"What… are you doing?" Maxwell asked curiously, seeing Dante take a backpack from the chest.
"Taking a few things." Dante answered casually while opening the bag.
It contained a few outfits and a small knife.
'Good, everything is there.'
That was Fafnir's bag, which he left here when he started running.
Behind the chest, Dante found a one-handed longsword. It looked sharp and durable, and it was the sword that the dragons had given to Fafnir.
Unfortunately, in his miserable state after all his regressions, Fafnir hadn't even thought about taking his sword with him while running.
Elizabeth tilted her head: "What about the owners of this house? Did they allow this?"
Dante's expression darkened as he answered: "No, but she can't do anything about it. After all… I killed her."
Their jaws fell in disbelief at his words, but surprisingly, they didn't try to do anything to him.
Dante sighed inwardly: 'As expected, this world is too lenient regarding humans killing. They are likely surprised by the fact that I, a young boy, killed someone, not the act of killing itself.'
If that was Dante's past world, people would have avoided him, attacked him, or called police upon hearing this, but these four weren't shaken by that.
They all knew that outside a civilization, humans would show their real, ugly nature. It was only natural for anyone to kill when they felt threatened by other humans.
But, they all shared a question that they had to know the answer to.
'Did he kill in self-defense or was it for her belongings?'
As if guessing their thoughts, Dante continued: "She wanted to kill me. She chased me and even said that she would turn my eye into a necklace and sell my body."
Immediately, they all looked at Elizabeth. Seeing her nodding with a grim face, their expressions turned into disgust.
"And you want to kill me for being a vampire? Look at what your fellow human wanted to do. If there was a race that must be wiped out, it would be human!"
"She, she is an exception!"
"Yeah, don't compare us to her. And you should be grateful we didn't kill you!"
As they continued fighting, Dante finally stopped searching in the chest, taking a silver axe and two letters out of it.
The letters didn't have any dates, but one of them seemed older than the other. Thus he decided to read the new-looking one first.
[``This will be my last message for some time. In a few days, I'll finally have a class. My instructors are saying I have a high chance to get a mage class! Can you believe that?
If this happens, I'll go to one of the Exalted Hall and earn a lot of money after graduation. We won't need to live in the forest anymore!
Take care of yourself until then. I love you!``]
'Exalted what?'
Dante tilted his head in confusion and started reading the other message.
[``Mom, I think I love one of the older students, but I don't know what to do. Do you have any advice? And please take this seriously!``]
Dante frowned upon reading the second message:
'Student? The other message talked about instructors, as well. Is this related to the academy?'
Dante folded the messages and looked at the four people in front of him, his gaze focused especially on the golden-haired girl.
'Can this girl know if I am telling the truth?'
He didn't fail to notice that she always nodded to them whenever he said anything. The ability to detect lies didn't seem logical for Dante, but he knew that he couldn't use his own logic in this world.
There was also something strange about her.
Dante focused on her eyes, seeing a strange color of pale grey. He noticed that her eyes never followed her actions, as if they weren't used at all.
'She is blind, or at least has a problem in her eyes. Well, this isn't really my problem.'
Dante suddenly cleared his throat, attracting their attention, and asked: "What is that academy you talked about? What is its purpose?"
Selena's eyes lit up with a glimpse of hope as she explained: "It's a place to teach the young children some general subjects. Most academies accept people between the ages of 12 and 15. As for those who are older than 15 and have already received their class, they must find an institution depending on their category."
Seeing Dante's confusion, Skylar continued instead of her:
"You don't know too much about classes, right?"
Seeing Dante nod, Skylar continued:
"Basically, your class can be anything. You might become a scholar, hunter, author, mage, swordsman, sorcerer, farmer and so on. As you can notice, they are all different from each other, but some classes have similar aspects. Thus, the classes are falling under some categories where each category has its own places of learning."
Dante kept nodding: "Something like mage and sorcerer, right? They should be under the same category."
Skylar nodded proudly: "Yes, you got it right. For reference, there are two famous institutions to learn magic arts. The first being the Five Elemental Towers in the central region, and the second is the Exalted Hall in the northern region. Oh, we are already in the northern region, in case you didn't know."
"Yeah, I didn't know." Dante said honestly.
Literally everything they said was new to him. He was glad that he could learn a few things from a few conversations.
"Are you interested in attending a place to learn? You can enter any institution you want depending on your class category if you show your crown, and I can recommend some to you." Maxwell asked.
"No, I was only curious." Dante shook his head, causing Maxwell's eyes to fall in disappointment.
'This damn race!'
Obviously, Dante really wanted to learn, but he couldn't due to his sensitive race.
He was lucky enough to see people who didn't notice anything wrong about him yet, but would that case be the same if he went to a place that focused on teaching magic?
Dante sighed helplessly and continued searching the house. Eventually, he got some good stuff.
'40 silver coins and 150 bronze coins in the chest, a lot of clothes in the closets, some frozen meat and water in the thing that looks like a fridge, some salt on the table, five unused torches on the ground, a few ropes, and finally, a heavy blanket! I'm rich!!'
Dante was really satisfied with his harvest, especially the meat. How long had it been since the last time he had eaten meat?
Years!
But unfortunately, after all his searching, he couldn't find a map.
Seeing Dante frowning, Maxwell asked: "What's the matter? Is there something I can help with?"
Dante scratched his head: "She kept talking about selling me, so there must be a town or anything nearby. I hoped I'd find a map here."
Maxwell, Selena and Elizabeth couldn't do anything. How could they help when they themselves needed a map?
"I think there is a village nearby." Skylar said, looking at Maxwell and Selena with a smirk: "I can lead you there if you want. Unlike these three, I'm not lost."
"Mr. Vampire, you are the best!" Elizabeth shouted happily, but Dante stayed silent for a moment.
"Can you only tell me the direction? I can go there alone."
Skylar sighed inwardly: 'It's not like I don't understand his trust issues, but don't I look trustworthy?'
Clearing his throat, Skylar said: "We are all going in the same direction, so you won't be alone even if I told you. But don't worry, so long as I'm with you, these two humans won't be able to harm you."
Dante hesitated, but eventually, he accepted.
Although he didn't trust any of them, he had his shadow to protect him from any sudden attacks.
Looking at the items he got from the house, Dante thought: 'Where am I supposed to put these things? Should I use the ring in front of them?'
None of them looked ready to leave Dante alone, so he couldn't do that secretly. But leaving those things would be a waste…
'Yeah, screw that. A magical ring can't be a bigger problem than being a demon.'
Making up his mind, Dante quickly summoned his ring, stored everything, and rapidly returned the ring.
Of course, all of them except Elizabeth noticed the sudden disappearance of those items.
"Did all these things just disappear?"
"D-do you have Space Aspect?"
"Huh? What do you mean by disappeared? What happened?"
No one noticed his ring, so Dante ignored them and went to the door, finally leaving the house. His gaze landed on Skylar as he asked: "Can you lead the way, please."
Skylar shook his head: "Not now. First, we need to..."
Pointing at Dante, he continued: "Well, clean all the blood covering you! And can you smell yourself, my brother? You smell like shit!"
Dante smelled himself, ignoring the blood.
He smelled… just like his old body.
'I feel offended.'