Lino City was a middling city in the Papal State, with a population of just over a hundred thousand. It was under Archbishop Duoxia's rule.
Among the many archbishops, Archbishop Duoxia was considered something of a rebel.
The old pope's assessment of him was: "Bishop Duoxia's desires are too strong."
He believed that "doctrine should serve human desires," a principle often at odds with the Church's aims.
This manifested in the following ways: "He led the rejection of weekly Mass. He refused to allow grand displays for Church activities, such as filling the city with flowers. He burned sinners in the Ascension Ritual and refused to indiscriminately wipe out low-ranking Church members such as Church knights and missionaries."
He loved money, but instead of squeezing the people dry, he encouraged commerce, trade and production to increase tax revenue and thus collect money.
He loved animal pelts and was extravagant to the core. He often sent Church knights under his command outside the city to hunt fierce beasts such as tigers, wild boars and brown bears, satisfying his passion for collecting.
Yet this hobby also benefited Lino City's landowners to some extent, allowing them to send serfs safely outside the city to clear land, grow more crops and amass more wealth.
There were many more wild rumors about Archbishop Duoxia, but there was no need to list them all.
From Norton's perspective, Bishop Duoxia was a perfectly normal person! Though eight or nine out of ten of his measures served the city's landowners and nobles, that was exactly what showed how normal he was!
But times were different.
In this ignorant, feudal and ugly age, Archbishop Duoxia's clearheadedness had instead become a sin.
But to those with vested interests, Archbishop Duoxia's deeds made him nothing less than the greatest sage ruler!
Norton felt that if he had transmigrated into the body of a cleric in this city back then, he would never have thought of defecting from the Church, nor could he have ended up where he was now.
"Squeak, squeak, squeak..." A vampire bat flapped through the dark streets and flew straight to the top of the towering bell tower.
Two streaks of scarlet light lit up in the dark tower. A closer look would reveal, to one's horror, that they were no streaks of light at all, but a pair of scarlet eyes.
"Hah, hah..." Norton stretched his body, his shriveled vocal cords producing a somewhat unsettling rasp.
The bat hanging upside down from his shriveled skin hopped off him and joined the bat that had just flown back, seemingly exchanging blood with it.
That was right. Norton now had two bats with him. The newcomer had been brought back by his own bat.
One was male and the other female, and they were visibly rather close. They made Norton's surroundings a little livelier.
It had been a month since Norton arrived in Lino City.
The city's openness had somewhat exceeded Norton's expectations.
In this city, the Church was more like an enforcer standing high above everyone else.
That was not meant as a criticism. Rather, the Church was like an immortal who never descended into the mortal world, maintaining Lino City's stability and order while leaving everything else entirely alone.
This made the city extremely vibrant.
Though Bishop Duoxia's ideas displeased many people, Norton was not among them.
He quite liked the archbishop he had never met. At the very least, the man gave him the sense that he was a normal person.
This also made Norton want to settle down in the city. He could hide from the Werewolves hunting him and think of a way to sneak into the church and look for books on Vampire research.
Norton had originally thought that, since he had become a Vampire with an endless lifespan, he could simply take his time exploring the peculiarities of his body himself.
But after the Werewolves began hunting and pursuing him, Norton felt that his thinking might well have been wrong.
If he did not even understand his own characteristics, heaven knew what trouble he would bring on himself next time.
For example, he might be hunted and chased by some other terrifying thing. Or someone might splash him with holy water, and hey, Norton would be dead!
Who could he complain to then?
Besides, he felt he needed to see just how strong he was in this world.
"It's all that dumbass Kuba's fault. Why didn't he leave me any inherited memories? Even goblins have inherited memories, so why did Vampires get such a lousy deal?" Norton felt he really needed to give this Vampire progenitor a thorough criticism.
The place he had transmigrated to was clearly a Western fantasy world with a magical style, but now it looked like a low-budget version.
Still, there was nothing to be done. Getting a long lifespan was already a tremendous stroke of fortune.
If he had no inherited memories, then so be it. Just as he had thought before, once he had lived long enough, he would naturally understand everything.
But for now, Norton still needed to choose his way of life carefully.
Norton stretched and walked from the loft inside the bell tower to its edge, gazing out over the city below, now sunk in darkness.
The peace in the city still could not give him the slightest sense of belonging. Nor could the so-called pitiable populace win Norton's sympathy. Only the Church that had persecuted him for twenty years filled him with genuine loathing and profound hatred.