“You are correct that this dungeon is shockingly barren as far as ruins go, but the reconnaissance team did not come here to find anything in particular.”
“Hm...? Mind explaining what you mean?”
“The guild found the entrance to a set of magic-protected ruins—what seemed to be a labyrinth from the old era—on land scheduled to be recultivated, so we were ordered to do reconnaissance to determine whether or not it presented any danger,” Nanami said, adding in a whispered tone, “but, granted, there seemed to be many party members who had their eyes on reclaiming treasure from here.“ She was probably implying that that was the goal of Gawain and the others, causing them to act with reckless abandon and suffer huge losses as a result. However, Ristia seemed to be more interested in something else Nanami said—the words “land scheduled to be recultivated.”
“...Recultivated? There are humans? Out here?” When Ristia originally built the labyrinth, no humans lived in the vicinity because it was situated within a forest that housed relatively combative tribes like dragons and whatnot. So, have the humans spread their influence out over the past thousand years? Ristia pondered. “That reminds me: What state is this era in?” she asked while continuing to muse to herself inside her head. Considering that they mistook that fledgling for a full-grown adult, I’m guessing that dragons have taken a hit in power and influence...
“Um... I believe that humans have reign over this continent.”
“...Huh? Is that so?” They were a tribe similar in appearance to her own, but humans were weaker by leaps and bounds. In fact, they were the weakest of all the tribes Ristia knew of. It was a shock to hear that those same humans had taken control over the continent.
“Naturally, there are places that people have declared off-limits due to the threats that inhabit them, so it isn’t as though humanity is the strongest. But nowadays, humans live on a majority of the continent.”
“Hmm... Then, this business about the True Bloods disappearing. You did mention that earlier, correct?”
“Well... it’s precisely as I said. The story goes that they suddenly dropped off the face of the map a millennium ago.”
“Dropped off the face of the map, huh?” Ristia’s family being wiped out by another tribe was simply unimaginable. Maybe they packed up and moved someplace elsewhere? she thought, tilting her head.
“Incidentally, they say that war broke out between the tribes not long after.”
“Aah... That seems likely to happen.” Even in Ristia’s time, all of the more powerful tribes were trying to expand their territory, which was why she wasn’t all that surprised to hear that war broke out as soon as the True Bloods disappeared. Even so, that still left some questions unanswered. “So, how did the humans come to rule the continent?”
“Well... they say it’s due to a human’s life being so short.”
“Hmm...? Oh. Ooh... So I see.” Ristia pieced it together from that single statement.
The True Bloods lived long and rarely gave birth to children. In fact, it was so rare that the only children born to the True Bloods in several centuries were Ristia and her elder sisters. That being the case, if there was a huge population drop, then they would need centuries upon centuries to return their numbers back to normal. It seemed that something similar had happened to the other tribes, like dragons and demonkin. Basically, some sort of battle royale among the strong tribes reduced their numbers across the board, and as a result, humans managed to conquer the vacant continent with a boom in their population over a few hundred years.
And that also meant that... There are a whole bunch of cute and likely candidates to be my little sister around here! Coming to that conclusion, Ristia was overjoyed.
“I bet there are a lot of children in need.”
“Why, yes. The sudden rise in population has been causing a multitude of issues as of late. Things like food shortages, the gap between the rich and poor widening, et cetera...”
“Is that so? In that case, I’ll just have to save every last one of them.”
“You are a marvel, Lady Ristia!”
Nanami was again misinterpreting Ristia’s simple desire for a little sister in stupendous fashion. Be that as it may, Ristia was not attempting to extend help merely as pretense so she could trick a girl into becoming her sister. She was honestly trying to help children in need so that they would come to adore her as an older sister. So she couldn’t say that Nanami’s appraisal was necessarily mistaken... Far be it from that. If she predicted what Ristia would be doing from now on, it would probably be an underestimation. That was because Ristia, the vampire princess unaware that she was the strongest around, would never hold herself back if it meant helping her little sister. That being said... she did vaporize a dragon to save Nanami, meaning she didn’t comprehend the fact that she possessed abilties far removed from that of humans in the slightest. There would be no way for Ristia to go out into human society and not cause some sort of blunder. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a soul around in the dreary labyrinth that shared that prediction.
“Oh, I see the exit!” They hit the surface—a sight that Ristia perceived as having seen only a few hours prior. However, what spread before Ristia’s eyes was the unknown landscape of the human world after a thousand years.
Praying that there was a little sister out there waiting for her in a ray of hope, Ristia dashed forward.