Chapter 18 :

<18>

"Mm."

What Se-gun saw when he opened his eyes was a flickering fluorescent light. It was an old tube light fitted into a shade hanging from the ceiling by a chain—something rarely seen these days.

Se-gun stared at the light, then looked around. He must have been hungry and lost consciousness after bleeding a little. If that were the case, a holding cell at the police station would have been the natural outcome… so why was he in a place like this?

"Hm?"

When Se-gun shifted his body, a roll of toilet paper fell from behind his back. Earlier, in an attempt to stop the bleeding from the shallow knife wound, someone had simply pressed the roll against the injury. Luckily, it had only pierced the skin. If he had trusted such first aid with a kidney wound, he would have become a corpse on the spot.

Se-gun rubbed his eyes and looked around. The walls were plastered with celebrity posters torn from various places, along with photos cut out from sports newspapers. The densely layered images of entertainers formed something like a pantheon—a chaotic shrine of idols.

Was this how a barbaric crusader must have felt, stomping in with muddy boots into a beautiful mosque? Se-gun was experiencing culture shock.

The girls who seemed to live in this temple were tangled together under random blankets in the room. Judging by the condition of the blankets, they hadn’t touched water since being laid on this floor. The girls sleeping there looked like runaways.

If Se-gun hadn’t smashed the men to pieces, they would have been tangled up here too. But since the men had all been hauled off to the police station or hospital, only the girls remained.

"Damn. It’s no different from a pigsty."

As he said, the room truly was a pigsty. The only organized thing in the room was the neatly stacked butane gas canisters in the corner. Seeing the empty cans piled tightly by type, it wouldn’t have been strange if the house exploded at any moment.

"Ah… you’re awake…?"

Perhaps because Se-gun was rustling, one of the girls opened her eyes. She looked at him, brushed her hair back, and wiped the sleep from her eyes.

"My apologies. I’ll leave."

Se-gun tried to get up. But perhaps because he was hungry, dizziness returned. At that moment, she grabbed his hand.

"You were stabbed. If you go out. Are you okay?"

"……"

She spoke in an awkward, disjointed way, and Se-gun found his hand held by her. He sat back down on the dusty, musty blanket. For some reason, she smiled foolishly and moved closer to him.

"Ah, um… want to sleep together?"

"Ugh."

Her bluntness made Se-gun bite his tongue. But she approached him as naturally as she had done everything else so far. Looking at her dazed expression, Se-gun returned the exact line the police had once said to him.

"Did you sniff thinner or something?"

Anyway, being suddenly invited to have sex in a place like this would fluster anyone. Unless someone was starving beyond reason, there was no reason to accept. Se-gun pushed her away and walked toward the door. She looked at him, startled.

"Why?"

"I’m hungry. It won’t stand."

Se-gun shook his head after saying that. He had just made up an excuse because nothing came to mind, but she seemed to accept it. Even among runaways who treated mixed sleeping as casually as eating, there were apparently many who suffered from not being able to perform.

Under other circumstances, it might have been funny. But Se-gun found it hard to accept the situation he was in.

He had brutally crushed people who had nothing to do with him, simply because they picked a fight.

Was he going insane?

Distrust of himself crept slowly up inside his chest. Still, it wouldn’t be strange if he had gone mad.

His family had died before his eyes. He had personally shot someone whose guilt or innocence he didn’t even know. It would be stranger if he were sane.

He didn’t know what this foolish girl was thinking, but if she told the police where he was—or if the men he had beaten decided on revenge—it would become troublesome. He didn’t want to stay long.

"Hm. I guess I should go get something to eat. I’ll head out. And… sorry about smashing your boyfriends."

"It’s fine. Boyfriends, yeah right…"

She stood up after saying that. To her, this young man was the reality she had been searching for. She couldn’t let him leave before learning his name or phone number.

"Let’s go together."

"I’m the one who decides that."

"Hm?"

"No. Never mind."

Se-gun opened the door. Cold air flowed in. After breathing the toxic air inside—thinner fumes, butane gas, and other chemicals that made the room feel like a warehouse for hazardous materials—stepping outside made even his mind feel clearer.

"Cough, cough."

But the girl coughed repeatedly. Her bronchial tubes seemed badly damaged. Se-gun looked at her, then raised his head. The sky in the east was beginning to brighten. Between tall church spires and utility poles, Seoul’s sky looked small enough to fit in his palm.

"The sun’s already rising."

"Ah, um…"

"But why are you following me? You should get some more sleep."

Se-gun shrugged at her. Come to think of it, she was the very girl who had said he looked like Kurt Cobain when they first met in front of the station. She made no effort to hide her goodwill toward him.

"No. Just… in case you get lost."

"As if. I’m not a kid."

Se-gun replied like that. But he could tell she had no ill intent. Like a fervent fan worshiping a pop star.

Se-gun and Jin Yu-mi headed to a nearby convenience store. They poured hot water into cup noodles, opened sandwiches, and looked out the window. People heading to school or work passed by—people living with clear purposes, at least for the day. The two of them sat at the table, blankly watching.

In that sense, they were very similar. Maybe that was why? Even sitting together in silence made them feel slightly calmer. It wasn’t comfort. Just a sense of kinship—an odd sense of belonging. Maybe that was why humans were such fragile beings.

Just knowing that someone else stood in the same position brought reassurance. Conversely, being alone with no one at the same level made one weak… and so Se-gun chose her as someone to talk to.

"I was going to look for a job. Wasted the whole day."

He muttered that while splitting his wooden chopsticks. Jin Yu-mi knew, having seen him flipping through job listings the day before.

"Is your wound okay?"

"It’s just about seven centimeters of torn skin. It’d be better to stitch it, but I can’t do that. It’ll probably heal if I wait. I’m more worried about the hole in my only autumn coat."

He finished his sandwich as he spoke. After eating breakfast, energy returned to him, and the way he had cried and grieved before now felt ridiculous. Emotions take precedence over everything when they surge, but once the torrent passes, only pathetic muddy water remains. Even the most noble feelings leave behind mud—it was no different for Se-gun.

"I’m Jin Yu-mi…."

"I didn’t ask." 

Se-gun said bluntly.

* * *

That day as well, Kim Seong-hee was keeping the counter at Arjuna. Wiping the display window with a dry rag, rearranging merchandise, and dusting, she wiped the sweat from her forehead and looked outside.

"Should I hire a part-timer?"

If she could have, she would have done so already. But her business straddled the line between legal and illegal. Hiring someone wasn’t something she could do carelessly. There was no one she could trust.

The autumn morning sunlight was tinted by the colored glass. She paused her work and gazed outside. And then—vroom.

A black Corvette coupe appeared through the alley. A metal body forged in a factory, veins feeding into a heart that roared with explosive sound. To a speed maniac, it wouldn’t be just a car. But to her, it meant more than that. The person who drove it was one of the few in Korea, and one of them held tremendous meaning for her.

"Silvi?"

Screech!

The car stopped aggressively in front of Arjuna. From the opened vehicle stepped out a silver-haired priest wearing a black coat.

A slender physique like that of a model, delicate features that in some ways could be called androgynous—yet the spirit dwelling within was a bottomless abyss of futility, cruel enough to be merciless. That was the True Vampire Hunter, Father Sylvester.

The twenty-four True Vampires who stand at the pinnacle of the vampires. The only hunter who threatens those True Vampires. He had returned to Korea once again.

“Ah.......”

Kim Seong-hee covered her face with her hand, looking as though she might burst into tears. The wind blew, and the leaves began to fall.

* * *

—Six female high school students, instigation of rape—

‘On the 4th, six students including Ms. M, currently enrolled at H Girls’ High School, were booked without detention. Based on the testimony of the victim, Ms. Y, police apprehended them at a nearby rented room. They are accused of instigating Ms. Y’s boyfriend, Mr. J, and others to repeatedly sexually assault Ms. Y in turn, claiming that she was usually disobedient and arrogant.’

Row Gibson let out a sigh as he stared at the newspaper article displayed on the computer monitor. There was no doubt that Ms. Y—the victim mentioned in the article—was the very girl he had saved.

“From the victim’s standpoint, this article is cold enough to make one’s blood boil.”

According to other reports and related materials, she had eventually attempted suicide due to mental collapse and had already been hospitalized for a year. A year—yet a single night is enough to drive a person insane. Humans are not as strong as they believe themselves to be, and the mind stands on the same fragile ground.

With a heart already dead inside her body, she must have been confined in that hospital.

But if that were so, why had she escaped?

As the thought reached that point, Row Gibson—no, the True Vampire Phantom—smiled. Death is not absolute. At least not for vampires—was he himself not proof?

Likewise, there was no basis anywhere to conclude that her heart had truly died.

Regardless of what she felt inside, however, a year of hospitalization would not be a light financial burden on her family. Would they truly be all right? The thought troubled him.

If a vampire worries about others, even a dog would laugh—but the True Vampire Phantom was nothing like ordinary vampires.

A destructive and nihilistic personality is enough to make even a human die young—so what of him, who had lived for over a thousand years? If one does not live each day with forward momentum, longevity is doomed from the start.

“Bill will have something to say again.”

He muttered as he slipped on his coat. Turning off the computer and preparing to leave, he was no longer the True Vampire Phantom, but the diligent businessman Row Gibson.

The gulf between Row Gibson and the True Vampire Phantom lay only in status and name. By his unchanging progressive temperament… once he saved a life, taking responsibility for it to the end was his principle. Remarkably Catholic ethics for a vampire.

As a result, during World War II, he had saved Wilhelm—a member of the Hitler Youth—and later made him his own kin.

And yet Bill detested the fact that he saved other humans and took responsibility for them. Saving a human and, if they wished, turning them into a vampire only weakened Phantom’s power and brought no benefit.

Though the True Vampire Phantom was a legendary monster with VT 400,000 (with 50cc of his blood, he could turn 40,000 adult men into vampires), and though he was well-versed in various arcane arts (H3:2), even fellow True Vampires—Jeok-yo, Changun, and Sepia—had been slain by a True Vampire Hunter.

There was no rule that said Phantom himself could not be hunted.

That was why Bill wished Phantom would focus solely on preserving his own power rather than worrying about others. He constantly nagged him, volunteering to serve as Row Gibson’s secretary and following him anywhere on Earth.

Even Bill had fallen asleep once the sun rose. Though he was a spawn of the True Vampire Phantom, Bill was still a young vampire barely in his late sixties and had yet to gain the strength to overcome the sun.

“I am… different.”

He murmured as he raised his right hand. A crimson mist coiled around his arm, twisting in spirals.

Without pressing the button, the elevator’s call lamp lit up. Bill would have been horrified to see him waste his powers like this—but the sun had lulled his dear kin to sleep.

‘Should I be grateful to the sun?’

Smiling, he stepped into the elevator. A vampire who had overcome the sun. Having lived for over a thousand years, he had blended in among humans, amassed immense wealth, and ruled over them.

To him, vampire hunters were not enemies. Those who moved for money could not resist the temptation of the wealth he scattered. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes…

The black-clad priest singing an old requiem, so often depicted in vampire films. Only the True Vampire Hunter Sylvester—who had lived for ages comparable to the True Vampires in pursuit of vampire tears—could resist temptation and charge at him.

But the successful businessman Row Gibson had countless bodyguards, and supporters spanning politics and business alike. It was he who had used the U.S. federal government to revoke Sylvester’s nationality and the Vatican to excommunicate him.

A vampire who possessed wealth and power had more “human power” than any ‘human’. Even under such adverse conditions, hunting Jeok-yo, Changun, and Sepia was worthy of praise. Phantom offered unstinting admiration to the True Vampire Hunter Sylvester.

Clap, clap, clap…

The sound of applause filled the elevator. As one who was not human, even leaping out of a 29th-floor window would not count as morning exercise. But to reign over the human world, one must abide by their rules.

“I wonder if what I ordered has arrived.”

Following Bill’s advice, he had finished his business first and arranged in advance for a bouquet to be placed in the lobby so he could take it with him.

Unlike the vampire hunters who roamed the night like wounded wild dogs, filled with killing intent and wandering through nights of greed and desire—there was a vampire who showered in a royal suite, donned a custom suit crafted by a famous designer, received greetings from hotel boys, and stepped out refreshed. What contradiction could be more absurd than this?

Poor Dracula. A weak vampire who could not overcome the sun and bowed before the cross. The true king of vampires ruled the business world, manipulated politics, and reigned above humanity. There was no need to leap into someone’s home at midnight to drink blood; scatter money, and humans would willingly bring their blood.

The desire to tear into a living nape? The urge to rip open a rich, unoxidized vein and savor the artery bursting from the heart like a flailing salmon?

Those who surrender to such cheap desires are no different from slum pickpockets who smash display windows to steal trinkets. They are unfit not only to be king of vampires, but even to be king of humans.

But why, then, do such vampires exist? Even if one lives for over a thousand years, indulging in every pleasure available and enjoying every glory and fortune, when would endless life and desire ever be satisfied?

The philosophical dilemma of humanity—unanswered even by humans themselves, a question with countless responses yet no single correct answer—applies equally to vampires.

Of course, even the True Vampire Phantom, king among vampires, does not know that answer.

That is precisely why he helps humans—for himself.

Whether that salvation succeeds or fails, he takes pleasure in granting humans what even God cannot give. Arrogant?

If taking interest in the girl wandering the night streets, adrift in a sea of lights and signboards while wearing a hospital gown, is arrogance—then the humans who saw her and left her there must be exceedingly humble indeed.

The True Vampire Phantom stepped out of the hotel and walked toward his beloved Dodge Viper GTS.