Zaraki knocked on the door of Dracula's room, but all he could hear were maniacal laugh coming from within the room. The butler took a deep breath before opening the door of the room, and the moment he did so, he was greeted with complete darkness. The only thing illuminating the room was a candle set on a table close to the largest window, where Dracula sat, staring at a scroll while laughing hysterically as if reading the script for a stage comedy. "What are you up to this time, Master Dracula?" asked the chief butler as he looked around, squinting his face. "And what is that smell? When was the last time you bathed?" "I've finally found it!" Dracula said excitedly without looking back at the person who had just entered the room without his permission. "What could you have possibly found that excites you better than your father becoming the third Emperor of our race?" asked Zaraki. "Oh, he did? Doesn't matte

"Well, with everyone patiently waiting inside, I see no reason why we can't have our conversation out here, don't you think?" asked Vlad as he folded his hands with a faint smile on his face. "Alright" Zaraki said, not wanting to ask more from the Emperor. "This execution that just took place, do you really intend to keep enforcing it on people?" Vlad kept quiet for several seconds before replying. "Not in the slightest" he said. "I might have been angry with the captured King enough to order such a heinous execution, but I almost immediately realised that it's not for me. Not even I am merciless enough to repeat something as brutal as this. It was a trail run, never to be done again." Zaraki gave a sigh of relief. "So that means you will no longer impale people like this anymore?" he asked. "This will be the last time something like this happens, right?" "I never said that, Zaraki" Vlad replied, and the butler frowned. "While I don't have the heart of stone to keep doing such a

The travel went on for days, and for the first time, the prince experienced thirst more than ever. The heat was almost unbearable, and the only thing that would make it all worth it was the Philosopher's Stone. He had underestimated the struggles of long travel, and though he has read about it a lot back at the Emperor's home, he still had a lot to know by experience. He had also naively assumed that the merchants had a near-infinite supply of water, but even that too was very limited. And unlike himself, the merchants were used to journeys such as this, so their bodies had adapted in some ways to this climate. Though Dracula know there was a possibility he would spend several years of his life searching for the Philosopher's Stone, as several people who knew far more than he did about alchemy weren't even lucky, it still slightly terrified him that this was the reality which might await him for the rest of his life. And wo

The wandering duo had become a quintet, now including Carmo, the Archer, Arleno, the Swordsman, and Builius, the Barbarian. All five of them walked towards the caves, each awfully wary of the other, cautiously watching carefully to see who would pull a fast one first so each party would have an excuse to kill the other. Only Arleno kept a clear mind as he walked upfront, leading them towards the region where the caves were. Both parties tried to keep a safe distance from each other, with Abbula and Dracula being awfully cautious of the Archer, Carmo, whom they suspected could shoot at them very swiftly before they would be able to react. But the one that made Dracula most upset was Arleno, whom he suspected was a jack of all trades, given how he had grabbed Carmo's bow and arrow and landed a perfect strike on a rope over thirty feet from where he was standing within a split second. If he was that good with a bow and arrow, then

All Dracula could sense at the moment was pure darkness, his body felt numb to all feelings. And all that he could feel were his thoughts. "Oh, so is this what death feels like?" Dracula thought to himself for a moment, wanting to give in to his fate. But when he remembered what had caused his death in more detail, including his reasons for venturing into what led to it, he couldn't just let it end like this. "No, this can't be it" he thought to himself. "Not yet." And as he was doing so, he slowly began to feel his hands and feet, he felt his body start to feel like a body and the blackness slowly turning into dim light from the moon above. He opened his eyes and found himself right where he had died, looking around and seeing blood splattered around his body. He could remember his encounter with the Chimaera, which was trying to tear him apart, so he instantly got on his feet as fast as he could, ignoring his mild headache. H