The Way to Grow Stronger
I followed the boss into his office. Go Yu-jin tried to come along too, but after my earnest request that the two of us speak alone, she reluctantly returned to the room. In the past, she wouldn’t have listened to me at all. Hell, she probably wouldn’t have even tried to follow in the first place.
“Sit.”
The boss offered me a seat, pulled out a cigarette, and sat down across from me.
“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, holding up the cigarette.
“Not at all.”
“Good to hear.”
The boss lit his cigarette. After taking a long first drag, he leaned back comfortably on the sofa.
“You want to get stronger, huh? Is this because of what happened earlier?”
“Yes.”
“Are you thinking of challenging Yo-un?”
I shook my head.
“No. I have no intention of doing that.”
But I needed to stay ready for the possibility of fighting someone like him at any time. I had grown too soft under the boss’s protection. I should have considered the possibility of clashing with someone as strong as the boss—someone whose weaknesses I didn’t even know.
“Then why?”
“I just realized I can’t stay like this.”
“Is it because of Double Melon? Or rather, Go Yu-jin?”
I nodded.
“You want to protect her?”
Of course, that was the biggest reason.
“Yes.”
“What a commendable boyfriend. If I were her father, I’d be deeply impressed.”
“I’m serious.”
“I never said you weren’t. I called it commendable.”
After that, the boss focused solely on smoking for a while. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. He repeated the routine three times before speaking again.
“If you want to count the spells a magician has learned, look at his study. If you want to figure out how many forms a doppelganger can transform into, the best way is to strip him naked.”
“……”
“The number of spells or transformations doesn’t directly equal strength. Still, they serve as a useful measure. But vampires and werewolves are different. Beyond acquiring and training techniques, there are pure ways to increase raw power.”
I already knew this. For vampires, it was drinking blood.
“Vampires gain life and strength through bloodsucking. And—”
And for werewolves, it was eating hearts.
“Werewolves absorb their opponent’s power by eating their hearts. You said you lost your memories, right?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever eaten a heart?”
He probably already knew everything.
“A few times. I did it when dealing with the wild vampires that attacked me and the ones from Authentic Blood.”
“……Did you do it knowingly?”
I shook my head.
“It was instinct, then. So, did eating the heart make you feel stronger?”
“I’m not sure if it was just my imagination, but I felt a surge of power after eating one.”
“I see.”
The boss stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, pulled out a new one, and lit it. He sat there with the cigarette between his lips, lost in thought. By the time the unsmoked cigarette had burned halfway on its own, he flicked it into the ashtray.
“Because of the recent trouble with Samgunhoe, I haven’t been paying much attention to other matters. In the meantime, some pests have been running wild nearby.”
“What kind of pests?”
“First, the wild vampires.”
Wild vampires. In the game, they were essentially monsters that often ambushed players while wandering the night city. Here, the term referred to vampires who had been expelled from their clans or had fled, disturbing the order. Vampires didn’t just attack humans freely. Those belonging to clans satisfied their thirst with blood packs or the blood of animals raised for that purpose. Of course, not to grow stronger, but purely for survival. They only drank human blood when dealing with people who had gotten too deep into this world. In other words, they didn’t attack just anyone.
But wild vampires didn’t follow those rules. That was why vampire clans and magician guilds hunted them down to maintain order.
“Have the numbers of wild vampires increased?”
“Yes. Lately, more of them have been attacking civilians.”
“Then should I take care of them?”
This was exactly why I had told the boss I wanted to get stronger. I already knew a way to grow stronger. Like other werewolves, I could increase my power by consuming hearts. In my case, I even learned skills through it. But since I couldn’t say that directly, I had approached it this way.
“And one more thing.”
“There’s more?”
“……No. I’ll think about that after seeing how you handle this. For now, focus on the wild vampires. I’ll entrust you with cleaning up the ones causing trouble nearby. However, don’t forget your current situation. Samgunhoe may still be targeting you. So I’ll assign one person to you.”
Surveillance? It didn’t seem like I could refuse.
“Understood. Thank you, boss.”
Anyway, things were progressing as I had hoped. I bowed deeply to express my gratitude.
“There’s no need to thank me. It benefits me if you grow stronger. And if any problems arise, I’ll make you stop immediately. Keep that in mind.”
“Yes, boss.”
When I returned to the room, Go Yu-jin was waiting for me. The moment she saw me enter, she strode toward me with her brows furrowed deeply.
“Hey!”
She reached behind me, slammed the door shut, and locked it. Then, without warning, she punched me in the chest.
Thud!
The sound was loud, but it didn’t hurt.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“What do you mean? Telling the boss I wanted to get stronger?”
“Not that! Why did you charge at that woman?! What if you had died?!”
Go Yu-jin grabbed the arm that had been severed and reattached. She stroked it gently, then pressed her forehead against it.
“What were you going to do if you died?!”
“I’m sorry.”
Her tone and attitude were still rough. It was so typical of Go Yu-jin. But unlike before, I could feel that it came from worry for me, and that made her feel unbelievably lovable.
“Yu-jin.”
I called her name and lifted her forehead from my arm. I wiped away the tears clinging to the corners of her eyes, kissed her, and said,
“I’ll be more careful from now on.”
“Not ‘I’ll be careful’—don’t do it at all! Why would you do something so reckless? Do you want to die? Huh?”
“Sorry. I didn’t know that woman would be that strong.”
“What? Are you seriously saying that right now—!”
I scooped up the shouting Go Yu-jin in a princess carry, cutting her off.
“W-what are you doing?!”
I carried her toward the bed.
“What the hell are you doing right now?!”
“Let’s do it.”
“D-do what?”
“What do you think?”
I laid her on the bed and roughly showered kisses on her lips, neck, breasts, and everywhere else.
“Wait, Rin! I haven’t showered! I sweated a lot earlier—hey!”
When I buried my nose in her armpit, she quickly pushed me away.
“Didn’t you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
“It’s fine to do it, but let me shower first.”
I pushed her back down as she tried to get up.
“Hey! Mmph—!”
I kissed her forcefully while stripping off my clothes, then began removing hers.
“I said I haven’t showered!”
“It’s okay. I actually like it.”
“You pervert!”
“We did it without showering the first time too, remember?”
“But I wasn’t sweating like this back then!”
“Your sweat smells good.”
I licked her neck slowly. The salty taste of sweat mixed with her scent flooded into me.
“I could smell it forever.”
I wasn’t just saying it for her sake. It was the truth. The unbearable rage I felt when Yo-un said he would kill her. And this pounding heart I felt when I saw her worrying about me. I finally understood.
I loved her.
“I love you.”
I loved her too. I kissed her again. This time, she stopped resisting. She began removing the rest of my clothes with her own hands, and I finished undressing her.
I would protect her.
More than sixty thousand missing persons reports are filed every year. Of those, over a thousand are found dead each year. So what happens to the rest?
Listing every possible outcome would be impossible. But one thing is certain: some of those missing people are victims of wild vampires.
It was the same now. With earphones in, pretending to listen to music, I stepped into a deserted alley. Almost immediately, someone began following me.
I deliberately acted startled right before bumping into a utility pole, and sometimes pretended to nearly trip over a rock, leading the pursuer deeper into the alley. The moment we reached a place with no people around, the bastard revealed his true colors.
Like a stray cat pouncing on a pigeon, he charged straight at me.
I had been expecting it. I quickly grabbed a brick lying on the ground and smashed it into his head.
Crack!
Since he was a vampire, that much wouldn’t do any real damage. But he looked quite shocked that I had countered his ambush so quickly.
“How…?!”
I threw the leftover cat food Cat Mom had prepared into his open, surprised mouth.
“Ugh!? Ptooey, ptoo!”
As he spat out the foreign object, I rushed forward. Closing the distance, I kicked him squarely between the legs without the slightest hesitation.
Thud!
No scream followed the impact. Or rather, he couldn’t scream. Vampires were stronger than humans, but that didn’t mean their balls were made of steel. The vampire’s mouth gaped wide from the shock of his two precious orbs being crushed, drool dripping down his chin. I grabbed the back of his head and slammed it into the old wall right beside us.
Boom!
The wall shattered, and he tumbled inside. I had driven him into an abandoned house I had scouted in advance.
In front of the still-trembling vampire who was clutching his legs, I transformed into my werewolf form. I spread his arms wide, then bit down hard on his neck while he was still unable to speak from the pain.
Crunch!
Blood gushed out as his movements grew still. I dug my claws into his chest, pulled out his heart, and chewed it down. The vampire, forced to watch his own heart being eaten, soon drew his last breath.
After returning to human form, I left the abandoned house. It seemed eating this heart had leveled me up. A new skill appeared in my mind.
Frenzied Rage (狂暴化)
Finally!
It had been ten days since I asked the boss to let me hunt wild vampires. I had finally obtained a truly useful skill. During that time, I had repeatedly leveled up by eating hearts and gaining skills. But everything I had gotten until now—similar to Odor Imprint—felt like basic abilities that any werewolf should naturally possess.
Leg Strength Enhancement, which increased jumping power. Predator’s Gaze, which had a chance to inflict panic on weaker opponents. And Woof! Woof!, which allowed communication with certain animals. Those were the skills I had acquired before Frenzied Rage.
I wanted to get skills that would be more helpful in fights, but… getting impatient wouldn’t solve anything.
“It’s done. Cleanup’s on you.”
I spoke toward the shadows draping the alley. Soon, a familiar-faced man emerged. It was the older brother of Fresh Grape, whom I had brought along while retrieving her. His name was Yo-un. Fresh Grape’s real name was Yo-wol.
The two of them had been hired by Samgunhoe and brought to Korea. After things turned out this way, they couldn’t return to Samgunhoe, and apparently didn’t want to. The boss had hired them. I understood that much. The boss was the kind of person who would even hire someone like me, whose past he didn’t know. But what I couldn’t understand the most was that the boss had turned him into a vampire.
Yo-un, now a member of Bloodycore, was currently acting as both my watcher and cleanup crew. We had been moving together for several days now, but it still felt awkward. I found him uncomfortable, and he clearly kept his distance from me, so we only exchanged businesslike conversation.
Yo-un approached the vampire corpse I had dealt with, drank the remaining blood, then hoisted the body onto his shoulder and disappeared. He would leave it somewhere out of sight but exposed to enough sunlight. Once the morning sun rose, the corpse would turn to ash and vanish, eliminating the need for further work. This was the most common way to dispose of wild vampire remains.
After Yo-un vanished, I took out my phone to check the time. 1:20 AM. It was summer, so dawn would come early, but there was still some time left. If I lured them well, I might be able to hunt one or two more…
“……”
Yeah, that seemed like the right move. I wasn’t planning to fight Yo-un, but after getting beaten by her, I felt a desperate need for more power. I couldn’t just slowly build strength whenever the opportunity arose. I needed to stockpile power whenever I could.
I’d move once Yo-un returned. With that thought, I was about to send a message to Go Yu-jin when—
“Kyaaaah!”
A scream rang out.
A wild vampire?!
If I waited for Yo-un, it would be too late. I immediately dashed toward the source of the scream.