Chapter 42 – Abnormal Changes in Byk Town
There was nobody else living in Old Vita’s house. And aside from an oil lamp, there was nothing to illuminate the first floor.
Zwei frowned and lightly snapped his fingers.
Immediately, a fireball appeared out of thin air and started circling him. The fireball lit up the surroundings. Old John was initially surprised by the fireball’s sudden appearance. However, he quickly discovered that, strangely enough, the fireball didn’t emit any heat. It existed purely to serve as a light source.
This was one of the Lesser Fireball’s application methods. The flames of the Lesser Fireball weren’t actual flames, but magical flames instead. In fact, even the water made by water magic wasn’t real water and could not be drunk.
After clearing the Honing Tower’s First Floor, Zwei’s understanding of first-circle magic had risen to a whole new level. Now, even Master Magicians wouldn’t be a match for him when it came to understanding first-circle magic. With this newfound understanding, he also gained the ability to freely manipulate and modify first-circle spells that he had fully mastered. Hence, reducing the Lesser Fireball’s temperature and increasing its luminosity was now child’s play for him.
However, while Zwei considered it a petty trick, seeing this move had given Old John a great boost in confidence. With a sense of superiority, he turned to his old friend and asked, “Old Vita, why does Byk Town look so strange? What happened?”
“Oh, John, you shouldn’t have come at this time.”
As Zwei’s robe identified him as a magician, Old Vita was only slightly surprised by Zwei’s fireball and soon calmed down.
“There’s a terrible monster in town right now!”
“A monster ran into the town?” Old John nodded in realization. “No wonder there are so few people on the streets. What’s the monster? An arrow porcupine?”
“It would be great if it were a harmless fellow like that…” Old Vita shook his head. After glancing at Zwei’s party, who showed curious looks on their faces, he took two steps forward and whispered in a mysterious tone, “The rumors say that the monster is a vampire!”
“What?!”
The ignorant Alyssa and absent-minded Tio didn’t react to Old Vita’s revelation, but Old John and Zwei were both greatly shocked.
Vampires were also referred to as the blood tribe. They were categorized under the blood-sucking undead species. Although their hunting levels varied greatly, even newborn vampires started out at Level 10.
However, vampires weren’t feared only for their powerful strength but also for their regard of humans as food and their ability to turn the humans they sucked blood from into walking corpses. Walking corpses were Level 4 monsters categorized under the zombie undead species.
Once upon a time, seven vampires had joined forces to transform a big city into a dead city where zombies ran rampant, and they had accomplished this feat in just one week. In the end, though, humans sent several Master Magicians in retaliation, and the Master Magicians wiped the seven earl-level vampires, together with the city, off the face of the world.
As a side note, although it was rumored that vampires could assimilate humans into vampires, this rumor had yet to be proven.
The scary thing about vampires was that they could hide their fangs when they weren’t sucking blood. If they mixed among ordinary humans, even magicians would have difficulty telling them apart without sufficient power. This was the reason panic would ensue whenever traces of a vampire were found in a human settlement. After all, nobody could say for certain that the person walking beside them wouldn’t suddenly reveal a set of fangs and bite them.
In short, regardless of one’s perspective, vampires were the enemy of mankind.
The same was true for Byk Town. The first sign of a vampire’s presence in the town was a walking corpse found under a bridge two days ago. Back then, however, the town guards had treated the walking corpse as an ordinary undead creature and didn’t pay much attention to it—until multiple cases of walking corpses attacking people occurred one after another. With these successive cases, the guards had no choice but to take the matter seriously. And although the town authorities had been suppressing information on this matter, rumors of a vampire appearing in Byk Town had already spread to the general public.
After Old Vita finished his explanation and took a sip of water, he added, “Moreover, the authorities posted a curfew notice on the notice boards this afternoon. It’s obvious whether the vampire rumor is true or not.”
“Can’t you determine who’s the vampire so long as you have everyone go out together in the sun?” Alyssa immediately asked after Old Vita finished speaking.
“Little Miss, you must’ve never visited Byk Town before, right?” Old Vita asked in a pleasant tone, to which Alyssa shyly replied with a “hehe” and a silly smile. Indeed, the girl had lived in the village all her life and had never visited a large settlement like Byk Town.
“Byk Town has a large population,” Old John explained to Alyssa. Although Alyssa was only a junior in the village, she had become the sole student of the Lord Magician. It wouldn’t hurt for him to show her more care. “The town receives lots of migrants as well. Generally, five or six migrant families register with the town every month, not to mention those that don’t register. Just the annual census is already a difficult task for the authorities. It is almost impossible to drag every household in the town out into the sun.”
“Is that so~?” Alyssa stuck out her tongue shyly. “Teacher, what do you think?”
At Alyssa’s question, Zwei answered without hesitation, “Rest early today and get up early tomorrow. If there really is a vampire here, the church will naturally deal with it. We don’t need to get involved.”
Zwei then looked at Tio, who was a little afraid of coming into contact with Old John and Old Vita, and continued, “We have more important matters awaiting us.”
“I understand,” Alyssa immediately replied.
Meanwhile, Old Vita’s hopeful eyes dimmed, returning to their previously murky state. It was evident he hadn’t explained the town’s predicament in such detail just to entertain Zwei’s party with an interesting story.
However, the old man hadn’t lived to his age for nothing. He could tell that Zwei was the group’s decision-maker. So long as Zwei decided not to intervene in this matter, it wouldn’t matter what anyone else said.
Hence, Old Vita could only lead Zwei and the others to their bedrooms.
Including the guest rooms, the house had a total of two bedrooms. Both bedrooms were on the second floor.
Originally, Zwei was supposed to stay in a room of his own, while Alyssa and Tio would share the other room. Old John and Old Vita had planned to make a bed on the living-room floor. However, Tio was adamant in staying with Zwei. And seeing as it wasn’t wise to leave Alyssa alone in the other room, Zwei had no choice but to share a room with the two girls. As for the other room, Old John and Old Vita would get to share it.
Normally, being able to observe two defenseless beauties sleeping would be a good thing. However, it wasn’t a good thing for Zwei at all.
After all, no matter how much of a beast Zwei might be, there was no way he would lay his hands on children.
But what should I do with my three raid opportunities? Moreover, if I enter a dungeon while the girls are sleeping, what if the vampire comes to kidnap them? According to the rumors, vampires like the blood of young and beautiful virgin girls the most.
Forget it. Let’s set the dungeons aside until we’re out of town tomorrow. I’ll just get some shut-eye for now.
Hence, Zwei sat sadly on the sofa and entered a partially unconscious state while looking forward to dawn’s arrival.