Chapter 3 :

By luck, the shot hit the monster that burst out through the door, but after looking down at its own body, the creature ignored it and charged straight at Se-geon.

It had a human shape, but its arms and legs were abnormally long, and its eyes bulged out as if it were some kind of frog.

Se-geon instinctively rolled his body.

But there were stairs leading downward right there.

“Ahhhhh!”

Se-geon tumbled down, landing hard on his shattered shoulder.

The monster did not come down right away.

As if it were enjoying Se-geon’s fear, it slowly descended and planted both arms against the narrow stairwell walls.

Crack, crack, crunch!

With a sound like joints snapping, holes burst open in the walls and the monster’s arms plunged inside.

The creature was hanging there, clinging with both arms and both legs after smashing through the walls, like a child clinging to a doorstep.

Whether it was because of Se-geon’s misfired shotgun, or because of injuries it had suffered somewhere earlier, blood was still pouring endlessly from its torso.

“Ugh…!”

Se-geon struggled to move his body and picked up the shotgun. But a shotgun is a weapon meant to be held and fired with both hands.

With his left arm broken, there was no way he could properly use it.

“Ghh…!”

Se-geon raised the shotgun and aimed at the monster. There was only a single round left.

And as he had just seen, it was certain that it would not be very effective.

Then how could he possibly kill that thing? For a moment, he thought it might be better to wait for the police.

But if he let that thing get away now, he felt like he would regret it for the rest of his life.

It was the enemy who had destroyed his entire family.

“You…!”

His emotions were so overwhelming that no words came out.

Se-geon barely managed to steady himself. The hatred he felt toward that monster was beyond what words could describe.

But when he opened his mouth, only one line came out.

“You son of a b~itch!”

Spitting out the curse that boiled up from the depths of his body, Se-geon lifted his one good foot to prop up the underside of the shotgun and pulled the trigger.

Hoping it would hit like this would be greedy, but since it was buckshot, the blast still tore into the monster.

“Krragh!”

The monster briefly lost its grip with its arms and legs, toppled backward, and rolled down the stairs.

Before Se-geon could even dodge out of the way, the two became tangled together.

But Se-geon immediately pushed himself up and raised the shotgun with one arm.

“Hyaaa!”

Swinging the shotgun like an axe, Se-geon smashed it down onto the monster’s head.

Thud!

Blood sprayed as the monster’s head cracked open.

Se-geon went madly on a rampage, repeatedly beating the monster with the shotgun.

“Grrr…!”

But when the monster reflexively swung its arm, Se-geon’s left arm was torn clean off.

It had already been broken, but having an arm ripped away and blood bursting out like a fountain was something on an entirely different level.

“Aaaagh!”

Se-geon screamed and writhed on the floor.

To think that living human flesh could be cut away so easily. The power of this monster was far beyond normal.

It was like the force of an industrial press. There was no way Se-geon could withstand it.

And then—

Bang!

With a single gunshot, a gaping hole burst open in the monster’s side. Someone had fired without hesitation, even though Se-geon could have been hit.

Startled, the monster turned its head. At that instant, a flash of light passed across its neck.

Its head separated from its body, and blood sprayed out like a fountain.

“Ugh…”

Se-geon lifted his head and stared at the bizarre scene unfolding before his eyes.

A priest in black clothes, with silver hair, swung a huge claymore, straight out of a movie, and severed the monster’s head.

As if cutting off the head were not enough, the priest twisted his body and struck the monster again in the shape of a cross.

With a horrifying sound, the monster was completely split in two, its body torn apart.

“Uuugh…!”

After witnessing that sight, Se-geon lost consciousness. Praying that all of it was nothing more than a dream.

* * *

Empty cup-noodle containers were scattered everywhere.

In the middle of the room, Se-geon sat there, gaunt and skeletal, like a corpse.

Inside the pitch-dark room, where not even the lights were on, the only source of illumination was the glow leaking from a mobile phone.

Ring ring ring ring.

The phone was ringing like crazy.

The only light and sound in the silent room. And yet, Se-geon did not answer it.

By the time the police arrived, the monster’s corpse had already disappeared.

The priest in black, with silver hair, was gone as well. No—rather, it was as if such a person had never existed in the first place.

The only thing that seemed unquestionably real was that his arm had been severed.

Yet when he came to his senses, it was attached again.

Se-geon felt as though he had been possessed by a ghost. But it was also true that his parents and his older brother were all dead.

And it was also true that this was an extremely rare and grotesque murder case.

The police wrapped it up by saying that a dog had gone mad and rampaged.

There were far too many things that did not add up for it to be the work of a dog.

But could they really accept Se-geon’s testimony about a monster when there was no body?

When Se-geon told the police about the monster, their reaction could be summed up in one line.

“Did you take something?”

It seemed that the arrested biker gang had said something about Se-geon.

Because of that, the police regarded Se-geon as nothing more than a hopeless delinquent biker.

As a result, Se-geon had to undergo a full medical examination at the hospital.

Officially, it was because he was a survivor of such a horrific incident and needed a thorough checkup.

But no matter how naïve Se-geon might be, there was no way he could fail to realize that the real purpose was drug testing for psychotropic substances.

And for the following week, it was no exaggeration to call it media abuse.

Broadcasting stations filmed the blood-soaked interior of the house and chattered excitedly, as if the scene were some kind of spectacle.

They shoved microphones in front of Se-geon, who was only half conscious.

Of course, Se-geon openly pushed the cameras away and avoided the reporters.

Provoked by that behavior, the media outlets began coverage that was practically retaliatory.

Soon, neighbors and school friends appeared on television and spoke carelessly about him, as though he were already dead.

With the endless interview requests and visits, he was on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown.

Some weekly magazines even brazenly wrote articles implying that Se-geon had killed his family by accidentally firing a shotgun.

Seeing those reckless, speculative articles written in a “maybe it’s true, maybe not” style left him feeling more empty than angry.

In the end, since there were no charges against him, Se-geon was released.

He returned to his home, which had practically become a ruin.

The bodies were gone, but the house had been left in disarray, and the bloodstains had not yet been cleaned.

Se-geon eased his hunger with cup noodles and collapsed in his room.

There had been a funeral at the hospital morgue. But Se-geon shut himself in and never went outside.

About ten days passed like that.

Then one day, he heard a voice calling his name from in front of the door.

“Se-geon! Why aren’t you answering your phone? Han Se-geon!”

A familiar voice came from outside.

It belonged to Han Gyu-il, his uncle on his father’s side—the younger brother of his father, Han Seung-il. At the sound of his uncle’s voice, Se-geon jolted and snapped out of it.

His uncle, who had acted as the chief mourner in his place, was someone he could trust.

No—someone who would believe him. Thinking that, Se-geon ran outside to open the door. He was overwhelmingly glad to see him.

Clunk!

When he opened the heavy front gate—perhaps only because Se-geon himself had become so thin—a middle-aged man who had not even shaved was standing there.

After spending days running around for the funeral, contacting relatives, and taking care of countless matters, his uncle looked disheveled as well.

But when he saw Se-geon, who looked even worse, he burst into tears.

“My god, you little punk! How did you end up wasting away like this? You’ve become skin and bones, you fool!”

“U-uncle…”

“Come on. Get in. No more talk.”

Gyu-il practically dragged the unwilling Se-geon into his car and drove straight to a nearby restaurant.

“Eat. Just eat. What kind of disaster is this… But what can you do about it? The living have to go on living. Your brother didn’t die so you could follow him to the grave. And don’t think this kind of thing is filial piety in this day and age. Do you really think anyone would be happy if you keep acting like this?”

Staring down at the steaming bowl of seolleongtang in front of him, Se-geon could not hold back the tears that burst out.

He finished the meal in a daze, tears streaming down his face.

Perhaps because he had been starving for so long, he ate like a madman—so desperately that he truly looked pitiful.

“Hey… are you going to keep staying in that house? Come live with us. We’ve got a spare room. I might not be as well-off as your father was, but I’m not doing that badly either. If you come, I’ll make sure you go all the way through college.”

When Han Gyu-il made that bold promise, Se-geon fell silent.

With his grades, even getting into a four-year university would be a bit of a stretch.

He had always wanted to become a motocross racer, and he had never been very close to studying in the first place.

And considering that he used to hang around with biker gangs, it would have been stranger if he had been a good student.

“I’m grateful… but I…”

Se-geon trailed off and closed his mouth. Come to think of it, he had never been a very good son.

Was he afraid that even if he went to live with his uncle, he would still fail to become a good child?

The regret—something everyone ends up feeling sooner or later—stabbed painfully at his chest.

If only he had known he would lose his parents so soon, he would have listened to them just a little more.

“I’m not telling you to decide right now. There’s still plenty of time, so think it over slowly. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Yes.”

Se-geon answered and stood up.

Just a moment ago, he had been overflowing with thoughts of wanting to die. And yet, after only a single warm bowl of seolleongtang, his strength had returned.

Somehow, that felt pathetically small to him.

After parting with his uncle, Se-geon headed back home.

His uncle insisted on driving him back no matter what, but Se-geon politely refused and walked home on his own.

The moon was hidden behind clouds, and it looked like rain might pour down at any moment.

Se-geon looked up at the sky.

Raising his head after such a long time, he felt fresh air rush deep into his lungs.

“Ah…”

A flood of tangled emotions welled up inside him. Losing his family to such a monster—it still did not feel real.

If even he could not accept it as reality, how could anyone else believe him?

Thinking that, Se-geon let out a quiet sigh.

On a slightly sloping hill, beneath a streetlight glowing with a sodium lamp, a pitch-black Corvette coupe was parked.

Normally, he would have taken a long, interested look at it. But right now, Se-geon did not have the emotional space to care about cars.

Just then, however, the door of the coupe opened, and a man dressed in black stepped out. The silver-haired foreigner wearing priest’s robes looked familiar even to Se-geon.

“Ah—! You’re…?”

The man overlapped perfectly with the image of the silver-haired priest who had suddenly appeared on that night he did not even want to remember—the night he had nearly been killed by a monster.

The moment Se-geon looked at him, it felt as though he had been struck in the head.

He had doubted it himself, wondering whether it had all been a hallucination. And yet the man was standing right in front of him.

“Who on earth are you?”

“Keep your voice down.”

The silver-haired priest raised a finger and brought it to his lips. Perhaps because of Se-geon’s voice, dogs in the neighborhood began barking.

For someone who looked like a foreigner, his Korean was remarkably clean and natural.

But even more striking than that was his cold, detached tone.

“You really are a nuisance to the people around you. Don’t shout in the middle of the night. Are you feeling all right?”

As he spoke, his gaze moved to Se-geon’s arm. The very arm that had been severed.

Startled when he noticed the priest looking at it, Se-geon blurted out,

“Did you… reattach it? But how…?”

“This isn’t really the place to talk, is it? Well—how about it? Want a ride?”

The priest gestured toward his Corvette. Without complaining, Se-geon got into the car.

The pitch-black Corvette slid smoothly onto the road, so fluidly it seemed to melt into the night.

Driving skillfully, the priest in black glanced sideways at Se-geon.

“You look like a refugee.”

That was his blunt assessment after seeing Se-geon, who clearly had not even managed to bathe properly.

For some reason, Se-geon felt irritated and stared back at him.

“What are you, exactly? And what was that monster?”

“What do you think? Use your imagination.”

After hesitating, Se-geon answered.

“Don’t tell me… an exorcist?”

“You’re close.”

“Then was that monster… a vampire?”

“Correct.”

Se-geon could not feel happy at hearing the word “correct”. He was, after all, the victim himself.

But everything being discussed was so absurd and far removed from reality that it felt hollow.

He was afraid that if this conversation continued, he might end up being taken straight to a psychiatric hospital.

The Corvette entered the urban expressway. It was late, so there were not many cars.

The streetlights lined the road, illuminating the city like densely packed gravestones.

Holding the steering wheel with one hand, the priest looked at Se-geon.

“I’ll ask you directly. Did you drink a vampire’s blood?”

“Huh?”

Se-geon thought for a moment.

He remembered wildly beating the vampire with his shotgun during the scuffle. Blood had splattered everywhere. He might have had his mouth open at the time…

But why would that matter?

“Don’t tell me… am I going to become a vampire too?”

“If you drank the blood, it’s possible.”

“Then… this arm…”

Se-geon looked down at his left arm—the one that had been severed. It had clearly been broken, and then torn off by the vampire.

Yet when he regained consciousness, the arm had been reattached, and even the fracture had healed.

Only about ten days had passed since the incident. And yet there was not the slightest abnormality in a limb that had once been severed.

If Se-geon had become a vampire, the explanation would be simple.

“No. I reattached your arm.”

But the priest flatly denied it.

“I honestly don’t know. Everything was so chaotic—I can’t tell whether I drank any blood or not. Why? If I did drink it and became a vampire… would you kill me too?”

“You already know the answer to that better than anyone.”

The priest did not deny it. No—his voice, utterly devoid of warmth, was stronger than any direct affirmation.

Hearing those words, Se-geon dropped his head.

“Damn it… damn it…”

After losing his family, now he himself might become the very monster that had killed them?

Se-geon could not stop the tears from spilling out. He did not want to cry in front of a foreigner whose name he did not even know.

But when something cannot be controlled, it means it truly cannot be held back by one’s will.

Watching Se-geon cry, the priest shook his head lightly.

“Hm. Looks like I was worried for nothing.”

He turned the steering wheel and changed direction.