The Crimson Priest's Visit (1)
The roasted fish carried a faint fishy tang mixed with the scent of earth. Spicy stir-fried freshwater crayfish and mushrooms foraged from the swamp, fruits that resembled grapes, wild strawberries plucked from the bushes, sour black bread, and a stew swimming with fish heads. And liquor. Liquor… and still more liquor.
The banquet had been merry, filled with the sound of people laughing and chatting from every side. …Or so it had been.
Until the moment I refused the glass of brown distillate they offered me.
The instant they heard my refusal, the bright smiles of those who lived so cheerfully in the land of death shattered like a candle snuffed out in a single breath. Their faces hardened into rigid masks, and they seized my arm with brutal force.
Only then did panic set in. I stammered an apology, but it was useless. They wrenched my arm behind my back as though they meant to snap it, then began tearing at my clothes with a strength that should have been impossible.
The necklace I had fashioned from the brooch Iskil gave me snapped and fell with a pathetic clink. The rattling sound was crushed beneath someone’s foot, and the transparent red glass of the brooch shattered miserably.
As my robe was ripped open, the well-worn spellbooks I had carried for years and the two precious volumes Master Viran had given me were hurled to the floor. I reached out to protect them, but a hard leather sole ground down on my hand with crushing force. All I could do was watch helplessly as the pages were torn apart before my eyes.
Stripped of my magic, I began to sob. Even that sound must have displeased them, because fists and kicks flew at my face, my chest, my stomach.
My ribcage crumpled. I couldn’t even produce a groan. My body suddenly went limp as strength fled from every limb. With no sign of mercy, they hauled me up by my now completely shredded clothes, my bare skin exposed to the air.
My body, trembling so violently I couldn’t even open my mouth,
was torn apart.
The joint between foot and shin, the bone connecting thigh and pelvis—they slid free with a wet, sucking sound, like meat being pulled from a perfectly cooked roast. In that dreamlike, unreal scene, I forgot the pain entirely and simply stared, dazed, at what was being wrenched from me.
Only then did the agony crash over me. It was nothing like the amputation I had endured in the Mittenburg mansion basement. This was the absurd torment of having my living bones filleted from my body. I twisted and screamed, but someone slapped my face because my shrieking was too loud, and the scream was cut short.
Beyond a vision steeped in layers of unspeakable pain, I saw them—eyes glowing red with lust, regarding my legless, soon-to-die body as nothing more than a convenient, unresisting hole for their pleasure.
Why…?
They had all been… such good people…
A massive cock, something that could never be mistaken for human, tore into my cunt and wrenched my pelvis out of place. A colossal shaft containing nothing but pain crushed my womb and intestines.
Feeling my life slipping away,
I woke from the dream.
“Hah!!?”
Cold sweat drenched my entire body. It had been a dream, yet it felt as vivid as lived memory.
“Heuk… ugh… haa…”
I ran my hands over myself. My arms were unbroken. My legs were still properly attached. My organs were intact. It had been nothing but a foolish, filthy delusion.
Only a single day had passed since that horror, yet my body—my mind—was already craving to be gang-raped again in the most miserable way imaginable. Had I wanted it so badly that I had turned those good people into demons even inside my own nightmare?
“Huu…”
A sigh escaped me.
It’s cold…
The sweat I had shed throughout the nightmare was cooling rapidly, bringing on chills. The damp, freezing wind that carried the moisture of river and swamp poured through the wide-open wooden window and iced my skin.
I stared blankly at the window for a moment. Beyond the frame stretched a flat night sky choked with clouds—no stars, no sliver of moon. A crudely woven cloth curtain fluttered in the night breeze.
I slowly pushed the blanket aside and swung my legs toward the bedside by the window. I would close the open shutter and try to sleep again.
“Please remain lying down. I will close it for you.”
The voice from behind me made my blood freeze. I hesitated, then slowly turned my head.
“It seemed you were suffering from continuous nightmares. I thought it would be rude to wake you.”
The voice came from a dark corner of the room untouched by moonlight or starlight. It did not feel like an entity from beyond reality.
It was an ordinary human voice—nothing like the skin-crawling whispers such beings would utter. A calm tone, yet thin and boyish, as though its owner had only recently passed through puberty.
Or perhaps it truly was the voice of an ordinary boy. It did not carry the indescribable horror of those otherworldly entities, yet something ominous still lingered beneath the surface.
“Who… are you…?”
Even as I asked, I instantly manifested a small spell that placed almost no burden on my mana circulation. Soft white light bloomed from my left hand, illuminating the room.
“Ugh…”
A quiet groan—not from me, but from the other party. The sudden light must have startled him.
“Answer me. Who are you?”
I remembered leaving Mervin’s sword propped beside the bed after loosening my belt before sleep. The blade was still there. I gripped the hilt and turned my gaze back toward the voice.
A boy wearing the flowing black robes of a priest sat in a chair, covering his eyes as though in pain. He appeared to be around Pirel’s age, yet I had not seen him among the crowd listening to the minstrel earlier that day.
The skin visible beyond his sleeves was deathly pale. The face glimpsed between his fingers was equally bloodless, as though lit by moonlight on this moonless night.
“I am not… a suspicious person.”
I relaxed my grip on the sword hilt a fraction and spoke hesitantly.
“You are…”
“I apologize for disturbing your rest. I am the parish priest of this village.”
The boy made his claim with quiet dignity. An ordinary traveler might have laughed at the idea of such a child serving as priest of the God of Rest’s temple, but I knew better. I knew it was true.
That was precisely why I was trembling. Because I could guess the boy’s true nature, and the realization terrified me.
“Traveler… No, forgive me. How should I address you?”
“My… my name is Kaira.”
“Understood, Lady Kaira. As I said, I am Karik, the priest entrusted by the God of Rest with the care of Inis Madun.”
I stared at him with shaking eyes.
“I have heard that imperial mages receive exceptionally thorough education. Therefore I believe no further explanation is necessary for you to understand what I am. Priests blessed by the God of Rest find it difficult to move about during daylight, so I hope you will forgive this nocturnal greeting.”
“Y-yes…”
Having grown somewhat accustomed to the light I emitted, the boy gave a small nod, rose from the chair, and approached me one careful step at a time. Knowing exactly what he was, I clutched the blanket tightly and edged backward on the bed.
“Hik…!”
“…It seems I am hated.”
It was not hatred but fear. In the Empire, the name given to priests of the God of Rest was…
vampire.
An ominous name indeed.
The boy priest gazed down at my terror-stricken face with a trace of pity.
“I apologize for frightening you. Had you not been a mage, the conversation might have gone more smoothly.”
The university had not taught us much about vampires. The denomination of the God of Rest existed within the Empire as well, so we had studied its doctrines and rituals during religious classes, yet the texts had remained strangely silent on the true nature of the priests who performed those rites.
Since it was an officially recognized faith, the curriculum had likely avoided open criticism so as not to strain relations. All we had been taught was a handful of ominous fragments: that these beings were permitted to exist on the boundary between life and death, that in exchange they bore the duty of consuming small amounts of human blood—the very symbol of both life and death—and that they awakened and commanded the dead.
So yes, it was only natural to be afraid.
“Are you… going to kill me? Suck my blood… and leave me a dried-up corpse…?”
I asked in a tiny, creeping voice. I knew it was rude, but I was in no state to worry about etiquette. Besides… imagining myself dying in such a wretched state had already begun to make the space between my legs grow wet again.
The boy’s eyes widened, then clouded with melancholy.
“It seems the Empire truly harbors many misunderstandings…”
So saying, the boy priest Karik retreated a few steps, dragged the chair closer, and sat down beside the bed.
“As you call us, I am indeed a vampire. Did the university teach you how vampires—how the priests of our denomination—are created?”
“By s-sucking blood in a special way… exchanging bodily fluids…”
A long sigh slipped from the boy’s lips.
“I see. At least the description is not entirely wrong.”
I watched his face anxiously.
“During the ordination ceremony we do drink blood once, but that single sip—taken by the priest who will become one’s spiritual parent—merely symbolizes standing in for the God of Rest. The far more important rites that precede it purify body and soul, transforming the recipient so they belong to neither life nor death.”
Memory shimmered in the priest’s eyes.
“It has already been seventy years since I received my ordination. I was a little over sixty at the time, and the ‘mother’ who bestowed it upon me was around one hundred and forty. However, the blessing twisted my body… and I changed from an old man into this frail-looking boy you see before you.”
That isn’t twisting—it’s simply becoming more appealing. A boy would taste much better… Wait, what am I thinking?
Whether he noticed my lewd thoughts or not, the priest offered a faint smile.
“…The details differ somewhat from what is commonly known in the Empire.”
Still dazed, I asked another prejudiced question.
“Then… turning into bats and flying around, commanding legions of the dead… those things are also…”
“We carry out the will of the one who values the repose of the deceased. The death that deity governs must be able to arrive anywhere, at any time, and cannot be stopped. Therefore we bear wings of shadow and hold the duty to go wherever we are needed.”
So they were both vampires and grim reapers. Somehow that only made them more frightening.
“The phrase ‘commanding’ the dead is also imprecise. If you look around the village tomorrow you will see that Riaska has none of the splendid temple buildings erected by the Empire’s various denominations. The place where the parish priest resides is itself the temple. Of course, our brethren within the Empire, who value imperial tradition, do build modest structures.”
The few God of Rest temples I had glimpsed were little more than ominous ruins or ossuaries, but there was no need to plant further prejudice in this priest by saying so.
“Head priests are obligated to perform funerals for those who meet death within their parish. Unlike the fanatics of the Light Denomination, who gather corpses near their temples and irreverently reduce them to ash, we officiate the rites at the very place of death. This ensures the soul may begin its long journey untainted by unholy influences and enter into rest, and…”
The priest smiled, revealing his teeth. Needle-sharp fangs caught the light from my left hand and glinted.
“We priests then take charge of the soulless flesh, allowing it to fulfill its glorious duty once more—protecting the denomination, protecting humanity, and guarding the peace of the dead from those who would disturb it. That is our funeral rite.”
…So you just turn them into an undead army and put them to work.
To me—a citizen of the Empire and someone whose previous life had regarded any use of a corpse as profound desecration—that was how it sounded.
Noticing my distorted expression, Karik added quietly, “You, as an imperial citizen, would not be expected to understand.”
“…Thank you for recognizing that.”
I spoke, then recalled something that might help bridge the gap.
“Now that I think about it, one of the masters who taught me magic was a person who had lived for roughly two hundred years in a dead body…”
I had hoped to convey that I was somewhat familiar with the undead by mentioning Viran, but the priest raised a hand to stop me.
“No. Please say no more on that subject.”
“Yes…?”
“I have no desire to speak ill of magic in front of a mage, but any sorcery that desecrates death and rest by forcibly anchoring life is heretical to us. Please speak of it no further.”
Bringing up Viran had been a complete waste.
“…I understand. Then why have you come to my room in the middle of the night like this—approaching ‘like death,’ as you said—to explain your denomination to someone who has only just woken up and is still half-dazed?”
“Because it is no easy task to find a learned traveler who has journeyed all the way from the Empire to these lands.”
I tilted my head. The fear had receded somewhat during our conversation, yet the purpose still seemed abrupt.
“As you now know, both my beloved homeland of Riaska and our denomination are portrayed in absurdly distorted ways among imperial citizens. I will provide you with a great deal of information that should prove useful on your journey. In exchange, I came to ask that you write a book introducing this land so that our true nature may become known.”
He winked, boyish for a moment.
“I apologize for sneaking in during the night to make such a request. During daylight we do not collapse, but strong light is rather painful for us priests.”
Even weakness to light makes them seem completely evil…
Still, there was no reason to refuse. Writing and selling a travelogue about an unfamiliar region’s customs would do me no harm. The only concern was whether a wanted criminal like myself could safely put her name on it as author, but that could be handled through Naixon and Rin.
“I understand. I promise to travel around Riaska, write a travelogue, and have it published in the Empire. Circumstances prevent me from returning to the Empire for quite some time anyway…”
“Oh!”
Emotion shone in the boy priest’s eyes.
“Thank you. Truly, thank you. For the honor of my homeland and the dignity of my denomination, you have spoken words I will treasure. And… forgive me if this is rude, but there is one more small request…”
With my wariness completely dissolved, I smiled gently at the boy who was simultaneously vampire, grim reaper, undertaker, and necromancer.
“Yes?”
“From you, Lady Kaira, there flows an unbearable sweetness—like the fragrance of fine grain or fruit distilled into the finest spirit. A blood-scent so delicious it drifts on the spring breeze. If it would not offend you,”
The boy’s eyes glowed violet.
“might I have just one sip?”
“W-wait… th-that… kind of… thing…?”
Those noble priestly eyes, wrapped in a mysterious celadon purple like the soft light of dawn on a clear day, shining like stars within the darkness—they were so beautiful that
I kept… staring… unconsciously…
My head grew fuzzy… a happy feeling welled up… this… feels good…
Down below… growing wet…
“Y-yes…”
The request… of course I want to grant it…
Yes, since it is the request of a pure boy with such beautiful eyes, naturally… obeying… is only… proper…
“Ehehe… Kaira’s blood… Please enjoy it… deliciously…”