A Fisherman's Profit
The place where Han Se-gun finally stopped was a secluded hillside. His rampage had stirred up the city so thoroughly that there was nowhere in all of Seoul where the wail of police sirens couldn't be heard. Gazing out at the capital burning like a stoked furnace, Se-gun pulled an M16 from his bag.
"Come on."
He pulled off his helmet and pressed the cold metal of the barrel against his face. After racing through the winter air it didn't feel cold at first—but a moment later the chill that seemed to slice into his skin set in. Yeah. This was about the level you needed to feel alive, wasn't it?
Click!
There were only so many roads a vehicle could take up here. An unnamed hill at the edge of Gyeonggi Province—gunfire would carry far enough for the nearby houses to hear, and military units might even scramble. The biggest obstacle to fighting with firearms was always the army, and any place remote enough inevitably had a base nearby.
But if he'd been afraid of the military or the police, he never would have started this dangerous game in the first place.
Se-gun held the rifle and shoved his bike aside. Even high on drugs and mad with bloodlust, the thought of not wanting his bike wrecked still crossed his mind. Finding that absurd even himself, he burst into a hearty laugh.
"Hahahahaha. Haa......"
Was the high already wearing off? Or had this rampage simply gone on too long? Se-gun set the rifle down for a moment and took out some Psychedelic Moon. He considered snorting it, but this time dumped it straight into his mouth instead. A sharp sensation stabbed his tongue; the mix of Psychedelic Moon and cocaine burned as it slid down his throat.
"Hoo...... ha. Hoo, ha."
Se-gun raised the rifle and lifted his head. Headlights flickered between the pines, the nut pines, the evergreens of every kind......
They're coming.
He switched the safety to full auto, then hid among the trees and stuck the muzzle out.
The first ones up the slope were the vampires. Sarhyuk and Silvester didn't seem interested in inserting themselves into the fight between Se-gun and the bloodsuckers. In Sarhyuk's case, he was fishing for easy spoils—so of course he wouldn't come first.
"Kh!"
Normally, when ambushing enemies like this, the principle was to lure them in close and then deliver a fatal blow with overwhelming firepower. But luring vampires into close range was as good as suicide.
BRRRRT!
Se-gun pulled the trigger. As the muzzle spat flame, the vampire in the lead—Gyeong—tumbled off his bike. He'd been hit, but not cleanly. Still, stalling the leader would bottleneck everyone behind him on the narrow path.
BRRRRT!
The bolt carrier group recoiled, spitting casings. While they were pinned he had to drop as many vampires as possible. Once it came to close combat......
"That's far enough."
A voice dropped from the sky. Se-gun reflexively raised the rifle to block overhead.
BOOM!
In that instant he went tumbling down the dry mountainside. Dead chestnut burrs piled among the leaves rolled with him. After careening down the slope, Se-gun desperately fixed his body in place and raised the rifle again.
"Where?"
Of course no vampire stood in his field of view. The bloodsucker had already moved.
"Kh!"
As Se-gun raised the rifle like a staff for a side block, Gyeong's spinning kick slammed into him. The M16 snapped in half; the fragment struck his side.
CRACK!
Had a rib broken? It felt like a red-hot iron was stabbing his flank, and Se-gun staggered forward. But the pain was brief—the power of the drugs was so strong it made forgetting agony easy.
"Kugh!"
Se-gun reflexively threw a spinning kick of his own. A middle kick aimed at the opponent's side—this kick, practiced thousands, tens of thousands of times, was fast and accurate as it slammed into the vampire. Or so it seemed.
SLICE!
But Gyeong planted a knife in Se-gun's ankle. How much must it hurt to take a blade while the muscles were tensed that tight? Yet Se-gun paid it no mind, finishing the middle kick, switching his supporting foot, and drawing a Tokarev from his coat.
"You bastard! If I don't kill you—!"
Before Se-gun could even fire the Tokarev, Gyeong's quick hands seized him by the nape, hoisted him high, and slammed him into the ground. There happened to be a broad granite boulder waiting; Se-gun fell straight onto it.
CRACK
"Gahk!"
An impact like his entire body shattering from the spine outward washed through him. Because of the rock's uneven contours his shoulder blade might have broken—he couldn't move his left arm. Moreover, this vampire's grip strength was tremendous, enough to twist a person's neck in an instant.
BANG!
A gunshot—but Gyeong wasn't hit. He'd released Se-gun's nape and leaped back to dodge. With those incredible reflexes he had avoided Se-gun's ranged fire and charged in by climbing the trees. This vampire, with the most powerful physical abilities among those Se-gun had faced so far, was clearly a threat.
"Kugh."
"If I don't kill you here, I'll go get a tan! You son of a bitch!"
Blood trickled down Gyeong's forehead. Even for an old vampire, dodging bullets from a human boosted by Psychedelic Moon was hard. And even now, Han Se-gun remained a dangerous presence. But Gyeong couldn't contain his rage and charged.
BANG BANG BANG!
Se-gun fired a burst with only his right hand. Without Psychedelic Moon this would have been utterly impossible. No matter how strong a human, just being slammed onto the rock earlier by Gyeong should have knocked him out cold. He was only moving because he'd taken the drug.
WHIZZ!
Gyeong drew blood from his wrist and formed a red plate. This plate was something he'd made earlier when trying to catch Han Se-gun on the motorcycle, thinking of it as a net of sorts. It was also his specialty.
"Hah!"
At the same moment he cast the illusion, he leaped sideways. It was only a momentary deception, but the effect was enough. Able to move laterally far faster than Se-gun could turn, he drew a wide circle and seized Se-gun's rear in an instant. He seemed to have taken a bullet or two, but that level didn't greatly hinder his vitality.
"Kh!"
Se-gun reflexively rolled forward. The next instant a tree branch flew through the space where he'd been standing. The branch Gyeong threw stuck splendidly in a tree opposite. Half-buried in the pine, it could easily have punched a hole through a human torso.
"You dog bastard!"
Seeing Gyeong charge with a roar, Se-gun raised the Tokarev.
BANG!
Even pouring out the single remaining bullet in the magazine, the range was so close that Gyeong easily dodged.
"Ugh!"
Han Se-gun forced his left arm—the one with the broken shoulder blade—to pull out a magazine. But Gyeong had no intention of standing by and watching him reload right in front of him.
"Die!"
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Gyeong's knife-hand sliced through the unfortunate trees as it passed. Se-gun leaned his upper body back, kicked Gyeong's torso with a front kick, and flung himself backward.
BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Gunshots rang out.
"Kuuugh. Uwaaagh."
A man crawled across the dirt, moaning. The trail he left was stained a vivid black-red with blood, clear even in the faint light.
"My, my. I didn't really want to make you bleed this much. Lowers the product value."
CRUNCH!
With a hideous sound a heavy foot crushed the man's forearm. Like a hammer blow, the arm snapped and white bone jutted out.
"By the way, the boss is nowhere to be seen. Where is he?"
A tall man in a gray long coat ground him underfoot. Even after breaking both legs and crushing one arm...... standing on a vampire was still an act of pure madness. The vampire strained its remaining arm upward, aiming for the ankle.
THUD!
But before the attack could begin, a terrifying sound rang out. The man in the gray long coat—the alchemist who created wealth through vampires, Sarhyuk—didn't even look as he lashed out with his free foot. It was like a soccer player kicking a ball, except that when the target is a human head the act can hardly be called wholesome.
CRACK!
The vampire's neck bones snapped and its eyeballs bulged. Sarhyuk hoisted the body and tossed it to his underlings. The other vampires were already completely subdued by Cellular Bullets and stacked neatly beside the vehicles. To overwhelm four or five vampires in such a short time—that alone showed how powerful Sarhyuk was. The ones still alive rolled their eyes with expressions of mixed terror and rage, looking for all the world like cattle waiting for the slaughterhouse.
"Finish them."
Sarhyuk tossed the vampires aside and walked off between the trees.
"Boss?"
"Ah, the boss is missing. And that kid too."
Sarhyuk said it with a cheerful little smile. What on earth was so amusing? The chance to harvest vampire blood in bulk? Or the sadism of tormenting them? Either way, this man was an extremely dangerous existence. That was precisely why he held absolute dominion over his underlings—but could you really call that charisma?
"Boss. What about the trackers? Looks like they parked at the foot of the mountain and are walking up."
"Then leave in the cars right now. And contact Kenneth."
"Sir?"
Sarhyuk openly clicked his tongue. He wasn't a kindergarten teacher; having to spell out every order and explanation was hardly pleasant. Of course he knew this was the result of his own tyranny, so he held it in—
BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Gunfire rolled down the slope again. Sarhyuk frowned.
"Could've at least used a suppressor."
"Should we try intercepting military radio?"
"Forget it. Just finish up quick."
Muttering to himself, Sarhyuk leaped down the mountainside.
A back-dive shot straight out of a noir film. Flinging his body backward while emptying the pistol, Se-gun landed in a pile of fallen leaves.
"Did I get him?"
But Gyeong did not fall. This vampire, standing with both heart and brain blocked, was qualitatively different from the weaklings who dropped to a few silver rounds.
"I'm something of a John Woo fan myself."
Gyeong murmured it with a smile—a smile so bright it turned into pure murderous intent in a heartbeat.
"You dog bastard!"
Gyeong charged at Han Se-gun.
"Kh!"
BOOM!
The shotgun shells loaded into the glove roared, but even that couldn't stop Gyeong's charge.
"Han Se-gun!"
CRUNCH!
Se-gun's body lifted into the air. He had tried to defend by throwing out a hand, but compound fractures erupted and he was launched skyward.
"Damn it!"
For an ordinary human it would have been a fatal wound, yet Gyeong still felt it was insufficient. His attacks were normally so fast that he cut and severed rather than batting opponents away. When you struck someone backward the kinetic energy dissipated, so the actual damage was minimal.
That damned vampire hunter, even badly wounded, had defended his body with brutal efficiency. But all it had done was buy a few extra moments of life; the injuries were already critical. Now he only had to finish the job...... and he would receive enough money and smuggling routes to send most of the Juk-yo faction vampires home. Plus a Korean nationality......
Pfft!
Then a sound different from ordinary gunfire reached his ears. By the time Gyeong recognized it as a suppressed round, the bullet was already buried in his flesh.
"Kh! Damn it!"
Through the bullet that had punched through his shoulder, Gyeong felt despair. This was a Cellular Bullet—the most powerful anti-vampire round in existence. Binding with the moisture in the blood to clog the bloodstream, these bullets possessed terrifying lethality. No matter how potent a vampire's regeneration, there was no resisting a round that absorbed water, turned to gel, and killed vessels and organs from the inside.
"I'm a bit of a John Woo fan myself."
The figure who stepped into view was the alchemist, Sarhyuk. Twisted smile—the so-called rotten grin—made him look, even to a vampire's eyes, the very picture of ugliness.
"So this is what they mean by a fisherman's profit? From the side reaping the benefit, it's an absolutely delightful situation. Fits my policy perfectly, too."
Sarhyuk sneered and spun the pistol once in his palm—then, with reckless arrogance, shoved it into his coat. Even after feeding him a Cellular Bullet, putting the gun away in front of a vampire! Gyeong flared with rage.
"Looking down on me?"
Gyeong kicked off the ground and lunged. Fallen leaves scattered; the shadow of a cloud drifted past and light spilled through. Ah. Tonight was a full moon, wasn't it?
"Sorry about that."
His pupils held a green light. Sarhyuk—the vile man every vampire loathed—gazed out with beautiful green eyes steeped in bizarre madness. But why? All of a sudden?
CRUNCH!
A fist drove into the solar plexus. A blow so fierce every drop of blood in the body seemed to churn. Looking at the fist that was crushing his torso, Gyeong wore an expression of pure disbelief.
"Y-you...... are you human?"
"I am human, yeah—but today happens to be the once-a-month period when the magic kicks in."
Sarhyuk muttered it, then raised his leg. An extremely high-angle high kick, a foot that seemed meant to shear a neck clean off, smashed into the vampire frozen in shock.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Even though the neck is a weak point, a vampire's is reinforced by strength six or seven times that of a human's. Equal to a calf, maybe even approaching a thigh. Muscle force is the product of cross-sectional area and efficiency, after all. A vampire's high-efficiency muscle protects the neck, so even a slender nape can generate more power than most wrestlers.
Maybe I should seriously consider becoming a vampire for the beauty benefits.
But what mattered now was that it had broken. Of course a vampire's body is nothing like a frail human's that dies the moment its neck snaps. Still, functional failure was inevitable.
Passing out in front of an enemy only hands them the power of life and death; after that, well—you can only hope your opponent is a maximally merciful idiot. Of course, an alchemist has no mercy.
"Have you ever seen Hanna-Barbera's Smurfs?"