The Destruction of the Moonlit Night
Seo Rin stripped off his blood-soaked shirt and stuffed it into the washing machine. Mixing it in with Se-gun's laundry wasn't exactly a pleasant prospect, but the blood had gotten on the school uniform he needed to wear tomorrow. He had no choice but to wash it.
The machine sat in an outdoor laundry room, so the conversation had no choice but to pause while they stepped outside. Beyond the door, a vinyl greenhouse held rows of drying clothes; the air trapped inside had grown stiflingly hot, baking the laundry dry at remarkable speed. Judging by the fact that Se-gun had built all of it with his own hands, the man had a surprising amount of practical skill.
"All right. That's the end of the story. Anything else you're curious about?"
Han Se-gun had set a chair in the shade and powered up his laptop. Footage from cameras all over Seoul streamed across the screen—bugs and surveillance gear he'd planted everywhere. That he had set all this up alone… Seo Rin couldn't begin to guess where the money or the sheer drive came from. No matter how you looked at it, this guy was not normal. An extremely unhinged genius, that much was certain.
"I still don't understand your real purpose."
"My real purpose?"
Se-gun raised an eyebrow, as if the question genuinely surprised him.
"Why do any of this? Don't you ever just want to live a normal life? It's too late now, fine—but there are people who get by just fine without caring about vampires or witches! This is insane!"
Seo Rin glared at him. As a child of Lilith, Seo Rin could at least claim his fate had been sealed from the start. But Se-gun had been human. That he had willingly stepped into this world of darkness was something Seo Rin simply could not understand.
Beep-beep…
The washing machine began to spit out water. For a while, nothing filled the space between them but birdsong, the drone of insects, and the machine's gurgling. At last Se-gun spoke.
"That's why they call it the world of the mad moon."
"…That's about the same quality as my joke from earlier."
Seo Rin glared at him, feeling thoroughly wronged. When Seo Rin had made a joke, Se-gun had beaten him bloody for it—and Seo Rin had no way to return the favor.
"What? If you've got the skills, go ahead and try."
Perhaps he had felt that resentful stare. Se-gun didn't even look up as he answered, voice flat and dry.
Se-gun worked the computer, tracking the movement of various goods, and spoke as if none of it mattered.
"A normal life, huh. Well. When vampires' monsters slaughter your entire family, isn't it a little much to demand you forget everything and just live normally?"
"…Ah. I'm sorry."
Seo Rin flinched. Thinking about it, it was the most obvious thing in the world. For a human to harbor this kind of hatred toward vampires and monsters, the reasons were extremely limited. If his own family had been murdered, Seo Rin wouldn't have sat still either. He felt pathetic for having kept pressing without understanding Se-gun's heart.
But Se-gun only snorted at Seo Rin's apology. The kid still didn't know him at all.
"Don't apologize. I was a classic delinquent. When my family died, I wasn't sad at all. Or rather—it didn't feel real. That's the accurate way to put it."
"…"
Seo Rin stared at him, stunned. Not sad even when his family died? For someone who loved his own family so fiercely, it was unimaginable. How was that even possible? At first he wondered if Se-gun was just toying with him for a laugh—but Se-gun's expression looked almost sorrowful, and Seo Rin knew it wasn't a lie.
"So I couldn't forgive myself for that, and I threw myself into penance. To carve into my body a death I couldn't even feel, I made myself look like the revenge-crazed ghosts I'd seen in movies, novels, comics. I hated myself so much that I had no choice but to play that ghost… Well. That isn't my take. It's Master's."
"Master?"
"The teacher who taught me magic. According to her, I'm so good-hearted that I can't stand it unless I abuse myself with excessive self-loathing. I simply didn't know how to grieve, so when I lost my family I couldn't feel the sorrow—and that became the fuel for hating myself all over again."
"Whoever she is, her eyes must be pretty damn broken if you look kind to her."
Seo Rin let the honest reaction slip out again. Han Se-gun stayed hunched over his computer in the shade, working on… and then, after a long beat, he burst out laughing.
"Pfft. You think so too, huh? Same here."
Seo Rin stared, startled, at Se-gun's open laughter. He'd braced for another thunderbolt of violence—and instead the guy was laughing like a child. He truly could not understand this person.
One moment Se-gun acted like a drug addict, the lowest scum who had seen the end of the world; the next he showed a face of pure, almost innocent openness. Maybe Master was right. Maybe Se-gun was pure and kind enough that he had to drive himself into the ground to survive it.
"So… you hunt vampires to torment yourself?"
Se-gun closed the laptop.
"You're the second person to buy into her theory. Seo Rin, don't say stupid things. I simply… now that I know, I carry out my duty."
"What duty?"
The washing machine finished its cycles and began to shudder through the spin. Se-gun set the laptop aside and stood.
"The duty of making vampires and monsters pay for running wild however they please. I've lost a family. That gives me the right."
"What about just telling the mass media or the government? Ever thought of that?"
"Tell the world that sucking someone else's blood lets you live for a thousand years? The story of the First Emperor of Qin is so old it's past its expiration date, fine. But did you know there were rumors that the late chairman of H Group, desperate to live even a little longer, was cherry-picking transfusion packs from young people and swapping out his blood? That would absolutely be the fastest way to smash human society to pieces. Lycanthropes live longer than ordinary humans too, so some people would settle for that as the next best thing."
"…"
Seo Rin was speechless. He had spoken casually, thinking they could simply use the government and the military to drive the vampires out—but hearing this, he realized how serious the situation truly was.
The true nature of vampires and lycanthropes must never be known to humans. Their law of concealment was a shield that protected the people of the Moonlit Night from the force of civilization—and also a guardian that protected civilization from the madness of the Moonlit Night.
Se-gun explained, gesturing as he went.
"Lycanthropes, see—they have the power to revive even people wasting away from cancer or AIDS. A few transfusions and even cancer cells fall under their control. Think about it. Wouldn't humans lust after that? Eternal life. A healthy body. Some of them might even beg you. 'Please, save my beloved child's life.' 'Make my child a lycanthrope.' 'I don't want to die.' If a little girl suffering from leukemia, her hair all gone from the chemo, pleaded with you—could you turn her down? Fine, fine. It's all good. Immortality, health—all good things. But not everyone can have them. The world keeps turning because people resign themselves to a certain extent. If you let them know that everything is possible, do you really think human desire will just leave that alone? If civilization and darkness merge into one world, both the world of civilization and the world of darkness will be destroyed. For safety's sake, one of them has to go."
A sudden chill crawled over Seo Rin. Somehow he thought he knew what Se-gun was thinking—and the weight of that thought crushed the breath from his lungs. This guy was completely insane. No one who wasn't mad could think like this.
"Don't tell me… that was your real purpose all along?"
"Ohh. You figured it out? Sharp instincts."
Se-gun stepped toward him. Seo Rin trembled and backed away. The black haze coiling around Se-gun looked like restless ghosts, and Se-gun himself was a demon beast holding them down with hatred and madness. Seo Rin stared at him and shook with fear.
"There we go. Should dry in a minute."
But Se-gun ignored him entirely and pulled the laundry from the machine. Looking at Seo Rin, who was still shivering, he smiled.
"It'll dry soon, so take it home. You can keep the clothes you're wearing now too."
"Ah—thanks. I didn't have many clothes anyway—wait, no!"
Seo Rin cursed his own beggar instincts. To say something like that so naturally, in a situation like this! Han Se-gun watched him with that same smile.
"Right. I have only one purpose. The destruction of the Moonlit Night."
Vampires, lycanthropes, mages… and most likely himself as well. Han Se-gun had resolved to hate and destroy them all.
Seo Rin stood awkwardly in front of his own house, a black shopping bag in his hands. Inside it were worn clothes and old computer parts.
"There might be bugs or bombs stuck to these… The fact that I still brought them home just because he offered is terrifying. And I don't know a thing about bourgeois junk like computers."
It was the age of the IT revolution. Even the king of freeloaders—men in their thirties who had never earned a single coin outside the house—fumbled with computers and made fools of themselves on every website imaginable. And yet here was a boy who still thought of computers as bourgeois luxuries.
"…Well. They'll probably sell for money."
Grumbling, Seo Rin examined the computer parts.
"Haaah."
He opened the door to his room and stepped inside. Back in the tiny closet of a room, another sigh escaped him. Even if he couldn't take Han Se-gun's words at face value, one thing was certain: Seo Rin was a child of Lilith.
He had braced himself for being a prostitute's son, or a bastard. For someone still so young, that was no small resolve. Believing at that age that your birth does not define you takes more than ordinary insight.
But this was different. The child of a legendary witch… And her purpose had been to breed more lycanthropes?
"Damn it. Then doesn't that mean I shouldn't be getting beaten like a dog by Han Se-gun?"
If a legendary witch had created him for the sake of propagation, shouldn't he possess tremendous power? No matter how formidable Han Se-gun was, was it right that Seo Rin got thrashed like this?
Seo Rin's confidence had crumbled. Among ordinary humans, he had feared no one. Even if someone waved a machine gun in his face, he could have subdued them before they pulled the trigger. But that had been the arrogance of a frog in a well. In front of Han Se-gun he couldn't so much as twitch a finger before he was beaten down and left on the floor. His spirit had been thoroughly broken.
"Ugh, but what can I do. His fists were pure lightning. Blink and they were already at my throat. No… was the first strike a kick?"
After a beating, praise the enemy. At least then you don't have to be ashamed of losing to someone worthless. Faithful to that principle, Seo Rin untied the plastic bag he had brought home.
Most of the clothes Se-gun wore were plain crew-neck tees, jeans, worn leather pants—simple pieces that wouldn't get in the way of a jacket or a racing suit. But to Seo Rin they were a feast of fashion so lavish it made his head spin.
"Whoa. So this is what they call fashion. Ah, today I open my eyes to civilization. These aren't the solid-color five-for-ten-thousand-won T-shirts!"
Seo Rin marveled, tongue stumbling over the foreign word, then turned to pry open the computer parts. He didn't know what most of them were, but even the oldest-looking piece had been manufactured last year, which suggested they still had value as used goods. Han Se-gun, it seemed, was quite the early adopter.
"How much would these sell for? Maybe enough to see King Sejong's face on a bill? If so, I could finally abandon the half-and-half mix of cheap noodles and ramen and boil pure ramen for the first time…"
Mid-sentence, Seo Rin slid down the wall and sat. Everything he had learned today was chaotic and terrifying. The shock was so great he almost couldn't believe he had only heard it from Se-gun's mouth. Had words always packed this much explosive force?
In the world of darkness, eyes were already on him. If Han Se-gun and Maria had recognized him and approached, it was no exaggeration to say the information had already spread. Seo Rin would have to protect himself in a Moonlit Night he still barely understood. Unlike Se-gun or Maria, there would be no shortage of people ready to attack him simply because he was Lilith's child.
The fear of that was almost more than he could bear. The idea that he had tried to talk Se-gun into anything felt ridiculous. Pretend you know nothing and chase ordinary happiness? But the moment Seo Rin learned the truth about himself, ignoring it and returning to everyday life became impossible.
"…Maybe it's for the best. Father went overseas, and my little sister belongs to another household now. The only thing I have left to lose is myself."
He tried to comfort himself with that, but it brought no comfort at all. He was not a madman like Se-gun. His own life was far too precious.
The next day after school, Seo Rin headed straight for Yongsan. He had scavenged a large plastic shopping bag from a recycling bin, packed it with the computer parts Han Se-gun had given him, and boarded the subway for the first time in a long while. The secret of his birth that Se-gun had told him had worried him—but even that hadn't lasted half a day.
If Seo Rin had been the protagonist of some weekend soap opera, or even a coming-of-age novel, the revelation of his birth would have tormented him for at least a week.
Reality, however, was far crueler and more comic. After scraping together the last of the rice in the bin and mixing it with ramen, birth secrets and the rest of it simply wouldn't fit in his head. The only thoughts left were ruthlessly practical: how to make money.
The past few days had tangled him up in Shin Hwa-young's mess, and Manager Song had gotten hurt as well, so work had dried up and money was running out. Under the circumstances, even Han Se-gun's computer parts had to be sold.
Fortunately he had shown the parts to his classmates and gotten a rough sense of the prices, so he didn't think he would be scammed. Against ordinary humans, Seo Rin could tell at once whether someone was lying.
When humans lied, their heart rates rose, of course—and the scent of their sweat shifted in a subtle way. It was a change only his lycanthrope senses could pick up, so people would stand there shamelessly spinning lies right in front of him without realizing. Thanks to that, Seo Rin had been told he was sharp since he was little.
"All right. This is the decisive battle! To be, or not to be—that is the question. Damn incestuous bastard Hamlet."
Muttering something that would have made Shakespeare leap out of his grave, Seo Rin exited Sinyongsan Station. His expression and bearing were so grimly resolute that he drew stares from passersby, but he paid them no mind.
"Still… I never expected them to be this expensive."
The night before he had made a fuss about seeing King Sejong's face on a bill, but just the pieces he had already sold off to school friends had come to a hundred thousand won. A few kids had wanted certain items so badly they had put reservations on them. Even after all that, he still had a bag full left to sell.
"Should I be happy? Or should I be shuddering at the enemy's infinite wealth? Ah, what even am I…"
Seo Rin shuddered at the thought of Han Se-gun. From where Seo Rin stood, Han Se-gun was the pure-blood aristocrat of bourgeois—the golden child of so-called vulgar capitalism, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. How else could a man in his position as a criminal, unable to move freely, have been ready to throw away things people would happily pay for? A little footwork and it all turned into money.
"Hm. Is this the place?"
In front of the used computer parts shop his friend had recommended, Seo Rin tilted his head. He stepped inside, and an employee came forward to meet him.