As for God creating death and hanging it high in the sky, that referred to the sun.
That was right. This world truly believed that the sun was what caused living things to die. Whether in the Bible, the Garden of Eden, or the Baptism, the books all described this in detail.
Even the church's various garments were all hooded, full-body coverings, meant to reduce exposure to the sun.
And the reason the church forbade its clergy from looking up was to keep them from staring directly at the sun or exposing their faces to it.
As for whether lifespans had increased, they really had grown somewhat longer.
The previous old priest had died at 193. Even in the modern world Norton had come from, no one lived to such an age. He had originally thought it was an isolated case, but after following groups to clean the church graveyard on several occasions, he had studied the epitaphs and discovered that the ages were absurdly high. People generally died well over a hundred, and the previous priest had lived the longest so far. Even the shortest-lived had made it to 126. He had also noticed a pattern: people's lifespans seemed to be growing longer and longer.
Most of the earlier dead had been in their twenties or thirties past a hundred. Later, that had gradually risen to their forties or fifties past a hundred, and as the years went by, it had reached the seventies or eighties past a hundred, until the previous old priest had lived to 193.
But from what Norton had observed and learned, the level of medical care here seemed not to have developed at all over the years. Living standards had remained completely unchanged, and hygiene had seen no improvement either. People even had to use leaves or sticks to wipe their butts, so the increase in lifespan seemed highly questionable.
Why were these people living longer and longer? Could they still be evolving?
If the sun being death was the explanation, however, it seemed to fit this pattern in lifespans perfectly.
The sun's intensity did seem to have gradually declined over the past twenty years. Norton remembered that when he was little, the midday sunlight had been so intense that he had to squint when he stood in the courtyard. Now he no longer had to. He didn't know whether his eyes had grown or the sun had faded.
Still, the sun did seem to be turning orange-red more and more often, bathing the entire sky in orange-red like a sunset. It was beautiful.
Norton felt he had underestimated this world a little.
If he could go out after becoming a missionary, he would have to take a good look at the world and see whether some unknown power really existed.
If there really were vampires, should he become one or not? Should he live forever or not?
Oh, that's such a hard decision!
Oh, right, are there any breathtakingly beautiful, aloof vampire young ladies? Or perhaps any voluptuous, charming vampire mothers-in-law?
Damn it, I used to be an adventurer too, until I took an arrow to the knee?
Norton slipped into his fantasies out of habit.
Twenty years of confinement had left him with this habit. He was always fond of fantasizing to enrich his inner life and keep himself from going completely mad.
After a long while, he finally came back to his senses and picked up the third book.
The contents of the third book were even stranger. It was filled with rules and regulations, or rather, church taboos and taboos for going out. At the same time, though, it made the existence of vampires even more apparent.
For example: 1. No missionary or prospective missionary may have physical contact with commoners outside the church. Vampires are skilled at hiding among crowds.
2. Dead bodies must be purified with holy water, have a wooden stake driven through the heart, and be dismembered, with the parts buried separately at locations far apart, to prevent them from becoming vampires. (Firewood cannot produce temperatures high enough to burn a body to ashes, and doing so takes too much time and effort and is too costly. In this age, firewood is also a form of wealth.)
3. Anyone drained to death by a vampire must be soaked in holy water...
The third book contained more than a dozen rules of all kinds, all centered on one word: "vampire."
Taking everything together, it was entirely certain that so-called vampires did exist in this world. They were not very easy to create, but they were still common, or there would not have been such detailed rules and descriptions.
According to the books, vampires in this world were not created through some kind of transformation, nor were there ranks such as vampire princes or vampire counts. Still less did they possess magic that could bewitch people or power that made them invincible at every turn.
The vampires described in this book were more like monsters formed when dead people came back to life. When first created, their faces were pale and bloodless, and livor mortis caused by coagulated blood might appear on their skin. They were relatively fragile, had no ability to recover, and their teeth and nails were essentially unchanged. They were weak in combat. This was also the stage when they were best able to hide among crowds.
As time went on, generally after a year or after they had consumed enough blood, their teeth would gradually become serrated. The blood in their bodies would disappear, their skin would grow paler, and they would show an aversion to light, though sunlight did them no obvious harm. They usually lived in caves, never seeing sunlight all day, and could only catch animals to eat. Their bodies would also gain some ability to recover, their agility and strength would increase noticeably, and their eyes would turn reddish-brown.
These creatures seemed to grow gradually over time. The book contained no descriptions of any subsequent changes, and Norton didn't know whether those were a secret or simply didn't exist.
But judging by how tense the church was about guarding against vampires, it was very likely that they evolved further, perhaps even gaining some strange abilities. Otherwise, such creatures could never withstand a group of heavily armored soldiers attacking them, and there would be no need for such vigilance.
Norton felt a little excited, his skin tingling and numb as though pricked by needles.
Although these books revealed the existence of vampires as a species, they clearly only touched on the subject, and their descriptions remained superficial. The church had been around for so many years that it surely couldn't have so little research to show for it. And judging by the extent of its precautions, vampires were very likely far more threatening than he had imagined.
As for how vampires came into being, the books didn't say. Perhaps the church was afraid someone would deliberately become a vampire after learning how?
Norton put the book down and began reading the fourth.
The fourth and fifth books were more like collections of tales about strange creatures, describing all sorts of monsters.
For example, there were "Yindan" and "Epoch," which had been mentioned in the Holy Covenant. Besides those, there were all sorts of species he had heard of in his previous life.
"Werewolves," "sirens," "Human-faced birds," and so on.
There probably weren't many of these things, though, or they had limitations, as none were given particularly lengthy introductions.
But these magical creatures all had one thing in common: they were all living beings, all alive, all possessed of life.
From that perspective, vampires alone were the most unusual. They were neither alive nor dead.
Living things fell under Shenyin's jurisdiction, while dead things were governed by Jonah. Only vampires, caught between life and death, were more like Sun Monkey, having leaped beyond the three realms and outside the five elements, beyond anyone's control.
Perhaps that was also why the church singled out vampires.
Norton laid the five books open on the wooden table and sighed deeply.
He had originally thought this world was an ordinary medieval world, and that with his status as a missionary, his life would at least not be too bad. But now it seemed that this was a magical medieval world, and that left him feeling a little on edge.
As he was thinking, the church bell began to toll slowly.
"Dong, dong, dong..."
Norton came back to his senses, then blew out the oil lamp on his table and went to bed.