WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 38: Vampire Hunt (5)

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The Great Unification Church.

A cultish heretical sect that had splintered off from Protestantism.

I was a Protestant myself, so I didn't think highly of those cults that claimed their leaders were the Second Coming of Jesus.

Watching people called "Harvesters" infiltrate churches to poach believers only made me dislike them more.

Korean churches had plenty of problems too, but cults were on another level.

Still, they were powerful enough to be called one of Korea's Five Great Lineages.

It had surprised me a little, but I hadn't considered them enemies in this vampire hunt.

"You called dibs?"

"That's right. Surely you aren't thinking of defying the Great Unification Church..."

Then Park Minhong flinched as he looked at me.

More accurately, he seemed to be looking past me. Could he actually see it?

"W-what kind of monster are you dragging around?!"

Oh, so he could see it.

Come to think of it, some people could see spirit bodies like Gari or Eight-Foot Sister.

Looking closer, the monocle Park Minhong wore seemed to be made of bronze.

It was probably based on the same mechanism as Wolryeong Bodhisattva's bronze mirror.

"To wield such an evil being!"

"That's a little harsh."

Gari was so nice, too.

"W-we were about to go in first. What do you say?"

His tone suddenly changed.

Gari's maw did look kind of terrifying.

"But I think it's dangerous in there. Wouldn't it be better to report this to the Association and ask for backup?"

"Then... we'd have to share the credit."

"Isn't that better than people dying?"

"Um..."

The Great Unification Church evangelist seemed to think it over. Then he spotted something on me and shouted.

"A cross? Are you a church exorcist?!"

"Well... I'm not affiliated with a church..."

"Believers of the Great Unification Church do not cooperate with unbelievers!"

Why was this guy suddenly going off the rails?

"Let us show these cowardly unbelievers the strength our leader has chosen us to wield!"

"Whoaaaaa!!"

The Great Unification Church hunters rushed inside in a pack.

Was that really okay?

There were a lot of them, so... maybe it would be fine?

* * *

Evangelist Park Minhong let out a sigh of relief and rubbed his chest.

He had almost ended up working with a lackey of the church.

The Great Unification Church's greatest enemy was the church.

More specifically, Protestantism, which held the majority of influence in Korea.

They weren't trying to surpass Gangnam Holy Temple Church and take its place for nothing.

That hostility had spread to the rank-and-file believers, forming deep resentment toward the church.

They had the same roots but called each other heretics, so it was only natural.

But joining hands with those heretics from the church to subjugate vampires?

Before success even mattered, Park's neck would be on the line if word got out.

'That was a monster. That unbeliever claims to serve the Lord, yet he made a contract with something like that!'

The moment he faced it, Park Minhong had felt nothing but fear.

It was a monster.

The being reflected in his bronze monocle could not be described any other way.

A massive mouth.

Malevolence overflowed between its hideous, merciless teeth.

It had nothing but a mouth, yet somehow he felt its gaze.

Countless indescribable gazes.

Don't make an enemy of it.

His instincts warned him of that.

"Evangelist, shouldn't we deal with that church lackey?"

"It'll be a problem if he butts in and tries to share the credit."

You idiots wanted me to fight that monster too, with vampires right in front of us?

He couldn't say that, so Park Minhong forced himself to calm them down.

"Our leader wishes to protect the people of this land by exterminating the vampires as soon as possible. This is no time to worry about one unbeliever."

"Oh... as expected of our leader."

"Jesus, who has returned to this land..."

Having successfully avoided a fight with a real monster, Park Minhong focused on the vampires.

It was a small general hospital.

The five-story building had patient wards and a few small examination rooms, nothing more.

There should have been security guards making their rounds because of the inpatients, but there was no sign of anyone.

"Evangelist, look here."

A caked trail of blood ran down the corridor.

It was the trace of someone being dragged away while bleeding.

It was still wet, so it couldn't have happened long ago.

A vampire was here.

"Thermal scan."

A team member at the rear checked through a thermal sight.

"Multiple biological signatures. Watch ahead."

"Ghouls? They should be dead, their blood cold."

Then vampires? No, perhaps they had been infected recently enough that their blood hadn't cooled yet.

"Ghouls confirmed. Five of them."

Park Minhong smiled.

"Prepare to fire. Aim for the head."

The Great Unification Church hunters soon aimed their guns at the ghouls' heads.

Bang! Bang bang!

Gunshots rang out, and the bullets struck the ghouls squarely in the head.

Yet the creatures only hesitated at the stopping power of the rifles before moving again.

"They're moving after getting their heads blown through?"

"Shit, I thought zombies died when you shot them in the head?"

"Deacon Kim, those aren't zombies. They're ghouls."

That was right.

Both were monsters born from infection, but ghouls were aberrations that had taken even a small amount of vampire blood into themselves.

Unlike undead zombies, they were flesh-eating monsters.

Their strength and durability were beyond comparison with mere zombies.

"Load silver rounds. Reload, then take aimed shots."

"Yes!"

The reloaded silver bullets soon pierced the ghouls.

Crunch!

The ghouls collapsed. Riddled with silver bullets, they no longer moved.

"Whew. That was nothing."

"These silver rounds really are effective."

"..."

The hunters relaxed and savored their victory, but Park Minhong felt dismayed.

'They're tougher than I expected. It took more than ten rounds to take down each one.'

Hostile toward the established Christian forces, the Great Unification Church had been unable to obtain consecrated silver bullets.

They had still acquired plenty of silver ammunition, but the ghouls were tougher and more resilient than expected.

To finish one with a single shot, they would have needed to blow off its head with a shotgun at point-blank range.

If ghouls were this difficult, how troublesome would vampires be?

'No. There's no reason to be scared. We have more than fifty people!'

He had summoned every believer he could from those spread throughout the area.

The rest would come too, leaving them with more than enough reinforcements.

Even vampires would be turned into Swiss cheese before they could do anything against fifty heavily armed people.

"Everyone, load silver rounds and move in! Kill everything you see!"

"Yes!"

They pushed through the corridor.

Ghouls in patient gowns appeared from all directions.

They were eerie vampire lackeys, with pale skin, burst veins, and bloodshot eyes.

Yet whenever one appeared, silver bullets flew in, piercing its head and tearing open its chest.

"Left side clear!"

"Right side secured!"

The Great Unification Church hunters had no particular spiritual abilities, but they were thoroughly trained soldiers.

The Great Unification Church could not inherit the traditions and ritual arts held by the other Five Great Lineages, so this was the method it had chosen.

Overwhelming numbers, made possible through expensive equipment and loyal soldiers.

Mindless ghouls were little more than durable targets.

"The reports about vampires were exaggerated."

"They're just defeated losers who ran away, even if they're vampires."

Then...

Squelch!

Someone stepped in a puddle of blood.

In the silent corridor, where even the gunfire had stopped, it sounded incredibly loud.

They turned toward the sound and saw a man dragging someone along.

The man being dragged looked familiar.

He was the vampire in the photograph circulated by the Association, Dang Hoyeon, the one said to have stolen the Clan Lord's blood and fled.

Then who was that man?

Pale face.

Bloodless lips.

Dressed in a suit, he looked like a businessman who had come to pay his respects at a funeral.

"Tch. Those Korean bastards are loud."

It was Chinese.

If he was a vampire who spoke Chinese other than Dang Hoyeon...

'A tracker from the Crimson Moon Clan!'

Something was wrong.

But by the time they realized it, it was already too late.

"Ugh?!"

A hunter was yanked skyward.

The startled hunters all aimed their guns upward. In the beam of their lights, a woman was chewing on one of their comrades on the ceiling.

Drip!

Blood poured from the bitten hunter's neck.

The hunter who had been dragged away could only tremble, unable to resist.

"H-how did she get onto the ceiling?!"

"Who cares?! Shoot! Shoot her!"

They pulled their triggers in panic, but the female vampire raced across the ceiling and vanished from sight in an instant.

"W-where did the guy at the end of the hall go?"

"I don't know! He was there just a second ago!"

At that moment, gray mist swept past them.

The mist moved as if it had a will of its own. Then it suddenly gathered into a human shape and appeared among the Great Unification Church hunters.

"I was cautious because this land had such a reputation... but you're all just fools."

"Eek...!"

With a single gesture from him, several hunters collapsed at once.

"Hehehe!"

The female vampire, who had vanished from sight, began tearing through the hunters too.

It didn't matter whether they wore bulletproof vests or stab-resistant armor.

Park Minhong fell into despair as he watched the believers get sliced apart like radishes beneath a kitchen knife.

"Damn it! Why can't we hit them?! Why?!"

There was another problem.

They couldn't land silver bullets on the vampires.

The shots were right on target for their torsos, but the vampires nullified them by turning into mist or scattering into bats with bizarre transformations.

They knew the characteristics of vampires.

Vampires were aberrations that had existed in Europe for over five hundred years.

Even their progenitor had been sealed by humans twice.

There were plenty of known ways to fight vampires.

But knowing something and putting it into practice were completely different matters.

"Th-they're too fast!"

"The silver rounds! They definitely hit them!"

The panicked hunters wasted their expensive silver bullets, spraying them everywhere.

That wasn't all.

Groooooan...

Grrk! Grrrr...!

The believers bitten by the vampires were getting up as ghouls.

Soon, ghouls began pouring in from every direction.

There were easily more than a hundred of them.

"Ah..."

These were probably ghouls Dang Hoyeon had infected.

But since Dang Hoyeon had been defeated, the trackers had taken control of them.

'It's over!'

Park Minhong sensed his own death and squeezed his eyes shut.

Then...

Whoosh!

Something suddenly flew in.

The moment he realized it was paper, hundreds of pages began lodging themselves throughout the hospital.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me."

Step. Step.

A man walked toward them with an open Bible in his hands.

Even now, pages from the Bible continued to spread outward.

They formed a barrier, one that prevented evil beings from entering or leaving.

A vampire by the window carelessly touched a Bible page embedded in the glass, then recoiled in shock.

"When I go to fight my enemies, even if their horses, iron chariots, and people outnumber mine, I will not fear, for the Lord God is with me."

At last, all the Bible pages withdrew.

He closed the Bible and held it out into empty air.

A massive maw swallowed it.

Dangerous.

That bizarre mouth set his instincts on edge.

From within that mouth came a sword and a sawed-off shotgun.

The two weapons crossed, proclaiming the symbol of the Lord God to the enemy.

The hunter sent by the Lord had arrived.

"Unbelievers! Awaken! Monsters! Accept your punishment! Revere and serve the Lord, and tremble as you face the Father's wrath! I am His rod of iron! I am the chariot of iron that will shatter you like a potter's vessel!"

"Aaaaaaamen!!"

Clackaaaaaaaaack!!

Footnotes:

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