Ch. I: Departure ― Episode 4: Rumors

―A Call from the East.―

Victor allowed himself a brief rest in his hotel room before deciding to venture out into the city. From what he had glimpsed earlier, the changes wrought by time felt greater than he had anticipated.

After informing the front desk of his departure, he stepped outside. Along the main street rose a succession of imposing buildings, standing together like a colossal stone rampart.

Across from him was a bank; beside it, a post office; farther along, what appeared to be a law office. A black carriage passed by, its horses’ hooves striking the cobblestones in a steady, rhythmic cadence.

―In other words, this is the heart of the city, and these streets are its arteries and veins.

The realization came to him at once. The city, built of cold stone, suddenly seemed less like a collection of structures and more like a vast living organism.

And with that thought, an odd idea surfaced in his mind.

―If humans move within the blood vessels of a giant creature,

－then it would not be strange if something else lived within the blood vessels of humans themselves.

The thought, rare for him, captured his imagination.

Victor felt a quiet thrill, unconsciously clenching and unclenching his fingers―then caught himself.

―Ah yes. I am not 'alive,' after all…

Still, it has been a long time since I felt this kind of exhilaration.

“Today, I shall flow through the city’s veins,” he murmured aloud.

“Not to drain them―but to pass through.”

With that, he set off down the street, his steps light and buoyant.

******

After walking the boulevard for some time, the road began to branch and narrow.

The austere stone façades of banks and public offices gave way to refined cafés, taverns, tailors’ shops, and bookstalls.

At each corner, voices seemed to linger in the air.

Laughter.

Sighs.

Rumors.

Victor deliberately slowed his pace. A vampire’s ears could easily isolate human voices if he wished―

but now, he made no effort to listen closely. Instead, he surrendered himself to the murmur of the city, as one might sense the warmth of blood flowing through veins.

―Fascinating.

Rumors, in any era, possess a peculiar vitality.

Facts are no more than a bare skeleton. They are fleshed out, exaggerated, infused with fear and expectation, and carried into every corner of the city―like nutrients, or perhaps like poison.

At the entrance of a tavern, men spoke in hushed tones.

“…Did you hear about what happened last week? At night?”

“Again? Probably just a drunk seeing things.”

In a café where women gathered, whispers drifted through the air as they hid their mouths behind fans.

“They say his face looked as though all the blood had been drained.”

“How dreadful. How unsettling.”

Victor halted for just a moment.

―A face as though the blood had been drained.

The phrase echoed quietly within him.

Strangely, it stirred no unease―only the sensation of hearing about something long past, as if it belonged to someone else.

―I doubt a creature like myself could be in this city…

And yet, he understood. Rumors do not require truth.

What they require is nameless anxiety—and a story to contain it. The larger a city grows, the more desperately people seek explanations. When none can be found, they invent anomalies.

A faint smile touched Victor’s lips.

―I see. Even as the ages advance, humans remain unchanged.

He resumed walking, his footsteps pressing softly against the stone.

The rumors slipped past him like blood through veins, flowing onward behind him and ahead of him alike. No one yet realized that he stood at their center. ―Not yet.

******

That evening, Victor once again chose places where people gathered.

Taverns.

The dining halls of cheap lodgings.

Cafés whose lamps burned late into the night.

Rumors naturally settle in such places. Drink, fatigue, and boredom loosen tongues and blur memories.

Victor lingered quietly in one establishment, then another, listening without drawing attention.

Before long, he noticed that the same kind of tale was being repeated, each time in a slightly altered form.

“…They say they heard the sound of hooves in the night.”

“Hooves? In the middle of the city?”

“Only the sound drew closer. They never saw anything.”

At another table, an older man spoke in a low voice through a veil of cigarette smoke.

“An old story. Long ago, people came here from the East.
They rode horses, drew bows, and drank liquor as dark as blood at their night camps.”

Victor stopped.

―From the East.

The words knocked softly against a door deep within him.

“They didn’t remain in the city. Or perhaps they couldn’t. But some say… their blood remained.”

It was told like a joke, yet no one dismissed it outright.

Victor searched the depths of his memory―
long before he had sealed himself within stone castles, back when he still found meaning in living long.

Night grasslands.

Campfires.

The scent of leather and fur.

An age when humans and something not quite human mingled indistinctly. They did not fear blood.

Blood was not taboo. It was power, lineage, and prayer. Not something to be taken―but something to be shared, to bind.

******

Suddenly, Victor realized something.

The anomaly spoken of in this city’s rumors was not linked to coffins, castles, or aristocrats of the night.

Instead, what people spoke of were:

―The sound of hooves.

―Moving shadows.

―Beings that did not settle.

―Those who vanished, leaving only the trace of blood behind.

"Similar to me… and yet, not the same."

That difference strangely reassured him―and drew him in all the same.

If the subject of these rumors truly existed, it might be another long-lived being who had chosen a different path.

One who did not remain in a castle,

Nor bind themselves to a city,

But continued to move with the flow of time.

******

Victor gazed out the window. The streets pulsed with a different life than they had by day.

―Those who go east.

―Those who depart.

―Those who choose their path alongside blood.

For a long time, Victor had chosen to remain. But now, through the medium of rumor, the past was calling to him―quietly, insistently.

―Come this way.―

******

He set his glass down. The gesture felt remarkably similar to the moment he had decided to leave on his journey.

―Central Asia.

The words slipped from his lips, barely forming a sound.

A journey to trace the origins of blood itself―
to lands where the boundary between human and anomaly had not yet been fixed.

The city’s rumors would eventually fade.

But within Victor, they had already become signposts.

The flow of the veins was now unmistakably pointing east.

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© 2026 Kaori Yumesaki. All rights reserved.

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Next Episode: Chapter I: Departure ―

→ Episode 5 : Encounter

Guided by enigmatic rumors, Victor resolves to travel east―toward Central Asia.

An ominous presence lingers in the air, and it seems he will continue the journey alone…

―or so he believes. But……

Along the way, he comes face to face with an unexpected companion.