Chapter 44 :

<44>

"Dammit!"

Se-gun cursed the weather as it had turned into a full-blown blizzard and rushed forward. It was only because he was riding an off-road bike that he could push through such a monstrous snowfall; a typical four-wheeled sedan would never have made it through.

"Long live White Christmas!"

Se-gun shouted as he brought the motorcycle to a stop. It seemed he had finally reached his destination.

"…… Guess I’ll try wishing for it."

Se-gun took off his helmet and put Psychedelic Moon and cocaine into his mouth. Then he stepped into the apartment complex.

"Han Se-gun! Over here!"

Detective Sim Gu-jin called out, standing in front of the apartment building. Se-gun rode the bike toward him.

"What happened?"

"Let me ask you something."

"Hm?"

Detective Sim Gu-jin smiled casually as he asked,

"If a human becomes a vampire… can they return to normal?"

"Not at all! Can a dead human come back to life?"

Se-gun answered without hesitation. A vampire returning to being human was impossible. Even if it were possible, there would be no need to turn one back. The moment someone became a vampire, they had already committed a sin.

Detective Sim Gu-jin pulled down the brim of his fedora at Se-gun’s cold reply.

"Right. I figured."

"Did you fire your gun?"

Se-gun asked as he took out a bulletproof vest and put it on. The strong smell of gunpowder hung in the air—how could he not say something?

"Yeah."

"How many of them?"

"Just one. A little kid."

“……”

Only then did Se-gun realize something was off about Detective Sim Gu-jin. They must have sent a vampire to retaliate against him. Before Se-gun became a vampire hunter, he had once fired a shotgun at the vampire who slaughtered his family. But he hadn’t been able to defeat even a cheap vampire that didn’t belong to a proper clan.

And now? A regular-clan vampire had threatened Detective Sim Gu-jin’s life, yet he had come out alive? And hadn’t he said he lived alone after his divorce? Since when did he live in a large apartment like this?

"No way…?"

"Yeah. It’s my daughter."

As he said that, Detective Sim Gu-jin raised his hand and made a slicing gesture across his neck.

"Kill her."

For a moment, it felt as if the air itself froze. The blizzard was already raging cold, but that instant froze the heart even colder. Yet—

"…… Of course."

Vampires are exterminated. That is the duty of a vampire hunter. Even if it’s a parent, a child, a sibling, a friend, or a lover. Whether a good vampire or an evil one, malignant or intelligent—it doesn’t matter. Extermination is the one and only truth. The world is too complicated to sort through truth and lies, good and evil.

Then perhaps it’s better to eradicate them based on a single absolute standard.

But what kind of cursed situation was this? Se-gun clenched his teeth. The one who truly had the right to rage wasn’t him—it was Detective Sim Gu-jin. Yet the man had asked him to kill his own daughter.

"Then… can I borrow your gun?"

"Huh?"

Se-gun took the police revolver and aimed at the apartment entrance—more precisely, at the CCTV camera mounted beside it. He was about to do something illegal; being recorded would be troublesome.

Bang!

He destroyed the CCTV in one shot and rushed forward. The front door was password-locked, but Detective Sim Gu-jin gave him the code, and he opened it easily. Se-gun handed the revolver back.

"Be careful. There’s CCTV in the elevator too!"

"I’ll take the stairs!"

"It’s a 25-story building!"

"I can manage!"

But at that moment, the elevator chimed and the doors slid open. Sim Ae-jin, Detective Sim Gu-jin’s daughter, stepped out.

The young girl was—at a glance—clearly suffering from malignant vampirism. Some who become vampires retain their reason, their bloodlust not overwhelming enough to consume them. Others lose all rationality to the urge for blood and attack family and friends alike like monsters. Those are called malignant.

"Ugh!"

Se-gun drew his Tokarev. The girl stared at him in terror. The way he held the gun, the killing intent radiating from him—nothing suggested it was a toy. Panicked, she looked toward her father.

"Dad… I… I…"

But Detective Sim Gu-jin only gave a hollow smile and then turned his gaze away.

"Shut up!"

Se-gun’s roar was followed by gunfire. Perhaps it was an obsession that she must not be allowed to speak any further that pulled the trigger. No—certainly it was. If she spoke any more, he might start believing she was still human, that human language could still reach her. He didn’t want that illusion. So he fired.

"Die! Die! Die!"

Bang bang bang!

A bullet struck her face, piercing through the back of her neck and blowing a massive hole through it. Another hit near her heart, instantly staining the elevator interior with blood. From her abdomen, her entrails spilled out. Se-gun unleashed merciless gunfire even upon the child, thoroughly violating every Hollywood taboo.

"Ahh……"

And yet, despite that, the girl stepped forward. Her body was shattered by bullets—no high-ranking vampire should survive such damage—yet she walked out.

"It hurts… Dad! It hurts, Dad……"

She called out both “Dad” and “it hurts” at the same time. The voice was so wretched, the situation so utterly wretched, that Se-gun lowered his gun for a moment.

‘Why does it have to be like this?’

The question struck his mind like a boxer’s knockout punch. Why must he drive himself to such cruelty? Even if he was addicted to Psychedelic Moon, he must never become addicted to the narcotic of morality. If he clung to the idea of being righteous and virtuous, he might give in to the temptation to step back and keep his hands clean.

Bang!

But the instant his attack slackened, the girl’s head was completely blown apart. A bullet shattered her small, fragile skull and passed through. The spinning projectile slowed as it broke through bone, burrowing through brain matter. The gray mass, mixed with blood, burst outward like crushed tofu. Her eyeballs popped free, and the severed medulla and neck bones dangled like snapped springs. Blood poured into the mound of snow piled at the apartment entrance.

Slowly.

Very slowly, the girl’s body fell backward. Se-gun, who had been firing relentlessly just moments ago, flinched in shock and turned his head.

Sssssss……

White smoke curled from Detective Sim Gu-jin’s .38 caliber revolver. He merely shrugged. Then he smiled—a smile sadder than any expression of grief Se-gun had ever seen.

"Sorry. But I thought it would be better if I finished it myself."

Perhaps the police cars were blocked by the heavy snowfall and unable to respond properly, or perhaps they were truly buried beneath the blizzard. Or maybe, in this luxury apartment complex with excellent soundproofing, no one had heard a thing. Here, where tall high-rise buildings stood in dense rows like a forest… there was no movement at all. It was as if time itself had stopped for the sake of this pitiful father and daughter. With the cold high-rises as tombstones, the girl lay collapsed in the snow, even her corpse no longer whole.

Se-gun picked up the Tokarev’s shell casings and tucked the gun back inside his coat.

“Thank you.”

The man said that to the young man who had just blown his daughter apart. Se-gun clenched his teeth. The violent emotion that had been suppressed by action only now began to writhe inside him. It was a convulsion like an earthquake. To kill the surging turmoil rising from within, Se-gun began to walk forward. For him, who needed to get away from this place as quickly as possible, that was the best option.

‘The best? You’re calling this the best?’

The headless corpse of a girl. A father who had killed his own daughter. What part of this was the best? It was the worst. The absolute worst. Could it get any worse than this? Se-gun berated himself. Even with drugs coursing through his veins, the self-loathing would not disappear.

Yeah. Heroin. Cocaine only stirred up the frenzy; it couldn’t conquer it. He had bought some high-quality heroin. As that thought crossed his mind, Se-gun swung himself onto his motorcycle.

“Then I’ll be going.”

Vrrr…

Perhaps because of the cold, the engine didn’t start easily. The weathercaster had made a fuss, calling it the heaviest snowfall in years—and indeed, snow poured down in massive sheets. Between the towering apartment buildings, snow fell relentlessly, swept by powerful winds. Listening to the howl of that wind, Se-gun sped forward.

Bang!

Faintly… a gunshot rang out behind him.

Damn it.

Then, with a sensation as if his chest had been gouged open… his vision went dark.

He saw an entrance piled high with garbage. An apartment whose trash bags hadn’t been taken out for days. Inside, there was a wooden floor space sized for someone living alone, the door to a studio room, and a small kitchen. All the windows were covered with blinds. In winter, when sunlight was already scarce, it was hard to understand why someone would keep the blinds down like that.

Slurp… slurp…

The sound of something being sucked echoed. In this filthy bachelor apartment, now rotting beneath accumulated trash—once surely clean and bright—there were photographs of lively-looking women hanging on the wall. They wore the uniforms of foreign bank employees, smiling brightly as if they had taken a group photo in a nearby park during lunch break. The pictures were framed in cute heart-shaped frames, starkly contrasting with the dark atmosphere of the house now.

Slurp…

The sucking sound continued from the room. Soon, however, it faded.

“Ahh…”

Inside the narrow room, decorated with dolls in a way befitting a woman’s space—though they seemed less carefully arranged and more impulsively purchased because they were pretty—a woman crouched in the corner. She was surely one of the women from the photographs. But now, she looked nothing like the lively person she once appeared to be. Come to think of it, had she not left this place for days?

Her gaze suddenly landed on a photo placed atop the TV. In it, she held a Yorkshire Terrier with a neatly tied ribbon.

“……!”

Only then did she notice the small dog lying dead in her hands. Even more shocking—it was covered in blood. And… that blood was smeared around her own mouth.

“Oh my.”

At that moment, the door burst open. Startled, she pressed herself against the wall. There was no way someone would barge into her home like this—she lived alone. And even if someone did, they couldn’t possibly enter so silently, without a sound or presence.

“Hey, miss. Eating something like that is exactly why Brigitte Bardot throws a fit. The whole world says Koreans eat dogs. Of course, we don’t have to tremble in fear just because of that prejudice, but still.”

As he spoke, he raised a crossbow.

Thud!

* * *

“Haah… haah…”

A young man rushed into a convenience store, panting. The clerk stared at him in surprise. Of course, it wasn’t as if there would be a robbery in broad daylight—but it was rare for someone to burst in, gasping like that.

Whoosh.

The moment he took off his training jacket, sweat poured down as if he were a boxer cutting weight. But if that were the case, he wouldn’t be entering a convenience store.

He walked to the refrigerator filled with drinks, grabbed a one-liter carton of milk, and brought it to the counter.