The Were-Rat
"No."
"Huh? Marking the enemy is common sense no matter where you are, isn't it? Why didn't you leave anyone there?"
"Because we genuinely don't have the money."
"Come on, there you go again."
"I'm serious. If we had anyone we could leave posted there, I'd rather send them off to work as a night parking attendant somewhere. Oh wait—even parking attendants need a resident ID card, don't they?"
"……Were we really that broke?"
Argon's voice trembled, as if the problem was finally sinking in all over again.
"Seoul prices aren't exactly gentle."
It wasn't only that the cost of living was steep. Most Seoulites knew where to buy things cheaper than the recommended retail price; they, as foreigners, were stuck paying full price. That made a big difference too.
Their life in Korea had gone on long enough that living expenses had eased somewhat—but if living expenses were the problem in the first place, there was no way they could manage any kind of undercover work. There was a reason Agent 007 drove an Aston Martin.
"Hmm. All right. Either we raise the budget a bit, or we give up and pull out entirely. I'll decide between the two soon."
"If I had my pick, I'd rather we pull out. Lately when I go to the supermarket and ask for bean sprouts, they throw in a big free extra. 'You foreigners have it rough, coming all this way,' they say."
Listening to Karen's desperate lament, Argon closed his eyes.
He bit down on a Habana cigar, clipped the end with a knife, and lit it with a gold-stamped oil lighter. Thick black fingers were stacked with gold rings, and the ashtray was carved from dark ivory. He tapped ash into it and rose from his seat.
It had been two days since they took Choi Hyuk-jin. The lycanthrope transformation would be almost finished by now.
"The change should be wrapping up soon. I doubt the other side hasn't noticed. Still no reaction. Are they waiting to move depending on what we do?"
He already knew Sa Jun was double-dealing information. Most information brokers always traded that way—and that was how they shortened their own lives.
If Sa Jun had been an ordinary information broker, he would have died or been turned into a ghoul long ago. Once you made someone a ghoul and put them under absolute command, you could wring every last useful ability out of them. Not a bad deal at all.
But Sa Jun was no pushover, and he still held a place among the Knights Templar. Tetra Anax had treaties with every human mage; vampires who answered to Tetra Anax's order were not supposed to harm human mages without serious cause.
"An information broker reselling what he learns from a client is so common in this business you can't exactly fly into a rage and kill him over it."
The one useful angle was that he could still feed whatever information he wanted straight to Han Se-gun's side at the right moment. And yet, for some reason, Han Se-gun's side—who must have already learned that Hyuk-jin had been taken—still hadn't moved.
Whether the man simply didn't care if thousands died, or whether he refused to move until this side moved first, Giovanni couldn't say. But if they were treating this as a simple hostage situation and waiting for an exchange negotiation, they were in for a nasty surprise.
They would never have imagined he meant to turn Hyuk-jin into a lycanthrope and use him as a tool to catch Seo Rin.
"Hmm…… No. That one's been through every kind of hell imaginable; he might have predicted it. In that case, did both of them take catastrophic injuries fighting Argon? But that could be a feint too. This is getting to the point where I don't even trust my own judgment—I'm scared to move carelessly."
He had never clashed with Argon, so that was an unknown. But Han Se-gun he could not ignore. Dismissing the human Vampire Hunter who had once overwhelmed him would be the same as admitting his own helplessness at that man's hands.
"Anyway—do I call, or leave it to Hyuk-jin's free will?"
If he summoned Seo Rin by phone, he would look exactly like a kidnapper after ransom money, and he hated that. Besides, in that case he would have to involve himself. The cleanest picture was one where he stayed out of it: Seo Rin meets Hyuk-jin on his own, and then Han Se-gun tries to kill that same Hyuk-jin.
In his head it was as simple as the plot of some old movie. In practice the variables were endless; it would never go that smoothly.
While he was lost in thought, the study door opened and Hyuk-jin walked in. His wounds had healed clean, and dressed in the suit Giovanni had prepared, he already looked every inch a finished lycanthrope—a bizarre light burning in his eyes.
"So. How do you feel?"
"……."
Hyuk-jin looked at Giovanni with open distaste.
"Lycanthropes…… there are rats among them too?"
"Of course."
Hyuk-jin lifted his hands and looked himself over. Something felt sharper than before, as if an extra eye had opened—but the lycanthrope corpse he had seen during the procedure still left a sour taste. If it had been a wolf, a tiger, a lion, a bear—some proper predator—it would have had style, and he would have liked it. But a rat, of all things.
They had obtained a were-rat's remains and forcibly grafted the tissue into Hyuk-jin. Naturally there had been antibody reactions, yet the tissue still mutated; they repeated the process again and again until at last Hyuk-jin became a complete lycanthrope.
And now he was complaining that it was a rat. Giovanni looked at him and laughed hard.
"Hahaha. Not what you were hoping for, I take it?"
"……Honestly, this is complete shit. A rat, of all things. Did you do it on purpose?"
"No, no. See, the only lycanthrope body we had ready just happened to be a rat. It's fine, it's fine. Not much difference."
He said that, but the corners of his eyes were smiling. This goddamn pervert vampire. Heat boiled up inside Hyuk-jin, but he knew perfectly well he still wasn't this man's match, so he swallowed the anger.
"Damn it. Is there any way to undo this?"
"Once the transformation is complete, the only way back is…… death."
"I stepped in shit. Fuck."
"I don't even keep dogs."
"Ahh, spare me the nonsense. So how am I supposed to face Seo Rin? You said that guy's a wolf."
A wolf and a rat…… By any common sense, it was no contest. Seo Rin was pure-blooded—born a werewolf—so his physical ability and everything else outstripped ordinary transformed lycanthropes. How was Hyuk-jin supposed to face him like this?
"Among lycanthropes, in human form…… pure-blood and hastily made don't differ that much. Of course there is a difference, but whether a man squats two hundred kilos or three hundred, one clean hit still puts either of them down the same. In human form, the gap in physical ability only means about that much."
Hearing Giovanni's words, it didn't sound so bad. If the difference in human form wasn't that large…… But that meant there were cases that weren't human form.
"Then what about transforming?"
"How would a human without a tail know how to move a tailed beast's tail?"
"That's an extremely irritating analogy."
Only a few hours as a lycanthrope and he was already being treated like an animal? Hyuk-jin clicked his tongue, somehow finally feeling the fact of what he had become.
"You're irritated, so at least you've still got your pride. Mickey Mouse?"
"……Mickey Mouse?"
He already had a nickname ready? Hyuk-jin was startled by how thorough Giovanni was. One wrong step and that name would stick. Then again, what nickname could possibly suit a were-rat better?
"Transformation comes by feel once you start doing it, so don't worry about that…… In full beast form or hybrid form—beast mixed with human—your ability falls absolutely short of a werewolf's, so avoid beastification whenever you can. If you go beast-form, you'll only force the other side into beast-form as well."
"……Anything else? Any other abilities?"
"You'll be able to commune with rats. In that respect, were-rats transcend everything else. You can gather information through them. But you've only just become a were-rat, so those senses won't have woken yet. For a while, quietly get used to the new body's senses."
Giovanni surprised even himself with what he was saying. This one was supposed to be put to work immediately—and here he was talking like that. He snapped his gaze onto Hyuk-jin.
"Assuming you live, that is."
"Hmm. Just from what you've said, I've got the idea. You're not a lycanthrope yourself, so you won't have more advice on that side of things. The rest I learn by feel, right?"
Hyuk-jin caught on fast. Fast enough that Han Se-gun, who was suffering with Seo Rin, would have been genuinely moved.
He immediately sent his awareness through every corner of his body, training to adapt to the new form. First he loosened up, then moved from the tips of his fingers and toes along his whole frame, catching the feel of the nerves firing.
After adjusting himself several times that way, he threw light shadow-boxing punches to check his reflexes. Every swing of his fist cut the air with a sound that said a careless blow could kill a man. If he meant it, a human skull would burst like a watermelon.
"This is…… absurd."
Startled, Hyuk-jin rolled his body backward. He rose smoothly into the air and spun, then landed and rolled again.
"Don't waste energy. Jump in here and you'll hit the ceiling."
Giovanni said it even as he marveled at how quickly Hyuk-jin was adapting to a lycanthrope's body. At this rate, Hyuk-jin might actually kill Seo Rin. From what Giovanni had seen, Seo Rin's physical ability was still superior—but could that flustered kid really handle this cunning bastard?
"Interesting. In this day and age, interesting is very important. Ever since I became a vampire, movies and novels have all gone stale."
To a being who was already a monster out of myth, human myths and imaginations held no thrills. What was truly interesting was human relationships—drama. What would happen if two who had once been friends clashed as lycanthropes? Just imagining the course of it made his chest pound.
"This is insane."
Lance Bernardo shook his head hard. He understood why Giovanni, under Tetra Anax's control, had not made Hyuk-jin a vampire. Even so, at the very least he should have made him an enhanced ghoul like the Bernardo brothers.
What kind of man was this Choi Hyuk-jin? Wasn't he the lunatic who casually hung a man by the neck in the middle of Seoul—not even the Bronx? To control someone like that, it was far better to make him a ghoul who crumbled into a handful of dust unless he was supplied Giovanni's blood within a set time.
And instead of controlling him as a ghoul, they had made him an independent lycanthrope?
Giovanni seemed to catch the Bernardo brothers' worry and gave a dry little laugh.
"Don't worry about it. I have my reasons. And even for me, keeping two of you is about the limit."
If anything, he looked pleased by Hyuk-jin's rapid mastery.
"Looks like we can put him to work right away."
While he was saying that, Hyuk-jin landed, then loosened up again with finishing exercises.
"……Yeah. This is really something. At this rate I almost got myself killed by Seo Rin back then, huh?"
"Hm?"
"Nothing. Just remembering something from a while back."
Hyuk-jin muttered it and straightened his tie. He had been shoved into becoming a lycanthrope, but the physical ability was extremely to his liking. At last he stood on something like equal footing with Seo Rin.
"So what am I supposed to do? Kill Seo Rin?"
"Killing him would be a problem. Just make it so his limbs won't move and bring him back. Well? Will you come along as our hostage, or will you handle it on your own?"
When Giovanni asked that, the Bernardo brothers started in surprise. He was going to turn loose a brand-new lycanthrope with no control mechanism at all? Even if Giovanni had made a name as a lycanthrope hunter, this was far too reckless. But Hyuk-jin only snorted.
"Obviously I'll handle it myself. But are you sure? What if I just run? You asking me that so you can give me a choice and then force me into it again?"
"No. This time we go with you doing as you please. However! I've come to hunt a wolf…… but if a rat gets in the way along the road, I'll kill the rat too. Keep that in mind."
Giovanni smiled thinly. The gold plating on his front teeth caught the light.
Han Se-gun began Seo Rin's training in earnest. Until now, no matter how carefully he built a schedule, Seo Rin never kept up—but once Seo Rin showed actual will, the work became far more manageable.
The non-human circuit training and weights Se-gun had devised—the self-driven work—Seo Rin was already following almost perfectly. With the will to do it, weights and circuit training were easy enough.
Fatigue recovery beyond human comparison. Regeneration that erased any worry of injury from overwork. Even the cycle by which loaded muscle fiber recovered and grew was short. If a lycanthrope trained properly, a week could yield three months of human results.
Perhaps for that reason, Seo Rin's body began improving at a rapid clip, and on that foundation his physical abilities rose as well.
But when it came to actual fighting, there was still no progress.
Crack!
Every time they sparred on the special ring set up in the basement, the canvas ran red. All of that blood was Seo Rin's. With a human body, fighting vampires while dosed on drugs refined from vampire blood, Se-gun already possessed terrifying skill. Against that, Seo Rin had power and speed—and form that was a disaster.
That was the decisive gap. Until now Seo Rin had never needed martial arts or striking arts. Among humans, no one who fought him survived.
Just as even the best fighting sheep among sheep still falls to a wolf, humans were never a match for a lycanthrope. So Seo Rin had never felt any lack in his combat ability or capacity for violence.
Destructive power came easily enough, so he stopped caring about form, and his patterns simplified. Then, the moment he met an enemy of equal or slightly lower level, he was completely dismantled. That was why, against vampires or lycanthropes, he lost one hundred times out of one hundred.
To correct him, Se-gun drove a forced march. Ordinary light sparring might happen once a week; they would spar every day—ten three-minute rounds a day. And the opponent was Han Se-gun himself.