"Clang, clang..."
The surviving church knight's footsteps gradually faded into the distance.
The corpse of the church knight whose head he had smashed in lay motionless atop Norton's charred body.
The wooden stick must have penetrated deeply, as blood continued to ooze from the church knight's eye socket.
The somewhat thick blood dripped inside the steel helmet, then trickled out through its gaps.
"Drip, drip, drip..."
Where the church knight had fallen, his head rested directly over Norton's chest.
Drops of blood fell through the gaps in the steel helmet, landing on Norton's charcoal-like chest.
Thin rivulets of blood followed the wooden stake driven into Norton's chest, slowly seeping into the gaps in his flesh.
But at his back, there was no trace of blood oozing from the gap where the stake protruded.
Silence returned to the mass grave. Apart from the two corpses lying on the garbage heap, there was no other sound.
But it wasn't long before-
"Sizzle..."
A faint sound, like flesh wriggling, was almost imperceptible. Yet if a sound-detection device had been placed at the scene, it could have clearly detected the source.
It came from the two corpses on the ground.
Only by looking closer and examining them carefully could one notice something unusual.
The two corpses seemed to be trembling slightly.
No, it wasn't the two corpses, but the desiccated corpse pinned beneath the church knight: Norton.
The wooden stake driven into Norton's chest was held firmly in place by the church knight, but the trembling came from the stake itself.
Inside Norton's charcoal-like corpse, a force seemed to be pressing outward, making the stake in his chest tremble slightly as it pushed the stake out.
But the weight of the church knight and his steel armor kept the stake from coming out, causing it to tremble slightly.
An ordinary vampire might well have died for good after this transformation was impeded.
But Norton was no ordinary vampire. Norton was a man who had been burned to a crisp!
As the stake trembled more violently, the charred flesh on Norton's back kept crumbling away, too brittle from being burned.
"Crack!"
With a crisp sound, a fissure opened in Norton's back, completely widening the gap around the stake.
As a result, the stake in his chest tilted from its upright position, until it finally lay sideways within his flesh.
This caused the church knight's body to sink a little farther, allowing more blood from inside his steel helmet to flow into the gash in Norton's chest.
And the additional blood seemed to give Norton more strength.
As the blood dripped, the organs inside his chest, long since burned to a crisp, actually began to regain their soft, moist appearance.
The flesh around the gash in his chest also seemed to be gradually softening.
This made the force pushing outward from his flesh even stronger, until it pressed the stake in his chest down beneath him and finally expelled it completely from his chest.
The moisture from the blood seemed to soften Norton's body further. Although his severed left arm had not been restored, his right arm and both legs, which had shriveled into charcoal-like limbs, had clearly begun to swell.
"Urgh!"
Norton's lips, stuck together by the burns, suddenly parted, and a terrifying sound like the one a zombie made upon waking emerged from his mouth.
His right arm, now half the size of a normal person's, finally began to move.
"Crack, crack..."
Norton's right arm trembled slightly, then gradually bent upward.
As he moved, his charcoal-like skin kept flaking off, revealing muscle beneath it that had already grown somewhat soft and smooth.
Without conscious awareness, Norton slowly wrapped his right hand around the church knight lying on top of him, then strained to lift the knight's heavy body.
"Snap..." He strained so hard that three of his still-fragile fingers broke off.
The ground was covered in fragments of charcoal-like skin.
But at least he managed to lift the head of the church knight lying on him to his mouth.
As the corpse shifted, more blood, already beginning to thicken, oozed from the church knight's wound.
Thin rivulets of blood dripped through the gaps in the steel helmet and into Norton's open, charcoal-like mouth.
"Drip, drip..."
Seemingly drawn by the scent of blood, Norton's dried-out head actually trembled slightly, then pushed upward toward the church knight's helmet, even as his flesh flaked away.
He even began gnawing at the steel helmet without realizing it.
If dogs were creatures of earth, able to live as long as they touched soil, then vampires were undoubtedly creatures of blood, able to live as long as they touched blood.
Although only a little blood had moistened it, the dried-out flesh inside Norton's mouth was clearly beginning to improve.
The effect was far-reaching. Even his eyelids had begun to regain their moisture.
At last.
Norton opened his slightly cloudy eyes.
His blurred vision did not seem to trouble him. His right arm, which had nearly regained its original thickness, had already pulled at the preacher's steel helmet.
"Creak..."
As Norton exerted force with his right hand, the sound of bones shifting came from the church knight's neck.
Then-
"Pfft!"
A head still wearing a steel helmet was tossed aside.
"..." (I won't describe so much of it anymore. Sad, shen.)
A desiccated corpse that looked like charcoal pushed the headless body off himself.
As he moved, fragments of skin kept flaking off his body.
The desiccated corpse still seemed to be unconscious. After pushing the body off himself, he stood up in a peculiar posture.
The damaged parts of his body were slowly healing, and the newly grown body contrasted sharply with the dried-out skin around it.
Perhaps because of the dried-out flesh, he stood somewhat unsteadily, looking strange.
Norton only felt as though he had fallen into a dream that was neither long nor short.
The dream was pitch-black, with nothing in it. He couldn't even think, and perhaps wasn't conscious either. But he felt neither discomfort nor comfort, and had no sense of time.
As his consciousness slowly gathered again, he found himself standing in a mass grave full of human skeletons.
Norton was a little confused upon waking, but gradually, his earlier memories came flooding back.
"Father!"
Norton spread his arms and let out a hoarse, low roar from his throat, as if praising God's holy name.
His memories kept flooding back into his mind.
The final moment, when he had been pierced by the greatsword, surfaced in his mind.
He recalled Father Mia's words as well, which had left a deep impression on him.
Norton finally understood.
Right, I must have been burned to fucking charcoal!