Doom Suffer

There were rumors they were conjoined twins, but even senior administrators of Tetra Anax were denied access to classified intelligence on Jinma, so no one could say for certain. What mattered was simpler: wherever she went, Messiah was sure to follow.

“Let them in.”

“Yes, sir.”

The door opened at once. A woman with a jagged, punkish cut strode in, and with her, in stark contrast, came a doll-like girl in a neat little dress.

“……What is this about?”

Elliot asked his sister, slightly thrown to see her refuse to adjust her posture even before a Jinma. Messiah cut straight to the point.

“Jeong-ya and Chang-young, right? I think you need to change how you look at those two Jinma.”

“Excuse me? What are you talking about?”

“Look, I know those two vampires are pretty dense for Jinma, but a policy of hunting them down and eating them is a stretch in a cramped little country like Korea. You know full well how many Jinma have already landed here.”

Messiah made no effort to hide her contempt. Was Tetra Anax deliberately issuing kill orders on them just to set the vampires at each other’s throats? That was the question she was asking.

“Are you telling us to stop tracking them?”

“Yes. Why? Hasn’t everything Tetra Anax has protected until now been vampire society itself? So if you pack this narrow scrap of land with vampires until they’re crawling over each other, wipe out the native vampire hunters, and keep gun accidents happening nonstop—how exactly do you plan to cover that up? Isn’t it about time to back off? Unless Tetra Anax has some other agenda.”

As Messiah spoke, Maria smiled sweetly and looked at Elliot.

“There’s a direct line to Tetra Anax here, isn’t there? Mind if I use it?”

She reached for the computer on the desk. That was when Shane stood up and slammed his boot down on the table. To commit such an insolence in front of a Jinma was grounds for immediate death—and yet Maria kept smiling as she looked at him.

“Get out. You people make me sick.”

“Ohh. Got some guts, little man.”

Messiah regarded him with more curiosity than anger. Shane met her gaze head-on.

“Ha. You pig. You’re a Jinma, aren’t you? So why are you trying to use Tetra Anax to control other Jinma? Think about it. Of everyone who’s flocked here, the only ones Tetra Anax shoved this way are you and Phantom. The rest of them came for their own filthy little schemes. Am I wrong?”

“Shane!”

Elliot tried to stop him, but Shane’s face had gone hard.

“I’m not finished! So what, you want them to lift the kill order on those two and have Tetra Anax rein in the rest of the vampires? Don’t make me laugh. If you want that done, why don’t you do it yourselves? Huh?”

Messiah raised a hand as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Unbelievable. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠This kid. Well—I’ll give him credit for the guts to talk back to me.”

In that instant, a cold killing intent lanced through Shane’s body. He jolted in shock, but his strength was already gone; he collapsed into the black leather executive chair.

“Ghk—!”

Pain flooded every nerve. Doom Suffer—Messiah’s specialty. It left life intact while firing every pain receptor in the body, a purely sadistic assault. Used on a human, it drove them to madness without fail, and it worked just as well on vampires. Even watching from the side, no one could grasp the principle behind the agony.

“There’s a grain of sense in what you said, so I’ll take it. But Tetra Anax are rulers only so long as they faithfully perform the duty of the unseen eye. If they start doing anything else, we won’t just stand by and watch. Understood?!”

“Hmm.”

Elliot watched Messiah pour out her tirade, then took a seat at the table. His younger brother Shane, having paid the price for talking back to her, was drenched in cold sweat, writhing in pain.

“How long does this last? The pain.”

“A day. Well then—enjoy a nice nightmare for the next twenty-four hours. I’m done here.”

“Gyaaaah—you bitch!”

Shane spat curses after her, but she only snorted a laugh and walked out the door. Elliot sighed and held out a cup and a pill to him.

“Take it.”

“Kh—!”

Shane tossed it into his mouth without thinking and swallowed the water. And then, astonishingly, the pain vanished on the spot. Something that could override Doom Suffer—what kind of drug was this?

“What is this?”

“Psychedelic Moon.”

Elliot answered and sank into thought. The resentment toward Tetra Anax seemed to have become an uncontrollable wildfire since arriving in Korea. As things stood, there was no way to force cooperation by arms outside of Juk-yo’s line.

“For now, put pressure on that arms dealer, Kenneth Yang. Make sure he can’t supply any more explosives. Though if they’ve got another route, we’re in for a headache.”

That was when the messenger chimed. An external secure line—in other words, intelligence coming in on the vampire network.

“What is it?”

The male vampire on the line was shouting in a frantic voice. He was one of the Oracles, so there would be no falsehood in his report. But High-Priority Target Number Four was Han Se-gun—the lunatic currently trying to blow up Tetra Anax’s Korean branch. And now that man was fighting some completely unrelated clan? What the hell was going on?

“What? Where?”

“The outskirts of National Expressway 18!”

“He’s insane! As if my brother weren’t enough—there’s another madman out there!”

Elliot said it right out loud while the madman in question was listening, then set down his headset. And for the first time in the hundred and twenty years since he had come under Tetra Anax, he made an irresponsible call.

“Leave them! The police will handle it!”

In Seoul, Tetra Anax—controllers of the vampire population—had essentially abandoned the field. But that decision rested on a certain faith in the Ireland Astate clan’s strength. They were convinced a single vampire hunter could never wipe them all out, so they simply left things alone. If the police showed up, either Ireland Astate would already have suppressed the incident, or both sides would break contact and scatter. That was the thinking. After all, Ireland Astate was famous for military-police-style group tactics. Their method—units of no fewer than six—gave them every confidence that they would never fall to thugs like vampire hunters.

But now that confidence lay shattered along with their bodies.

“Hah…… hah…… hah…….”

Se-gun stared at the USAS-12, glowing red-hot, and could only shake his head in disbelief. He was the one who’d used it, but the gun fully deserved the name Monster Killer. Automatic shotguns weren’t new, but this was something else entirely.

He had spotted vampires out hunting for Jeong-ah and Chang-hyun, tailed them in secret, and the moment their car stopped he had charged—leaving his own vehicle in the street for a firefight that turned a seven-man group, driver included, into a slurry of blood in moments. That was how devastating a fully automatic shotgun was. Up close, even a vampire had no way to dodge, and a hit left nothing but red mist.

“Th-this thing is incredible!”

Se-gun yanked the drum magazine from the USAS-12 and stowed it in the pack on his motorcycle. Then he immediately pulled out the blood extractor and drove it into what remained of the vampires whose upper bodies had been completely blown away. Not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠much blood left when the torso’s gone, he thought briefly—

Kh! What the hell am I thinking!

He clenched his teeth the instant he caught himself. He wasn’t fighting for money—so why was he fixating on something like that? Then again, without even a vulgar goal to cling to, life got hard. Without even a vulgar goal…

Come to think of it, when Deok-yeon first taught him this work, there was a line he always hammered home. Vampire hunters work for money. The day you start thinking you’re fighting for justice is the day you should consider yourself already dead. Se-gun could say he followed that teaching faithfully enough—so why did his heart only grow more ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠restless, why did his chest ache? He couldn’t understand it.

Under the mercury-lamp glare, the pale streetlights, and the blood that had gone paler still, he stood face to face with death. Death that always rode his back. And in the stench of blood he forgot it, drove blades into the enemies before him, poured rounds into them, and ran like a beast—a monster.

Somewhere along the way he had become a monster, and he could no longer deny it. To destroy monsters, the one who had hated them had become the same kind of monster—was that simply the cycle of hatred breeding hatred? But if the first hatred had been pure, he wanted the later hatred to be pure as well. Yes. He was beginning to understand the reason, if only a little.

I lifted my head again. I’d been freeloading at every hospital ER I stumbled across while wandering, and by now I was used to it. More than anything, I wanted a bath. Clean clothes, too. So I walked into the nearest late-night sauna. No student would come to a place like this, so of course it was full of people I’d never seen. Judging by the “adult sauna” sign, I half expected some seedy side business. Quietly, I was looking forward to it.

But inside there were only middle-aged men with wrinkled skin, naked, dozing in recliners. Disappointment. Honestly disappointed, I finished bathing, bought fresh underwear, and sat watching TV. Come to think of it, it had been a long time since I’d watched television. Some special report kept cycling—schools, that sort of thing. A reporter was narrating a story about the H Educational Foundation, interviewing students who said it was a good thing, a terrible thing, and so on.

And in that instant, an illustration that looked quite a lot like my face appeared on screen. I couldn’t help being startled. Had he really died from a single punch? Then again, at that age, taking my fist and dying almost seemed natural.

But—had I actually killed someone?!

“Good riddance. Son of a bitch.”

One of the men in the recliners muttered that. I stared at him, more shocked than before. The salaryman type with him went even further.

“No kidding. That pro-Japanese bastard. Guys like that should all get stuffed in a gas chamber, no questions asked, and wiped out. Root and branch—wipe out nine generations.”

“Tch. Then every big shot in the Republic of Korea would be dead.”

“Good. Dogs are better than those bastards. That educational foundation was obsessed with fleecing kids, right? I don’t know who killed him, but I get the feeling completely.”

“Idiot. Why the hell are you ‘getting’ a killer’s feelings? That’s messed up.”

They went on like that. Looking at them, I was shaken. Was it… okay to have killed someone? Even if it had been unintentional—was it still okay?

“Ugh…….”

A wave of dizziness hit me. Right…… I was a hero. By American comics genre sorting, something like a dark hero. A vampire hero—wasn’t that fine? Somehow I felt I’d done something truly magnificent, and my spirits lifted. The guilt over murder didn’t vanish, of course, but set against the common idea of what a vampire is, I decided it couldn’t be helped. Most people die if a vampire drains them, after all. I don’t think the proposition that a vampire must feed on blood automatically justifies murder. But I want to live.

Ah, damn it. This isn’t the time. I should finish cleaning up, get out, and pick the next target. A life that had already rolled downhill into vampirism—if I could still do some good that way, wasn’t that something? Right. I’d dig through internet boards. There was no better place to find out which bastards were so vile heaven itself would spit on them.

“Well then—shall we go teach a few heaven-cursed bastards a lesson.”

I’d bathed, my mood was clear, and it was time to rough someone up. With a much lighter heart, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I left that place.

From there, it went like clockwork. Conscience is something soft as talc or feldspar—the first prick already leaves a serious wound, and after that it is planed away and stripped off in an instant. Split and peeled until it is tiny, conscience finally becomes nothing but powder with nothing left to catch or snag. There might still be grit in the powder that catches if you dig, but a heart riding high is not afraid of that.

And so the level of violence rose by degrees…… until no one he touched survived. The old, the women—neither their looks nor their station, their sex nor their age, will serve as a shield for their sins! he thought.

In a fast-food joint in the college district where students always crowded, Se-gun sat at a table chewing thin junk food. These past few days, the vampires’ wave after wave of attacks had worn him down. Already a celebrity on the Finder network, he prowled the nights like a black beast. He hadn’t gone near his hideout in days. If Tetra Anax truly wanted him, they would find the place without a tracker. When he did stop by, it was only in the safety of daylight, just long enough to restock bullets and weapons.

“Haa…… Feels like dancing on a knife’s edge.”

He lowered his head. Around him, students sat laughing and chattering. Se-gun looked at them and closed his eyes. Last night, fighting the vampires who had ambushed him, he had bled far too much—a full field battle in the hills against vampires armed with assault rifles.

When the local base’s five-minute ready team poured out in force, he had been forced into an accidental cross-country run along the ridges, and every scrap of strength in his body was gone. The YZ-125 had been ramming vampires and jumping around so much he half expected it to fall apart mid-ride. He had left it for emergency repairs at the nearest shop and come in here to put something in his stomach with the leftover time.

Behind him, young people who looked as if they had never known a care in the world kept talking.

“Hey. You watch TV yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

“Whoever that bastard is, he’s something else. He killed the head of J Church this time, right?”

“Man, so there really is justice in the world. Don’t know who it is, but thanks for doing the work for us.”

“Idiot. Killing people isn’t some badge of honor. I don’t like that psycho. Riding around like Grendizer, murdering people—how’s he any different from the mangapa or Jijonpa types?”

“Come on. You’re such an idealist. What, are you the second kid saying you’re hungry too? Gimme food, oink oink?”

“That doesn’t even sound like idealism.”

Se-gun sat by the gray window light, listening to them with a straw in his mouth. It sounded like talk of the serial killer who had been famous lately. Judging by the methods—someone who personally went out and killed people who had done vile things but never faced the law—he was absolutely a vampire. Always active at night, and every witness said the same things: drank blood, leapt several meters in a single bound, and so on.

Which son of a bitch……

Irritation surged up hard. Some vampire who didn’t know his place was handing out violence in the name of justice? Playing at being a righteous outlaw? A vampire who fought for justice versus a hunter who fought for money—that neat little symmetry was a situation that set Se-gun’s teeth on edge.

He shoved back from the table in a temper, cleared his trash, and went back out onto the street. They had said the repairs would take about four hours—so where to kill the time? He looked around at the nearby buildings.

Inns checked out at noon, so a vampire using one had to extend for at least two days. PC bangs let you sleep by the hour even in daylight and were cheap, but there were too many eyes. With a composite circulating among the police as well, his options were limited either way.

“Saunas, PC bangs, capsule motels—places you can sleep during the day.”

Muttering that, Se-gun lifted the Bloodstone Pendulum. The thing was decent enough, but the detection range was far too short. He decided to kill some time at a nearby game center—an arcade, in other words.