1.5

After being shown around the chapel, Helena did not see Isaac for about two days. This was because the entire village had flocked to her house to greet the rare visitor. Isaac had briefly tried to visit her in the middle of this, but he was pushed back to the chapel by the crowd of villagers before she even had a chance to see him. Thinking that she had already made a strong first impression and that leaving a lingering presence was important, Helena didn’t bother going out to find him.

The villagers came one by one, carrying various items in their hands, which they piled into her arms before engaging in lengthy conversations and eventually leaving. Though she could have ignored their visits, comparing the current villagers to how they had been in the past added a bit of amusement to her otherwise dull life.

‘Still, I’ve wasted too much time.’

After most of the villagers had come and gone, Helena finally stepped out of her house and headed to the chapel for the first time in a while. However, upon arriving, she saw Isaac surrounded by a group of young women, looking utterly flustered. For some reason, the sight left her feeling irritated. The women were openly flirting with him, lightly brushing their hands over various parts of his body in ways he couldn’t resist.

“Oh my~ Priest Isaac~.”  

“Please, don’t do that~.”

‘When that little brat was young, I was the only one who could touch him.’ 

Isaac, who had been abandoned as an infant at the chapel’s doorstep, grew up under the care of the High Priest. She had heard from the village High Priest that Isaac preferred reading scriptures to playing with other children. However, when Helena met the thirteen-year-old Isaac, he had followed her around like a duckling trailing after its mother. Over time, the boy spent more hours listening to her stories than studying his scriptures.

Perhaps because of those memories, seeing him now—grown up and floundering amidst women who were fawning over him—was beyond what Helena could have imagined. Of all the changes in the villagers over the past twenty years, what surprised her most was that Johann had become a priest.

“…Time is truly fleeting.” 

The women surrounding him were all faces she recognized. They were young ladies now, but to Helena, who had lived for more than 300 years, they were still nothing more than children.  

Thinking about how many nuisances stood in her way of seducing Isaac, Helena approached the group. Isaac, who was the first to notice her, managed to extricate himself from the women and greeted her warmly.

“Good morning, Dr. Helena.”  

“Yes, Isaac. You look… very happy.”  

“Pardon…?”

At his confused expression and bewildered voice, Helena gestured with her chin toward the women who were still standing there, gazing at him with admiration. Realizing what she meant, Isaac’s eyes widened in surprise, and he frantically waved his hands in denial.

“Oh, no…! They’re just villagers seeking to hear the teachings of the Goddess….”  

“If the Goddess’s teachings involve touching a priest—”

Lowering her voice to a whisper, Helena stepped closer to Isaac, her finger slowly trailing down the fabric of his priestly robes. She made sure to release a faint trace of pheromones as well. Feeling the unexpectedly firm muscle beneath the black cloth, Helena licked her dry lips.

“Will you teach me as well?”

“I… I…”

Isaac’s face turned as red as a beet, and his throat bobbed visibly. His green eyes wavered, caught between his instincts as a man and his rationality as a priest. After a moment of hesitation, he let out a weak sigh and carefully pushed her cold, slender hand away.  

The women, who hadn’t seen what had just transpired, tilted their heads in curiosity and began approaching them. As if nothing had happened, Helena smiled sweetly.

“The teachings of the Goddess are truly inspiring, aren’t they?”  

“Dr. Helena! Hello!”

As the women approached and brightly greeted her, Helena responded with a charming smile of her own. Perhaps because it was such a small village where news traveled fast, within a few days, there was no one who didn’t know her. Those who were old enough to remember associated her with Ippolita at first but soon accepted that she was someone else. After all, no ordinary human could maintain the same appearance over the span of twenty years.

“Well then, enjoy the rest of your time.”  

“W-Won’t you join us?”  

Helena gave Isaac and the women a slight nod before turning toward the chapel. Isaac hastily bid farewell to the remaining women and hurriedly followed after her.

“There’s no need for you to accompany me. I still remember where the treatment room is.”  

“Oh, it’s not that… You misunderstand.”

‘Misunderstand?’  

In truth, it was Isaac who misunderstood her reaction. Helena knew perfectly well that he hadn’t intentionally mingled with the women. His awkward demeanor made it obvious; there was no way she could misinterpret that. However, she was all too aware of the desires harbored by the women surrounding Isaac. The sweet scent of longing that emanated from them was strong enough to stimulate even her heightened senses.

“I know how devout you are, Priest Isaac. I was only teasing earlier.”  

“Oh… You were teasing me….”

What had seemed like genuine annoyance on her part was, to Helena, nothing more than a playful jest. She had no reason to feel jealous of the young women vying for Isaac’s attention. It merely irked her that her once-young errand boy had grown into a man and was now the target of their affections. Helena reassured herself with this thought.  

Meanwhile, Isaac, feeling awkward at her admission of teasing, scratched his cheek before suddenly exclaiming, “Ah!” as if he had remembered something.

“Now that I think about it, Dr. Helena, you remind me of my first love—even in the way you tease.”  

“Your first love?”  

A delicate crease appeared between Helena’s brows. On top of the many nuisances she already had to deal with, the mention of a “first love” only served to irritate her further. She had assumed that seducing this naïve young priest would be as easy as eating cold soup, but the situation was proving to be increasingly challenging.

The idea that she resembled his first love might have seemed advantageous at first glance, but a man’s first love was often idealized to the point of becoming an insurmountable obstacle. And given that this was a Priest’s first love, she didn’t even want to imagine how much more glorified it must have been in his mind.

“Yes. Though calling it a first love might be a bit much—it was more of a fleeting admiration from long ago, and it was unrequited. Looking back now, it might have been closer to reverence than love. Still, back then, just seeing that person made my heart race, so I’d like to call it my first love.”  

“Ah, I see. She must have been beautiful to make a young priest’s heart flutter.”  

“Yes, she was truly beautiful. But… Dr. Helena, you’re even more….”

Isaac trailed off, his face turning red once again, unable to finish his sentence. However, Helena understood perfectly well that he was implying she was more beautiful than his past love.

‘Of course. What human could ever be more beautiful than a vampire?’

When a person becomes a vampire, their face transforms into something irresistibly alluring. They don’t become an entirely different person, but their natural features are enhanced to a level of extraordinary beauty. It was no different from a fisherman using an enticing bait to lure fish.

“Playfulness and beauty—are those the only qualities?”  

“Oh! No, not at all. That person had many good traits. She was kind to the villagers and gentle with children. And she was always there for me, who had no one. I even thought she might be the Goddess incarnate.”  

Hearing him go on about the Goddess even in his first love story, Helena’s expression grew slightly bored. Although the treatment room was only a short distance away, for some reason, they were taking a long detour. At first, Helena had been pleased, thinking it would give them more time to talk, but she was beginning to grow weary. Unaware of her feelings, Isaac continued to talk about his first love, pulling out a necklace from inside his priestly robes as he spoke.  

“This is something my first love gave me.”  

Helena glanced indifferently at the necklace, but upon recognizing its familiar design, she examined it more closely. The wooden carving in the shape of the Goddess’s wings was a symbol used by the Holy Order.  

“It looks quite old.” 

“It’s been twenty years. It… was given to me by Miss Ippolita.”  

As expected, the delicate carving, down to the smallest feather, was something she had given Isaac twenty years ago as a parting gift. Only after hearing his definitive answer did Helena’s eyes gleam with the thrill of a foreseen victory as she asked,  

“Ippolita… So she was your first love.”  

“Embarrassingly… yes.”  

Isaac’s ears turned red as he spoke. Helena smiled brightly at the revelation that the first love she had considered troublesome was, in fact, her past self. She then decided to retrieve an old story buried in her memory.  

“Since you’ve shared your first love story, shall I share one of mine? I have a similar memory. It wasn’t love, though. Borrowing someone else’s words, I’d say it was about a child I cherished like a pet.”  

“A… pet?”  

Among the nobles she had encountered in the city, there were those who kept dogs or cats as a hobby. She thought the affection they showed their pets might be similar to how she had once doted on young Isaac. In truth, it wasn’t Helena but Dennis who had first likened Isaac to a pet.  

“He was adorable. At first, it was mere curiosity. Watching him close the unseeing eyes of an animal hunted and left to die, guiding it to the embrace of the Goddess—it seemed so sacred. Even at such a young age, he displayed the demeanor of a Priest, and I found myself drawn to him.”  

Twenty years ago, while evading the Holy Knights of the Holy Order who hunted vampires, she wandered through various villages. Starving, she had hunted an elk near this village. After feeding on its blood and abandoning its carcass, she had witnessed a boy offering a prayer over the elk’s remains. That was Helena’s first encounter with Isaac.  

Watching the boy pray, Helena had, for the first time, felt admiration for how such pure reverence could shine for an illusion she herself no longer believed in.  

“He was a devout child even back then. No wonder you found him endearing, Dr. Helena.”  

“…Aside from that, the way he used to follow me around and his reactions when I played pranks on him were quite adorable.”  

Isaac, unaware that the story was about him, listened with interest as Helena shared more about his childhood. Although she didn’t go into detailed memories, the story she told was enough for the two of them to share a moment of connection.  

“That child seems like he would grow up to become a fine priest.”  

“Ah—yes. He’ll become a wonderful priest… surely.”  

As she looked at him, already a respectable Priest, Helena casually mentioned one last memory.  

“Oh, but when I think about how he cried so much when I gave him a parting gift, maybe not.”  

The necklace that now hung around Isaac’s neck had once been clutched tightly in the hand of a tearful boy. He had held it in one hand while grabbing onto Helena with the other, his eyes brimming with tears. That image remained vividly etched in her memory. The crying little boy was nowhere to be seen now, replaced by a man whose broad stature filled the space around him.