See You Soon, My Babies
The entire nation of America erupted into a fever pitch.
A president already drowning in one scandal after another had now gone so far as to attempt his own life.
America ran on a two-party system: the Liberty Party and the Labor Party.
President Jonathan belonged to the Liberty Party, and the Labor Party had been tearing into him for all he was worth.
That said, I can't exactly claim the vampires have teamed up with the Labor Party. If President Jonathan got impeached, plenty of politicians in the Liberty Party would stand to gain from it too.
Then again, guesswork could only get him so far. For all he knew, the vampire bastards might have their fangs in both parties at once.
I could just ask the bastards directly, I suppose.
While he was idly mulling it over, a sharp voice cut through his thoughts.
"What are you thinking about, Kim? Did you hear my question?"
"Oh dear. What was it you said?"
"I asked how you were able to rescue the President so quickly after arriving at the lounge."
"······? So my quick thinking is a crime now, is it?"
"Unless you knew in advance that something had happened to the President, such a response would be impossible, wouldn't it?"
A familiar face was glaring daggers at Dohyun.
A Caucasian man, short in stature and built like a fireplug.
Roder McKay.
Roder, showing up at a time like this. How refreshing. And in the capacity of an FBI investigator, no less.
Roder McKay, the Demon Butcher.
In the age of the apocalypse, he had been one of its most horrifying villains.
Or, more precisely — a vigilante.
A villain who hunted down and killed other villains.
Vigilantes during the apocalypse were generally treated as heroes, but Roder's methods were brutally cruel by nature, and he showed no concern whatsoever for civilian casualties — so he was always classified as a villain.
Still, he and Dohyun had never been on bad terms — though the exact nature of their relationship changed with every regression cycle.
By and large they'd been on friendly terms, enough that Dohyun half considered the man something close to a friend.
Of course, the Roder standing before him now didn't know Dohyun from Adam.
"The CCTV footage confirms it. The moment you arrived near the lounge, you immediately rushed into the room. You knew about the President's emergency in advance, didn't you?"
Dohyun clicked his tongue.
He had sensed the President's suicide attempt through Blood Magic.
But now was not the time to reveal that he was learning Blood Magic — or more accurately, a skill of an entirely different lineage.
What was Roder's class again — Devil Chaser? No, he wouldn't have managed his second advancement yet. So he'd be a regular Seeker right now.
A supporter class specialized in investigation.
"That's enough. Kim is the hero who saved our America. If Kim hadn't acted so quickly, even the President couldn't have been saved — and yet you treat him like a suspect? Show any more of this insolence, and Super Force Command will lodge a formal protest with the FBI."
Lieutenant General Smith came to Dohyun's defense, and Roder bit his lip hard enough to bleed.
Dohyun shrugged and spoke.
"Agent McKay? Could the two of us have a word? Turn off all the cameras and recorders. Including the recorder on your chest. A pen-type recorder, in this day and age? Ah — and turn off the one on your button too. What, the zipper of your pants is a recorder as well?"
On top of the recorder sitting on the table, the Roder bastard was wearing no fewer than five different recording devices on his person!
So this fanatical obsessiveness has been part of his personality from the start.
It was well known that once Roder marked you as his target, there was absolutely no escaping him.
After using his Psychic Hacking skill to confirm that no camera or recorder in the room was still functioning, Dohyun spoke.
"Grilling me this hard with no evidence — is that your Seeker's intuition talking?"
Roder's expression hardened.
Seekers didn't merely excel at tracking down clues — they developed heightened senses of instinct and sixth sense.
And Roder, in particular, was no ordinary Seeker.
"······You. You're posing as a hero, but I know you're a hideous villain underneath. You can't fool my instincts. You are the Genocide Killer, aren't you?"
Dohyun smiled brightly.
And then—
Whap-!
His hand shot out and clamped over Roder's mouth.
"Mmph?!"
Roder tried to shout, but Dohyun's crushing grip sealed his mouth so completely that not even a whimper escaped.
With his other hand, Dohyun snatched up Roder's wrist.
"We didn't get a proper hello earlier, did we? How about a handshake?"
Crack!
He twisted the wrist until it popped out of its socket.
"UUUUUMPH!!!"
The excruciating pain turned Roder's eyes bloodshot and bulging.
Dohyun smiled even more deeply, as if to say watch this.
"Oopsie-daisy. I was trying to shake your hand. Guess I used a little too much strength."
Pop!
The wrist snapped back into place.
Unlike shoulders, wrists were no easy feat to dislocate and reset — but Dohyun, a professional who had tortured countless victims in his time, had long since perfected this particular technique.
"Gotta do the handshake properly, right? Come on, once more!! With even more enthusiasm this time!"
"UUUUUUUMPH!!!"
When Dohyun made an exaggerated show of going for the wrist again, Roder thrashed wildly in protest.
But nothing happened.
"Aww, did our little scaredy-cat get frightened?"
The moment Roder registered the mockery, his face flushed scarlet.
"You're right. I am the Genocide Killer."
"!!"
"So what are you going to do about it? You really think a coward like you could ever catch me?"
Dohyun sneered to his heart's content.
"Do it if you can, chicken boy."
For the record, coward was the one insult Roder despised above all others.
In other words, Dohyun had deliberately raked his nails across the man's rawest nerve.
Now he'll hunt me like a madman.
As his "friend," Dohyun knew all too well just how relentless Roder became once he held a grudge.
And look at him even now.
As Dohyun strolled through the streets of Washington, D.C., there was the Roder bastard tailing him from a distance.
Isn't this a bad thing, you ask?
The day that guy catches me, it'll be a hundred years too early.
Word was he was making a name for himself as one of the FBI's finest investigators, but in Dohyun's eyes he was still a greenhorn.
So why had Dohyun gone out of his way to provoke him?
Because I need the FBI's cooperation for what's coming.
Catching the vampires was simple.
But uncovering every atrocity they'd committed was a tedious, many-layered chore.
Dohyun could certainly do it himself — but why bother with such bothersome legwork when he had help?
As long as Roder chases me, he'll naturally dig up everything those vampires have been up to.
Besides, they hadn't been friends in any warm, laughs-all-around sense of the word.
Theirs was the kind of relationship where each used the other, then stabbed the other in the back.
"Welcome, Kim. It is an honor to receive America's new hero."
The Hamilton 1892 Club — housed in an unmarked building near Dupont Circle, the heart of Washington, D.C.
Dohyun had been invited to this inner-circle club, a place where only the innermost figures of Washington's political and financial world could set foot.
"Shall I head in this way?"
"Of course, Sir. Everyone is waiting for you."
Before descending the steps, Dohyun shot a wink at Roder, who was glaring at him from afar.
Unable to follow him into a private club, Roder visibly fumed.
Still a greenhorn after all. A real Devil Chaser would've followed me in even if he had to flay the manager's face off to do it.
Inside, he could see figures of every stripe — Liberty Party and Labor Party alike — mingling in easy conversation.
Each had a partner of the opposite sex, but this was no party of liquor, drugs, and debauchery. It was a social gathering that observed its own strict decorum.
"Thank you for coming, Kim. I'm David, the host of tonight's gathering."
"The pleasure's mine. I should be thanking you for the invitation."
Since Dohyun had yet to declare any definite plans for his future, countless factions had been courting him.
He'd received invitations to quite a few parties like this one.
"You seem quite at home at these affairs."
"Haha, hardly. I find myself rather nervous, sharing a room with the men and women who steer America."
"How modest. The ones who truly lead America aren't politicians like us — they're heroes like you, Kim."
Dohyun had risen, time and again, to the very summit of Korea's political world.
He was equally adept at political maneuvering.
The party's attendees began regarding Dohyun with warm, admiring eyes.
"And is Kim a single man?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Oh dear — a hero like Kim, all alone? Well then, how about Amila here?"
"Nice to meet you. I'm Amila."
A host girl arranged by the club itself.
Given the caliber of the political elite in attendance, she was a stunning beauty.
···By American standards, that is.
······Damn it all. She's ugly.
Worse, the moment she sidled up beside him, a pungent body odor assailed his nose!
But Dohyun needed to maintain the best possible impression here.
He clenched his teeth and smiled through it.
Hah. Who knew saving the world would be this hard? I had steak for dinner again tonight, no less.
The stench radiating from Amila's arm draped around his own was threatening to bring the greasy steak right back up.
Still, Dohyun exercised every ounce of his patience.
And in the end, he got his reward.
-Gulp.
In that instant, Dohyun's appetite stirred.
When he followed the scent that "tempted" him, it led to a young man.
"Who is that man over there?"
"What, you're into men? Why didn't you say so. We could've arranged for that instead."
When Dohyun showed her absolutely no interest, the sulking Amila snapped back at him.
No, damn it. That's not it. Haah.
"He seems rather young to be at a place like this."
"That's Ruben, a congressman from the Labor Party. He's very popular — quite the pretty face."
"I see."
Dohyun swallowed again and looked at the man.
Found him.
That one — was a vampire.
And a few days later—
Breaking news swept across America.
Ruben, the Labor Party's young congressman, had been brutally murdered in his Washington home.
First the President's suicide attempt, and now a congressman's murder!
All of America buzzed and convulsed— ···or rather, it didn't, quite.
Political assassination was certainly startling news, but hardly unheard of.
Someone dying violently was the new normal of the new age, an everyday occurrence. The uproar would last a day, maybe two, and then fade just as quickly.
However—
When the incidents kept erupting one after another, days apart, they could no longer simply be brushed aside.
"We need to arrest Kim, right now!"
"Are you insane, McKay? On what evidence?"
"Every single victim was murdered days after being seen in Kim's presence!"
"You wave that around as evidence, and it's you who'll get slapped with a counter-suit, you know. Kim's alibi is rock-solid, above all else."
"What about the Shadow Knights?! An alibi is nothing they couldn't fabricate!"
"Sorry, but all the victims were killed by Blood Magic. Unless Kim has a dual class, he can't be the killer. Stop barking up the wrong tree and go find the real culprit!"
SLAM!!
Thrown out of his superior's office, Roder McKay let his fury explode.
Genocide Killer — I will catch you. I swear it.
His Seeker's instincts were telling him.
The killer was Dohyun. It had to be.
Which was exactly why he was digging into the case with a vise grip, desperate to seize any hard evidence.
"Huh······?"
Roder let out a puzzled sound.
"······What is this?"
Something was off as he investigated the victims.
"Did I··· misuse my skill? No, that can't be it······?"
Roder's hands began to tremble faintly.
A Seeker was a supporter class that tracked truth through the smallest of clues — and what Roder's Tracing skill pointed to was unmistakable.
Every last one of the victims had been a hideous villain.
A stray thought flickered through Roder's mind — that the Genocide Killer had, to this day, never once harmed a single innocent.
Around that time, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington—
A number of figures had gathered.
The assembled faces were a motley assortment.
Politicians and businesspeople. There was even a young girl who looked like she ought to still be attending an elementary school.
And the one seated in the seat of honor was a little girl who appeared no older than ten.
"······So it's certain, then? This Genocide Killer is hunting us as we speak?"
"······That would appear to be the case, my Lord."
"How dare he! A lowly worm of a human, hunting us — his betters!"
The girl screamed in fury, and horrifying fangs gleamed behind her lips.
That's right.
Every last one of them was a vampire.
And the little girl in particular was a Noble-class vampire — royalty among their kind.
"What shall we do about him······?"
"Hmph. That miserable human trash."
And then—
Creeeak. The door swung open.
Everyone startled — then breathed a collective sigh of relief.
It was one of their own. A fellow vampire.
"Why are you so late?!"
The little girl barked furiously.
But then—
"Ughhhhh······."
Something was wrong with the vampire who had entered. His eyes were rolled back in his head, and he was groaning in torment.
The vampire girl flinched and shrieked.
"Blood Sorcery! Everyone, get away from him!"
SPLAAAAT!!!
The vampire's head burst open, and a fountain of blood geysered skyward.
But that wasn't the end of it — something far more horrifying followed.
The blood surging upward froze in midair, and began to coalesce into writing!
As if delivering a message written in blood to the vampires gathered there.
"······."
"······."
A long silence stretched through the room, and every vampire present swallowed hard.
"What in the hell is this lunatic······?"