A Devil's Donation
Rat marveled once again at Tetra Anax’s methods.
“Experienced as hell. So this is basically homework they dumped on those annoying newbies?”
He folded the newspaper he’d been holding, shoved it under the sofa, and stood.
“Then my job’s just to watch them and report in? And if a Jinma happens to collapse covered in blood this time… I get to eat that?”
“Don’t eat it!”
Monty shrieked, but Rat already seemed lost in the fantasy.
“Even if you tell me not to, you can’t just leave it when it’s still fresh, right? Oh—what, you don’t want me eating the whole thing by myself? Want a bite?”
“…You talk like there’s already a Jinma collapsed right in front of us.”
“Yeah. Damn, I hope it’s Hecate. That woman’s drop-dead gorgeous, isn’t she? Huh? Ah, sure, she’s older than me, but older women are fine. A beauty like that…”
“Incomprehensible. Cut it out and get ready for work already?”
“Work, meaning this?”
Rat muttered, pointing at the beads.
“There’s a saying in this country—even if you’ve got three mal of pearls, you’ve got to string them before they’re treasure.”
“They said fifty won per bead, right? Doesn’t sound like much of a treasure.”
Rat and Monty muttered as much while their fingers flew, stringing the beads with astonishing speed.
“Hell if I know. There’s just a saying that calls it treasure, that’s all.”
“Hey, how much do we get if we finish all of these? If it’s really treasure, how about we skim some and sell them ourselves?”
“We can make thirty thousand won. For vampires who can’t go out in the daytime, this is pretty much the only night work that pays. We should just be glad our hands are a lot faster than humans’!”
“Tch. Making money’s hard.”
“For reference, that Excel you smashed was worth five million won when it was bought.”
“On the antique market, you mean?”
“Shut up.”
The two vampires bickered like that while they strung beads into treasure(?).
It was a day of exceptionally clear air and cool wind. Summer was approaching, yet the air stayed mild enough that this year’s heat looked like it might not be so bad. Abnormal climate, maybe? When last summer had been insanely hot, the next year’s summer turned out deceptively cool—weather like that had been continuing lately. Proof, no doubt, of how thoroughly the whole world was steeped in pollution.
On such a fine day, Se-gun rode his bike straight to Kenneth Yang’s place, scored a new USAS-12 and a K-1 rifle, then tore off toward the welfare facility. Coming back, he felt it all over again—the roads really were filthy. Luckily he was used to off-roading, so he climbed the mountain path without trouble and arrived at the facility.
“…Tch.”
Se-gun clicked his tongue at the taxi parked by the entrance. As expected, the man had come in during the day to rest so he could work at night. Se-gun clicked his tongue again at that soft-hearted pastor and ran inside.
On ground thick with the scent of pine and earth, children were playing. The greenery had fully come alive; the pine and Korean pine trees, having already shed their pollen, were simply growing without end. Se-gun parked the bike beside a tree and approached the childcare facility called House of Angels.
The old people working the vegetable plots nearby stared with startled eyes—had they already forgotten his face after seeing him only a few days ago?
“Aaaaaah!”
The simple-minded children, on the other hand, recognized him at once and came swarming over, spinning tops they’d carved from wood.
“Ah, it’s hyung!”
“…Who’s your hyung?”
Se-gun grumbled, catching the kids by the heads to keep them from getting any closer. He was wearing body armor right now; if the brats started drooling on it there’d be no fixing it. Somehow that ended up looking like he was petting their heads.
“Ah, damn it. Hey—is the pastor around?”
He asked the children and immediately regretted it. What conversation was he expecting to have with these kids? But they simply raised their hands and pointed toward the office.
“Over there.”
“….”
That innocent, pure look wounded Se-gun. What desire had brought him back to this land where children like these were hiding?
“Hahahaha. So he is here.”
He’d known from the moment he saw the parked taxi, but he asked the kids out of courtesy anyway and headed for the building. When he opened the roughly built entrance door of frosted glass, a girl who had just been rummaging through the shoe rack startled and looked up at him.
“Ah… hello.”
“Hm? Isn’t it time for school right now?”
Se-gun checked his watch. Nine in the morning… if she were a high-schooler, this would be the hour for cracking open a lunchbox and falling asleep face-down on a desk.
“Ah, I don’t go to school. I study at home.”
“…Study, my ass. As if you can do that properly in a place like this. Isn’t it hard?”
Se-gun clicked his tongue. So that so-called pastor was making his own daughter work here instead of sending her to school? She still had an apron on, and the sewing machine was rattling away without rest—clear enough what she was doing. At an age when she should be playing and studying, she couldn’t even enjoy the ordinary student life Se-gun himself had once taken for granted, before he became a vampire hunter.
He felt a little pity, but if he started pitying people his own heart might grow soft, so Se-gun pitied no one. He hated being pitied himself—fair’s fair!
“I came to see the pastor, but… no, never mind.”
The pastor was far too upright; he might refuse. So Se-gun held the backpack out to the girl instead.
“Take it. Tell him he can burn it, bury it, do whatever he wants with it. I’m out.”
With that irresponsible parting shot he turned and retraced his steps. The girl stared after him in shock, then looked down at the bag. The red backpack—neither large nor small—held a weight that made her wonder if it could really contain what she thought it did.
“…G-good heavens!”
She tried to chase after him in alarm, but Se-gun was already astride the bike with his helmet on.
“Heh heh heh heh heh. Hahahahahaha!”
Inside the helmet, blue flames flickered. Like a demon sowing the seeds of corruption among humans and delighting in it, he laughed!
Vroooom!
The bike vanished down the mountain path in a roar of exhaust. Startled, she skipped two or three steps at a time down the stairs.
Flutter!
In that instant, with a sound like the beat of a bird’s wings, banknotes poured from the bag.
“Ah!”
The old man who’d been picking lettuce in the vegetable plot… the children who’d been spinning tops just moments ago—every gaze snapped at once to the bundles of cash.
Please stop!
She screamed inside. Please, just stop! But the bundles of bills kept pouring out without end. Like a perfect portrait of human desire itself, the cash kept spilling and scattering on the wind.
And with that, people moved.
“Hahahahaha! Ahahahahat! Ahahahahaha!”
Se-gun was laughing as he rode. The speedometer matched to the tuned engine had already blown past 170 km/h. Even the slightest bump in the road or a painted marking on the asphalt sent the light bike leaping meters into the air. Se-gun simply gave himself to the speed and kept flying.
“….”
He’d laughed so hard his voice gave out. When that happened, the laughter turned into sobs.
What had he done?
Even he didn’t know. Giving money was, without question, an act of charity. Se-gun had more than enough cash that this amount meant nothing. He had nowhere to spend it anyway. But was it charity in any pure sense?
There was no such thing as pure charity. If he’d given it to the pastor, the man might somehow have managed it—but he’d given it through the daughter! The girl who couldn’t even go to school, who turned the sewing machine day after day making bags! He’d given it to the daughter whose hands blistered over and over from work! Ahahahahat! Am I a demon? You didn’t know what would happen? Hahahaha. I knew. I was hoping for it. I wanted it to turn out that way!
Why? Why? Why?
What did they ever do to you? They only ever showed you kindness. So why did you do something like that?
Something like that? What of it? I just brought them thirty or forty million won. People make donations like that all the time. Haven’t you seen the newspapers or the radio? I only gave them something I didn’t need, something they needed desperately! There might have been malice in it, but that’s just the two faces every human being has!
Hahaha. Han Se-gun… Han Se-gun! A man like you has no right to make excuses. What are you afraid of at this point? Afraid of becoming evil, of becoming darkness, of becoming a demon? Did you really think a tiny outfit whose finances are so poorly separated that the pastor himself has to drive a taxi could handle a sudden massive donation? The world runs on systems. Dumping cash that can just be grabbed and run off with in front of people who used to scramble for a few thousand won, then expecting it to be managed like some big social-welfare foundation—I never knew you were such an optimist. The money you threw is nothing less than a bomb for a welfare facility that shoddy. You’re not going to claim you didn’t know, are you?
“Kraaaaah!”
Se-gun drew the black sword hanging from his bag! A sound of darkness searing the air cut through the fierce wind. He swung the blade, cleaving the wind, and cast the evil spirits off.
Hahahahaha! What are you doing now, of all times? What’s broken can’t be put back. You destroyed purgatory and shoved every human inside it straight into hell! Brilliant work! Wasn’t that the next-best thing for reining yourself in when you were about to go soft for a second? The best for me would’ve been to rape that girl and slaughter every last human, but you’re too soft in the end to pull that off, right? Hahaha. The fact that you even laid a hand on the Bible for a moment made you the worst of all.
Whether it was an evil spirit or simply his own voice, the thing was shoved aside by the sword’s power and vanished with a sneer.
Even after the voice was gone, Se-gun roared and laughed and laughed for no reason. But now, at least, his heart was clear.
All right then—shall we head for hell?
Silvester came to his senses in cold water.
“Beast Double… impressive.”
With an ordinary gun, reconstructing the wound wouldn’t have taken nearly this long. But a magical gun that possessed spirit-occupying power pierced and killed the victim’s spiritual body. For Silvester, who moved his flesh by force of will alone, it was a weapon of the most lethal kind possible.
“The torso and head are the only body I have—no spares.”
Silvester slowly rose toward the surface. Even “surface” meant little; in this lightless place there was no way to tell up from down. Guided only by his sense of equilibrium, he climbed until he reached an air-filled cavern.
“Hmm.”
He walked out of the water, gathered his clothes, and picked up the Beast lying on the table. Far too large to call a mere handgun—larger even than submachine guns like the Ingram or the Scorpion—this custom revolver was a demon of a weapon originally crafted by the Jinma Phantom, passed to Yuda, and used to kill any number of vampires.
“Yuda…”
The Vatican does not employ magic. At least, not officially. Yet it is beyond dispute that most Western magicians held social status as monks. Those in the chosen office of the clergy had the leisure to research and research again. Ordinary farmers and laborers ground down by hard labor had no such luxury for magical study—that much was only natural.
In other words… contrary to the Vatican’s official stance of never employing magic, Catholicism was in fact the single largest existing community of magicians.
In quality, the Gnostic Council—which encompassed many minor magician groups—and China’s Taoist organizations, which had been reorganized along Triad lines, might surpass it. But in social capacity and sheer numbers, the Vatican’s power was overwhelming.
Unlike the vampire organizations buried in darkness, however, the Vatican showed its face officially and therefore could never act carelessly. That was why they had abandoned the Temple Knights, abandoned Yuda, and—though Phantom’s schemes played a part—abandoned even Silvester, a man who had lived for the Vatican in all but name. And after that, no exorcist surpassing Silvester had yet appeared.
Of course there were executors like the “Sword of Aquinas” or “R,” but they had yet to achieve any real results. Compared to Silvester in his prime, they fell short. As the authority of religion itself declined, the power of its executors weakened in step.
“…Arjuna will be in danger as well.”
Silvester reached that conclusion with simple logic. This was vampire business… their thinking—more precisely, the thinking of Tetra Anax, who stood at their apex—was so perfectly rational it was easy to read. But the difference in power was so overwhelming that even knowing the opponent’s next move left him with no counter.
He would have to face the countless vampires in Korea. Of course, that was exactly what he wanted. No matter how many vampires there were, he would gladly answer the call to battle. But if he also had to protect Arjuna—more precisely, Kim Seong-hui—that changed things. Protecting meant he could not hide. Kim Seong-hui was no ordinary human, of course, but how much help could she truly be against that many vampires? He had no confidence.
“Then the only hunter I can trust now is Se-gun?”
In this world, the only person who could become his comrade was that bastard. Calling in vampire hunters from abroad might be fine, but against enemies who could attack as soon as tonight, such reinforcements would be far too slow. Moreover, the distance between vampire hunters was as wide as the Pacific itself; even if he requested aid, no one from overseas was going to hop on a ship or plane and fly over.
“…Hm.”
Silvester put on the black priest’s cassock treated for ballistic protection and draped a black long coat over it. Lined with Kevlar and ceramic bands, the coat could stop rifle rounds—but it offered no heat dissipation, so it was no garment for summer.
“…Stopping something like this would be impossible, though.”
He picked up the Beast from the table and slipped it inside the coat. Then he belted on a work of Western Church art—a pure-silver sword. Even after being excommunicated by the Vatican, he had been able to borrow it for the bargain price of two million dollars. Of course the Vatican had lent it on the premise of exhibition, the way they lent famous paintings and other artworks, but Silvester had borrowed it for its original purpose: hunting monsters. It was a weapon of lesser grade than the black sword, but more than enough against vampires.