Shall We Go Kill Some Wolves?

High-strung, picky, and boring as hell. Even if I cracked a joke, he'd just stare at me like I was an idiot and never get it. That was the impression Rat got. On top of everything, the guy was German! A proper scrawny German was supposed to stuff himself with beer and sausages and walk around belching, not go work at a bank and become some damn banker—yeah, the kind who poked at global interest rates and all that, so that right now back in America the unemployed were collecting their benefits and chewing on greasy, salt-crusted potato chips.

Fill the fridge with two-liter bottles of cola, slap their bellies watching seventies black-and-white comedies, telling themselves that someday they'd get a job—while the family went under. Mom took a job at a restaurant, locked eyes with some customer, and ran off; the sister left alone ended up in porn videos; and the little brother turned into a dealer, smoked weed, and crawled into bed with his middle-school girlfriend. Then her older brother caught them, forced him, and the kid turned gay!

…He had gotten that far in his head when the man who looked exactly like that neurotic German asked,

"Aren't you coming in?"

"Nah, I'm coming, friend. That 'chee~' earlier was me trying to say cheese."

"How amusing."

"Thanks."

That was what made Esprit such a fine place—people like this gathered here. Not so bad after all, Rat was thinking, when the man ushered him into the living room and said,

"I am Karen Monty. Are you aware that our circumstances are extremely poor at present?"

"Circumstances? What kind?"

"Vampire hunters are running wild. Quite a number of our friends have already been taken out, it seems."

"No way. Vampires getting dropped that easy by humans?"

He had been about to say it would make one hell of a joke—but the words wouldn't come. Judging by that face, there was no way this was a joke.

"Hmm. Eight points. If this were Olympic gymnastics, I'd say you lost a point for being a person of color and another for being non-Western."

That was what Rat told Monty for spouting pure nonsense. Monty looked utterly blank.

"W-what kind of joke is that?"

Knew it—this guy couldn't take a joke. Boring damn German. Had to be blood-related to Hitler! Rat thought.

Chang-hyun and Jeong-ah sat in a drivers' restaurant, ordered seolleongtang, and leaned back in their chairs. Running with no destination, forever, was an endlessly dull and joyless business. Of course, instead of hopping from place to place, they had staked out a quiet PC bang and dug in. There would be no montages or wanted posters anyway; wandering around would only make it easier for vampires to catch them. That had been the plan—until a program featuring some Japanese guy suddenly started on the TV.

"Huh? Wait—that's Kato Haruhiko!"

"What? You know him?"

Chang-hyun's eyes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lit up all at once, and Jeong-ah asked, puzzled. He didn't look like the type whose social circle stretched all the way to foreigners. But Chang-hyun gave a crooked little smile.

"He doesn't know me, but I know him well."

"Is that so? I assume he isn't your secret love child."

"Ooooh. Haaaaaah. I am your father."

Chang-hyun did his best Darth Vader revealing Luke Skywalker's parentage. The two of them snickered like idiots for a while.

And then, without warning, Jeong-ah's face filled the television. Full screen! And what Kato Haruhiko said next was truly something else.

"A kind person. I wanted so badly to see you that I came back."

"Keh—!"

Chang-hyun shot up out of his seat. The truckers gathered nearby looked from the screen to Chang-hyun and Jeong-ah and back again.

"Huh?"

"Whoa. What's all this?"

"Aaaah. Just ignore it."

Chang-hyun told them that and flipped the channel. But it was already too late. He should have just kept his head down. They were about to be found out. Once again he felt, bone-deep, the power the vampires had to close the net around them. They could use someone of Kato Haruhiko's caliber to film a broadcast? Or had Kato Haruhiko been a vampire all along?

"Fine by me! Hey—hurry it up!"

"Ch-Chang-hyun-ssi."

"No, forget it. We didn't do anything wrong. That bastard."

Chang-hyun glared at the television, now switched to a drama channel, burning with hostility. Everyone else quietly went back to moving their spoons. But a few of them, out of pure curiosity, would pick up a phone—and that would be the end. They had to run, right now. But how? Cut the landline and bolt? In a world ruled by cell phones! Cursing the infinite progress of the information and communications industry, Chang-hyun shoved his chair back and stood.

"Ahh! Ma'am! Here's the money!"

"Oh, what's wrong, kids? Food not to your taste?"

"No. We've got to go."

He said it and looked at Jeong-ah. Poor thing—she had barely managed a few spoonfuls. But staying here any longer was the same as walking toward death. By now the vampires' strike teams would be arming up, waiting for the call.

"Let's go!"

"But where to!?"

Jeong-ah shot back.

Where to?

Where to?

Run from here—and then where?

Did they have to keep running forever? Fleeing vampires, fleeing the sun, through the tunnels of day and into the dark of night without end. For what? For a life that had no future left in it?

"Jeong—ahhh!"

Chang-hyun grabbed her arm and ran. He left her for a moment in a dark alley, then ducked into a sporting goods store just as it was closing and came out with an entrenching shovel, climbing rope, and an A-frame tent. Food and drinks, of course, could not be left behind!

"This is it—we're hiding out in the mountains for days!"

"Um, about that—"

"Don't worry! Even as a human I could last a week no problem! I'll go buy the food! Right now only your face is out there, Jeong-ah! Let's see who wins! You damn mosquito bastards!"

"B-but…"

"Forget thinking about the future. Long-term we don't have one, so that doesn't mean we should just let the hunters catch us, right? I'm fighting until I die."

Chang-hyun said it and gathered up the gear. Bundling spare clothes, he lit his eyes in the dark. Rolling over and dying just because they piled on the pressure with every dirty trick in the book went against his creed. If it was necessary, you fought by any means and you won! And right now, seizing the upper hand meant not getting caught—hiding itself was his victory.

"You'll never catch us, so go ahead and look for a hundred days!"

Chang-hyun shouted it, shouldered the packs, and slipped out of Seoul ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with Jeong-ah.

Silvester loaded his weapons into the car and looked up at the sky. A yellow-dust advisory was supposed to start tonight, and already his eyes were stinging. Even a body that felt no pain was not immune to the impurities that wrecked its functions. He put on his sunglasses, climbed into the car, and shut the door.

Tonight, for the first time in a long while, he meant to call up some blood. Originally Se-geon had made such a mess of things that Silvester had intended to hold himself back as much as possible—but that self-regulating restraint was gone now. Vampire hunters had dwindled too far, and the vampires strutted about swollen with arrogance. Every self-proclaimed powerhouse from around the world had crowded onto this narrow strip of land; losing the natural balance was only inevitable.

But if he answered those vampires by spraying firearms everywhere, what then? Shell casings left unrecovered, bullet traces left behind, the police already drowning in violent crime cases worked to death—and if anyone got caught, a massive campaign of mental manipulation and information control would begin to bury it. That was rot eating the society itself, and he had believed even the vampires deserved a measure of restraint to avoid it.

Even if it ran counter to the very reason for his own existence…

But now was different. These nauseating vampires, the monsters that fattened their bellies on other people's blood, still flipped their eyes white over their own blood and tore into one another. Night after night Seoul turned into a world under a mad moon, and the weak who could not protect their own bodies became vampire feed, every last one. Of course Silvester was not about to step forward and defend their human rights.

He was a shepherd who had abandoned his flock. He was not the kind who ignored a plague of wolves just to guard the sheep that would end up on a butcher's counter anyway, protecting only those that wandered into his arms. He was a sword that cut down demons, a spear that destroyed the enemy. He could never be a shield raised to protect someone.

So he did not rage when the sheep he had forsaken died. The weak might have been eaten by humans instead of vampires. If society had left them to be hunted by predators, it would have left them to any other threat as well.

What truly mattered was the system. Do not grow angry because some individual was sacrificed and it looked pitiful. Do that, and you will never know the truth until the pain reaches your own flesh. Only when you look with a wider eye—only when the system itself cannot help but create victims—then, and only then, rage.

That was the whole of the emotion that moved Silvester.

"Well then. Shall we go kill some wolves?"

The V8 engine slowly hauled the composite body of the car forward.

…Just as expected. Didn't mass media hold a stronger grip on the humans of this age than the words of any Stone Age shaman? People dialed in out of pure curiosity for no better reason than that someone had appeared on a broadcast. On the strength of those tips, and on the pressure of being on the air, the prey would be driven, herded, and forced to run. A beast fleeing people had only one place left to go: somewhere empty of people—and that was also an excellent place to hunt.

Thinking of a target that would walk—no, run—straight to its own grave, a smile rose unbidden. Zein laughed, thoroughly pleased.

"Hahahahaha."

"Are you satisfied, sir?"

"Very useful. So? How far have the tips gotten us?"

"Yes. A report came in from a certain PC bang, and after that they ate at this restaurant here. They saw the television at that location."

"Is that so? Hmm. If they saw the TV, by area they had already put quite a distance between themselves and Seoul."

"I don't know much about the vampire called Jeong-ah, but the man stuck to her side is said to be rather resourceful. Word is he packed an entrenching shovel and gear like that before they left."

From the stream of tips they gathered material on Chang-hyun and Jeong-ah, analyzed it at once, and reported the facts to their master. In any case, they had turned a perfectly ordinary person into a wanted fugitive overnight; rounding them up shouldn't be that hard.

"Heh heh heh. The fact that Juk-yo and Chang-woon died in Asia was my good fortune to begin with. I know the properties of this place better than anyone. Hahahahaha."

Zein threw his head back and laughed. But at that very moment, an unwelcome guest had arrived outside.

Zein's house was a truly magnificent mansion. Of course, this being South Korea, the building footprint could hardly exceed about four hundred thirty square meters—but with three stories plus a basement, the total floor space ran over thirteen hundred, a terrifying pile of a house. Factor in the grounds and it was truly enormous; even on the outskirts of Seoul, you wouldn't dare dream of it without serious money.

On top of that he owned a vast traditional hanok entertainment house, so while he had nothing to flaunt next to the true tycoons of Tetra Anax, Phantom, or Messiah, it was clear he still held considerable power in Korea. And of course, in front of that house, large men in black suits were standing guard.

"Huh?"

Seong-gyu, watching the entrance, frowned as a man approached. Seong-gyu himself was a vampire, yet the man coming toward him like a ghost—pale skin far more vampiric than his own, black hair—moved with a slow, deliberate step. His build was not especially large, but he radiated a strange, thick pressure. And in his hand…

"Wh-what the hell do you think you're doing?"

He snapped open his collapsible baton at once. His partner, Cheol-jin, drew his own baton and eyed the blade the stranger carried. Wrapped in leather, it looked like a metal sword at least a meter and a half long even at a conservative guess. How had he carried that all the way here without anyone noticing? The absurd thought even crossed Seong-gyu's mind that the man might be a ghost.

"Don't mess around. You could die!"

The two vampire guards shouted it and readied themselves. One of them hit ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the bell to warn the inside of an attack; the other ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stepped forward. But—

Shhk!

What leapt from the leather sheath was a pitch-black zweihänder. It carved a black arc through the air and sheared straight through the waist of the vampire who had tried to block with his baton. By the time his partner tried to react, the blade had already sliced up under his arm and gone past.

"Kraaaagh!"

Feeling the wound rot under the dark, the vampire toppled forward. Before he could even register the pain, a blade drove down through the top of his skull. A monster wrapped in black darkness—become darkness itself—kept walking inward.

A closed iron gate was nothing but a toy to him. With almost no effort he seized it, wrenched it left and right, and forced it open. A dozen vampires waiting just inside rushed him in shock—but in the space of a gasp the black sword drew a long, clean line.

"Kraaaaah!"

"Kweeeeeek!"

It swallowed the thunder and the screams, and the vampires went down. Every last one was cut in a single stroke; not one of the monsters withstood a hit.

Ssssssss.

It wrapped itself in darkness again and walked on. Having cut down everything that guarded the outer yard, it moved slowly toward the interior.