Chapter 20 :

<20>

Bluehawk Security had parked a trailer truck by the roadside and was waiting. Bluehawk, one of Korea’s leading security teams, was thorough not only in protection missions but also in all kinds of service operations. As expected, this time as well, they did not disappoint Row’s expectations.

“Have you arrived, Mr. Row Gibson.”

A female bodyguard wearing non-prescription protective glasses greeted him. Of course, they had been hired to assist Yoon Mi-hye. Female bodyguards for a female client, and a trailer truck fully reinforced with bulletproof treatment—this security company would not have been out of place even in the United States.

Inside the trailer, completely bulletproofed with composite armor plates, Kevlar, dual-layer Spectra fabric, and a special polymer layer surrounding that fabric, there was—oddly enough—a large quantity of women’s clothing.

And inside was the lawyer who had brought those clothes. Kim Chang-su, dispatched from a law firm called L&J, was acting not only as a legal representative to handle all legal matters arising during Row Gibson’s stay in Korea, but also as a management consultant and even a butler.

“We’ve prepared everything as instructed, at least for now.”

“Well done. Ah, miss bodyguard, please help her change. We can’t keep her in a hospital gown forever.”

Row Gibson said this and handed over what he had been holding to Kim Chang-su. The distorted copper-alloy heads of 7.62mm rifle bullets glinted in the light.

“What is this?”

When Kim Chang-su asked in confusion, Row lowered his voice.

“He fired six shots in the blink of an eye. All aimed at a human.”

Row Gibson shook his head slowly. Fortunately, he had been able to stop the bullets. If it hadn’t been him, Yoon Mi-hye’s cervical spine would have snapped and her brain would have shattered into pieces, leaving her dead in the middle of the street.

Sylvester’s sniping had been that precise… and the bullets had carried tremendous force. Phantom had used sorcery to protect his body, but the concentrated volley of six shots eventually pierced the sorcerous barrier weakened under the sun and tore through his arm, drawing blood.

Still, it was fortunate they were ordinary rounds. If he were wounded by silver bullets, he would be unable to reclaim his blood, and even the microscopic particles of blood flowing from the wound could trigger vampirification in humans.

‘Did that bastard show consideration in his own way? Ridiculous.’

Row Gibson—no, the True Vampire Phantom—adjusted his sunglasses. A True Vampire Hunter worrying about vampires. Or had he been worrying about this woman?

* * *

The streetlights flickered as they stretched awake. Pale mercury lamps, jaundiced sodium lamps, neon signs in vivid colors, and bright orange headlights—countless lights began to dye the city of night.

It felt like inhaling Psychedelic Moon. An endless feast of colors. The only difference was that the outlines appeared blurred. It hardly mattered to Se-gun. He tossed the empty can he had just finished drinking behind him.

A dry metallic clang rang out. Probably a goal. The stainless-steel park trash can did not even budge at the impact of such a small can.

“Haa… just thirty thousand won?”

Se-gun sighed while leaning on his motorcycle. Once the job was over, the strength drained from his entire body. In Se-gun’s case, it was worse because he had worked clumsily and without technique just to build physical strength. No matter how much one trained in martial arts, work followed its own rules.

People were gathering in the park at night. High school students from nearby cram schools sat on benches, secretly drinking canned beer. Se-gun glanced around for a moment, then mounted his motorcycle and rode down the park steps.

With each step he descended, the bike creaked. This RX-125 probably wasn’t going to last much longer. It felt almost futile that all the tuning his older brother had painstakingly done had been wiped out in a single accident.

Of course, after being picked up and thrown like a toy, there was no way the motorcycle could be intact. Still, thinking about all the repair money he had poured into it felt foolish…

“Maybe I should buy a new motorcycle while I’m at it?”

Se-gun muttered to himself. He had money, of course. But if he spent it all, nothing would remain for living expenses. If he were frugal, it might be manageable, but the anxiety was too great for him to bring himself to use it.

“Damn. I need to sell that vampire blood soon.”

One bag had already been used for Yong-jin. Only one remained. But if it was vampire blood from someone he could defeat without even using Psychedelic Moon, the purity probably wasn’t that high.

At this rate, he even considered attacking the Sang-dong faction again, but they would surely be on high alert by now. It was obvious that provoking a guarded enemy would bring more harm than benefit.

“Ah, over there!”

Just as Se-gun rounded a corner, lost in thought, a girl he had seen once before called out to him.

“Hm?”

Jin Yu-mi was calling to Se-gun. They had only met once before, and he hadn’t even told her his address or where he lived—yet here they were, meeting again on the street. If it was a coincidence, it was a strange one…

“Ah, my legs are numb!”

Jin Yu-mi said, rubbing her legs vigorously. She had been squatting for hours in front of the convenience store where she had parted with Se-gun before. Naturally they would be numb. Se-gun let out a small chuckle at the sight.

“You could’ve gone inside and sat somewhere. Like that park over there.”

“Oh… more importantly, where are you going?”

“Home. Going in to sleep.”

Se-gun answered roughly. But she approached him with obvious affection in her eyes.

“Where do you live?”

“Don’t ask that. What about your friends?”

“Mm. They all went to meet their boyfriends. Some went home.”

For a moment, he wondered if they were a group of runaway girls, but Se-gun said nothing further. He had never lived the life of a model student, but that didn’t mean he had lived without looking toward tomorrow like these girls seemed to. More than anything, hearing the word “sleep together” directly from a girl’s mouth had been a shock.

‘But if I think about it, I heard that kind of thing a lot from the biker gangs, didn’t I?’

It just hadn’t been directed at him. Perhaps that was why he felt uneasy about this girl.

“I just finished my part-time job and I’m tired. I don’t have the energy to hang out.”

“Really? Where do you live?”

“A gosiwon. Even if I work myself to death at part-time jobs, after paying rent for the gosiwon room, it’s barely enough to survive. So just leave me alone.”

“Gosiwon?”

She fell into thought for a moment. Perhaps she hadn’t always been this foolish, but her brain had been damaged by inhaling solvents like thinner, leaving her cognitively impaired. She didn’t even know what a civil service exam was, or what a gosiwon was.

“Just think of it as paying to board somewhere. Boarding… maybe you don’t know that either?”

Se-gun muttered as he looked at her. What kind of household would leave a girl in this state unattended? Maybe she didn’t have parents.

“Where’s your home?”

“Are you treating me like an idiot?”

“Just answer the question.”

When Se-gun said that, she pointed to the small room she had previously dragged him to—her own rented place. Se-gun looked in that direction and asked again.

“Your parents?”

“Don’t have any.”

“You mean you’re an orphan?”

“Yeah.”

She closed her mouth after saying that. It seemed she didn’t want to talk about it any further. Even with her dull, vacant eyes, there was a firmness in her expression. One could imagine how intense that emotion must be.

“In that regard, we’re the same.”

Se-gun muttered. But she hadn’t heard him and responded with a vague “Hm?” lifting her head as if asking him to repeat it.

“Get on the back. I’ll give you a ride.”

Instead of answering, Se-gun said that and looked at her. Of course, she did not refuse his offer.

Jin Yu-mi’s house was located quite high up. At first, Se-gun thought it was just a rented room, but he soon realized it was truly her home.

Jin Yu-mi had originally been an ordinary delinquent girl attending H Girls’ High School, a self-proclaimed member of the so-called “Seven Princesses”.

Why girls liked to call themselves the Seven Princesses at the slightest opportunity was beyond him, but the delinquent circle at H Girls’ High seemed to have operated under that thoroughly unoriginal name.

Then her parents died in an accident. An authoritarian and oppressive father, and a mother and daughter who were little more than his possessions. It was never a harmonious family, but even so, the entire framework of that family was suddenly shattered.

The girl surrendered herself to madness. She inhaled industrial glue for cheap hallucinations and, intoxicated by them, slept with delinquent boys who were little better than thugs. After one pregnancy and a stillbirth left her unable to bear children ever again, she became even more reckless.

Her house became a communal shelter for runaway delinquent girls and a place for orgies. They drank thinner, inhaled glue, and piled up cigarette butts into towers. Soothing her ruined body and mind with organic solvents, she eventually developed mental disorders as well.

She saw hallucinations and suffered from headaches. But compared to the bleeding and pain of her menstrual cycle, those were nothing.

Stillbirth.

As if the dead fetus had cursed her while falling from her body, her menstrual pain became something akin to stab wounds. It was impossible to describe with mere words the sensation of a sharp blade tearing through her womb. At times like that, she would drown herself in alcohol.

When she became completely drunk, she could pass through the pain without feeling it. Ignorance of suffering was, without a doubt, a form of happiness for her.

Se-gun stood in front of her house, listening to her disjointed stories. He had only intended to hear her out once in a while, but she spoke with such delight.

Stories about her favorite celebrities, stories about her life, stories about her friends… as though they would never end. Even if he was inwardly bored, Se-gun had to endure it.

“Yeah. I see. Is that so.”

He replied half-heartedly while glancing at her house. Inside, a group of delinquents were probably holding their own Sabbath. Unwilling to go in, she repeated the same stories again and again.

“Well… I’ll get going.”

Se-gun said that and started his motorcycle. She was her own person, and he was his.

He wasn’t going to live her life for her, nor could he stand here forever listening to her stories. He mounted the motorcycle and left her behind.

“Um… when can I see you again?”

Jin Yu-mi suddenly asked. Her voice sounded anxious. It was only natural—her Kurt Cobain was about to disappear into the city.

Han Se-gun lifted his head slightly. The moon was nowhere to be seen—whether hidden by clouds, smog, or simply absent that night. Without turning back, he said,

“Well. My part-time job ends at six.”

He twisted the throttle.

Se-gun did not return straight to the gosiwon. After working a thirty-thousand-won daily job, he had carved the value of money into his bones. The more he felt that, the more he wanted to dispose of the blood quickly.

But Old Ju, whom he had seen while working with Deok-yeon before, had refused to deal with a minor like Se-gun. That left only one option: finding another dealer.

Determined to finally learn who the other dealers besides Old Ju were, Han Se-gun headed toward Arjuna.

“Ah, damn it. This fucking motorcycle…”

Once, he had refused to even replace the frame because he thought of it as his older brother’s keepsake… but now his thoughts had changed. No matter what, a motorcycle that had been in a major accident couldn’t be trusted. It had to at least run properly to be a keepsake. At this rate, he would ride it as a memorial item and end up becoming one himself.

The sharp screech of worn brakes rang out. Se-gun suddenly stopped the motorcycle and stared intently at the object in front of him. Like a nearsighted man who had lost his glasses, he squinted at it closely before unconsciously letting out an exclamation.

A Corvette coupe. A black Corvette coupe was parked in front of Arjuna. Se-gun got off the motorcycle and immediately ran inside.

Arjuna’s automatic doors opened slowly. What greeted his eyes was Sylvester, seated and drinking coffee. Dressed in jet-black priest’s robes, Sylvester didn’t even glance at Se-gun, calmly sipping his coffee while reviewing a file.

“Sylvester!”

“Mm?”

Only then did Sylvester lift his head and look at Se-gun. Wearing an expression of infinite annoyance, he tilted his chin toward the sofa opposite him.

“The coffee is quite good. If the occult shop doesn’t do well, perhaps it should become an occult café.”

“That would be troublesome. The licensing authority is different. A café counts as a public restaurant.”

Kim Seong-hee replied that way before turning to Se-gun and asking what he would like to drink. Of course, Se-gun wasn’t in the mood for tea.

“When did you come to Korea?”

“Not long ago.”

Sylvester answered while continuing to flip through the file. Inside were several photographs, newspaper clippings, and school records. They were the records of the human who had been sitting beside the True Vampire Phantom—Yoon Mi-hye.

“Yoon Mi-hye. Interesting. So, what brings you here?”

Sylvester said as he looked at Han Se-gun across from him. Se-gun was overwhelmed with emotions he couldn’t put into words. Sylvester had saved his life and led him into becoming a vampire hunter… yet he couldn’t resent him. After all, Se-gun was here by his own choice.

“Fuck.”

Se-gun slammed his fist onto the table. The teacup and saucer rattled with the characteristic clinking sound of porcelain. As a result, several photographs slipped out from Sylvester’s file.

“Oh… it seems you’ve decided you want to die. Hm?”

Sylvester widened his eyes slightly and then fell silent. The photograph he was looking at showed the perpetrators of the Yoon Mi-hye rape instigation case… that very photo.

“Why do you have this?”

“Do you know someone in it?”

“…”

Instead of answering, Se-gun nodded.

There she was—a girl who, perhaps back when her mind had still been intact, had cast a defiant gaze toward the camera. Seeing him like that, Sylvester covered his eyes with his hand.

“My, my… It seems our new business partner will be quite the uncontrollable brat.”

“?”

Han Se-gun had no idea what Sylvester was talking about. It would have been stranger if someone could grasp the entire flow of events from such fragmentary information. Even so, he could sense the atmosphere. But business partner?

If that meant partnering with a True Vampire Hunter, did that imply these people were somehow connected to vampires? Se-gun looked at the photograph once more.

Unlike now, Jin Yu-mi in the picture looked far fresher, a chill about her—undeniably beautiful. The kind of beauty that would make passersby turn their heads at least once.

“This is the worst.”

A sigh escaped from Sylvester.