“Ah, right. What was it you said at the market earlier? You were there for quite a while.”
Semi posed the question that had only just occurred to her.
The cluster of figures seated around the rough wooden table in the inn turned their gaze to one person.
He met their eyes without betraying any expression and spoke.
“I didn’t say anything special. Just complained, as you heard, about how rough life is here. And as far as stories about the old chief go, what Semi heard earlier was the extent of it.”
“Then, what about everything else?”
Semi’s question drew a light response from Erael.
“I arranged to receive two stakes—one for my use and one for yours. Stakes have been the standard against vampires since time immemorial.”
“Is that so? I can’t imagine those people simply letting themselves be impaled on stakes. There’s no record of handling vampires like that. Sounds like some local legend to me.”
Erael nodded dismissively.
“Yes, something like that.”
“Fine. The more options, the better. So about that vampire—there’s got to be a collaborator.”
“Yes, I thought the same.”
Semi raised her hand carefully, already expecting she wouldn’t understand.
“Why them? Finding corpses at runtime or recurring without pattern isn’t worth the fuss, is it?”
The question made sense.
Bodies appeared constantly, people died every day, and killers had always existed.
The villagers, consumed by fear, kept to themselves or drove outsiders away until they collapsed in isolation.
This time, someone had killed more often and over a longer period, but what else was different?
“If an ordinary person were the culprit, sure. Whether they acted in frenzy or hunger, they’d kill, hide the body, and hope no one found out. Even if they got caught, the village would either expel or detain them, right?”
“They would.”
“Think calmly about what’s different this time. A stranger sneaks in and slaughters children every night. At first, people would assume the killer struck only under cover of darkness.”
Semi nodded quietly.
If this had happened in her village, the chief would have locked all the children in a single house and told them to catch the killer themselves.
“Then after a few days, if the murders continued, people would insist on guarding the children even inside their homes. Every child from the alleyways would band together. Some would die outside, then when the survivors regrouped, they’d die too.”
“Eventually you’d conclude someone inside was helping the killer.”
“Exactly. When people keep dying and the murderer goes unpunished, you assume there’s an accomplice.”
If it were her chief, he’d either lock everyone away or send the children out to hunt.
“All right, I understand there must be an accomplice. But that’s just an assumption, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. But this time, one is absolutely necessary. After all, it’s a vampire.”
“A vampire tears its victims apart then disappears. It doesn’t stay in one place unless there’s a fight.”
“You don’t have to overthink it. We already have more than enough evidence. Crime scenes with no bodies are common. In fact, I found this one too quickly. Villagers don’t check for bodies until afternoon, after they finish the day’s work—unless someone personally goes looking, like that man did.”
Semi still didn’t grasp it fully, but neither of them expected further questions.
Until night fell, she kept the heavy breath lodged in her chest from escaping.
At the edge of a star-dotted sky, the moon peeked out, a small, gleaming smile.
Semi crouched on the rafters of the inn’s ceiling, watching shifting shadows and crawling insects, trying to calm her rising anxiety.
Surely if it were me, I’d notice something, she thought, a nagging unease twisting in her chest.
She wanted to ask, but didn’t know what to say.
A moment later, the woman approached quietly from behind.
“You look worried. Or maybe something strange caught your eye earlier?”
“Oh, sister. That man—what about him?”
Semi turned her head to see the woman’s expression and found her peering down with a subtle smile. She must’ve slipped into some alley without anyone noticing.
She shifted her gaze back to the village below and the restless shadows.
“He’s already outside the building. He’s different from us—I bet he’s following someone.”
Could be. She did act alone every time.
“Doesn’t seem like you’re disappointed. What’s on your mind?”
“I was trying to solve the riddle he left behind.”
The woman sat beside her, genuine curiosity on her face.
“A riddle? He didn’t leave anything like that. What riddle?”
“First, my stake hasn’t even arrived yet, and he’s already found the culprit. Uncharacteristic. Even if he’s hunting a collaborator, they’d have to meet and speak. His movements don’t add up.”
The woman tapped her foot and spoke as dust trickled off stones, rattle.
“Maybe. Or maybe not. He might be checking it himself.”
Semi recalled the chief’s smooth words from the day before: a silver tongue isn't always a blessing.
“Still, it’s odd. Especially other things.”
“Like where?”
“From what the merchant said.”
A stranger becoming chief of a village? That made no sense to her.
No matter how long they live among you or however many problems they solve, they remain an outsider.
Children are far more sensitive—they recoil from tension.
So how could a young outsider become chief?
A young chief is rare enough, let alone one born outside the village.
It defies logic.
Every time she voiced it, the woman replied, “Maybe so,” and moved on, leaving her at a loss.
“I won’t say what you’re worried about, so speak freely.”
The woman smiled and poked Semi’s arm with her finger, light as a feather.
Semi guessed the old man’s rumor about her and the chief being close must be false.
She leaned into the woman’s teasing warmth and, unable to resist, spoke up.
“The chief here is strange.”
“Oh? What’s strange?”
Semi nestled into the woman’s embrace and looked up at the sky. It felt like ages since she left her own village.
She cared about other villages, wondered if this could be another story worth telling. The woman here would smile at anything Semi said.
“The previous chief who died…”
The woman let out a soft snort and twisted a lock of Semi’s hair through her fingers. Semi continued slowly, a smile slipping out at a distant memory.
“Could the child of an outsider ever truly seem like one of us?”
The young chief looked like everyone else here—dark horns protruding from his head, a small tail, pale brown eyes. Yet the merchant had said the former chief was an outsider like this woman. She and the villagers were too different.
Different in appearance, in speech, in the way they lived.
“If only they had put someone else in charge instead of the youth,” she mused.
Or if the chief were truly their child, but no one claimed to be his mother. Maybe he wasn’t a chief at all, just a pitiful youth driven out.
At that moment, Erael stood near a back alley and spotted a dark stain on the ground—fresh blood.
The victim wasn’t a child they always suspected but the young man the woman had seen earlier.
His face twisted in injustice, eyes wide, yet only his head and neck remained.
The child’s corpse he’d carried was nowhere near where he fell.
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