The Dhampir Nun (1)
As soon as the leader barked his order, two of them charged straight at me. Boom!
“Ugh!?”
I surged forward to meet them, grabbed the heads of the two who’d rushed in first, and slammed them straight into the ground. Beyond the startled face of their leader, I saw the ones who’d been waiting leisurely pull something out.
Everyone and their mother carries a gun these days. They were antique revolvers of unknown origin. Considering that illegal possession of firearms carried a punishment equivalent to the death penalty, these bastards clearly had balls of steel.
Tack.
I kicked off the narrow alley wall and leaped over them. Whirl. The moment I made my second jump, I spun my body mid-air. Bang! Bang! I felt their poorly aimed bullets graze past me.
Crash!
“Guh!?”
I drove the nearest one’s head into the ground with a stomp, then snatched the falling revolver out of the air.
Bang!
Srrrk. I put a clean hole through the head of the last man who was trying to shoot again.
“E-ehh…”
“Sigh. Who sent you?”
Click. I casually leveled the muzzle at his forehead. The guy immediately threw both hands up.
“Who told you to raise your hands? Speak.”
“I-it was the priest from the Academy Cathedral!”
Of course it was. I’d held out a one percent hope it might be someone else, but I guess gambling really isn’t my thing.
“Just asking—does that chief priest bastard run a drug ring?”
“He’s the Academy’s supplier! W-well, there are plenty of big players, but their security is just too tight, so…”
Bang.
Now that his crimes were confirmed, I had no use for worthless trash like him. I flipped the revolver around, hurled it away, then completely dismantled the filthy firearms so they could never be used again.
“Where the hell did that damn old man send me?”
I’d sensed something was off with the chief priest from the moment I met him, but this entire city felt wrong. Even though gunshots had rung out for quite a while, I couldn’t sense any police heading this way.
“Haa…”
I decided to put off my night stroll for now and headed back to the cathedral to clean up the mess first. Even on the way back, there wasn’t a single cop in sight. Instead, the moment I stepped out of the alley, the rats who’d been watching from the shadows crept out and dragged away both the corpses and the unconscious men.
When I first arrived, I’d actually thought the cathedral looked pretty decent—like a brand-new building.
“Turns out it was all just a pretty shell.”
The moment I opened the cathedral doors, an invisible wave of disgust washed over me. This was a den where corruption hid behind the mask of a holy cathedral.
Without hesitation, I headed straight for the chief priest’s quarters.
Creak.
“W-who’s there?”
“Who do you think, you bastard? The new priest.”
Unlike when I was pretending to be a fresh-faced new recruit, my hair color, eye color, and entire aura were completely different now, so he didn’t recognize me at first.
“Y-you…!”
“Put your finger down before I break it.”
This guy really didn’t know when to shut up. Crack. If words didn’t work, I’d just have to show him with actions. I lightly snapped the index finger he was pointing at me. Only then did his knees hit the floor.
“Aaaaaagh!”
“Chief Priest, my ass. How exactly have you been supplying X-drugs to the Academy?”
No matter how useless the police were, there was no way he could have pulled this off alone while evading the eyes of both the imperial family and the Thousand Heavens Sect.
“I-I just inherited something that’s been going on for a long time!”
“What?”
“Fuck! The previous guys did it, so I’m just continuing the tradition! What’s the big deal?!”
I’d heard rumors that some of the bishops were so bloated with greed their bellies looked ready to burst. Looked like the rumors were true.
“Fine. Let’s say that’s true. Then why the hell are you messing with me?”
“B-because I needed a steady source of income! Once someone takes X-drugs, they can’t stop! So if it’s a priest, obviously he’d…”
“He’d either hide it or try to keep his mouth shut no matter what.”
How should I wreck this guy so that the story spreads nicely?
While I was pondering with his broken finger still in my grip, the bastard pulled something from his robe.
“Don’t shoot.”
“Heh. Hehehe. Scared now?”
It was the same bizarre gun I’d seen before. It had looked strange the first time, but now that its owner had clearly lost his mind, the skull embedded in the grip seemed to be grinning even wider.
“Go ahead and shoot. Just keep in mind that illegal possession and use of firearms can result in the death penalty or equivalent punishment.”
“Fuck you!”
Bang!
Despite its even older-looking exterior than a revolver, the gunshot was deafening. For a split second I considered just taking the hit, but instinct made me release his finger and leap backward.
Hsssss.
I saw black corrosion spreading from the bullet that had embedded itself in the ceiling right where my head had been.
“Where did you get tha—huh.”
I was briefly stunned by the sight of a bullet carrying an unheard-of curse that rapidly devoured its surroundings, but I quickly realized the price of using it was far steeper than I’d imagined.
“Aaaaaagh! Take it off me! Get this off right now!”
Bony thorns extending from the gun had pierced his hand and locked in place. His hand was changing at an alarming rate—turning a corpse-like blue while releasing a damp, rotting stench. It looked exactly like a drowned body you’d find floating in the sea.
“Aaaaaargh!”
“You crazy bastard. You actually bought something from the Sea Witches.”
In the era when the New Continent was discovered and previously unconnected worlds began to link, strange things started creeping into the empire in return. That was exactly why people like me existed—to stop them. Thanks to that pressure, the witches who’d been driven out eventually settled on the sea and began selling their goods. That was how the Sea Witches came to be.
“How the hell have you survived this long when you use goods sold by witches without any precautions, just because they perform well?”
Of course the items came with traps. To a witch, a human soul was far more valuable than ordinary currency or goods.
“S-save me…”
“No. And it’s impossible anyway. Just look at your body. You think that’s reversible?”
The mutation that started in his hand had already spread across his entire body. Barnacles were even sprouting on him. He now looked exactly like one of those undying slaves commonly seen floating on the sea.
Fwoosh.
There was no point dragging this out. Burning him quickly was better than letting him rampage. It was a shame though—if he hadn’t mutated like this, I might have gotten the gun’s source out of him. His soul had probably already been claimed by the witch. All that remained was an empty shell.
Unlike demon worshippers, he burned away into ash in moments, and even that ash soon scattered into a handful of dust.
“Ugh… Alright then.”
Now that even the few remaining staff were gone, I was completely alone. It was a headache, but I decided to just sleep on it. No one would answer if I called now anyway. I headed to the bedroom, mentally cheering on tomorrow’s me.
I skipped breakfast entirely and contacted Homer first thing in the morning.
"What is it?"
It had been a while since I received a video call like this—probably because it was considered a long-term mission. The moment that shameless old man’s face appeared on the screen, my fist clenched on its own.
“What the hell is this place?”
"What else? It's the Academy."
“What kind of academy is this? The chief priest is selling drugs, gunshots ring out in the streets, and the police don’t even show their faces!”
"Oh. You're already working hard, I see."
“Old man? I’m going to flip this entire place over.”
"Flip what? Didn't the city's name ring any bells for you?"
“What’s so special about Babylenia… Wait, you don’t mean—”
The Thousand Heavens Sect had many similarities to Catholicism. Naturally, its history was similar too, and that included the Tower of Babel. Still, what kind of lunatic would name a city after a symbol of corruption and blasphemy?
"That's exactly it. The Tower of Babel. On the surface it's the finest educational institution and a matching city, but in reality it's a den of corruption."
So there really were lunatics like this.
“Why didn’t I know about this until now?”
"When would a guy who never stops roaming around the southern outskirts have had the chance to hear about it?"
“Sigh. So this is the empire’s biggest shithole, huh?”
"That's right. Still, the educational standards are genuinely high, so other countries send their more questionable talents here to study."
“Shouldn’t Exorcist Priests have been coming and going like it was their own house from the start?”
"They did. But the moment they heard you were being dispatched, they all moved to other areas."
These bastards just dumped all their dirty work on me?
When I run into the ones assigned to the northern region later, I’ll “accidentally” put a few bullets in them.
“Then why didn’t the inquisitors drag that chief priest away? They should’ve done it ages ago.”
"They used the flow of funds to catch even filthier bastards. Sending you was just a convenient way to clean everything up at once."
“Huu… Fine. I’ll let it slide.”
Things like this weren’t exactly rare. It was annoying, but I could endure it.
“You’ll send me personnel to manage the cathedral, right?”
"Hahaha. Suddenly the connection is breaking up… breaking… up…"
The screen crackled slightly before cutting off completely. I considered throwing the device, but gave up. It was ridiculously expensive, and I still needed to use it to order supplies from headquarters.
“Guess I’ll go for a walk…”
Even if this was the empire’s biggest cesspit, it was still better than staying inside the cathedral. I took off my necklace, slipped out through a side path where I wouldn’t be noticed, and entered the city.
“Goddammit…”
This was more hopeless than running out of bullets in the middle of a fight. Were there even any masses to hold? I had to hear confessions, maintain and repair the cathedral, and now I had to cook my own meals too. If night patrols were added on top of that, there physically wouldn’t be enough time.
Crunch.
The city streets were quiet. Yet even amid all the other noises, one familiar sound stood out clearly—the sound of something made of flesh being torn apart. The distinctive noise of ripping through meat, skin, and bone all at once was not something you should ever hear in a city.
“You picked the wrong day.”
With my stress already at its limit, I thought I’d found the perfect punching bag and headed toward the sound. I passed through alley after alley, going deeper in until I reached a place where the city’s trash all gathered. It was a filthy spot even the street homeless avoided.
What I found there wasn’t a monster.
“Hic… Hiccup…”
A girl who had only just left childhood was crying while raw-tearing into a plump rat. It was a place where sunlight didn’t reach—a space where beings who couldn’t move under the sun could still move around to some degree.
“A newbie vampire? Sigh…”
It happened sometimes. Beings who had escaped the control of higher species would retain their human minds but be forced to consume blood to survive. This was exactly why Homer hated the bloodsucking race the most. At least demons chose to follow on their own will. These things were forcibly turned into kin and controlled, then made to kill the people closest to them first.
“Hey.”
“Hiiik! D-don’t look!”
The vampire dropped the rat she was holding and frantically covered her face. She still possessed her humanity. In that case, there was only one thing to do.
“Sigh. Will you repent?”
“Y-yes?”
“I asked if you will enter the Thousand Heavens Sect and repent.”
Click. I loaded Horizon, naturally assuming she would beg me to kill her.
At that moment, sunlight poured into the alley—sunlight that should never have been able to enter at noon. And the robe that had been covering the girl’s hair slipped down.
“C-can I… really repent?”
“What…?”
“Repent. Can I truly do that?”
“No—more importantly, why are you perfectly fine under sunlight?”
Prominent fangs and red-tinted sclera. They were clearly signs of a vampire. Yet the vampire girl was completely unaffected by the bright sunlight pouring down on her.
“And you want to repent?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Pardon?”
“Huh?”
No, seriously—why would you?