378 The Night Highland (1/2)

Chapter 378: The Night Highland

Translator: Kris_LiuEditor: Vermillion

A grim and dark-looking castle stood by the lake covered with black duckweed. Its pinnacles on the top resembled the javelins in the style of the ancient magic empire.

Harold Hammer, carrying a heavy bag of ore on his back, was walking slowly toward the castle's warehouse. As an underage dwarf, he was not as strong as the muscular fully-grown dwarves who could easily wield a huge heavy hammer like a toy. The bag of ore was really heavy for him.

However, Harold had no complaints about hard labor since at least he could still survive. Those strong dwarves were selected out to become the food of the vampire masters.

This castle belonged to the Great Kindred Count whose name was Vlad Cecil. The surrounding more than a hundred dwarf villages were under his control. The vampires chose ”the pure blood and flesh” from among them for food, and drove the rest of the dwarves as their slaves to do the hard labor in the mines and castle. Day and night, the slave dwarves had to mine the special metal called needham gold from the plateau as well as caramo iron and mythril for the vampire master.

It seemed that the dwarves' destiny was doomed as soon as they were born. They either ended up as food for the vampires or died early from the intense laboring. The only sweet moment was when they found their beloved partner and had their offspring.

Though Harold had never left this village under the control of the castle, he heard that the dwarves living in the north were also suffering just like them. All the dwarves on the highland were in great pain, living like domestic animals.

Harold looked up at the night sky and the bright constellations over the highland. He was at a loss and depressed, wondering if his life was just going to be like this without any hope and if the past glory of dwarves could never come back again.

A sharp pain came from Harold's face as the thick whip left a deep and bloody wound on its left side. The wound stretched across the dwarves' distinctive big nose to the right.

”Move!”

There came the evil voice, and the shadow of the whip was in front of Harold.

Yes, some dwarves still had a third choice. They could choose to turn their backs on their ancestors and act like a well-trained dog to the vampires to become their blood servants, who were responsible for torturing their own brothers and sisters.

The elegant, privileged vampire counts would not watch the miners working in the dirty mines themselves, and thus they needed some servants. Every embrace would cost them the original blood power and the weaker vampires would be drained off if giving embrace for too many times. Therefore, even the powerful vampires were not willing to have many children.

That was why the number of vampires was never big. Most of their servants were just the blood servants whose blood was drained up by the vampires but did not die. They were simply puppets of the vampires.

The servants were as strong as knights, but their power could not be further improved any more. Their life-span was only of one-tenth of their master's lifetime, and they could never, and would never launch a rebellion.

Harold glanced at the dwarf dressing in fine clothes and holding the whip, and then he looked down and responded in low voice, ”Yes, Butler Wells.”

Countless dwarves died because of this abominable traitor. Although Wells was only a supervisor, he preferred to be called a butler. When the real vampire butler, Galata, showed up, Wells would kneel on the ground to kiss Galata's shoe.

The red-haired Wells had removed all of his beard because his master, Vlad, hated it very much, and thus his bumpy skin was revealed. Seeing Harold's good-looking dark brown beard, Wells was quite pissed. Lifting his right hand, he whipped Harold again.

”What were you thinking? Dwarves don't need to think! You hear me? You filthy dirty bastard!”

It seemed that Wells had forgotten the fact that he was also a dwarf, instead, he regarded himself as a decent servant for the noble kindred.

”Yes, Butler Wells.” Harold gripped the bag loaded with the ores even tighter.

”Get out of my sight. Move!” Wells scolded.

After taking a few steps, Harold heard that Wells's voice had become disgustingly sweet, ”Good afternoon, Madam Tess, Sir Galata! This way, please… It's dirty over there. Those filthy dwarves should not be seen…”

Without looking back, Harold could easily imagine Wells' flattering manner, and how well-dressed the tall vampire butler Galata was. Galata always dressed in a fancy black suit decorated with a neat bow tie.

Madam Tess must be the same charming and beautiful. She had the shining blond hair and proportioned figure. Her jade-colored eyes never changed after she was turned into a vampire by the embrace from Count Vlad.

Harold's heart twitched when thinking of Madam Tess. She was the most beautiful female dwarf who was famous in the surrounding many villages, and she was also once the dream girl for Harold. However, she was picked by the count and then became his vampire bride.

The cool wind from the highland reminded Harold what he should do. Harold lowered his head and moved forward slowly bearing the ore bag. He heard the commands from behind.

”Hurry up with the smelting. Be careful. Some dwarves who have managed to escape have formed a rebellion force.”

...

When the evening arrived, Harold finally finished the hard labor and could take a rest. After getting the food—two black bread sticks, Harold was ready to go back to his place in the nearby village.