“I’m so sorry for the trouble…”

“What…”

“The massacre of your cattle is my daughters' doing. But as their father, I, too, had my part in the responsibility for not looking after them. We are all held accountable for the losses we have caused you.”

I'm thoroughly confused by the vampire's manners, and the way he spoke to me was unexpectedly polite. Wasn't he supposed to attack me? I never thought that nocturnal beasts are also capable of civil interactions without the need to draw blood first. Or was this a trap?

He then turns towards his children, “Girls, what have I taught you when you are out on a hunt?”, he asked them in a lowered but stern voice.

The eternal young girls bowed their heads in shame. Finally, the eldest spoke, “We must not all target the herds of a single farmer and attack all at once.”

“We are sorry for… killing your cows”, the middle peeped, daring not to look up from the ground, her bangs covering half her eyes.

“We were too hungry”, the youngest weakly protested, but as soon as she met her father's gaze, she zipped her mouth.

After hearing what his daughters had to say, the vampire turned back at me, “They killed ten dairy cows and four newborn calves from your farm. Each livestock is worth 80 to 100 coins.” Just as I was wondering how he could know the exact number of dead cows without siding a glance, the vampire raised a hand and summoned a heaving leather bag tinkling with pieces of metal inside.

He steps forwards to set the bag on the ground at a safe distance from me as if to not cause any fright.

“I hope this money covers all of the losses your farm had to endure from my daughters' mistake”, he told me, “I will make sure this incident will not happen again. My girls have learned their lesson, and I hope we can settle this once and for all. Thank you, and good night.” With a blink, they all vanished. I look up to see four bats spread their wings and fly away into the veil of the night.

I then tilted down and walked over to the leather bag the vampire put ahead of me moments ago, carefully untying and opening it. I knew there were indeed coins in it, but it still shocked me that the vampiric man was true to his words.

What a strange night.