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Carl sat down on the floor since his legs didn’t stop getting wobbly. He stared at a stain mark on the floor and replied, “I had treated and stitched up her wounds when you were here with Her Majesty. But the wound got worse the next day. The muscles around her wounds were already decaying. She had a fever so high that I didn’t know how she was still alive.”

He took a sip of water to moisten his throat and continued, “And the next day, her body was really cold. No amount of medicine and treatment worked on her. You can say that she was already on the brink of death.”

“And what happened?” Zenon also came and sat back down on his seat.

Carl peeked at Zenon and then continued with his story, “And at one point, I was busy tending to another patient who came here with a serious injury. When I returned to check up on Ruby, she wasn’t in her bed. I searched for her everywhere, and so did her family.”

Carl breathed in with great difficulty after recalling the incident from a few days back. “We thought that she was lying dead somewhere and searched every nook and cranny of the town as well as the woods. We didn’t find her until today. She came here on her own. There wasn’t a single scratch left on her body. And she looked livelier than before.”

Zenon found the story intriguing yet at the same time, he felt as if whatever that doctor was saying was all a lie.

Before he could ask anything, Vincent spoke first, “So, you’re saying that she came back from the dead?”

Carl shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “I’m not sure what happened to her. Maybe some kind of a miracle?”

.....

‘There’s no such thing as a miracle in this world,’ Zenon thought to himself. He couldn’t help but think that something wasn’t adding up in Carl’s story about Ruby. So he asked Carl, “You said she has a family here. Do you know her parents well?”

Carl gave a nod and replied, “They are the Thompsons. Her father is a farmer. And their family also owns a small grocery store at the edge of the town.”

“They all are really humble people,” the doctor quickly added so that the vampires wouldn’t punish them for the crimes they didn’t commit.

“Thompsons...” Zenon closed his eyes and thought for a while. And he asked again, “The Thompsons have been living here for generations, haven’t they?”

“Yes, Milord. They have always been around.”

Zenon was now confused again. As far as he knew, the werewolves had the gene in their blood. They were born, just like the vampires.

And if the Thompsons were the werewolves, then they would have been found out until now. But there was not a single case of any werewolf sighting in the Kingdom of Sorvando. And also, there was not a single sign of werewolf brutality until today.

‘Maybe we are after a wrong person...’ Zenon thought to himself and quickly asked, “Did she say anything about where she was and who she met after she disappeared from here?”

“I asked her but she said she didn’t remember anything after she was bedridden. But she was going on and on about how she woke up on the street and found herself beside a gutted dog. And...”

“And?”

“And she was blaming herself for killing that dog because her fingernails and palms were all bloody.”

Zenon and Vincent glanced at each other upon hearing that her fingernails were bloody.

Carl looked at the Vampire Lord and finally revealed why he was trying to protect Ruby, “When I went to the scene, I saw His Majesty angrily watching that dog. And I assumed that it was His Majesty’s favorite pet. I was simply trying to protect Ruby from being taken into the prison when she was finally back home after nearly dying.”

Both Zenon and Vincent were now thinking the same thing... that this girl somehow got revived from the dead and now she possessed the power equivalent of a werewolf or had actually turned into one.

Either way, Zenon was dead set about one thing – he was going to capture Ruby, tonight.

“Her home is at the edge of the town, right?” Zenon asked after getting up.

“You’re not going to k-kill her, are you?” Carl’s face darkened with fear upon realizing that he had unintentionally revealed where to find Ruby.

Zenon replied with all seriousness, “It depends on what she is and how she behaves.” And he rushed out of the room.

Vincent consolingly patted on the doctor’s shoulder and said before leaving, “Pray that she doesn’t get hostile when she comes face to face with Zenon. And... I don’t say this to just anyone but... I apologize for misunderstanding your intention this morning.”

—

“Who’s there? The shop is already closed,” a man replied from inside the house after hearing a knock on the door.

Zenon tactically replied from outside, “We’re here from the castle. I needed some fresh vegetables for the Queen. And I heard that you sell them.” He lied so that the Thompsons would open the door without suspecting anything.

As expected, a middle-aged pair hurriedly opened the door. And when they saw Zenon and Vincent’s fancy clothes, they bowed thinking they must be some high-ranking officials.

“I hope you won’t mind if we come inside?” Zenon asked while raising his brows.

The couple unsuspectingly agreed.

The husband gestured for them to come inside. “Please, come in. Our home isn’t that nice. But our vegetables are liked by the people here. I’m sure Her Majesty will also like them.”

All four of the vampires went inside the tiny house.

Vincent was curiously looking at the walls. It looked like the whole house would collapse if he gave a solid punch on the wall.

‘I was right. She really is poor,’ Vincent thought to himself.

The couple led those vampires to a small room that was used to store all the vegetables.

Zenon gestured at the Royal Guards to look around and find the daughter of the house. He kept the couple busy inside the room by asking to see the vegetables.

Vincent was still busy wandering around the house, looking at items he had never seen before. He reached inside the kitchen while roaming. The utensils that were in there intrigued him greatly. There were a lot of things that he had never seen before in his long life.

‘Humans really like collecting these junks, huh? Do they like shiny things or what?’ he thought to himself while darting his eyes around the room.

‘What the hell is this?’ He lifted a spatula and tried to guess what that big spoon was used for. He hit himself on the head and thought, ‘Maybe it’s used to crack something open?’

He suddenly noticed something moving from the small window of the kitchen. And he wasted no time in going outside.

He found that same red-headed woman slowly walking in the field with bare feet.

Vincent swooshed and stood in front of her. He gave a smirk and said, “Hey there! We finally meet again.”