Chapter 83 - Battle City (3)
11 min read ·
It seemed the shooting practice with Si-on hadn't been for nothing.
The bullet flew.
And then, magic unfolded before my eyes.
'What?'
Clang!
The greatsword the vampire swung deflected the bullet.
A clash between gunpowder and cold steel.
My eyes widened on their own at the fantastical sight.
Drawing the sword, deflecting the bullet, and bringing it down in a slash, all connected into a single motion.
The magical blade came crashing down toward my head.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
"Gaaaaah!"
Grizzly was a beat too slow, held up by the vampires firing guns from behind.
And toward that beautiful, chilling arc of the blade,
Clang!
A spear thrust in and knocked it aside.
".........!"
An old man of healthy build, white hair swept back.
"The great one has arrived."
It was Lee Mun-ryong, having sprinted over in a mad dash.
"Looking cool, confirmed."
As the spear blade that had intervened knocked the greatsword away, I snapped back to my senses and stumbled backward.
Well, this wasn't exactly the time to say it, but...
I was so dumbfounded by Lee Mun-ryong's flashy entrance that I blurted out:
"...Old man, did you come here straight from reading a soccer manga?"
"I did read it. It was funny, had a good time."
Lee Mun-ryong answered without taking his eyes off the blond foreigner... or more precisely, the vampire.
"That guy is..."
The one he'd seen before, a monster who had even mastered human martial arts.
He was the one who had lightly sparred with his former client Alphons, and he recalled Alphons showing his information about him that day.
Lee Mun-ryong's eyes went wide.
"Gay Nazi Vampire! Yoannis!"
Setting aside the first two attributes, I'd expected it, but he really was a vampire after all.
"He's dangerous. Let's bolt!"
Without a moment's hesitation, Lee Mun-ryong took off running at full speed.
".........!"
I came to my senses and frantically ran after Lee Mun-ryong.
Obviously, I had no intention of fighting while surrounded, but the sight of him just taking off by himself first left me speechless.
I pulled Grizzly back in to let him recover, and summoned the Gnomes.
"Uwaaaah~!"
"Gnomes won't let you get away with this, Gnome!"
Mia, who had been commanding the vampires, was startled at the sight of the red-capped elementals.
"Th-these are redcaps!"
The wicked faeries said to dye their caps red with blood!
"No, they're Gnomes."
Yoannis calmed his cute pretty-boy vampire lover in a composed voice.
He lightly kicked away the swarm of Gnomes rushing in.
"They're elemental spirits, the earth itself. Even if you hit or destroy them, they only scatter for a moment. Ignore them."
Since it was just a stalling tactic from the start, the Gnomes vanished quickly.
Yo-han had slipped away, but Yoannis's blue eyes gleamed calmly. A smile formed at the corners of his lips.
"Elemental magic."
He'd more or less expected it, but...
The current owner of <De Vermis Mysteriis> was not using full-scale pagan magic.
He was only employing the Invisible Vampire and safe magic.
A completely different usage from "She Who Must Not Be Named" in the past.
She had spread shadows wide like a river, summoning the head of the Egyptian crocodile god Sobek and swarms of his crocodile minions, among other things.
She had used <De Vermis Mysteriis>'s pagan knowledge without reservation.
From the perspective of Yoannis, who knew "her" the current Yo-han was, to put it in terms of an analogy,
Using only the Invisible Vampire and minor basic magic.
He was only using passives and basic skills QWE, without putting any points into his ultimate or using it.
"Even among owners of the same grimoire, the usage differs depending on disposition."
However, that aside...
Yoannis turned his body and looked in the direction Yo-han had fled.
He would have ducked down a different path along the way, but
Lee Mun-ryong notwithstanding, Yo-han was also nowhere to be seen.
The fact that he'd drawn a pistol right from the start was one thing, but
His movements were faster than expected.
It wasn't simply that his judgment was quick; his physical abilities themselves were fast. That was unexpected.
'Has he learned a breathing technique, or body-enhancement magic?'
...He'd mastered a new system of magic in this short a time?
It was an absurd notion, but.
Edward, Alphons, renowned wizards of Europe, had all died at Yo-han's hands.
He couldn't afford to let his guard down.
Perhaps he might become a dangerous wizard in a different way from "her".
***
After running to escape the vampire horde,
I ran alongside Lee Mun-ryong and shouted:
"Hey! If you just run off that fast by yourself!"
But Lee Mun-ryong answered with a light smile:
"You're losing ground."
"What?"
In that instant, my head cleared and I realized.
I'd been too frantic to notice it myself while being chased by the vampires just now, but...
My legs were moving, and the scenery around me was whipping past.
".........!"
It wasn't quite at the ridiculous level where the world appeared to move in slow motion or anything like that, but
Roughly, by my own sense, I was running a hundred meters in about 7 to 8 seconds.
On top of that, my breathing was cold but it wasn't particularly strenuous.
Physical enhancement through the breathing technique.
'That health exercise actually worked...?'
I steadied my breathing and covered ground rapidly alongside Lee Mun-ryong.
Whoosh!
Simple, fast, and great. Yeah, this was what I'd wanted!
'Hell yeah, this is amazing! Go, go, magic power of running!'
To be perfectly honest, I thought this might be the most useful magic of everything I'd learned so far.
In response to its owner's reaction and the fact that it had been helpful, the grimoire tucked inside my coat,
Flap-flap!
<Baopuzi> responded happily.
And then...
The grimoire in my other pocket and the one in my hand,
<The Lesser Key of Solomon> and <De Vermis Mysteriis> vibrated with displeasure.
Vrrrr!
Flap!
'How insolent!'
In any case, another enemy appeared right away.
A guy who looked like a Daoist master from a martial arts novel leapt lightly down from a building, holding an Eight Trigrams Tablet in one hand, and came chasing after me.
"So you're the Baopuzi thief!"
He drew his sword and charged.
"How dare you steal what was meant to be mine! Die!"
Truly out of nowhere, and in an absolutely chaotic manner. I shouted in disbelief:
"Who the hell are you!"
Lee Mun-ryong frowned at the Daoist. He was a Daoist well-known for contract killing, and quite skilled at that.
"That one's dangerous too! Let's bolt!"
"You, Reckless Whirlwind! I'll kill you too!"
The Daoist, recognizing Lee Mun-ryong, flew into an even greater rage and came chasing with his sleeves billowing.
Whoosh, swoosh!
Was that really what they called foot technique? At an impossible speed, the Daoist's legs kicked off the ground and the distance closed.
Lee Mun-ryong quietly whispered in a serious voice:
"...Keep running. I'll show you the secret technique of the Eight Extremes Spear."
'A secret technique!'
At the serious tone, I just kept running as Lee Mun-ryong said.
Honestly, when he called it a martial arts secret technique, I got a bit excited.
But Lee Mun-ryong seemed to be tiring.
"Huff...!"
His speed dropped momentarily, and the Daoist grinned and went for Lee Mun-ryong's back.
"Fool! You've tired out!"
And then...
Lee Mun-ryong's eyes flashed. The secret technique of the Eight Extremes Spear unfolded.
'Eight Extremes Spear Secret Technique: Stab While Pretending to Run Away!'
The instant the enemy thought he had taken the rear,
Lee Mun-ryong's body kicked hard off the ground and spun a hundred and eighty degrees.
Whooom!
A spear loaded with force was thrust straight at the Daoist's heart!
"Wha, grrk!?"
Shhhk!
The spear blade pierced through the Daoist's heart and was swiftly withdrawn.
Crash!
The Daoist's corpse toppled over on the spot.
His prized artifact, the Eight Trigrams Tablet, also rolled across the ground.
The contract killer who had been notorious for using the Eight Trigrams Tablet to track down treasures and people alike, Thousand-Li Demon Horse, had entered the scramble for the grimoire without proper resolve and died an anticlimactic death.
"Confirmation kill!"
And then Lee Mun-ryong stabbed his spear through Thousand-Li Demon Horse's head, killing him a second time.
Fortunately there was no reaction, and Lee Mun-ryong let out a refreshing breath.
"Whew~ The moment you think you've won is when it's most dangerous."
"I mean... it's effective, sure. But that secret technique is way too underhanded."
"But I won."
Lee Mun-ryong said lightly, and looking at the Daoist's corpse, I conceded.
"I didn't say I hated it. Reassuring, actually."
The problem was that he wasn't the only enemy.
Thud-thud-thud-thud, the sound of footsteps rumbled.
I'd been running pretty fast, but being vampires and all, they caught up quickly.
I narrowed my eyes.
".........."
I recalled the blond vampire Yoannis, who had shown the absurd feat of deflecting bullets with his sword.
If the intel Lee Mun-ryong had given me was correct, he was the leader of the vampire group.
And since the first attack had been initiated by the vampires,
He was likely also the one who had blown up my secret workshop and kicked off this whole mess.
Naturally, as one might expect, I didn't enjoy fighting.
I would run and avoid combat as much as possible.
But going round and round in endless circles was the last thing I wanted.
My dark eyes gleamed calmly.
'...So I kill him for certain.'
I knew which enemy had to die.
...The problem, of course, was that he moved together with a force of gun-armed vampires.
It was dangerous, but maybe worth a try.
"Old man, can you hit and run against the vampires to buy me some time?"
"I don't mind, but... what about you?"
Lee Mun-ryong raised one eyebrow and asked, and I answered without hesitation.
"I need to take out the leader."
Since it was a hastily thrown-together plan, I explained further.
"Well, I'm thinking of luring him out. Old man, just play it by ear and pull out when it feels right."
"Oho~ You worried about me?"
"If you die, the gold I paid would be a waste."
Back then, I'd packed it all into a case because it needed to look impressive, but I'd spent all my gold hiring Lee Mun-ryong.
He needed to at least earn his pay.
I spotted the pedestrian overpass a little ways ahead.
"...Then let's start running again."
Lee Mun-ryong and I ran toward the overpass, and as the vampires' pursuit drew close,
Lee Mun-ryong naturally deflected bullets with his spear, buying time and making it look like he was letting me escape.
"Go!"
Well, the actual act was the same, to be fair.
I deliberately glanced back at the vampires behind me, then turned and climbed the overpass.
As I roughly scrambled up the stairs as though fleeing,
Someone was already waiting on the overpass bridge.
"Hey there~."
Yoannis greeted me with a gentle smile.
Behind him, vampires gathered.
I casually turned my body to check behind me.
".........."
Lee Mun-ryong had already slipped away, and vampires had come up from behind me too, leaving me surrounded.
Yoannis's relaxed voice echoed.
"You're trapped."
I answered briefly.
"No."
Seeing how the vampires had gotten ahead of me or kept up so well, they seemed to have studied the local geography, but
There was one piece of information where I had the edge over him. The bus route schedule.
I'd only ever imagined it; I'd never actually done it before, but...
There was no time to hesitate.
I dashed toward the overpass railing, vaulted over it, and
Whooom, clunk!
Landed right on top of a moving bus.
"What?"
It happened so naturally that the vampires' eyes went blank for a moment.
Yoannis looked at Yo-han, who was kneeling on one knee atop the receding bus, staring back at him with calm dark eyes and mouthing words, and smiled.
'Fol-low me.'
This was irresistible.
"...The man drives me mad."
Even for a vampire, chasing down a bus that was pulling away after that jump would be difficult, but Yoannis could manage.
"Master!"
Leaving Mia's cry behind, Yoannis stepped onto the overpass railing and leapt.
His black coat tails billowing,
Clunk, he landed on the tail end of the bus.
Feeling the rough wind scraping against his skin, Yoannis stood up straight and said:
"One on one. How romantic."
"...I honestly didn't think you'd actually follow."
Clunk-clunk, clunk,
The bus was faster than I'd expected, so I glared at him from an awkward stance.
Yoannis gazed at Seoul's night skyline from atop the moving bus and,
"Unfortunate for you. If that's really how it is, then..."
spoke a line from a novel he liked.
"Prove your innocence with tears, wizard."
When those completely unexpected words rang out,
"..."
My expression went blank for an instant, and a laugh escaped me unbidden.
"Pfft, hahaha."
I straightened my knees and stood upright. Still a little unsteady, but I felt the rough wind against my back.
"I,"
I'd probably regret this later, but I couldn't help myself, so I said it straight to the arrogant vampire bastard.
"didn't even cry when my fucking mother abandoned me, you dumb fuck."
Yoannis's blue eyes flashed, and a smile spread wide enough to bare his fangs.
Everything else aside, at least Chairman Kim was right about coming to Seoul.
Yoannis drew his Damascus Steel magic sword and held his arm level.
The iron-covered grimoire <De Vermis Mysteriis> gripped in Yo-han's hand was clutched even tighter.
Clunk, clunk, clunk-clunk!
The stage was set atop a moving bus, beneath a maddened moon.
A blond vampire and a wizard in a white coat faced each other down.
Booom!
And the bus lurched heavily as its weight increased.
"■■■■■!!"
The Invisible Vampire roared.