Chapter 21 :

<21>

"Ultimately, it has come to this."

Wilhelm Meyer could not possibly understand the eccentricities of his master, the True Vampire Phantom. While the other True Vampires formed vampire clans and acknowledged themselves as creatures of darkness, the True Vampire Phantom stood alone and lived like a human.

He could hate others like a human, and he could pity others like a human. If only he had been capable of shedding tears, he would have willingly wept even for an arrogant and wicked True Vampire Hunter.

His mercy was nothing new, and it was precisely because of that mercy that Wilhelm was able to remain alive—even as a vampire. How could he possibly defy his master’s will? But this was going too far! A vampire bringing home a human woman! And keeping her perfectly alive, at that!

"Well, try to be understanding. She’s in too poor a condition to send back to the hospital. And would a few words or a bouquet of flowers truly comfort her? Once you’ve decided to interfere in someone’s life, it’s better to do so properly."

"If the premise is that she must be comforted, then your decision was correct, Master."

Wilhelm said so and looked at the sleeping girl. Yoon Mi-hye, was it? She must once have been fairly pretty, but now, after a long stay in a hospital room, she had grown thin and withered, not a trace of vitality remaining.

What was the master planning to do with such a witless woman? It couldn’t be that he intended to eat her.

"By the way, how does one deal with an autistic patient?"

"Put her in a gas chamber and feed her sarin gas."

Wilhelm was the only one who dared answer his master’s thoughtless question with barbed words. Yet the True Vampire Phantom merely grinned and gazed out the window.

"Well, I understand how you feel."

"No. You understand nothing. It’s frustrating enough to drive me mad."

"In that case, shall we go out somewhere?"

"Excuse me?"

"All of us. You and… hmm… Yoon Mi-hye as well."

He hasn’t even memorized her name yet. Wilhelm thought so, but the proposal was extremely tempting. Though he had long since approached sixty years as a vampire, Wilhelm still retained the appearance—and heart—of a boy. To go out and have fun—how alluring that sounded.

"Ahem. Do you see me as a child, Master?"

"From my perspective—older than even Jesus Christ, after all… If you don’t like it, it can’t be helped."

"No. Once you’ve brought it up, you mustn’t withdraw it."

Wilhelm replied, only to realize that the True Vampire Phantom was smiling. His master still treated him like a child. It couldn’t be helped. Appearance provokes reactions, and those reactions form social sentiment. Frozen forever in the form of a boy, perhaps he would remain one eternally.

Even so, he had never once blamed his master for it.

"So where shall we go? Ah, right. How about something delicious to eat? Would Miss Yoon Mi-hye like that?"

"Ordinarily, a lady cannot be lured with food."

"That may be so, but come to think of it, we’ve missed dinner time."

"Starving an autistic patient. That’s the worst. Perhaps even worse than the hospital."

Wilhelm cut him off coldly. Phantom’s face turned pale.

"Good heavens. What a dreadful deed! I won’t receive a Christmas present from Santa!"

"……"

His master’s theatrics were, as always, first-rate. Wilhelm sighed and examined the autistic girl.

"Then let’s at least reserve a high-end restaurant… and this young lady should visit a beauty salon or something. Simply changing her clothes won’t erase that shabby hospital look."

"Right. Ah, we’ll have to bring the bodyguards too, won’t we?"

“…..”

Come to think of it, Sylvester was in Korea. And they were planning to go out? Wilhelm could not forgive himself for being tempted by the idea of an outing. The True Vampire Hunter had already attacked Phantom once that very morning.

No matter how powerful a True Vampire might be, under the sun their VT was consumed and they grew endlessly weaker. Even Phantom, hailed as the strongest vampire, had been forced to shed blood.

‘When night falls, there’s no way Master could lose!’

Wilhelm believed that firmly. To assault a True Vampire at night—the king of the denizens of darkness—was unthinkable. Unless the opponent was a True Vampire Hunter.

"You intend to go out accompanied by bodyguards?"

Human bodyguards were the best shield against Sylvester. In the Republic of Korea, most firearms were illegal, and discharging one brought unimaginably severe punishment. Was there another country with such strict gun control?

Thus, if they employed humans, Sylvester would not be able to use a gun recklessly. No matter how great a True Vampire Hunter he was, he could not defeat Phantom barehanded… yet there was always the possibility of the unforeseen.

"Let’s not go out. We can call for room service—"

"No."

But his master stubbornly insisted.

"Otherwise this is nothing but a hospital room furnished with luxury goods. Since I’ve taken her out of the hospital… is it not my duty to provide a better environment?"

"Still…"

Wilhelm fell silent. At this point, persuading his master was impossible. After all, he was Phantom’s blood kin; to oppose his lord at every turn would be absurd. And more than anything—

Now that he was awake, Wilhelm too wished to go out and have some fun.

* * *

It had been raining for some time. Autumn rain dampened everything, washing away the smog that constantly clung to the city. The air felt fresh, easy to breathe.

However, when carrying a massive projection TV weighing nearly 100 kilograms, one could hardly control the shortness of breath and the sweat pouring down like rain.

"Damn it! Who the hell delivers something like this by courier? This kind of thing should be transported by a dealership truck or—"

"Shut up."

Se-gun said that to the self-proclaimed Sung Si-kyung and pushed back the hood of his raincoat. Steam rose faintly from his head; it was agonizing. For some reason there were an unusual number of heavy deliveries today, and he found himself irrationally resenting the stingy sergeant who gave nothing yet demanded everything.

‘The True Vampire Phantom…’

Se-gun stretched his body, recalling Sylvester’s words.

Sylvester was pursuing the twenty-four True Vampires… and one of them, Phantom, had become a businessman called Row Gibson and was in Korea. Sylvester had returned to Korea in pursuit of Phantom.

-He is the vilest of them all. His appearance is beautiful, his heart kind, capable, intelligent, refined. He manipulates humans to place them before my gun’s muzzle and erases me from behind.

Standing in the darkness, Sylvester had spoken thus. Though he himself was a refined and beautiful being, when speaking of the True Vampire Phantom, that beauty vanished, swallowed by damp, festering hatred.

Se-gun could not understand Sylvester’s contradictory words. Vile? Then what were all those words that followed? Were they not praise?

-Why do you call him vile?

Se-gun had asked. In that instant, Sylvester’s silver-blue eyes flared as he glared at him. For a moment Se-gun wondered whether he had unknowingly consumed Psychedelic Moon again.

Distance shattered, vision melted. From that melting point emerged blurred death masks and strange screams echoed—and more terrifying than all of it was Sylvester himself.

The priest with beautiful silver hair fluttering in the air glared at Se-gun with eyes sharp as a vampire’s. His fury rode upon razor-edged reason, like a blade of unspeakable chill, and his gaze pierced beyond the soul like a bullet.

Terrified, Se-gun tried to close his eyes. Yet his gaze remained nailed to Sylvester, and even his heart was not his own.

Sylvester had deliberately subjected Se-gun to psychic domination.

To be captivated by a vampire, to be subdued mentally—these were the very things a vampire hunter must avoid at all costs. And to do so, one must harbor strong negative thoughts toward vampires. Or at least an overwhelming desire for the money their blood could fetch.

Why is it that a vampire, even if beautiful and seemingly benevolent, can never escape the stigma of vileness? Because without understanding that—and without submitting to it—you can never be a vampire hunter.

-To believe that righteousness of mind alone can avoid sin is nothing but humanity’s foolish arrogance. Do you think you lost your family because your own mind was flawed? Do you think that because those who wallow in misfortune and sin are wrong, everything gentle and beautiful must therefore be wise and upright?!

He grew more and more frenzied. And as his madness deepened, Se-gun was dragged into a dazzling hallucination—like being sucked into a bottomless swamp…

-Thus good and evil, beauty and ugliness, do not exist within human judgment. Ugliness? From the perspective of a vampire hunter, it refers to all that deviates from the will of God who created the world. Do you understand? All living beings bear sin as their destiny—but vampires cannot even shed the tears of repentance that crocodiles do. There is nothing more grotesque than such a creature calling itself beautiful and righteous.

Sylvester said this and released his hold. Barely freed from the psychic domination, Se-gun gasped and braced his hands against the ground like a man who had just surfaced from drowning.

-Enough. If he is grotesque, then so am I.

Sylvester spoke thus and let out a low sigh. Such conversations had passed between them in the Arjuna.

“Ah, it’s lunchtime. Lunch! Hey, Se-gun! Stop the belt and let’s go eat!”

“……”

Se-gun rose from his seat, looking at Kim Sung-ju—the self-proclaimed Sung Si-kyung.

Come to think of it, why was Sylvester a vampire hunter? He did not seem to be an exorcist dispatched from the Vatican. Why did he hate vampires so deeply without even collecting their blood? And would the girl Phantom had taken in truly become a vampire, as Sylvester predicted, and take revenge upon Jin Yu-mi and her friends?

-Of course she will, Han Se-gun. Look at yourself. You who have affirmed revenge—how can you deny hers?

Sylvester’s low voice echoed at his ear. Se-gun believed his own actions were different from vengeance. After all, the object of his revenge was already dead. And in the modern world, collective punishment was unjust. To assign guilt to a group rather than the individual was wrong… But if that were so, why had Se-gun become a vampire hunter?

“……”

Certainly, Se-gun could not deny her revenge. Nor, perhaps, could the vampire known as the True Vampire Phantom. Did that mean Jin Yu-mi and her friends were now in danger?

‘Not my concern.’

With that thought, Se-gun forcibly erased the image of Jin Yu-mi rising in his mind.

* * *

Last night had been pleasant. For one who had endured thousands of years of night, pleasure had become so familiar it might now be nothing more than self-hypnosis.

But without believing in oneself, one could never endure thousands of years of night—nor maintain one’s sanity as he had.

‘For now, let’s think about this young lady.’

Row Gibson lay sprawled on the sofa, tapping away at a wireless keyboard in an awkward position.

On his lap rested the head of a girl sleeping quietly like a puppy. To avoid waking her, he could not move his lower body. Row Gibson yawned and looked down at her.

With Wilhelm—who appeared underage—in tow, the places they could visit at night were limited. A late-night movie, a midnight performance, bowling at the alley. Even so, the night had been far too short. The girl had been knocked out by exhaustion, and Wilhelm had returned to his bedroom and fallen asleep once more.

“After all is said and done, eternally a child.”

He muttered this and closed his eyes. Outside the window, rain poured down. Mixed within the sound of rain came something strange—

A requiem sung by those standing at the boundary between reality and death, audible only to a True Vampire like him. It was a symptom that approached vampires like fate: Haunt. For creatures whose vessels of life had shattered and who must replenish it through blood, it was inescapable.

Heightened spiritual senses, amplified at the border between death and life, allowed one to hear even the sounds from the other side of this world. It was the chief culprit driving most vampires insane.

It might sound absurd that vampires—monstrous beings—would fear ghosts in similar circumstances, but because of such hauntings, most vampires did not live long and eventually lost their minds. They became mentally unstable, plagued by destructive impulses.

Moreover, unable to achieve orgasm through intercourse, their only remaining outlet for desire was blood. Even if they had been gentle as humans, continuous madness would eventually twist them into monsters.

“But to live is to value endurance more than pleasure.”

He murmured this as he stroked the hair of the girl resting on his knee. Though entrusted to a famous hairdresser, her hair—damaged by long hospital stays—had not improved much. To live one’s life faithfully was difficult even for humans. How much more so for vampires…. Yet the True Vampire Phantom had upheld that endurance.

At that moment, the girl quietly opened her eyes.

“Endurance?”

The first word she spoke was a question directed at Gibson. The mighty vampire nodded as he gazed out at the gray Seoul soaked in autumn rain. The dark, ashen sky pressed in through the penthouse windows.

The sunlight beyond the rainclouds was bleached pale, no longer truly light. Against the city sky where thunder and lightning would not have seemed out of place, this vampire appeared cold and beautiful as a statue.

Not all vampires were beautiful. Those who stood at the boundary between death and life could, with only a little accumulated power, inspire twisted infatuation in humans—but that was a wicked force far removed from true beauty.

But the True Vampire Phantom was genuinely beautiful. His sharp features, unmarred by any surrender of masculinity, resembled a statue carved from marble. He was not merely the kind-hearted wealthy man she had known until now.

Yet the compassion he bore for a dying life was unmistakably his.

“It is the strength to endure pain and live in this world. If there is something worth protecting through endurance, even the flames of hell become sweet. Little lady.”

It might have sounded like a trite sermon, but his voice was sweet, as though heard within a dream. That voice conquered defenseless hearts—not magic, yet already a kind of spell in itself. For a girl who had only just cracked part of her shell of selfhood, it would surely exert tremendous influence.

“Do you truly believe that?”

“Of course.”

He answered and tilted his head slightly.

“I have no intention of forcing that upon you.”

“……”

She retreated once more into herself, sinking into thought. The True Vampire Phantom watched her with pity.

Her wounds were far deeper than he had expected. Even he knew that in a small Eastern nation with weak emotional immunity regarding matters of sex, what she had endured was no small incident.

In this conservative country, a woman who had been gang-raped could hardly remain sane. Even so, would it not be better to think of the future that remained rather than the past that had passed? Anger and regret were inevitable—but was there truly no way to overcome them?

“As one lives, there are surely good things as well…”

Perhaps that last remark was meant for himself. A lie told to deceive himself… the one he had continued repeating until now…