WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 40: Vampire Hunt (7)
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There was light.
The Shepherd's Prayer resonated with the Throne's halo and poured forth that light. No one could face it head-on.
In the wake of that wild wave of light, everyone opened the eyes they had squeezed shut against it and saw the light settled in their hands.
"M-my gun..."
"The silver bullets are glowing?"
They were.
The silver bullets they carried gave off a soft glow.
They had been consecrated.
"Don't tell me... a large-scale consecration?"
"That's impossible!"
The holy water Yohan had scattered and the prayer he had recited had been a consecration rite?
Without an altar, without myrrh or anointing oil, could consecration truly be performed just by scattering holy water and praying?
Impossible.
Something like that could not be done.
It was beyond comprehension. It should not have been possible.
But if the impossible had happened, then it was a miracle.
Bang!
Someone pulled the trigger.
They had reflexively fired at the ghoul that had come right up to them.
And then...
Grrrk!
It fell.
A ghoul that had taken over a dozen silver bullets to bring down collapsed from one accidental shot.
"It works! It works!"
"Fire! Fire! Kill them all!"
The Great Unification Church hunters began unloading their consecrated silver bullets into the ghouls.
Bang! Bang-bang!
Gunfire echoed through the corridor.
In the hospital that had been filled with ghoul cries, the balance of sound slowly began to shift.
Screams and shrieks turned into cheers of victory.
"Tch! What the hell is that?!"
Xiaolan felt the tide turning against her.
That bastard.
It was him.
He had trapped them with the Gutenberg Bible, brought out monstrous shikigami, and now even overturned their advantage in numbers.
"If I kill that bastard!"
Xiaolan charged at Yohan.
If she killed Yohan, the cause of all this, she could turn the situation around in an instant.
【Devour!】
At that moment, the Eight-Foot Sister grabbed Xiaolan by the nape and slammed her down.
The impact knocked the breath out of her, but that was all.
An impact like this was nothing to a high-ranking vampire who could regenerate even after being split in half.
"You stupid anomaly! I can turn to mist and recover from something like this in no time...?!"
She could not turn to mist.
More importantly, her throat had been feeling scratchy for a while now...
"Silver?!"
It was silver. The Eight-Foot Sister was holding silver bullets as she gripped Xiaolan by the throat.
Her powerful grip was tight enough to snap Xiaolan's neck, driving the bullets into her flesh.
"Ghk! You...!"
Click!
Xiaolan turned toward the chilling sound.
The Eight-Foot Sister held a rifle in one hand.
It had been dropped by a dead Great Unification Church hunter, but it had been within Yohan's consecration range, its silver bullets now blessed.
The muzzle slowly shifted toward Xiaolan's torso.
"Urk! Ghhk!!"
【Devouuur~】
Xiaolan struggled, but she could not escape the Eight-Foot Sister's grip.
Ratatatatat!!
Every round fired from point-blank range tore straight into Xiaolan.
"Ghk! Ghhh! Ghhhhhh!!"
"Xiaolan!"
Lu Xincheng panicked.
He forcibly tried to get away from Gari by turning to mist.
Chomp!
The spot where Lu Xincheng had been was swallowed whole.
Gari ate part of the mist that had failed to escape in time, and when Lu Xincheng returned to his physical body, a huge chunk of his shoulder was gone.
"Ghk! You monster!"
The mist that had been swallowed did not return to flesh.
Anything devoured by that monster was likely erased beyond recovery.
"Damn it! Protect me!"
Lu Xincheng ordered the ghouls.
There were still plenty of them left. He just needed to use that opening to get out of here...
Craaaack!
"Ah."
That monster.
Had it eaten every last one of those ghouls in that brief opening?
No matter how big its stomach was, eating the flesh of dozens of people should have made it burst. It seemed this monster did not even have a limit to its appetite.
"Y-you monster...!"
His lower body was devoured whole.
He struggled to escape with only his severed upper body, but quickly realized he could not get away.
Crunch, crunch!
His body was being eaten in real time. Lu Xincheng had to do something.
"Ah!"
Then he noticed a pile of grenades from the Great Unification Church hunters Gari had swallowed stacked inside Gari's mouth.
They must have brought every personal weapon they could carry for the vampire hunt.
Naturally, there had to be silver mixed in.
If he set them off, he would die too.
But Lu Xincheng had no time to think about that.
There were only bombs in front of him, and the certainty that he would be eaten if he did nothing.
"Uh... Aaaah!"
Lu Xincheng pulled a grenade pin.
Click!
The grenade exploded inside Gari's mouth, setting off all the bombs held by the dozens of hunters Gari had swallowed.
Boooom!!
* * *
Silence followed the blast.
Protected by the Eight-Foot Sister, Yohan covered his nose and mouth as he peered through the cloud of dust.
"Ugh... Cough, cough!"
Dazed by the explosion and deafening blast, Yohan looked for Gari first.
"Gari?!"
A massive hole stood where Gari had been moments ago.
The explosion had been so large that the floor had collapsed and the ceiling was crumbling down.
'How many bombs did they bring?'
There was no sign of Gari.
It looked like Gari had been buried beneath the collapsed building.
"Sis! Get Gari out first..."
Then Yohan came face-to-face with someone.
"Grrrr...!"
Dang Hoyeon.
Dang Hoyeon, who had been barely hanging on after being attacked by Lu Xincheng and Xiaolan, was chewing on corpses and replenishing his blood.
His eyes belonged to a monster that had completely lost its mind.
Dang Hoyeon glared at Yohan, then charged straight at him.
In an instant, he closed in and swung his blade-like nails. Yohan blocked the strike, but was sent flying.
"Ghk!"
【Devour!】
The Eight-Foot Sister caught Yohan as he flew back.
She immediately picked up another gun and fired at Dang Hoyeon, but it did not help.
"Crazy! He's taking consecrated silver bullets head-on?!"
Those were the same bullets that had killed ghouls in one shot.
Dang Hoyeon endured them with his bare body and kept approaching.
His regeneration was not just incredible. It was horrifying.
Just as Dang Hoyeon leaped at Yohan...
"Get down!"
Silver arrows flew in from somewhere.
The silver arrows flashed under the flickering lights as they flew past Yohan.
Thwack! Thwack!
Dang Hoyeon, who had been charging at Yohan again, was struck and stopped in place.
"Who?"
The one who had fired them was a man wearing biker gear.
His helmet made him hard to recognize, but Yohan instinctively knew he was reinforcements.
'A crossbow?'
It looked like shabby equipment compared to the rifles everyone used these days.
It was old too, faded with age.
The biker said nothing and pulled the trigger.
Vrrrrooom!!
A compressed mechanical sound rang out repeatedly.
Three bolts flew in succession.
The bolt that went first lodged precisely in the nearest ghoul's eye socket.
Its head snapped back, and the ghoul fell.
Three ghouls, including the ones behind it, dropped one after another.
'Those things wouldn't die even after the Great Unification Church hunters put ten silver bullets into them?'
A ghoul's greatest strength was its toughness.
Even if you hit its head dead-on with the kinetic force of a rifle round, it was hard to say whether it would die.
To kill one in a single hit, you needed to fire something like a twelve-gauge shotgun at close range.
The fact that he could kill them in one shot meant this person was very experienced at fighting ghouls.
But there were still many ghouls left.
They ran over corpses toward him.
The biker did not take a single step back.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
The crossbow sang without pause.
With every bolt that flew, a silver arrow pierced through a ghoul's head from its eye socket.
Had he fired dozens of shots like that?
The biker gradually advanced as he pulled the trigger. Then he picked up speed, lowered the crossbow, and reached behind his waist with his right hand.
He pulled out a short, heavy tactical axe.
Its steel body and silver-coated edge flashed coldly.
Shhk!
The axe came down diagonally from above.
It cut cleanly through a ghoul's neck, delivering a precise decapitation.
"...!"
A show of decapitations began, strength and skill moving together in perfect harmony.
He kicked a headless ghoul into the ones behind it, knocking them over, then broke through the horde and drove straight in.
His axe work was almost divine, taking only the heads of the ghouls blocking his path.
"Grrk!"
Dang Hoyeon became visibly alarmed and wary.
He had been charging around like a mindless beast, but now hesitated as if he had met a natural predator.
As he tried to put distance between himself and the biker, the biker aimed the crossbow.
It was a feint.
He had lowered it as though the magazine had run dry.
So that was why he had kept holding a crossbow that had no time to reload. He had been waiting for this moment.
Pew! Pew!
The crossbow fired silver arrows in rapid succession, embedding them in Dang Hoyeon's chest.
Dang Hoyeon visibly suffered from the silver arrows lodged in his body, but that was all.
"...!"
For the first time, the biker faltered.
Dang Hoyeon did not miss the opening and struck the biker's helmet.
"Ghk...!"
The monstrous strength of a Lord-class vampire severely damaged the helmet, shattering it.
The biker rolled across the floor, the impact apparently having carried through.
Gari saved him at that critical moment.
Crunch!
Though Gari had been buried under a pile of concrete, Gari clawed free and lunged out in an instant, swallowing Dang Hoyeon's lower body cleanly.
With only his upper body left, Dang Hoyeon let out a shriek and charged at Yohan.
He seemed determined to devour the person in front of him and replenish his blood somehow.
Click!
But directly ahead of him was a gun barrel.
Yohan's sawed-off shotgun was aimed at Dang Hoyeon as he flew forward with only his upper body remaining.
"Mosquito, I've got one shot left."
"Kik! Kiiiiiiik!"
Bang!
The twelve-gauge shotgun roared, blowing Dang Hoyeon's head apart.
* * *
Whew, that was close.
Lord-class vampire or whatever, it was still moving even after losing its lower body.
Thankfully, I blew its head off with the sawed-off shotgun, but the shotgun had completely melted down too.
That could have gone very wrong.
"Oh, Gari. Are you okay? No, how are you fine after dozens of bombs went off in your mouth?"
Snap! Snap-snap!
Even for an angel, wasn't that way too tough?
Gari seemed completely fine and immediately began taking care of the remaining ghouls alongside the Eight-Foot Sister.
The Great Unification Church hunters had apparently recovered from the blast too and started moving again.
All the high-ranking vampires were dead, so those two could handle the rest.
"Anyway, who is this guy?"
I looked down at the biker lying on the floor.
He seemed to be reinforcements, but he was clearly no ordinary person.
Judging by how he carved through ghouls with an axe and used that crossbow feint, he was an extremely experienced hunter.
And a repeating crossbow, huh. I had no idea things like that existed.
It looked like an elaborate piece made in the early modern era, but its rate of fire was hard to believe for a crossbow.
"Man, you saved a lot of people."
If this person had not arrived with such perfect timing, a lot more Great Unification Church hunters would have died. The Eight-Foot Sister was protecting me, but they had no such protection.
He was a brave hunter. I could not just leave him like this.
"Hello? Are you okay? Let me take off your helmet and check your injuries."
"Ugh..."
He had not taken the hit head-on, but it had still been strong enough to dent his helmet.
There could be a concussion, so I carefully removed it.
The face beneath was someone I had never expected to see.
"Pastor Go?!"
Pastor Go Jincheol.
He was the pastor from our church.
Footnotes:
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