WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 34: Vampire Hunt

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Former Crimson Moon Clan member Dang Hoyeon climbed a mountain to escape his pursuers.

He had taken advantage of the clan's collapse to steal the Clan Lord's blood.

Rather than save the dying lord, he had drained that blood and taken it for himself.

Naturally, the clan's heirs had flown into a rage and pursued him.

To rebuild the clan that had been devastated by Lincoln's Axe Hunters, they needed pureblood blood from someone who had inherited the Great Progenitor Count's blood most strongly.

To escape them, he had even come all the way to Korea, a cursed land for vampires.

"Those fucking exorcists! They were already waiting for me!"

Not long after sneaking in through Incheon Port, Dang Hoyeon had run into exorcists.

"Gasp! Huff!"

After encountering Pastor Go, an exorcist from Gangnam Holy Temple Church, Dang Hoyeon pulled the arrow lodged in his shoulder free.

"Urgh!"

A silver arrow.

And that weapon... wasn't it a repeating crossbow used by those Helsing bastards in Europe?

Why was Abraham Van Helsing's secret crossbow, the one that sealed the Count, here in Korea...?

No, that wasn't important right now.

He had lost too much blood.

To a vampire, blood was practically the same as a fingerprint.

Every drop he shed openly revealed his location.

He could deal with the exorcists somehow.

The problem was the pursuers.

He had stolen the Clan Lord's blood and fled. They had to be furious.

He needed to hide.

No, he couldn't hide. They would track him by scent.

Then he needed to prepare.

How?

"H-hey. Are you okay?"

"...!"

At the voice of someone approaching, Dang Hoyeon whipped his head around.

A human woman.

She had found him collapsed on the ground and come closer.

Her concern soon turned to fear.

"Eek! B-blood! I'll call the police..."

Her fear did not last long. Dang Hoyeon bit into her neck.

"Ghk! Gack!"

The woman gagged with her neck caught in his jaws.

She trembled and struggled, but she could not break free from a vampire's crushing bite.

Thud!

The fallen woman twitched.

Dang Hoyeon watched her for a while, then clicked his tongue when she rose again.

"Tch. You weren't a virgin."

Humans infected by vampires met one of two fates.

If they were virgins, they became Draculs or Draculinas.

They retained their reason and could wield a vampire's power in full, making them the means by which vampires increased their own kind.

But humans who were not virgins became ghouls.

They were far tougher and stronger than humans, but with poor intelligence and no reason, they were no more than slaves.

"Follow me."

Grrrraaaah...

The sun would rise soon.

Before then, he needed to gather as many troops as possible and secure somewhere to avoid the sunlight.

In the heart of Seoul, the cornered vampire began attacking in every direction.

* * *

The Great Unification Church was one of the Five Great Lineages.

It had only seventy years of history, making it unusually young among the Five Great Lineages, but it would not be an exaggeration to call it the largest exorcist organization in Korea.

There was a reason the Mystic Association and the government could not easily touch them, despite them being a despised cult.

They cultivated exorcists.

They put weapons in the hands of fanatics willing to die for their church leader and sent them to subdue paranormal entities.

It gave them an advantage in sheer numbers that other lineages did not possess.

"Church Leader, these photos were taken early this morning."

A secretary approached the Great Unification Church Leader, who wore nothing but a bathrobe, and showed him a phone screen.

"A ghoul."

"Yes. It appears a vampire that recently entered through Incheon Port attacked people."

It had only been a matter of time.

Vampires were creatures that attacked people and drank their blood. They had expected it would eventually attack someone.

"The problem is the numbers. That night alone, it attacked over fifty people."

"...How many ghouls?"

"Forty-seven confirmed individuals, along with three Draculs and Draculinas."

"That is not a number an ordinary vampire could infect in one night."

Vampires increased their numbers through blood-drinking.

But if they could increase their numbers through that alone, the world would already belong to vampires.

"I see. Did it use the Clan Lord's blood?"

"Yes. It seems to have digested a fair amount of the stolen blood."

"Tch. They let a vampire escape and made a mess of things."

Just like that declining group that still relied on a single leader, Pastor Park.

How had those who were once the best paranormal hunters on Korean soil fallen so far that they could not catch one vampire?

Well, it was not bad.

The church's decline and dwindling influence benefited the Great Unification Church, a cult derived from Christianity.

"Tsk, tsk. But such open slaughter."

Hiding the supernatural and manipulating information was not only humanity's duty.

Paranormal entities also had to hide their existence.

Once exposed, the supernatural was no longer supernatural. More importantly, revealing themselves to an unspecified mass of people was never a good thing.

Yet it had run wild this openly.

Either it was a thoughtless idiot, or it had been driven into a corner and decided it had nothing left to lose.

Either way, that vampire would be exterminated.

Whether by humans or by other vampires.

"So... where did it take the ghouls?"

"It hunted until dawn, then hid in the sewers."

"A suitable place to avoid sunlight. Just right for filthy mosquitoes to crawl into."

The Great Unification Church Leader rubbed his chin in thought.

His mind rapidly calculated as he stared into space.

"Chief Administrator."

"Yes, Church Leader!"

"Prepare the believers. We will hunt this vampire."

"Yes!"

After giving the order to exterminate it, the Great Unification Church Leader wore his usual greasy smile.

Blood capable of creating dozens of ghouls in a single night.

It had been quite some time since they had been able to acquire a quality vampire, ever since the Count was exterminated in Romania twenty years ago.

That would make money.

It would also be an impressive achievement.

The Great Unification Church Leader watched the vampire on the screen with a bloody smile.

* * *

I'd spent a while running around and keeping busy.

I was looking for bird carcasses that could be put to work through necromancy.

Jjaekjjaeki, Gugu, Eight-Foot Sister, and Gari had searched all over town for every dead bird they could find.

I wondered whether cats or rats might work too, but Decarabia's necromancy only applied to birds.

Still, pigeons and sparrows were the most common birds in the city's ecosystem.

Apparently plenty of them died, because finding carcasses was not difficult.

What really surprised me was that Korea had a wide variety of birds besides sparrows and pigeons.

We even found owls.

The Gugus found owls in the mountains.

Because of their nature, they were difficult to use during the day, but at night their vision was like night-vision goggles, making them perfect for nighttime work.

"Man, tracking paranormal entities is a piece of cake with the Gugu Legion."

We found them by scent. The Gugus tracked them. Eight-Foot Sister and Gari handled the fighting.

It felt like I was getting away with too much, but wasn't this exactly what proper outsourcing was?

Anyway, for a while, I focused on hunting paranormal entities with this large number of bird spirits.

Tracking was easy, so I caught them quickly and built up results.

During that process, I also learned how to handle familiars and use the Gutenberg Bible.

"1.2 billion won. I'm raking in money with a damn rake."

I'd made enough not to need work for a while, but I still wanted to keep earning while I could.

I was looking for a detached house where Gari and Eight-Foot Sister could move around comfortably, and I also needed to cover the Gugu Legion's upkeep.

Their food costs had gone way up because I kept materializing them and feeding them for their satisfying leisure activities.

Then my phone rang.

It was Joo Seoyul.

"Yes, Team Leader Joo Seoyul. What's going on?"

[Gari Bodhisattva, do you have a moment to talk?]

It sounded important, so I moved somewhere quiet.

"Yeah, I can talk."

[Recently... there was an incident involving vampires entering the country illegally.]

Joo Seoyul explained the whole situation with the vampires.

A famous vampire clan in China had been half-destroyed, and in the chaos, one vampire had stolen the Clan Lord's blood and escaped.

Pursuers had been sent after the traitor.

And the fleeing vampire had been going around indiscriminately biting people.

[This information will soon be released by the Association, but it is being provided first to Black Knot practitioners.]

I had a feeling I knew why.

"Do you want me to deal with the vampire?"

[Yes. An extermination order will be issued to all veteran practitioners at Azure Knot rank or higher. We are also encouraging Black Knot practitioners, who are high-ranking exorcists, to join. Naturally, the compensation will be substantial.]

Participation was not mandatory, but I was told my Association rank might drop if I refused.

It did not sound like a threat, though. It was more like they sincerely hoped I would participate in an extermination order issued in the public interest.

They said there would not actually be sanctions.

[More than fifty civilians have already fallen victim. There are likely more than that.]

What a fucking mosquito.

What the hell was it doing after coming to someone else's country?

"I'll help too."

[Ah! Thank you! I'll share information on the vampire's range of activity.]

Joo Seoyul soon shared the information on my phone.

"Uh... isn't this way too broad?"

[...It is operating around the sewers. It has also scattered ghouls everywhere. We believe it is trying to buy time.]

Because the area was so broad, a large number of exorcists would have to be mobilized.

Joo Seoyul soon designated a meeting place for me.

* * *

Boramae Park was in disarray, as though an enforcement sweep had come through.

Of course, there was no room for the police to intervene. A barrier that repelled people had been set up, and the homeless people who had been staying there had been gently guided elsewhere.

Sirens rang across the city, though, because police riot squads had been deployed in force after the string of grotesque murders and disappearances.

"It's really running wild without caring about anything."

"How long has it been since a vampire set foot in Korea? Were they always this reckless?"

The hunters gathered to hunt the vampire exchanged comments.

In truth, dedicated vampire hunters had vanished from Korean soil quite some time ago.

Koreans practically lived on garlic, which vampires hated, and a large-scale hunt twenty years ago had nearly wiped them out.

Because of that, there were not many groups in Korea capable of properly responding to the current vampire crisis.

"When is the Association going to brief us?"

"Not everyone's here yet. Boss, look at that."

Everyone's attention turned to a group in suits marching in.

Suits at a time like this? Were they Association staff?

But a closer look revealed that they all wore the same emblem.

"Those Great Unification Church cultists."

"They're getting involved too? They must really be hungry for money."

They had no room to talk.

There had been an Association summons, but they had also come for money.

Especially when vampire blood was on the line.

"Just as expected from the Great Unification Church. They have no roots, so they've got a bit of everything mixed together."

"Oh, boss. Can you see something?"

The leader of the group examined the Great Unification Church followers through a bronze monocle and answered.

"Guys carrying only guns, guys using talismans, guys controlling shikigami. A real mix. Most of them are probably meat shields who only know how to fire a gun."

"I heard they don't complain even when they die. Damn fanatics."

"Don't get involved with them. The other Five Great Lineages are one thing, but if you get tangled up with those Great Unification Church cultists, your life gets exhausting."

"Still, they don't have a single truly capable person. They just have numbers."

The veteran hunter did not tell him that those numbers were what made them frightening.

"Ah, excuse me."

At that moment, there was a slight collision as someone passed the hunters.

A hunter backing up had blocked a young man's path, but the hunter was the one who got angry.

"Ah, shit. What?"

"Oh, sorry about that."

Despite the rough mercenary talk, the young man smiled good-naturedly and tried to move on.

But after seeing the young man's easygoing smile, the hunter gave a nasty grin and pressed the issue.

It was common in a world where guns and fists came first.

If people saw you as weak, they trampled you. That was how this business worked.

"If you're sorry, you should show some sincerity-"

"What the fuck are you doing, you crazy bastard!"

"Ah! B-boss?"

The veteran hunter smacked the back of his head.

He grabbed the confused hunter by the nape and forcibly bowed his head.

"My younger brother made a mistake. Please forgive him."

"Ah, it happens."

The young man accepted the veteran hunter's apology and calmly walked away.

The hunter watched him go, then protested with dissatisfaction written all over his face.

"Come on, boss. I was just going to mess with him a little. Why are you getting so serious? It's not like I was going to beat up some kid."

"You... you fucking idiot. Pick someone you can take on..."

"What... do you mean?"

Seeing the veteran hunter turn pale and break into a cold sweat, the hunter became cautious.

"If you pick a fight with a monster like that, they won't even find your bones."

The bronze monocle showed him strange beings.

Their forms were blurred, and they had not revealed their true selves, but he knew.

The most dangerous being in this park was that young man.

Footnotes:

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