual escort of three carts and a squadron of vampires to help with transport.

"Simply marvelous, sir," said Valery as he took off his black beret, revealing smoothly slicked back hair. "A healthy and fine harvest. Your skills in tending to the land are truly unmatched."

"Were you ordered to flatter me?" said Li jokingly.

"I will say I am quite highly incentivized to do so," said Valery with a smile. He added, "But dedication to a craft is truly admirable regardless. Now, do you wish to continue the transport arrangements from last week?"

Li nodded. "That would be great."

"Is there anything else?" said Valery, his head tilted a little as his eyes narrowed, analyzing Li's face.

"You can tell?"

"I have been under another's service for the entirety of my century's worth of existence. I have developed a keen sense for knowing when others want as a result."

"You should take a break sometime." Li became more serious, his voice attaining a cool composure. "I need to talk to the count. Figured I could hitch a ride with you all."

Valery put a gloved hand to his angular chin, as it seemed all vampires had sharp features, and said to Li, "Give me a second to iron out the details."

He moved over to the carriages, speaking to the drivers in a language that Li picked up as distinctively not Eldenian. Though his Allspeak allowed him to understand what they were saying, it was still interesting to note that the vampires seemed to have their own language despite not having anything of the sort in the game.

Valery came back to Li with a bowed head. "My apologies for the delay. I have altered our travel route such that our head carriage will take you to the Alarie estate at the earliest convenience. As a result, however, the grain transport may be delayed a few hours, if that is fine with you."

Li waved his concern away. "More than fine. I appreciate the service and consideration."

Valery smiled, ever so slightly baring a fang as he put a hand over his suited breast. "I live to serve."

_____________________

Li was driven through Riviera and up the mountainous path leading to the noble estates. There, Valery dropped him off at the front gate, which promptly opened as two black clad vampire knights immediately escorted Li out and into the mansion.

Li remarked again at how this mansion of foreboding black which stood out so much could manage to escape the eyes of nobles in Riviera for so long as a hotspot for some of the strongest monsters. Alexei himself, as a higher vampire over level 70, could probably burn this entire city to the ground with his strength alone, not to mention his sizable cohort of knights.

But then again, the noble estates were all unique in their own way. There was one plated in solid gold that hurt to look at under the bright Eldenian sun, there was Lys's veritable castle of an estate, and then there was the Lakely estate's magical tower.

Perhaps a certain eccentrism and desire to stand out among their peers gave a good amount of leeway for what was undoubtedly the darkest and most suspicious building of them all to be left alone.

Inside the mansion, Li was escorted by a duo of vampire maids, their uniforms distinctively gothic and surprisingly suited to the fact that they were, well, vampires. He let them take his boots off and give him a pair of comfortably furred slippers to wear before walking through the spacious living room with its massive dining table and into the long and winding hallway that led to the count's study.

In front of the wide oaken double doors of Alexei's study, one of the maids came up and knocked. In an instant, the doors flung wide open and Alexei burst out, his sharp face screwed into a light scowl. He was not dressed as formally as he usually was, bereft of a coat to reveal a purple dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

"I thought I said I was not to be disturbed during this time," he said, his voice not harsh but simply authoritative. His eyes landed upon Li. Immediately, he bowed his head. "Ah, you have come to visit?"

Alexei opened the doors for Li before talking to his maids. "Then I understand your reasons. Go and prepare some tea."

When Li went into the study, he came upon an interesting sight.

"Is this what you do in your free time?" said Li, mildly amused.

Alexei closed the doors behind him, runes of sealing and warding magic flashing momentarily as it shut the study off from the outside world. He walked past Li to a velveted couch where Claire, the blonde human maid, lay, her legs and arms bound tightly together leather restraints.

Alexei stepped past Li, his expression as stony and decidedly unamused as ever. "This does appear to be a rather strange scene, I must admit, but the truth is that I do not have free time. Forgive me, but I must tend to her for a minute more."

The higher vampire knelt on the carpeted floor and drew the coffee table in front of the couch closer to him. Li noticed that on it were an assortment of vials filled with liquids of different colors, some bubbling, some smoking. In front of the vials was a neatly arranged row of six droppers.

"Alchemy?"

"I do dabble in it. Were I an expert, she would be cured by now." Alexei took a dropper, drew up some fluid from a vial, and held it over Claire's mouth.

She lurched forwards, her mouth opening as she snapped at Alexei's bony hand with inhuman ferocity. Her blue eyes were tinged with flecks of red and wide with energy, and Li could see that her mouth did not hold normal human teeth, but instead a row of sharp and hollow fangs characteristic of a vampire.

"So she wasn't human after all," said Li. "Or did you turn her into a vampire?"

"Oh, she is still very much human." Alexei took his free hand and grasped Claire's jaw with accurate and firm strength, forcibly opening it but not harming it. He took the dropper and squeezed in a few drops of shining blue liquid that evaporated when it touched her tongue.

He furrowed his brows and shook his head once. "Another incorrect formula."

Li made himself comfortable, taking a seat on the couch opposite of Alexei's. "For?"

"To cure her of her ailment. Are you aware of how vampires turn others?"

"A mutagen in their saliva," said Li, recalling lore text. "That's how you get more of your kind, isn't it?"

"In theory, yes. Aside from courting others of our kind, of which natural conception is exceedingly rare, it is possible to easily turn others into us through transmission of our vampiric mutagens."

Alexei took another dropper from the table, this time filled with red liquid that Li recognized as regular blood.

"But in practice, it is not so. Our mutagens are only capable of turning others into the absolute lowest and weakest of our kind such as the bestial and mindless lamyros and lamashu."

"But if I recall correctly, humans are capable of turning into fully fledged vampires such as yourself, no?"

"I cannot dispute your knowledge, but I personally do not know of such a case. It is true that humans are the most pliable to mutations, explaining why the mutagen for heroes seems to take to them only and why our vampiric mutagen allows a few select members of their kind to reach the status of lesser vampires, but that is all they can muster."

"And her?" Li motioned to Claire who was practically foaming at the mouth now in wild ferocity. "She doesn't look like a crawling vampire monster, but she isn't quite all there in the head either, so she can't be a lesser, normal, or higher vampire that are characterized by their rationality."

"An exceedingly special case."

Alexei squeezed a few droplets of blood into her mouth and she began to grow sleepy, her movements growing slow as her wild facial expression smoothened out into her usual, calm state.

"Seventeen years ago now, was it? The kingdom of Beaumont was crumbling and I had left my position as an advisor at the royal court, coming to Riviera as I had heard tell of a higher one such as myself here wishing to take advantage of the chaos and take over the kingdom."

"What did you intend on doing? Stopping him?"

"No, I sought to join him. I saw that the kingdom was on its last stand, that the Republic intended to invade, that the duchess, then simply a rebellious princess, had already swayed much of the public's opinion against the royal family. I saw the foundations of order in the world crumbling, ready to collapse upon one single push. I abhor chaos, and I felt that at least with another of my kind, I could find a leader who could rally some order."

Alexei patted Claire's head, lulling her to sleep before he closed her eyes and began undoing her restraints. "But it was not so. None among my kind share my views, all of them being reigned by selfishness and pride, but this one was even worse. The higher one here had fallen to the irrationality of mania.

Our third eye allows us affinity to magic and a gift of prophecy, and the visions of a great, formless disaster utterly consumed his mind."

"You couldn't corroborate his visions with your own prophetic powers?"

"I have long since shut off my prophecies. I am a firm believer that the future does not shape us. It is we who create the future."

Alexei stood up, rolling his sleeves back down as he headed back to his desk. "This higher one saw this future he believed he could not control and, to fight against his perceived helplesness, became obsessed with power, attempting to become a tyrant over the world. Part of this megalomanic vision involved immortality."

"Your kind is already functionally immortal, though."

"Functionally. Our bodies can be burnt, cut, and destroyed. If we are deprived of blood, then even age may topple us."

Alexei shook his head as he put his hands behind his back in reminiscence. "No, this one wished to live no matter the cost, no matter the damage. To that end, he experimented in altering the composition of his vampiric mutagen such that it would be dormant and undetectable among humans, the species most reactive to mutagens, he infected, and when activated, would alter them into an exact copy of himself.

He further modified the spiritual familiar link that vampires have among those they turn so that whence he willed it, he could not only activate the mutagen but transfer his consciousness. With enough spare bodies lying around, it would effectively be impossible to fully kill him. This required genius level intellect in both alchemy and spiritual magic, and a genius he was, even among our kind.

But it is geniuses with their depth of thought that are all the more prone to falling to the trap of mania."

"I see." Li glanced at Claire, now sleeping peacefully. "And she's one of those experiments?"

"Precisely so, and this amateur alchemy is my attempt to try and eradicate that mutagen from her body. It is truly frightening how advanced this mutagen is, as despite being yet incomplete, it has escaped my understanding for nearly two decades now. It was quite fortunate that I managed to eliminate him before he finished his research.

By the time I came to Riviera, it had been gripped with terror as members of his horde openly snatched humans from the streets with no care for caution, which would have inevitably led to an embittered hunt against our kind were it to develop further."

"Hm. So to save your kind you had to kill one of them." Li had no judgement in his voice. He was merely making an observation.

"I am beholden to order above all else, for elsewise chaos, the avatar of ruin, arises in its stead, and that is far greater an enemy than any imaginary prophecy." Alexei reached out to his desk and tapped a bell. "And for that, I do thank you."

"Me? What did I do?"

"Your arrival has stymied two potentially world ending calamities: the demonic invasion to the west and the north's plan to invade the south. Both could have led to conflicts that could have spiraled this world into chaos. I initially thought you perhaps an source of more chaos, but it is evident that for you it is the opposite."

As the bell's ring faded, Alexei shifted over to the doors of the study and opened them. The vampire maids were waiting, and he motioned them to Claire. "Take her to her quarters and tend to her health. See to it that her blood toxicity remains stable."

The maids bowed their heads before they shuffled in and out of the study with superhuman agility, carrying Claire away and closing the doors behind them.

Alexei dusted his hands off before he sat on the couch in front of Li. "Now then, with that affair done, what did you wish to see me for?"