Escape to Lotte World
"Hmm. Looks like I have no choice but to say it straight. My brother is after your life."
"What?!"
Jeong-ah shot up from her seat at once. Every gaze in the café snapped toward her in a single heartbeat.
"Ugh... ahem. Go on. Why on earth does this brother of yours want me dead?"
"Ah, before that, allow me to introduce myself—"
"I don't care who you are."
Irritated, Jeong-ah made a point of scolding him. Chang-woon lowered his head with a look of exaggerated heartbreak. The whole situation was infuriating, yet she couldn't deny that his mannerisms were oddly endearing.
"So... you understand that we're vampires, right?"
"Yes. Loud and clear!"
"The one who turned us into vampires was Jeong-ya, one of the very first. She was killed by my brother Juk-yo, and because of the curse that followed, she keeps reincarnating."
"...Look. I'm a devout Christian. I believe in eternal life, not reincarnation. Okay?"
Jeong-ah spoke with pure disbelief. Of course, with an actual vampire sitting across from her, there wasn't much left she could reasonably refuse to believe—but the flustered look on Chang-woon's face was thoroughly entertaining.
"It may sound strange, but at least Juk-yo believes it. He thinks you're the incarnation of Jeong-ya! And whenever he decides someone is her reincarnation, he never bothers with careful verification. He simply kills them."
"How do you know all this?"
At her sharp retort, Chang-woon's face flushed.
"I protect you. Always have... though I've almost never succeeded."
"What did you just say? Is that supposed to be a defense? What did I ever do wrong? A past life?! I don't remember a single thing about it, and for that you're just going to murder the me who exists right now? And who even are you? I'm not Jeong-ya or whatever—I'm Lee Jeong-ah!"
"But Juk-yo doesn't care about any of that! If it lets him vent his rage, he'll slaughter any human who even vaguely resembles her! This is a man who once butchered every Jew he came across simply because he disliked the Jewish doctrine of the chosen people!"
Jeong-ah had been the first to raise her voice, but as Chang-woon's reaction grew equally fierce, the surrounding customers stared with even greater discomfort. A few openly wore looks of annoyance. Conscious of their eyes, Jeong-ah clamped a palm over Chang-woon's mouth.
"Okay. Okay. Let's just leave. Come on."
"Yes."
Chang-woon took the bill and settled it with a credit card on the way out. The gleaming platinum Visa looked like one of those exclusive cards issued only to special members.
"Well then—where shall we go?"
Jeong-ah flagged down a taxi and carefully weighed their options. The subway was out of the question after the attack she had just endured, and a deserted place would only make them easier targets. What they needed was somewhere crowded enough that they could still discuss this absurdity without drawing fatal attention—somewhere loud and chaotic.
Her reasoning leaped, leaped again, triple-jumped, then quadruple-jumped until only one conclusion remained.
"An amusement park."
"Huh?"
"Isn't that the safest place? Or are you short on cash?"
"No, it's not that... Fine. If that's where you want to go, then we'll go."
Looking thoroughly unconvinced, Chang-woon climbed into the taxi. The cab sped along the relatively clear Olympic Boulevard and soon pulled up in Jamsil. Lotte World—the closest amusement park to the heart of Seoul, thronged with people even on weekdays—was perfect for hiding in plain sight.
Of course, even if they fooled ordinary eyes, Juk-yo's curse was no ordinary power. When it came to those bound by that curse, his awareness outstripped even Tetra Anax's information network, the so-called eyes of every vampire. Still, he would never dare attack in front of this many people. Concealing their existence was the fundamental rule that allowed vampires to survive in human society. Anyone who broke it would earn the wrath of Tetra Anax.
"Since we're already here, we might as well ride a few things. Things have been so chaotic at home lately that I haven't gotten to play at all."
"Eh?"
Chang-woon, who had been about to buy tickets, turned to her in confusion. She pointed at the sign advertising free passes.
"So we just need to buy those? All right. But... are you sure you're okay?"
He asked out of genuine concern for the young woman who had been dragged into this nightmare. She was far from calm, of course, yet she forced a smile. The more she wanted to forget, the more desperately she needed to play.
"I'm fine. Really. I've been working nonstop, so if I'm going to die anyway, I want to do everything I've been craving while I still can."
"Whoa—everything? And this is it? That's pretty modest."
Chang-woon obediently purchased free-pass tickets. As expected of the modern world's universal currency, the credit card handled everything with effortless ease. A platinum card—how much money did this man actually have? Jeong-ah couldn't even begin to imagine. A rich vampire? She wondered how he had amassed that kind of wealth in the first place.
"About what I was saying earlier..."
"Ah, ride that one first. It's a weekday, so the lines are short. Perfect."
"What?"
"Hurry!"
She grabbed his sleeve and bolted. Faced with that enthusiasm, he couldn't bring himself to say, You're cursed, so no matter how crowded it is, your location will still be known. She wouldn't have believed him anyway.
And so Chang-woon found himself riding a roller coaster he had never imagined in his entire existence, subjected to every G-force the various attractions could throw at him. As a vampire he could leap from seven or eight stories without a scratch, rendering the thrills rather meaningless—yet riding them beside her was different.
Still, the way she threw herself into the rides reeked of escape. The events swirling around her were too terrifying and incomprehensible, so she clung instead to the bright, solid attractions right in front of her.
Something ached deep in Chang-woon's chest. Because of his brother and himself, people—whether true reincarnations of Jeong-ya or ordinary humans who merely resembled her—kept dying. He had tried countless times to protect the cursed ones, yet Juk-yo's power always surpassed his own. Even after creating so many descendants, Juk-yo's strength never waned; if anything, it only grew more overwhelming.
On the roller coaster, the Viking ship, and every other ride, he watched her clutch the safety bar and scream fake screams just to bleed off the stress, and pity flooded him. This time he would stop Juk-yo's power no matter what. Even if it cost him his own life, he would save her. Protecting her was the only path left to redeeming his own soul.
Jeong-ya.
He summoned the image of a woman he had last seen so long ago that even the memory had grown hazy. How long had she been screaming her lungs out? Only now, when her heart had finally settled a little, did Jeong-ah collapse onto a bench as though flinging her body down.
"God, this is driving me crazy."
"I know."
"Oh, right—I've been wondering. How can you walk around in broad daylight?"
"It's a privilege granted only to the original twenty-four vampires who have existed since ancient times. Ordinary vampires can't move freely under the sun."
"Liar. I was attacked on the subway earlier today."
"The subway is underground. And high-ranking vampires use ghouls—those have a certain tolerance for sunlight, so you still have to be careful."
In other words, once night fell, the danger would only intensify. The brief calm she had found while playing evaporated; her body began to tremble again. Realizing he had misspoken, Chang-woon sat down beside her on the bench.
In that same instant a murderous aura stabbed down his spine. Almost simultaneously came a grinding crack—one of the floating ride cars drifting above Lotte World tore free of its rail.
"Ah!"
"What?!"
The car plummeted straight toward their heads. Two people—a man and a woman—were still strapped inside. If it hit the ground they would die for certain, and Chang-woon and Jeong-ah would hardly walk away unscathed. Chang-woon summoned a gale and hurled it at the massive vehicle. Wind alone could never support that weight. He whipped the entire dome's atmosphere into a roaring tempest while pouring every ounce of his physical strength into catching the car.
A thunderous crash! The amusement-park floor—concrete layered with urethane padding and topped with synthetic resin—shattered as the car slammed to a halt. Chang-woon twisted aside in one fluid motion and set the wreckage down. The impact was deafening, yet miraculously no one had been killed.
"Ah!"
Jeong-ah scrambled up onto the flowerbed behind the bench in pure shock. Clinging to a plastic palm tree, she stared at the wreckage—only for a man to glide up beside her without a sound. The moment Chang-woon saw him, he unleashed telekinesis, ripping a jagged steel plate from the debris and launching it like a spear.
"Gyaah!"
The plate punched through the stranger's waist and tore out his side. Blood sprayed; entrails mashed. Any normal human would have been finished. Yet the man remained upright and lunged straight at Jeong-ah.
"Dodge!"
A second plate pierced the man's skull, rebar bursting out the far side. Even so he swung his arm and smashed Jeong-ah aside.
"Kyaa!"
Fortunately the plastic palm tree absorbed some of the blow, but the force was still more than a human body could endure. She tumbled across the ground. The assault had been carried out in full view of the crowd.
"Damn it!"
Chang-woon vaulted the wreckage and scooped Jeong-ah into his arms. For Juk-yo, staging an "accident" with a discarded stone in a crowded place was nothing. This creature wasn't human—it was a ghoul, something Juk-yo could discard without the slightest regret. Rather than finish the ghoul off, Chang-woon clutched her tight and sprinted forward. Park staff and bystanders crowded in, but he slipped past them all with superhuman speed.
"H-hey—are you all right?"
He pressed two fingers to her neck. Her pulse still beat, yet the blood trickling from her nose looked ominous. Night hadn't even fallen and already he had let her come to harm. Cursing himself, he flagged down a car.
Chang-woon already knew where Jeong-ah lived. Following the strongest traces of her hair and scent, he arrived at the heavy front door of unit 1305. She almost certainly had the key, but he merely laid a hand on the lock and opened it with casual ease. Vampires gifted with telekinesis could simply release the mechanism from the inside.
He carried her in, laid her on the bed, found the first-aid kit, wiped away the blood with alcohol, and treated the wounds as best he could. The strange looks people had given them on the way home still bothered him, yet far more urgent was the knowledge that tonight Juk-yo would attack in earnest.
Chang-woon carefully surveyed the room. Her part-time jobs clearly weren't for pocket money; they were for survival. The apartment reeked of quiet poverty. Living alone at her age, refusing to ask her remarried father for help—this was the inevitable result. He brushed a fingertip across the high-school photograph resting on the table, then pulled a chair beside the bed and sat.
When night falls... Juk-yo will come.
The thought sent a cold wave of dread through him as well. They had both become vampires at the same time, yet Juk-yo's power had always dwarfed his own. That was why, not once in all these centuries, had he ever managed to protect Jeong-ya from his brother's hands. Not once...
Haa. With such a vast gap in VT, how could I possibly win?
Still berating himself, Chang-woon sank into memory.