A Successor's Whim
Fortunately, the only people inside the theater right now were that man, Seo Rin, and the one blocking the entrance. There would be a projectionist in the booth, but in this dark theater he was unlikely to recognize a gun.
"Hey, kid. Our master wants to see you."
The man barring the exit spoke a foreign language Seo Rin could not understand at all. Even without grasping the words, though, he knew what was being said. In a situation like this the possible vocabulary was mercifully limited.
"I refuse."
Seo Rin answered in Korean. As Korean and Spanish traded places, the massive man who had been watching the film until a moment earlier stood up. Unlike his subordinates, he spoke fluent Korean.
"Hmm. The Korean gentleman says he doesn't want to. Just let him go."
"But…"
That was absurd. The effort they had invested in meeting Seo Rin had been considerable. He himself did not know it, but after parting from Seong-chan he had fallen under a mage's subtle suggestion and drifted into the theater without realizing it. Letting him walk free now would shatter their alliance with the mages on the spot.
"Doesn't matter, does it? We've got plenty of people to play with instead."
At that moment a man dragged Cho Seong-chan in through the opposite theater exit. Seong-chan was already unconscious; his feet scraped along the floor.
"What?!"
Startled, Seo Rin stared at Seong-chan. Just what were these bastards…? Had they been tailing him from the moment he met Seong-chan?
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"You're free to leave. We'll just chat with your friend instead. Why? Fair enough terms, aren't they?"
"Fair, my ass."
Seo Rin gritted his teeth and looked at Seong-chan. The man who had hauled him in wore the same clothes and the same face as the one blocking the way. Twins, most likely.
"Then let's hear what you want to talk about first."
"Feeling conversational now, are we? If that's how you want to play it, we're gentlemen too. Let's converse like civilized people."
The giant mixed-blood man said this as he picked up his coat. With a chest circumference that looked as if it could match an average woman's height, that bulk sitting in a single seat… Recent multiplex theaters really did put a lot of thought into their seating.
"I should introduce myself first, young friend. I am Giovanni Vantero, a Successor serving under Tetra Anax."
"……"
Seo Rin had heard the name from Se-gun. Se-gun had warned him more than once to be careful of the man, and now, of all the rotten luck, he had run straight into him.
"A vampire out in broad daylight. Unusual. How exactly did you know I would come here?"
In truth Seo Rin had planned to return to the hideout before the sun set. During the day the only enemies worth watching for were human mages or vampire hunters, so he had let his guard slip a little—never expecting to be blindsided like this.
"I have a few ways of avoiding the sun. No need to look so shocked, young Seo Rin. And as for you walking in here… we made sure of it. You should work on building some resistance to magic. Maybe try a little Psychedelic Moon."
Giovanni Vantero approached with a sly air. Thick lips, a thick neck, and the oppressive aura rolling off his entire body made it clear he was no ordinary opponent.
Seo Rin glanced at Seong-chan. The sun was still up outside; if he could just get out, he could escape this bastard's reach. But Seong-chan?
"Damn it."
Even if he saved Seong-chan, problems would follow. Cho Seong-chan was a celebrity who could not simply vanish. What if they kidnapped or imprisoned him later to draw Seo Rin out? Seo Rin would have no choice but to answer.
"What exactly do you want?"
Seo Rin looked up at him. Giovanni grinned. He held out a hand heavy with rings.
"Call me Gio. I'll call you Rin."
"What are you, some kind of Stand? You're going full three-wavelength crazy. Just get to the point."
Seo Rin glared without taking the hand. Giovanni looked faintly embarrassed and scratched his head.
"It's nothing much—I simply need to examine your mind and memories a little. Will you cooperate?"
"Memories?"
"I have a great interest in your mother. Even if the memories have been erased, we can restore them. How about it? Don't you want to see her? This is a good opportunity for you as well."
While Giovanni Vantero spoke, the end credits finished rolling. No cleaners entered the theater.
"Hmm. I refuse."
"Why?"
"You people claim to be the kings who control the world from the shadows, don't you? For kings, your methods are awfully crude. Even if I cooperated, I don't see myself getting much out of it. Isn't that a perfectly good reason to say no?"
Seo Rin said this while looking at the unconscious Seong-chan. Giovanni clapped as if surprised.
"……That's truly magnificent."
"And for the record, I'm not Marco from 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother. I have no desire to go looking for her, so stop pretending to do me a favor while you cling. That's all!"
Mid-sentence Seo Rin drew a gun from inside his coat and leveled it at Giovanni. But what was this? The Giovanni who had been clapping right in front of him a moment earlier had vanished.
"What?"
In the startled instant something cold pressed against Seo Rin's temple. He whipped his head sideways—and there stood Giovanni aiming a thick golden revolver at him.
"You've got some guts, friend. I like that."
Seo Rin had no idea what had just happened. Had the man moved to dodge and then grabbed him from the side? It did not feel that way. Even when Se-gun caught him from the flank or behind during training, the sensation was completely different. This was more like vanishing and reappearing.
For that giant to move like that… If Giovanni had decided to kill him, Seo Rin would already be dead.
"It's true we lack the bearing of kings. I'll grant you that, friend. Because even if we belong to the Tetra Anax line, in the end we are nothing more than servants of those kings. A fox who borrows the tiger's might sometimes foolishly starts to think it is the tiger."
Giovanni snapped his fingers. The man holding Seong-chan hostage released him. Giovanni snapped his fingers again at the unconscious boy.
"What?"
Startled, Seo Rin tried to intervene, but he himself was pinned by the gun and could not move. The muzzle against his temple jerked roughly and smashed into his head.
"Stay still."
At the same time as Giovanni's irritable voice, Seong-chan's form vanished.
"What the hell?!"
Sleight of hand? Illusion? Or real? Once it disappeared right before his eyes, Seo Rin could not even remember what it had been. Just what was this vampire's ability?
"He's not dead, so relax. I simply returned him to his original position."
Giovanni spoke calmly and laid a hand on Seo Rin's head. As the pot-lid-sized palm stroked his hair, Seo Rin could not help bristling.
"Decent skill in its own way, but still far from enough. So—are you really Seo Rin, Lilith's last child? Looks like Lilith has lost her touch. How can you be this weak?"
"Ugh!"
In a flash of anger Seo Rin swung a fist. Giovanni pulled back as if he had known the attack was coming, dodging while launching a clean middle kick.
Even calling it a middle kick, the height difference was enormous; the blow came flying at Seo Rin's head height. He instinctively sensed the danger and retreated. But—
Thwack!
With a precise impact sound, Seo Rin's body crumpled. Just one hit and his brain rattled, his vision shook, and then the world went dark as if someone had switched off the lights.
When the startled Seo Rin came to, he was already face-down on the theater floor. He had taken plenty of Se-gun's attacks, but this exchange with this bastard was on an entirely different level.
With Se-gun you could tell there was never any real intent to kill. With this one, whether he would kill or spare was completely unknowable.
"Tsk tsk tsk. How am I supposed to use someone like this? If you had even half the skill of your big talk, it might be something."
"Don… what should we do? Take him as he is?"
"Nah, forget it. I can grab him whenever I want, but… what would I even use a friend like this for? Right?"
Giovanni grumbled in dissatisfaction, as if Seo Rin had fallen short of every expectation.
"He failed the skill test, so let's hand him over to the mages. After we pull some memories first."
"Yes."
The Bernardo brothers hauled the fallen Seo Rin upright and drove a silver blade into his hand. They stabbed randomly into his arms, then used wire to sew and bind them.
"Aaaagh!"
Every time the needle punched through flesh, Seo Rin screamed. This was a brand of agony he had never experienced. He thrashed several times; a beating answered each attempt. Even though the next screening was about to begin, no one entered the theater… so no one stopped the assault and torture.
"This… is that Han Se-gun guy nothing special either?"
"Who knows."
The Bernardo brothers offered their disappointed master no firm answer. Even without this, their impression of Han Se-gun had been strong: a greenhorn who got lucky, picked off a declining Jinma, and strutted around calling himself a Jinma hunter…
"Then let's move."
They dragged the bloodied Seo Rin toward the underground parking lot.
Kim Seong-hui was entertaining a guest who had come to her occult teahouse, Arjuna.
"You've arrived, Master."
Kim Seong-hui greeted the elderly man that way. The mage guild she belonged to was built on traditional master-and-apprentice relationships. Even though she had become a full mage with power that could no longer be ignored, her master still wielded considerable influence over her.
And even if she and her master Oswald had not been master and disciple, there was no mage who would dare act disrespectfully toward the great mage Oswald. But to think Oswald himself would come in person? Kim Seong-hui clicked her tongue inwardly. The reason her master had come himself was obvious without asking.
"Is this your workshop?"
Oswald frowned as he surveyed the teahouse. Various occult decorations—some worthless, some outright counterfeits—displayed with price tags, tables set out for selling tea… This was never the sort of thing a serious mage like him would do.
Judging by her master's temperament and expression, Kim Seong-hui expected a lecture and immediately waved her hands.
"Ah, no. This is more of a reception space, you could say?"
"Even so, it seems you have not been paying much attention to the esoteric arts lately."
"Well… everyone gets tired of research around this point, right? Not much progress either."
Kim Seong-hui shrugged. Oswald sat and gestured for her to sit as well. Though she was the owner, she took a chair as politely as if she were a guest in someone else's home.
"Actually…"
The elderly mage began speaking as he polished his glasses.
"It is about that individual named Se-gun."
"Yes. Why?"
"I have heard rumors that you are transmitting esoteric knowledge to him without the proper procedures."
Oswald frowned. To the mages who had been established in the Middle Ages and were stuffy beyond measure, Kim Seong-hui was an utterly unacceptable member. An Easterner, and a woman at that? Of course the modern world was full of talk about women's rights and the like, but it remained a clear historical fact that the West had practiced its own discrimination against women.
Yet Oswald had highly valued Kim Seong-hui's innate talent. He had not only accepted her as a mage but made her his direct disciple. And that same disciple had thrown herself into creating a monster she could not handle.
"Associating closely with the demon Silvester was already a problem… though that matter had been agreed upon. But this one is a complete monster, is he not?"
They had watched Han Se-gun attack Flex Medical, one of Tetra Anax's subsidiaries, and practically demolish the building. Using a truckload of TNT to blow the place apart and slaughter every vampire inside—regarding that Han Se-gun, the mages were all worried.
They had unanimously agreed that this monster filled with madness and hatred needed to be eliminated quickly.
Kim Seong-hui was surprised by her master's reaction to Han Se-gun.
"Don't tell me you're afraid?"
"Well. I do not know what the emotion of fear is like, but concern is certain. At this rate you will ruin yourself. The Association is already discussing your expulsion, you know."
Oswald polished his glasses with calm deliberation. The lenses ground in the old style and the antique frames were exactly like early eyeglasses; nowadays they looked almost like a toy. Kim Seong-hui looked at them and answered honestly.
"……What if I'm not afraid of expulsion?"
"Then I will have no choice but to send assassins. Not only for the Han Se-gun matter, but also regarding Lilith's child currently in Korea."
He glared resentfully at his beloved disciple. Reports had already reached him that a large number of mages had left for Korea because Kim Seong-hui was blatantly spreading information.
Mages as a breed possessed tremendous vanity and curiosity; competition was inevitable in cases like this. A completely defenseless child of Lilith—would that not be a research subject every mage desperately wanted?
"Quite a few young mages have already arrived. Rosenkreuz, the Temple Knights, Freemasons… I don't know which factions, but."
"Foolish ones. But I wonder whether you can truly blame them for their foolishness."
Oswald said that and rose from his seat.