A Perfect Opportunity
"I don't get what a guy whose heart's already dead finds so entertaining that he'd kick up this much trouble. Thanks to him, I lost my men too."
"I didn't lay a finger on that particular matter."
"Ah, is that so?"
Giovanni grumbled. One way or another, with Argon out of the picture and Han Se-gun wounded, there would never be a better opening than right now. On top of that, Sa Jun's underlings seemed to be pouring everything they had into attacking Han Se-gun, which meant he had plenty of disposable meat shields this time—unlike before. Agreeing to Sa Jun's belated request for cooperation still grated on him, but having come all the way to Korea, he wanted to walk away with something to show for it.
"No harm in trying, I suppose."
Giovanni decided to go along with Sa Jun's proposal. To claim Seo Rin, he would have to eliminate Han Se-gun sooner or later. And there was no room to doubt that this very moment was the perfect chance. Even if Sa Jun and his lot tried to spring another trap later, that was a problem for later.
Besides, Sa Jun was no longer in any position to dig traps at his leisure. He had made an enemy of Han Se-gun—the berserk Beast that even vampires feared. Requesting Giovanni's cooperation was less about luring him into a pitfall and more about simply stopping Han Se-gun first.
"Thank you. Shall we get moving, then?"
Sa Jun rose from his seat with a sly little grin.
After successive massacres yesterday and today, the police were on edge. Fully armed hostiles storming a single building—that much matched the reports from officers on the scene. But by the time reinforcements arrived, the armed force had already withdrawn or been wiped out, leaving only corpses and equipment behind.
Investigators soon found, in the basement of the attacked building, the body of a woman believed to be the owner of the establishment, along with a considerable stockpile of firearms. Why the weapons were there, and why anyone would assault the place, remained a complete mystery. A few papers had hastily declared that a terrorist cell had been uncovered, but terrorism was usually a kind of armed demonstration aimed at spectacle. That nature of it meant the targets had to be ones that would make headlines.
The National Assembly, government offices, embassies, prominent public figures—only then did the effect land. Most terrorists died after striking their chosen mark, which made the choice of target all the more deliberate.
These people were different. No demands. No claim of affiliation. It was as if killing the enemy itself had been the entire objective.
"Ah, damn it. This really isn't something humans should be capable of."
Detective Jo of the Special Violent Crime Task Force looked around the scene, aghast. The carnage shared more than a few threads with the earlier Flex Medical incident—a brutal crime that leveled everything around it and shredded the dignity of a nation of laws.
"Forensics is going to be at this for ages even after they get here. Bodies everywhere… This place looks like a battlefield. You think North Korean special forces came south?"
"Battlefield's exactly what it is. Look at the weapons. This is no joke. Still, the hardware's different enough that I don't think it's the North."
Detective Park grumbled as he walked out with a digital recorder to take statements. With gunfire and even shelling in the middle of the city, no one nearby would still be around—but the least he could do was dig up whatever reputation this place called Arjuna might have. A basement full of weapons already said the owner was no ordinary person, yet the paperwork so far showed nothing suspicious.
"Something about this feels deeply connected to everything else that's been happening lately."
It was only a vague suspicion; he had no hard proof of any organic link to the recent incidents. Detective Jo pressed a hand to his pounding head and walked out of the blood-reeking basement. Between one police-related horror after another, simply keeping the job was getting hard.
Now there were people firing mortars in city streets. He had even started seeing a psychiatrist.
"At this rate, am I going to go crazy and die like my senior?"
He exhaled a long sigh and stared down the street littered with corpses.
After back-to-back gunfights across Seoul yesterday and today, checkpoints everywhere had been dramatically tightened. Military units from the surrounding capital region were pouring into the city. With the enemy's armament this serious, command had clearly decided to risk public panic and deploy the army.
But the ones running the checkpoints were still only human.
"Here you go."
Kim Seong-hui boldly held out her driver's license. The officers startled at first, then her eyes locked theirs down with psychic force and they waved her through without a second thought.
"That's incredible."
Seo Rin was quietly impressed. In the seat beside him sat a boy soldier in military fatigues, moaning over a broken arm—and the police still waved Kim Seong-hui straight through. She seemed to be controlling people with magic, and she did it without chants or gestures of any kind.
He was grateful she was on their side. If she had been an enemy, the ability would have been terrifying.
The checkpoint officers stood dazed for a moment, then cheerfully let them pass. Their behavior looked so natural that no one would ever guess they were under control. He had heard that this kind of magic burned through mental strength and was exhausting, yet she had already breezed through a fourth checkpoint without the slightest sign of fatigue.
"That's why humans can never catch mages. And it's exactly why Tetra Anax doesn't attack them either."
Because mages could acquire, through magic, abilities similar to the bloodline powers of Tetra Anax, the clan regarded them as fellow controllers. That was how vampires and mages had settled into a neutral relationship.
"Still… at this rate my place is completely locked down. Where are we even going?"
Han Se-gun clicked his tongue at the murderous checkpoints. No matter how many people they threw at the problem, as long as the Master was with them, breaking through was never the issue. But he needed a stable place to rest if his wounds were going to heal.
"We're going to my safehouse."
Kim Seong-hui turned the car toward her own hideout. Han Se-gun closed his eyes again, apparently focusing on regeneration. If he fully woke the vampire side of himself, a missing hand would be trivial—but healing that way risked shattering the precarious balance he had fought so hard to maintain. Using vampire blood the way he had as a human also required caution. The blood itself was not believed to cause direct harm, but its clinical effects had never been fully mapped.
For all he knew, his own vampirization might have started that way. Standing on the knife-edge between human and monster, he had to stay vigilant. If there was no emergency, better to trust his own regenerative power.
"This kid needs treatment too. He's running a fever from the pain."
"Arm's broken—of course he is. Use this."
Han Se-gun passed him a vial of vampire blood and a syringe. Seo Rin carefully drew the blood into the barrel.
"Eek!"
The boy soldier shook his head wildly in terror, apparently convinced it was some kind of truth serum. He started babbling that he would tell them everything he knew, but Se-gun ignored him.
"Haha. It's fine, it's fine. We're just going to fix you up."
Seo Rin smiled and took hold of the boy's arm. Human thrashing could be surprisingly strong, but it was nothing against the strength of a werewolf. The boy soldier stared at Seo Rin in shock. He had gone into the operation after Sa Jun's briefing, but this harmless-looking boy possessed the same monstrous power as the man beside him.
Once the resistance faded, Seo Rin injected the vampire blood into the boy's arm. The wounds sealed almost at once, and the broken bone knitted itself back into place. The change was so sudden that the boy could only gape.
"Judging by his reaction, he really had no idea."
Anyone who had run with Sa Jun's crew for any length of time ought to know at least something about vampire blood. This boy acted as if he knew nothing at all. Then again, if he had known about creatures as alien as vampires, he would have been dosed with Psychedelic Moon before deployment.
Psychedelic Moon—the narcotic hunters refined from vampire blood—delivered a terrifying boost in combat power when injected. Sa Jun had not given it to these soldiers. Which meant they were pure expendables?
"Then we don't need him. Turn him loose and he'll just end up an illegal immigrant. If the police grab him and he starts talking nonsense, it'll be a headache."
"So… should we take him with us?"
"Are you out of your mind?"
When Han Se-gun shot the question back at him, Seo Rin had nothing to say and shut his mouth. Se-gun scolded him.
"Don't start with how young and pitiful he looks. Anyone who hires himself out as a mercenary for money has already killed people. You understand that, right?"
"Really?"
Seo Rin asked as if he genuinely hadn't known.
"In countries torn apart by civil war, kid soldiers who will pull a trigger over a single piece of chocolate are everywhere. Take a few bullets from one of them and that 'he's just a child, so we should forgive him' line crawls right back down your throat."
Han Se-gun grumbled and looked at the boy. The kid was trembling violently, then carefully edged closer to Seo Rin. Language was a barrier, but he seemed to sense that Seo Rin was on his side and Han Se-gun was not. At least he had some survival instincts.
"But sealing his mouth by killing him still feels wrong, doesn't it?"
Seo Rin said it with clear pity for the boy. Given Han Se-gun's personality, the fact that the suggestion had even come up meant he might well kill the kid for silence once the interrogation was over. But Se-gun's expression twisted.
"No need to kill him to keep him quiet. As long as the target's human, memory manipulation works just fine."
"Ah."
By then the van had cleared the tollgate and climbed onto the national highway. Sparse countryside scenery opened around them.
"Ah, we're here. That's it."
Kim Seong-hui pointed to a small farmhouse set in the middle of flat fields. It was built of thick hardened brick, solar collector panels on the roof, and what looked like satellite TV dishes. Seo Rin looked around and asked her in surprise.
"Is this okay? It's wide open on every side. If we get surrounded, won't it be dangerous? These people use mortars without a second thought."
"There's almost no defensive hardware set up against an attack, but what choice do we have? Right now we just need somewhere to hole up."
Building a proper safehouse with defenses and secret exits cost serious money. Neither Kim Seong-hui nor Han Se-gun was short of cash, but neither of them had the luxury of pouring that kind of money into a safehouse they might never use.
Kim Seong-hui parked in front of the house and got out. Years had passed since she set the place up, and she had never needed it; the air of abandonment hung thick. At least there were no signs of intrusion.
She let out a breath of relief and carefully opened the door. Inside it looked like an ordinary home, thick with dust. The state of it was so bad that Seo Rin hesitated over whether to keep his shoes on or take them off.
"We'll need to clean first. Seo Rin. You can drive, right?"
"Drive? Well… I know how."
"The roads are a little rough, but there won't be many cops. Go into town and grab towels, detergent, and some food. There's nothing stocked inside."
A grown adult ordering an underage kid to drive without a license? Seo Rin looked a little bitter as he glanced at the boy soldier. They clearly planned to send him off and start the interrogation. The boy seemed to sense it too; he looked stricken and clung to Seo Rin as if the older boy were his personal savior.
"It's fine, it's fine. Nothing bad's going to happen. I'll be back soon."
Seo Rin climbed into the van and turned the key. As the vehicle pulled away, Han Se-gun slowly rolled his neck and fixed his gaze on the boy soldier.
"All right. Time for us to get started on our work."
The boy soldier stared at Han Se-gun, shaking so hard his teeth chattered.
"Honestly. I don't even know what to say about this."
A blonde girl who looked no older than early teens sat with a beret perched on her head, eyes fixed on the television. Heavy blinds sealed the room against every scrap of light; only the massive plasma screen threw any glow. Beneath the picture ran the caption for a special broadcast.
The clash between Han Se-gun and Sa Jun had spilled out of the world of the Mad Moon and was now shaking ordinary society.
"If Tetra Anax still had a presence in Korea, it never would have gotten this bad. Everyone really overdid it."
Exit controls had already gone up at the airports and ports. The one silver lining was that Argon's group had bolted onto a plane before the lockdown and escaped the mess. If Argon had thrown his weight into this chaos as well, things would have spun completely out of control.
"You're worried, aren't you?"
The vampire standing beside her gathered the empty teacup from the table as he asked. The girl flinched and looked up at him.
"Hmph. It would be a lie to say I'm not worried… but it's not like I can just walk out there and help. If anything, if Han Se-gun is hurt, isn't this the perfect chance?"
The fact that Han Se-gun had been critically wounded by the combined assault of Argon and Agni was already common knowledge among the vampires. Agni himself had been spreading the news far and wide. Watching him, one got the distinct impression he was enormously proud of having injured Han Se-gun.
But Agni was a gluttonous monster who viewed even fellow vampires as food. He would use any means to grow stronger, so acting on his information was always a serious gamble. Maria might talk a bold game, but she had no intention of attacking Han Se-gun right now. Could she ever attack him at all, for that matter?
"Why does Seo Rin even call Han Se-gun 'hyung' when they're not actually related by blood?"
"In Korea, friends with an age gap generally call each other hyung and dongsaeng. To them, friends are essentially family."
Even allowing for generous interpretation, that was quite the cultural leap. Still, it was more or less accurate.
"Uuung… so what Bronde is trying to say is that Seo Rin thinks of Han Se-gun as family? Is that it?"
She turned her head. The middle-aged vampire in the black suit, hair already half silver, gave a crooked smile.
"They're living together even now, after all."
"True enough."
If Han Se-gun was like an older brother to Seo Rin, would Seo Rin ever be able to forgive Maria if she killed him? Maria had lost her own sister, so she could imagine the feeling all too easily. Even if Han Se-gun lay down and begged her to kill him, how could she touch him under those conditions? She wanted to stay close to Seo Rin; the last thing she needed was to earn his hatred by laying a hand on Han Se-gun. But simply abandoning her revenge… that was something she couldn't do either.
Before civilization advanced, vampires had often been slaughtered by hunters. Without modern light-blocking materials, the only reliable ways to escape sunlight had been caves or coffins. Hunters could simply drive a stake through a vampire's heart, and that was the end. Even a vampire with extraordinary regeneration had no answer once the heart itself was destroyed.
As civilization progressed, however, vampires stopped falling to hunters so easily. Once humans lived and moved both day and night, creatures of the night could escape solitude and blend into the crowds, slipping past hunters' eyes. They no longer needed to sleep in coffins, and no one found it strange that certain people only appeared after dark.
Hunters, on the other hand, became tangled in the laws of civilized society, while vampires—who had always held the position of strength—quickly mastered the tools of civilization and crushed the hunters under them. The vampires held the upper hand. They were the predators; the hunters were the weak thrashing against the food chain fate had assigned them.
Even so, vampires had always accepted the possibility of death at the hands of hunters or other forces. Maria's sister, Messiah, had come to Korea already prepared to die.
That did not mean she could simply let the death go unavenged. The one responsible was still alive and still hunting vampires—Han Se-gun—and she herself was a vampire.
Honestly, if Maria had never fallen for Seo Rin, none of this would have been a problem. She would have welcomed it. Watching her enemy suffer would have been pure pleasure.
But she had grown fond of Seo Rin. Worse, every time they met she liked him a little more. She had never felt this way about anyone before… Maria stamped her feet in frustration.
"Aaah, this is giving me a headache. So what do you think happens if that half-baked mage Sa Jun fights Han Se-gun?"
"Even if Agni's information is true and the wounds are severe, the Beast Han Se-gun is no easy opponent. Sa Jun's background is highly suspect and his true abilities are still unknown… If he's nothing more than an ordinary mage, Han Se-gun will win. If Sa Jun turns out stronger than expected, the outcome becomes impossible to call."
"Anyone could say that, Bronde. Can't you give me something more useful?"
"There is a variable, of course. How Giovanni Vantero chooses to view this opportunity. Successors have their pride, but their desire to get their hands on Seo Rin runs even deeper than that pride."
Even with everything collapsing around them, the existence called Seo Rin remained magnetic. That only made Maria more anxious.
"I don't think I can just sit here. I should go myself…"
"My lady, you must not! If you move personally…"
VT—Vampire Tension—was both a vampire's life force and the wellspring of their bloodline power. Raising it was never easy; the only way was long years spent drinking human blood.