Chapter 8

Life in Luncani was peaceful, yet at the same time exceedingly precarious.

If suspicion toward me went quiet for a month, it sharpened for the next three; and when things miraculously remained calm for two or three months, passing travelers or itinerant peddlers would bring news of the situation in other villages, stirring up another few months of uproar.

It was inconvenient. Yet it was not particularly unpleasant.

For in that era, in those times, that rumor was a terror that spread like an uncontainable fire across the entire continent of Europe.

Amidst all manner of sinister rumors and the riots following in their wake sweeping across Europe, an outsider had suddenly appeared in an isolated, church-centered community not far from the very origin of the rumors. Furthermore, a pale man who possessed every single characteristic of the vampir from the rumors, who never joined in farming or hunting, and who remained holed up in his cottage without ever once coming out to seek provisions.

It would have been far stranger if they had cast aside their wariness and suspicion without confirming anything about such a man.

I did not mind their suspicion or their vigilance. However, when an anomaly actually occurred in the village and the arrows of blame not only pointed at me, but as if it were only natural, extended toward the priest’s family as well, an unavoidable displeasure stirred within me.

The sharp ember that first fell upon this village—which had been precarious, yet never truly perilous—descended when winter returned after summer and autumn, seasons during which finding prey was effortless even when entering the forest at night.

The beginning was a very trivial matter.

“A goat disappeared, and of all things, it had to be the only black one we had! Most of them are white and there was only a single black one, so why in the world did that one have to vanish! A white one would have been far easier to spot in the dark. Wouldn’t it?”

In a village where an occasional chicken went missing, it was the first time a goat had disappeared. And of all things, a black goat, which was regarded as the very symbol of the devil.

In those days, a black goat was an ominous creature, yet at the same time an animal kept for the well-being of its owner and the community to which they belonged. As an entity to bear sins and punishments in their stead, and as ‘that which is needed for the devil to manifest on earth,’ disappearing first to signal danger should evil draw near.

In some regions, it was the entire body of the goat; in others, only the head; and in yet others, its blood.

And Luncani, of all places, was an Orthodox-centered community that could not stop myself from believeing in the biblical symbol of evil, while simultaneously making the black goat a scapegoat for sins, and believing that the entire physical body was necessary for evil to manifest.

In truth, it was merely the doing of a wolf whose prey had dwindled with the deepening winter, but I understood their fear as well. Since something that had never happened before occurred after my arrival, their suspicion turning toward me was unavoidable from their perspective.

It was fine. Whatever commotion they raised, however many more contemptuous gazes and razor-sharp vigilance they directed at me.

I truly did not mind in the slightest. I understood it all.

However, that was no longer the case once the suspicion grew and spread until it was aimed even at Ilie, who had merely stated that it was not my doing because he knew for a fact it was not.

“He slipped out in the dead of night and went to that cottage, and when I saw him at communion this morning, there was a bright red mark on his neck!”

A few days after the goat disappeared, the trouble started when Ilie, slipping out of the church in the deep hours of the night to head for my cottage, was spotted by a villager who had not yet fallen asleep.

“Unless he’s tested with holy relics, I’ll never believe it.”

“That’s right, we haven’t had anything verified! Coming to church? Since ancient times, there are countless records of demons barging into churches! How can that be a reason for trust?”

“Honestly, I think that fellow Ilie needs to be tested too. Isn’t it strange? From the very start, he’s taken that bastard’s side instead of ours and shielded him. He never even sprinkled holy water on him, yet he shouts at us just because the man was fine under the cross…!”

“Exactly, that’s what I’m saying! He acts as if he’s been bewitched by a devil. Take the other day, too. How does he know the creature didn’t take the goat? It’s not like he was watching him all night long!”

“The more I think about it, the stranger it is. Didn’t he get possessed way back when the fellow was staying inside the church?”

“Now, now, I understand, so calm down first. Instead of bickering among ourselves, let’s unite our voices and speak to the priest together. The father will naturally refuse at first, but in the end, he’ll have no choice but to agree if he wants to prove his son’s innocence. While we demand that bastard be dragged out and tested, we can add that Ilie needs to be verified as well. What do you say? Do you all agree?”

From the moment I overheard those voices while walking toward the village, wondering why Ilie had not come past his usual hour, I no longer wished to understand them.

Toward those who turned the mark of my tenderest affection—borne of suppressing my species’ instincts—into the brand of a demon, I felt an unavoidable sense of contempt and humiliation. For the first time in a very long time, indeed an exceedingly long time, it was not hunger, but a lust for slaughter that surged within me.

I wanted to hide Ilie away from their eyes, and at the same time, looking upon him who had been dragged recklessly across countless lips because of my selfish possessiveness, I awakened to yet another first emotion.

Something that existed in him, but had never existed in me, was born only at that moment.

Guilt and responsibility.

Having scoffed at it out of ignorance, the moment it was born—as if mocking me for having done so—it bestowed upon me a feeling more dreadful than anything I had ever known.

It felt as though I were walking around with my neck slung through a noose that had dropped from the heavens.

That day, in the end, I turned back toward the cottage without confirming Ilie’s safety.

I wanted to protect him from the terror the mob was pouring out, but I did so knowing that in such a situation, my presence would become not a shield for him, but another blade.

For several days after that, Ilie was unable to come to me. Likely the priest or his wife, noticing the unrest, had kept him from leaving. Of course, I did not go anywhere near the village, let alone the church.

During those suffocating, unpleasant days of waiting, I entered the forest night after night to prepare for any unforeseen circumstance.

In truth, the ‘tests’ they spoke of were mere illusions inflated by rumors. Sprinkling holy water, forcing one to touch relics, reciting prayers aloud, reflecting in a mirror, standing under the noonday sun—none of those things had any effect on me.

There was, however, one thing: unlike the others, it was not widely known, yet because it truly could never be concealed, it served as a genuine ‘test.’

Catching the scent of human blood when in a state of ‘malnourishment,’ so to speak, after having gone without feeding on human blood for a long time.

In such a condition, when fangs pushed through and eyes turned crimson, there was truly no helping it. It was beyond the control of reason.

If that state persisted or stimulation was repeated, reason would snap, leaving only primal instinct; and once in that state, I would attempt to devour even Ilie without recognizing him.

Just as the reason I could not die of starvation lay in that very trait, human blood was such a perilous necessity to me. Especially in that predicament, it was a weakness that would yield nothing but catastrophe.

That was why I kept forcing the blood of beasts into a body that was not in the least hungry, attempting at least to maintain a sense of fullness.

Knowing they would soon come looking for me to test all manner of things, I wanted to conceal that fatal weakness at all costs; yet I could not break the vow I had made to Ilie.

Only by feeding on humans could I protect him completely, yet as long as I loved him, a human, I could not break the oath made to that love—a suffocating period.

It was a time when I came to realize, to the marrow of my bones, the crushing weight of the word guilt.

✦ ✦ ✦

It was when a full week of such time had passed that the priest, worn down by the villagers every day after the services, finally raised the white flag.

The forest path before the cottage, which had remained endlessly quiet throughout the seven days said to have been taken by God to create the world and reach His rest, grew as bright as the day of creation and erupted into clamor when the night of the seventh day, the end of the Sabbath, arrived.

Knock, knock.

The crowd of humans, having come fully prepared to drag me to the church and force me to my knees, knocked on the door in hushed breath, as if forgetting that the torches they carried were already illuminating the outside of the window as brightly as broad daylight.

Having heard their footsteps from the moment they began ascending the hill, I quietly closed my book and rose from my seat. When I opened the door, as expected, the very scene I had anticipated unfolded.

The one standing at the front of the door as their representative was the old man who had settled the disputes in the village. Looking at his white beard stained yellow by the torch held by the burly man right beside him, I slowly parted my lips.

“What brings you all all the way out here so deep in the night?”

The dozens of eyes watching me in held breath flinched simultaneously. Behind the men, several women who had followed holding pickaxes, pitchforks, and the like exchanged confused glances among themselves.

Was it because it was their first time facing me so closely and hearing my voice? Every single one of them had stepped forward looking for all the world like a hunting party out to slay a monster, yet facing the monster in the flesh and finding him unexpectedly handsome, they hesitated in flustered disarray.

“Pardon the late intrusion, sir.”

The gaze of the old man in the lead was much the same, but after appearing shaken for a moment, he quickly regained his composure, cleared his throat, and spoke:

“I believe you already know the situation. Amidst growing rumors, ominous occurrences have happened in the village, and the residents’ fears mount with every passing day… I trust you understand that an outsider brings unease, and it is something we cannot help.”

At those words, the man standing beside him took a slight step back, as if clearing space for me to step out. Following the retreating light, the shadows in the wrinkles around the old man’s eyes deepened further.

“Therefore, hoping that you will step forward yourself to prove our safety, we have come to visit you together like this.”

I held his gaze steadily until he finished speaking, then slowly raised my head to sweep my eyes over the assembled villagers.

“If you are truly the innocent scholar from Vienna that you claim to be, you will fully understand our circumstances, and in that case, you would not fear in the least going with us to the church right this moment to be tested for impurity. Is that not so?”

Near the area where several were clustered and my gaze lingered particularly long, someone behind them ostentatiously made the sign of the cross. As if convinced that would protect them from me.

Only after thoroughly examining the faces of those who gripped what they believed to be weapons in an attempt to corner me did I lower my eyes back to the old man.

When our eyes met, the old man, who had been watching with tense eyes, narrowed his brow and glared fiercely as if to hide his fear.

“We do not wish for a commotion. If you simply cooperate, this rudeness will end tonight. …Now, choose. Will you comply?”

Looking down at that insolent face indirectly commanding me to obey quietly if I did not want to be dragged away by force, I pushed down the ridicule threatening to burst forth and replied in the most polite tone possible:

“If that will put everyone at ease, I would gladly go as many times as needed.”

When I uttered a compliant answer and picked up the coat hanging beside the door, the dozens of pairs of eyes watching with clenched fists stirred once again, hurriedly exchanging glances.

Yet even that unexpected compliance seemed incapable of dispelling their suspicion; the moment I threw on my coat and took a single step out the door, the circle surrounding the entrance flinched and stepped back simultaneously, as if moving as a single body.

“…It will be a long night.”

The lone man who managed to hold his ground without retreating, the old man, spoke in a tone that feigned composure.

Suppressing my ridicule once more, I replied,

“Yet it shall also be the night when all hollow fears are stripped away.”

✦ ✦ ✦

The church door, massive compared to its frame, parted its jaws while letting out a sound like a strangled groan.

At the top of the stairs, the man who had walked ahead and opened the door cast a nervous glance toward me, standing behind the old man, and stepped aside. The old man stepped out of the path only after ascending the stairs and crossing the threshold.

The church interior, which had felt momentarily dark as the torches surrounding us fell away, revealed its true form only after the frigid winter night air rushed in, causing the lights within to flicker and settle.

Inside the church, all preparations required for the ordeal had already been completed. The short candles lined before the altar were all lit, and the priest, a rosary wound around his hand, stood in the center with his back to the Royal Doors.

Ilie was in front of him, beneath the platform raised a single step high.

Turning around with hunched shoulders as if startled by the sudden, loud bang of the door, the moment he saw me, his expression grew so pitiful it seemed he might crumble on the spot.

His lips, which had parted reflexively as if wishing to call out to me, closed soundlessly with a faint tremor. He gazed at me tenderly for a moment, then, just like the morning after he had commanded me to repent, bit his lip tightly and lowered his gaze.

How much had he wept during this time? The skin around his eyes was raw and crimson. His golden eyelashes, the same hue as his hair, remained clumped together in places with tears that had not yet dried.

It was a face that made me understand in a single instant, without a single word, what kind of treatment he had endured within the village during the days we had been kept apart.

In that instant, I felt a bloodlust far more vivid than when I had overheard the villagers’ voices on my way to meet him. A ferocious impulse—to rip out the throats of every last one of those who had made my own, my Ilie, weep so bitterly, when even I, his natural predator, took such pains not to harm him—shook my sanity for a moment.

Only after he turned his head back toward his father did I barely regain my composure and take a step forward.

When I stopped before the priest, who waited for me with an uncomfortable expression, Ilie, kneeling beside him, let out a long, trembling breath. As though he could finally breathe only with me by his side.

As the familiar scent of his flesh drifted over in waves, I, in contrast, began gradually restricting my breath from that point on.

Behind us came the sound of the church doors shutting. Slowly bending my knees, I knelt beside Ilie in the exact same manner.

Facing the sight of his own child and the outsider he had taken in kneeling side by side like sinners, the priest looked down upon us with an expression of barely concealed sorrow before slowly tracing the sign of the cross.

Since the ‘test of impurity’ in that era was a type of minor exorcism ritual, after the sign of the cross, psalms dispelling evil and calling upon the light naturally followed.

“Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered…”

Inside the church, unnaturally silent for the number of people gathered, only the low voice of the priest flowed amidst the flickering candlelight for a time.

“Summon Your might, O God; show us Your strength, O God, as You have done for us.”

Presently, opening his closed eyes, the priest slowly reached out toward the table standing at his side.

“Those who stand trial shall reveal before the name of the Lord the secrets they have kept hidden.”

With a faintly trembling hand, he lifted a silver vessel that had been prepared in advance. Kneeling as I was, I could not see inside, but the sloshing sound alone was more than enough to tell what it contained.

Taking the aspergillum in his other hand, the priest drew a shallow breath and dipped it deep into the holy water before pulling it out. Then, tracing a cross over the heads of the two of us kneeling with lowered heads, he swung it.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Each time his hand swung, cold drops of water scattered across our defenselessly exposed foreheads and cheeks.

“O you who stand before this holy altar, if there be darkness within you, it shall not remain hidden before the light of the Lord.”

The priest’s hand cut through the air without hesitation, as if striving to conceal its trembling.

“In the name of the living God and by His power that blessed this earth, I command: let all darkness hidden within you be revealed in this place.”

The humans watching held their breath, expecting it to turn into acid that would scorch my flesh, but to me, it was merely a liquid more tepid than winter snowflakes.

When the priest halted his hand and set down the aspergillum, a brief murmur rippled through the spectators watching in breathless suspense.

“Why…?”

“Were we mistaken…?”

“No, not yet…”

“The relics…”

Had it not been for the pounding heartbeat of Ilie, who had grown utterly terrified because he had not been told in advance that I was impervious to such things, it was a moment where I might have inadvertently let out a scoff.

Next came the holy oil. Picking up the oil dish, the priest first approached Ilie, dipped his thumb deep, drew it out, and placed it upon his forehead.

The motion of drawing the cross was short and succinct, yet I could see it clearly: it was a touch filled with all his heart, praying desperately that no impurity resided in his son.

Letting out a breath of relief at the continued silence even after removing his hand, the priest stepped before me, placed his thumb against my forehead with a touch slightly less guarded than before, and then flinched briefly.

Lifting my lowered eyelids, I quietly looked at the priest. He, too, looked back at me with eyes fraught with bewilderment and suspicion. I could feel the priest’s fingertip trembling faintly as he slowly traced the line downward.

He had undoubtedly noticed. The disparity, the uncanny dissonance of a monster that could not be concealed no matter how human a guise it wore.

It was skin far too cold, far too smooth to belong to a human.

“Now, let those who are tested declare their existence before the Lord and this community for the record.”

Yet, as expected, he did not jump to conclusions as long as the God he believed in did not reject me. Straightening up and lowering the Bible in his hands to command us, the residents who had been muttering in low voices held their breath once more.

“Ilie Isaiah.”

It was Ilie who first placed his hand upon the outstretched Bible. Just as my gaze was about to shift at the trembling in his voice, I saw the priest turn his head toward me.

Looking down at the Bible brought before me, I slowly raised my arm. A name. An insubstantial wrapper used and discarded as needed. I had countless such things in my head.

Choosing one from among those rolling around in my mind, just as I placed my hand upon the Bible and parted my lips without a thought—

“…Adrian.”

Beside me, a voice sounding as though holding back tears faintly murmured. Inadvertently, I turned my head toward him. The next moment, the fabricated name that had reached the tip of my tongue vanished into thin air, as though it had never existed in this world from the beginning.

Adrian.

The moment that name entered my head, I stared at him blankly, forgetting even what kind of situation he and I were in. Ilie still had his eyes cast firmly downward, his trembling lips pressed tightly shut.

A name he must have spent days and nights pondering, choosing and choosing again. A name he said he would give me to bring me into existence in this world, a name he said he would give me so he could cherish me when calling upon me.

Adrian.

Only after turning it over in my mind dozens—no, hundreds of times—did I finally come to my senses and turn my head back toward the priest.

The priest was the same. Having stared at Ilie with dazed eyes, he started and straightened his posture only after I turned my head. In the gaze that met mine again, a suspicion slightly deeper than before lingered.

It was a natural reaction. At such a distance, the priest standing right before us could not fail to hear. Even so, Ilie had been unable to hold back.

He must have wanted me—who would deceive both his father, who had devoted his entire life to God, and even the God he had revered since birth—to be proud nonetheless. He must have wanted me to be tested as ‘myself.’ That was why, even with his father listening, he had obstinately passed me that name.

Letting out the breath I had held without even realizing since who knows when, I carefully enunciated that painfully sweet name, as though savoring it.

“Adrian.”

After speaking my own existence into the world for the first time with my own voice, I drew a short breath—one that was likely close to profound emotion—and appended the baptismal name that was the evidence of my long centuries of deceiving God, as though it were proof of my innocence:

“…Athanasius.”

It was the very first moment in this long, long life that I fully revealed ‘myself’ upon this earth.

✦ ✦ ✦

Just as the old man had said, that night was long.

I kissed the crucifix before the eyes of all the villagers. Everyone inside the church watched clearly as I was not rejected by God. Only one person, Ilie, did not look upon that sight.

At that moment, when the taut thread of tension and disbelief should have snapped and fallen away, the crowd sank into terror instead, and the priest’s hand holding the crucifix trembled.

What in the world did they feel in that sight?

For me, who had never possessed faith for a single moment since birth, there was no way of knowing.

Even after that, I passed all the tests they demanded with ease. I swore before the name of Christ that I was God’s creation, kissed the icons, and recited prayers of exorcism.

The conclusion to that relentless verification was, of all things, blood.

Someone in the crowd abruptly shouted, “A vampir is different from the demons we know, it is a revived corpse and does not react to sacred rites, they say it only reacts to blood!” and rushed toward the altar, hurling what they held in their bosom at me.

Truthfully, in the instant red flashed before my eyes and the familiar metallic scent wafted over, I actually froze. Had it been human blood, that alone would truly have triggered a reaction from me.

Regrettably for them, however, even at that ultimate, final opportunity, they failed to drag my true nature into the open.

It was goat’s blood. To display a thoroughly human reaction, I turned my head to dodge, then looked upon the one who had splashed the blood with an ostentatiously feigned look of shock and dismay.

The church interior, which had turned cold as if doused in water, soon fell into disarray as shaken villagers moved to restrain him. Looking exhausted by the commotion, the priest squeezed his eyes shut and hurriedly brought the rite to a close, while the villager who had met my eyes with a blank expression, clutching the bloodstained bottle, was dragged outside by others.

With the expulsion of the one who had shattered the solemn ceremony and defiled the church, the long night of the ordeal reached an anticlimactic end.

The ‘me’ that Ilie had drawn out into the world with a single word—they failed to pull forth even a shred of it to the very end.

On the way back to the cottage, I sneered at them from the bottom of my heart, and also felt relieved.

Without dreaming that disbelief born of fear does not subside so easily, much less that when it becomes the property of a mob, it turns into an inextinguishable fire.

Arrogantly.

✦ ✦ ✦

It was two days later when Ilie came to the cottage. An evening when snow that had melted and thinned began piling ankle-deep once again.

I had heard his crunching footsteps from the moment he set foot on the hill, but I remained seated in the armchair, waiting until he opened the door and entered without knocking.

I had wanted to go out and meet him, and I had wanted to open the door before he did and pull him tight into my arms, but I did not. After that night, I was the one who waited. I had to be.

“You are all right, aren’t you?”

I had intended to ask if he was all right the moment he entered, but opening the door, he asked first.

Looking at his cheeks reddened by the cold wind, I rose to my feet. Pulling him—frozen at the threshold as though crushed by the worry he had harbored all the way here—into my embrace, I closed the door to shut out the wind.

“It seems the one by my side that day was not you.”

Instead of asking if he hadn’t seen everything, I tossed back a jest. Ilie pressed his frozen body firmly against my chest, artificially warmed by the hearth fire, and carefully lifted his head.

“You could have endured it even if it was agonizing.”

Though he was the one put on trial because of me, his anxious gaze looked as if I had been put on trial because of him.

Realizing what thoughts he had been trapped in over the past two days when he could not visit—when I had assumed he would be relieved—I, too, felt an ache in my chest.

“It was not agonizing.”

“Truly?”

“It was a rite to drive out demons, and I am no demon.”

Lifting Ilie as he buried his face in my chest, I carried him over to the armchair. When I sat down and tapped my thigh, he turned his head away feigning ignorance for a moment, but before long, he quietly shifted his weight onto me.

“But you dodged when they threw the blood.”

“Because they threw it at my face. Had I stood still, it would have aroused suspicion instead.”

“Are you all right with the smell of blood?”

Instead of answering, I met his eyes and gently stroked his cheek. The warm flesh I had not touched in nearly ten days wound softly over the back of my fingers. I indulged in that sensation for a moment, and only after he slowly relinquished his tension and tilted his head into my hand did I speak:

“Had that blood been human rather than beast, I would not have been all right. By now, I would probably be buried in a coffin with a stake through my heart.”

Ilie, who had been leaning into me with his cheek resting on my shoulder, flinched and straightened his head. Our eyes met once more.

“If it’s human blood… what happens to you?”

He asked with bewildered eyes. Overall, his expression was closer to sheer terror.

“I would have been caught.”

“I mean, why? What happens to you?”

Feeling that my answer was evasive, he thumped my chest in impatience. His voice trembled slightly.

I hesitated briefly. Should I truly let him know my flaw? It was only for a fleeting instant. If not him, to whom in this world would I ever reveal myself? It was a laughable conflict from the start.

“I would have assumed the very form they fear most. My eyes would have turned red, and my fangs would have pushed through. Especially when I have gone so long without feeding on human blood, like now…”

Speaking slowly, I moved the fingertips that had stopped and stroked his face once more. I did so because, for some reason, Ilie wore an expression as though about to weep.

“It is not easy to maintain reason at the scent of human blood.”

At those composedly added words, Ilie quietly lowered his gaze. Biting down on his lower lip, he sank into a prolonged silence. As though regretting having forbidden me from drinking human blood, as though torn between human and monster.

Since those were not words spoken to elicit such a reaction, I sought to sever his thoughts. Cupping the cheek I had been lightly brushing into my palm, I pulled him close and pressed a slow kiss over those bitten lips. Only then did Ilie glance up at me.

Though he met my gaze once more, he said nothing for a long while.

Even when I kissed and caressed him here and there in a desire to comfort him, rubbed his waist, slipped my hand inside his trousers, and kneaded and stroked that warm, pliable flesh at will, boring into that crevice below—

He merely flinched faintly, his ears reddening as he pressed his forehead against my shoulder, without uttering a single word.

It was when the intercourse that began upon the armchair moved past the adjacent desk and reached the bed that he opened his lips once more.

Just as I had my lips buried against the tender bud atop his chest—lean yet not entirely thin, swelling softly—and lifted my head, unable to resist his demanding movements as he not only wrapped his legs around my body but pulled my lowered head tight with all his might—

“Adrian.”

His flushed, ripe face breathed raggedly as both hands cupped my cheeks. Drawing me toward him as if desiring a kiss, he pressed his lips not to my mouth, but to my forehead. With a motion so sacred it was impossible to believe it occurred amidst mating with a monster, as if bestowing a baptism.

“Since I gave you your name, Sir, you belong to me.”

Then, he pulled my face tight once more. Toward his pale, outstretched throat.

“No one can ever know you as much as I do.”

Beneath my buried face—no, beneath my lips—I felt his pulse beating fiercely.

“…No. They must never know.”

The scent of his flesh, which had been exceptionally hard to resist from the very moment we met—that excruciatingly sweet scent poured forth right before my nose as though to suffocate me.

“So…”

My eyes turning crimson took but an instant.

“Devour me.”

The urge to pierce through his skin and bore into him erupted not from the fangs that tore through the flesh of my mouth as they pushed forth, but through the member already inside him. Even so, he did not cease enticing me. Though shaking wildly, he never ceased letting out his voice, half-raspy from taking me in for so long.

Do not be discovered by anyone. Exist only for me. Because you belong to me, Sir. So, please, hurry.

Hurry. Eat me. Drink my blood.

That thoroughly melted voice bored excruciatingly sweet into my ears.

The snap of my sanity took only a split second. The vision that was always excessively vivid turned crimson, and my breath, turning wild like a beast out on the hunt, exploded from within. I felt him embracing me with his entire body. Holding me fully to the deepest part of his body, he clutched me with all his might.

I could not cast aside that cunning temptation. No, I was incapable of casting it aside.

In that moment, I truly had no choice but to be swept away by him.

I parted my lips as if possessed. I licked the vein pulsing so vividly beneath his pale skin, and driven by boiling fervor, sank my fangs into his flesh. The instant his blood was drawn into my body at last, the red haze blinding my vision blurred into pure white, and I spilled my seed inside him.

“Ah… ah…”

My ears, muffled beneath the tangle of arousal, cleared only belatedly to swallow down his sweet moans. Feeling every inch of my body tremble with pleasure, I slowly closed my eyes.

Without a doubt, it was the most enchanting meal of my life.

The two puncture wounds pierced into his pale neck that day never fully healed until the day I left that place. Whenever they came close to closing, he tempted me anew, and I sank my fangs once more into the crimson brand stamped into his flesh.

Why had I done it? As though spellbound, I had never once refused his seductions. Even while knowing that though it might stave off danger for me, it could pose a fresh peril to him. I simply lost myself in him, like one who had found the sole water of life.

If I were to pen a belated excuse, at that time I was thoroughly, utterly intoxicated by him.

It was because, just as he had spoken, I felt that he had brought me into existence. Because I felt that by being devoured by me, he was preserving the existence he had grounded in this world entirely as his own. The reasoning of a monster whose intellect lay paralyzed was truly that simple.

The devotion I tasted for the first time in my life was far too sweet. So sweet that for me back then, already blind with first love, I could not even muster the will to push him away.

It was pathetic.

The more I look back on it, the more truly pathetic my complacency becomes.

For while I remained deeply submerged in that complacency disguised as comfort, suspicion regarding ‘Ilie’s strangeness’ and the ‘ordeal’ was continuously spreading through the village that had supposedly regained its peace.

“No, I’m telling you, there really was a wound! I saw it with my own eyes!”

I learned of this on a day when Ilie once again failed to come to the cabin without warning, prompting me to walk down to the entrance of the village.

“Good grief, look at you… He passed the test right before everyone’s eyes, so why can’t you just let it rest? I told you to drop it already.”

“He’s right. There’s no way to check any further anyway. Nothing has happened to the villagers all this time. Above all, if that boy truly became an apostate, there’s no way the priest wouldn’t know.”

Unlike before the ordeal, there were now voices defending Ilie, but the atmosphere—already deeply skewed—could not be easily mended by a word or two.

“That’s exactly why even the priest is suspicious! What if that creature keeps biting only Ilie? What if that’s how they’ve been hiding it from us? What if the priest knew all along and put on a fake ritual before everyone just to protect his son? What will we do then? What happens if we let our guard down and end up dead overnight—what then?!”

“Come on, isn’t that going too far? No matter how anxious you are, how could you say such a thing?”

“Do you think I’m doing this just because I’m scared for myself? I’m doing this because I’m worried about everyone! And this time it’s real. It’s not like that red mark from before! I’m telling you, it was definitely a bite mark!”

The voices swallowed by anxiety were oil; the voices trusting the test and defending him were water. A few buckets of water were utterly useless against the pouring oil upon a suspicion and terror already raging in flames.

The moment I learned why Ilie had once again become unable to step outside the church, I felt an unbearable murderous urge once more, seized by a guilt far greater than that bloodlust.

Drunk on a solitary ecstasy, I had been shoving him into the flames day after day; and only in that moment, when the fire had already spread beyond control, did I finally realize that he had been enduring that agonizing heat just to protect me.

“Why did we ever take in an outsider in the first place? Look at the mess that bastard has caused…”

My entire body grew cold. No, to be precise, since my body was naturally cold to begin with, it would be more accurate to say a sensation of freezing over. Along with the sensation of my slackened reason barely snapping back into place, the ground beneath my feet swayed precariously.

I clenched my teeth and balled my fists. Taking a deep breath, I swallowed down the impulse surging to the top of my throat. Constantly reminding myself that what I needed to do in this moment was not slaughter, I turned my steps away.

“…We just have to check.”

Cutting off my hearing after that last voice drifted faintly into my ear through the agitated clamor, I returned quietly to the cabin.

I remember vividly the sensation of the moment I lit a candle and sat at the desk. The chilled air, the faint crackle of the hearth. Only then exhaling the breath I had drawn atop the hill, I opened a notebook and took up a pen.

Upon the desk lay a book Ilie had left behind. Staring quietly at the brass bookmark tucked slightly past the middle, I dipped the pen in ink.

I had to settle the situation. I had to quell the collective terror that had spread excessively—a fear beginning to take on the madness of a witch hunt.

Ilie.

I know you must have been greatly startled.

Yet I also know that you, of all people, will not waver.

What fades is only fear, not your heart.

Trust me.

Because there was so much I wished to write, I kept it concise instead. Watching the ink dry, I tore out the page and folded it. After opening the book and slipping the note beneath the brass bookmark, the clamor outside the window gradually drew nearer.

Drawing in a deep breath once more, I closed the book.

It was because I had anticipated this outcome that I had left the letter in advance, yet the judgment that finally arrived unfolded with a breathlessness that exceeded even my expectations.

Whether they had already verified Ilie’s wound in the village and cornered the priest before coming, the mob that barged up the hill in a fever pitch of agitation resembled a herd of enraged bulls. There was not even the forced veneer of courtesy they had maintained when dragging me out on the night of the ordeal.

“Come out this instant, you vile devil!”

“Of all people, bewitching the priest’s family—you cowardly bastard!”

“Daring to swear a false oath before the Lord!”

“Did you think you could deceive God and walk away unscathed?!”

They simply stormed the place, hurled curses, and brandished their torches menacingly as if about to set the cabin ablaze, demanding that I reveal myself before them.

I had already been intending to step outside, but I hesitated briefly as I looked at Ilie’s book, which would vanish without a trace if they set the cabin on fire. Deciding that carrying it out would only result in them seizing it anyway, and that I had better step out before they could set the fire, I quickened my stride.

Their ferocious momentum, looking ready to pounce at any moment, faltered briefly the instant they confronted me stepping past the threshold; but when I merely gazed at them in silence without the slightest sign of resistance, they blustered all the more fiercely, like flames momentarily checked by the wind before flaring anew.

“D-Do you think we’ll fall for it just because you’re acting docile? Your true identity has already been exposed!”

“Cut the pathetic disguise! Show your true form!”

“Everyone saw your bite marks!”

“Come on, fight back, you monster!”

The men standing in the front line thrust their torches forward like swords and shouted. Pulling back my gaze from quietly surveying them, I fixed my eyes upon the man who had splashed goat blood over me and spoke.

“It seems that foolish thing has finally been caught.”

“What? …What are you talking about all of a sudden? Are you talking about Ilie?”

“Yes. That thing.”

Letting out an ostentatious sneer, I took slow steps forward until I stood at the center of the encircling ring of torches.

“I thought him clever, but he proved utterly careless. After begging so desperately that he would conceal it completely, just how many times is he going to inconvenience me…?”

At my words, the faces of several villagers twisted violently.

“Begging?”

“You mean he wasn’t following you under a spell?”

“Did he threaten him?”

“No, but the way he looked earlier was definitely…”

Faint murmurs drifted between the crackling sounds of the torches. Amid the creeping confusion, the first to speak was the brown-eyed man standing beside the goat-blood man.

“What was that boy hiding? Your true identity? Are you saying he joined hands with you and deceived even the priest? Then why did he beg you? Was he begging for his life?”

Feigning ignorance of the movements of several men sidling behind my back while concealing ropes and weapons, I waited for their bewilderment to swell before opening my mouth.

“Is there any need for you to know that now? They are doomed to die at your hands anyway.”

“I suppose a monster can’t even tell the difference between murder and an execution?”

“I suppose you don’t realize that execution is merely another word for collective murder cloaked in justification? In my eyes, it is all the same. Whether I slaughter you, or you slaughter one another using a nonexistent god as an excuse.”

At my sneering retort, someone in the crowd fumed in indignation, “How dare you insult the Church in Luncani!” It was laughable.

Soon cutting through the murmuring voices, the man in front shouted again:

“Stop spewing nonsense and answer me! What did you do to that boy and the priest? A monster like you wouldn’t understand, but this is a matter of life and death to us!”

Keeping my ears attuned to the presence of the men holding ropes who had crept to the edges of the semicircle encircling me, I let out words in a low murmur as if to myself.

“Good grief, this becomes more pathetic by the second. Offering up his own body just to save mere vermin like you…”

“…Offering up his body? What does that mean? Speak plainly!”

To that voice tinged with bewilderment, I deliberately narrowed my eyes and took my time. As if watching the futile antics of insignificant insects, I slowly swept my eyes over the surroundings, dripping with ridicule, before opening my mouth.

“He had sharp intuition. He saw through the disguise that deceived even the priest in no time at all, and begged me not to harm his family or the villagers. Offering his own blood in exchange. Because he begged so earnestly, I told him I would indulge him until I felt like stopping.”

The reaction to my sluggishly delivered words was precisely what I had intended.

“Back then, I thought it nothing more than the laughable bravado of a child… but looking at you lot, I actually feel pity for the boy. To think he desperately protected creatures who try to kill him without even knowing they owe him their lives.”

Half the crowd gasped in dismay, while the other half exchanged bewildered glances, their faces enveloped in guilt.

“Truly, quite the farce.”

The moment I let out a sneer, deliberately baring the fangs I had extended, several men lunged from behind me all at once with grotesque battle cries.

“Shut your mouth, you monster bastard!”

“How dare you toy with the priest’s family!”

“Die…!”

Immediately after my vision plunged toward the ground, I felt something sharp—whether a blade or a hoe—pierce through the hide of my back. The vibration of metal scraping against bone reverberated vividly through my body.

Exhaling the breath held in my lungs like a groan, I closed my eyes in silence. Praying that Ilie would not be present at the place to which I was dragged.

Because I needed to successfully stage my demise and safely recover to return regardless of what manner of judgment was executed, I actually severed my consciousness temporarily to conserve nutrients until I was transported to the place of execution.

When I reawakened the consciousness I had briefly shut down—the last thing I remembered being their horrified shrieks upon seeing the pierced wounds close on their own—beyond my lifted eyelids lay a sky as red as blood.

I saw sparse clouds drifting by. Soon, the sound of flowing water reached my ears.

My entire body was tightly bound, and when I rolled my eyes to survey the surroundings, I found myself hemmed in by roughly hewn, dark red wooden walls. It did not take long to realize that the place where I lay was inside a coffin.

I remember vividly how the sunset spilling over the still-unlidded coffin was cruel in its sheer beauty.

“…He’s awake! The monster opened its eyes!”

Along with someone’s shrill scream, faces gripped by terror and hatred thrust themselves into the crimson sky that had filled my vision like an endless sea.

“As expected, merely piercing its heart won’t kill it, the devil bastard!”

“Hurry, bring the stake, quickly!”

“Holy water too! We need holy water and a cross!”

“Those are only at the church! Are you saying we should call the priest?!”

They shouted frantically, their faces filled with nothing but dreadful terror and madness, as though peering down into the depths of hell.

Though merely lying still brought agony from the pressure of the ropes bound so tightly they threatened to tear through flesh and crush bone, I betrayed not the slightest hint of weakness as I fixed my gaze on them. No, I glared at them.

If they came to perceive me as a creature easily subdued if they only joined forces, they would never revere the sacrifice I had fabricated for Ilie as something noble. I had to make them suffer terror until the very, very end. That was the final step in disguising my death in the most flawless manner.

I tested my strength once or twice in the two hands bound before me. Even the twitching of muscle made the shattered bones inside my body shriek in terrible agony, but it was something familiar to me. I rapidly circulated my blood, swelling my muscles.

As I braced my firmly tensed arms and slowly forced them apart, the tearing sound of hemp overlapped with the crackling noise of what sounded like a kindled bonfire.

Since everyone was running about frantically, the gazes peering down into the coffin were erratic; the instant every eye looked away, I exerted my strength in a single burst and ripped apart the ropes binding my arms.

The moment the fraying ropes pulled taut and snapped with a sharp crack, my hands, flung wide to either side, slammed forcefully against both flanks of the coffin. The man squatting close by while thrusting a torch forward looked down in startlement.

It happened to be the bastard who had splashed goat blood over me. The one who had cornered Ilie more viciously than anyone else in that village, the one who had dared to brand him an apostate. The bastard who had tugged at Ilie’s collar to verify the bite mark, and who had confined the priest’s family inside the church before leading the mob up to me.

“Y-You monster…!”

The moment our eyes met, he parted his mouth in horror, and I reached out, clamped my hand over his mouth, and dragged him down into the coffin.

Without hesitation, I sank my fangs into his neck, and hot, turbid blood gushed into my throat. The scream that had erupted as a strangled gasp morphed into a wet gurgle in less than three seconds.

Like a dog gripping the twisted neck of a hen between its jaws, I bit into his throat and hoisted my body up from the coffin. Half of the swarming humans fled in utter panic, while the remaining half charged toward me once more, raising pickaxes, pitchforks, and the like.

“W-We can’t attack… Lev is…!”

“…Don’t hesitate! There’s no other choice! Attack!”

“Its eyes are red! Don’t look into its eyes!”

Even knowing that the life of the man clamped in my jaws had not yet ended, they threw themselves at me without hesitation. Their target was me, yet the one whose breath was cut short was not me, but the prey struggling and choking between my teeth.

“Kh-urk!”

It was not I who killed him. It was the spear thrust relentlessly by the villagers who followed him—the ringleader of this entire ordeal.

As the spear pierced through his body and reached into my abdomen, I released the neck I had been biting. When the man’s body, which had blocked my front like a shield, fell away, the villagers encircling me let out ungodly shrieks and drove blades into me from all sides.

All manner of iron plunged into my flesh. Blood burst from my parted lips, and the two legs supporting me gave way on their own, collapsing heavily.

“Now! Knock it down into the coffin!”

Lowering my head, I stared blankly at the blood spilling wastefully below. It had been a truly long time since I had bled like this.

Swallowing the relentless, splintering agony whose entry points and tears were too numerous to fathom, I was just thinking that this seemed sufficient, that it was a rather splendid performance, when—

“No! No, Master! Master—!”

The voice I had prayed so fervently not to hear tore through the deepened crimson sky and drew closer.

“Damn it, hold him! Don’t let him get close! He’s still out of his mind!”

“No, no! Master! Teach—stop! Please, please stop!”

“Ilie! Get a grip! That creature is a vampir! It just killed Lev!”

“You’ve suffered under it for too long, we know, we understand everything now! It’s all right now, once we get rid of that bastard everything will be fine! Calm down!”

“No, it’s not like that! Stop! Everyone, please… no!”

“Drive it in, quickly! Before it bewitches us too, hurry!”

I had hoped at least he would not witness this, but not everything unfolded so smoothly.

Someone, panting heavily, pressed a thick, blunt wooden stake against my chest. Swallowing my regret, I quieted my heaving chest and closed my eyes.

Don’t look.

The instant that thought crossed my mind, Ilie—who had seemingly sprinted right up to the vicinity—unleashed a shriek so raw it was hard to believe it belonged to his voice.

“Aagh! No, nooo—! Aaaagh!”

Thud.

Along with that ear-splitting scream, the roughly carved, splintered tip of the wood smashed through my ribs in a single blow. Cough. Past my weakly parted lips, precious blood surged out once more.

Thud.

In merely two strikes, I felt the stake crush through my heart and strike the floorboards of the coffin. A truly horrific agony racked my entire frame, twisting my vision into dizzying disorientation.

“Aaaagh, aaaaagh!”

I had to sever my consciousness. It was a pain impossible to endure otherwise. If I held on any longer and my body detected a crisis, shutting down consciousness on its own to concentrate on recovery, I might awaken at an absurdly different time from what I had calculated.

“Ahhh, no! Adrian, Adrian…! Aaaaagh…”

Yet at that wretched shriek, like the howling of a wounded beast, I simply could not do it. Ilie was weeping. Weeping until his breath gave out, thrashing and screaming like a madman.

Even knowing the danger, I could not cut off my consciousness. I wanted to soothe him. Even as I wanted to urge him not to look, even as I wanted to scold him, asking if he didn’t know I could not die, asking why he had let himself be swept up in this, at the same time I felt so utterly sorry and pained that I only wanted to comfort him endlessly.

Trust me. The wait will not be long. It’s all right. Everything will be all right.

That was the last thought I harbored at the end of that tragic play, right before the coffin lid was shut.

And that was the most horrific miscalculation of my life.