Chapter 53 :

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By dawn, snowflakes were swirling across the sky above Seoul. From the ink-black heavens—like someone had spilled a pot of ink—the snow poured down and whipped through the alleys like shards of ice.

“Shit.”

The man in the black parka cursed as he dragged someone deeper into the alley. The person he was hauling had crossbow bolts embedded all over his body, yet judging by the way his eyes rolled, he was still alive. Strangely, despite the bolts lodged in him, not a single drop of blood flowed from the wounds.

“Careful. He’s not fully subdued yet.”

A man keeping watch from the opposite alley spoke as he pulled a van up to the entrance. The cargo van already had quite a few people loaded inside.

“It’s fine. What kind of strength does a cheap VT100-class have anyway?”

He tossed the captive into the vehicle like baggage. The driver, catching the body, glanced up at the sky.

“Snow, huh? We can probably afford to stretch the operation time a bit.”

“What are you talking about? Even if clouds cover the sky, as long as the sun’s above them, VT still gets consumed little by little. Anyway, where’s the boss?”

“One of them bolted. He went to catch it himself.”

The driver rolled up the window. Cold sleet struck the glass and melted.

“Damn winter weather.”

Grumbling, he looked back at the vampires piled in the rear seats.

“Ghk—! Hrk!”

One vampire, a silver arrow lodged in his body, was sprinting frantically. He leapt over parked cars, vaulted walls, and climbed onto rooftops. A normal vampire hunter could shake pursuers just by crossing buildings like this. But the ones chasing him now were different.

“Hup!”

A man unmistakably a vampire hunter kicked off the ground and cleared the wall in a single bound. With a leap that rivaled the vampire’s, he sprang from the wall to the rooftop, raising his Beretta M92F.

“Damn it!”

Pssht!

The suppressed shot struck the vampire instantly. The special Teflon-coated celluloid round absorbed moisture and sealed the wound, preventing any bleeding. Yet even without blood loss, this bullet was far deadlier than a silver one.

“Graaagh!”

“Tsk tsk. Quiet down.”

The vampire hunter, Sahyuk, watched as the screaming vampire tumbled from the roof to the eaves. In a flash, he dashed forward and grabbed him, lifting the fully grown man by the hair with one hand.

Crack!

Like twisting the neck of a chicken, he snapped the vampire’s neck with ease. Of course, a vampire didn’t die from a broken neck. It merely severed the nerves, paralyzing the body for a time—an ideal method for capturing one alive. The problem was that vampire muscle fibers were more than four times as efficient as a human’s; even the neck, their weakest point, shouldn’t break so easily. Yet Sahyuk dispatched him effortlessly and placed a cigarette between his lips.

“Hm. Is that all the vampires in this area? Pathetic.”

Muttering, he carried the vampire and leapt from the rooftop down to a wall. For a man of his large build to move with such agility looked utterly unreal. In truth, his physical abilities had surpassed human limits.

“Grrrkk…”

The broken-necked vampire coughed up bloody foam. Seeing that, Sahyuk raised his fist and drove it into the vampire’s abdomen.

With a dull thud—like a hammer striking flesh—the vampire went still.

“Not a single drop of blood wasted. It’s all money.”

The real reason he used cellular rounds was to preserve the VT factor. Silver bullets destroyed the body and caused bleeding, spilling expensive vampire blood onto the pavement. Cellular rounds, however, bonded with moisture, causing no damage to the VT factor and allowing the vampire’s blood to be harvested intact.

“This won’t even cover the kids’ allowance. Since we’ve got time left, should we hunt a bit more?”

Sahyuk pulled out a feng shui compass. Originally used by geomancers to locate dragon veins and divine fortune or misfortune, his compass served a different purpose. Like any other, it had a brass dial with a needle at its center. But the needle, refined after being smeared with vampire blood and burned sacred wood, was engraved with the minute blood-position resonance decree, pa-ja (6-gu).

“Hm. None nearby. That’s enough for today. It wouldn’t do for the vampires to go extinct.”

Grabbing the broken-necked vampire by the hair, Sahyuk dragged him toward the Hummer parked on the street. His team had already spread out across the nearby streets, so there was no need to worry about drawing attention. Just then, the team members waiting by the vehicle came rushing toward him in a flurry.

“Boss!”

“What?”

Sahyuk tossed the vampire into the vehicle and exhaled smoke. The men stood respectfully before him, and the highest-ranking among them spoke.

“It looks like the Jeokyo bastards are mobilizing on a large scale. What should we do?”

“They’re just a bunch of parentless orphans anyway. Planning to start a mobile orphanage or something? Or what?”

Sahyuk flicked ash and took another drag. The subordinate hesitated at his indifferent tone but continued.

“They’re probably chasing that kid. It’s information from the Finder, so it should be reliable.”

“Hm. Come to think of it, they did attack that brat. I knew he had ties to a True Vampire Hunter, but is the kid himself a big shot too?”

Sahyuk scratched his head, recalling the young face of Se-gun. He hadn’t seemed that impressive. Strange.

“If that’s the case, sticking close to him could be profitable. Post on the Finder that we’re buying info related to him. His name was… Se-gun, right?”

Sahyuk climbed into his Hummer. One subordinate immediately moved toward the driver’s seat.

“Forget it. I drive my own car. You’d like it if I climbed on your wife’s belly instead?”

“Uh… I don’t have a wife, though.”

Sahyuk exhaled a long stream of smoke. He drew so hard the cigarette was nearly burned down to the filter.

“A vampire hunter having a wife—that’s a joke. The only bellies we climb onto are female vampires’.”

He started the engine and flicked the cigarette butt out the window.

“Heh. There goes fifty thousand won. In Singapore, would that be ten lashes?”

“Not sure. But you’re not planning to look for that kid right now, are you? We still need to process these vampires.”

“Let’s go. We’re pulling out for today.”

Sahyuk shouted and slammed down on the accelerator. The powerful Hummer surged forward, shoving aside the piled sleet as if plowing it with a shovel.

* * *

Sylvester had no particular feelings about Korea. Not just Korea—nowhere on Earth stirred anything in him beyond the sense of mere “space”. Vienna, Prague, Moscow, New York… nowhere else either.

In the end, perhaps he was a true outsider. If he were an alien, at least he might shed tears of nostalgia for a home planet. Unfortunately, his home planet was Earth.

‘Truly unfortunate.’

Sylvester thought this and let out a short laugh.

By dawn, the sleet had turned into a full blizzard, lashing at Seoul. On this long winter night, the city—devoid of wandering people—was completely isolated by the freezing storm. The only eyesore was the occasional passing vehicle. Otherwise, it was the perfect weather for hunting vampires.

“How many winters has it been now, vampire?”

Standing in the heart of the snowbound city, Sylvester swung his greatsword. The thin, razor-sharp claymore split through the blizzard and fell at terrifying speed, severing the arm of the vampire sprawled on the ground.

“Kaaagh!”

The vampire beneath his boot—a ranking member of Tetra Anax—screamed. Most vampires of Tetra Anax were weak in direct combat and traveled with guards. But before the True Vampire Hunter Sylvester, no number of bodyguards mattered. Already, at least five vampire corpses lay buried under the snow.

“W-wait! You—you’re a hunter! I’ll pay you, so stop! I can give you as much as you want!”

The vampire offered a very human bargain. Even after losing an arm, he proposed terms. That made him either incredibly foolish or incredibly cunning. Sylvester didn’t particularly dislike either type…

‘The problem is that you’re a vampire.’

And worse, a vampire of Tetra Anax. In vampire society, Tetra Anax was like upper management. Stirring them up would mean that even the True Vampires who had avoided Sylvester like a mad dog would no longer stay still.

“Money, huh. That’s quite tempting.”

He swung his sword to the left and cleanly severed the vampire’s head. The decapitated body twitched a few times on the ground before collapsing.

It was the worst method of killing from a vampire hunter’s standpoint. Sylvester didn’t intend to harvest blood anyway, but vampire blood, if left unattended, could turn nearby animals into vampires. He’d once left a corpse behind, only to suffer later when stray dogs and rats were turned.

“Cut down something not worth much.”

He spun the blade once in the air and slid it into its sheath. As the thin, keen edge met the scabbard, it rang like a stringed instrument. If he had drained the blood from the vampires he’d just killed, he could have made a fortune—but Sylvester had no interest in that.

Whoooooosh.

The blizzard howled, his black coat fluttering. Holding the claymore horizontally, Sylvester walked slowly. Seoul, Moscow, nowhere pleased him—but on nights like this, perhaps he grew a bit sentimental. He lay down atop his Corvette coupe. Snow had piled thickly on the cold hood, giving it an oddly cozy feeling.

“Cry… you bastards. Even the wind is crying. There’s no way you can’t.”

He muttered and closed his eyes.

* * *

Se-gun slowly opened his eyes.

After racing vampires while bleeding, his body should have been utterly wrecked. Yet strangely, when he awoke, he felt light.

“That can’t be right.”

Se-gun looked at his bandaged shoulder and got up. It was an apartment he’d only seen once before, yet it felt oddly familiar—the apartment of that Russian woman with the strange burn scars.

“Ah!”

He felt something under his foot and looked down. A ten-thousand-won bill lay there, with his resident registration card placed on top of it. The events of last night came back to him.

“Heh… hehehe.”

Se-gun picked them up and raised his head. The doctor must have been taking her morning shower—the sound of running water was continuous.

“Hm.”

Feeling that a misunderstanding might arise, Se-gun folded his arms and headed to the terrace. Outside, heavy snow had fallen, turning everything into a winter wonderland. The apartment complex grounds were muddy from the morning traffic, but the overall scenery was that of a snow country.

“Still, I bought a house and haven’t even properly moved in. Should I just sell it?”

Holding his ID card, Se-gun muttered. A vampire hunter didn’t seem to need something like a house—especially someone like him, constantly throwing himself into fights. It wasn’t entirely because he was proactive; rather, too many vampires had gathered in the small city of South Korea. Unprocessed True Vampire blood had spilled in Seoul, so it was only natural they would flock there.

“Reality, huh.”

He hadn’t known Jin Yu-mi long, but she seemed to have left a deeper wound on him than he expected.

It sounded cheap—talking about being wounded when he was the one still alive while others had died. But there was no other way to describe it.

Click.

At that moment, the bathroom door opened.