Warm deer blood slid down Norton's throat, and as he fed, his body visibly began to swell.
Of course, he wasn't puffing up like a balloon. Rather, he seemed to be gradually returning to how he had looked six months ago.
He was still shriveled, but at least he had a little more flesh on him than before.
As his body recovered and the blood entered his stomach, the sensation of growth that had been stalled for a week returned. It was faint, but like an electrical signal, he could clearly detect it.
"Thud."
Norton dropped the deer's carcass onto the ground.
In the vampire stories he had read in his previous life, vampires seemed to have the ability to turn others into vampires. It was called the "Embrace."
He had yet to test whether he had that ability himself.
But he felt that he probably didn't.
Even if his body were ground up in a blender now, it would be hard to squeeze any blood out of it. The Embrace seemed to require feeding someone your own blood, and since he didn't even have any blood, he certainly couldn't perform it.
As for viruses, that was even more ridiculous. Anyone who had studied high school biology knew that viruses couldn't survive on their own. As a vampire, he didn't have a single living cell left in his body, so how could a virus possibly survive in him?
Bacteria or fungi would be more plausible.
But Norton thought bacteria and fungi were even less likely. If vampires really were created through bacterial or fungal infection, they would be running around everywhere by now.
Although he had spent the past six months testing whether he would grow weak without drinking blood, Norton had still made ample preparations beforehand to ensure he really wouldn't starve to death.
For instance, he had caught a few deer and antelopes and kept them fed, so that if he really did grow weak from not drinking blood, he wouldn't have to risk hunting.
Most ordinary creatures didn't crave him the way that strange bird did. Instead, they treated him with wary respect and kept their distance. That also made them easier for Norton to catch.
Norton felt the warmth in his belly and was somewhat satisfied.
Although he could survive for a long time without drinking blood, the feeling of fullness and satisfaction afterward was undoubtedly much more pleasurable.
But even though he was drinking blood continuously, his growth rate still hadn't increased in the slightest.
The blood seemed to turn into energy stored in his body rather than being immediately drawn upon for evolution.
His body continued to grow as slowly as an old man pushing a cart, paying no attention to how much blood came in.
Drinking large quantities of blood had no real effect. Only the blood he had drunk from those two Gold Saints of the church could bypass his body's restrictions and accelerate his growth.
"So, should I go get some more?"
Norton felt an itch in his heart.
It was like leveling up in a game. Knowing there was a way to level up quickly, most people would have a hard time resisting.
But then he remembered how those two Gold Saints had split a huge crack in a rock with a single sword stroke underwater, and he felt he'd better forget it.
Even with his enhanced strength, he didn't think he could split a huge crack in a rock with one sword stroke underwater. It was easy to imagine how much power those damned Gold Saints had.
Still, a year had passed. He could go see whether the armor was still there and whether the cave had been discovered.
If no one had taken the armor by now, that would prove it had no tracking device, and he could return to the cave to live.
The cliff really wasn't a good place. It was too conspicuous, or he wouldn't have encountered those two dangers.
In particular, whenever a Human-Faced Bird flew over Norton's head and spotted him, he would become its prey the next moment.
Norton couldn't make sense of it.
I'm a shriveled-up vampire with barely any meat on me. Why don't you go eat wild boars and bison instead of chasing after me so relentlessly?
The cave was a little safer by comparison.
Norton acted as soon as the thought occurred to him.
Norton stood up and looked at the cliff behind him.
His shabby little wooden hut had already been built from entirely natural materials: hand-finished wooden planks and vines.
The whole hut was crooked, and there was only enough room inside for a coffin.
Besides that, he had air-dried many lengths of vine and joined them together to make a climbing rope, making it easier for him to get up and down the cliff.
The main reason he didn't take the mountain path wasn't that it was too far or that he was too lazy, but that the longer the journey, the more dangerous it was in this forest.
Norton hooked his rope over the edge of a protruding plank on his shabby hut, then reached out and tugged it hard to test its strength.
Then he lowered himself over the cliff, hanging from the rope.