Magical Girl and Werewolf 10: Do I Really Have to Do This?
Even though I had made up my mind, actually going through with it was harder than I expected. As I hesitated, the woman stepped closer.
“What’s wrong? Can’t you do it? Need the others to help you out?”
“I don’t need help,” I said, swinging the vibrating magic wand in her direction.
“Then hurry up. Shooting time isn’t unlimited, darling.”
“Just give me a second to mentally prepare—ugh!?”
While I was still talking, a sharp sting flared in my backside. I spun around. The woman behind me was letting an empty syringe slip from her fingers.
“What the hell did you just inject me with?”
My body answered first.
“Ugh!”
A scorching heat flooded through me. Fever surged, and raw lust boiled up right behind it. Dizzy, I crumpled to the floor.
The woman looked down at me with a faint smile. “You seemed like you could use a little assistance. Everything runs smoother with proper lubrication, doesn’t it? This should help you be a bit more honest with yourself, too.”
“You…!”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I’ll say it again: if you won’t do it, someone else will. So what’s it going to be? Will you handle it yourself, or would you rather watch while others take care of it?”
“Fuck…”
I clenched my fist. Reason screamed that I couldn’t afford to move rashly, while instinct urged me to just get it over with. The two impulses locked me in place, keeping me from lunging at her.
She looked down at me and sneered. “If you want, I could join in and we could all do it together. That would make for a pretty decent scene—”
She was still talking when it happened.
Pat—!
The warehouse lights suddenly cut out.
“!?”
The woman hastily backed away from me. Voices from the Samgunhoe members rose from every direction, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I caught the syllable “chao” repeated several times, though I had no idea what it meant.
It was completely unexpected. I didn’t know what was happening, but from the way the woman and her subordinates were reacting, this wasn’t part of their plan either.
In the darkness that had swallowed the warehouse, I focused on my breathing, trying to suppress the drug’s effects as much as possible. About a minute passed like that.
Pat—!
The lights came back on.
“You worthless pieces of shit. I stationed you here to guard Double Melon and you let things get this far? What do you think would have happened if I’d been even a few seconds later? Double Melon is the cornerstone of our company’s advertising. She’s practically an idol. Do you have any idea what happens when a manager lays a hand on an idol?”
I looked toward the voice. He stood in the center of the warehouse—Richard Summerhale, president of Black Star, the company Go Yu-jin and I belonged to. Also known as Angel Bloodycore, master of the ancient vampire clan Bloodycore.
The president glared at me and drew a thumb across his throat in a clear slicing motion.
“It’s the chopping block for you—off with their heads!”
The moment the organization members spotted him, they didn’t waste time with clichés like “Who are you?” or “How did you get in here?” Instead, every single one of them raised their guns and aimed at him in perfect unison.
“Oh. Very disciplined.”
The president clapped slowly, his face exaggeratedly impressed. Even I could tell the applause wasn’t admiration—it was mockery. The people on the receiving end obviously understood it even better than I did.
“Angel! You came in person! This is an unexpected windfall!” the woman shouted. Her voice trembled with excitement.
“Do you know me? Hmm. I haven’t visited a brothel in the last century or so. Ah! Perhaps you saw me on a business trip to Amsterdam?”
The president rested his chin on his hand and tilted his head.
“You’re awfully relaxed. Putting on a show because your subordinates are watching?”
“A show? What would be the point of posturing in front of a prick with two balls?”
The president glanced at me, then shifted his gaze back to the woman.
“Besides, I have no interest in impressing a whore who’s pointing a gun at me with murder in her eyes.”
“…Are you stalling for time?”
The woman muttered the words without ever taking her eyes off the president. Then she shouted loudly in Chinese. Several of the men aiming at him immediately sprinted out of the warehouse.
“What’s the matter? Scared the police might have come with me?”
She didn’t answer. The president didn’t seem to care and simply continued speaking.
“You should have used legal channels when entering another country. Proper passport and everything. Don’t worry—I didn’t bring any police.”
A few seconds after he finished, the men who had run outside returned, shouting in Chinese. The woman’s face twisted in shock when she heard their report.
“…You’re alone?”
“How many times do I have to say it? Have a little faith in people. I’m a businessman. Credibility is everything in my line of work—unlike you mafia types.”
The president let out a sigh as if truly exasperated.
“Then this is convenient for us!”
The woman instantly drew her gun and pulled the trigger on the president.
Bang—!
The gunshot rang out and blood exploded from the president’s shoulder.
“You really thought coming here alone would lead to negotiations? Don’t be ridiculous. We have zero intention of negotiating with you. Our only objective is—”
“To devour Black Star and use it as a foothold to take root in Korea. That’s what you were going to say, right?”
The president smiled, clutching his bullet-riddled shoulder. Even after being shot, an air of absolute composure radiated from him.
“And you still came alone knowing that?”
“You seem to be under a misconception.”
The president removed his hand from his shoulder. Blood poured from the wound, dripping steadily down his arm. The floor near his feet was already soaked crimson.
“First.”
He raised his bloodstained hand and extended his index finger.
“I never once considered negotiation. There’s a saying, isn’t there? We do not negotiate with terrorists. Giving in to the demands of bastards who do fucked-up things only invites more fucked-up things. The only way to end it is to smash the terrorist’s skull.”
He extended his middle finger next.
“Second. The reason I came alone? Because I’m enough by myself.”
The moment he finished speaking, the president’s blood that had pooled across the floor surged outward like a living creature. It spread across the warehouse floor, the walls, the ceiling—covering every object inside.
“What the…! Fire!”
The woman screamed and pulled the trigger again. The organization members surrounding the president opened fire at the same time.
Bang-bang-bang-bang—!
The deafening gunfire filled the warehouse. Yet not a single bullet that left the barrels reached the president. The stalks of blood rising from the blood-soaked floor like stone stalagmites blocked every round aimed at him.
“Two misconceptions. And on top of that, one critical mistake.”
The president scanned the men pointing guns at him from all sides.
“You chose to carry this out at night. Most of your personnel are vampires, so I understand the logic, but night is my time as well. If you had done this during the day, you might have had at least a small chance. You would have only needed to deal with that one horny werewolf over there.”
As the president spoke, the blood stalks that had grown to protect him returned the bullets to their original owners. The rounds flew straight back into the gun barrels.
Then the firearms exploded one after another.
Boom-boom-boom-boom—!
“Aaaargh!”
“Gaaah!”
Amid the flashing explosions and noise, the president was sneering.
“Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles. A line from Sun Tzu’s Art of War. I’m very fond of that saying. The history of the Bloodycore clan is long—longer than the Chinese Communist Party. There should still be records of me and my clan among Chinese vampires and magicians, yet you still did something this stupid. I can’t understand it. Did the Cultural Revolution burn away even that information?”
The president raised his hand. The smile on his lips grew even darker.
“Then it is time to pay the price for that cultural loss, Samgunhoe.”
The president’s turn had begun.
Angel Bloodycore is counted among the five strongest beings in the world of Under the Blue Moon. This holds true both in the setting and in his in-game performance. It might sound ridiculous to discuss the performance of a non-playable character, but he is nevertheless one of the most difficult bosses in the entire game.
When he appears as a boss, Angel feels less like a single-player RPG boss and more like a raid boss from an MMORPG. His durability is brutally high. His overwhelming attack power can leave you on the verge of death after only a few hits. It’s all or nothing. His instant-death skills that make you feel like you’re playing rock-paper-scissors if you can’t dodge them. His random patterns. He isn’t an opponent you can defeat without dying several times to learn the patterns or preparing extensively in advance.
What’s even more terrifying is that the number of phases changes depending on whether he appears as a mid-boss or the final boss. From a minimum of three phases to a maximum of five. You have to prepare counters tailored to each phase. Dominating the surrounding space using his own blood like this is merely Phase One.
Even so, no one could stand against him.
The president remained standing exactly where he was. The blood that had spilled across the floor and spread to cover the entire interior of the warehouse shifted between liquid, solid, and gas, tormenting the Samgunhoe members. It took on the shapes of beasts and rampaged through the warehouse. Sometimes a snake. Sometimes a bird. Sometimes a lion. They pounced on the organization members.
“Kyaaaaagh!”
The blood in beast form possessed terrifying physical force. More than five organization members had already lost their lives to them. A few others discarded the firearms that had exploded from the bullets the president had returned and pulled out new guns, firing at him.
Bang—! Bang—!
In response, stalagmites of blood rose just like before to block the bullets. Of course, they sent them right back.
Booom—!
“Aaaargh!”
For some, streams of blood shot out like compressed water. They pierced through the Samgunhoe members’ bodies like high-pressure water cutters.
Most of the organization was composed of vampires. A few of them tried to escape the situation by using their vampiric abilities. They transformed into giant bats. The moment the bats—closer in size to dire wolves than ordinary bats—began flapping their wings, the blood snakes racing toward them vaporized. A red blood mist enveloped the bats.
The blood mist seeped into every orifice: ears, nose, eyes, mouth. The bats quickly lost strength and crashed to the floor.
Thud—!
Thin streams of blood flowed from the fallen bats’ nostrils and were reabsorbed into the floor.
In Angel Bloodycore’s Phase One, it was impossible to deal him any normal damage. He blocked every kind of attack—magic or physical. The standard strategy was to stall for time. According to the setting, this state continuously consumed Angel’s blood and mana. If you dragged it out, he would automatically move to the next phase. In the game, a timer appeared at the top of the screen the moment Phase One began. Five minutes regardless of difficulty. That time, however, was fluid. If you damaged Angel during Phase One, he would recover blood and mana, extending the duration. Conversely, you could shorten it by dodging all his attacks while landing your own.
The key point was that avoiding Angel’s attacks was most important in this state.
But judging from the current situation, it seemed Angel would withdraw his power himself before the duration ended. There was no chance his turn would finish in this fight. It would end in a one-sided massacre.
“N-no way…!”
The doppelganger woman who had brought me here muttered with a face drained of all color.
“U-ugh…”
Her face twisted in terror as she stumbled backward. At that moment, a blood tendril shot up and seized her ankle.
Crash—!
She fell flat on her face.
“Rin! Restrain the woman. We need to extract information from her later, so don’t kill her. You can do whatever you want as long as she stays alive,” the president ordered.
The drug’s effects were becoming nearly impossible to suppress. I immediately rushed toward the fallen woman at the president’s command. I climbed on top of her body.
Anything goes as long as I don’t kill her?
The president’s permission had been given.