A Ghoul at Best
“Then how exactly are the enemies going to come at us?”
When Seo Rin asked that in return, Se-gun closed his eyes.
“A pathetic hostage play, no doubt. To draw you out.”
“……You think so?”
If that were the case, Hyuk-jin’s odds of surviving would be higher—but would it really play out that way? It made no sense that a drug lord of that caliber would come all the way to Korea just for something so petty. Se-gun seemed to share the doubt, and added another thought.
“Other possibilities come to mind. Pray it isn’t one of those.”
“What?”
Other possibilities? A hostage drama meant to lure Seo Rin out was understandable enough—but was there another way they might use Hyuk-jin? Even after raising the point himself, Se-gun offered no proper explanation.
“They wouldn’t bite Hyuk-jin and turn him into a vampire, would they?”
“The Tetra Anax keep a tight rein on their subordinates. You can’t just make anyone a vampire. Controlling the vampire population to match the number of human prey is something of a hobby for them. Even if Giovanni is nursing ambitions of breaking free of Tetra Anax rule, he wouldn’t risk his superiors’ wrath by turning a nobody like Hyuk-jin unless the kid offered some enormous advantage.”
Se-gun’s manner remained calm. The Tetra Anax were rulers who adhered faithfully to their established laws; exceptions to those principles were unthinkable. And no matter how gifted Hyuk-jin might be, his talent couldn’t possibly be so extraordinary that a figure of Giovanni Vantero’s stature would turn him into a vampire without a second thought.
To a vampire, the finest prey of all was another vampire—which meant that creating one carelessly could end with you being eaten yourself. For all these reasons, vampires who had attained consciousness did not casually expand their bloodlines.
At the news that Hyuk-jin at least wouldn’t become a vampire, Seo Rin let out a breath of relief.
“Th-that’s a relief, then.”
“They’d sooner kill him outright—or turn him into a Ghoul.”
The remark made Seo Rin want to take back the sigh of relief he’d just released. Startled, he widened his eyes and asked again.
“A Ghoul?”
“The same as Giovanni Vantero’s two underlings. It’s a form of black magic that reconnects a body whose soul has once been severed—using vampire blood. What comes back is a kind of zombie. Judging by how much stronger Giovanni’s two subordinates are than ordinary ghouls, and how they retain their sense of self, his bloodline must have something specialized for creating them.”
Giovanni Vantero’s subordinates, the Bernardo brothers, were far more powerful than ordinary vampires and still possessed their full reason. That was a trait utterly foreign to normal ghouls—almost certainly an ability the Tetra Anax had somehow bestowed upon Giovanni.
“……So one way or another, he stops being human.”
“Once a vampire has you, you prepare for at least that much. You don’t leave a hamster with a cat and expect it to live long. They’re monsters that treat humans as food.”
Thinking of it that way, Seo Rin found himself worrying for Hyuk-jin’s safety. He forced the thought away. Coldly considered, fretting over Hyuk-jin’s welfare now wouldn’t let him charge the enemy either.
The other side had legal status and more than enough power bare-handed. If Seo Rin stormed Giovanni to save Hyuk-jin, he’d need a gun at the very least—and charging Korea’s newly arrived drug lord, Giovanni, with a firearm?
The police would step in and throw him straight into prison. Even Se-gun, after rescuing Seo Rin, had been careful to avoid storming hotels and places like that whenever possible, hadn’t he?
Seo Rin steeled himself and asked Se-gun again.
“What about the other people around me? Will they be all right?”
“They’re hanging by a thread.”
No hesitation in the answer.
“That’s—! Isn’t there something we can do? Ah—right. What if we expanded the surveillance cameras the way you watch over my little sister? That way the moment someone gets kidnapped we could move and—”
But Se-gun shook his head. The reason Seo Rin’s younger sister was so easy to keep tabs on was that her routine was extremely regular. Checking on lively, unpredictable people with cameras and bugs alone was impossible; it would take man-to-man tailing.
“I can protect one person at most. With two, a diversion could snatch one away. In that case, you protect the one who matters most. Who is most precious to you? Your own blood, isn’t it? Whether the blood actually runs the same or not.”
“…….”
Of course he wanted to protect his sister more than anything—but he also couldn’t stand the thought of leaving his other friends to die. Just for knowing him, they had to be attacked by monsters.
“Isn’t there any way?”
“Slaughter the enemy so brutally you earn a reputation for it. And being in a state where you’ve got nothing left to lose helps too. If there’s nothing left that would hurt to lose, nobody will want to fight a guy like that.”
Se-gun’s words sounded as if he were speaking to himself. Listening carefully, Seo Rin shot back.
“Even so, I don’t want to end up like you, hyung.”
“……You’re quite direct.”
Se-gun answered flatly, as if he hadn’t expected much, and switched off the TV.
“Anyway, you’d better start steeling yourself to kill the enemy. The longer you leave them alive, the worse it gets for you.”
“……I-is that so?”
“If you keep dithering now, the people around you will pay for it. If even in a situation like this you refuse to dirty your hands…… I already don’t think much of you, but at that point I’d despise you.”
Se-gun spoke in a quiet tone. Hearing it put so plainly felt like a noose tightening around his neck; he would have no choice but to stake his life on protecting them. For all his temper and the constant talk of killing, Se-gun had never hated Seo Rin.
But not hatred—outright contempt. Seo Rin didn’t even want to imagine what would happen once it reached that stage.
“But Argon said he wanted to see whether I could hold out to the end without killing anyone.”
The moment the words left his mouth, he felt he’d misspoken. Sure enough, Se-gun flared up and glared at him.
“Haah! And here I thought you’d improved a little. Are you saying you’re going to try to live up to a vampire’s expectations?”
“Eh? Ah, n-no, of course not.”
Seo Rin scrambled to backpedal as he climbed the stairs.
“Well then—time I cleaned up a bit.”
Long before he ever met Seo Rin, Choi Hyuk-jin had already made a name for himself as a thug. From elementary school on, he had quietly gathered a pack of followers and used them to deliver organized beatings to anyone who crossed him. His grip on the group was absolute, and one-on-one he never lost to anyone either. All the while, he carefully hid that side of himself in public and played the model student.
Of course, no matter how carefully he managed it, ugly rumors still circulated—but no one ever dismissed the rigorously self-controlled Hyuk-jin as just another delinquent.
Hyuk-jin took a certain pride in that version of himself, and he trained accordingly.
Then he met Seo Rin. The mixed-blood kid looked unusual to begin with and was fairly popular with people—naturally an eyesore, and one of the brats who would need his attitude adjusted sooner or later. So Hyuk-jin sent his boys to rough him up.
The result was disastrous. Seo Rin single-handedly thrashed all five of them; a few slammed into the school milk crates hard enough to break front teeth. So Hyuk-jin went after Seo Rin himself, one-on-one.
Seo Rin, looking thoroughly annoyed, floored him with a single open-handed slap. Sprawled on the ground, unable to get up from one palm strike by a foreign mixed-blood kid, Hyuk-jin was seized by a deep, crushing sense of defeat.
If the other guy had been older, or massively bigger, he could have shrugged it off. This wasn’t that. The kid was just a little taller, an ordinary guy who didn’t even train—and he had still beaten him. Stunned, Hyuk-jin picked fights with him again and again, and each time he only got knocked down by the same mixed-blood kid.
Worse, the shameless bastard never even seemed to dislike the constant provocations. He always greeted Hyuk-jin with a grin. Hey, back again? Want another beating that won’t quite kill you?
Caught up in that thick-skinned pace, Hyuk-jin gradually lost his venom and somehow became the guy’s friend. Even as he nursed a fierce inferiority complex, he found himself looking up to him as well, and he went on meeting Seo Rin with a complicated tangle of feelings.
They were friends—but something that was hard to explain with just the word friend. He had always tried to put that something into words, and every time he failed. He had spent his life being led around by Seo Rin.
Why, no matter how hard he trained, could he never beat that guy……? Hyuk-jin had always wondered. But as long as they were friends, winning and losing didn’t really matter. Not as long as the guy stayed where he could see him.
Then Seo Rin left.
They said a man who won at the gambling table and ran got a knife for his trouble. You couldn’t generalize from that sort of saying, but winning and then running away was still galling. At the very least, shouldn’t the guy have given him one chance to overcome the complex?
Of course Seo Rin himself would have no idea. He probably didn’t even know the complex existed. The guy had always been too busy dealing with his own problems. So it wasn’t that he had won and run.
It was only Hyuk-jin himself—clinging to the end—who was the loser.
Unable to bear that fact, Hyuk-jin burned with rage.
In a cold basement, Hyuk-jin opened his eyes.
“Uuugh.”
A groan escaped on its own. His head spun, and his gut ached. Had he gone without food? Come to think of it, a fair amount of time seemed to have passed since he’d blacked out.
He tried to lift his head—and something sticky tore at his skin. The blood he’d shed had dried and glued him to the floor. Ordinarily his skin wouldn’t have been damaged by a simple scab, but he must have been badly weakened; when the crust ripped free, fresh blood welled up again.
His whole body burned with fever. The bones of his face felt caved in. Even blinking hurt enough to drive him mad.
“Ghk—!”
Hyuk-jin screamed. The scream itself brought another wave of searing pain. A collapsed cheekbone was a nightmare of an injury. Speaking hurt. Frowning hurt. Blinking hurt. Even breathing hurt……
Then a thick voice reached his ear.
“Awake, are you? Quite the sturdy one. You must train hard under ordinary circumstances.”
In front of him stood a massive man whose bodybuilder’s torso was barely contained by a suit. Even in the dark basement he wore round sunglasses; he was a mixed-blood of Black and white, with yellow curly hair.
“You…… What the hell are you thinking? What’s your connection to Seo Rin?!”
“Hmm. In Korean terms, I suppose you could call it an unrequited attachment? I need him, and he has no intention of coming to me—so is this a case of one-sided love?”
“Disgusting.”
Hyuk-jin said it with a smile. The caved-in cheekbone hurt so badly he could have fainted, and left untreated the wound would rot—yet he still managed to smirk. Pure spite, refusing to look small in front of this man, was the only thing keeping his expression under control.
“I understand well enough what you’re trying to say.”
The instant the words ended, a thick foot came down on Hyuk-jin’s head. A man who had to weigh a hundred twenty kilos of solid muscle was grinding him under a heavy sole.
“I don’t care much for the rebellious type. It’s not that I dislike spirit—but think of it as a matter of taste. I enjoy eating a man with spirit because he tastes good. I never think, he has spirit, so I should spare him. You don’t get to call yourself a drug lord otherwise.”
In short: talk back and you die. But more than the threat itself, Hyuk-jin couldn’t help being shocked by the nickname the man had casually claimed for himself.
“D-drug lord?”
A title that belonged in overseas news and movies was standing right here. What the hell was a drug lord doing in Korea? Then again, it almost made sense. The man’s outfit alone looked exactly like a villain boss’s—plenty of persuasive power.
“My name is Giovanni Vantero. You could call me a cultivator of high-value cash crops, of a sort. I manufacture goods that children really shouldn’t put in their mouths.”
“These days drug lords drink people’s blood and crush them with one punch?”
Hyuk-jin asked with a sneer. In truth he was genuinely curious. How did these things even get that kind of power?
“Of course. You can’t play at being a king without at least that much. There aren’t many absolute monarchies left, you know.”
The smooth, easy answer suggested Giovanni Vantero had a fairly cheerful personality of his own. But none of this was getting Hyuk-jin any answers. Why grab a perfectly ordinary Korean high-school kid in the first place? The reason was Seo Rin, of course—but what did Seo Rin have that made him worth all this?
“What’s the real reason? What’s so special about Seo Rin? Don’t tell me you actually did this because you’re in love with him.”
“Hmm. You really don’t know anything, do you? Fine—I don’t much care for talking in circles anyway, so I’ll give you the truth. I am a vampire.”
“You tell me the truth and it turns out you’re a vampire?”
But it was hard to take as a joke after what he’d already seen. Superhuman strength that crushed people in a single blow, the way they drank blood—all of it fit the image the word vampire carried. After living through it himself, disbelief was almost impossible.
Even so, it was a claim he somehow didn’t want to accept. Vampires, in this world?
“Ugh. I really don’t want to believe it.”
“If you refuse, that can’t be helped. Dispose of him.”
Giovanni Vantero turned away with a regretful air and started walking. From the shadows, two men appeared and drew the pistols they carried. Alarmed, Hyuk-jin scrambled upright and spoke.
“W-wait!”
“‘Wait, please,’ you mean?”
“……I-I’m sorry.”
“Good. Now the conversation can proceed a little more smoothly. That kind of softness is important—rather like how toilet paper for wiping one’s rear ought to have a pleasant texture, wouldn’t you say?”
“…….”
What the hell was this guy even trying to say? Something boiled up inside Hyuk-jin, but he didn’t want to die, so he forced it back down.
“But you really are a piece of trash, aren’t you? So eager when you’re the one tormenting others, and the moment the tables turn you grovel like this. That must be all you ever were. Tell me—doesn’t that ‘unpleasant’ feeling ever turn back on yourself? You put on a hollow show of pride, but this ruins the whole image, doesn’t it?”
“……I’m sorry. Please just forgive me.”