Following the hidden, moss-covered path behind Gilbert’s house, Charles cautiously made his way deeper into the town.
A commotion of frenzied shouts, tuneless singing, and clanging weapons soon caught his attention.
On the main road beneath the stone arch bridge, crowds of residents armed with torches, pitchforks, machetes, and farm tools pressed into service as weapons were surging toward a central square like sheep driven by some invisible force.
They hummed a twisted, hoarse hunting hymn as they went.
The words were difficult to make out, but its rhythm was steeped in violence.
“Yharnam’s own version of a ‘bonfire party’? Maybe I should take a look.”
Charles decided to follow the crowd for the time being.
Wherever people gathered, information was bound to gather with them.
Perhaps he could pick up some clue about the Healing Church or Paleblood.
As he crossed the bridge, his sharp eyes caught sight of a suspicious figure at the corner of a descending staircase ahead.
The man was pressed close against the wall, trying to disappear into the shadows, completely unaware that a nearby puddle clearly reflected his furtive silhouette.
Better to strike first.
Charles closed the distance without a sound, moving like a ghost.
The mechanism in his Threaded Cane gave a soft click, and the long whip snapped outward like a living venomous snake, wrapping precisely and viciously around the man’s thick neck.
With a powerful yank, Charles dragged him from his hiding place like a sack of rags.
Before the man could cry out, Charles drove a heavy knee into his stomach, instantly robbing him of both the strength to resist and the breath to make a sound.
Click!
With a turn of the grip, the whip instantly retracted into its compact, solid cane form.
Charles raised the cane high and brought it down with cold finality.
There was a dull thud.
The man on the ground stopped moving.
Charles felt no urge to show mercy to someone who had so obviously been lying in wait with hostile intent.
Even without his memories, he knew on some instinctive level that he had never been a compassionate saint.
Right now, survival was his only concern.
“Once you’ve chosen a life of hunting and being hunted, don’t blame me for being ruthless.”
He coldly kicked the corpse out of his way, then flicked his cane to shake the thick blood from its tip.
Continuing down the stairs, he reached a somewhat wider landing and encountered two more men.
The same twisted pattern embroidered on their clothing as on the man he had just killed immediately put Charles on guard.
Accomplices?
Members of some particular group?
One of them looked him over casually through cloudy eyes.
“Who are you? What happened to the man guarding the stairs up ahead?”
Charles’s killing intent rose at once.
There was nothing to discuss.
He lunged forward, the cane thrusting out like a venomous snake striking its prey.
Its hardened tip punched straight through the man’s crude leather armor and tore through his beating heart, giving him no chance to react or call for help.
“You bastard! What did you do?!”
The other man’s eyes went wide with fury as he charged forward to help his companion.
Thud!
Thud!
The heavy impacts were enough to make one’s teeth ache.
Charles swung the cane as though it were alive, alternating rapid thrusts and blows.
He broke through the wooden shield his opponent had hastily raised, then smashed the cane into the man’s temple.
Though the fight ended quickly, the brief sounds of combat and the bodies hitting the ground inevitably drew the attention of several residents on the street below.
“What’s going on up there?”
Several armed men hurried toward the noise.
The moment they saw their companions lying dead on the ground, rage consumed them, a bloodthirsty red gleam flashing in their eyes.
“Damn outsider! He’s in league with the Beasts!”
“Kill him! Make him pay for our brothers!”
Their eyes burned with fury.
In this part of town, they were normally the ones who bullied and Hunted anyone caught alone.
How could they tolerate an outsider challenging them like this?
Charles coldly surveyed the four or five men closing in around him and quickly assessed the situation.
They carried nothing more than farm tools and crude machetes, but there were too many of them, and they were already worked into a frenzy.
He had to seize the initiative.
He could not afford to get trapped in a drawn-out fight.
Click!
The Threaded Cane transformed once more, unfolding into a serrated metal whip that gleamed coldly with death.
It swept through the group like a deadly burst of metal.
The whip tore the weapons from the hands of the first two men to charge while carving bloody furrows of varying depth across their exposed arms and chests.
Skin split open and flesh peeled back beneath the jagged edges.
“Aaagh! You filthy outsider! He’s using dark magic!”
“I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands! I’ll drink your blood!”
Blood poured freely from their torn wounds.
The pain only drove them further into madness, but it also shattered what little formation they had.
Charles gave them no chance to recover.
Taking advantage of their confusion, he raised the Hunter Pistol in his other hand and fired repeatedly.
“Bang! Bang!”
The scorching Quicksilver Bullets, mixed with his blood, slammed into the disarmed, agonized thugs at close range, breaking both their will to fight and their bodies.
Their desperate, futile screams faded one after another as their hearts stopped and they collapsed into pools of blood.
Despite being badly outnumbered, Charles had reversed the situation in the space of a few breaths.
He stood among several corpses that were still twitching, breathing a little harder than before.
Warm drops of blood fell from the Threaded Cane in his hand, striking the steps with clear, rhythmic drips as silence returned.
Charles swept the area with a detached glance, then began searching the bodies with practiced efficiency for spoils.
Blood Vials, bullets, anything else that might prove useful.
On this Night of the Hunt, mercy was a luxury, and survival demanded payment in blood.
Rustle.
The smell of blood had yet to fade from the damp air when, not long after Charles left, several indistinct figures began appearing one after another beside the pile of gradually stiffening corpses, like hyenas drawn by the scent.
They frowned as they exchanged wary, grim looks, speaking in hushed voices.
“It only just ended. There was a fight here, and it was vicious.”
“Whoever did this was strong. Look at the scene. They killed this many people in moments without giving any of them a chance to call for help.”
“Did anyone see the killer’s face?” asked a late arrival between breaths, gripping a bloodstained cleaver tightly in his hand.
The others shook their heads.
Anger showed clearly on their faces, mixed with a trace of fear they could not quite hide.
“By the time we got here, there was no sign of anyone. Just bodies, and they were still warm.”
One man crouched and carefully inspected the wounds.
His fingers passed over a neck torn apart by the long whip and a chest pierced through by the cane.
“Brutal and precise. Almost every wound was fatal in a single strike. Whoever did this was professionally trained. Could’ve been one of those ruthless executioners from the Healing Church, or an experienced Hunter.”
“Bah! Far as I’m concerned, these bastards got what they deserved!”
A thin man with bruises on his face spat at the corpses in disgust.
“They were always banding together and using their numbers to prey on anyone alone or weaker than them. Bullying, robbing, taking whatever they wanted. There was nothing they wouldn’t do.”
“Even if they did wrong, they’re still people from our town. Their blood’s still warm!” another man argued, his voice conflicted.
“What, you planning to seek justice for them? Go find whoever killed them?” the thin man asked mockingly.
“That would be a waste of time, and we don’t even know what we’d be dealing with. Don’t forget why we gathered here in the first place!” a calmer voice cut in.
An old man with snow-white hair and beard but remarkably sharp eyes raised one hand, stopping the argument before it could escalate further.
“Here, tonight, death is nothing unusual. There’s no point arguing over who’s right or wrong. Let’s get to the central square. Any later, and all the good places at the front will be taken.”
“The Hunt… is about to begin.”
The group exchanged looks.
Fervor and anticipation quickly returned to their eyes.
They could not even be bothered to deal with the bodies of their companions.
Instead, they turned and hurried away, as though summoned by some invisible horn, merging into the stream of people heading toward the square and leaving the scene of death behind.
…
…
Author’s Note:
Additional Plot and Character Details: The Original Blood Minister Chapter
During the work of certain technically skilled fans, such as those who reverse-engineered the game’s installation files, several alternate story segments were uncovered.
The original opening dialogue between the Blood Minister and the protagonist went as follows:
“Welcome, weary traveler, to the great city of Yharnam.”
“The trouble that brought you here is a disease afflicting your homeland. Both you and your loved one have been affected, almost as though by a curse.”
“But there is still hope.”
“In Yharnam, blood is used as a form of exchange. Rather unusual, isn’t it?”
“It is the only thing that can cure you.”
“Come. Let us seal the contract.”
“Very good. The contract is sealed. Now, let us begin the blood transfusion.”
“Don’t worry. Before long, you’ll feel like a new person, as though it had all been nothing more than a Nightmare.”
This deleted alternate storyline not only makes it clear that the player character came to Yharnam in search of treatment, but also establishes that many other outsiders came for the same reason.
Yet from the game’s official release all the way through to its ending, this mysterious Blood Minister never appears again, almost as though he had never existed at all.
Even so, the cut story material still contains clues that may explain why the Blood Minister was removed from the main narrative.
For example, a deleted voiceover from the “Sunrise in Yharnam” ending included the following line:
“Yes, yes. See? You woke up from a Nightmare, didn’t you?”
This line was originally intended to reveal that the protagonist’s reason for coming to Yharnam, as well as everything that followed, was directly connected to a Nightmare brought on by the blood transfusion.
In other words, everything we experience during the game.
After the “Sunrise in Yharnam” scene, the protagonist would have awakened to discover that they were still inside the original clinic, where they would encounter the Blood Minister once again.
The developers ultimately chose not to use this version of the story and discarded the idea instead.
Perhaps they felt that blurring the boundary between reality and dreams would better preserve the game’s distinctive atmosphere.
This choice was not only tied to the game’s mechanics, but also to an important aspect of how New Game+ functions within the story.
These mechanics will be explored in detail in later chapters, so I will leave them aside for now.
The game was developed under considerable time pressure leading up to release, and its story was continuously being revised and refined.
This may explain why certain details appear contradictory or inconsistent when compared across different parts of the narrative.
Even so, for us as the audience, the most important thing is still being able to follow the overall narrative smoothly and become immersed in the work as a whole.