Chapter 19 :

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After an incident last night in which a young girl escaped from the medical center, the nurses had thoroughly prepared themselves. The girl had already been hospitalized for a year, and because of that, her family had become even more on edge.

They were so sharp and irritable that whenever they came for a visit, it felt like soldiers with fixed bayonets charging toward the trenches.

And even now, a desperate close-quarters battle had begun.

“What on earth kind of hospital management lets a child run away!”

“Are you people really going to behave like this!”

From early morning, chaos was erupting in the hospital. Somehow, the parents had learned that Yoon Mi-hye had been rescued by a foreigner after collapsing on the street last night, and they had stormed in causing a scene.

Yoon Mi-hye’s father, Yoon Se-chang, was pushing the nurses roughly, as if he were about to assault them.

“Is my daughter an idiot? A whore? Get your act together. If you’re going to stuff yourselves with the money I pay, then do your damn jobs properly, you bastards!”

“Aaaah!”

The nurse screamed and stumbled backward.

Amid the chaos, Yoon Mi-hye stood still like a doll, watching with emotionless eyes. Then her eyebrow twitched slightly. The foreign man who had rescued her last night had just opened the hospital room door and walked in.

“Oh dear. Seems I’ve come at a bad time.”

He was a blond man in a pure white suit, wearing sunglasses. For a moment, his fluent Korean made one wonder if he might be a Korean who had dyed his hair, but his solid Western build, sharp features, and blue eyes dismissed that thought.

The head nurse who had accompanied him saw Yoon Se-chang causing a disturbance and immediately stepped in to control the situation.

“What is this commotion! The patient needs stability! If you’re going to cause such a disturbance, please leave!”

“What did you say!”

But Yoon Se-chang immediately began shouting again. He didn’t seem uneducated, yet the way he roared carried more force than a construction foreman overturning a worksite.

That much venom had taken root in him. After all, his only daughter had been reduced to a wreck, yet the perpetrators were all minors and had received no proper punishment. Anyone sane would find that abnormal.

“Now, now, calm down. Your daughter is watching.”

Row Gibson said as he tried to soothe him, placing the bouquet he had brought on the table. But if an excited man could be calmed simply by words, police holding cells could be half their current size.

“And who the hell are you!”

Even from a fair distance, every time Yoon Se-chang opened his mouth, the strong smell of alcohol wafted through the air.

“If my daughter dies, will you take responsibility? Huh? Will you take responsibility? Do you think I’m paying this expensive hospital bill for nothing?”

He began throwing a tantrum. His daughter wasn’t asleep—she was clearly awake, eyes open—yet her family was rampaging in front of her.

At this rate, even a curable illness would not heal. It was rude, certainly, but not beyond understanding—though that also spoke to Row Gibson’s remarkable patience. At least considering that he possessed wealth and power…

Of course, interfering in another family’s affairs was never ideal. But Row was a vampire anyway.

It wasn’t as if abstaining from wrongdoing now would earn him a Christmas present from Santa.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

With those words, Row imposed mental domination. Suppressing a person’s mind was not something exclusive to vampires; humans could do it as well.

For the True Vampire Phantom who had mastered countless forbidden arts, it was so simple that it hardly counted as magic or sorcery—but its effect varied drastically depending on who used it.

Everyone froze like frogs before a snake.

At that moment, Yoon Mi-hye—who had been sitting blankly just moments ago—showed interest for the first time. A person exhibiting signs of autism had reacted to the outside world.

“I’m sorry about yesterday. You tried so hard to escape this hospital, only for me to put you back in a place like this. So…”

Row extended his hand.

“Will you come with me? No, this is kidnapping, so you don’t actually have a choice.”

She took his hand.

Row smiled and placed the bouquet into her arms.

* * *

A pale light illuminated the basement. Surrounded by cold concrete, it was filled with weapons of every kind. Various blades, pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles—even a caliber .50 mounted on a tripod. It was no exaggeration to call it a military-grade armory.

“Why did you come back? Much earlier than scheduled?”

Kim Seong-hee stood at the entrance of the storage room, looking down at Sylvester. Sylvester inserted a magazine into an Ingram and replied,

“Because I like Dostoevsky. (Humans cleanse the sins of the world by shedding tears – Dostoevsky.)”

Kim Seong-hee could not understand why he was obsessed with vampire tears. If Sylvester himself could shed tears, wouldn’t that be enough? But it seemed Sylvester thought differently.

“And what happened to that brat?”

“That brat? Ah… you mean the kid?”

Kim Seong-hee looked at him, slightly surprised. For Sylvester, a True Vampire Hunter, to care about a rookie hunter. Of course, if he were human, it would be natural to worry about a kid he had dragged into the abyss—but Sylvester’s sensibilities were far removed from those of ordinary humans.

“He couldn’t seem to get Psychedelic Moon, so I gave him a little that wasn’t mixed with cocaine. That was a few days ago, I think. Not long.”

“Really? Then he’s probably still fine?”

“I wouldn’t say that. Why? Are you worried, Silvy?”

Kim Seong-hee’s voice rose sweetly. It carried mockery, but it was still beautiful. Sylvester, however, rose without a word. Placing the PSG-1 and the Ingram into their cases, he looked straight at her.

“I told you to stop calling me Silvy.”

The ventilation duct in the basement hummed faintly.

* * *

The sorting center of a delivery company is always short-handed. People often call it a “3D job”—dirty, difficult, dangerous—and few jobs fit that description better. So even in a recession, it was easy to find work there.

“Oh, you’re the newbie?”

A man wearing an acrylic name tag reading Section Chief Lee Dong-su approached. The title “Section Chief” might originally refer to the head of a section, but with that blue uniform, it didn’t seem like he’d ever rise beyond cargo loader.

‘Kids these days, I just don’t get them.’

Section Chief Lee Dong-su thought as he looked at the new part-timers. One had spiked blond hair, the other had bleached his hair green. Judging by their appearances, they must have caused their parents no small amount of grief—but somehow, he found the green-haired one more likable.

At least he didn’t have holes pierced all over his body.

“Yes, sir. Please take care of me. Hahaha.”

The blond youth smiled brightly and offered a handshake. The rings hanging from his face clinked, making onlookers feel phantom pain just from seeing them. Compared to him, the green-haired youth looked as gloomy as someone about to die.

“What do we do?”

“It’s simple. When items come out on that conveyor belt, you load them onto this truck.”

Lee Dong-su pointed toward the place where belts and rollers interlocked. Cargo boxes poured out from there.

A simple briefing fitting for a simple job…

But when the first item appeared, the two young men were stunned. A 29-inch television, neatly packaged in a box, rolled along the conveyor toward them. Already, curses hovered on their tongues.

“Damn…”

At that moment, the green-haired youth turned his cap backward and stepped forward. He caught the TV in one swift motion, hoisted it onto his back, and ran toward the truck.

“Huh? He looks so gloomy I was worried, but he’s actually pretty good at this.”

Section Chief Lee Dong-su was genuinely surprised by the youth’s movements. But the real work was only beginning.

As soon as they loaded one truck with the endless stream of boxes, another truck would back up. They stacked box after box inside, but no matter how they looked at it, there was no way to avoid an overload ticket.

“Damn. They just keep coming.”

“Maybe it’s because online shopping has gotten so big?”

The blond youth responded to the green-bleached one’s remark.

“Hey, you’re strong. You don’t look like a laborer—what kind of exercise do you do?”

“A bit of judo.”

The young man answered casually. The blond youth nodded as if satisfied. They had just sent off a fully loaded truck and were waiting for the next one, so the conveyor belt had stopped and they finally had a moment to smoke.

“Want one?”

“No. I don’t smoke.”

“Ah, sorry. I saw your résumé. You saw mine too, right? We’re the same age. Let’s drop the formalities. We’re going to be working together, might as well be comfortable, yeah?”

Starting to speak casually first and then putting it like that wasn’t exactly good manners—but strangely, the guy wasn’t annoying. Even if his attitude was a bit insolent, it felt as if he were treating him like an old friend, without any pressure.

Fwooo.

The cigarette smoke he exhaled drifted through the autumn sunlight.

“My name’s Sung Si-kyung. Pretty killer name, right?”

“That’s really your name?”

“It says Kim Sung-ju on my resident registration… but anyone dreaming of becoming a celebrity needs at least one stage name.”

“….”

The taciturn young man thought that if he really wanted to be an entertainer in Korea, he probably shouldn’t have pierced his nose—but arguing seemed pointless, so he kept quiet.

Though it was autumn, sweat ran down their heated bodies from the labor. But before they could cool off, the next truck was already pulling in.

“Damn it. Can’t even finish one cigarette. And we get paid 30,000 won for this? What a scam.”

The self-proclaimed Sung Si-kyung grumbled as he flicked ash from his cigarette. The other youth agreed.

“So what’s your name?”

“If you saw my résumé, you should already know.”

“That’s not how introductions work. Otherwise I’ll just call you Dogshit from now on. Sound good?”

“No way in hell, you fucking bastard. My name is Han Se-gun.”

He turned his work cap backward and went back to work.

* * *

Row Gibson leapt toward his beloved Dodge Viper and slipped inside with agile ease. He seated Yoon Mi-hye, still in her hospital gown, in the passenger seat.

“All right. The seatbelt… no, I’ll fasten it for you.”

Seeing no reaction from her, he buckled her in himself. Then, instead of sunglasses, he put on the protective goggles he liked to wear while driving. He was in the mood, perhaps—but at the moment, Seoul’s streets were completely paralyzed.

As nine o’clock approached—the limit of standard office start times—rush hour had reached its peak. The moment he left the hospital parking lot and entered downtown, he was forced into a turtle’s crawl. If the Viper GTS had been a living creature, it would have shed tears even vampires could not.

“Hm. In that case… fine.”

To make effective use of rush hour, Row Gibson used his cellphone to sign a contract with a security company and then called a service provider.

“Hmm, judging by size it’s probably between 24 and 26… height around 162? What? That’s wrong? Ah, fine. Just prepare everything. Yes. Women’s clothes! You think I’m going to dress Wilhelm in them? My, my. Your sense of humor has improved. Even if I fired you, you could probably make it as a stand-up comedian.”

For a fleeting moment, an impure thought crossed his mind—that if Wilhelm didn’t resist, it might be interesting to try dressing him up—but he dismissed it.

“Ah, do you like music… though it probably won’t match my taste. Hmm.”

He stopped speaking, sensing something twisting into place. On the opposite side of the Han River, at a distance no ordinary human could possibly see, there was a black Corvette.

“Damn.”

Amid the sea of cars crawling through the city like turtles, the red Viper and the black Corvette crossed paths with the river between them.

With a sniper rifle, the distance was more than enough to kill a man. But Sylvester’s preferred rifle was the Barrett. The 12.7×99mm NATO round was excessive for a sniper rifle.

And more importantly, this place was swarming with people. Could he really fire a gun in front of all these humans? In one of the strictest gun-control countries in the world?

“He’s the kind of bastard who would.”

Row lowered the window and opened the car’s cover. Silver bullets dealt significant damage to vampires, but against a True Vampire they were meaningless unless they struck a fatal point—the heart or the brain.

As a True Vampire hunter, Sylvester would surely aim for the brain or the heart. Could he really allow his beloved car to be left defenseless under that fire?

Then he saw it.

Inside the Corvette coupe, a priest spreading his coat. The priest drew out a massive rifle—nearly 120 centimeters long—a PSG-1, and aimed this way. On a road clogged with crawling vehicles, he concealed himself with his coat, cradled the gun, turned his legs toward the window, and lay across the passenger seat.

Firing while lying on his back, shooting toward his feet—if he could hit someone across the Han River from that position, he wouldn’t be human. Above all, there wasn’t even a sniper scope attached to the PSG-1.

But Sylvester wasn’t called a True Vampire Hunter for nothing.

He would… fire.

“You son of a bitch!”

Row shielded Yoon Mi-hye with his body, spreading both arms. With a sharp crack cutting the air, his body jolted. Yoon Mi-hye stared forward, her expression unchanged, as if unaware.

Cars and crowds flickered across her eyes. So many people, so many vehicles—yet none of it felt real. Since when had it become like this?

“Hey! Why aren’t you moving! Did you rent the damn road?”

A blaring horn and an irritable voice pressed forward. Sylvester lowered the PSG-1—rather than the usual Barrett—and slowly raised himself. The shell casing fell to the floor, but no one in the neighboring cars would have noticed.

Even though he had cast a spell to silence the gunshot, firing in front of this many people carried its own thrill. And hitting the target precisely…

“Was that a proper greeting?”

He murmured and drove forward. Staring at the car ahead that had barely moved any distance, he let out a sigh. Was that why they had blared their horns so insistently? But as other cars threatened to cut in, he had no choice but to press the accelerator.

Just as Row Gibson’s Viper crawled along, so too would Sylvester’s Corvette Coupe weep at the sight of itself creeping down the road like a turtle.