3.1

At dawn, Isaac was busily moving around the chapel, preparing to offer the first prayer of the day. Following closely behind him, Fred trailed along, his voice filled with anger.  

“It’s true!”  

“Alright, as someone who serves the Goddess, you wouldn’t lie. But Fred, premarital relations aren’t a sin.”  

“They are a sin! Isn’t immorality something that can be considered sinful?”  

Isaac let out a sigh as he looked into Fred’s dark, glimmering eyes. The younger priest, whose dark circles had turned bluish from staying up all night, had come to him at dawn to recount a story about Helena having been with a young man from the neighboring village the night before.  

When Isaac first heard this, it felt as though his heart had dropped to the floor with a thud. Yet, his body, accustomed to routine, continued preparing for prayer as if nothing had happened. After much deliberation over how to respond, Isaac finally opened his mouth.  

“Fred… an act shared with someone you love can’t be called immoral.”  

The word “love” on Isaac’s tongue felt as if it pricked him like a needle. Thinking of Helena loving another man and sharing in reality what he had only experienced in his dreams made a hot, unpleasant feeling rise in his stomach. He felt unwell.  

“But—”  

“Really, Fred? Did you ask Isaac to handle the evening prayers yesterday and then have some kind of strange dream?”  

With that, Johann approached, lightly tapping Fred on the back of the head. Rubbing his eyes and stifling a long yawn, Johann continued speaking.  

“Helena was at the chapel much earlier than you last night. She was distributing medicine she had brought back from the neighboring village, saying it might be needed for any emergency patients. Considering the round trip to the neighboring village, there’s no way she would’ve had the time for anything else.”  

Johann’s words somehow soothed the bubbling turmoil in Isaac’s chest.  

‘…Why am I like this?’  

Isaac couldn’t understand why he was feeling this way. While his thoughts continued to wander, Fred, who had listened to Johann, huffed and retorted indignantly.  

“What if she’s a vampire?”  

“Fred.”  

“Hey.”  

Both Isaac and Johann shouted simultaneously at Fred’s absurd speculation. Isaac, however, kept his mouth shut, leaving Johann to scold Fred instead.  

“You can’t go around saying things like that. You haven’t forgotten the massacre from 300 years ago, have you? If that’s the case, Fred, you should go back to the Central Holy Order and retake your priestly vows.”  

Fred, looking offended by Johann’s words, turned on his heel and stormed out of the chapel.  

The massacre. It was an event carried out by the old Central Holy Order to exterminate vampires, with fanatics joining in, resulting in countless innocent victims being piled into mountains of corpses. Eventually, unable to bear the horrific situation, the clergy united under the name of the Goddess and launched a holy war. After a long war, the old Central Holy Order was defeated, and the new Central Holy Order established a thorough investigation process to ensure no innocent lives were wrongly taken when dealing with vampires. It was a bloody history where suspicion had escalated into a hunt that led to a holy war.  

“Such a shame. Is Fred going through a late adolescence? Maybe the Central Holy Order needs to come down to set him straight.”  

“What happens if the Central Holy Order comes down…?”  

“Oh? Isaac, you don’t know? I thought you were quite knowledgeable about vampires.”  

Johann, holding a rag in place of Fred, began wiping the altar as he spoke softly, as though recounting an old story.  

“When a report about a vampire comes in, Holy Knights from the Central Holy Order stationed in nearby branches are dispatched to investigate. They interrogate the informant thoroughly—sometimes excessively so. Then, they comb through the reported village and all surrounding villages, tracking any suspicious traces. Eventually, they narrow down the most suspicious individual or uncover the vampire’s hiding place. After several rounds of verification, if the target is confirmed to be a vampire, they are executed.”  

Isaac thought the process sounded more complicated than expected and wondered if this might lead to vampires slipping through their grasp.  

“Priest Johann, didn’t you say you’ve personally dealt with a vampire before?”  

“Yes. It’s more gruesome than you’d think. Vampires don’t die easily. You have to sever their limbs with a holy sword, pour holy water on the severed parts, and then burn them. Only then will they not come back to life. The smell and sound of them burning… even now, just thinking about it…”  

As Johann shuddered at the memory, Isaac felt a chill run through him and instinctively rubbed his arms. Hearing Johann’s vivid recounting of what was simply described in scripture as “execution” made it feel much more brutal.  

“Anyway, we’re done here. Let’s go fetch the High Priest. He’s probably been waiting too long because of Fred slacking off.”  

The chapel’s day, which had started with the noisy chaos of the first dawn prayer, left Isaac feeling unsettled all day. Even Helena’s visit to the treatment room after breakfast, as usual, only added to his confusion.  

Isaac stared at her as she tended to the patients. Her red hair, which seemed to exude the scent of roses, her eyes that resembled unripe olives, her moonlit pale cheeks, and her soft lips—his gaze traced them all. Startled, Isaac shivered as he realized his thoughts.  

‘Soft…!’  

Recalling the sensation of her lips from his dream, other scenes from that dream also began to surface in his mind. When the patient receiving minor treatment left and they were alone, Helena, noticing Isaac’s unusual gaze, spoke to him.  

“Why are you staring at me like that today? Is there something on my face?”  

Helena smiled softly, her eyes curving gently, and today, she looked even more beautiful than usual. Thump, thump. The heart Isaac thought had fallen silent began pounding again. He found the situation strange.  

‘No. Perhaps it’s been strange since the first time I saw her.’  

As he stared blankly at Helena, Isaac unwittingly confessed his honest feelings to himself.  

“You’re beautiful. …Ah, I mean—that is, I didn’t mean anything by it…!”  

Helena, watching Isaac stammer and blush as usual, took a step closer to him. Then, she lightly placed her pale hand on his cheek.  

“You’re the more beautiful one, Isaac.”  

“Uh…”  

As she subtly released pheromones through her fingertips, his long eyelashes quivered slightly. However, unlike in the past, Isaac didn’t flinch or run away from her touch. Helena could sense the fragrant scent of his sincerity, as transparent as a clear stream. She decided to say something that might shake him.  

“But it would be disrespectful for me to get any closer to a devout servant of the Goddess.”  

“…I’m not devout.”

With a heavy voice, his gaze dropped to the floor, and Helena withdrew her hand, which had been lingering in the air. The warmth that had almost reached him felt cold. An awkward silence, unfitting for the lazy afternoon sunlight, filled the treatment room.  

At that moment, the sound of approaching footsteps broke the stillness, and someone addressed them.  

“Helena, are you here?”  

Breaking the tense atmosphere, the person entering the treatment room was none other than the man Helena had discarded after feeding on him the night before. Spotting her, the man smiled shyly and approached them.  

“Hello. Actually, I got injured, and the doctor in our village said he wasn’t sure how to treat it.”  

The man, grinning as if he had no worries in the world, annoyed Isaac, who spoke in a stiff voice.  

“We no longer treat minor injuries for outsiders at our chapel.”  

“Oh, right. But I heard that your home doubles as a clinic. Would it be alright if I visited there instead?”  

The man acted as though he was about to take her out of the treatment room himself. Helena hesitated, wondering how to handle the situation.  

‘How do I get rid of him?’  

There was no particular reason for her to care for a man from the neighboring village who was no longer her prey. The way Isaac alternated his gaze between her and the man also didn’t sit well with her.  

“That won’t be possible. The villagers come all the way to the treatment room because they want Helena to rest comfortably at home.”  

Isaac, thankfully, stepped in to spare Helena the trouble. His words carried a hidden warning: even the villagers respected Helena’s need for rest, so how dare an outsider inconvenience her?  

But the man brazenly retorted.  

“Aren’t priests supposed to show kindness to everyone?”  

Hearing this, Isaac’s eyes wavered noticeably. Normally, he would have asked Helena to treat the man’s injury. As he wondered why he felt differently now, he realized it was because this man was the one Fred had mentioned earlier—the one who had spent the night with Helena.  

Caught in the silent, tense standoff between the two men, Helena frowned and stepped between them.  

“Enough, both of you. Isaac, please wait a moment.”  

“But, Helena…”  

Though she appreciated Isaac’s jealousy, a fight between him and her prey was not what she wanted. Speaking in a slightly sharper tone, she addressed the man.  

“Let me just take a look at the wound.”  

“Thank you!”  

The man eagerly extended his left wrist to her, as if afraid she might change her mind. On his wrist, where the veins ran, were two small puncture wounds spaced slightly apart, as if pricked by needles.