And cutting back to the scene—
Just as Lady Dimitrescu spoke of "the gift," Javier's expression flickered with a hint of surprise.
The eight-foot-tall lady before him was far more intelligent than he had imagined. As expected of the mistress of the Dimitrescu Family, her intellect was truly impressive.
With only a little deduction,
Lady Dimitrescu had already guessed that Javier's goal was likely the village's Mother Miranda and the mold products of "the gift."
After all, as the saying goes,
Normal people wouldn't just wander into this godforsaken place, nor would they have any ridiculous notions of a so-called marriage alliance.
After all, they were genuine Vampire monsters.
While they didn't turn into Vampire bats like in the movies, they still relied on blood to survive.
Therefore, a living human
could never achieve a union with them and would be sucked dry in less than a week.
*Clap, clap, clap, clap...*
"Clever. Beautiful Lady, your intelligence commands my respect. To be honest... I am indeed here for the so-called 'gift',"
"that is, the mold products. I wonder if you would be willing to let me meet Mother Miranda in the capacity of the Dimitrescu Family's son-in-law?"
Faced with Lady Dimitrescu's wit, Javier chose not to continue hiding his intentions.
Sometimes when speaking with clever people, being direct is the fastest way to cooperate. Javier clapped his hands vigorously in admiration and then continued his request.
If possible,
Javier did not want to resolve this dungeon through force.
Thinking about fighting through dungeons all day was too exhausting; Javier preferred more civilized and simple methods, such as negotiation and cooperation.
This was the real reason he had bothered to suddenly appear before Lady Dimitrescu. If he could gain the support of Lady Dimitrescu, one of the four noble lords,
then Javier could stroll through this village with ease and obtain the mold samples he desired.
As for Ethan...
It sounds a bit cold-blooded, but if he had the protagonist's aura,
and was still a tenacious family man and a responsible father,
then he would save his daughter, Rose, just like in the original story. Javier actually couldn't help Ethan much.
After all, from the moment he was infected by the mold,
the real Ethan had actually died at the Baker Farm. The current Ethan was merely an infected host of the mold,
fighting solely on the paternal love stored in his memories. He was a responsible father, but after rescuing his daughter Rose, he would also crumble into dust.
That was the ending,
unchangeable, so Javier wouldn't interfere too much.
At most, he could accept Ethan's request to look after his child, just as Annette had entrusted that girl Sherry to him.
Before his death,
he would let Ethan, the father, make a choice.
Whether to hand Rose over to the BSAA to be raised, as in the original timeline, or to hand her over to Javier for help in raising her.
If it were Javier himself,
then Javier could give Rose the same life as Sherry and provide for the livelihoods of Rose and her mother, Mia. In the end, Ethan's wife and Rose's mother, Mia, did not die, but their days in the BSAA were not good; they rarely even saw each other because the BSAA and the government needed to control Rose's power and keep her isolated. Just as the US Government imprisoned Sherry, and Claire could only write letters and visit occasionally, the same was true for Rose. Mother and daughter could not meet; the BSAA and the US Government were indeed very poor in this regard.
So Javier could give Ethan a choice.
By helping him,
there would be no need for BSAA intervention, and the mother and daughter, Rose and Mia, could live out a happy life safe and sound.
But in the end, this would depend on Ethan's own choice; Javier wouldn't force it. This was the only thing he could do for Ethan...
Of course,
nothing was absolute.
If he could save Ethan later, this could be avoided entirely...
"Heh heh..."
"Mr. Javier, the gift is our secret, and the secret of this village. As for Mother Miranda,"
"she is also my mother, the Mother Goddess who gave me a second life. She allowed me to escape the torment of disease and granted me the power of eternal life."
"I have now surpassed humanity, and I have the utmost respect and worship for Mother's power. Under such circumstances,"
"what makes you think I would betray Mother, let you take the power of the gift at will, or reveal the secrets here?"
Faced with Javier's request,
Lady Dimitrescu narrowed her eyes slightly, sizing Javier up from head to toe, before a cold laugh finally escaped her throat.
Unsurprisingly,
Lady Dimitrescu rejected Javier's request and questioned him in return.
She questioned what kind of confidence he had to think that they, loyal believers, would choose to betray Mother?
At the same time,
because the atmosphere had suddenly shifted and become tense,
the three Vampire daughters, who had been sitting quietly at the table tasting delicacies and sanguis virginis wine,
involuntarily stopped eating.
They turned their crimson gazes toward Javier, their knives and forks gripped tightly in their hands.
As long as Javier made any suspicious move,
they would be the first to act and subdue this reckless human. After all, Mother's command was everything.
However,
Javier remained indifferent to such threats.
There was no panic on his face. Since he dared to use the name of the monster hunter Van Helsing, his strength was certainly not much inferior to Van Helsing's.
After all, Lady Dimitrescu was not as strong as imagined; she was just an oversized Tyrant.
Even if she transformed into a dragon, it would just be a matter of spending a little more time to deal with her.
As for her three Vampire daughters, they were even more fragile.
Sub-zero temperatures could kill them; a few canisters of liquid nitrogen would easily solve the problem. Thus, Javier's attitude remained calm.
But his next words were startling, like a sudden thunderclap on a clear day, causing Lady Dimitrescu's heart to jolt.
"Is it loyalty? Or is it an inability to resist...?"
"Lady Dimitrescu, are you loyal to Mother Miranda in your heart, or are you forced to be loyal because you cannot resist her?"
"The answer to this question must be clear in your heart. Just as I said, I am no ignorant fool. I came prepared, and I know everything about this place."
"My Lady, in the mid-twentieth century, you were at your wit's end due to porphyria, tortured every day in a living hell. You only happened to hear of Mother Miranda's existence and sought her treatment with a 'try anything' mindset."
"After being injected with 'the gift,' your body changed, and you gained extraordinary power, subsequently becoming Mother Miranda's loyal servant, correct? Investigating these old stories is very simple for me."
"But after all these years, you must have realized that the so-called gift is not a good thing; it's just a nematode mutated by mold infection."
"She is completely treating you so-called four noble lords as experimental subjects. The power you gained from the gift was due to your own will and luck; it had nothing to do with the so-called Mother Miranda."
"After all, so many people were injected with the gift. How many gained special powers like you four noble lords? Most of them either died or turned into hideous Lycans, didn't they?"
"Mother Miranda treated you as test subjects, and you luckily and unexpectedly gained extraordinary power. This was clearly achieved through your own constitution, will, and luck. She merely helped inject you with the gift."
"Yet you foolishly believe it was power bestowed by Mother Miranda. Truly ignorant. If the Alcina Dimitrescu of that time had died accidentally during the injection,"
"then there would have been another Alcina, another Alana, understand? You are not Mother Miranda's most special one; you are just a servant who happened to be born by accident and can be easily deceived and used."
"Furthermore, my Lady... do you know Mother Miranda's true purpose? Why does she possess the power of the mold 'gift,' and what is she researching?"
"You think she is some unfathomable great deity, whose every move is full of incomprehensible mystery, believing she is truly some divine shaman sent by the black god specifically to guide you to the path of the gods?"
"Heh... stop joking and deceiving yourself. To tell you the truth, my Lady, your respected Mother Miranda is also just a foolish woman."
"Not much better than you. Her purpose in researching the mold 'gift' is merely to resurrect her daughter who died in the flu—a tedious motive."
"The mold 'gift' can share and store memories. She plans to use 'the gift' to create a vessel and then pour the memories of her dead daughter into it, so her daughter can be resurrected in a sense."
"And the even harsher reality is that from the beginning... you four noble lords who successfully absorbed the power of 'the gift' were actually Mother Miranda's reserve vessels. And Lady Dimitrescu, you were the best choice for a vessel."
"Originally, you would have become the vessel for Mother Miranda's child. Your body would have been occupied by the consciousness of Mother Miranda's daughter, and you would have been completely erased and replaced. After all, you are female and human in appearance, not a monster, which is very fitting."
"But the only ridiculous thing is that your body is too large. Mother Miranda didn't want her daughter to become so huge, so you luckily managed to escape this fate."
"Additionally, think about why the other members of the four noble lords were not chosen as vessels."
"Besides you, there is Donna Beneviento. Although the gender fits, she is mentally ill. Would you be willing to let your daughter enter the body of a mentally ill and disfigured woman?"
"As for Salvatore Moreau, that's even more ridiculous. Not only is he male, but he's also a hideous fish monster. What mother would want her daughter to become that kind of monster?"
"The remaining Karl Heisenberg is the same. So looking at the four noble lords of the village, they are either freakish, mentally ill, or of the wrong gender and height. That's why your Mother Miranda has delayed the experiment for so long."
"Furthermore, has your Mother Miranda recently kidnapped a baby girl from the outside world? Yes... your guess is correct. That baby girl is the vessel to resurrect her daughter."
"So now that the truth is out, Lady Dimitrescu, do you still feel Mother Miranda is so sacred, inviolable, and beyond suspicion?"
"A woman who once plotted to use you as a vessel—are you still willing to remain loyal? You must know... because of 'the gift,' it would be easy for Mother Miranda to kill you any day she wished."
"Don't you want to take your life into your own hands? So... if you want to resist, then cooperate with me. I can help you overthrow Mother Miranda's rule and gain your freedom!!"
After taking a sip of red wine,
Javier elegantly picked up a napkin to wipe the corner of his mouth, then slowly stood up, spread his arms, and began his reckless speech.
Javier revealed almost everything he knew, using it to embellish his attack on Mother Miranda and divert their hatred toward her.
Javier's fangs were now exposed.
His goal and strategy were simple: he intended to incite the four noble lords to defect.
By making them attack Mother Miranda, he wouldn't have to waste a single soldier, nor would he need to make an enemy of the entire village.
Instead, he would use their own power to kill Mother Miranda.
This was the most intelligent way to clear a dungeon. Who would bother with a mindless slaughter when using one's brain for strategy is the superior path...!
Volume 10: Resident Evil Village, Revenge: Chapter 8 - Delicious Rare Blood
Defection...
Javier's true goal was to incite defection.
This was what he considered the optimal solution for passing this dungeon.
Knowing that one of the four noble lords, Karl Heisenberg, had already developed a rebellious mindset, it was enough to prove that the four noble lords could be incited to defect.
In fact,
in the original timeline,
Heisenberg had attempted to join forces with the outsider Ethan to defeat Mother Miranda together.
After all, Heisenberg had been kidnapped and trafficked to this godforsaken place since he was a child, even if he was by chance a descendant of the Heisenberg family.
Heisenberg still hated this place,
and hated the perverted woman Mother Miranda.
He didn't want his freedom to be controlled by Mother Miranda, so he had been plotting a rebellion.
At the same time, Heisenberg was the strongest among the four noble lords. After all, possessing electromagnetic powers, he could control metal.
He eventually turned into a giant transformer. Among the four noble lords, except for Lady Dimitrescu's dragon form, which could put up a fight,
the other two noble lords were no match for him.
Of course, flesh and blood cannot defeat a body of steel.
Even if Lady Dimitrescu's dragon form fought to the end, it was highly probable she would be no match for Heisenberg's transformer form.