Only Dead Vampires Are Good
Han Se-gun finished his meal and washed the dishes until they were spotless. There was a mechanical precision to the way he carried out his fixed daily routine without the slightest deviation. Tonight, Argon and his crew would board a plane for America. For Se-gun—a vampire hunter fully rooted in Korea whose personal details had already been made public to international police agencies—this was, without exaggeration, the only chance he would get this year to kill Argon.
But Argon was a formidable foe. Even if they fought now, there was no guarantee Se-gun would win. A life-or-death battle was about to begin, and yet the way Se-gun finished the dishes and wiped down the sink with a dishcloth showed not the faintest hesitation or tremor.
He had already discarded his life. The only thing he feared was that life ending before he could rip the existence of vampires out of this world by the roots.
"Well then. Time to get ready?"
He put on an ectoplasm mask to hide his face and loaded his gear into the prepared car. Given the image he always projected of riding a motorcycle everywhere, the enemy would be horribly wary of any bike.
"Hm?"
Just then he felt his phone vibrate. Startled, Se-gun picked it up and found a text from Sa Jun waiting for him.
"Check my email?"
Puzzled, Han Se-gun walked over to the computer, took hold of the mouse, and gave it a spin. The terminal, shut down by its screensaver and power-saving mode, woke and displayed the desktop. Se-gun opened his inbox and checked the mail that had come for him.
"Hm? What's this?"
An address was attached. He wondered if it might be a virus or some hacking program, but the site was so famous that seemed unlikely. Besides, his firewall was solid—and if this turned out to be some prank, he could just run over to Sa Jun's place and thrash him. No idiot would hack someone after clearly identifying himself.
"Oh?"
Almost without thinking, Han Se-gun clicked the address.
Seo Rin had overslept from being so absorbed in his training. Ever since stoking his hostility toward Giovanni Vantero, he had been increasing his training volume and gradually building his skills—but he was still clumsy at managing himself. Unlike Han Se-gun, he was the type who slept whenever he felt like it rather than at set hours. Then Seo Rin's door burst open.
Whoosh!
Something snakelike flew in and wrapped around Seo Rin in an instant. Caught completely by surprise, he couldn't even resist and found himself bound right there on the bed.
"What the—?!"
Startled, Seo Rin opened his eyes—and what did he see? Han Se-gun looking down at him with a face full of murderous intent. This was real, raw fury, nothing like his usual self.
"Ah… hyung. I-I overslept, that's all. I-I'll get up."
"Just sleep forever."
Instead of answering, Han Se-gun drew a pistol and leveled it at Seo Rin. Startled, Seo Rin stared at him—surely he wouldn't actually shoot? But Se-gun's rage was incomparable to anything that had come before. It was as if someone had scraped his reverse scale raw with a plane.
Seo Rin gaped at Se-gun. What on earth was this all of a sudden? Pointing a gun straight at him—had Se-gun gone mad overnight?
"That look says you have no idea. Let me show you."
Se-gun booted the computer installed in Seo Rin's room. He typed an address into Internet Explorer and opened the window. Bound in detonating cord so that only his neck could move, Seo Rin lifted his head to look at the monitor—and what did he see?
A photo of himself sitting on a bench with Maria.
In that instant Seo Rin's heart seemed to plummet. He had expected something like this might happen someday, but this was far too soon! What in the world was going on?
Had Han Se-gun been tailing him?
No—if that were the case, getting angry now didn't make sense. If he'd been following him, he should have exploded that very day.
"In this day and age, phones come with cameras built in. If you're going to do it, at least do it properly. Do you know what site this is? What board? Look for yourself."
"Oh my god."
Seo Rin was flabbergasted by what filled the monitor. It was a site so famous that anyone who surfed the internet would know it! He stared at the photo in utter disbelief. What kind of lunatic would not only secretly take a photo but then post it there? And on the girlfriend gallery of all places… Was Maria supposed to be his girlfriend?
Seo Rin gritted his teeth and examined the screen. The poster's caption was a real piece of work.
In other words, someone was impersonating Seo Rin.
"Huh?"
His mind went blank. In his head, a pastoral plain unfurled where sheep frolicked and a little agricultural Cessna puttered across the sky. Seo Rin shook his head hard to claw free of the mental freefall and looked at the monitor again.
Of course the subjects—Seo Rin and Maria—weren't paying the camera the slightest attention, so it clearly looked like a candid shot taken in passing. But the replies underneath were enough to make anyone faint.
And on and on—a parade of replies to make a man pass out.
"W-what the hell. Those disgusting replies! Who the hell is posting that stuff?!"
"Is that really what you're worried about right now?"
Han Se-gun, looking utterly fed up, kept the gun trained on him and pulled the trigger. He actually fired! This time there was no mercy at all. The bullet punched into Seo Rin's thigh; he screamed and dropped his head.
"Ghk."
"Really well done. Fraternizing with a little vampire kid. What the hell were you thinking? I honestly don't understand you."
Han Se-gun looked down at him in pure exasperation. The truth was, vampires possessed the power to beguile people—and even without that, plenty of them were stunningly beautiful. Anyone who got seduced by such creatures and betrayed the hunters was, in a certain sense, a far more vicious enemy than any vampire or lycanthrope. That was why hunters forgave no traitors, no matter who they were.
And Se-gun least of all.
"Pathetic. Just pathetic. Damn it. What were you thinking?"
"No… look, hyung—"
"Who's your hyung? I have no intention of calling some bastard who runs around with vampires my little brother!"
Han Se-gun said it and leveled the gun again—but this time he didn't fire. He holstered it and, while thumbing fresh rounds into the magazine to replace what he'd spent, grumbled under his breath.
"You're one thing, but that thing is another. What the hell is she thinking? I don't think she's trying to lure you in to get at me, and it doesn't seem like she's hunting for Lilith either…"
"Maria is just doing it out of goodwill! She's absolutely not trying to dig information out of me or anything like that! Look—even if she's a vampire, at her core she's just a normal kid!"
Seo Rin defended Maria with his life on the line.
"…"
Se-gun stared him down. Of course he knew Seo Rin wasn't lying. For one thing, there was no special information worth hiding from Han Se-gun. Everything about Se-gun was already known to them. He was a living incarnation of madness with nothing left to lose; there was no crack for them to pry open. Even if they did something to Seo Rin, it wouldn't change a thing. Killing Seo Rin now would only make a mess of everything for the sake of petty spite. Sa Jun had almost certainly sent that link on purpose, right before the decisive fight, knowing exactly that.
Even so, he could not simply forgive this kid.
In the end, this boy was never going to be a hunter. Sort the good vampires from the bad ones, deal with them accordingly, and live a happy life? It sounded nice enough. But do that and the balance of the world itself would break. Why? If you're going to draw that line, why not just draw one between good humans and bad humans and wipe out all the bad ones? If Han Se-gun had skipped Flex Medical's headquarters and instead climbed up to the National Assembly while it was in session and set off a bomb, he would have two or three times as many fans as he did now.
Castrating one axis of good and evil did not erase the danger inherent in the existence of vampires.
They possessed the power of undying immortality that could be transmitted with ease. That was a force strong enough to destroy human civilization itself. Honestly—what human didn't want eternal life?
But vampires could only exist atop a properly balanced population. Ignore that and the only result was ruin. That was why the only good vampire was a dead vampire.
Failing to understand that and judging their existence by good and evil was itself a far greater mistake. The measuring stick of good and evil was dangerous enough when applied to humans. With that stick, you could never take another person's life. If you declared someone evil and took their life without due process, the one holding the stick would be stained by evil as well.
"Is that all you've got to say? You pathetic brat. With that kind of mindset, you're going to help me kill Argon?!"
Seething, Han Se-gun yanked on the detonating cord. Was he going to set it off? Seo Rin squeezed his eyes shut in terror—but in that same instant the cord binding him loosened and flew back into Se-gun's hand. Han Se-gun seized Seo Rin by the collar and slammed him into the wall.
"You killed Hyuk-jin with your own hands, and this is all the resolve you've got? That guy died a dog's death!"
"…Kh!"
At those words Seo Rin clamped onto Se-gun's hand and pried it off. In overall control of a deficient body weight and excess strength, Se-gun had the edge—but in pure grip strength the lycanthrope Seo Rin was superior. Seo Rin tore Se-gun's hand free with ease and shouted.
"Hyuk-jin's death has nothing to do with this! Why are you bringing that up now?! That's low!"
Seo Rin was furious. Dragging Hyuk-jin's death into it just to stoke hatred for vampires. Was there a cheaper line in the world? When the wound was fresh he'd been all over him to hurry up and heal—and the moment it seemed to have scabbed over, the second he needed it, he dug his fingers into that same wound! This wasn't like Han Se-gun at all!
But Han Se-gun roared as if he were coughing up blood.
"Low? That's rich! You say you hate Giovanni Vantero—but to someone else, that bastard is the best person in the world! You get that? He might show a good side too! And you still think you can kill him? After seeing Maria's good side! After seeing Argon's good side! If you like them, then why do you hate Giovanni Vantero? Because you saw his ugly side? That guy is a hero in places like Colombia, Chile, Peru! They sell his photo and stamps at tourist spots! He sells drugs to build schools and hospitals, throws off the interference of the great powers, and backs politicians with real conviction! If you kill Giovanni Vantero, you are killing the object of longing for the South American girls who sell their bodies for a twenty-dollar bill and for their brothers—you are killing their hope!"
"Th-that's…"
Seo Rin was speechless. He had never once imagined that Giovanni Vantero, who looked like a villain at a single glance, was that kind of man. But Han Se-gun's words were no empty talk. Giovanni Vantero was, without a doubt, a hero—a savior of the nation to those people. The Giovanni Vantero Seo Rin knew stopped at nothing to achieve his ends, but wasn't that itself the classic face of a cunning warlord?
"It's not like I don't know good from evil! I know it perfectly well! Among vampire hunters there are plenty of bastards worse than vampires, and there are plenty of vampires who are more human and more decent! And still I will kill vampires! If I can't achieve my will without becoming an asura and a rakshasa, then I will gladly become an asura and a rakshasa!
"If I kill decent vampires and fall into hell for it?! Fine—then as the price, you vampires can all go to heaven! I'll go to hell laughing! You understand? If you're going to get captivated by vampires just because they're kind and show you goodwill, then I don't need your help!
"Because in the end you'd just be handing out death according to your own colors, your own measuring stick, your own whims. Is that your idea of justice?!"
"Th-that's—!"
"I'm disappointed in you. Not that I ever had high expectations to begin with… yeah. You're about that level after all. Well, fine. Your value only holds as long as you're alive, so I won't kill you. Your life was yours to begin with, and your life was yours. I let you into my house because it was convenient for keeping you out of the vampires' hands—but if you want to leave, get the hell out whenever you like! Just don't think I'll hand you over to Tetra Anax or any other vampire! I'll kill you myself first if I have to!"
With that, Han Se-gun walked out.
What became of Seo Rin was no longer his concern. He simply would not hand him to Tetra Anax—he would kill him first. With that principle set, he shouldered his gear and headed for the garage.
"Kh…!"
Seo Rin watched Han Se-gun leave and bit down on his lip. He lifted the computer monitor and hurled it into the wall. With a crunch the CRT burst and an explosion of sound rolled through the room. Glass shards sprayed in every direction, wrecking the room that had been so neatly kept.
"Damn it! Goddamn it! What the hell am I supposed to do then?! What do you want from me?! Bring you Maria's head? Argon's head?! How the hell am I supposed to do that?! People who come to me with goodwill and no ulterior motives—how am I supposed to—?! Just because they're vampires?! No way! The creature that harms the most people on this planet is people! Vampires and lycanthropes don't even compare!"
Seo Rin clenched his teeth. The sensation of the hand that had pierced Hyuk-jin's chest came flooding back. At first Hyuk-jin had definitely approached Seo Rin with clear malice. But after that he had come again with a friend's goodwill.
And Seo Rin had driven his hand through the unguarded chest of the boy who had approached him with that goodwill and crushed his heart. Spurting blood! A life snuffing out! And still that boy had kept shouting at Seo Rin to run.
Suddenly the scene of his middle-school graduation ceremony overlaid itself in Seo Rin's mind. After the ceremony, when his father couldn't come because of work, Hyuk-jin's parents had handed over the bouquet they'd bought for Hyuk-jin and they'd taken a commemorative photo together—and he had killed that friend with his own hands. He had betrayed someone who had shown him clear goodwill and killed him himself. Ah! Betraying was far more painful than being betrayed, and he never wanted to do that again!
"I can't do that a second time!"
Maria and Argon, who showed him goodwill! Even if they were vampires, he could not betray that goodwill! Compared to that, whether they drank blood or not was a trivial problem.
"Khh! This is—!"
His head cleared. Once he realized what truly mattered, the tangled mess in his mind felt suddenly clean. No need to drag this out any longer! Seo Rin hurriedly pulled on his body armor. Fine. Good. He had to go before it was too late!
Having made his resolve, Seo Rin finished fastening the armor and ran outside.