「Hogyah, hogyah!」

The thing that was crying like a baby was no normal baby.

It had blonde hair that looked as if made of pure gold, and skin as white as the rock that this royal castle of Talosheim was built from. It had pink, triangular ears and there was a short tail growing from its bottom.

Incidentally, pig-beast-people apparently didn't exist in Lambda.

「Before we knew it, the Live-Dead had turned to ashes and this child was crying.」(Basdia)

「I see.」(Vandalieu)

Vandalieu came to check on the Live-Dead after returning from Doran's Aquatic Caverns to be greeted by Basdia holding a baby in her arms.

It seemed that while Vandalieu was in Doran's Aquatic Caverns, the fetus had developed sufficiently and the Live-Dead had run out of Mana.

「Well, I don't really care about the Live-Dead. I was planning to bury it after it served its purpose anyway.」(Vandalieu)

Vandalieu turned the ashes into a Golem to gather them up. The Live-Dead had simply been a creature with a beating heart but no soul. It had existed only to nurture its reborn self in its uterus.

「So this child was born safely, but... I've been troubled because it won't stop crying.」(Basdia)

「Hogyah! Hogyah!」(Baby)

「Can I see the baby for a bit?」(Vandalieu)

「Of course.」(Basdia)

Vandalieu took her in his arms. She stopped crying and stared at Vandalieu.

Vandalieu observed her as she gazed at him.

「... Mhmm, it does resemble her.」(Vandalieu)

Its face resembled that of the Live-Dead and its spirit, and it had a human's nose. And it was definitely a girl. It was not a Noble Orc whose race only had males.

「I'm going to have a good look at you, so bear with me for a moment.」(Vandalieu)

「Uu.」(Baby)

Using【Spirit Form Transformation】to turn a part of his body into spirit form, Vandalieu examined the inside of her body. Her organ count, the shape of her bones and the like were different from Orcs; they were close to a human's.

It was still impossible to tell whether her body would function the same as a human's. But she was clearly not an Orc or Noble Orc.

But it couldn't be said that she was completely human. She had the same golden hair as the Noble Orcs, and her eyes were blue. And her ears and tail made it very clear that she wasn't entirely human.

She was still just a baby; it was possible that she might develop more inhuman characteristics as she developed.

Was she a half-Noble Orc?

「Can you see your status?」(Vandalieu)

「Amu~」(Baby)

For now, it seemed that she wasn't going to angrily shout,「This isn't what you promised me!」because of her strange appearance.

「Umm, could it be that you're hungry?」(Vandalieu)

「Van, I don't think a baby would be able to understand what you're saying...?」(Basdia)

As Vandalieu turned to face Basdia – or tried to, the baby put him in a headlock.

She was unbelievably strong for a child. With his head being held in place by both her arms, he couldn't move at all.

「I had my memories from quite early after I was born. I thought that she might be able to understand.」(Vandalieu)

「I see. But I don't think she understands. If she did, she would have listened to me and stopped crying. But she showed no signs of listening and kept crying until you arrived, Van.」(Basdia)

「Then it might take some time before she regains her memories.」(Vandalieu)

Vandalieu's memories had returned relatively soon after being reborn in Lambda. But that was because it had been the work of Rodcorte who was a god, while Vandalieu had used a new technique for the first time to carry out this baby's reincarnation.

It might take several months or even years for her memories to return.

Well, several months had passed after her death before Vandalieu used her spirit for the reincarnation, so it was definitely possible that her memories and consciousness might have parts missing, however.

「Well, I've asked Bilde and the others to provide milk in advance, so let's head over to them. You still can't produce any, right, Basdia?」(Vandalieu)

「Me?」(Basdia)

「Yes, you're pregnant. Please make sure you wear the Magic Item that protects the baby.」(Vandalieu)

「Is that true, Van?!」(Basdia)

「It's true, congratulations. Make sure you come to me regularly so I can check its progress.」(Vandalieu)

「Yeah!」(Basdia)

And so two auspicious events were celebrated at once.

Vandalieu dried kombu in the clear winter air and weak sunlight with the reborn girl.

「Now then, I'll begin the experiment.」(Vandalieu)

「Ai.」(Baby)

He slowly applied【Withering】on the kombu to remove its water content while also slowly applying【Aging.】

If he made a mistake it would dry out too much and fall apart, and if he took too long, it would turn into powder, so he needed to be very careful.

He continued controlling his spells for just a minute while enduring a headache and fever. It turned out perfect, so he stopped his spells and retrieved the dried kombu.

「Now then, time to actually taste it.」(Vandalieu)

「Ai.」(Baby)

He threw the kombu into a pot on a magical stove he had found in the ruins and turned the stove on.

Dashi began to come out steadily.

He removed the kombu when enough dashi had come out before the water started to boil and scooped some out with a ladle that the blacksmith Datara had made for him. He placed it onto a small plate, cooled it and tasted it.

「Mhmm, that's good dashi.」(Vandalieu)

Satisfied, he added ingredients like wakame and vegetables and then dissolved miso in it to make miso soup.

「It's turned out well.」(Vandalieu)

「Uu, uu.」(Baby)

「I think it's a little too early for you to be drinking miso soup, Pauvina.」(Vandalieu)

「Au...」(Pauvina)

Pauvina... the Live-Dead who had been reborn as a half-Noble Orc seemed dejected, so Vandalieu comforted her as he felt satisfied at having successfully made kombu dashi.

Applying the【Aging】spell that was originally intended to age living things to kill them through old age to the kombu and drying it, he was able to apply twenty-five years' worth of drying in a single minute to produce high-quality dried kombu. It was a groundbreaking discovery.

It was a process that shortened a twenty-five-year-long process to one minute. Incidentally, the reason it was twenty-five years was because Vandalieu remembered that kombu that had been dried and fermented for that long had been treated as a much higher-quality product than normal kombu on Earth. If he recalled, it was because the process changed the umami content in the kombu.

He had no spell that could confirm whether the umami content had really increased and Vandalieu had never tried miso soup made from high-quality kombu dashi, so there was no denying the possibility that Vandalieu was just making an assumption here.

「Au.」(Pauvina)

Though Vandalieu had originally thought that Pauvina hadn't regained her memories yet, she had in fact regained them to some extent immediately after her birth.

But as Vandalieu had feared, they were very broken memories and she hadn't even been able to remember her own name.

She only remembered that her corpse had been turned into a Live-Dead and that Vandalieu had saved her. The latter could be referred to as Vandalieu using her, but she felt thankful towards him and was emotionally attached to him.

「Mmuh...」(Pauvina)

But even after regaining some of her memories, her mental age was still that of a child. Unlike people who had been reincarnated like Vandalieu, she was simply a child who remembered a little about her previous life.

She would develop and become an adult for the second time.

... She would surely grow to be large. At three months of age, her height was almost the same as Vandalieu who was three years old. Even taking into account the fact that Vandalieu had a small build, she was growing incredibly quickly.

Was this because she had some Noble Orc blood in her?

As Pauvina lifted Vandalieu into the air, he wondered,「Am I trying to be some kind of mad scientist who creates new species?」

Nuaza and the other Titans seemed happy about it, however, saying things like,「It is just like how the goddess Vida gave birth to us; it is truly divine work!」He would soon become unable to ever get rid of the title of "Prophesized Holy Son."

Vandalieu thought that if he wasn't the Holy Son, it would be nice if the goddess could give another prophecy or something to say so.

「So far, everything is going well.」(Vandalieu)

「Uu?」(Pauvina)

「Mhmm, everything but the katsuobushi, I suppose.」(Vandalieu)

Pauvina was developing well. Vandalieu didn't know how long it would take for her to become an adult, but it would likely be ten years at most. She didn't seem to have any problems with her health, and they were getting along well.

Since he had used her and reincarnated her, Vandalieu had to take responsibility for her new life, so he planned to take good care of her.

Basdia's pregnancy had been discovered at the same time as Pauvina's birth, and that was also progressing well. She had only been pregnant for three months so Vandalieu had been carefully examining her, but the Magic Item had been exhibiting its effects with no problem.

It was even better that she liked the piercing.

Vandalieu had once again put a halt on his Dungeon-clearing so he could take care of Pauvina and Basdia, but he was still going into the Devil's Nests that were close enough to make a day trip into with everyone to continue his training. He assisted those training to acquire the【Chant Revocation】skill, played Reversi and Jenga and made fish sauce and miso. Everything was going well.

The only thing he was struggling with was making katsuobushi. It seemed that the concept of smoking food didn't exist in Lambda.

There was dried meat so Vandalieu had assumed that smoked foods existed, but this wasn't the case. Not even bacon, ham, sausages or wieners existed in this world, let alone roast beef.

He had asked Kachia and the others, but dried meat in this world was meat that had been salted and dried in the sun.

Because of this, Vandalieu had been forced to build a food-smoking facility using only his own knowledge.

Darcia had finally given Vandalieu permission to use fire, but the first real cooking that he was doing himself, using smoking tools based on his limited knowledge to make katsuobushi, was difficult.

「In Origin, I learned things from the spirits of western people who were knowledgeable about Japanese food, but they weren't experts in making katsuobushi.」(Vandalieu)

He dried the fish and charred it to make smoked fish. This process simply produced a burnt product or left the center raw; all of his attempts had failed.

To make fermented food, all Vandalieu had to do was prepare the ingredients and use【Fermentation.】

It seemed that Vandalieu would struggle to make bacon or wieners as well, even though he had ingredients for them in the form of Orc meat. No, he still lacked the spices to make them.

「First of all, put me down now.」(Vandalieu)

「Uu.」(Pauvina)

Pauvina refused. Vandalieu spent the fourth winter of his life being held in the air.

The search was extremely difficult.

A relatively safe route across the mountain range had been planned out, but in the end, a third of the Subordinate Vampires had been wiped out.

And the search for the Dhampir after crossing the mountain range was proving difficult as well.

「I didn't think that it would be this troublesome.」(Eleanora)

The objective of Eleanora and her party was to murder the Dhampir, but they didn't have any convenient Magic Items like a【Dhampir Radar】or spells like【Detect Dhampir.】

That was why they had decided to first find the village of Ghouls that he led. The Ghouls might have lost about half of their numbers while crossing the mountain range, but there would still be at least two hundred left.

A village of two hundred Ghouls would be quite large. And Ghouls weren't particularly adapted to living at high altitudes, nor were they good at navigating steep cliffs. There was no doubt that they would choose flat ground, similar to the Devil's Nest forest that was undergoing reclamation now.

Under those assumptions, they released familiars to search for them but... not a single Ghoul had been found.

「Jeez, just where have they gone? It's not as if they could have disappeared like mist.」(Eleanora)

Eleanora sighed as she poured holy water that they had brought with them over the defeated Subordinate Vampire at her feet. They were truly useless. Their master was useless as well, but just why was every single one of the Subordinates gathered here so useless?

「They might have gone underground. I suppose we should search the caves as well.」(Sercrent)

Sercrent had a look of exhaustion on his face as well. He didn't care about some of his useless subordinates dying. But he was desperate because if he couldn't complete this mission, his life would be forfeit.

「But even then, the Ghouls would need to gather food, so it would be a cavern system with multiple entrances. Or perhaps... the Ghouls already served their purpose in helping him cross the mountain range, so he disposed of them?」(Eleanora)

Leaving aside whether that was really possible, if it was true, that would explain why the search using the familiars that had even cost a third of the Subordinate Vampires' lives had turned up nothing. That Dhampir had stayed hidden from the search of that renowned religious fanatic Gordan when he was less than a year old.

If he was on his own, he would obviously not need much food and living underground would be simple.

「More importantly, isn't there a possibility that the spirits of these guys who have just died have gone to give the Dhampir information about us?」(Sercrent)

Eleanora and Sercrent were conducting their search with a policy of not killing or dying any more than needed in order to deal with the Dhampir who was apparently a Spiritualist, but even so, the Devil's Nests of the Boundary Mountain Range weren't easy to deal with.

Unlucky encounters with Dragons and such had cost them another third of the Subordinate Vampires. They poured holy water on the dead bodies to prevent their spirits from lingering in this world, but they couldn't actually see spirits.

Only those with the Spiritualist Job can see spirits that haven't become Undead.

That was why they couldn't tell whether the spirits were in the vicinity of their dead bodies. The spirits could have rushed off towards the Dhampir and they would have never known.

「Even if the Dhampir is a Spiritualist, he wouldn't be able to summon the spirits of people whose names and faces he doesn't know. The possibility of him being able to do that is low... I want to believe that.」(Eleanora)

「I see... But what will we do? Where do we search from here?」(Sercrent)

「Let's see, how about we go to where the city of Talosheim once stood?」(Eleanora)

The nation of Titans that the Amid Empire used the Mirg shield-nation's army to destroy. The Pure-breed Vampire Gubamon had used the Amid Empire to do this, and Ternecia had been partially involved as well.

It would certainly be a ruin by now, swarming with Undead Titans.

「Even though they're ruins, there might be some usable buildings left, and it would be easier to establish a village there than to build a new one from nothing.」(Eleanora)

Though it was unlikely that the Dhampir was aware of this, there were Dungeons near Talosheim. If he used those, he would be able to gather food efficiently.

However, Sercrent looked doubtful.

「No, Talosheim should be overflowing with Undead. It would be impossible to build a village there.」(Sercrent)

Looking at Sercrent's face, Eleanora was overcome with an urge to kill him on the spot.

The reason Sercrent didn't want to go to Talosheim was an extremely insignificant one.

He didn't want Eleanora to gain leadership.

For Sercrent to erase his past failures and return to his original position in Vampire society, he of course needed to successfully kill the Dhampir, but it also needed to be his own achievement rather than Eleanora's.

Even if he completed his mission, doing so under Eleanora's command would mean that he had stooped low enough to become her dog, and it could even be interpreted as proof that he was an incompetent fool who couldn't even exterminate a single Dhampir without having instructions spelled out for him.

Those living in the society of the Vampires who obeyed the evil gods constantly tried to gain the favor of those who were on the rise while striking down those who were falling.

If Sercrent simply prioritized the completion of his mission, his social position wouldn't move an inch.

However, even though he understood that, there was a reason Eleanora couldn't allow him to have his way. Because that would mean that she, a member of Birkyne's bodyguards, had considered obeying Sercrent, which her Pure-breed master wouldn't accept.

She would be subjected to indescribable punishment and unhealable wounds would be inflicted upon her. She didn't want that. That is why Eleanora had decided that she would have the pitiful Sercrent fall as far down as it was possible to fall.

「I see. Then I'll go and scout out the ruins on my own.」(Eleanora)

Eleanora had only been working together with Sercrent up until now because she had needed the numbers. Birkyne hadn't given her permission to create new Subordinate Vampires, so the only pawns that she could use were her familiars.

However, it wouldn't make any difference not having such useless pawns whose numbers had even been decreased by the journey. She didn't mind separating herself from Sercrent to work on her own.

「What?!」(Sercrent)

Sercrent was greatly confused. If Eleanora disposed of the Dhampir while separated from him, that would be the same as him having failed his mission.

On the other hand, this was a chance to take the achievement all for himself, but Eleanora was superior to him in ability and the Subordinate Vampires who had been useless up until now were unlikely to suddenly become stronger.

「... Very well, let us search Talosheim.」(Sercrent)

Taking no notice of the Vampire who had lived many times the number of years she had as he meaninglessly pretended to give his permission for the search of Talosheim, Eleanora flew up into the night sky.

However, upon reaching the site where the ruins of Talosheim should have been according to the two-hundred-year-old records left by the Mirg shield-nation's army, Eleanora opened her eyes wide, dropped her jaw and stood stock-still.

Even before she became a Vampire, she had never imagined that she would be making such a foolish-looking face.

「I-impossible...!」(Eleanora)

「Isn't this some kind of illusion?」(Sercrent)

However, she had no need to worry about Sercrent and his subordinates seeing her like this. They were standing still with the same dumbfounded expression on their faces.

They were dumbfounded by the enormous walls illuminated by the light of the moon and stars. As Vampires, they could see the majestic walls as if they were in plain daylight.

There was not a single ivy branch growing on the white stone walls