Bats could make noise, and the little squeaks from its mouth brought some amusement to Norton's otherwise dull cave life.
Before, Norton could sit in his chair for half a day at a time, but now he had something to distract him, which also helped rein in his wandering thoughts somewhat.
Nearly sixty days had passed, and hunger still had yet to appear.
Then another night fell.
"Squeak, squeak..."
The little bat hanging from the cave ceiling took flight. It circled once above Norton's head, then flew out of the cave under cover of night.
It was going hunting again.
This kind of vampire bat couldn't skip its daily hunt, or it might be too weak from hunger to hunt the next night.
Norton still wasn't hungry. He watched the little bat wobble as it flew away and felt he couldn't keep hiding like this.
The wilderness here was a little too terrifying. That was why he hadn't gone far from Holy Lord City.
The areas around large human cities were safer than deep mountains and dense forests, just as there were rarely any large predators around ancient cities. To keep the city safe, the church would surely clear out the various monsters around its settlement. That was why he had stayed here all this time, afraid to venture deeper into the wilderness and afraid to enter the city.
Otherwise, he, Norton, would have left Holy Lord City far behind long ago.
But now, even the area around the city didn't seem safe. It was even more terrifying.
Although he was sure ordinary injuries couldn't kill him, what if another monster hunted him down, tore him to pieces and ate him? Could he still recover the way he had in his experiments?
Norton didn't dare test that possibility with his own body.
He couldn't hibernate like other vampires to pass the time, so he didn't have many choices left. (For those suggesting he hide in the cave, find a room and lock yourselves in for a day without a phone or computer. The boredom will crush you.)
Should he keep living here, struggling against the dangers lurking everywhere in the forest, or scrape by on the fringes of the city, where the level of danger was relatively stable?
Norton thought of the giant human-headed bird, then of the unknown creature that had killed it, and then of the scene he had witnessed of a werewolf being hunted.
Neither choice seemed good.
In the forest, those monsters all had a sense of smell and could locate and track him, but the church's ability to locate him was obviously nothing to scoff at either.
How was he supposed to choose? All he could do was face the danger and give it a try.
Norton finally understood Kuba, the vampire progenitor. It was so damn hard to get by as a vampire that no wonder Kuba had wanted to kill God! If Norton were in his shoes, he'd feel it was unfair too!
Norton tossed the leaf cloak he had woven into the coffin, then stood on the coffin lid and jumped into the pool beside it.
Splash!
Ripples spread across the water. Norton, a Central European vampire, had launched his first foray!
Holy Lord City.
At first, Norton hadn't actually wanted to choose Holy Lord City. After all, he had seen the church knights slay a werewolf with his own eyes and had even guessed that the church might have a way to locate monsters like him.
He had preferred to find a small town or village without church knights or any means of resistance, where he could be a little safer.
Unfortunately, perhaps because isolated villages had trouble surviving under the threat of dangerous monsters in the wild, he wandered all the way around Holy Lord City and followed the various paths people had made, but failed to find a single small village or town. His plan to stay in a safe area on the edge of a village came to nothing.
He had only two options left. The first was to keep eking out a living in the cave he had found, anxiously and carefully hiding from the huge, terrifying bird and the unknown creature that had killed it.
The second was to try staying on the very outskirts of Holy Lord City, seeking the stable shelter of a human city.
There was nothing he could do. The forest really was too dangerous. Strictly speaking, the cave he had found was still in the vicinity of Holy Lord City and didn't count as being deep in the forest at all, yet there were already so many monsters. If he went farther into the forest, who knew whether he might run into some bizarre Cthulhu creature?
There might really be gods in this world! In a bizarre place like this, terrifying monsters in the wild were the one thing there was no shortage of.
Even so, Holy Lord City still wasn't his first choice. After all, the church in Holy Lord City surely knew of his existence by now. He was more inclined to follow a caravan along the official road and head to the vicinity of another city.
So at first, he had simply waited on the official road outside the city, hoping for a trading caravan he could quietly follow to another city.
But this place couldn't be judged by common sense. Trading caravans were pitifully scarce. After waiting a long time, he saw only two, one going in and one coming out. Both traveled under the church's name and were even escorted by church knights. There were no independent caravans at all.
Everyone in the departing caravan was armed to the teeth and exceedingly cautious, even keeping crossbows in hand at all times. Most members of the returning caravan, on the other hand, were covered in blood. Of its last two wagons, one carried several badly mangled corpses of church knights, while the other held hides stripped from some unknown monster.
The caravan surely couldn't have gone out hunting. This was clearly the result of encountering and fighting monsters on the official road.
The sight suddenly made Norton feel that Holy Lord City wasn't so bad after all. At least, as long as he hid well, it wouldn't be as dangerous as the outside.
Holy Lord Cathedral was in Holy Lord City. This place was the Holy Lord Church's holy land, and legend had it that God had created life here.
Norton didn't know whether the legend was true, but the sheer size and population of Holy Lord City clearly bore it out.
He had never imagined a Central European city could be so large-so large that, standing atop a tree, he couldn't see its end.
The Holy Lord Church should actually have made Holy Lord City the center of the Papal State. But Holy Lord City was not only where God had created life, it was also where God had died. As a result, the place was considered extremely unclean and had been ruled out as a possible capital of the Papal State.
Holy Lord City had no city walls to speak of. It had once had them: Holy Lord Cathedral was the former Holy Lord City. Now, however, it was merely the church's domain, and the vast population could only settle around it.
But that suited him well enough. At least he didn't have to risk entering the heart of the city and could instead roam the alleys on its outermost edge, looking for somewhere sufficiently secluded to hide.
The area was far from the forest, so he wouldn't encounter terrifying birds or creatures. It was also far from the city center, so there wouldn't be so many church personnel or knights.
Even so, he still had to be careful. He suspected the church had the ability to locate him, which was far too dangerous. That was also why he didn't dare enter the city and only roamed its outskirts.
This was his second time seeing Holy Lord City.
The first time had been during Mass, when all production and activity had been suspended. Everywhere he looked, he had seen only flowers and paupers filling the city. He hadn't seen what the city was really like when it was functioning.
Now, taking a general look around, he found the place somewhat different from what he had expected.
The streets were lined with low, dilapidated houses as far as he could see, but at least most were built of stone, so the streets looked reasonably presentable.
It was just beginning to get light.
At this hour, there were quite a few people on the streets. Though their clothes were ragged and their bodies filthy, they seemed to be getting ready for work.
Breakfast shops on both sides of the street had even opened, with pitch-black bread mixed with chaff and bran fresh out of the oven.
But only people with some means could eat that food. The people who got up before dawn to work had neither the standing nor the money to eat it.
The city's ground was covered in mud and fragments of flower petals, and the city itself was filthy and chaotic to the extreme. Just as in Central Europe, some people really did get up early in the morning, stand at their second-floor windows and throw excrement outside.
Outside a few more prosperous brick-and-stone houses, sh*t was still dropping bit by bit from pipes that looked like chimneys.
A pungent stench filled Norton's nostrils. If vampires hadn't been able to go without breathing, his keen sense of smell might well have caused him to die a miserable death in this city.
He didn't dare venture too far in, only roaming around the outskirts of Holy Lord City.
It was like a residential district that had sprung up on its own outside the walls of an ancient city-indeed, the very outermost part of such a district.
He didn't even dare wander the streets or venture farther in. His vigilance was at its peak. He feared both running into church personnel and the church having located him as soon as he entered the city.
He spent most of his time clinging to rooftops, carefully watching where the people around him were looking. Only when no one was paying attention did he cautiously move across the roofs.
But Holy Lord City was the Holy See's holy city, the place where God had fallen, and the church's strength and numbers here were still outrageously great. Even wandering the outskirts, he could still see missionaries out and about from time to time.
These missionaries, however, didn't seem to have the ability to locate him as he had expected. Not one of them looked toward the roof where he was hiding.
This place was under the Papal State's jurisdiction, and the streets were full of religious elements.
There were things like the God the Shepherd Picture painted on the street walls, and the small wooden cross hanging at every household's door.
Even though this was only the outskirts of Holy Lord City, the religious atmosphere was still strong. Pigments that counted as precious in this age had been lavishly applied to the walls to paint noble portraits displaying God's holiness.
All these religious elements weighed heavily on him. He was afraid that, as depicted in movies, the supposed divine power in religious objects would purify him, melting him away.
Or rather, he already had a bad feeling.
The familiar God Shepherding Sheep Picture was painted on a street wall. From time to time, passing workers looked at the lamb's genitals on the wall. All he could say was that this really was Central Europe; these people did have a somewhat obsessive streak.
Unlike the ordinary people who could get some pleasure from the mural, Norton couldn't get any pleasure from it at all.
He didn't know whether it was a matter of the angle or whether the so-called mural could penetrate matter. He was clearly lying on the roof of a wooden house, his whole body hidden in the thatch, but as he faced and studied the murals, a prickling heat like sunlight still arose on his skin, making his expression change drastically.
"Damn! How sneaky is that?"
Norton was shocked.
Wait, wasn't this far too sneaky? He hadn't even appeared in front of the mural. His entire body was hidden in the thatch on the roof, and yet it could still shoot him through the wall?
Was this really a medieval method?
He tried slipping into an alley nearby, where the God Shepherding Sheep Picture couldn't shine on him.
The burning sensation on his skin slowly faded, but Norton felt especially oppressed.
"I didn't expect the church to really have ways of dealing with vampires. Don't tell me this thing can locate me too?"
The more Norton thought about it, the heavier his heart felt.
"Even a mural can burn me now. If it were holy water or a holy sword, wouldn't it be able to kill me, Norton, outright?"
What was more, this God Shepherding Sheep Picture was extremely strange. He was dressed and had his head wrapped up; normally, even sunlight falling on him wouldn't necessarily make him sting, yet this divine picture could deal him true damage through his clothes.
It made him even warier of the church's methods.