Chapter 111: Information
Following that, of course, Jasmine carried Adele to the bed and they enjoyed themselves for a while. It wasn’t until the sun was high in the sky, and Jasmine could feel the warmth of its rays through the window, that Adele finally fell into a deep sleep.
While Adele slept, Jasmine slipped out of the bedroom and into the small study. As expected, a handwritten letter from Adele lay on the desk. Jasmine unfolded it and saw that Adele had meticulously documented her experience at the bunker the previous night.
Jasmine understood Adele. She knew that Adele would be anxious while waiting for her return and needed something to distract herself. Adele hated feeling helpless and flustered. She had to stay calm, and writing down everything that had happened the previous night was a good way to process her emotions and prepare for Jasmine’s return.
Jasmine read the letter, finding it to be mostly as she had expected. Adele had indeed met her grandmother. Adele hadn’t described her grandmother in detail, only mentioning that it was their first meeting and that she was still young and beautiful, looking similar to Adele’s mother.
Vampires truly had an unfair advantage in this regard. A two-thousand-year-old geezer still looked like a young and beautiful woman. How was that fair? Thankfully, Jasmine had cheat abilities. Otherwise, she might end up looking like a withered old hag while Adele remained eternally youthful.
Jasmine refocused, continuing to read. She saw Adele’s speculation that the Council of Elders probably suspected her motives for making money, believing that she had selfish ambitions to create a new world centered around herself.
Good. That’s a very vampire-like assumption.
It wasn’t surprising that the Council of Elders would think this way. They were projecting their own self-serving nature onto Adele.
Adele expressed her indignation in the letter, adding a handwritten note above the line describing the Council’s suspicions: They’re slandering me! I’m not like that!
To emphasize her anger, she had added three exclamation marks.
She had also described the bunker’s structure, confirming Jasmine’s guess that it was a thirteen-story underground facility. The only thing that caught Jasmine’s attention was the mention of magic stones embedded in the walls. Reading this, Jasmine’s eyes almost turned as red as a vampire’s.
Money! So much money!
Magic stones were incredibly expensive. Jasmine’s annual salary wouldn’t even buy a single stone, and yet here they were, used so lavishly that they were even embedded in the walls and hung from the ceiling to create a starry sky. Jasmine wanted to rush in and pluck those stars from the ceiling.
This was a high-fantasy world with magic, and magic stones were essential components of many magical devices and spells. They could be used for a wide range of purposes, from simple things like generating electricity, wind, or fire, to creating complex magic arrays. They could store magical energy and be used to create various magical artifacts.
Besides magic stones, the most valuable items in this world were jewels with special abilities, like the Orb of Eternal Night that Jasmine had destroyed, a naturally occurring gem with unique properties. Vampires possessed many such jewels, at least according to their records. But the impoverished Blake family didn’t have any particularly powerful ones, at least not that Jasmine had seen during her years at the castle.
But perhaps they did exist, simply hidden away by Adele’s grandmother. Although Jasmine wasn’t sure about the exact lifespan of vampires, she estimated it to be around two thousand to twenty-five hundred years. According to their books, the oldest recorded vampire had lived for twenty-eight hundred years.
Jasmine was skeptical. After all, based on the information she had gathered, Adele’s grandmother, at two thousand years old, was just a peripheral member of the Council of Elders. Perhaps there were even older vampires among the core members. As for how she knew that Adele’s grandmother was a peripheral member… it was simple. The members of the Council of Elders seemed to be terrified of death. They wouldn’t have personally met Adele, a young vampire with ambition whom they had never met before.
They would only observe from the shadows, like rats hiding in the sewers.
Jasmine had a clear understanding of the situation. After reading the letter, she folded it carefully and tucked it into her pocket. She would ask Adele later if she wanted to keep it. If not, she would burn it, leaving no evidence behind.
Adele slept soundly. When she woke up, she saw Jasmine sitting beside her. Jasmine had already brewed a cup of tea for her. After Adele finished her tea, Jasmine slipped out of the room, waiting nearby. She couldn’t stay in Adele’s room because someone would surely come looking for Adele soon.
As Jasmine had predicted, shortly after Adele started drinking her tea, there was a knock on the door. The drawing-room door wasn’t locked, so Adele simply said, “Come in.” A low-ranking vampire maid entered, carrying a tray with tea and sugar cubes. She was about to help Adele get out of bed, but she was surprised to see that Adele was already awake and sipping her tea.
She was puzzled. She had never met a noble who could brew their own tea. She hadn’t met many nobles in this manor, but she had heard stories from other maids, complaining about their masters. None of them were like Adele, who not only got out of bed, dressed herself, and washed up, but also styled her own hair and even brewed her own tea.
Perhaps because the maid’s expression was too strange, Adele asked, “What’s wrong?”
The maid quickly lowered her head. “N-nothing… nothing, Miss.” Then she asked, “Would you like more tea, Miss? Perhaps you would like to try the sugar cubes from the capital? They’re highly praised for their taste and quality.”
Adele hummed noncommittally, then said, “I brought my own. Thank you.” The maid nodded. This was a common occurrence. Nobles often had their own preferences. Refusing the sugar cubes she had prepared wasn’t unusual.
After confirming that Adele didn’t need anything else, the maid relayed the message from the Council of Elders. “Miss, the elders instructed me to inform you that there are no further matters to discuss. If you’re not in a hurry to leave, you may stay in the capital for a week. But we expect you to depart promptly after that.”
Adele nodded, indicating that she understood. Actually, she didn’t even want to stay for a day. After all, she and Jasmine had already planned their “intimate activities” for tonight. Adele was eager to return.
Hearing that she was free to leave, she finished her tea, grabbed her suitcase, and headed out. They met up with Jasmine at her inn, pretending to have just run into each other, and then left the city together.
As they departed, Jasmine couldn’t help but glance back at the city, protected by thirteen walls. It was truly an impressive sight. It reminded her of the scene from Attack on Titan, where soldiers saluted with their right fists over their hearts. Even the purpose was the same: to protect themselves.
Jasmine couldn’t understand why the Council of Elders was so paranoid, after ruling the world for ten thousand years. But those walls were meaningless to someone with her power. She could easily shatter all thirteen walls with a single punch, even creating a hole straight through them.
Upon returning to Adele’s territory, Adele slowed down her expansion plans. After all, she had already attracted the Council of Elders’ attention. Expanding too quickly would only provoke them further. But although her expansion plans were on hold, her spending hadn’t decreased much.
The vampire traitor she was working with was making a fortune. He saw Adele as his savior.
One day, he delivered the items Adele had requested, receiving a hefty payment. As he counted the money, he said, “Although my words might be unpleasant, Miss Blake, I still believe that humans are useless, even those favored by the Council of Elders.”
“You don’t understand.”
Adele’s single sentence silenced him. But before leaving, he asked, “Miss Blake, is your goal to overthrow the Council of Elders?”
They were in this together, so telling him wouldn’t hurt. Adele put down the letter he had given her and looked at him, her crimson eyes gleaming dangerously. “What if I said yes?” If the traitor’s answer wasn’t satisfactory, Jasmine would behead him instantly.
But he simply shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me. After all, I’m making much more money working for you than I ever did at the Council’s airship company. And I would be delighted if my esteemed client became the new ruler.”
Adele didn’t say anything. She simply waved her hand dismissively. After he left, she flipped through the documents, handing them to Jasmine. “Here’s what you asked for.”
Yes, these documents were what Jasmine had requested. She had been curious about the humans who had created the current vampire banking system and invented airships. But during her visit to the capital, she hadn’t detected any human presence. She had even suspected that they were hidden in the bunker, but then she had realized that the paranoid Council of Elders wouldn’t keep humans so close.
So, she had concluded that they must be somewhere else.
Adele had tasked the vampire traitor with gathering information about these humans. As a high-ranking official in the airship company, he had access to such information. He had no qualms about betraying the Council of Elders and had quickly delivered the documents to Jasmine.
“Well?”
Adele leaned in, her head resting on Jasmine’s shoulder, her eyes scanning the documents. They stated that the oldest of these researchers was almost eighty years old. They had been well-cared for by the Council of Elders ever since they had started their research. The humans who had joined the banking system had also received special treatment.
Would they really abandon their comfortable lives and join the Human Resistance movement?
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