WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 135: Helsing Family (6)
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Now that I knew about the Dake Clan's terrifying plan, I had to stop them.
"Finn, Elise. Where's your hideout?"
"A detached house in The Hague. It's an old hideout."
Good. I had the location.
They had answered smoothly when I asked about their plan too. People in love really were blind.
Still, how was I supposed to stop this?
Should I mobilize Pastor Go and the Helsing Family's vampire hunters to raid the hideout?
But we had already seen how well vampires could escape.
If they were determined to run, they would be a pain to catch, even if not quite as much as me using Spatial Leap.
Even Elise had managed to escape after half the blood making up her body had been destroyed.
"Let's enthrall as many vampires as possible."
"Oh, have you decided to become a Korean Casanova? You enthrall men too, so you've gone beyond Casanova."
"Don't say creepy things like that."
And so, our vampire-enthralling operation began.
We used Finn and Elise to call out vampires and enthrall them, then used those enthralled vampires to lure in more vampires and enthrall them too.
"Uh, this has a limit."
"All of a sudden?"
"The spiritual power consumption is no joke. It's worse than Spatial Leap."
I also learned that certain vampires consumed more spiritual power than others.
They fell into two categories: pure-blood vampires and lower vampires.
It seemed that the stronger the being, the more spiritual power it took.
Sure, the authority of a Greater Demon was not something I could use freely, but I had captured and absorbed thousands of demons during the Serbia incident, and it was still this draining.
Anyway, I took control of most of the Dake Clan vampires who had been set to gather.
One person remained.
The Clan Lord, Willem van Dake.
"Pastor, what happened to the spies in Eastern Europe and Russia?"
[They're being subdued. Cardinal Rosinald's people at the Vatican and Archbishop Alexei of the Russian Orthodox Church are already moving. It won't take long.]
With the Vatican Special Affairs Bureau involved, there was no need to worry about Eastern Europe. And Archbishop Alexei was the one who had helped North Korean defectors escape during the Aoji Great Escape.
"You told them that the Russian ambassador was on the vampires' side too, right?"
[Yes. He has already been arrested and is being interrogated by the FSB. The news tomorrow morning will announce that the Hague international conference has been postponed.]
"Then all that's left is catching the Clan Lord."
So we waited for the remaining Clan Lord, Willem, to arrive.
"I pity you for not knowing how wonderful love is!"
"......"
Surrounded by the adoration of the vampires I had enthralled, I faced the bastard.
He was supposedly a Clan Lord, and he definitely seemed to be on a different level from the others.
I could tell just from that nasty smell.
"......!"
Willem abruptly turned his head and fled.
Whoosh!
A silver net gleaming even in the darkness covered the spot where Willem had been.
It was a silver net fired by Adrian Helsing.
"He dodged that?!"
"Get him!"
At my shout, the vampires all pulled out guns.
They were firearms brought by the Helsing Family.
─────!!
The barrage of gunfire chased after Willem. Even a Clan Lord could not simply ignore rifle rounds fired all at once by dozens of people.
"Urk! Silver bullets?! You bastards! Vampires using silver bullets?!"
"This is proof of the love bestowed upon us by the one we adore! A gift filled with love! Even if it is cursed silver that gnaws at my body, I will gladly accept it!"
"......"
Beleth's Power of Love was not merely certain in its effect. It was terrifying.
This was not magic meant for people.
Under the continuing hail of silver bullets, Willem let them pierce him rather than evade.
"Urk!"
"S-Stop firing! You'll hit our allies!"
"No! I'm fine! For Yohan, I can gladly die!"
"No, uh... I'm happy to hear that, but... do you really need to go that far?"
I ordered the vampires to stop shooting and form a circle around Willem.
If they fired, they had no choice but to hit their allies.
That made Willem stop too.
"What are you thinking?"
"Let's have a go at each other."
"What?"
The Dake Clan's conspiracy had already been thwarted.
Their main force, the vampires, were enthralled by the Power of Love, and the Russian ambassador and enthralled military units had been subdued.
The outcome had already been decided.
So there was no problem treating this as practical training, right?
"Ha! A mere human wants to fight me one-on-one?"
"Well, not completely one-on-one."
I took a bottle from inside my coat.
It was filled with sloshing red liquid.
"Th-That's?"
"Proof of love, created by gathering everyone's strength into one!"
In other words, I had drawn blood from the enthralled vampires and made it into an elixir.
Gulp, gulp!
As I drank the vampire elixir, I felt my senses sharpen.
It had been made by drawing only high-purity blood from several vampires, so its effect was completely different from before.
"You bastard!"
He rushed me.
Fast.
They said a Clan Lord's blood was closest to pure blood, and his stats really were on another level.
But...
"You're slower than Pastor Park."
I would not use Spatial Leap.
Since I had already drunk the vampire elixir, I planned to focus on close combat rather than waste my strength dodging.
Clang!
His claws were blocked by the Gutenberg holy sword.
But a crack immediately appeared along the blade.
Strong.
The Gutenberg holy sword was not especially durable to begin with, but it had cracked from a single clash.
I could not use this twice.
I jumped one step backward, then fired the holy sword at the bastard chasing me with spiritual power.
"Argh!"
"Ah, sorry!"
I had almost hit one of the vampires behind him.
To reduce friendly fire, I gave an order.
"Fall back! Just block the entrance!"
"Yes, sir!"
The vampires retreated.
Naturally, it became a one-on-one fight between Willem and me.
"Fighting a Lord-class vampire one-on-one is a crazy idea."
Adrian clicked his tongue, but I did not care.
Was this not a rare opportunity?
A life-or-death one-on-one fight with a monster possessing stats like this.
It would make good nourishment.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Several Gutenberg holy swords rained down from the ceiling.
As the descending holy swords struck, Willem's body scattered into mist.
"......!"
Something that had been human-shaped a moment ago had vanished like smoke.
"Master! Be careful!"
"He's used mist transformation!"
I knew about it, but facing it was still startling.
Then someone shouted.
"Above!"
"......!"
I looked up to see the gathered mist taking human form as it aimed for the crown of my head.
I threw my head back to evade, and a chilling Whoosh! sounded.
"Urk! Why is this coat so thick?!"
His claws had been blocked by my coat.
It was a holy armor coat remade to the highest specifications, with Kyoto White-Faced Golden-Furred Nine-Tailed Fox tail-fur underwear beneath it.
Its defense was enough to make full plate armor look like a joke, so it was not something that would break easily.
"Still, I'll have to get it repaired!"
I fired a Gutenberg holy sword, but he scattered again through mist transformation.
"Annoying."
I had formed a barrier with the Gutenberg Bible, so he would not be able to escape like this.
But holy swords and weapons could not easily reach him in mist form.
It was time for an attack with more coverage.
"Haaah...!"
Fwoosh!
I took up a whip wreathed in Auns's flame magic.
This fire whip was not something that merely had to be swung. It could move with a will of its own like a snake, so it could be used this way too.
Whip!
I raised the whip high and had it surround me. Adrian watched and offered his impression.
"It looks like a coiled snake."
It was a fire whip that guarded every direction.
With decent physical abilities, he might have tried to break through head-on. But he would never be able to pass through while in mist form.
And I could even attack in this state.
Screeeech!
When I poured in more spiritual power, the coiled fire whip shot out like a snake and pursued the mist.
The mist burned the instant it touched the flaming whip.
Unable to endure it, Willem materialized.
"Urk! You bastard!"
Willem, covered in black ash here and there, tried to break through.
At that moment, a rope stretched toward him.
Fudo Myoo's Vajra Lasso.
A vampire scattered through mist transformation or bat transformation might be another matter, but if he was one person with a physical body...
"Urk!"
Willem was bound by the rope.
He tried to break free, but Fudo Myoo's Vajra Lasso was not something that could easily be escaped.
He could have scattered through mist transformation, but the snake of flame had already surrounded him.
"W-Wait! I surrender..."
"No. You smell too foul."
Whoosh!
The whip of flame wrapped around him. Willem screamed as he burned.
"AAAAAAARGH!"
Burning alive must have been agonizing, because Willem could not endure it.
Soon, his body burned away and scattered as ash.
"......The Clan Lord went down that easily."
"As expected of the one we adore!"
Could they stop with all that adoration and love crap already?
At the spot where Willem had burned away, I found a pool of blood.
"Wow... It's real. This is what they call progenitor's blood?"
"Yes, Master. The great progenitor is now hidden somewhere with a stake driven through it, but its blood does not vanish."
He had burned so completely that even the bone ash had vanished, yet the blood remained.
No, it was more than that.
"What? It's regenerating?"
At the spot where Willem had burned, the blood gathered and began reconstructing a new body.
This was an astonishing power.
He had only inherited a portion of an old vampire's blood, and he could do this much?
Now I understood why vampires had pursued a vampire who stole a Clan Lord's blood all the way to cursed Korea.
To completely destroy a vampire carrying progenitor's blood, you had to thoroughly burn away the blood or have another vampire absorb it.
"Yooou bastard...! A mere human dares...!"
I felt something ominous from the regenerating bastard.
He seemed to be using the full extent of his blood's power, but I was not particularly worried.
"I can't keep dealing with this every time you regenerate."
Snap!
The moment I snapped my fingers, Willem saw something and his eyes widened.
"W-What is that?!"
Creeeak!
What he saw was Gari opening its mouth wide.
Chomp!
Willem was bitten before he had time to react.
He struggled inside Gari's mouth.
"AAAAH! You said one-on-one! One-on-one!"
"Doesn't a familiar count as individual ability?"
"Y-You cowardly, cowardly monkey bastard!"
Crunch!
His regenerated body was severed and swallowed whole.
Even a vampire's proud regeneration would not work inside an angel's maw.
The moment he entered that mouth, it was already over.
"Is it... over?"
"I think so?"
"Good work, Yohan. You have stopped a huge conspiracy."
"I saved the world?"
"In the end, you did."
"Ohhh."
It felt strange to have stopped a world war.
Whenever crises like this happened, someone unknown to us must have saved the world.
Now I was one of those people.
* * *
After that, things moved quickly as we wrapped up the incident.
Once word spread that the vampires' conspiracy had nearly caused a world war, high-ranking officials in governments around the world began a massive search for enthralled bureaucrats and soldiers.
Things had gotten pretty big, and apparently word of my accomplishments had quietly spread too.
Important people in the government and exorcist organizations like Korea's Mystic Association contacted me.
"Huh? The Russian president?"
"He wants to meet you to express his gratitude."
"Do I have to?"
I tilted my head at the news Pastor Go had brought.
"Well, besides the reward, he probably wants to recruit you. Someone who destroyed a vampire clan by himself would be a recruitment target anywhere."
It was understandable.
But I did not like that guy.
People online used to call him a macho president, but was he not the person starting wars all over the place now?
It was 203X. The wars had already been going on for over ten years.
"What will he give me?"
"Probably money. He would try to recruit you with money too."
"Isn't the Russian ruble basically worthless paper right now?"
"He would probably give you dollars or gold."
"Tell him to just wire it over."
Why bother meeting him? It was not like I planned to immigrate to Russia.
The Netherlands government and several places that had nearly suffered disasters in The Hague offered compensation.
The Helsing Family, who had played a major role in subduing the enthralled soldiers and officials at the border, would receive an enormous reward too.
Money was something that was fine if I did not have it and nice if I did, but there was another problem.
"Pastor, what do we do with them?"
It was broad daylight.
Inside a building with blackout curtains drawn against the sunlight, the Dake Clan vampires watched me nervously.
Twelve pure-blood vampires and thirty lower vampires.
"You have two choices."
"Two?"
"Kill them all."
Flinch!
The vampires trembled.
I had spoken Korean, so I wondered how they could have understood. But then I saw Gari and understood why they were trembling.
Gulp.
Gari? Were you just swallowing your saliva?
Can an angel do that?
"What's the second choice?"
"Or we take them with us. Think of it as saving sinful souls. And we can build an elixir factory too."
"That sounds like the main point."
"It's a side benefit. A side benefit."
The conclusion was reached.
I turned to the vampires.
"Brothers and sisters. From today onward, you are Christians. Understand?"
I would convert them and prepare them for immigration, I guess.
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