Chapter 8 :

<8>

On the Bongcheon-dong hill, where the redevelopment project had already ended and high-rise apartments now lined the streets, there stood one old, worn-down building.

While everything around it had been newly renovated into high-rise apartments, it alone clung to its body with ugly, outdated tiles. Moreover, its entrance faced away from the main road, making it an even more unlikely place for tenants. Song Deok-yeon’s hideout was in its basement.

“Come on, get in.”

“Ah, yes.”

As Se-geon stepped inside, his eyes widened.

At the entrance, piles of stuffed dolls and threads were stacked up, so he had assumed it must be some kind of factory, but the inside was neatly organized. Japanese swords, Korean swords, and all kinds of blades were densely mounted along the walls, and above them was a vajra that looked more like an antique than a weapon. On both sides were some rather suspicious-looking machines—devices, Se-geon did not really know much about them, but apparently for replacing and repairing gun barrels.

“How is it?”

“If the police come in, you’d be in handcuffs right away.”

That was Se-geon’s honest impression. In fact, even a gangster’s office would have looked more gentle than this.

“Why would the police come into my house? Without a warrant, it’s over.”

Saying that, Deok-yeon walked in and took off his shoes. Then he pointed to the room on the right.

“This is the room you’ll be using from now on. Of course, that’s if you clean it.”

“I see. But how do you find vampires, and how do you catch them?”

“You can’t even crawl yet and you’re already trying to fly. If anything, the vampire will catch you. Do you really think you can catch one?”

Deok-yeon brushed off Se-geon’s impatience with a single remark. From earlier, Deok-yeon had given Se-geon little explanation and only kept scolding him, but to Se-geon, everything was fascinating right now, so it did not bother him.

“There aren’t any talismans or anything. Do vampire hunters only use illegal weapons like those?”

“Our enemies keep wriggling even after being hit by bullets. Holy water doesn’t work very well either. Talismans are even more pointless.”

Deok-yeon said that meaningfully and looked at Se-geon.

“Did you bring your things?”

“I left my motorcycle behind. Well, I don’t really have much to bring, so I can just go get it quickly.”

“Really? Then bring it tomorrow. We’ll be starting proper training the day after tomorrow.”

After saying that, Deok-yeon headed toward his bedroom, then suddenly seemed to remember something and turned back to Se-geon.

“Clean your room first. Otherwise, you won’t have anywhere to sleep tonight.”

Hearing that, Se-geon opened the door to the room. As expected, Deok-yeon was not making empty threats. The floor itself was fairly neatly arranged, but that was only because what lay on the floor were not furniture or luggage, but ‘weapons’. It was certainly not because Deok-yeon had a clean personality. The room Se-geon stepped into was so messy that it was hard to tell whether it was a bedroom or a storage room.

Se-geon sighed quietly and began to tidy up the room.

On the condition that his living expenses would be supported by his uncle, Se-geon handed over both his father’s house and factory to that uncle. Han Gyu-il felt sorry toward his nephew, but as a businessman, he could not refuse the proposal.

Although Se-geon had been hurt by Han Gyu-il, he did not harbor resentment toward him. But when he came near the house and saw that most of the belongings had already been sorted out, tears suddenly welled up and spilled out. Even though he rode a motorcycle and had more courage than most, Se-geon was still a high school student.

For a high school student in the Republic of Korea who had grown up gently in a well-off household, this incident was far too cruel.

“Se-geon?”

At that moment, Se-jin, who was approaching with a bag, looked at Se-geon. Se-geon quickly wiped his tears and turned his head away.

“Unni?”

“Ah, why didn’t you listen to me?”

“.......”

Because Se-jin had an extremely bad relationship with her own father, she seemed very displeased that Se-geon had handed over the house. But without even offering him a single word of comfort, she was freely saying such presumptuous things. Se-geon truly hated his cousin sister’s indifference.

“I came to pick up my things. What about you, unni?”

“Mm. I came to meet you and persuade you. You haven’t gone through the official procedures yet, right? Then it’s not too late even now!”

Se-geon no longer listened to her. He first took out the RX-125 from the garage. The RX-125 was an off-road motorcycle, so it was not very suitable for carrying luggage, but with a single off-road touring bag that his older brother used to use, Se-geon could carry all of his belongings.

To be honest, he wanted to leave behind almost everything in this house, but he did not think that doing so would allow him to forget this incident.

“Se-geon! I’m doing this for you! You’re being used by my dad right now!”

Saying that, Se-jin kept following after Se-geon. From her perspective, she probably believed she was giving good advice for the sake of her beloved younger cousin and standing up against her vicious father, who was so consumed by ugly greed that he would even try to swallow up his own nephew. But from Se-geon’s point of view, she was the person he hated the most.

“Stop it. Right now, I hate you more than anyone else. Do you really hate your father that much? He’s obviously going to pass away before you do, and yet you hate him so much that you would even bad-mouth him to your cousin and manipulate things behind the scenes so everything falls apart? Don’t make me laugh. You say it’s for my sake? Knowing how I feel right now, how can you say something like that?”

“..... Se, Se-geon?”

“Shut up! I’d appreciate it if you’d never pretend to know me again! We won’t have any business with each other anyway!”

After snapping those words at her, Se-geon started the RX-125. Although the unfortunate accident that had happened to Se-geon was far from something ‘ordinary’, he was still not an orphan with no one in the world. But at this moment, Se-geon had completely severed every connection that tied him to his real life.

By the time Se-geon returned to Bongcheon-dong, to Deok-yeon’s hideout, it was not even lunchtime yet. Se-geon went into the room he had cleaned the day before and unpacked his belongings.

All he had brought with him were a family photo about the size of a 3×4 print that could fit into a pocket, the film, and a few sets of clothes. After putting his clothes into the wardrobe and placing the photo on top, Se-geon let out a sigh.

In the photo, his family stood together with blank expressions, the East Sea coastline behind them. It had been taken after they finally arrived, exhausted, during last summer’s vacation, after being stuck in heavy traffic and even suffering through a broken air conditioner, so it was only natural that their expressions were not pleasant. But only his good-natured older brother, Se-hyeon, was smiling toward the camera.

“To think this is the only family photo I brought ......”

Se-geon muttered to himself, feeling pathetic. Standing alone in the dark semi-basement room, Se-geon looked frozen like a doll. If Deok-yeon had not woken up and come looking for him, he might have gone insane while staring at the photo.

“Back already, Se-geon?”

“Ah, yes.”

Se-geon came back to his senses and looked at Deok-yeon. This former special forces sergeant seemed to fall asleep as soon as the sun rose, as if he himself were a vampire, and it looked like he had just woken up, judging from his drowsy, half-open eyes.

“It’d be better to start training tomorrow. Well, if there’s anywhere else you need to go, take care of it in advance.”

After saying that, Deok-yeon returned to his room.

“Anywhere to go?”

Se-geon sighed as he repeated Deok-yeon’s words to himself. There was no such place. He had never thought his circle of friends was that small, but ...... when something like this happened, there were no friends he could truly rely on. Still, he suddenly felt like riding his motorcycle. Turning the family photo, which showed rather joyless faces, face-down, Se-geon left his room behind.

* * *

The reason Deok-yeon had left Se-geon alone the previous day was not because he found Se-geon’s training bothersome, but because he wanted to be considerate of the boy who had lost his family at such a young age. However, there was no need to extend that consideration beyond a single day.

A vampire hunter is someone who must hunt an enemy called a vampire, an existence far stronger than oneself. In a modern society where no wars are being fought, there are not many people who live closer to death than they do. That was precisely why vampire hunters needed to train themselves.

Training began in the morning.

Deok-yeon, unlike his usual self, woke up with the sun and prepared breakfast.

Perhaps because it was the first day of training, the breakfast Deok-yeon prepared could be described as a concentrated mass of high protein, high calcium, and high calories.

Anyone who could digest something like this from the morning would have to be a very healthy person.

But Se-geon had no choice but to force himself to eat that kind of healthy food.

“That’s impressive.”

Se-geon replaced his true feelings with a remark that could be interpreted in many ways.

However, Deok-yeon only gave Se-geon a short piece of advice.

“I’ll take care of all the chores just for today. From tomorrow on, it’s your job. And the menu never changes at all, so stuff your face and memorize it.”

After breakfast, Deok-yeon took Se-geon to the Bongcheon-dong YMCA gym.

Perhaps an agreement about the place had already been made, because neither the manager nor anyone else tried to stop them.

After warming up lightly, Se-geon and Deok-yeon immediately began the training program.

“Jump rope. Two jumps per cycle for five minutes, three jumps per cycle for one minute, then two jumps again for one minute. Repeat this pattern for thirty minutes. You can handle jump rope, right?”

Deok-yeon said that and handed Se-geon the rope.

Se-geon took it and began skipping according to Deok-yeon’s instructions.

At first, it felt manageable, but before long he felt his heartbeat grow violent.

What Deok-yeon demanded was a terrifying amount of exercise that even a decent athlete would immediately give up on.

Although Se-geon had trained his body for a motocross license, there was no way he could keep up.

“Hah! You’re already collapsing from just this? Tuck your chin in, you bastard! Your jaw’s going to get smashed.”

As he said that, Song Deok-yeon actually struck Se-geon’s jaw.

Once it came to this, no matter how close to death he felt, he could not stop running. After all, it was better to suffer like he was dying than to actually die.

Se-geon ran in a daze, gasping for breath.

His breathing scraped against his jaw, his heart pounded wildly, and he felt as if blood might spill from his mouth.

Even so, Deok-yeon treated him brutally, as if it were not his own body.

“Stop panting like an idiot just because you’re jumping rope and use explosive power when you kick the ground. And straighten your back already. Do you want steel rods driven into your spine?”

Song Deok-yeon kept making unreasonable demands of Se-geon while hurling verbal abuse.

And whenever Se-geon failed to meet those demands and collapsed, fists and feet immediately flew at him.

“The vampires would laugh at you, you punk! Is the ground calling you to hug it, huh? You like the ground that much? Should I just bury you in it?”

Deok-yeon showered him with abuse and enthusiastically beat Se-geon.

Perhaps because of that, Se-geon was able to digest in one go an amount of exercise that would make even professional athletes suffer.

At this level, it would not be strange to call it a mystery of the human body, but for Deok-yeon, a former special forces soldier, it was an entirely natural result.

“We’re not done yet. Now we’re doing burpees (burpee test: placing both hands on the ground, kicking your feet back and lowering your body as if pressing your stomach to the floor, then returning to the original position), one hundred reps. Remember this: from now on, everything is one set of one hundred. There is no such thing as one hundred and fifty. If it increases from one hundred, it becomes two hundred, and from two hundred, three hundred!”

“...”

Se-geon could not say anything.

After already being exhausted from the jump rope, one hundred burpees sounded no different from being told to die.

But the passion on Deok-yeon’s face was intense enough that it would not have been strange for him to actually say “go die”.

After four hours of intense training, Se-geon and Deok-yeon returned to the hideout, ate a meal not much different from breakfast, and went to sleep.

Sleeping during the day was considered a kind of virtue for vampire hunters, since it meant adjusting their lifestyle to the activity cycle of their enemies.

But that was not the only reason Deok-yeon set the training schedule that way.

Because Se-geon was still in a growth phase, sleeping while growth hormones were being released through exercise was more effective.

The protein and testosterone consumed through meals triggered protein anabolism, increasing muscle mass, and at the same time the growth plates of each bone and muscle caused cell division, increasing height.

However, the day’s training did not end with that.

After taking a four-hour nap for cell division, he immediately got up and headed to the next training site.

Of course, Se-geon creaked like a poorly oiled machine while complaining about muscle pain, but because Deok-yeon’s creed was “make it work if it doesn’t work”, that was not much of a problem.

“Damn it. He’s too young to be fed steroids.”

Grumbling like that, Deok-yeon dragged Se-geon, who was screaming from muscle pain, and this time headed to a live-fire shooting range.

“Ah… are we using guns?”

Se-geon had been slumped in the passenger seat of a Pride sedan, but when he saw the sign for the live-fire range, he let out a sigh of relief.

If it was shooting, he would not have to overwork his body that much, he thought in relief.

Deok-yeon pulled Se-geon up to his feet.

“Follow me. First, let’s order some bulletproof and stab-resistant gear.”

At the entrance, Deok-yeon consulted with a staff member and had Se-geon’s body measured, then brought out a bulletproof and stab-resistant suit made of a Kevlar and dynamo blend.

Se-geon put it on and lightly thumped his chest once.

It was a little uncomfortable to move in, but considering the defensive performance, it was more than tolerable.

Then Deok-yeon spoke while putting on his own protective suit.

“It’s 380,000 won. Cheap to an excessive degree, considering the performance.”

“Eh? You have to buy it?”

“Even though I’m in charge of training you and most of the necessary expenses come from Father Sylvester, shouldn’t things like this be calculated separately?”

Deok-yeon said that and went into the live-fire range first.

Se-geon sighed, took out his debit card, paid for the armor, and followed him inside.

“All right, start with .22 caliber.”

“Yes.”

Se-geon received a CZ-75 (.22 caliber pistol) from the safety officer and was coached on pistol shooting posture and handling.

At first, he thought the recoil would be intense, but when he actually fired it, the recoil was not that strong.

He also tried a .357 Magnum, but just like the .22 caliber, it did not have the huge recoil people talked about in movies or comics.

However, even the light recoil of the .22 caliber was more than enough to reduce accuracy.

“Hmm. I can’t hit very well.”

Se-geon sighed while looking at the target.

Although the pistol was not zeroed, the fact that there was no shot grouping at all was entirely because Se-geon shot poorly.

But no matter how cold Deok-yeon might be, he did not place high expectations on a high school dropout who had never held a gun before.

“All right, then… follow me again.”

Deok-yeon said that and went out through the shooting range lobby to the parking lot.

Se-geon followed after him and let out another sigh.

He could somehow manage to follow today’s training, but if this repeated every single day, would he really be able to keep up?

That worry began to creep in.

Even after that, Se-geon’s training continued.

Urban combat training in abandoned factory districts, handling training for improvised explosives and various tools, all kinds of martial arts training, and study about the nature of their enemies, the vampires, went on without end.

Only around dawn could he finally go to bed.

“Then sleep well. You’ll wake up again in the morning anyway, so you’ll only get about four hours of sleep. That’ll be enough.”

Deok-yeon said that and threw the completely exhausted Se-geon into his room.

Se-geon lay flat on the floor without even spreading a blanket and stared at the ceiling.

He wondered if he might actually die here.

Even today’s training alone was so extreme that an ordinary person would never be able to endure such madness.

Could Se-geon, whose body had not even finished growing, really endure this kind of forced march from the very first day without any preparation?

But Se-geon thought of his family.

When he thought of his family, who had been brutally killed by vampires, most people would be consumed by a desire for revenge.

Unfortunately, Se-geon’s case was different.

The vampire who was his sworn enemy was already dead, and the only one left in the world was Se-geon himself.

He should have been angry, but the target of his revenge, the one who should receive that anger, was already dead.

That was why Se-geon had no choice but to turn that anger toward himself.

Every time he thought of his dead family, he reminded himself how much of a luxury it was that he was still alive, and how indulgent it was to complain about pain while doing intense exercise.

With those thoughts, Se-geon moved his body.

People often say that the mind transcends the body, but there was no phrase that suited Se-geon better than that.

“.....”

Se-geon quietly fell asleep.