CHAPTER 41: FIRST TITLE

The sunrise rays illuminated the frozen village, sweeping the cursed green mist away and showing the familiar sight of fresh corpses and the smell of blood.

Usually, that would have been just their normal morning, carrying the corpses away and leaving them for the forest’s beasts. But today, a new addition was added to the mountain of corpses.

Two frost elves, one male and one female, stood above the corpses of the baron’s knights.

Under countless shocked gazes, the male elf shouted:

"To all the poor villagers of this miserable land, listen to my voice as I tell the story of the tyrant’s fall!"

The villagers’ expressions quickly turned into disbelief as the elf raised the head of their baron, and his story was even more shocking.

A day ago, a blindfolded swordsman who wields the power of shadow visited the village and encountered the cursed mist.

Deciding to help the villagers out of kindness, he fought the possessed corpses, heroically risking his life while investigating the mist. Eventually, he stumbled upon a horrifying truth.

The baron was a demon who worked with the mist, absorbing the vitality of its victims to strengthen himself.

Without hesitation, the wanderer gathered as many people as he could to end the baron’s tyranny.

A saintess candidate, a vampire, two holy knights, two powerful frost elves, and 27 villagers.

To reduce the potential casualties, they dragged the baron and his knights into an inn then ambushed his knights, giving the elves an opportunity to fight the demon alone.

They fought relentlessly for hours, until the elves killed the baron and rushed to help their allies. Sadly, they were too late.

Out of 27 villagers, only three survived and even some of the baron’s attacks harmed the nearby villagers. As for the foreigners, they had lost the knights who accompanied the saintess.

With the baron’s head on his hand, the elf took a deep breath and said: "A moment of silence for all the deceased heroes."

¢¢¢

’Wasn’t he supposed to change only a few details?’

It was understandable that Kyle tried to raise the reputation of the dead villagers and make it seem like a well-planned fight, but the annoying part was that he had made himself the most important character of the story.

’Well, he isn’t truly wrong.’

The elves were indeed who saved the day. If it wasn’t for them, Ash would have easily won with that semi-immortal body.

The elf’s story spread all over the village, and Dante got a title because of it.

The Shadow Dancer.

’Who the fuck decided to give ke a title out it nowhere?’

Seemingly, a lot of homeless villagers recognised him as Fafnir after hearing the story and started sharing what they saw.

He was a man made completely of shadows. He controlled black flames and wielded his sword like a noble dancer.

Their stories were all the villagers needed to confirm what the elf said.

After a few hours, they decided to make a simple funeral for the fallen ’heroes’ instead of throwing them to the forest’s beasts.

In the back of the village, the villagers collected the remains of the dead and showed them to Skylar to sort them.

As a vampire, he was able to tell if two organs don’t belong to the same person by comparing their blood.

Eventually, they started the funeral.

Most of the villagers were there only to show respect, but the families of the dead were there for more than this.

The dead weren’t only the villagers from the story—there were the villagers who had been killed by the baron’s attacks and the homeless villagers who had died by the mist.

In the graveyard, Skylar stood behind Elizabeth, who was crying nonstop behind the graves of her loyal knights.

Observing everything silently, Dante sighed: ’That’s why I don’t like heroism.’

Wasn’t that what they wanted all along? To die as heroes? That was what Elizabeth had said at the inn at least.

They weren’t even from this region, yet they decided to endanger their lives to save this village.

Dante had done the same, but his motivation was helping himself, not the villagers. All he wanted was to get the baron’s treasures and leave this cursed place.

The knights wanted to become heroes, and when they died in that process, all they brought upon the person they swore to protect was sadness and helplessness.

Dante couldn’t understand them.

Why would anyone ever want to sacrifice themselves for some strangers? If there was an afterlife, would they look at the crying girl in front of their graves and smile? Was saving this village really worth it?

Dante wasn’t evil, and he didn’t dislike the act of helping people without anything in return. But that was only if he wouldn’t lose too much.

’I hope she recovers soon.’

Dante gave Elizabeth one last glance before walking away. He exchanged glances with Kyle and Luna before following them far away from the funeral. A moment later, Skylar whispered something to Elizabeth and followed them as well.

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"Here is the corpse. Tsk, I really wanted the head."

In front of the baron’s manor, Kyle dropped the baron’s corpse before Dante.

"Thank you." Dante thanked him quickly and looked sharply at the corpse.

’I’ll finally use it.’

The memory of the baron absorbing the vitality of the dead corpses flashed in his mind, followed by the memory of him stopping Dante’s drill barehanded.

Dante finally realized how weak he was compared to others. Maybe he was strong as a Rank 1, but someone who was only one rank higher than him overpowered him completely.

Dante didn’t want the power to be the strongest, he only wanted enough power to run!

Thus, he found himself with no choice but to absorb the baron’s corpse while it was still fresh.

The reason was simple: The baron was a demon.

There was a chance that Dante would increase his demon bloodline by absorbing another demon. And even if he didn’t, the overwhelming vitality that the baron had should give Dante a nice boost in his stats.

"Come on, why are you taking so long?" Kyle complained, his foot tapping lightly on the ground: "You are acting as if you have never used that cursed ability before."

Dante lowered his head: "Yeah, this will be my first, I guess."

Everyone’s eyes widened, surprised by the fact that a demon hadn’t used his most common ability yet, then Kyle laughed and said: "No wonder you looked too sane in front of all the corpses! You aren’t addicted yet, and that’s a good thing. Yeah, it definitely is."

"Addicted?" Dante narrowed his eyes, catching crucial information.

Luna nodded: "The majority of the demons absorb the vitality of the others like drinking alcoholic drinks. I heard it gives them a kind of pleasure."

’Oh, so that’s why the demons are so hated.’

It all made sense now.

If it was only the problem of corruption, then not using the demonic energy was supposed to be enough to prevent the danger of the demon bloodline—unless the rise of the demon bloodline had its own dangers.

But the fact that demons could become addicted to absorbing vitality would change everything.

Maybe they could absorb the dead corpses, but what if a highly addicted demon didn’t find any nearby corpses with fresh vitality?

Kill!

Just like a drug addict, they would ignore their humanity and kill for what brings them pleasure.

Slap!

Suddenly, Kyle smirked like a creep and slapped Dante’s back.

"Ouch—"

"I got it!" Kyle shouted: "Why don’t you absorb only demons? I didn’t kill you yet only because you saved Luna, but if you really haven’t absorbed a human or even a beast yet, then there is a chance to keep you sane. The fact that your first feast is a demon might be helpful."

"From now on, try to search for demons and absorb only them. If you continue doing this for long enough, you might not become addicted to the vitality of the other races or become a threat! Luna, I’m a genius!!"

Luna smiled softly: "Yes, you’re."

"I think... it’s doable." Dante nodded, though his thoughts were different.

’You want me to search for them? Are you crazy?!’

Why would he search specifically for the other demons? And wouldn’t that still make him addicted to something?

’And who am I to decide whether they’re evil or not? My existence itself is proving that good demons exist.’

Ignoring those thoughts, Dante looked at the baron: ’Only one corpse can’t turn me into an addict... right?’

Dante crouched and placed his demonic hand on the baron’s chest. Then, crimson energy burst out of it and covered the baron’s entire body.

Suddenly, Dante frowned as a dark-golden energy blocked his demonic energy, as if trying to resist it. But Dante released another surge of energy and overwhelmed dark-golden energy.

The baron’s body began losing its muscles, color, and hair. And soon enough, the crimson energy finished its job and returned to Dante.

Dante’s muscles tensed instantly, feeling his Vitality and Demonic Energy increasing, and feeling the pleasure he had heard of, though it was too faint to be called pleasure.

But there was one feeling that really brought him happiness.

’I was right!’

Although he couldn’t see his demon bloodline, he felt something in his body altering.

His theory was right—absorbing the vitality of demons can accelerate the awakening of his bloodline.

And just now, something inside him changed, suggesting that his demon bloodline rose enough to give him another demonic part.

’Wait, I feel like I gained more than—’

"If you’re done, then let’s go to the baron’s manor. I have waited enough." Kyle cut Dante’s thoughts off then carried Luna and rushed to the manor.

Snapping out of his daze, Dante sighed and followed them, hiding his excitement.

He could check his runes later. After all, he had treasures to collect.