Chapter 108
Chapter 108
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 108
Chapter Title: Pale Satellite
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A small village on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province.
Young people were fewer than the elderly, fields outnumbered asphalt roads, and birdsong echoed more often than car exhaust. In such a place, Camilla sat in a pavilion, peeling and eating tangerines handed to her by the old folks.
“These are delicious!”
“Oh, really? Eat up, dear. There’s plenty more.”
“Yes!”
The little girl—with skin as white as a ghost, black hair, and red eyes—beamed innocently and nodded.
Between her slightly parted lips, sharp fangs peeked out. At the tip of those needle-like canines, faint traces of blood lingered.
“Dear, you’ve got some chili powder on your tooth. Want me to get it off?”
An elderly man with graying hair noticed and reached out. Camilla let out an “Ah” and wiped the blood from her tooth herself.
“It’s okay! I can do it!”
“My, my, you’ve grown so much. When you first came here, you couldn’t do a thing on your own… Now you even speak Korean so well.”
“It’s all thanks to you, Grandma and Grandpa!”
“You speak so sweetly, too.”
An elderly man with a kind face extended his wrinkled hand and patted Camilla’s head.
For a moment, Camilla felt an overwhelming urge to kill, but she suppressed it with all her patience. It wasn’t time to bare her fangs openly yet.
The blood of old people didn’t taste good anyway. It was like blood diluted with tons of water, mixed with lime and alcohol, then splashed with vinegar. Utterly revolting.
If she had no other choice, she’d have to kill one, but she still had plenty of reserves. She’d drained a young woman at dawn and planned to use that blood bag for a while. Once it was sucked dry, the woman would turn into a ghoul and cause chaos, but that was hardly Camilla’s problem. Let her do as she pleased.
‘I wonder what the others are up to.’
She chewed on a tangerine and gazed up at the darkening sky.
Evening, when the moon had risen.
The perfect time for vampires to be active. Camilla stared at the moon, which seemed clearer lately, and swung her short legs back and forth.
‘Eh, they’re probably all holed up somewhere sucking blood. I don’t really care.’
Three vampires had entered Korea with Camilla. But they’d only arrived together; they were strangers with no prior acquaintance, so they scattered immediately upon landing. They came from different countries anyway. No need to get chummy.
‘They’re all rivals, really. This is my turf. I’m not sharing a drop with the other bloodsuckers.’
With that thought, Camilla devoured the rest of the tangerines. She chatted with the elders a bit longer, then headed alone into the dark mountain and vomited her guts out as soon as they parted.
“Urk!”
She jammed her fingers down her throat, and the tangerines poured out with stomach acid.
A vampire’s stomach rejected anything but blood, so they had to purge like this after eating. Miss the timing and let it digest, and their intestines would melt entirely. They’d regenerate eventually, but the agony until then was unbearable.
Better to just taste and spit. Camilla wiped the saliva and acid from her mouth with her hand and slowly made her way deeper into the mountain.
Soon, a cave came into view.
Inside the small cave, untouched even by moonlight, ghouls slumbered. Camilla clicked her tongue and stomped on the ghoul family lying there.
Crunch!
With a gruesome sound, one ghoul’s arm flew through the air. The ghoul, which had been lying with eyes open, jolted awake in pain, baring its teeth. But upon seeing Camilla’s cold expression, it quickly averted its gaze.
“Pathetic scum.”
Fluent Spanish flowed from her lips.
“Didn’t I tell you to hunt at night? Go down to the village, kidnap someone from the city—do something. Maybe then I’ll forgive you.”
[Grooo… Grrr…]
“Shut up. I don’t want excuses. Looks like you don’t want to evolve from ghouls to vampires.”
Camilla tsked and planted her foot on the back of a prostrate ghoul’s head.
“No second warnings. This is a lesson.”
Craaaack…!
She pressed harder, and the ghoul’s head began to slowly crush. Its nose and teeth shattered, scattering across the floor; skin and skull splintered, spraying blood.
Crunch!
Finally, the head exploded. Transparent brain matter mixed with blood and oozed across the cave floor.
Camilla roughly wiped the blood from her shoe and addressed the trembling other ghouls.
“Eat it. And come morning, pull out the heart and toss it outside. Got it?”
The ghouls nodded. Camilla slapped their cheeks one by one and turned away.
“Do better, kids. Think I do this for fun?”
[…]
“It’s all to evolve you into vampires. You want to stay mindless monsters forever?”
She sighed heavily. No response came, of course.
“…Stupid idiots.”
She left the ghouls behind and exited the cave.
The mountain after sunset brimmed with yin energy on its own. Korea, in particular, had long favored burying corpses in the earth. Naturally, bodies lay beneath Camilla’s feet, their original owners reduced to lonely souls frolicking across the mountain like a playground.
But Camilla paid them no mind.
Ghosts were as familiar to vampires as blood. Bats, wolves, and dogs were kindred spirits.
All creatures vampires knew intimately, and for nobility like her, dominating them was simple. She’d already subjugated the village dogs.
‘Cartel, Management Bureau, Papal Curia. And those damn mages. One of them might show up out of nowhere. Better prepare.’
Sure, dominating dogs for “preparation” looked ridiculous. But what could she do? Camilla lacked combat-optimized powers and preferred ambushes and assassinations over fights.
She also despised tangling with the strong. Weak humans were playthings to torment to death, but the powerful? No fun there.
A hedonist and sadist, she loved inflicting pain but hated receiving it. Mages topped her hate list.
‘Freakier than the freaks themselves. If a mage shows up, I’m bolting without looking back.’
Mysteries loathed mages as naturally as breathing. Unlike the Papal Curia, which exterminated on sight, or the Management Bureau, which at least tried to capture, mages treated anomalies as magic ingredients for vivisection.
Ripping off limbs alive to observe reactions was tame. The worst ate them or turned them into tools. None were right in the head.
‘Even if I unleash the dogs, it’ll buy time. Then turn into a bat and flee.’
With that resolve, Camilla pulled a small canteen from her pocket.
She uncapped it, filled with bright red blood, and sipped slowly while gazing skyward.
The moon tonight was unusually large and bright. Staring at the pale satellite made her mind hazy as she gulped the blood down her throat.
That was when it happened.
…Shwoooo!!!
A massive roar, and Camilla’s vision went black for an instant.
“…!”
Caught off guard, she assumed a mage or psychic ambush. She hurled the blood to the ground and transformed into a bat. But before she could flee, her sight returned.
‘What? No attack?’
Wary yet curious, she cautiously looked up again. At the edge of her vision, a massive black disc streaked by.
“…Ah!”
A flying object she’d never seen before. But she instantly knew what it was.
Impossible not to.
At 246 years old, Camilla had lived through the UFO craze. Flying saucers were familiar folklore. This was her first real sighting, though.
“Wow!”
She flew after the UFO in bat form.
Capturing aliens, turning them into ghouls, evolving them to vampires—could yield powerful allies. Worth a shot.
Rumble rumble crash!
Camilla trailed the massive spacecraft for a while.
The UFO flew another 27km before crashing into the mountainside.
Midway up an uninhabited peak. The ship smashed trees and rocks, spewing smoke and pulsing red light. Camilla approached excitedly, landing slowly.
That instant.
Boom!
With a deafening blast, the ship’s hatch opened. Men in uniforms emerged.
“Fuck, it’s Earth!”
“How many years since I last set foot on Earth soil? Damn it!”
They spat rough German fluently.
That’s when Camilla sensed something off. Her seventh vertebra tingled, issuing an instinctive warning.
But before she could turn, the men from the ship spotted her.
“A woman!”
“A witness, eh? No big deal. Looks like one of our glorious Germanic race. How about guiding us?”
“Could be a Jew!”
“Then we’ll make soap out of her.”
The Nazi insignias on their chests gleamed in the ship’s light. Spotting the symbol, Camilla realized their identity and sighed.
‘Nazi secret base on the dark side of the moon…?’
As she thought it, over a dozen Nazi officers poured out.
“Hey, Leano! This location’s wrong! This ain’t Germany! It’s Japan!”
“What? The Japs’ land?”
“Technically former Joseon, colonized by the Japs—”
“Shut it! Hey, pilot! You idiot, how’d you set the course?! Why’d we crash in Asia?!”
“Detected the strongest aura here. Naturally, Earth’s mightiest is our Führer.”
“But this is Asia!”
“Curious, I admit.”
A stern-faced officer turned to Camilla.
“Wench. Guide us to the Führer. Seems our Nazi Germany won the war and made this the capital.”
“…”
“No answer? Too stupid to learn German, the world language? Or just ignoring us?”
“…”
“Ah, I get it. You a Jew?”
His words ignited the others.
“A Jew?!”
“Jew! Jew! Our soap!”
“Tear her apart! Gas chamber! To the gas chamber!”
Camilla grimaced at the sight.
“Fucking hell.”
Nazis had crash-landed in Korea.
*
Same time.
A small PC bang.
“Ian, don’t go jungle. 2 kills 12 deaths is too much.”
“Top fed.”
“Shut up. Top lost ‘cause of you. Bot with me.”
“…I don’t take orders from lower tiers—”
“Me, Emerald. You, Bronze.”
“…”
“Come on.”
Ian clamped his mouth shut and switched his main role to support.