[MLV] 48. A Visit from House Allister (Patreon)

A/N

Finally caught up!

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“What do you mean you don’t know?” A tearful Vaelrin woman asked the male Vaelrin standing outside of their small home. The male Vaelrin, an imp, could only avert his gaze. The man was a member of Vael Invicta, a militant organization that fought for all Vaelrin outside of Vael.

The woman, Emily, was a mixed-race Vaelrin, half-gargoyle and half-elven. She was a housewife to an imp, and the two had a daughter already. Like most new Vaelrin families, however, Emily’s husband had to eventually go to the frontlines to renew their residency rights, separating them from each other.

Luckily, she was educated and secretly taken care of by her father, who was an elven noble, in her younger years. As such, she managed to gain underground connections in Vael Invicta, allowing her to routinely contact her husband at the frontlines through the rebel group’s network, exchanging letters, and sometimes, she’d even send him small care packages. Emily loved her husband so much, and the only thing she longed for was for him to come back soon and see their daughter, who was now four years old.

But now, the worst news was dropped in front of her.

“We’ve lost most of our network at Rhonne,” the man in front of Emily said, still averting her gaze. “Your husband was deployed in the southern sector of the exclusion zone too. You must have heard the unconfirmed news by now, so… you know…”

Instead of continuing, however, the man adjusted his cap and shook his head.

“Nothing is confirmed, though. You’ll just have to wait for now.”

“You can’t…” Emily’s voice was full of despair as she looked down, holding two letters in her hand tightly. “You can’t do this to me.”

The man sighed.

“Have a good evening, miss.”

Then, he turned around and left, disappearing in the dark alley of Lorienval.

The woman placed her hand on her chest as she tried to stifle her tears. Then, she turned back to her daughter. The girl was energetic as always, happily reading the storybook she bought for her. It was something Emily bought because she was trying her best to teach their daughter how to write and read Alsatian, which would help her immensely once she became an adult.

I have to remain strong, she reminded herself.

Then, she forced a bright smile back.

Even if the chances were slim, even when she’d already read so many newspapers and felt her dread intensifying day by day, she mustn’t let it affect her. She had to believe that her beloved was still out there, alive and kicking. He was a strong man, Emily knew.

He protected her from those who wished to hurt her. He should be able to keep himself alive.

As a woman of mixed heritage, she was someone who was always excluded, both by the rest of society and even by many of her fellow Vaelrin, who didn’t like that she was a ‘mongrel’ born from elven and imp blood. But her husband accepted, cherished, and protected her for years, even when it was hard for him. He was a tough man. The toughest out there, Emily imagined. In her younger days, she sometimes even shamefully imagined him as a knight of sorts, like those she’d read in the novels she had growing up.

It was why she still strongly held out hope against hope that he was still alright.

“Mommy,” their daughter looked up at her with a smile. “Is Daddy doing alright?”

“Yes, of course, honey.” Emily patted the girl’s head softly. “Everything’s alright.”

“Really?”

“Of course! No doubt about it. Now go back to reading.”

She poked the girl’s cute cheek a bit, who made a funny face in response, before shaking her head and going back to the storybook in her hand. As for Emily, she still couldn’t shake the thought of her husband potentially meeting an awful fate over there. But again, she had to remain tough for their daughter.

Regardless of his fate, she must take charge and do everything to survive. This was just reality for Vaelrin like her. They must endure.

When she came back to the kitchen, she sneaked some alcohol to stabilize her mind. It made her feel a little dizzy, but it also made her forget about everything that was happening for a while, allowing her to work and prepare a hearty meal for herself and her daughter. For hours, she simply existed, doing the monotonous tasks she had every evening.

Her daughter enjoyed the stew she cooked as always, and Emily happily dined with her. It was a quiet night for the two of them. Soon, Emily finally tucked her daughter to sleep, leaving her alone in her thoughts as she sat beside her daughter’s bed.

“...”

Without anything else to do, she was just staring now at a lamp. She felt a trickle of tears streak down her cheeks as bad thoughts returned in her mind, but she wiped it off. Deciding that a breath of fresh air was needed, she went outside briefly, aimlessly walking near their home. That was when someone suddenly hugged her from behind. It was warm, familiar, and comforting.

“Emily,” her husband’s voice whispered. “You shouldn’t be walking in the dark all tipsy, you know?”

For a second, she simply closed her eyes, shaking her head.

“I’m really going insane,” she murmured to herself. Then, she pinched her cheek.

Her eyes widened as she realized that her mind wasn’t making things up. No, behind her was…

She turned around.

“Viktor!” Her hands immediately found his cheeks as she shouted her name. “Viktor, you’re alive—”

But, before she could keep shouting, her husband gently covered her mouth.

“Don’t be too loud,” the man smiled slightly as he let go. “I don’t want to get caught.”

“Viktor, I thought you died over there,” she began to tear up as the two hugged again. “How did you get here?”

“Someone saved me. Or well, us.”

Her husband pulled off from their embrace, turning around a bit to introduce an unfamiliar figure behind him, her silver hair standing out in the darkness. Emily’s eyes narrowed a bit, noticing how breathtakingly beautiful this woman was, so she turned to look at her husband with suspicion.

“...Who is she?” she asked, a small frown on her face.

Immediately, her husband became defensive.

“Whoah, whoah! It’s not like that. She’s a noble vampire from Vael who rescued us during the crisis,” Viktor explained, half panicking. “Her name’s Alicia, and she can evacuate us to Vael, considering I’m technically a deserter now.”

“Hello!” The woman named Alicia closed in on Emily. “I apologize for the short notice of our visit here, but we need to get out of here quickly. I would like to explain more, but your husband should be able to fill you in once you’re in my domain.”

“Your domain?” Emily asked.

“Yes. I’m sure you know how dangerous it is for Vaelrin, like us, to live here, especially when the Alsatian government wants scapegoats for the current crisis. That’s why I’m helping people who desperately need to escape Alsatia to come into my domain.”

Emily turned to look at her husband.

“Can we go?” Viktor slowly asked.

She looked around a bit, unsure. This was all so sudden that she couldn’t even wrap her head around what was happening. But, knowing that the empire might track, arrest, and hurt her husband for escaping death, her heart automatically picked the only option that would save him.

“I’ll grab our daughter,” she answered. “Wait for me.”

“Okay.”

Then, she gave him a quick kiss on the lips and ran back to their home.

Soon, they were gone from Lorienval.

It was all a blur for Emily, as she held the hand of her sleepy daughter, who was confused by all of this, and her husband’s hand while they stood beside the vampire. She didn’t understand how exactly they would sneak to Vael or why someone of her standing was helping her, but her questions were soon answered when the world suddenly warped.

And then, instead of standing on the cold ground of Lorienval, she and her family were standing on grass.

She gulped as she set sight on a land she never saw before. Compared to Alsatian city, the town ahead of her was relatively small. But it was alive and vibrant. A good amount of roads led to it, one of which had a long line of people being processed at the entrance.

Horns…

Emily couldn’t believe it.

Everyone here has horns!

“V-Viktor?” Emily turned back again to her husband, who had a huge grin on his face.

It seemed that he already knew this place beforehand.

“So, welcome to Orevogorsk!” Alicia, the vampire who brought them here, appeared in front of the family, an encouraging smile on her face. “Just join the line over there, and we will figure things out from here on out. From now on, this land will be your land.”

“I…”

After years of being suffocated by the world she knew, a world that hated her kind, she was overcome with hope. How? She was almost grieving a few hours ago, but all of a sudden, she felt like she was in the promised land for all Vaelrin.

Before the vampire left them, as she was surely still so busy doing the same thing she did for them to other people, Emily called out.

“Thanks for saving us!”

The vampire stopped, turned to them, and then, she gently smiled, as if bringing a family of oppressed Vaelrin from one end of the world to another where they would become free was nothing to her.

“It’s my pleasure.”

Finally… that’s the last of them, Alicia thought as she watched another soldier’s family embrace each other after stepping foot inside Orevogorsk itself, having been interviewed by Lyra and Maxim at the entrance of the town.

All in all, she’d evacuated more than a thousand people out of Alsatia in a few days, most of them family members of the few hundred soldiers who chose to go here. As a result, Orevogorsk’s population rapidly increased again. She let out a small, exhausted laugh as she walked toward Lyra and Maxim.

Now that I rescued these people from Alsatia, we have to make them belong here.

“Lady Alicia,” Lyra smiled ear-to-ear. “Was that all of them?”

“I hope so,” groaned Maxim at the side. “Trying to understand any of them is a chore.”

Alicia smiled apologetically at Maxim. As the sole Vaelrin in Orevogorsk capable of speaking broken Alsatian, Alicia had no choice but to deploy him as the main interpreter between her people and the new arrivals, who only spoke Alsatian. At this point, she was dumping so much workload on him.

“They’re the last,” Alicia confirmed. “As much as I want to take in more of them, I recognize that we can’t. As you two may know, we’re going to have a lot of problems integrating them now.”

“I still think this is trouble,” Maxim said, a frown on his face. “Bringing in so many Alsatian Vaelrin at once, when we cannot understand them at all, isn’t smart. There’s already tension brewing amongst our people and theirs.”

“But we cannot let that be a reason to abandon them,” Lyra said to Maxim, as if lecturing him. “Lady Alicia wanted to save these soldiers and their families from Alsatian oppression. It’s our duty to ensure her efforts are not in vain.”

Maxim, however, scratched the back of his head, groaning.

“Easy for you to say. I have to interpret for them, expand our industries, design new machines, and now, build even more homes… I’m starting to lose it.”

“I understand it’s hard for you now, Maxim, so your pay from now on will be tripled,” Alicia reassured. “You can expand your staff again too.”

“Great. I’ll earn more money I have no idea what to do with…”

Alicia awkwardly laughed at that.

But, even with his complaints, Maxim immediately continued on with business. This was how he always operated.

“So, what now?” Maxim asked.

Alicia stared at both of them silently.

Both of them knew what was going to happen soon.

“Come to my office,” Alicia said.

There, she also summoned Vittorio, Moshan, Mikhail, and even Helen. For a few hours, Alicia gave them an exhaustive lecture on everything they were going to do alongside their assignments. 

As usual, Maxim got the lion’s share of the new workload, being assigned to build accommodations for the new arrivals and at being their temporary interpreter. Lyra was assigned with general management, tasked at looking out for the refugees, distributing basic necessities and assigning them temporary amenities, and everything else in between.

Vittorio was ordered to tighten security and make sure that no fights broke out between the Alsatian Vaelrin and Orevogorsk’s locals, while Moshan was tasked with explaining everything to the locals about the new changes they would implement to accommodate the refugees. Lastly, Alicia ordered Mikhail to quicken his pace at learning Alsatian so he could write a book with translations for basic words and phrases between Alsatian and common Vaelrin, something they could distribute to every citizen of Orevogorsk so they would be able to at least understand each other somewhat.

It was a lot of work, and Alicia had to dedicate a lot of resources for this new project, but, she told them that they had to do this regardless of how hard this was, as many of the refugees were foreign-born, and thus, many had skills and talents that might become useful to the town. Vittorio was especially interested in the soldiers, while Maxim was looking forward to a new infusion of skilled labor into the town’s industries.

There was a lot to look forward to for all of them.

And so, the days after their meeting led to another explosion of activity in Orevogorsk.

The reception from the locals was generally mixed. Many received the refugees warmly, knowing that they were their brethren from a far-away land, while others seemed to view the new people with suspicion and distrust, as the locals and refugees spoke utterly different languages and had very different customs and cultures.

Still, this was slowly worked out day-by-day, as the refugees left their temporary camps and tents to move into their hastily assembled houses.

As for the soldiers who remained in Alsatia, Alicia kept close tabs on them, using her clone to monitor Lucille’s progress or straight up going there to check in on their conditions. To her surprise, the crown princess truly was no slouch at facing the war minister head-on. While their tense negotiations took many days, Lucille steadily gained concession after concession.

Due to the ongoing unrest in the rest of Alsatia, her brother, someone who Alicia feared would be hotheaded and unreasonable, was surprisingly receptive to Lucille’s demands, as long as she withheld the truth she recorded using her artificial spirits during the disastrous cover-up attempt of the imperial army.

This meant that soldiers like Antonio were allowed to rejoin their original units without being branded as deserters and mutineers, receiving great financial rewards as well from the crown princess due to their heroism, money that went straight for their families. Other Vaelrin soldiers in the Rhonne Exclusion Zone also unknowingly benefitted from these secret negotiations, as Marc dropped the idea of using them as a scapegoat, deciding that there would be no use doing that if Lucille poured fuel on the brewing unrest in Alsatia as a retaliation.

All in all, this satisfied Alicia. Even if she wanted more, this was a step forward to a good direction.

But even so…

I have to do more.

As the first day of her new week started, Alicia walked to her office with a determined look on her face.

While the situation was now more or less resolved in Alsatia, she knew that something was stirring over there while Marc and Lucille negotiated. She wanted to talk to Lucille immediately, as there were many things that Alicia needed to say to her. As her ally, Alicia decided that from now on, there would be full information sharing between the two of them.

But, before she reached her office, Lyra rushed toward her in the hallway.

“Lady Alicia!” Lyra shouted, stopping in front of Alicia. “There are people outside of Orevogorsk searching for you.”

Alicia frowned.

“Are they from the Directory?”

“No,” Lyra shook her head. “They’re from the Regency Council. Their leader, Archduchess Claire Allister, is searching for you.”

…Wait, what, an Allister?

“...Is she a vampire too?” asked Alicia.

Lyra nodded in response.

“Yes.”

Alicia’s heart skipped a beat.

Oh no…