Chapter 42 - Just a Vacation (2)

As I walked down the hotel corridor, I checked the articles about the campground on my phone.

'Casualties and hallucinations among survivors caused by a massive toxic gas leak at the campground...'

A faint, incredulous smile tugged at my lips.

Well, they couldn't exactly say zombies had appeared and bitten everyone to death.

A toxic gas leak. A convenient excuse to keep reporters away, and a serviceable cover-up.

Besides, a magician had released toxic gas—or zombie fog—so it wasn't entirely false.

And...

Sua glanced sideways at Yohan's unruffled profile. She had ended up following him when he suggested the dinner buffet, but she couldn't stop worrying that screams might ring out any second and a zombie might leap around that corner.

Honestly, she couldn't even think about a light snack, let alone a buffet.

'... How am I supposed to choke down food?'

She had only come out because she didn't want to be alone in her room. She had no mental energy left to enjoy a buffet.

She could speak. She could breathe. Yet her throat felt blocked, and her body was simply heavy.

"..."

And so Sua followed Yohan into the buffet hall. The smells of all sorts of food wafted through the air, but she still had no appetite.

Still, at least she'd confirmed that no zombies had appeared.

They found a suitable table, and Yohan immediately went off to get food. Left alone again, Sua propped her chin on her hand and watched his retreating back.

"Haah..."

She'd come out because she hated being alone in her room. There were clearly plenty of other people in the hall, yet she still felt alone.

Soon, however, Yohan returned, sat opposite her, and held out a plate.

"Eat."

It held chocolate and a few simple cookies.

Sua blinked, staring at the chocolate on the plate.

"... What's this?"

"Chocolate. I don't like it much since it's all calories and no nutrients, but eating it makes you feel better."

I looked at Sua as I spoke.

"At least it's better than eating nothing. Eat that, then get under a warm blanket and sleep."

"Feeling depressed and skipping meals on top of that? That's a vicious cycle that wears down your mind and body at the same time."

Sua stared blankly at Yohan's completely unexpected words.

... So he'd noticed she was feeling low.

It felt strange.

She reached out, picked up a small piece of chocolate from the plate, and asked,

"Uh... You're going to have some with me, right, mister?"

"No, I'm having a proper meal of meat and vegetables. I don't eat lumps of sugar."

"... Seriously. Unbelievable."

How strange. She'd been so depressed just a moment ago, but now she couldn't help laughing at his absurdity.

Sua chuckled.

"You really take care of yourself."

"I love myself enough to make up for the mom and dad I don't have. Three times as much as other people."

After that casual reply, I got up. It was time to fetch my own food.

Watching Yohan go off to get food again, Sua put the chocolate in her hand into her mouth.

"..."

It melted in her mouth, spreading sweetness.

Was this a sense of reassurance...?

Yes. Strangely enough, she felt much better.

Leaving Sua behind, I surveyed the buffet and thought.

People tend to think they should eat the expensive food at a buffet, but the best way to enjoy one is simply to eat whatever you want.

Here, though, I'd start with vegetables rather than meat.

I'd only made do with a little bread, so if greasy food suddenly hit my empty stomach, my blood vessels and blood sugar would get a nasty shock: 'Aah! Master! Ow! That hurts!'

That was why I put salad and seasoned vegetables on my plate first.

'Hmm... Come to think of it.'

Maybe there was a decent grimoire out there, something other than the kind that gobbled people up.

'Could there be a grimoire that improves your health?'

After all, no matter how much magic I used, my body was still human.

My eyes narrowed.

... If there was, I wanted it.

‧

‧

‧

Meanwhile, in Min Minhwa's office in the Medical Section of the Bureau of Anomalous Phenomena Countermeasures, Minhwa was working on her laptop.

"Huh?"

The books stacked on her desk tumbled down with a clatter. On the desk they'd fallen from, the grimoire <Donguibogam> was making its presence known.

...

Minhwa considered the sight for a moment.

'... Is this a warning?'

A book giving a warning might sound strange, but <Donguibogam> sometimes tried to tell her things this way. In fact, it had helped her avoid danger before.

"Haah... It's a shame, but I suppose I have no choice."

As Minhwa sighed, <Donguibogam> began inching toward her coffee cup this time. She panicked.

"O-okay! I'll do it! I'll do it!"

She prepared a spell to divine fortune and misfortune. Lighting a brazier, she took out a romance novel she'd enjoyed reading some time ago.

"Ugh... Oh, fine!"

She tossed it into the brazier.

WHOOSH!

The spell worked better with a book its owner had possessed for a long time, so there was no helping it.

CRACKLE! CRACKLE-CRACKLE!

As the flames consumed the book, unburned scraps leaped up with the fire.

CRACKLE!

Minhwa gathered the scorched scraps of pages that flew out of the brazier, arranging them in order to form a sentence.

[Do] [not] [go] [wan] [der] [ing] [out] [side]

"... Don't go wandering outside?"

* * *

An old man with a wrinkled face rested with his eyes closed, reclining in a fine leather chair. Chairman Kim, master of the grimoire <Cultes des Goules>, was taking a brief nap.

Anyone seeing him might have wondered whether he'd died like that, but he wasn't dead. He was dreaming instead.

More precisely, he was revisiting memories of the past in the form of a dream.

Before the country of South Korea had even been established, back when Joseon had fallen and the land was a colony, Chairman Kim had been the child of an ordinary poor farming family.

He no longer even remembered his family's names or faces. They weren't important, either.

His father, his mother, Chairman Kim, and his younger sibling.

There was no need to dwell on how a family had moved to the capital to make a living, only to be ruined, scattered, and killed. He no longer remembered anyway.

Besides, this dream always showed him the same thing.

It had been a bitterly cold winter day. Yes, truly cold.

A dark back alley no one cared about.

He might have received alms if he'd sat on a street where people passed, but after the other beggars had beaten him and driven him away, he spent most of his time in places like this.

Even breathing hurt. He didn't want to hurt any more.

He huddled on the accumulated snow as more flakes drifted down over him, his teeth chattering.

CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!

Wrapped in a single tattered straw mat, he hugged his younger sibling—the last family he had—from behind, trying somehow to raise their body temperature.

"...?"

Strangely, though, there was no warmth. Not even the slightest movement.

A cold, rigid, emaciated body. His sibling had been dead for some time.

Chairman Kim laid his sibling's corpse down in the snow and stared blankly at "it" for a moment.

Before grief over the death of his family member came anything else.

"..."

His first thought was that there was no longer any reason not to eat it.

His guts churned, and his teeth tingled. He opened his mouth, exhaling a cold breath.

"Haah...!"

He buried his face in the corpse and tore into its flesh.

"Ah... Agh... Aah."

With his weak jaws, he somehow ripped through the skin, his head buried in the body as he chewed the meat like a stray dog.

Filthy blood and scraps of flesh fell onto the clean white snow.

Then the clouds obscuring the moon drifted away, exposing Chairman Kim as he ate his way into the corpse—and a man standing nearby, looking down at him.

"—!?"

The stranger was a foreign man with snow-white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. Oddly, he wore an armband bearing the Buddhist symbol (卍) over his black coat.

Chairman Kim hadn't known it then, but of course it wasn't the Buddhist symbol. It was a Hakenkreuz.

Startled, Chairman Kim looked up at the foreigner, then at the path he had taken. The man's footprints were plainly visible in the white snow.

Yet he hadn't heard him approach at all. He hadn't sensed anyone there.

"...!"

When their eyes met, the foreign man smiled and spoke in fluent Korean.

"Ah, I didn't mean to interrupt. My apologies. I merely noticed someone having a meal."

"I thought you might be a ghoul, or a young member of my own kind. If you were one of our youngsters, I wondered whether I ought to teach you some table manners..."

His blue eyes curved with amusement, as though he'd found something entertaining.

"... But you aren't. That one resembles you. Your younger sibling?"

The partially eaten corpse. The blood staining his mouth and hands red.

With everything exposed beneath the moonlight, Chairman Kim shrank back warily. The foreigner gave a light wave of his hand.

"Ah, ah, don't be wary. I've no intention of raging at you about how you could commit such an inhuman act."

"Nor do I mean to pity you and call it a tragedy. I'm simply curious."

The man's blue eyes gleamed, and his lips curved as he asked,

"What's the very first thought in your mind right now?"

At his question, Chairman Kim looked down at the corpse.

'... What am I thinking right now?'

It was—it was—

His face twisted as he stared at the emaciated corpse.

—hunger and anger.

There wasn't enough to eat.

His blood-soaked teeth clacking together, Chairman Kim answered.

"H-hungry... N-not enough."

At that answer, the foreign man let out a breath.

"Ha."

The vampire burst into loud laughter.

"Hahaha! Hahahahahahaha!"

His mouth opened wide, revealing sharp fangs. With those beastlike blue eyes flashing in the darkness and his pointed teeth bared, he looked like a goblin from a folktale.

"Haah... I acquired this from storage during the occupation of Paris. I'll give it to you."

Smiling with delight, the vampire pulled a book with a dark red cover from inside his coat.

<Cultes des Goules>

"It isn't much use to me, and it doesn't suit my tastes."

Chairman Kim accepted the grimoire with trembling hands. He opened it and moved his eyes over the pages.

"I-I don't understand."

"Hmm? I've left the language translation function on."

The vampire tilted his head slightly, then nodded.

"Ah. In this case, you can't read at all."

He held out a hand to Chairman Kim.

"Come with me. I'll teach you how to read and write, how to imitate humans, and..."

An inhuman blue light flashed in his eyes.

"Magic."

That was his first meeting with the vampire Ioannis.

"..."

Chairman Kim looked at the article his subordinate had brought to his attention.

[Toxic Gas Leak at Campground]

Naturally, it wasn't a real gas leak. A magician must have caused trouble.

At present, the only person in Korea capable of causing an incident on this scale was the necromancer Edward Coffin.

'... What was he trying to accomplish by doing this?'

He was a wanted man now, but he was so skilled despite lacking a grimoire that, had he stayed out of trouble, he would have become an executive of the British Council of Magicians.

... Annoying as it was, Chairman Kim had once fought him briefly to a draw.

He knew Edward's abilities better than anyone. Frankly, the man was dangerous.

"..."

And so, after a moment's consideration, Chairman Kim finally ordered his subordinate,

"Contact Ioannis. Tell him there'll be something entertaining waiting if he comes to Korea now."

This time, I'll kill you for certain, Edward Coffin.

Chairman Kim ground his teeth in fear and anger.