Even Alone Is Enough
Their activities in Korea had been extremely limited as well, for the simple reason that they lacked the funds to sustain any real operations. Without money, humans and vampires alike found themselves equally miserable.
"Then let me ask you all. Anyone who wants to go take a look at Lilith's descendant here in Korea, raise your hand."
Argon put the question to the members of his clan. But they only glanced at one another; not a single hand went up. Unlike other vampire organizations that ran on absolute hierarchy, Esprit respected free will, and this was always the result. Argon took off his hat, stuck a finger through it, and spun it around with a sigh.
"You people really never change, no matter how many times I try. Well, it's nothing new."
He picked up the longsword standing beside the earthenware jar, seized the cord, and slung it across his back. It was a clear declaration that he intended to stir something up on his own if he had to.
"Argon alone is enough, isn't he? If the rest of us tried to help we'd only get in the way."
"Then what's the point of even having a clan? Even kids who play online games together have better teamwork than this. Fine. No point forcing anyone who doesn't want to. Everyone withdraw. I've already arranged the ship and the passports, so those who want out can get out."
The moment Argon finished speaking, the vampires brought over a crate and began distributing the passports and tickets inside. They accepted the documents with sighs of relief. Argon, still looking faintly disappointed, gripped his belt and looked down at his clan members.
"You're all so obsessed with just living a long time. What's the fun in that? Life is only interesting when it's rough. This is just..."
Then the sound of approaching footsteps reached his ears. Argon pulled the bubble gum from his mouth and stuck it to the earthenware jar the way a teenage boy might stick gum under a classroom desk, then drew the longsword from his back.
Ssshring!
A pure white cold aura billowed from the blade as it was revealed. Dark blue ripples ran along the edge; the spine was thick. A long blood groove ran beside the spine, forking into two near the base and growing thinner toward the tip. The point of the blade had been honed to a razor's edge. From every angle, it was clear this was no ordinary weapon.
Whooooosh!
Wind swept through the construction site, making the safety netting flap and snap. A man in sunglasses walked in through the entrance.
He was a southern Asian with deep brown skin, his hair dyed so bright a yellow that it almost looked cheerful. In a Hawaiian shirt and shorts he looked every bit the tourist—except this was no place a tourist would ever come.
"Who the hell are you?"
The vampires all stared at him in shock. That no one but Argon had sensed his approach meant he was no ordinary monster; anyone who could slip past a vampire's senses was something else entirely. Yet he ignored the hostile glares fixed on him, raised a hand, and greeted Argon with casual ease.
"Hey! Argon! Come on. What if the cops catch you waving that sword around like that?"
"When did you get into Korea, Agni?"
Recognizing the other as the vampire Agni, Argon sheathed his longsword.
Agni was a South Asian vampire who operated alone in places like Myanmar and Cambodia. He refused to form a clan and tried to monopolize every scrap of power for himself, rejecting the rule of the Tetra Anax—something that put him, in a certain sense, in sympathy with Argon, and in another sense in direct opposition.
Even so, Jinma almost never fought one another. When two of them clashed, one of them was guaranteed to die.
Agni sauntered over with a shameless grin. The other vampires flinched and moved to stop him, but Argon waved them back.
"I've got an interest in Lilith's descendant myself. What do you say? Instead of those useless underlings of yours, how about teaming up with me? There isn't a single guy more specialized for taking down that Han Se-gun bastard than I am."
Agni thumped his chest with confidence. His specialty was ignition; against a vampire hunter whose main weapons were bombs, he was a natural predator. Set the explosives off and even the most skilled hunter would be left powerless. Just as Agni claimed, he was uniquely suited to hunting the vampire hunter Han Se-gun.
But Argon shook his head.
"Look. If you've been crowing this whole time about how great you are on your own, then go ahead and handle it on your own. Don't drag me into it. Besides, I have no intention of killing that Han Se-gun fellow."
Even if the man was a rabid dog who bared his fangs at every vampire he met, Argon had no reason to stop him. As someone who dreamed of overthrowing the Tetra Anax order, the more wild cards like Han Se-gun there were, the better. And more than that, Argon simply did not trust Agni.
"And here I thought it was such a good opportunity."
His tone was pure home-shopping host—the same polished sales pitch they used on late-night TV. Selling his own marketability was second nature; the resemblance was only natural.
"Eat shit."
Argon flipped him the middle finger. It was an excessive response for a simple refusal, but Agni did not get angry. You could never become a truly great villain if you couldn't take a little abuse—and in that sense Agni was the real deal.
Lightning flashed across the sky, and dark clouds rolled in. The rainy season was about to begin in earnest.
After returning from his meeting with Maria, Seo Rin realized that Se-gun had been watching him closely. It did not seem as though he was wiretapping or anything so extreme, but he had probably guessed the broad outline. Still, given Se-gun's personality, if he found out Seo Rin had met Maria he would never simply let it go. So why was he leaving Seo Rin alone?
"Hmmm."
Se-gun sat in front of his computer with a grave expression. Rain poured down outside in the full grip of the monsoon, while the air conditioner worked overtime on dehumidification. Given how many electronics filled Se-gun's workshop, treating humidity as a mortal enemy was only natural. Seo Rin found the place a little chilly, but Se-gun's mood made it impossible to complain.
When he looks this serious, the smart move is not to poke him. Especially when Seo Rin already had plenty of secrets of his own; one wrong word could put his life in danger.
"Looks like there's still some crazy bastard out there who hasn't crossed my path yet."
After reviewing various pieces of information he reached a conclusion. Cross-checking materials and testimony from charity groups that provided meals to the homeless had led him to one inescapable result: vampires were still attacking the homeless.
For Se-gun, who had already slaughtered a great many street vampires, this was a brazen challenge. If the extermination of vampires was his holy mission, then this was the mud-caked boot of a heretic trampling across the sacred ground of his crusade. Seo Rin, who did not fully grasp that fact, only blinked wide-eyed and asked,
"There's someone in even worse shape than you, hyung?"
"……"
Se-gun lifted his foot and kicked Seo Rin, who was sitting on a chair, square in the head. Seo Rin nodded even as the blow landed.
"Right. Of course there's no one crazier than you, hyung. I spoke carelessly."
"You've been getting pretty cocky lately. Got something you want to say?"
Se-gun forced a smile so hard that the muscles of his face twitched. The resulting expression was genuinely terrifying.
"……Ah, no."
Seo Rin shook his head. In truth, ever since meeting Maria he had wanted to reorganize his thoughts on vampire hunting.
There were those who faithfully followed their bloodlust and hunted humans, and there were also vampires who could only be called decent people. Seo Rin wanted to draw that distinction. But if he brought the subject up out of nowhere, Se-gun—already far too sharp-eyed—might notice something.
"If you've got time for nonsense, go train. Or at least try to remember something from your childhood."
Se-gun issued the warning like a threat.
In order to send investigators to Irkutsk with the name Rossini Isaka Bergenev, Se-gun had been forced to spend thirteen million won. All they had managed to learn was that the name was registered in a small village called Kaya on the upper Angara River as the child of a soldier named Bergenev, and that the child had died of measles at the age of four.
Bergenev's second wife—presumed to be Lilith—was recorded as having suffered from severe depression and thrown herself to her death, but whether that was the truth was anyone's guess.
Spending thirteen million won for so little information had left Se-gun in a foul mood. The possibility of clashing with Tetra Anax investigators had justified the enormous sum, but if Seo Rin would simply remember everything, the whole problem would be solved!
Yet Seo Rin remembered nothing at all.
"Well… it was such an early childhood that there's no way the memories would come back."
"That so?"
Se-gun snorted as if he found it pathetic, but some things simply could not be helped.
Afterward he had cooperated with Kim Seong-hui and tried putting Seo Rin under hypnosis again, but once the first hypnosis had partially unlocked his memories, something like a resistance had formed and it no longer took hold properly.
Even ordinary people rarely retained clear memories from such early childhood, and Seo Rin's memories had been sealed on top of that—along with a powerful trap-type spell designed to burn out the mind of anyone who tried to investigate them. With security that thorough, peeking into those memories would never be easy.
Looking back on it, the mages who had flown in from South America had been far more skilled than Se-gun had given them credit for. Even Kim Seong-hui had been unable to see through the seals protecting Seo Rin's memories, yet they had managed to glimpse them, if only for a moment.
Kim Seong-hui was an outstanding mage, but she was not a master of every field. The mages of the Isaac Faction, by contrast, were not individually exceptional; instead they had assembled a team of specialists in their respective disciplines and sent them to Korea. Given mutual trust, it was an extremely rational structure… yet Se-gun had no one he could turn to for help in that area.
So recovering the memories is on hold for now? Se-gun let out a sigh and sat back in his chair. He laced his fingers together, fixed Seo Rin with a haggard stare, and asked,
"Why don't you try it yourself?"
"Huh? Try what?"
"Catch that bastard. If you're supposed to be some kind of righteous crusader who takes down vampires that slaughter civilians, you shouldn't have any complaints, right?"
He said it while pressing a hand to his head as if nursing a headache.
Se-gun did not distinguish between good and evil vampires. As someone who killed vampires as a matter of daily routine—no, as a matter of duty—he lived with a profound irony. Paradoxically, he hated killing and despised any attempt to justify it; therefore he could never accept the logic that "this vampire is evil, so it's fine to kill him."
And yet he still had to kill vampires. So he simply refused to pass judgment on their morality. Rather than arrogantly deciding that someone deserved death for being good or evil, he raced through the night with the mindset of a predator hunting prey, staking his life on every kill.
Whether the prey was good or evil made no difference. Hunting vampires with his own life on the line was what numbed Se-gun's moral sense and gave him the freedom to slaughter without restraint.
But Seo Rin was not Se-gun. He had not worn himself down with hatred and contempt the way Se-gun had; he had simply been dragged into the world of the night for the sole reason that he was Lilith's child, without any motivation of his own. The only motive he could claim was self-preservation, and as long as Se-gun protected him he had no reason to fight with his own power.
That drove Se-gun insane. If he did not protect Seo Rin, Seo Rin would die. But as long as he did protect him, Seo Rin would simply lie around forever, clinging to Se-gun for survival.
It was exactly the feeling of a parent stuck with a freeloading adult child. Kick him out without feeding or sheltering him and he might die; keep feeding, clothing, and housing him and you yourself would waste away—not to mention the sheer drain on the household.
Why, Se-gun wondered, did a man still in his early twenties who had never even been married have to carry around a burden this large?
"Aww, why the dark look again? Hyung, try smiling a little. Life's short enough even without all the worry, so why—"
The very source of that worry beamed at him and tried to offer comfort. Se-gun shoved him away and said,
"Anyway, I've analyzed this bastard's activity patterns while he's been attacking the homeless. Starting today, you're on patrol. If your opponent is someone who murders humans, you should finally feel like fighting, right? I absolutely refuse to accept that kind of thinking, but when it comes to giving you a motive, maybe this method isn't so bad."
"……You're kidding. It's not like anyone's itching to kill people for fun. No matter what excuse you give them, nobody actually wants to fight."
Seo Rin looked completely serious. Even if you saw a murderer killing humans, you did not immediately set out to kill that murderer yourself. Of course he knew Se-gun was only saying it to be sarcastic.
"They're not people. They're vampires."
"They think like humans and feel emotions like humans, so what's the difference?"
What made a person human was the power of thought. If a vampire could think, then that mind belonged to a person. Se-gun only laughed at him.
"In that case I suppose you don't count people in vegetative states as human either, Seo Rin."
"That's a completely different situation."
"Sure, the circumstances are different. But when has the world ever cut you any slack just because it's convenient for you? Raincoat's already set out. Put it on and get out. Now."
Se-gun all but shoved him toward the door. Seo Rin, seeing no choice, let himself be pushed, pulled on the raincoat, hid the submachine gun inside his clothes, and grumbled,
"Fine. But hyung, why are you suddenly kicking me out like this? That Giovanni guy or whatever is still after me, isn't he?"
"Because I can't take it anymore. Why?"
The moment Se-gun said it, Seo Rin clapped his hands as if everything had suddenly become clear, nodded, and stepped back over to clap Se-gun on the shoulder. Then, in the greasy tone of some old-school delinquent high-school teacher who claimed to understand everything, he said,
"Ah, of course. Hyung, you're kicking me out so you can watch something dirty, right? Porn videos or whatever? Mmm. I get it completely. We're both guys, after all. No need to hide it. If you really can't hold it in, just be honest and—"
"……"
Se-gun suddenly broke into a broad smile. It did not look like the smile of someone who was actually amused.
"So you want to die today. Your heart's pounding with excitement for it, huh?"
"Hahaha. N-no way."
Seo Rin fled the house as if running for his life.