Chapter 12 – 012. Vampire Detective
012. Vampire Detective
In the drama, ‘Vampire Detective,’ the protagonist, Moon Ji-hyuk, is attacked by a vampire progenitor in an alleyway on his way home from work one day and becomes a vampire.
However, he doesn’t become the kind of vampire commonly known in popular culture.
‘The vampires in this world look no different from humans. They just feel heavy during the day, but they can still function.’
At night, they exhibit superhuman physical abilities. They have a thirst for blood, but they don’t necessarily have to drink it.
‘Moon Ji-hyuk investigates to become human again and eventually learns about the Orb of Life.’
To cut to the chase, Moon Ji-hyuk becomes human in the drama. It’s a happy ending.
‘But this world is a bad ending. Because I plan to take the Orb of Life.’
I checked online articles to see where I was in the timeline. This was quite important. I planned to lay low at first, then gradually intervene from the middle, and finally snatch the Orb of Life in the end.
-Second victim of random assault!
-Police, ‘Doing our best to investigate.’ Still the same old story.
-Incompetent protectors of the people! Seoul citizens trembling in fear.
-Where did the victim’s blood go?
“This is… the starting point of the drama.”
Moon Ji-hyuk becomes a vampire as the fifth victim. That means he’s not a vampire yet.
‘…Should I just become a vampire myself?’
If I become a vampire, I can have a superhuman body. But I quickly shook my head. The disadvantages outweighed the advantages. Besides, I don’t know yet if my avatar becoming a vampire would make me a vampire in reality.
I thought about what I should do.
‘…Should I kill the vampire hunters in advance?’
The vampire hunters appear from the middle of the drama and are villains who try to kill Moon Ji-hyuk. Moreover, the vampire hunters are also after the Orb of Life. They’re bound to be obstacles in the end.
Even if I can’t eliminate them completely, I need to weaken the vampire hunter forces to some extent.
‘The vampire hunters could become my rivals for the Orb of Life.’
After much deliberation, I decided to reduce the number of vampire hunters to some extent.
After all, this is a fictional world. There’s no need to feel guilty.
‘Everything is for my own sake.’
My hacking time was over.
I reached out and grabbed the mouse. Then, I opened the hidden files and documents. They were locked, but I had already obtained the passwords through hacking.
‘Why is she collecting dirt on congressmen? Is she planning to go into politics?’
I chuckled.
It seemed that the hacker, Kang Yu-jin, had a bit of a sense of justice.
‘Can I use this to blackmail them? No, that’s a bit risky.’
Kang Yu-jin was collecting dirt on high-ranking public officials. CCTV footage, evidence of document manipulation, and so on.
I later realized the reason. It wasn’t some cheap sense of justice, but money and security for emergencies that she was gathering the dirt for.
‘I could make a lot of money selling this to other politicians.’
Politics is ultimately a fight. Knowing a rival politician’s dirt means knowing their weakness.
I looked at the data listlessly, and when it was 9 PM, I got up from my seat.
Just sitting here was making me restless. No, it was making my dick restless. But I didn’t want to jerk off even in this game world.
‘I’ll just go get some actress or something. No, are they not actresses in this world?’
Whatever.
***
The first place I headed to was a bank. Or rather, I withdrew cash from an ATM.
‘She’s not a genius hacker for nothing. To think she had a little over 300 million in assets.’
I grinned and patted both pockets of my jacket, which felt like they were about to burst. There was 50 million in cash inside.
‘How foolish. Money isn’t meant to be hoarded. It’s meant to be spent.’
I didn’t know what Kang Yu-jin’s purpose was. But to me, she seemed very foolish.
Kang Yu-jin was 22 years old. Very young. At that age, you shouldn’t be preparing for retirement, but rather spending and enjoying yourself. Of course, this was just my personal philosophy.
‘I could take it to reality, but… it might be treated as counterfeit money.’
But if I thought about it a little, there was a way. That was to exchange the money for goods and take them with me. For example, I could buy gold with this money, put it in my inventory, and then take it to reality and sell it.
‘Or I could just rob a gold shop and take everything to reality and sell it.’
As long as I had the game life app, I would never have to worry about money.
‘The game life app is the best ability.’
I hummed a tune and got into a taxi.
“Please take me to Yeonghyejeong.”
“Yeonghyejeong?”
The taxi driver asked back. He wasn’t asking because he didn’t know, but rather as if he was genuinely asking if I was really going there.
“Yes. Yeonghyejeong.”
Yeonghyejeong (英慧停).
In this world, it was the name of a hostess bar known only to those in the know. Fortunately, the taxi driver seemed to know Yeonghyejeong and started driving without a word. He didn’t seem like an ordinary taxi driver. I was even thinking of giving him the name of a nearby department store if he didn’t know.
‘This is gonna be awesome.’
Yeonghyejeong was a place that appeared in the drama. In other words, real-life actresses played the hostesses in the bar. Of course, my goal was them.
Also, Yeonghyejeong was, by setting, one of the top-tier, most luxurious hostess bars in Korea, frequented by politicians and executives of large corporations. It was also a place where the detective, Moon Ji-hyuk, got involved several times in the drama’s plot.
“Sir, have you been to Yeonghyejeong often?”
The taxi driver asked. Yeonghyejeong was a place where ordinary people couldn’t enter, so he seemed curious.
I chuckled and said,
“Hey, just drive straight.”
“……”
The driver seemed quite offended, but I didn’t care.
When we arrived, the taxi fare was almost 20,000 won. I roughly threw a 50,000 won bill and got out of the taxi. I didn’t care about the change.
“Ooh.”
I looked at a building in the center of Gangnam. From the outside, it just looked like an office building, but in reality, it was the high-end hostess bar, Yeonghyejeong.
The first floor was just a cafe. It was for show. Since politicians frequented the place, they were quite thorough in these aspects.
The second floor was an office. It was empty. I knew this from watching the drama. The real Yeonghyejeong was from the third floor, and there were over 200 employees.
I passed by the cafe and took the elevator to the third floor. I chuckled at the CCTV camera on the ceiling of the elevator.
‘I think they said that politicians use secret passages instead of the stairs or elevator.’
I wanted to use the secret passage too. But it was only mentioned in the drama, and I didn’t know where it was.
Ding!
The elevator doors opened, and the main entrance of Yeonghyejeong appeared. The main entrance was a steel door that was closed. I opened the steel door without hesitation.
Creak.
The door opened, and a burly man in a black suit, with a scowl on his face, was sitting on a chair. With a scar on his face, he looked like he was saying, ‘I’m a gangster,’ to anyone who saw him.
I chuckled at him. I remembered how he got beaten up by Moon Ji-hyuk later.
As if my laughter was unpleasant, he lowered his voice and said,
“This is off-limits. Get out.”
“A gatekeeper telling a customer to leave? Isn’t this Yeonghyejeong?”
Behind him was a wooden door. Unlike the steel door, it was a classic-looking door. It looked like it would easily cost over a million won. It was the entrance to the real Yeonghyejeong.
“……Customer?”
The burly man blatantly scanned me.
“Hmm.”
I looked down at myself too. Ragged jeans, a hoodie, and a jacket that seemed out of style.
I admitted it. It was an outfit that didn’t really fit the high-end hostess bar, Yeonghyejeong.
But what did a customer’s outfit matter? What mattered was the money the customer had. I was a little annoyed.
“Didn’t they teach you not to judge a customer by their clothes? What was it, Steve Jobs also dressed casually.”
“It’s Steve Jobs.”
“A gangster pretending to be smart. Don’t you know a joke?”
“Anyway, you can’t pass.”
The burly man glared at me with wide eyes.
I was smiling, but inside, I wasn’t. I was annoyed. I didn’t come here to get into a fight with this kind of guy.
“Okay.”
I replied lifelessly and tried to open the wooden door, passing by him.
Thud.
The burly man grabbed my left arm.
“I said you can’t pass? Go back. This isn’t a place for you.”
He said it very solemnly.
“…Ha.”
Slap!
My right palm struck the burly man’s cheek. The burly man’s body swayed, and he was about to fall to the side. The burly man gritted his teeth and threw a right fist at me.
Thud.
I easily blocked the fist with my left hand. It was a little tingly. That was it. I swung my right hand again.
Slap!
Blood spurted from the burly man’s mouth.
Slap!
I slapped the other cheek too.
Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap!
The sound of slaps echoed. Blood was flowing from his nose and mouth, and the burly man’s cheeks were swollen and bruised.
My current physical abilities were stronger than an average person but weaker than a hunter. It was right to say that I was somewhere in between. And with this much, I could easily subdue an ordinary person.
I could easily handle two or three burly men. More than that might be a bit difficult.
Slap! Slap! Slap!
“You…!”
The burly man, who was being slapped, took out a knife from his pocket and stabbed at me. I grabbed his wrist with my left hand and twisted it.
Crack.
“Aaaargh!”
I snatched the falling knife and stabbed it into his thigh. Just as the burly man was about to scream again, I slapped him to shut his mouth.
Slap! Slap! Slap!
‘Should I kill him? …How dare he, not knowing his place. A mere charac……’
The moment I felt murderous intent, the wooden door opened, and a man came out. The man in a suit was better than the burly man, but he still had a menacing look.
“Sir.”
It was a polite voice.
“We apologize. Please forgive us.”
I knew his face. I didn’t remember his name, but he was definitely the head of security for Yeonghyejeong. His real identity was a deputy gang leader, or something.
I lowered my hand.
“Tsk. My clothes are all ruined.”
The burly man’s blood was splattered all over my clothes. At least my jacket was okay.
“We are sorry. If you wish, we will have them laundered. Or, we will compensate you for the clothing.”
“It’s okay. They’re cheap clothes anyway.”
I answered and passed by him. He didn’t stop me.
I entered Yeonghyejeong and approached the counter. A man in a suit was sitting at the counter, and there was fear in his eyes as he looked at me. I glanced at the counter and saw a CCTV camera.
There was a CCTV camera at the front entrance, not the secret passage.
“W-welcome. How can I help you?”
His voice was trembling. I chuckled and said,
“A top-tier room. Three girls. I want to make a selection, do you have a list or something?”
“Y-yes, here it is.”
He handed me a luxurious list board.
I scanned the list board and was impressed. It was indeed the best hostess bar in Korea. There were over 130 girls, and all of them were above average in appearance. They were all beautiful enough to be celebrities.
‘I want to bang them all.’
I quickly shook off my disappointment and selected the three I had decided on beforehand.
Two actresses and one former member of a disbanded idol girl group. Of course, that was in reality. In this world, they were just hostesses.
“Layka, Hera. Miyoung. Those three.”
“S-sir. Those three are the aces of our Yeonghyejeong… the, the price for selecting them is a bit high.”
“How much?”
“The aces can only enter the highest-tier rooms. The room fee is 20 million won. The selection fee for Layka, Hera, and Miyoung is 5 million won each. Fortunately, all three of them have open schedules today. In fact, you can’t select them without a reservation, but… we will give you special service, just for you, sir.”
“That’s kind of you.”
I took out a wad of 50,000 won bills from my jacket pocket. I had just taken them out roughly, so it would take some time to count them, but fortunately, the man took out a bill counter. It seemed that there were quite a few customers who brought cash.
‘Well, if you use a card, there will be a record. Politicians would prefer cash.’
After a short while, I followed the security chief, who introduced himself as Park Chan-sung, upstairs. It was a different elevator from the one I had taken.
The room was so luxurious that my jaw dropped. Everything was top-tier. The TV, the sofa, the table, the wall decorations. The highlight was the chandelier on the ceiling.
“Since it was a sudden selection, we need some time to prepare. It will take about 15 minutes.”
“Well, that’s fine. I can wait.”
“Thank you. If you need anything, please press the call button here.”
“Okay.”
At that moment, a man came in and handed a suit wrapped in plastic to Chief Park Chan-sung.
The chief politely handed the suit to me.
“What’s this?”
“Your clothes were stained with blood. This is a gift from us as an apology.”
“Hmm…. Well, since you’re giving it to me.”
I accepted the clothes. He bowed politely and left. I was left alone in the room.
‘My clothes were sticky with blood, so this is good.’
I took off my clothes without hesitation and changed into the new ones.
