Norton sat on a stone he had brought back from outside some time ago.
The crude surroundings naturally kept him from making the decorations or furniture he liked as he once had, leaving his life feeling a little less refined.
Still, the more rudimentary the place, the better it was for his life in seclusion.
Norton felt the power in his body.
It had been nearly three years since he had started drinking blood. Compared to when he first began, Norton could indeed feel that his body had grown stronger.
The difference was not all that great. By Norton's estimate, he should now be stronger than a Werewolf, but he had yet to reach the level of those two Gold Saints.
At the same time, his tolerance for sunlight seemed to be declining proportionately. Before he had evolved into his current withered-bark state, standing naked in the sun had only given him a prickling sensation. Now, that sensation was stronger when he stood naked in the sun, and his eyes could no longer look directly at it.
Norton did not know whether further evolution would leave him completely unable to stand in the sun.
The extent of his increase in strength was also related to whose blood he drank.
For example, drinking rabbit blood had benefited him far less than drinking deer blood, and the increase in strength from deer blood had been much smaller than that from a Werewolf. So far, drinking the blood of those two Gold Saints had given him the greatest increase in strength.
Norton coveted their blood, yet he also wanted to lie low and evolve slowly. This conflict made him think about it several times nearly every day, only to reject the idea again.
It was a textbook case of the left side of his brain arguing with the right.
A faint musty smell filled the attic, prompting Norton to stop breathing, which he used to stay alert to nearby smells. He turned his gaze to the source of the odor.
In a corner of the attic lay a small pile of moldy pastries.
There looked to be at least twenty or thirty of them.
That was right. They were all from that damned little boy named Karl, who had given them to Norton on the street. He was like a stubborn plaster, using Norton as an unfeeling tree hollow to pour his heart out to whenever he pleased.
Every few days, he would pour out his damned grievances to Norton and share what he had learned from being a simp!
Norton thought he might as well take that damned Jennifer to Karl's bed in the middle of the night and drain that damned Henry dry!
As for the pastries, he had stopped throwing them by the roadside and had instead brought them back and piled them against the wall.
Time passed slowly, and two years went by in the blink of an eye.
Norton grew increasingly familiar with Lino City.
He had spent twenty years in Holy Lord City and the Holy Lord Church, but he had never felt the slightest sense of belonging. Yet after two years in Lino City, he had already acquired a faint sense of his own presence there.
That presence was not body odor lingering in the air, but the traces of a person living there.
For example, the people he knew and the familiar streets... Simple as these things were, they were the lines that made up a life.
On a familiar street, Norton, now dressed in cloth clothes, sat in his usual spot.
To be honest, he had more or less finished observing the Church in Lino City over the past two years, but he had also grown accustomed to sitting there every day.
He knew the people passing by, and the security and sense of belonging that came from living in familiar surroundings made him somewhat reluctant to leave.
"Mr. Norton, Jennifer is so annoying now. I think I like Mary a little more. Can I stop being with Jennifer and be with Mary instead?" The little brat Karl had grown somewhat over the past two years.
Watching how quickly human children grew made Norton a little envious.
If a Vampire like him could grow that quickly, why would he still need to curl up in Lino City? Wouldn't he have been able to go back and settle the score with Mia long ago?
Thinking of Father Mia filled Norton with motivation.
Over the past few years, he had thought of countless ways to torture Father Mia! For example, he could run a stick through him and roast him over a fire, or drive a steel needle through his eye socket and hang him from a wooden stake with his feet touching the ground, leaving him unable to die or move. The slightest movement would cause him bone-deep pain, leaving him unable to live or die as he wished!
Norton felt that his mind had become twisted.
But Karl's idea soon made him furious.
"Fool! Why can't you have both?" Norton's hoarse voice sounded like fingers scraping against glass, making listeners shudder.
But Karl had grown used to the voice, or rather, he had come to regard it as gospel.
A year ago, when Norton had spoken for the first time, he had given Karl a fright.
Norton's voice was hoarse, but his words always made Karl feel as if a light had dawned on him. From then on, Norton was no longer a tree hollow for him to confide in, but a mentor on the path of life.
Now this mentor had given him another crucial piece of advice for his life.
"That's brilliant, Mr. Norton! Why are you always so wise?" Karl's eyes shone, and he was delighted.
Mr. Norton's words always struck straight at his heart, leaving him unable not to believe them.
His mind had been thoroughly corrupted by Norton over the past two years. This child from a wealthy family might grow into a complete scoundrel someday.
"That's talent." Norton's words were as brief as ever. Rather than discuss these childish problems with the little boy named Karl, he preferred to get other information out of him.
The information available to the children of the rich and powerful was far beyond anything an ordinary pauper could obtain, and its accuracy was better assured.
A year ago, Norton had begun deliberately guiding Karl to gather information from his family, and by now he had become quite adept at it.
"Any news lately?"
Karl came to his senses from his increasingly filthy fantasies. Hearing Norton's question, he immediately grew smug.
"Mr. Norton, I've learned quite a lot lately! Let me think."
Children were easiest to handle in this respect. For praise and a chance to show off their abilities, they would go to great lengths to gather everything you wanted. Although a child from a powerful family like Karl's would be more guarded and give things more thought, he might still talk about news that did not involve secrets.
But for someone like Norton, even news that did not involve secrets was not easy to obtain, because it had been compiled at a tremendous cost in manpower and resources.
"Hmm, my father said His Holiness the Pope seems very dissatisfied with the Eye of Holiness's recent work. He said the Church will probably make a big move next, but I don't know what it'll be."
"Also, the Church secretly got its hands on something new recently, but my father doesn't know what it is either. I heard it came from Holy Lord City, though."
"I also heard my father say that His Holiness the Pope seems to want to consolidate power, but I don't think that's very likely. Archbishop Duoxia and the other bishops won't agree to it. His Holiness has the highest position, but his control over the local areas is still too weak."
Although Karl was young, the knowledge he had gained from being born into a wealthy family was still beyond a pauper's. Besides wanting to show off, he told Norton these things because the news was not important or confidential.
If his mentor in life wanted to hear it, he would tell him.