Norton was an extremely easily satisfied person. Twenty years of confined church life had left him with intense curiosity and exploratory desire toward everything around him, though this exploratory urge needed self-discovery after being unstimulated for so long.
However, his life staying in the clock tower was already satisfying enough for him.
The vampire's terrifying hunger-resistant constitution meant Norton had almost no material needs, so naturally he didn't need to find ways to acquire money. Aside from going out hunting every ten days or half month to satisfy his need for strength growth, Norton had almost no other concerns.
Speaking of hunting, this brings up the topic Father Mia had mentioned before.
[To thoroughly eradicate vampires, the Church decided to starve all the poor until they became emaciated and anemic, with insufficient blood, so vampires couldn't obtain enough food and would starve to death, thus achieving the goal of exterminating vampires.]
At the time, Norton thought this approach by the Church was utterly idiotic.
But now that he had become a vampire, he discovered this method was actually damn effective!
How much blood could these starving, emaciated poor people possibly have? Their terrible living conditions made their blood not only scarce but extremely poor quality. Compared to them, sucking the blood of a deer could be considered highly nourishing!
The only ones qualified to meet blood food standards were the fat-faced nobility or Church members.
"Squeak squeak squeak..." Two bats hanging upside down at the clock tower's edge were engaging in intimate activities. Probably before long, Norton's little family would welcome new members.Norton reached out and hung a completely skinned werewolf pelt from the clock tower's ceiling.
This was his harvest from this month's hunting expedition.
As he expected, those damn werewolf packs were still hunting him. Though their numbers had significantly decreased, he could confirm through scent that these were the same werewolves from the mountains around Holy Lord City.
"Following me this far! What exactly are you coveting from me?" Norton stretched the pelt flat to prevent wrinkling during drying.
His gaze focused on the still-blood-scented werewolf skin before him, showing some gravity.
The previous wolf pack ambush had left him utterly perplexed. Discovering these werewolves' traces still outside Rino City made this confusion weigh even heavier on his heart.
No beast would track thousands of miles to hunt prey with little meat, especially when they weren't lacking food.
Norton was also certain he had no grudges with these werewolves, since they were around the mass burial grounds outside Holy Lord City, while he lived above the cliffs.
What other reason could make these werewolves track him so frantically over great distances?
Norton felt it must relate to his vampire identity, or that vampires must have something that attracted these werewolves.
"Vampires, becoming more mysterious by the day." Norton increasingly felt Kuba was an idiot as a progenitor.
No inherited memories were one thing.
But he wasn't the only vampire in this world—why hadn't Kuba managed to gather a vampire community all these years as a progenitor?
It was God Caesar hanging on the cross, not vampire progenitor Kuba!
Norton finished hanging the wolf skin, then changed into his usual ragged full-body covering clothing, using the wide brim to conceal his crimson eyes before descending the clock tower stairs.
His life now followed a regular pattern.
Every day at dawn, after the streets were cleared of night's accumulated waste that people threw out, he would climb down from the clock tower, carefully choosing cleaner paths to walk while listening to pedestrians' conversations and feeling the crowd's vitality.
During this process, Norton could feel his gradually returning normal humanity, this psychologically healing illusion making him feel quite happy.
Additionally, he would use pedestrians' conversations to sketch out the general image of the Papal States and even this world, since his understanding was far too limited and he urgently needed information supplementation.
Generally, he would wander in the morning until afternoon, then approach Rino City's church slightly to secretly observe the personnel arrangements, defensive strength, number of Church Knights, weak points in defense, and shift changes.
Through each person's unique scent, even if these missionaries and Church Knights didn't show their faces, he could determine the approximate number of people in Rino City's church.
This observation was comprehensive. Norton felt he needed to understand the special characteristics of the vampire species, and undoubtedly the Church had the deepest research on vampires in this world.
So he wondered if he could find an opportunity to enter Rino City's church and find some books about vampires.
Of course, entry couldn't be so reckless.
He needed to plan carefully—if he entered the church rashly and got burned to ashes by God's cross, it would be disastrous!
Norton hadn't forgotten those vampire movie scenes where vampires turned to ash from silver items and sunlight.
Thanks to Rino City's management system, more wealthy people could go out and broaden their horizons, which also brought more information flow to Rino City and even Norton.
The best place for information exchange was the small tavern where Norton often stationed himself.
Ordering two bowls of beer and a plate of robin beans at the tavern between Rino City's slums and wealthy district allowed one to learn fresh news about the Papal States, though this "fresh" news might describe events from months ago—still, it was an information channel.
Of course, Norton couldn't afford drinks. He didn't even enter the tavern, instead pretending to be a beggar leaning against the tavern's outer wall, using his superhuman hearing to capture all conversations inside.
What a great deal!
"Sigh, the new Pope is probably a done deal. We might have some hard times ahead. I heard that one is a bit..."
"Trying to get yourself killed? Talking about this here!"
"Right, right. Hehe, come on, drink up!"
"Ah, brother, you have no idea. I went to the Boar Empire for business these past two years—their living standards are simply incomparable to ours! Their city scale, their magnificence, their living environment, that...ah, I don't know how those Boar people built it all. If our Church could have just one percent of their openness, then we..."
This one was clearly drunk, daring to recklessly discuss the Church.
Norton already saw people around getting up and secretly heading toward the Church direction—probably going to report them.
As expected, shortly afterward Norton saw two Church Knights enter the tavern.
Amid exclamations and pleas for mercy, within a minute a man who had wet his pants was forcibly dragged out of the tavern by two Church Knights.
The Boar Empire—Norton had heard this empire's name several times recently.
According to Rino City people's conversations, the Boar Empire seemed quite powerful with relatively open management systems, at least much more open than the Holy Lord Empire, meaning the Papal States.
As for its exact location and actual conditions, Norton didn't know.
He was more concerned about the previous topic.
The Pope seemed about to change.
He'd heard plenty about the Pope's replacement recently. With so many people discussing it, even whispered conversations reached his hearing faintly, giving him some understanding of this matter.
Over five months ago, the old Pope's Holy See became vacant.
All eight Purple-clad Cardinals of the Papal States rushed to the Vatican for papal elections. Now, over five months had passed.
Of course, the main reason for this lengthy duration was the excessive travel distance.
Considering each of these eight cardinals governed at least three provinces, the Papal States' territory was outrageously vast. Thus travel time naturally took much longer.
However, the Vatican's location at the Papal States' center created a stars-surrounding-the-moon configuration. Calculating by travel time and election duration, the papal position would likely be finalized within a month at most.
As the saying goes, a new official launches three fires. This new Pope wasn't someone easy to deal with either—probably meaning even more deteriorating livelihoods throughout the Papal States.
When livelihoods deteriorated, order would certainly become more chaotic than now. With chaotic order, supervision would definitely tighten. With tighter supervision, his comfortable life would become more difficult than presently.
So although Norton considered himself not a Papal States citizen, he was quite concerned about the papal election.
Truly a case of the emperor not worrying while the eunuch frets.