Chapter 109 - The King in Yellow, Flesh and Blood, Mad Moon (5)

I'd said, 'Let's go!' but there was no need to even enter the theater building.

A clamor of gunshots rang out from near the building.

Bang! Rat-tat-bang!

I headed toward the source of the noise with Lee Mun-ryong and observed from a short distance away.

A young man who looked exactly like the central figure of this incident I'd been searching for was fighting mercenaries.

Well, he was holding a strange book with a yellow cover in one hand, with wind whipping and swirling around his body.

A Grimoire and a wizard.

...Though, how should I put this?

".........?"

He didn't look like a deranged wizard who'd conducted a summoning ritual for Hastur....

"Hrrgh!"

The man holding the Grimoire moved about in a frantic mess, breathing heavily from nerves.

...His behavior was somewhat clumsy.

"Haa! Haa!"

But what was even more surprising was this:

Regardless of those fumbling movements, the Grimoire's power was the real deal.

His motions were full of unnecessary movement.

Fwooosh!

Even so, his wind-clad body moved swiftly, dodging bullets.

Following his flailing arms, the Grimoire discharged blades of wind.

Shwaaaak-!

They cut down the mercenaries who'd been caught off guard by the magic's power.

"—!"

No incantation to cast the spell. No preparation process.

He hadn't altered the surrounding environment to favor his spellcasting either.

Overwhelming supernatural power simply spread outward in the form of wind.

My eyes went wide at the sight, like something straight out of a fantasy wizard.

'Holy shit... that's Wind Cutter!'

On top of that, wrapping his body in wind for high-speed movement.

He was also using what looked like a speed-buff spell, Haste, that staple of fantasy fiction.

The guy was a genuine fantasy wizard.

Either that, or a wind-attribute psychic.

If there'd been a decent rock or boulder nearby, I would've grabbed it with Grizzly and chucked it at him on the spot.

'Get out of our occult wizard village! You freak!' 'Gyagyagya- Gyagyagyagyagya!'

Well, I'm joking.

".........."

I narrowed my eyes and examined the Grimoire in the man's hand.

A Grimoire with a yellow cover, appearing at the site where Hastur's summoning ritual had taken place.

It had to be a Hastur-related Grimoire.

Most likely <The King in Yellow>.

If so, I had a rough idea of how it worked.

In the Cthulhu Mythos, the four classical elements were apparently a major piece of lore.

There were beings governing each attribute.

Fire – Cthugha. Water – Cthulhu. Air – Hastur. Earth – Nyarlathotep.

In other words, using the Grimoire <The King in Yellow>, imbued with Hastur's power, as a medium to freely control wind.

Though the man who owned it didn't seem to be using it properly.

It felt more like <The King in Yellow> was reading its owner's intent and casting the spells on its own.

A blade of wind magnificently cleaved a mercenary's gun in two.

No Fireball, no Chain Lightning.

Summoning cosmic giant worms, turning into maggots to devour people's brains, being chased by hounds that live between moments in time... compared to a certain Grimoire full of those nightmarish spells, this was something else entirely.

<De Vermis Mysteriis> vibrated in my hand as if lodging a complaint.

Vrr, vrrrm-!

I casually ignored it.

Anyway, the mercenaries panicked at the unexpected casualties and tried to flee.

I gave Lee Mun-ryong a look.

Lee Mun-ryong drew his pistol, pulled the trigger, and expertly shot two fleeing mercenaries through the head.

Bang! Ba-bang!

At the gunshots, the owner of <The King in Yellow> spotted us and faltered.

I gently raised both hands. A simple, clear piece of body language indicating no hostile intent.

That guy wasn't exactly an enemy targeting my Grimoires, and my objective was strictly intelligence gathering.

If I could get information without a fight, talking was the better option.

The man's un-wizard-like behavior also nagged at me a little.

The man's eyes wavered at my gesture, and he seemed to deliberate for a moment.

".........!?"

Then he spun around and bolted.

Just as I was thinking things weren't going my way, the man suddenly screamed and tumbled to the ground.

"AAAAARGH!"

Crash- Thud-thump!

On the path the man had tried to escape down, a Gnome stood with a proud face, hoisting its sickle high.

"Gnome who slashed his ankle!"

In his panic, he'd sprinted without watching his feet and gotten his ankle sliced by the Gnome.

".........."

I was so dumbfounded my jaw dropped open on its own. I looked down at the Gnome, beaming with self-satisfaction.

"Gnome! Gnome's great achievement!"

'...So that sickle wasn't just decorative.'

Well, I hadn't planned it, but it stopped him from running.

I patted the Gnome on the head.

"S-stay back! If you come closer, I'll– I'll kill you!"

To the man screaming while crawling on the ground, I spoke in a calm voice.

"I just have a few questions to ask. I have no intention of harming you."

".........."

He looked up at me with a face displaying a tangle of confusion, pain, worry, and several other emotions.

I was certain now.

"Of course, if there's anything you're curious about, I'll answer too."

This guy was an ordinary person who'd gotten swept up in a bizarre incident and ended up as a Grimoire's owner by accident.

You could say he was similar to me.

I could see him weighing his options tensely, and I took one step closer.

The wind did not blow.

Of course, I couldn't let my guard down, so I had Grizzly standing by near him.

"Let me treat that. Give me your ankle."

I walked over, knelt on one knee, and checked the wound on his ankle.

It wasn't a deep cut, more of a scrape. He'd been startled and tripped.

"Blood to blood, bone to bone, mend."

I simply wrapped a handkerchief around it and recited the spell.

Then, to lower his guard, I offered a brief introduction.

"I'm Kim Yo-han. The old man over there is Lee Mun-ryong."

"Ah... um... I'm... my name is Kim Se-geon."

At that, one of my eyebrows rose involuntarily.

"Se-geon?"

It wasn't for any grand reason. The name was identical to a protagonist from a novel I'd enjoyed reading a while back.

Well, it was a Korean novel, so.

It wasn't exactly remarkable that someone shared the same name.

"Nice name. Or maybe not so nice?"

The character hadn't exactly been a happy one.

Se-geon looked puzzled at that cryptic comment, having no idea what I meant.

In any case, the pain in his ankle genuinely eased.

Se-geon calmed his confused head a little and told me what had happened.

***

Yoannis's hideout.

Into that place, teeming with vampires, walked a beautiful middle-aged woman dressed in black mourning clothes.

An upscale dining hall.

Click- click-.

Ignoring the glinting gazes of the vampires that poured down upon her.

The sound of her heels rang out as she walked straight toward the table where Yoannis sat.

She was no vampire, let alone a human trained in magic.

Just a middle-aged woman who'd stayed beautiful through good upkeep.

The late Chairman Kim's mistress, Han Se-yeong.

Yoannis took a sip of wine and looked at Han Se-yeong.

Under that gaze, Han Se-yeong flinched for a moment, but she swallowed her nerves and spoke.

"I've come to claim the inheritance my dead husband left behind."

At the bold statement, a crease formed between Mia's brows as he stood beside them.

But interest flickered in Yoannis's eyes.

"Do you know what kind of inheritance?"

"Not mere money. Mysterious power. Magical knowledge."

Han Se-yeong did not back down.

"A Grimoire, isn't it."

More precisely, she had nowhere to retreat to.

After the incompetent husband whose only virtue was a decent face had died, she'd abandoned her young son.

Becoming Chairman Kim's mistress had worked out well enough.

But Chairman Kim, the source of her comfortable life and her power, had gone and died on her.

She had a fair amount of hidden assets, but.

Since Chairman Kim had been under investigation by the Bureau for Abnormal Phenomena Countermeasures as a wizard, it was only a matter of time before they came for her too, unofficial relationship or not.

She'd clawed her way up from nothing to get where she was.

She absolutely refused to give it up.

That was why she needed the power that had elevated Chairman Kim to his position.

Han Se-yeong studied Yoannis carefully.

On the surface, he was simply a handsome foreign man, but he was far from ordinary.

"You're planning to settle here and expand your influence."

The master of the monster that was Chairman Kim, and the head of a vampire clan.

"I know how my husband operated. I have the connections and the information."

"Hmm~ So you're proposing a deal?"

"...No. I merely meant that if you would return a husband's keepsake to a widow grieving her beloved, I would repay the kindness with all my heart."

Yoannis chuckled lightly.

"Haha~ Same thing, different packaging."

Then he placed a Grimoire with a dark red cover, <Cultes des Goules>, on the table.

"If it's a Grimoire you want, I can give you this one. It happens to be looking for a new owner."

Thanks to the magic Yo-han had unleashed at Chairman Kim's dining gathering, all of Chairman Kim's children who'd been present that day were dead.

Those lucky enough to have been absent had either been captured by the Special Operations Division or died trying to take revenge on Yo-han.

...Or were killed by the vampires after defying Yoannis.

In any case, the only family Chairman Kim had left were Han Se-yeong, who had been living separately, and the high school-aged daughter born between them.

"Though I'd like you to show me some resolve."

Yoannis cut his hand, dripped his blood into a wine glass, and cast a spell on it.

"Die, or become a vampire."

Then he pushed the glass in front of Han Se-yeong with telekinesis.

"Not drinking is also an option. Give up, and I'll still protect you from the Special Operations Division, since you're my disciple's remaining family."

Yoannis's blue eyes curved as he waited for Han Se-yeong's choice.

".........."

Han Se-yeong swallowed hard and stared down at the wine glass filled with crimson blood.

'...Die, or become a vampire.'

Those weren't words meant merely to frighten her.

".........."

Han Se-yeong seized the glass with trembling hands and drained every last drop.

"Ah... aaagh!"

...But then again, if she were the type to back down here, she would never have walked into a vampire nest of her own volition.

The moment of choice.

Just as she had abandoned her useless son and become Chairman Kim's mistress.

She cast off her frail flesh and chose the path of becoming a vampire.

As the blood of a higher vampire burrowed into every corner of her body, Han Se-yeong gripped the table and let out an agonized moan.

"Ah- aghgk-!"

Yet her bloodshot eyes remained fixed, greedy and unyielding, on <Cultes des Goules>.

Yoannis watched the sight with composure.

While it was true that the magic of <Cultes des Goules> drew power from profane acts of cannibalism.

The foundational feeding sorcery itself was, at its core, the magic of ancient hunters.

Killing beasts many times stronger and swifter than yourself.

Taking the flesh of the strong.

Devouring it all with savage greed to survive.

As a magic teacher, he thought Chairman Kim had talent.

In truth, in his younger days, he'd bared his fangs with avarice, picking fights and devouring everything in his path.

But was it because he'd moved to Korea, where wizards were scarce, and his natural predators vanished? Or because he'd established a wizard family and tasted success?

He stopped fighting his own battles.

He merely created an event called a dining gathering and gorged himself on meaningless meat.

Of course, since it was a magical discipline where eating made you stronger.

That had its own modest degree of effectiveness, but it couldn't take him any higher.

Chairman Kim's magic hadn't stagnated because the number of people he'd consumed was insufficient.

Rather than testing his children's lives, he should have consumed a vampire's blood of his own will.

"Haa... haa...."

Han Se-yeong raised her head with ragged breathing, and between her parted lips, newly grown fangs gleamed sharp.

A dining hall packed with vampires.

One more vampire had been added to their number.

Yoannis handed over <Cultes des Goules> and quoted a line from a novel he loved.

"Welcome to the world of the Mad Moon."

"Pardon?"

Having just become a vampire, Han Se-yeong flattered him in a confused voice.

"Ah... is that from a classic Shakespeare novel or something?"

"...A classic, sure."

Yoannis propped his chin on his hand and sighed, his enthusiasm thoroughly deflated.

. . .

Elsewhere, a clean and spacious dormitory cafeteria.

A doll-like, expressionless girl in her late teens with black hair opened a lunchbox for a late dinner.

She was Kim Seol-a, the daughter of Chairman Kim and Han Se-yeong.

Munch, munch....

Seol-a ate quietly with her mouth closed.

"Oh? Seol~ Having dinner?"

A girl who was Seol-a's friend, having come to the cafeteria for a late-night snack, approached cheerfully, then looked surprised at the contents of the lunchbox.

"There's not a single meat side dish!"

The contents were vegetables, boiled eggs, and pan-fried tofu.

"Are you dieting? You don't look like you need to."

"...No, I'm vegetarian."

"Vegetarian!? I've never met one before. Why don't you eat meat?"

At the purely curious, innocent question, Seol-a momentarily froze as memories from the past surged up.

The monster she didn't want to think of as her father.

The grotesque banquet Chairman Kim had held.

The sight of her half-siblings butchering and tearing into human corpses there.

Seol-a's pupils trembled.

"Seol-a?"

At her friend's call, Seol-a snapped back and spoke.

"No... meat just doesn't agree with me."

"I see~ Meat's so good though~ That's too bad."

"I have tofu, so it's fine."

Seol-a picked up a piece of pan-fried tofu with her chopsticks and took a tiny bite.

Sometimes, when thoughts like these came to her....

Another half-sibling she couldn't quite remember, an oppa from a different father, would come to mind.

The child her mother, Han Se-yeong, had abandoned.

How was that oppa, who hadn't grown up in their twisted household, living now?

***

A deserted alley away from the theater.

I sorted through the rambling mess Se-geon had spilled.

Se-geon had been hired as a stage actor and performed his heart out.

But that had been a ritual in the form of a play, devised by some idiot wizard to summon Hastur.

Lucky, if you could call it that? The wizard's head had been burst open by Hastur and he'd died.

Se-geon, who'd been caught up in the summoning, had caught Hastur's fancy and become the owner of <The King in Yellow>.

".........."

I stole a glance at <The King in Yellow> in Se-geon's hand.

To be honest, I wanted it.

From just the abilities he'd briefly shown, there were wind blades and a speed boost from wrapping the body in wind.

I briefly imagined a future together with <The King in Yellow>.

Poof~ Drift~.

Roughly, a situation where some ugly-looking enemy has a gun aimed at me.

"Kehehe! There's no way you can dodge a bullet at this range!"

"...Haste."

Quietly casting a spell like a fantasy wizard.

Whoosh- Swish-swish-!

Wrapping my body in wind, closing the distance in a flash.

Performing the classic action-movie one-handed gun disassembly.

"—!?"

Then slugging the stunned enemy right in the jaw.

End of fantasy!

'Hmm... not bad. Pretty good, actually.'

At their owner's blatant coveting of a new Grimoire, <De Vermis Mysteriis>, <The Lesser Key of Solomon>, and <Baopuzi> protested.

Vrrrm! Flap-flap! Snap!

I graciously ignored them.

Well, the fantasy I just had was a joke.

The fact that I wanted <The King in Yellow> was true, but.

I had no intention of killing Se-geon to take it.

That wasn't my style.

Unless that Grimoire was directly essential to my survival, which it wasn't.

If I botched it and Se-geon escaped, I'd be making an enemy for no reason. Borrowing trouble.

Above all, <The King in Yellow> was a Grimoire directly connected to Hastur.

There was no telling what would happen if I killed Se-geon, Hastur's contractor, and seized the Grimoire by force.

Anyway, I also gave Se-geon a brief overview of the world of magic.

Se-geon spoke in a trembling voice.

"...What do I do now?"

I answered casually.

"That's for you to decide. Got any goals or anything?"

When your head's a mess, it helps to settle on something, even something small.

And perhaps because Se-geon was backed into a corner emotionally, he answered without thinking.

"...I want to find my mom."

"Your mom?"

Hearing the story, Se-geon's mother had abandoned him at an orphanage.

She'd taken only his younger sister and started a new family. A familiar, all-too-common tale.

"...My sister was born after my dad died. So our fathers must be different."

I didn't have much to say, so I listened to Se-geon's family history, which I didn't particularly want to know.

Honestly, I couldn't understand wanting to find a parent who'd abandoned you.

What would he do if they met? Demand to know why she threw him away? She threw him away because she had reason to.

Of course, being abandoned was still unpleasant regardless.

Oh, I sure hope the mother who dumped me at an orphanage has been living it up in the lap of luxury.

–That wasn't the sentiment. Obviously not.

But neither did I wish she'd been scraping by in misery.

–That kind of feeling wasn't there either.

How to put it... maybe the occasional internal jab was as far as it went? I simply didn't care.

Since we'd already become strangers.

Seemed better for everyone if we each just lived our own lives.

But that was strictly my own thinking.

I didn't have a hobby of meddling in other people's affairs.

If he wanted to find his mom, then he should just find her.

"If you're going to look, do you at least know her name?"

"...Se-yeong. Han Se-yeong."

After saying the name of the mother who'd abandoned him, Se-geon's lips moved silently a few times.

"I don't want to die. I can't die yet."

His voice still trembled, but there was a bit more resolve in it as he looked me straight in the eye.

"You're the only person I can ask right now. I'll repay the debt... teach me how to survive."

I looked at Se-geon's face.

Honestly, even if I didn't kill him now, once he set foot in this world, he probably wouldn't last long.

Though, having become a Grimoire's owner, not setting foot in it wasn't an option either....

Well, if Se-geon died, I could just see how Hastur reacted.

Then pick up the Grimoire.

I looked up at the moon for a moment.

"Brazen of you. But if you've made up your mind, then fine...."

The moon happened to be out, and opportunities to say something like this didn't come often.

I decided to go for it.

I let my white coat hang loose, and spoke beneath the blue moonlight.

"Welcome to the world of the Mad Moon."

It was actually kind of embarrassing to say out loud.

Then Se-geon blinked and said,

"Huh? Is that Type-Moon? A Tsukihime line? I know a bit about that stuff."

My eyes narrowed instantly.

No, they were both genres with vampires in them, sure, but.

"...Haa."

A sigh escaped me.