WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 130: Helsing Family

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Vampire species of many kinds exist on the hidden side of the world, but vampires stand apart from the rest.

Their inherent strength and aristocratic nature may be part of the reason, but all of it was inherited from their progenitor.

Commonly known as the Count.

This vampire progenitor, famed as Count Dracula, first became active during the Ottoman Empire's invasion of the Principality of Wallachia.

Vlad the Impaler, the great hero and ruling prince of Wallachia who held back the Ottoman invasion.

The legend of the Thorn Prince, who was said to have defended his principality through near-mad impalements and by feeding on countless lives, crumbled beneath the Ottoman Empire's endless invasions.

Afterward, he became a count in Transylvania, expanded his clan and influence, and reigned as Europe's terror.

The golden age of vampires.

The Count, who had been driven into the darkness of history by the Ottoman Empire's overwhelming forces and the traitors of his own principality, had returned after multiplying his clan.

But their golden age did not last long.

Four men came to stop the Count.

Arthur Holmwood, a viscount, psychiatrist John Seward, and Texas hunter Quincey Morris, who met and became friends in Joseon in the Far East.

And Abraham Van Helsing, John Seward's teacher.

The four men learned the Count's identity by chance and stormed Dracula's castle.

They ultimately sealed Count Dracula by driving a stake through his heart. They were legendary men who could be called the origin of all vampire hunters.

Afterward, the Helsing Family inherited the work of hunting vampires. That was the beginning of the Helsings known as modern vampire hunters.

"So Count Dracula wasn't fiction."

"They do deceive people by calling it fiction. You know what they say, if you want to hide a tree, hide it in a forest. Same idea."

Pastor Go was right.

Once it had spread through the world as a novel, no one would believe it was real.

We had now arrived at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.

We had used Spatial Leap to jump to the Serbian sanctuary, then taken a direct flight from Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport.

We had not entered under official identities.

Apparently, the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church had arranged cover IDs for us, so getting caught would be a headache.

"I hope this is all right."

"Traveling through the Exorcist Network normally means using cover identities, so it won't be a problem. Flying from Korea to Europe isn't exactly easy. If we can game the system, we should."

Making money? Not something a pastor should say.

"Anyway, Pastor Park told me to leave Gari behind for the vampire hunt. Is this really okay? They came along."

Clack! Clack!

Pastor Park had told me to leave Gari behind, but Gari absolutely refused to leave my side.

I didn't know whether they couldn't get too far away from me or simply didn't want to.

For the record, Gari had followed us in the plane's cargo hold.

"Well, this is practical training. It should be fine as long as Angel Gari doesn't interfere."

"If it gets truly dangerous, I think they'll interfere."

"Then we should consider it a failure."

I guessed the point was to do my best so that situation never arose.

Come to think of it, even when Pastor Park released werewolves into Dream Journey to the Peach Blossom Land for that death survival exercise, there had never been a life-threatening crisis.

Gari probably wouldn't interfere over something at that level.

Anyway, amid the countless travelers passing by, we spotted an elderly man in a black suit standing beside a pillar.

His gray hair was neatly combed back, and the only thing gleaming on his perfectly tidy black suit was a silver tie pin.

Oh. He had the air of a butler you'd only see in a movie.

That model butler from European-style fiction was holding a sign in Korean.

[Welcome - Holy Temple Church -]

Hmm. He must have been sent by the Helsing Family.

As we approached, the butler spoke at once.

"Welcome, people of Holy Temple Church. I am Edward, the butler of the Helsing Family."

It was fluent Korean, not Latin.

"Your Korean is amazing!"

"Ha ha. Korean is essential if we are to communicate smoothly with Holy Temple Church, the Helsing Family's sworn allies."

Sworn allies? Was our church really that important?

Edward soon guided us to the waiting vehicle.

It was a sleek black limousine, and I could only marvel at my first ride in one.

"Wow. I've never ridden in a limousine before."

"I've had the chance a few times."

Gari couldn't get inside the car, so they followed along.

"By the way, are the Helsings really close enough to our church to call us sworn allies?"

"Of course. If you trace it back, the history goes all the way to the Joseon era."

"The Joseon era? Isn't that too long ago?"

"You know that the first head of the family and three companions defeated the Count, do you not?"

Of course I did.

It was famous as a novel too.

Abraham Van Helsing and his companions.

Arthur Holmwood, John Seward, and Quincey Morris.

Those four legendary men drove a stake through Count Dracula's heart.

"Abraham Van Helsing, the first head of the family, never visited Joseon. But the other three did travel there. Though rather than travel... their purpose was hunting monsters."

Wait, there was backstory like that?!

"At the time, the three men made contact with Joseon Catholics. I heard Pastor Park's great-great-grandparent was one of those Catholics."

"For the same reason, the vampire hunter Lincoln also visited Joseon. The Lincoln Family head from four generations ago hunted Joseon vampires alongside Father Antoine Corbeil and the previous generation's pastor."

The previous generation's pastor meant Pastor Choi, Pastor Park's mother?

She had founded the predecessor of Holy Temple Church and served as its first Senior Pastor.

Looking at it this way, the ties between us went back a very long time.

"In modern times, the bond between the Helsings and Holy Temple Church has grown even stronger. We all owe a debt to Holy Temple Church for the campaign against the Count."

The campaign against the Count.

Apparently, it had been a large-scale campaign to seal the vampire progenitor again after he broke free of his seal.

In addition to the Vatican's Templar Order and the vampire hunters of the Helsing and Lincoln Families, support had come from all over. Holy Temple Church had been among them.

"Pastor Park and Pastor Kim?"

"That's right. When we were nearly wiped out, the two of them drove a stake through the progenitor's heart again."

Pastor Park still had a physique that seemed inhuman, but what exactly had Pastor Kim been?

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"Whew... Pastor Park. I don't know about anything else, but I really don't think we can take that thing down."

Rome's Paladins and the Order of Saint Stephen. The current head of the Helsing Family and the Lincoln Family's vampire hunters.

Seeing those mighty warriors and the modern blessed armaments they had brought, Pastor Kim had thought there would be no need for him to step in.

Legend or not, a vampire Count who had been sealed away centuries ago should die if they bombarded him with explosives and silver bullets.

But the mysteries of the past were stronger than Pastor Kim had imagined. The Count's might was at least as great as it had been when they sealed the Kyoto White-Faced Golden-Furred Nine-Tailed Fox.

"Pastor Kim. You've done well so far. You caught the Kyoto White-Faced Golden-Furred Nine-Tailed Fox, caught the werewolf in Florence, and even did well on that vampire-hunting dry run in America."

"Why did I ever take this man's general education class?!"

If only he hadn't chosen Pastor Park's lecture as a general education course back then!

He was filled with regret, but Pastor Park spoke as the Count approached.

"Pastor Kim."

"Yes, Pastor Park."

"God brought us together because He has His own plans and purposes. For I know the plans I have for you."

"Plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11."

"Amen."

Pastor Park grinned and roughly bound his broken left arm.

Pastor Kim also kept sighing as he wiped the blood flowing down his forehead.

【Have you despaired and regretted enough? You are the last ones.】

"What's that mosquito bastard saying?"

"No idea. We'd have to know Romanian."

The two men rose before that embodiment of despair.

Teacher and student, they always exchanged the same words at moments like this.

"If you seek to live, you die."

"If you seek to die, you live."

They had long been ready to risk their lives.

That day.

A stake was driven through the Count's heart.

* * *

After roughly thirty minutes on the road from Schiphol Airport, we arrived on the southern outskirts of Amsterdam.

Beyond the city's canals and narrow buildings was a quiet suburban area, where an old mansion stood.

Was this what it felt like when a historic wealthy family had maintained its grand estate for a hundred years?

We soon reached the entrance, where two people stood before the front door.

One was a middle-aged man who looked to be over fifty.

He wore a practical coat rather than a suit. It even resembled the holy armor coats worn by Catholics.

The other was a young man about my age.

No, Westerners aged quickly, so maybe he was younger than me.

When you thought of Westerners, blond hair and blue eyes came to mind easily, but both men had dark black hair.

"Welcome, sworn allies of the Helsings."

Their Korean was fluent too.

They had called us sworn allies, and it looked like they had truly learned the language from the ground up.

"Hello, everyone from the Helsing Family."

Pastor Go answered in Dutch.

Just how many languages could he speak?

I could barely manage conversational English apart from Latin, so I just spoke Korean.

"Hello. My name is Baek Yohan."

"I am Alexander Van Helsing. So you're the young man Holy Temple Church has been cherishing lately."

"You know me?"

"I heard about what you did in Serbia too. My, my. Pastor Kim had better be nervous. You're going to break that fellow's monster-hunting record."

He seemed to know Pastor Kim very well.

Come to think of it, Alexander Van Helsing, the current head of the family, would be around the same age as Pastor Kim if he were still alive.

"This is my son. Ah, my youngest. His eldest and second-born children are elsewhere."

"I'm Adrian Van Helsing."

"Hello."

I shook hands with Adrian as well.

"I heard why you came. It seems Pastor Park has decided to train you properly. As it happens, we were about to hold my youngest son's coming-of-age ceremony."

"A coming-of-age ceremony?"

Wait. A coming-of-age ceremony? So he had only just become an adult?

I had thought he looked young, but Westerners' faces... Hmm. Maybe he'd just had a hard life?

"What's with that look?"

"Uh... Nothing. I'm older, so don't speak informally to me."

"???"

Fuck.

"Ha ha. You're exactly like that fellow Kim Gwang-o. He was one year older than me, and he lorded it over me endlessly."

"...Ha ha ha."

"Edward, show our guests in."

"Yes, Head of House."

Head of House Alexander led us into the mansion.

There were fewer people inside than I expected.

It felt as though they employed only the minimum number of servants and maids.

We were immediately served dinner.

It wasn't extravagant, but it was a neat Western-style meal.

"I'll speak with Pastor Go for a while. Adrian, show Yohan the weapons we will use for this coming-of-age ceremony."

"Yes, Father."

Pastor Go and Head of House Alexander remained behind, while Adrian and I headed separately to the armory.

The armory was a room at one side of the mansion. Since it seemed to double as a workshop for modifications and fabrication, there was a faint smell of oil.

It reminded me of cleaning guns in the military.

"Whoa. Are all these weapons?"

Weapons covered the entire wall.

Longswords with cross-shaped hilts.

Daggers and spears made of silver.

Flails with crosses attached to the ends of their chains.

What they all had in common was that they contained silver.

"Are all anti-vampire weapons made with silver?"

"Not entirely. Silver is soft, so it lacks strength."

Adrian casually picked up a dagger from among the displayed weapons and showed it to me.

Sure enough. Only the tip was plated with silver, while the rest was steel.

Silver bullets were usually made that way too.

"Vampires generally don't move during the day. That wicked blood keeps them from walking under sunlight."

"But I heard there are some that walk around just fine in the sun."

"High-ranking vampires, around Elder-class, regenerate faster. Even then, they usually carry parasols."

So were people carrying parasols in broad daylight potential vampires?

Well, they wouldn't be wandering around in the daytime unless they had to.

"There's consecrated oil too... Oh, I know this."

A crossbow with an unusual design hung on the wall.

It had something like a magazine attached to it. It was a secret crossbow of the Helsing Family that could fire repeatedly.

"Pastor Go praised this a lot. He said it was an excellent item."

"Well, it is an old symbol of the family. It is the weapon our progenitor used when he faced the Count at Dracula's castle. But it is outdated."

Adrian grinned and touched something on the wall.

Rumble!

Like something from a movie, the wall flipped over.

The other side of the wall was packed with all kinds of modern equipment.

Adrian handed me a rifle.

"An HK416, a fine German-made weapon. It has an EOTech optic, a SureFire light with a UV light that those bastards hate, a Magpul grip, and a Blue Force Gear sling. The rounds are consecrated silver bullets from the Basilica of Saint Nicholas."

This felt strangely familiar.

"You're like Pastor Go."

"I think that man and I would get along."

They really were similar.

Pastor Go even made equipment himself, and the Helsings seemed much the same.

"What about your weapon? What kind of weapons does Holy Temple Church use?"

Adrian sounded expectant, but I shrugged.

"By your standards, ours are outdated. Holy water and holy swords, things like that."

"Antiques can accumulate history and become mysteries, but vampires are far stronger than us. It is too dangerous to fight them up close with a sword."

Adrian pointed to the HK rifle he had handed me.

"I'll lend it to you. Koreans all serve in the military, right?"

"I was discharged as a sergeant."

"A sergeant, huh? Then I will expect the skill of a veteran soldier."

"Uh..."

But I was terrible with guns.

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