Beautiful

Alex IV was Alex III's only remaining family member.

As for the Alex dynasty back then, a noble family claimed a link to an ancient king named Alec. They had extremely little blood connection with him.

They even misspoke his name as Alec.

Papers can last only a few hundred years; even stone sculptures will eventually become unrecognizable.

Historians know Alex as a myth of ancient times; they know him as Alec and think of him as an ancient god worshipped by people.

Even that is only known because of stone carvings, which take a very long time to decay and survive to this day.

As for why they got his name wrong, it is because the old alphabet is mostly lost. Today, decoding ancient text is mostly guesswork.

The text in use now is word-based text. There are more than 100,000 different words, all of which are unique.

A combination of two different words may mean something new. For example, the word "water" plus the word "soil" will translate into "mud."

In general, knowing 1000 words is enough to be considered literate. Researchers and scholars know much more, but unless one spends decades learning more than 5,000, it takes a genius.

For this reason, even though there are many spoken languages, everyone can speak with written language. Words are the same, and people of different regions only pronounce them differently.

…

Alex IV was drinking something bright red in a cup.

It was orange juice.

Oranges are usually, well, orange. But there are other colours.

Red oranges are not that rare, but bright red ones, which look exactly like blood, are quite rare. It takes a special method to cultivate them, and they are expensive!

They used to be very popular with vampires because their taste was very close to blood. It cannot satisfy their need for blood, but vampires truly enjoy drinking it.

Taking a sip, he looked at Elizabeth, sitting beside him and taking sips. "Why do you care so much about humans?" he asked, curious. He remembers that he stopped caring about humans when he became a vampire.

Honesty, he didn't care even before becoming a vampire.

Why did Alex III like him the most? It was because he was more like Alex III than any child.

"Why should I not care?" Elizabeth answered by firing back another question.

"Because humans are mortals, while you are immortal! They die while you live! It doesn't matter whether they are happy or sad!" Alex IV said seriously. He truly believes in what he said.

Elizabeth sighed and said, "Respectfully, I don't understand how you can say that with a straight face. If you think like that, then nothing matters! What difference does the life or death of a vampire make? Nothing! That doesn't mean a vampire's life is worthless! The same is true about mortals! Sure, they die, but their lives are worth as much as ours."

Alex IV thought for a second and asked, "What about bugs? Do bugs' lives matter the same? What is your logic's limiting principle? Do worms matter? What about parasites?" he asked aggressively.

Elizabeth said, "Their lives do matter! We must not harm anything without a good reason! But we have the right to self-defence. If animals or other humans attack us, we can kill them in self-defence. We must eat meat to survive so we can kill animals."

Alex IV said, "Who gives you the power to decide what is justified killing and what is not? Your logic is the same as mine: Doing what you like. It's just that you believe in different things, so what you say is slightly different. Your position is not from principle; otherwise, you would have never killed anything, not even parasites that reside in human bodies."

He continued, "In my view, humans are no different from parasites, worms, ants, etc. They are the same: mortals. There is only one divide in the world: mortal and immortal. That's it."

Elizabeth drank the rest of her cup and said, "There is one divide: kindness and ruthlessness. If every human thought like you, humans would have gone extinct long ago, and along with them, we also would have disappeared," she said.

Alex drank the rest of the cup and laughed, "Good philosophic debate! You cannot convince me with those lines, but you are quite good at making excuses! I give you that."

Elizabeth sighed and said, "You don't debate with an open mind!"

Laughing even more, he said, "You are a baby in front of me, so I won't take you seriously! How can you understand the mind of a being like me, who lived for more than a million years? I was ruling these lands in a past you cannot even imagine! I saw deaths of thousands of generations of humans; I saw so much that I understood the truth with my bones!"

Elizabeth wanted to answer, but Alex stopped her with her hand, "Let's go and help your humans! I am now interested!"

…

Elizabeth was fast, but compared to Alex IV, she was nothing.

As soon as it was dark, Alex IV hugged Elizabeth and ran toward the south with unbelievable speed.

It was astonishing that just two small feet could achieve such speed.

What was more amazing was he didn't leave behind any footprints. Basically, vampires' movement breaks the laws of physics in quite a few ways.

First, air resistance normally prevents things from moving too fast; even if they do, they would get hot and affect the surrounding environment. But vampire movements don't affect the air, as if the air ignores their existence completely.

Second, vampires can go from static to speeds hundreds of times the speed of sound.

How do humans move? They push down to move themselves forward. What happens if a vampire pushes down with such intensity to reach such fast speed?

The ground would break to pieces, of course. Except it doesn't.

The laws of physics don't work as intended. Vampires are not explainable with common laws of physics.

They are supernatural, born from dreams of humans in two dream worlds. Laws of physics are nothing in front of the dreams of that many people; in any case, the entire world is a dream, so how can it resist in front of its roots?

…

Soon, Elizabeth and Alex IV reached their destination.

It was called the City of Black Tea; it is said to have the best black tea in the central continent.

James was a guest of Count Tealord.

Count Tealord was one of the richest counts thanks to his tea trade. He was on the border with the southern border, where he was acting as a gatekeeper and making tons of money.

He was friends with many southern nobles and, therefore, was unwilling to take the royal's side. But, the situation leaves people with no choice.

He had to either let James in or let him die. There was no better opinion.

He let James in, of course; relations with royals were much more valuable.

…

Looking around the buildings, Alex IV sighed, "A lot changed in the past 50,000 years!"

The building styles changed over time, and now, it was transformed into an unrecognizable state.

Moving forward with Elizabeth leading, the two soon reached a room.

"James!" Elizabeth shouted with frustration.

She had heard the news of so many dying in the war. It was extremely painful to even hear about it.

She had much better ways of subduing southern nobles; instead, this man, James, went on and attacked them, causing many to die.

James came out with panic and excitement.

When he saw Elizabeth, he smiled from ear to ear, bowed, and said, "Your Majesty! You came personally! Your servant has failed!" He immediately went from excitement to sadness and shame.

"You caused the death of so many! Why didn't you wait for my express order before attacking?" she rebuked.

"The southern nobles beat our inspectors! They gathered a large army to attack our troops; if we didn't attack first, we would have lost the initiative," he said.

Elizabeth believed him. James was trusted, and Elizabeth would believe him over the southern nobles.

She would investigate independently, but now, she takes James's word that he was forced to do it.

"Okay! You go rest for now!" James secretly took a look at Alex IV, then bowed and left.

"He is not telling the whole truth," said Alex IV.

"I know!" Elizabeth nodded. Everybody hides some things, but as long as the overall trend is true, Elizabeth would not expose her good subordinate's lie.

"Let's go south!" said Elizabeth.

"So quick? Let's see the scene here a bit!" he said, appreciating the surroundings.

Elizabeth said, "The South is known for its great sceneries."

Nodding, Alex IV said, "Let's go."

Elizabeth was shocked! She would have told him sooner if she knew that persuading Alex was so easy.

She has been trying to get him to move south for a long time.

Hundreds of thousands, or even millions of lives, would have been saved if Alex allowed her to move south a few days sooner.

…

Martin Ball was the de facto leader of Marquis Ball's fief.

His relations with his father were terrible. Most marquises move away from their territory to the capital; when they are away, who leads their fief?

The answer is whoever they designate. Marquis Ball appointed his second son, Fred, the leader, but his first son, Martin, snatched the power away.

Martin doesn't have formal control and must obey his father's orders, but that is only if his father is here personally; if he is far away, Martin can do whatever he wants.

Over time, he took over more and more institutions and now has total power.

…

In a dim room, a man was sleeping on his bed.

He wasn't alone. There were two women on each side.

This is the bedroom of Martin Ball, who is rumoured to be with a different woman every day.

"Is he the leader?" Alex IV asked.

"You heard what the guards said! It should really be him!" Elizabeth answered.

"The world really fell so much! How can such a man be a leader?" Alex IV thought of when he was the lord of vampires; he would have never allowed those with great power to act like this.

Alex wasn't against three-person relationships; he experienced 1,000-person relations.

What he was against was Martin's taste. Looking at those two sleeping beside him, he felt Martin's standards must be very low.

How can someone who sees himself as a leader have such low standards?

Alex IV, like his father, Alex III, had massive harems.

Unlike his father, Alex III, Alex IV chose his concubines solely based on looks, personality, etc. Didn't matter.

The most beautiful women in the country were all in his harem.

Of course, it depends on the person; all those who were considered ugly by Alex IV were beautiful in other's eyes.

Everyone is beautiful in at least one other person's eye.