Morning, at the gates of the estate.
A silver-white carriage stood waiting out front.
Beside it, Elena had changed into an entirely ordinary maid outfit — long sleeves, long skirt, the hem falling right at her knees.
She wore white tights on her legs and a pair of low-heeled shoes, looking for all the world like a perfectly ordinary maid.
Lilith, for her part, had changed into a long black dress. It was not lavish, but it was more than enough to set off her figure and her beauty.
Standing together, the two of them looked like an ordinary young lady and her maid — if one ignored the black collar around Elena's neck.
Elena kept touching the collar at her throat; having never worn an accessory in her life, she found it deeply strange.
"Hey... do I absolutely have to wear this? It's weird!"
"You absolutely do~ Otherwise, what if my little maid ran off? Besides, doesn't it look lovely~?"
"In what way is it lovely, hey!"
Elena shot Lilith a furious glare.
This collar was of course no ordinary collar; the wearer transmitted their position in real time to a "master" bound to it in advance.
It did have limits, though: once wearer and "master" were too far apart, the collar's locating function stopped working.
Yes, it was just that plain. Nothing special about it, and no shock function or anything of the sort.
"There now, don't mind it so much. The collar has concealment magic built in, so nobody will notice it at all."
"Well, that's something at least..."
Lilith coaxed her softly, and only then did Elena feel a little better about it.
The maid outfit was quite enough on its own; she had no desire to be seen wearing a collar too. That would make her a pet outright!
"Mm. Then let's be off~ You do remember what you're to call me out there, don't you~?"
"I know, you've said it a hundred times, I'm not an idiot... Master! Happy now?"
Elena turned her face away, plainly still unwilling, but she said it obediently all the same.
"Good girl~ Then get in and we'll go."
The two of them boarded the carriage together, and at a snap of Lilith's fingers the horses started off on their own.
A carriage that needed no driver at all struck Elena as rather novel, though she had heard of it; horses trained well enough could indeed work unattended.
The estate was not far from the domain's town.
Elena sat in the compartment leaning against the window, genuinely curious what a town inside a vampire lord's domain would look like.
After all, in the days she had spent around Lilith she had not sensed the faintest trace of a lord's bearing in her. The woman was utterly unserious.
She genuinely did wonder how on earth Lilith had wormed her way into a human country and become a lord on top of it. Was there nobody keeping an eye on this sort of thing!
And just as Elena was quietly badmouthing Lilith inside her own head, Lilith abruptly leaned in beside her ear.
"Has my little maid been secretly badmouthing her Master~?"
The sudden ambush startled Elena into a full-body flinch.
"Eep! Wh-what are you doing! I have not..."
Elena felt distinctly guilty; it had never once occurred to her that even cursing someone silently could be detected!
"Hm? Really~"
Lilith stared at her with an expression of pure disbelief, though it did not last long.
"Never mind, I'll stop teasing you. We've arrived~"
She put her smile back on and pointed out the window.
Only then did Elena let out her breath and look where Lilith was pointing.
Outside, a line of high walls wrapped around the town. The town was not large — if anything, it was rather small.
If not for the walls, Elena would have taken it for nothing more than a village.
The carriage soon reached the town gate, and the guards there did not stop it, letting it roll on into the town.
The carriage traveled the town's streets, where the houses on both sides were built mostly of wood, with plenty of ornaments hanging from the eaves.
Pedestrians came and went, and nobody seemed to care in the slightest about a passing carriage.
There was one thing Elena found strange, though. It was just that... the townspeople all looked like perfectly ordinary humans.
Yet the Lilith beside her still kept her vampire's silver hair and red eyes. Wasn't she capable of disguising herself?
Or was it because they were inside the carriage, and with nobody able to see her she had not bothered?
Elena did not quite follow.
"Hey..."
She called out to Lilith, and got no answer.
"Hey!"
She called again, with the same result, and started to get irritated.
"Master!"
The word was barely out before Lilith answered at once.
"What is it, little maid~?"
Just as she thought. This woman was doing it on purpose!
Elena was furious, but there was nothing to be done, and she could only silently condemn Lilith in her head.
Once she had gotten that out of her system, she pointed at Lilith's hair and asked.
"You, like that. Is it all right?"
"Hm? Oh, this. It's quite all right. Come to think of it, I forgot to tell you."
Lilith smiled and passed her right hand across Elena's eyes.
As the hand swept past, Elena felt a wash of cold enter her eyes.
"There. Now have another look outside?"
Elena had no idea what Lilith had just done to her, but she obediently looked out the window anyway.
And at that one look, most of the ordinary humans she had seen before had changed.
Some had become silver-haired vampires; some had sprouted the horns and tails that belonged to demons. The ones who had not changed at all must be genuine humans.
There were this many demons in the town?!!
Elena was thoroughly shocked. She rubbed her eyes and looked again, not quite believing it.
Nothing had changed, and now she had no choice but to believe it. Calling this place a demon town would not be an exaggeration.
She whipped her head around to look at Lilith, her eyes full of questions.
"What is going on? Why are there so many demons? You're all..."
Before Elena could finish, Lilith raised a finger and laid it against her lips.
"I'm a vampire myself, and I'm the lord. Is it so strange for there to be demons in my domain's town~?"
Lilith's smile pulled back a little, and a note of seriousness entered her voice.
"But don't worry. Nobody in this town is a bad sort, and none of them has ever harmed a human. That much I can guarantee."
"But... isn't that far too strange?"
Elena still could not quite accept it; this was rather too heavy a blow for her.
In the ten-odd years she had lived in this world she had never heard of humans and demons coexisting. In some books demons were cast as humanity's opposing race outright.
"There now. If you can't make sense of it, you needn't try. Just treat everyone as ordinary humans."
As she spoke, Lilith passed her right hand across Elena's eyes again, and the pedestrians beyond the carriage window turned back into ordinary humans.
"All my little maid needs to do is keep looking at her Master~ You needn't worry about anything else~"
Lilith laid a hand against Elena's right cheek, her voice gentle and carrying a trace of possessiveness.
Elena looked at Lilith and opened her mouth to say something, then swallowed it back.
Lilith had a point. There was no need to think that hard about it, and she was hardly a good person herself.
Killers and demons were both, to most humans, the sort of existence that counted as unwelcome.
And the demons she had just seen were no different from ordinary humans, nothing whatsoever like the "bloodthirsty and savage" creatures certain books described.
Thinking that, Elena let it go, and rested her head against the window frame again to watch the city go past.
Whatever else could be said, the place looked rather prosperous, and the people living here looked far better off than the ones where she used to be.
But just then Elena suddenly felt a distinctly unfriendly gaze.
"Who's there?"
Out of habit, she looked toward where she had sensed it.
And saw only a black shadow vanishing from the corner of her eye.