World of Vampire Detective [27]

"Superpowers… Are you a progenitor?!"

It's not surprising. There are quite a few original vampires.

A vampire awakens as an original by drinking the blood of five other vampires. These are called Wild Originals, but since this awakening involves cannibalism, they're despised and hunted by their kind. A regular vampire can become an Original instantly by drinking an Original's blood.

"Yeah. But are you really human? How can you fend off all my attacks? That's not a human reflex."

The whip, lying limp on the floor, retracted.

It can extend and retract freely.

The enemy swung his dagger at me again. The blade stretched out like a whip. He handled the two daggers simultaneously with impressive skill.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Deflecting the whip daggers with my sword wasn't difficult. The problem was getting close. Whenever I tried, the curved blade formed a snare around me.

'Damn. This is annoying. Should I take a risk? No, let's keep it simple and fast.'

I backed off. Without my acceleration state, even that wouldn't have been easy.

"…Running away?"

"Who said I'm running?"

I pulled out my smartphone. Exiting the play mode for reality, I retrieved an item from my inventory. This created a small gap, but fortunately, the enemy was also resetting his stance.

"…A revolver? Did you pull that from your phone? What's the trick?"

"No trick. Just what you see."

I aimed the revolver at him. It was a vampire hunter's weapon, loaded with silver bullets—their weakness. No matter how strong an original might be, silver remains their Achilles' heel.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

I fired all six shots.

Just one hit would turn him into a mosquito hit by insecticide.

He dodged all the bullets, then glanced at the fallen shells and frowned.

"Silver bullets…"

"You dodged pretty well."

"It's not hard to dodge when you see it coming. Plus, your aim is terrible. Even if I hadn't dodged, only two would've hit. How can you miss so much at this range?"

"It's my first time shooting…"

"Even for the first time, that's pathetic. You've got great sword skills, but no talent for shooting."

"Ah, yes. You're right."

I casually answered and tossed a grenade with the pin pulled.

"It's a holy grenade!"

This specially made fragmentation grenade was packed with small silver balls. Extremely lethal to vampires. I quickly moved up the stairs to escape the blast radius.

Boom!

The grenade exploded. I headed back downstairs. Despite the confined space, which made it hard to avoid, the enemy was unharmed.

He had widened the blade of his dagger against a wall to block the blast.

"You can adjust not just the length but the width too!"

"Yeah."

His stance changed. From passive, he became active.

"I thought I could gather information while fighting, but you're more dangerous than I expected. I'll kill you with full force now."

He charged at me, just slightly slower than I was at acceleration. I had four minutes of acceleration left. Enough.

I used the waterfall technique against him.

Clang!

His dagger deflected my sword. Half of my strike landed. His combat instincts and reflexes were better than I expected.

"What is this? An ability— no, swordsmanship? Disrupting distance perception— does such a technique exist? Interesting."

He smiled. He was enjoying the fight.

And honestly, so was I. It wasn't enough to make me laugh, but it was fun.

'The ones upstairs were too easy.'

He wasn't weaker or stronger than me. We were evenly matched. His physical prowess was slightly better, but I had acceleration and the Yeongcheon style.

'If he were overwhelmingly stronger, I'd run, but this… this is manageable.'

He kept his distance, swinging his dagger like a whip, wary of my Yeongcheon swordsmanship.

'…That ability is a pain.'

Suddenly extending or retracting. I couldn't let my guard down. The moment I lost sight of his dagger, the lengthened blade would wrap around me.

'Should I try that? I didn't think I'd ever use it.'

Yeongcheon style, the Swallow Dance.

My movements changed. Previously, I was just focused on closing in on him as quickly as possible, which made my body a bit stiff. Now I moved gracefully, my back straight.

I moved as if dancing. My movements were no longer purely aggressive but carried a hidden sharpness within their fluidity.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Deflecting his dagger, I slowly approached.

"…Hmm?"

He seemed confused and swung his dagger faster, but I either dodged or deflected all his attacks.

The Swallow Dance focused on evasion and defence, maximizing footwork and body movement. It made my movements look like a dance.

Perhaps Jin Se-young could use the Swallow Dance offensively, but I wasn't that skilled yet.

Before I knew it, I was right in front of him.

"This is absurd…"

My sword cut through him. He staggered but swung his dagger at me. I dove, avoiding the now club-sized blade, and swung my sword again.

My blade cut his leg, then his shoulder, and finally pierced his heart.

"Argh!"

He fell to the ground. He still tried to swing his arm, so I stepped on his wrist with my shoe.

"Just in case, do you know the safe's combination?"

"49685817361."

"…Oh! I didn't think you'd tell me. You're lying, right?"

"The combination is real. But you'll also need fingerprints and iris scans. You can't move the safe alone, and if you try to break it open here, reinforcements will arrive and turn you into Swiss cheese."

"Haha!"

I couldn't help but laugh at the seriousness of his words as he lay dying.

"What's so funny?"

"It feels like the universe is on my side."

[Hacking successful.]

[You can access the safe for 2 minutes.]

Click!

The giant safe door opened.

"What?!"

"Fingerprint, combination— none of it mattered. I just wanted to check."

I swung my sword. His head flew off. He seemed to have planned a counterattack with a hidden blade in his pocket. I noticed his subtle movements and anticipated them.

I kicked his body aside and looked at the safe.

It was as big as half of my apartment.

I couldn't put the whole safe in my inventory. The inventory only accepted items I could physically carry. No matter the size, if I couldn't lift it, it wouldn't go in. I confirmed this before. However, even if the item was large, if I could carry it, it went into the inventory.

I remembered putting a huge Styrofoam box over 5 meters long into my inventory once, and it was pretty fascinating.

"Damn…."

I let out a sigh of admiration as I stepped into the vault.

Inside, there wasn't just cash. There were also artworks like paintings and ceramics, along with jewels and gold bars. The piles of cash were in both won and dollars.

"Wow, there are over 200 gold bars, each weighing 1 kg."

I don't know the exact price, but I remember hearing on TV that a 1kg gold bar costs around 60 million won.

"I should sell these gold bars in the real world. It's time to move out of my studio apartment."

As I gathered the items, I thought about where to use them.

First, I needed to move into a luxury office hotel. I had grown accustomed to the luxurious living at Hera's place, and a high-end hotel kept calling to me.

I would stash the jewels for now and exchange the dollars for won. I had no plans to go to the U.S.

"As for the art… I'll need to contact Kang Wook-seong."

Since these items were essentially stolen goods, it wouldn't be wise to deal with them openly. It was safer and more convenient to leave it to a professional broker, even if I had to lose some money in the process.

After packing everything from the vault, I got into the Benz parked in front of the town hall. The car key was near the front door, so I didn't have to rummage through any bodies.

"Making money is so easy! Hahaha!"

As I drove out of town, I stuck my hand out the window and flipped off the CCTV camera. I hoped Kim Choon-seok would see this and get pissed off.

"Wow. So this is why people rave about foreign cars."

After driving for a bit, I realized that, in every way, it was superior to domestic cars.

"Damn, this is fun."

The mountain road was winding, but I maintained a speed of 70 km/h, barely seeing the path ahead with the headlights. My reflexes made it possible for me to drive safely on such dangerous roads.

A single mistake could flip the car or slam it into a tree. It could even tumble down the slope.

"That's what makes it thrilling."

I focused as much as when I was fighting that vampire ancestor.

Screech! Thud!

While taking a curve, something jumped out and hit the car. It was unavoidable. On a dark night, with a curve on a mountain road, there was no time to react.

"Shit!"

Startled, I immediately stopped the car and got out.

"Fuck! A deer!"

A deer with broken legs and neck was lying there, tongue hanging out. I grimaced.

I had heard that the deer in Gangwon-do were particularly troublesome.

"This isn't just troublesome; this is bullshit."

The front of the car was badly dented. Clicking my tongue, I got back into the driver's seat. I decided to slow down because of the deer.

After driving for about 30 seconds, the engine suddenly died.

"Huh? What's going on?"

I tried turning the key to start it again. But the car didn't respond. It must have been damaged by the deer.

After several more attempts, I finally got out of the car. Hacking was also on cooldown, so it was unavailable.

"It's too late to go back up… I'll have to walk down."

Luckily, the mountain road wasn't very long, so I only needed to walk a bit to reach the car I had originally driven.

"Damn mosquitoes. I want to burn every single one of them. And those fucking deer, too. Damn it."

Annoyed, I bought a bicycle in reality, brought it here, and rode it down the mountain.

I had originally planned to buy a motorcycle, but I didn't have a license.

While cycling down, I spotted a deer.

I took out a pistol from my inventory and fired at the deer.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The muzzle flashed, and shells hit the ground. I fired 17 shots, but not a single one hit.

"…Damn!"

The deer dodged here and there, but my shooting skills were also terrible. Just like the vampire had said, I had no talent for shooting.

"What the hell am I doing?"

Feeling a strong sense of regret, I decided to ignore the deer and move on. Today was a good day. I could afford to let a deer go.

But that damn deer didn't run away. It just stood there, grinning at me.

It wasn't my imagination. It really smirked, as if mocking me.

"You little shit!"

I ended up pulling out a K-2 assault rifle, a staple of South Korea's proud military tradition.

It was night, and the forest was dense with trees. The deer was surprisingly fast. I finally managed to kill it after using up five magazines.

Sighing at my hopeless shooting skills, I took out my smartphone to put the rifle back in the inventory.

[Conditions met.]

[You can unlock the 'Shooting' trait.]

[Do you want to unlock the 'Shooting' trait for 30 points?]

[Yes, No, or Postpone]

"I definitely need this!"

I was about to unlock the trait but realized I only had 12 points, so I chose to postpone it.

"It costs three times more than Yeongcheon style ."

The reason was clear after a bit of thought.

The Yeongcheon style trait was limited to the martial art of swordsmanship. But shooting applied not only to firearms but also to all kinds of projectiles or shooting actions. Shooting had a broader application than the Yeongcheon style.

"I need to gather points quickly to unlock this trait."

I felt good. I had made money, killed a deer, and was just a few points away from unlocking the shooting trait.

I started humming. The mosquitoes were annoying, but I could be generous.

Until I met another damn deer.