A Bloodsucking Demon in a Snowy Town (6)

Having infiltrated the imperial capital, I crept through the streets, avoiding people's eyes, especially those of the guards.

I kept my hood pulled low over my eyes, looking like a suspicious stranger trying to conceal his identity.

The dwarves had obtained a rough map of the imperial capital and the location of Reihon's mansion before leaving Coltoria, but... perhaps those things had never been necessary in the first place.

After all, I noticed that presence as soon as I entered the imperial capital.

Gudaria, the capital of the Fodor Empire, was a dark gray city, just like the gray sky from which snow fell.

Well, it was night now, so everything looked black, but even when I had seen it from a distance during the day, it had looked dark.

But its appearance hardly mattered, because a stagnant presence was emanating from the direction of Reihon's mansion.

It was an intensely unpleasant sensation that made me feel nauseated.

This was most certainly not a presence emitted by a human.

It was difficult to put the sensation into words, but if I had to force it into words, the presence smelled far too foul.

I had once seen a river polluted by mining toxins, and if that pollution progressed further and became even more concentrated, perhaps it would produce an unpleasantness similar to this presence.

That was how abnormal, rotten, and deranged the presence was.

In other words, the source of this presence—most likely Reihon—was an entity that, all by himself, carried an aura equivalent to that of a polluted natural environment, along with the smell of death.

As I had suspected, Reihon was undoubtedly some kind of fallen xianren.

After all, I knew of no existence capable of emitting a presence on the same scale as a natural environment other than spirits or High Elves.

Though High Elves did not normally let their presence spill out like this unless they were extremely angry.

My body trembled involuntarily.

But it was not from fear.

My body was trembling as I desperately tried to suppress the impulse to borrow the spirits' power and blow this presence away immediately.

My mind was searching for the largest-scale attack I could use right now.

If the air held enough water for snow to fall, then the wind could gather it and carry it higher into the sky, creating enormous chunks of ice.

If I created countless chunks as large as boulders and dropped them to the ground, wiping out a presence like this would be easy.

But doing that would involve countless people who had nothing to do with Reihon.

Ah, more than that, it would even involve those good-natured dwarves who were probably staying at an inn in the imperial capital right now.

There was no way I could do that.

Even so, when had I become such an aggressive person?

Had hiding ever since I came to this country left my heart so jaded?

Or was I angry because I had learned that Kaeha and the others might be endangered?

Or had this bizarre presence gotten to me as well?

...Perhaps it was not merely my personal sensibilities, but something within me as a member of my race—as a High Elf—that could not forgive a bloodsucking demon who had once sought to become something akin to a spirit, but had instead become warped and deranged.

I climbed over a wall, got onto a rooftop, and took a shortcut along the roofs.

Rather than wandering into unfamiliar streets, it was faster to force my way straight ahead like this.

I thought it was ironic that I had only realized the importance of the knowledge possessed by High Elves after leaving the deep forest and coming to the human world.

Indeed, the more I interacted with humans and saw the differences between them and myself, the more I wondered whether I was losing my humanity.

Recently—yes, for about the past ten years—I had occasionally felt that way.

Perhaps that was what growth was.

Once I passed through the densely packed residential district, I eventually emerged into the so-called aristocratic quarter, where large mansions stood in rows.

Despite having come from elsewhere, Reihon had built a large mansion on a prime lot in this aristocratic quarter.

No wonder the other nobles hated him.

The aristocratic quarter had more patrolling guards and fewer places to hide, so moving through it suddenly became much more difficult.

Weaving through the gaps in the security that the wind spirits told me about, I finally reached the mansion.

Reihon's mansion—the source of the nauseating presence I had felt from the moment I entered the imperial capital.

There were no lights on in the mansion.

But I was not optimistic enough to think that everyone inside was simply sleeping soundly.

The owner of this presence probably had not even considered hiding his existence.

It was like a powerful monster behaving as it pleased, heedless of the presence it gave off.

Or perhaps a bloodsucking demon that had forcibly absorbed countless lives became so warped that it could no longer suppress its presence.

Overwhelmed by that overpowering presence, I could not sense the presence of any other humans.

It was hard to imagine that a mansion this large had no servants, but I also could not imagine ordinary humans remaining mentally unscathed while constantly near the owner of this presence.

Ordinary humans had much duller senses than I did, but that did not mean they were unaffected.

I crossed over the wall into the grounds, climbed the outer wall, and made my way onto the mansion's roof.

For an instant, I considered setting the mansion ablaze and burning it to ashes with all my might, but I refrained when I considered the possibility that someone besides Reihon might be inside.

...The missing dwarves were probably no longer alive, but there might be a slave who had only recently been bought and was being held captive somewhere.

Even if it was unavoidable for my thoughts to become extreme, that did not mean I could involve people who had nothing to do with this.

On the roof, I took out my bow and strung it, then held an arrow in one hand so I could nock it at any moment before jumping down to the second-floor balcony.

Then, without hesitation, I kicked down the entrance door and fired an arrow from my bow at the creature that appeared to be a man, sitting in a chair and looking at me.