Chapter 7 : Descendants Of The Wolf – (4)

As soon as we followed the priest into the cave, corpses came pouring out.

Lifeless eyes.

Bloodless, pale skin.

Just like the ones in the vampire hag’s hut last time, these were mindless puppets.

“Rest in peace.”

The priest made the sign of the cross and raised his sword.

Then he slaughtered the thralls who were once villagers.

Every time the priest swung his cross-shaped sword, massive gouges were carved into the cave walls.

I stood there, dumbfounded, just watching.

It was by sheer coincidence that I noticed the reddish mist.

“Huh?”

I saw it briefly slip past the priest’s side.

Or more precisely, an old man shaped like mist.

At first, I thought I was seeing things.

Maybe the recent changes in environment and new experiences were messing with my vision.

But that wasn’t it.

The misty man saw me, and I saw him.

When our eyes met, his expression twisted.

A clear sign something was wrong.

I turned to call the priest.

But in an instant, the man took human form and lunged at me, grabbing my wrist.

“You bastard! You ruined my plan!”

At the same time, a tingling sensation crept up my wrist.

It felt like a muscle cramp.

But that was all.

The man looked panicked and darted his eyes around.

That’s when I realized—this man was no hallucination.

“Are you… a vampire?”

“…Huh?”

The man looked utterly dumbfounded.

He was far too clumsy to be a vampire, but his scent wasn’t all that different from the villagers I’d just slain.

Which meant—he had to die.

“An opening!”

I’m a hunter.

“Hah. A rat caught by a cow’s backward step—so you were the rat, huh?”

Soon, the priest walked up to the vampire mage, now collapsed and clutching his neck where my saw blade sword had struck.

He was surprised to hear I’d spotted the vampire despite his mist form.

Then, pulling a stake from his chest, the priest drove it into the vampire’s limbs.

The vampire let out a piercing scream, but the priest ignored him and looked at me.

“Vampires that use mist form are hard to detect unless you’re a professional hunter. Aiden, you’ve got sharp eyes.”

“I just… saw him.”

“Hmm? You saw him?”

“To me, it was like… a strange man floating in the air.”

“That’s quite the story. So a thrall’s vision can detect blood magic… Excellent. This’ll be a big help for future hunts.”

The priest looked pleased with the new information.

He stepped on the stake embedded in the vampire’s thigh.

Squish.

It drove deeper with a wet sound.

“Gyaaah! Please! I surrender!”

Camilla frowned.

Despite being a vampire, the man looked unmistakably human now with stakes impaling him.

“Um, why are we keeping him alive?”

Unable to hold back, I asked.

The priest maintained his warm smile as he looked down at the vampire.

“There’s information to be gained. Vampires deserve death, but sometimes we need to capture them.”

“Information?”

“It’s related to your sister.”

I didn’t press further.

If it concerned Lily, then whatever it was—it was right.

“Now then…”

The priest examined the cave.

The vampire mage’s lair was shabby, but that didn’t mean his possessions were worthless.

While we were stuffing a few gold coins and ornaments—likely stolen from villagers—into a sack…

“This is…”

The priest stared at a pendant glowing red, then silently tucked it into his robes.

“What is that?”

“A bloodline sigil. Vampires prove their lineage with pendants like this. Seems this one came from a somewhat notable bloodline. Now we’ve got one more reason to keep him alive.”

So we tightly bound the vampire mage and cut his wrists to prevent him from casting blood magic.

Then, to stop regeneration, we seared the wounds with a torch.

“Gyaaaaaah! My arms! My aaaaarms!!”

He wasn’t just pathetic—he seemed lower than a worm crawling on the ground.

Why?

Why did this vampire seem so worthless, so ignorant, so utterly beneath contempt?

I suddenly felt the urge to stomp on his head and crush his skull to pieces.

To feel his brains burst underfoot… that would surely be exhilarating.

Even though it lasted only a moment, the surge of killing intent must have reached the vampire.

Despite the pain of his burning wrists, he stared at me, trembling.

“Ugh.”

I shook my head in shock.

What the hell was I thinking?

“Aiden, what’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’re feeling sorry for this guy?”

Camilla frowned as she asked, but I dodged the question.

“No. It’s nothing.”

I didn’t know why such a violent, gruesome impulse had come over me.

But it didn’t feel like a good sign, and so I decided to keep it to myself.

“These kids are the real issue now.”

Back in the village, Camilla let out a sigh as she looked at the group of boys and girls gathered together.

The world had no mercy, and backwater villages like this were no exception.

These children would never survive on their own.

There were a few estates that ran orphan relief programs, but they were as rare as rain in a drought—and already over capacity.

They had no room, and frankly, no reason to take in outsiders.

“Hmm…”

I waited for the priest’s decision.

And what he said exceeded even my wildest expectations.

With a broad smile, the priest said:

“Would any of you like to become hunters?”

As I’d heard, the hunter guild was constantly short on manpower.

And the priest was not one to let an opportunity slip by.

Glacialcliff.

A frigid domain where snow fell year-round, and atop a sheer cliff stood a fortress.

It was said the first vampire hunter killed the vampire king who once lived there and took the castle as a trophy.

Now, it served as the main headquarters of the Hunter’s Guild.

At the very top floor—

Once the throne room of the vampire king, it had become the guildmaster’s office.

“No word, not even a message saying they’d be late. Total silence.”

A woman with golden hair tapped her fingers impatiently on a massive table.

She looked far too young to be the guildmaster, but there she was—exhausted from waiting for a missing agent.

It had been over ten days.

A hunter going silent for more than ten days without a single report could only mean something had gone wrong.

But…

“That old man wouldn’t just die on us.”

The guildmaster sighed deeply.

Yes.

And that made it all the more complicated.

If it were any other hunter, they’d just assume he was dead and send a search party.

But the priest was different.

Even the guildmaster found him hard to deal with.

A founding member of the guild who refused to retire, insisting he didn’t want to rot away like some backroom relic.

His personal combat prowess surpassed that of most hunters combined, so worrying about him almost felt pointless.

She had begged him to take over as guildmaster more than once, but his answer was always the same:

“Too much hassle? Too much hassle? You think the rest of us are doing this for fun?!”

Bang!

At the same time she slammed the table, the door flew open.

A subordinate hunter entered and delivered the long-awaited news.

“Guildmaster, the priest has returned.”

“Ha! Let’s see what kind of trouble he stirred up this time.”

“Um… about that…”

The hunter hesitated, a troubled expression on his face.

“What? What is it now? What the hell did he do this time?”

“It would be easier if… you saw for yourself.”

At that, the guildmaster turned and drew back the curtains.

From the high vantage of the cliff-top fortress, she could see the entire road below.

A procession filled the road.

Two people had gone out on the hunt.

But they were returning with dozens.

“…What the hell is this?”

She recalled a story her parents told her as a child.

A folktale about a man playing a flute, leading a line of children behind him.

It had become real.

But unlike the fairy tale, reality was unforgiving.

“This is a goddamn circus,” she muttered.

It was a candid reaction.

The vampire hunters’ headquarters was built atop a cliff.

I stared up, slack-jawed, at the castle looming above.

Even in the great city of Stormgate, where I’d spent my childhood, buildings of that scale were rare.

“Impressed?”

Camilla grinned knowingly and elbowed me in the side.

By the time we reached this place, it seemed Camilla had finally decided to acknowledge me as a fellow companion.

She nagged me less, and even when our bodies brushed together while riding, she didn’t give me that usual look of contempt.

Apparently, it wasn’t common for a rookie to have already taken down two vampires.

Whatever the reason, it felt good.

It meant that I—me, apart from Lily—could still belong somewhere.

“Alright, let’s go in.”

Soon, the castle gates opened, and we entered.

A few guards in armor stepped forward and saluted the priest respectfully.

Their precise movements caught my attention—just as a sharp voice rang out.

“Well, aren’t we feeling leisurely today, priest?”

A stunning woman with golden hair and vivid green eyes, marked by a striking beauty spot beneath her eye, stepped out.

Dressed in a lavish uniform trimmed with beast fur around her collar, she leaned against the rampart and glared down at the priest.

“If you’re just going to do whatever you want, why not retire and act your age already?”

“Haha, my apologies. I had… unavoidable circumstances.”

The priest tried to laugh it off, but the woman only looked more irritated by his nonchalance.

Her grip on the railing tightened, and I thought I heard it crack.

I looked to Camilla, confused, and she offered a wry smile as she explained.

“That’s the guildmaster of the Hunters’ Guild. Her name’s Aila.”

“She’s… pretty young for a guildmaster, huh.”

“She’ll be flattered to hear that. Truth is, she’s actually a lot older than she looks.”

By all appearances, she looked to be in her mid-twenties—about Camilla’s age.

“So? Care to explain? What’s with all these kids?”

Aila sighed, her gaze shifting to the group of shivering boys and girls beyond the gate—the same children we brought from the village.

The priest had given them a choice:

Stay behind in their empty, ruined village and starve, or take a chance with an old man offering them a lifeline.

Not a single child chose to remain.

To be fair, it hadn’t really been much of a choice.

“They’re new hunter trainees, headed for the academy,” said the priest.

“…Just decided that on your own, did you? Tch.”

Aila clicked her tongue and turned her eyes away from the priest—straight at me.

More precisely, at the greatsword hanging from my hip.

“Fine, I can accept all that. But who’s that kid, and why is he wearing one of our standard-issue weapons?”

“I gave it to him,” the priest said calmly.

“You what? You gave one of our official weapons to an outsider who’s not even a hunter? Are you kidding me?”

“Haha, don’t get so worked up, Aila. You’ll wrinkle that pretty forehead.”

“Haha, and you might just find your head gone without a sound.”

A delightful exchange of not-so-veiled threats passed between them.

Eventually, Aila turned her sharp eyes on me.

“So? Who the hell are you?”

“Eh?”

“I said, who are you?”

“…Uh.”

Who was I, really?

All I could say was that I was a rookie.

As I stammered, the priest placed a hand on my shoulder.

“No need to grill him, Aila. This boy already took down two vampires.”

“He killed two of them?”

“Yes. I vouch for him. He’s going to be a splendid hunter.”

“Hah.”

Aila snorted in disbelief.

“So now you’re appointing hunters on your own? That’s not even overstepping your authority anymore—it’s your daily routine now, isn’t it?”

“It’s not overstepping,” the priest said, unfazed.

He gave my shoulder a few encouraging pats.

“Because I’m going to write him a letter of recommendation.”

That… was the first time I saw Aila’s eyes widen in surprise.