The Dhampir's First Diary
Luna, who rose and slept at the same hours as humans despite being a Dhampir, was writing in her diary before bed.
I wrote a diary for the first time in my life. Every day was so busy and exhausting that instead of leaving something behind, I only wanted to forget, so I never managed to write one. Today is my first day at the cathedral. More than anything, the thought of showering with warm water and sleeping in a clean private room makes me so happy. There was no nun's habit that fit, so I had to wear a priest's cassock on top, but it's still so soft. Ah! And the priest seems like a very strange person. Other exorcist priests would attack me the moment they saw me, but he asked if I intended to repent. Thanks to receiving that right away, I'm able to stay at the cathedral like this now. In fact, I had my first experience today. Of course it was scary and frightening, but the priest's was intense and ecstatic. I thank the Sun God for allowing me to continue such experiences every day from now on!
“Done.”
Luna finished her diary with a pleased expression. If Dante had seen it, he would have burned it on the spot. The diary quietly returned to the drawer in the room where she stayed.
Users of divine power recovered from fatigue simply by basking in sunlight like plants. The only problem was mass. Dante's head throbbed as he watched the male students who had come early for morning mass before class directing their gazes toward a certain enormous pair of hills.
“Haa.”
“Why? Why are you sighing?”
“It's nothing.”
It wasn't her fault. She had diligently helped prepare for morning mass. The real problem was these lustful brats who had come to this damn academy.
“Now then. Let us offer our prayers to the Sun God.”
He might as well get it over with.
“Today, too, You bestow light and life upon the world. Beneath Your light—”
“May it be fulfilled.”
The first time he had attended a Thousand Heavens Sect mass, he had been terrified. He had prayed desperately that they wouldn't chant “Long live the Sun.”
“Sexual desire is a virtue that all living beings naturally possess.”
He decided to just ram it through. There was no way a proper mass would go like this, but since the students who came were already like that, there was no reason for him to act normal either.
“Priests and nuns also possess sexual desire. It is merely that this desire has been replaced by gratitude and praise toward the Sun God.”
Even the Thousand Heavens Sect had its fanatics. If one were to describe the zealots who still existed, separate from the inquisitors, they would be sex addicts.
“Without sexual desire, living beings could not prosper, and the very words ‘man’ and ‘woman’ would not exist.”
One of the doctrines of the Thousand Heavens Sect was to prosper. Prosperity included various activities such as labor, but naturally it also encompassed the prosperity of the species.
“However, if anything is not kept in moderation, it only becomes poison.”
Only now did their gazes return to him. Their hesitant demeanor suggested they felt somewhat guilty. If they had directed such looks at other female students, he wouldn't have said anything. Unless one was in a special situation like his, most guys with that thing attached were all the same anyway. But to send such gazes toward a nun inside the cathedral itself?
“Everyone commits sins. But one must become someone who can reflect on that sin and seek forgiveness.”
He finished the mass hoping they would come to their senses.
“Beneath His light—”
“May it be fulfilled.”
After the haphazard mass ended, several male students apologized to Luna before heading off to class. Luna, who had received the apologies out of nowhere, looked quite awkward.
“Is it awkward?”
“Y-yes… I've never had anyone apologize to me like this before.”
“For your information, anyone who dares to molest a nun is treated worse than a demon.”
Even demons only chased after exorcist priests, but humans who molested nuns were hunted by both exorcist priests and inquisitors.
“S-still, I know it can't be helped! I can forgive something like a quick glance!”
“Put away that unnecessary mercy and focus on your studies until lunch.”
“Yes…”
“And there will be training in the afternoon after lunch, so don't skip it.”
Even ordinary priests and nuns received basic training. Exorcist priests and inquisitors were like special forces, while other priests and nuns were regular soldiers. No matter how much the exorcist priests wandered around, if they couldn't protect themselves, they wouldn't last until help arrived. Prayer didn't stop a bayonet, after all.
“And what brings the Young Lady of House Helsing here?”
Fortunately, it was the golden-haired, blue-eyed beauty with natural long hair instead of her usual bun. The girl from House Helsing had remained even after mass ended.
“I stayed because I wanted to make a confession.”
“Usually people hide their faces, don't they?”
“My voice is beautiful enough to be remembered after hearing it once. There's no point in covering my face, so what does it matter?”
Wow. What was he supposed to say to this level of confidence? He had met narcissists before, but they were the type drunk on their own words and actions. This was pure, unshakeable confidence in herself.
“Besides, there's no one else here anyway.”
“Haa. Understood. Then first—”
“Let's skip the trivial parts. I already know everything anyway.”
“If you're not going to do it properly, I'll just leave.”
The scent of that crazy woman from before hadn't been a mistake. Only her face looked normal—this woman was just as difficult.
“Do you swear that beneath His light you will speak the truth and reflect upon it?”
“Yes. I swear.”
As expected, being firm was the only way to get through to her.
“Then please speak the unvarnished truth beneath His light.”
“Yesterday, I burned a classmate's face with magic.”
“Why?”
“……?”
Whoops. He had slipped into casual speech without realizing it.
“My apologies. Why did you do it?”
He quickly corrected himself. Her puzzled expression didn't completely disappear, but she didn't press the issue, perhaps recognizing what she had done.
“She dared to call House Helsing a bunch of garbage collectors.”
Having become nobles through monster hunting, they were in a sense the very root of noblesse oblige, but to fundamentalists they were nothing but an uncomfortable existence. Still, to say something like that to her face took some nerve.
“Hmm. Was there no other reason?”
“Not really.”
“And the aftermath?”
“I used a special holy water I had on hand to treat her, so there shouldn't be any physical aftereffects.”
“Then there's no problem, is there?”
“……?”
Was that not the answer she wanted? He couldn't understand why she was making that face. If someone insulted you, they should be prepared to pay the corresponding price. Yet she had even treated the person afterward. She was a more merciful lunatic than he had thought.
“If you had done it simply because you wanted to torment her for no reason, I would have handed this matter straight to the inquisitors.”
In the modern world, a good family might help someone socialize, but this was a world where the fist in front of you took priority over the law. If someone had psychopathic tendencies, the monastery was the answer. Twisted humans were more troublesome than demons and monsters.
“Even if my family doesn't stay quiet?”
“I'm someone who works beneath the Sun God, not House Helsing, so I'm not scared.”
“Hmm… So this isn't a sin, then?”
“Correct.”
On Earth it would naturally have been a crime, but there were also lunatics who would skin someone prettier than them and wear it around. In comparison, burning someone's face a little and then healing them was child's play. The law existed and functioned, but since private retaliation was permitted and the justification was sound, he had no grounds to say anything.
“That's strange.”
“What is?”
“Back at the family estate, I once beat a maid who badmouthed me. The priest who heard my confession at the time said that violence should not come first.”
“What did she say to make you do that?”
“The disgrace of House Helsing, and a discarded wench.”
“Did you kill her?”
“No.”
How merciful. For a maid working in the household of monster hunters who had continued since the Middle Ages to badmouth the family's child and still survive was already fortunate.
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Mm… It wasn't enjoyable.”
“Then burning that person's face wasn't enjoyable either, I suppose.”
“Yes. It felt more like doing what had to be done rather than something enjoyable.”
He wasn't saying violence was the best solution. But there were people who only came to their senses after having an axe buried in their head.
“If you really can't hold back, slap them instead of doing something too extreme.”
“Would that be enough?”
“What if the person who got slapped gets angry and attacks first?”
“I'd counterattack.”
“No one would blame you for that.”
There was no other answer. But her gaze had subtly changed from the beginning.
“Thank you for the advice. I'll come by again sometime.”
“Anytime. Lost lambs are always welcome.”
Don't come, you crazy woman.
A small port town in the western empire. In the secret mansion where a certain noble had been enjoying a perverted party with his acquaintances, only screams could be heard instead of their usual debauchery.
“Aaaagh!”
“Keh… Keuk.”
Hanging like slaughtered pigs, the blood flowing from small wounds poured straight into the jars below.
“Eat only one and turn the rest into preserved rations for the journey.”
Once the last person's life was cut short and all the jars were filled, those who had been waiting in the darkness appeared. Their skin was corpse-pale, and though their hair colors varied, their eyes were uniformly blood-red. The Vampire Knights in dark black armor skillfully used the blood in the jars to prepare preserved food.
“Captain Hector. We have information from the witch.”
Hector, who had been given command of this special mission, quietly read through the documents at his subordinate's words.
“Tsk. She went to a troublesome place.”
Worry was clearly etched between his brows. He had infiltrated the empire to find the stain left by the True Ancestor, but he couldn't move openly. No matter how elite the Vampire Knights were, this was undeniably the heartland of the Thousand Heavens Sect.
“What did the Lord say about the locations of the Sword and the Saintess?”
“The Sword is still traveling abroad outside the empire, and the Saintess has returned to the east and is single-handedly destroying the waves of the dead.”
“Those monster brats.”
The only one Hector had seen was the Sword of the Sun, Yuri McDowell. It had been several years ago, but he still couldn't forget the monster who had split a small hill with a single swing of his sword.
“Since neither the Sword nor the Saintess is in the south, there shouldn't be any major problems.”
“When you say the south…”
“Yes. The empire's garbage dump. A place where many corrupted humans live. Since we must move in secret, everyone should keep their bloodlust well suppressed.”
Because it was the place where filth was most rampant, it was inevitable that evil and demons would be plentiful. Even so, the reason no divine power users had been dispatched there was because the big shots who drew attention didn't go to the south.
“What is it?”
The sun was about to rise. Just as they were about to sleep after checking the preserved rations, one of the nine members raised a hand.
“I believe there is someone called the Butcher. Are we not going to check on him?”
“We would have if we could. Do you really think the witches would give us information about that madman?”
“M-my apologies!”
“No. It isn't your fault. I should have mentioned it myself.”
The vampires living abroad had learned about Dante because of Bathory. That madman had interfered with the reckless woman who had tried to become a True Ancestor herself using the traces of a True Ancestor, and in the end had driven her followers into a chase.
“I heard he was a disciple of the Lord Slayer, Homer.”
Homer, the superhuman who had created a vacancy in the Lord position that had remained unfilled for two hundred years. Of course, he had lost his eyes in the process, but defeating a Vampire Lord with nothing but his bare body and no divine power was an astonishing feat.
“The fact that someone who should be in the north is in the south doesn't change our mission.”
A Dhampir was a filthy stain that must never exist. Even if the Apostle of the Sun stood beside her, the mission would not change.