Jin Soran (2)
“Ah! Then, may I ask how my benefactor ended up in that place?”
After chattering away for a while, Jin Soran belatedly came to her senses and directed her gaze this way again.
“Call me Heinz. A guy named Gamma buttered me up, so I followed him once. I was confident I could extract myself no matter what scheme he pulled.”
“Um, that’s… impressive. Yes…”
She swallowed her words with a subtly strange expression.
It was the face of someone who wanted to call him reckless, but since he had actually rescued her and escaped, she had nothing to say.
Even if she hadn’t expected a colleague’s betrayal, she was the one who had actually been captured.
“Ah, right! Now’s not the time for this!”
Suddenly, Jin Soran frantically rummaged through her pockets and pulled out a smartphone.
She seemed to be trying to report what had just happened, but unfortunately, that smartphone did not possess the self-healing function that she did.
“Aa~ aaah! I still have a lot of installment payments left on this…”
A completely shattered screen.
Naturally, it wouldn’t even turn on.
She had been frozen with a tearful expression, but only for a moment. She began to fidget cautiously, stealing glances this way.
As if she wanted something but couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“…Want to borrow a phone?”
“Ah! Yes! Thank you!”
The moment he offered, she accepted without hesitation.
Then, taking the burner phone Heinz handed over, she fiddled with it for quite a while.
“Phew, got it. Ah! Would it be alright if I delete the call history?”
“I don’t mind. But is it okay for you to contact people so freely using an outsider’s phone?”
“It’s fine. It’s an emergency contact network meant to be used in situations like this.”
After sending the message, she seemed much more at ease, leaning back against the seat and slumping.
And then she began stealing glances this way again.
“…Do you have something to say?”
“Yes! You seem quite strong, Mr. Heinz. Do you belong to any organization?”
The reply came as if she had been waiting for this.
As expected, she was a woman who did not miss her chance.
“No, actually, I haven’t been back on Earth for long. The reason I followed Gamma was because I was interested in the Blood Alliance he mentioned. It’s the organization where most of the vampires in Korea are gathered, right?”
The timing was perfect.
But Heinz did not let it show and naturally brought up the subject.
“There are probably some who belong to other organizations. Still, about seventy percent should be affiliated with the Blood Alliance, right? Though it’s hard to be certain since we don’t know how many have been caught by the Supernatural Ability Management Bureau or are in hiding.”
“What happens if a vampire who hasn’t committed a crime gets caught by the Supernatural Ability Management Bureau? They wouldn’t just kill them indiscriminately.”
As they conversed, he asked about the things he had been curious about.
This kind of information didn’t even appear on the internet.
“Sigh… They don’t kill them. But they don’t receive good treatment either. I heard it’s practically no different from prison.”
She added that she had heard this from someone who had been caught and escaped.
“Actually, even after the Blood Frenzy Vampire Incident, there were attempts to embrace vampires with moderate tendencies. But for some reason, it didn’t go well. After that, they’re pretty much treated as potential criminals.”
“Hmm, so it was the right call not to voluntarily report myself after returning.”
“Exactly. So, what I mean is…”
Her eyes sparkled as she spoke.
“If you’re looking for a place to belong, how about the Blood Alliance?”
And she began eagerly pitching the crew she belonged to.
She explained that she belonged to a moderate faction within the Blood Alliance that pursued peace, that they had stable supplies of blood packs through connections with blood centers, and that they could occasionally feed on clinical trial volunteers.
“We pay people to let us feed on them. After knocking them out, we only take enough blood so that it won’t harm their health, heal the bite marks, and send them on their way.”
The girl, who had been explaining excitedly, stopped talking and gauged this side’s reaction again.
“S-so, if you wish to grow stronger, our crew will not be the right fit for you. If you want that, I’ll introduce you to another place. One that causes less trouble…”
“No, that’s fine. I don’t particularly want to grow stronger by drinking human blood.”
Yes, because I was planning to grow stronger by drinking the blood of other vampires.
Unaware of this thought of his, Jin Soran’s expression brightened.
“Then you’re really a perfect fit! Wow~ could it be fate that we met like this?”
The girl, who had been so cheerful, suddenly froze.
She blinked and looked out the car window.
“But where have we been going this whole time?”
“You’re only asking that now…”
He had been driving ever since she woke up.
For her to only ask now—though it was also his fault for not telling her.
“There’s no particular destination. The goal was escaping in the first place. After getting far enough from that place, I’ve just been circling the nearby roads. So if there’s somewhere you want to go, tell me. I’ll give you a ride.”
If he had known the conversation would drag on this long, he would have pulled over somewhere.
He had planned to naturally drop Jin Soran off at the crew headquarters while subtly showing interest, but…
“Ah! Then I won’t refuse! Would you like to come with me, Mr. Heinz? It’s late now, and I can arrange a place for you to rest.”
The dawn, in which many things had happened, was coming to an end.
The sun was slowly beginning to rise.
***
“Soran unnie~! I heard what happened! Are you okay?!”
As soon as they entered the lobby of a building located in a villa complex, a girl who looked to be in the upper grades of elementary school came running out and threw herself into Jin Soran’s arms.
It was a body tackle with considerable force, but Jin Soran smoothly dispersed the impact and hugged the girl.
‘She looks quite skilled.’
By the way, for such a young child to be a vampire, how old was she when she went to the other world?
Could it be that she was older than she looked?
“…Who is this mister?”
The girl poked only her eyes out from Jin Soran’s embrace, watching this side warily.
“This is Mr. Heinz, who is joining our crew. He helped me out this time too. Say hello, Nahui.”
“…Hello.”
“Yeah, hello.”
The girl bowed her head in greeting at the soft words of Jin Soran, who patted her back.
At the words that he had helped Jin Soran, she seemed to let down her guard a little.
Though she was still buried in her embrace.
“Hey~ Nahui? Unnie has something to take care of for a moment… Could you let go?”
She shook her head.
The girl buried her head back into her embrace and shook her head.
“I’ll come to your room after I’m done. Let’s sleep together in a bit. Could you let go just for now?”
At her voice, gently coaxing while stroking her head, the girl put on a dissatisfied expression and separated from her embrace.
“You have to come quickly. I’ll wait up for you, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Unnie will be right there.”
But after finally sending the girl off with pats, she had to deal with others who came out one after another.
It seemed everyone had good hearing and had come out upon hearing Jin Soran return.
‘She’s quite popular, huh?’
“Phew, let me show you where you can rest first.”
Freed at last after finishing greetings and introductions, Jin Soran took the lead, climbing the stairs and guiding Heinz.
“But I’ve been wondering since earlier—how long are you planning to keep wearing that mask?”
“I’m a bit shy around strangers. I’ll take it off once we’re closer.”
“Ah… yes. Please do as you’re comfortable…”
She nodded with a sour expression at the shameless answer, then guided him to an empty room without further words.
The room didn’t have many furnishings, but it was neatly organized.
It seemed sufficient for a short stay.
“There was a child who looked very young in the crew earlier?”
“Ah… you mean Nahui?”
“I haven’t seen such a young Returnee before, so I wondered if she might be older than she looks.”
It wasn’t exact, but the youngest confirmed record so far had been a high school student.
That was already extremely rare, and usually, adults over twenty were the ones sent.
But no matter how he looked at her, she was upper elementary school at best, maybe a middle schooler…
“That child isn’t a Returnee. Her father was a Returnee. He turned Nahui into a vampire to save her from an incurable disease.”
Only then did he realize his mistake.
That not all vampires were Returnees.
After all, even the vampires who returned to Earth were those who had been infected by someone in the other world, and they could turn others into vampires on Earth.
‘Now I understand why the government wants to control vampires. From a certain perspective, they’re no different from an infectious disease that entered from outside.’
No wonder he occasionally saw low-grade vampires of the Servant class when wiping out criminal organizations.
They didn’t have much value as foot soldiers.
But from that perspective, there seemed to be fewer of them than he had thought…
“Ah, but vampires can’t increase their numbers indefinitely. I don’t know the reason, but on Earth, it takes more than ten times the strength to infect someone, apparently.”
Indeed, if such a problem existed, it was understandable.
It was likely a difference caused by being in another dimension as well.
If turning others into vampires whittled away one’s own power, there would naturally be a limit to indiscriminately expanding their numbers.
“But that girl named Nahui seemed stronger than I thought?”
Naturally, making the infected subject stronger would require even more power.
But the child he had checked with Insight appeared to be at least mid-level among the Remnant Bloods.
“Her father overdid it a bit, hoping that Nahui could live proudly under the sun.”
Level 1 vampires burned to ash under sunlight, and Level 2 suffered continuous burns as well.
From Level 3 onward, they might suffer from poor condition, but they did not take damage.
Since the girl named Nahui appeared to be late Level 3, her father must have suffered considerable loss of power.
“What about her father?”
Jin Soran did not answer the question. She just smiled awkwardly and shook her head.
“…It’s late, so you should rest now. A lot happened today in many ways. Let’s talk again in the evening.”
She spoke with forced brightness, then bid farewell and disappeared outside.
Even if they were vampires, they were still people with their own circumstances.
A room with blackout curtains drawn.
Heinz lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.
***
Breakfast was a steaming, hearty bowl of gukbap. In addition, I ate scrambled eggs and a stir-fried pork rice bowl, then polished off a hot dog and a whole tub of ice cream for dessert.
“Hmm… Is this a bit lacking?”
No, this amount is just right for breakfast.
After all, the main body doesn’t squeeze calories to the extreme like an avatar does.
I looked at my avatar, who was wolfing down healthy foods including chicken breast and boiled eggs, and chewing on a high-calorie protein bar.
-Name: Hallie
-Common Traits: 「Mind Hub」, 「Persona」, 「Super Regeneration」, 「Clear Mirror Still Water」
-Individual Trait: 「Adaptation」
-Notable Details: Han Seonghyeon’s fifth avatar. Adapts quickly and efficiently to change even in extreme situations.
Approximately one week had passed in Earth’s time since Heinz had gloriously burned out in Ajantu.
It became possible to re-summon this one around the time Heinrich was entering the Order.
‘And I learned something from that. This time it was a week, but the next time an avatar dies, it will take about half a month to regenerate it.’
And that the required period would continue to increase the more it repeated.
‘Well, if it gets dangerous, I can just unsummon it, so it shouldn’t die under normal circumstances. That time was a special case.’
Coincidentally, Hans, Heinz II, and Heinrich all possessed survivability greater than that of cockroaches, so I only needed to be careful with the newly born avatars from now on.
‘But judging from its initial skill, this one also seems like it’ll have a ridiculously tough lifeline.’
The initial skill of the newly born ‘Hallie’ was [Adaptation].
It was a truly cockroach-like ability that allowed her to adapt and survive even in extreme environments.
Not only that, but the strain placed on the body during training was also recognized as an extreme environment, so combined with [Super Regeneration], its efficiency was incredible.
‘Well, I don’t know when or where it’ll be deployed. I’m just preparing it in advance so it can be used immediately when needed.’
Next, I checked the Karma Shop.
After using most of it when leaving Ajantu, I hadn’t expected much since there hadn’t been any significant incidents, but…
『Karma Shop』
『Unique Skill Enhancement (800,000)』
『Status Enhancement – View Details』
『Owned Karma - 331,087』
There was more Karma accumulated than I had thought.
It wasn’t an astonishingly large amount, but from my perspective of having really done nothing, it felt like unearned income.
‘What did I do? After I last obtained “Persona”... Hans had one clash with the church while researching magic, and I took the siblings to the city of Rapella.’
In Talaria, I’d run into a true-blood vampire, and Heinrich had devoted himself to the Main God Church.
Most of the major incidents afterward had happened on Earth, but since karma couldn’t be gained on Earth, setting those aside...
‘...I really haven’t done much at all, have I?’
Hans’s clash with the Main God Church had been extremely brief, and Heinrich was still only a paladin candidate.
It was hard to say any of that had greatly influenced the world.
‘Uh, wait. Come to think of it...’
While Heinrich was on his way to the Great Temple of Rosellia, there was something he’d heard from the paladin who had guided him around the city.
‘He said they’d actually fought vampires and black mages far more often than the descendants of the Immortal King. And in the process, the black mage faction lost its foothold in the Talia Kingdom and was forced into hiding...’
Hmm, I see.
So that meant...
“...Is this my fault?”
I had stirred things up pretty aggressively.
But I hadn’t expected it to come back around like this.
“...Eh~ What does it matter? It’s a good thing. Rewarding good and punishing evil, rewarding good and punishing evil! See? If you live virtuously, blessings come back to you. The old sayings are never wrong.”
Even though no one was listening, I needlessly joked to myself before focusing on the Karma Shop again.
For now, I was still far short of raising a unique skill.
Then it came down to either raising my stats or saving the points.
‘I’ve already strengthened my stats to some extent.’
After Heinz died fighting a vampire, and right before Heinz the Second was deployed.
Worried that something similar might happen again, I had strengthened various stats like strength and agility several times each.
‘Though I didn’t dare invest enough to gain a related skill, so I only raised them evenly.’
In truth, strengthening stats to obtain related skills was extremely inefficient.
When I gained “Super Recovery,” I had invested a total of 310,000 points into “Body – Stamina – Recovery Enhancement.”
At first, recovering from my disability had been desperate enough that I didn’t need to think twice before pouring everything into recovery.
‘My physical abilities are enough as they are now. Since I have “Super Recovery,” I can strengthen them sufficiently through training too. Anything more would be greed.’
That said, strengthening mental power through stats was also inefficient.
If I strengthened my unique skill, “Avatar,” an increase in mental power naturally came along with it.
And with much better cost efficiency, at that.
‘Then it’s decided. I’ll save them until the next unique skill enhancement.’
Having settled my thoughts, I then searched the internet to gather information.
‘Let’s see, Nocturnia... found it. It’s a fairly well-known dimension.’
A world where vampires and humans were the main powers, waging war against each other.
Its known technological level was roughly that of early twentieth-century Earth, but its anti-vampire technology had developed to an extreme degree.
Vampires were granted bloodline abilities depending on their lineage, while the Slayers who hunted them gained temporary superhuman strength through drugs made by refining their blood.
Because the endless war continued without cease, it was said that even with safe rear-support work alone, one could gather enough karma to return in about ten years.
Since vampire detection technology was so advanced, there was supposedly little danger under ordinary circumstances.
Of course, if one was confident in surviving, it was possible to go to the front lines and shorten that period.
‘Even ten years there is only a little over one year in Earth time. Since there are so many returnees, there’s a lot of information too.’
Information like this gathered together and increased the survival rate of those who came after.
Thanks to that, the recent return rate had apparently surpassed twenty percent.
‘They say it was less than ten percent in the beginning.’
Next, I searched for Jin Soran.
Nothing came up under her real name, so when I searched by her stage name...
“Orchid... Here she is. Oh~ She was pretty famous, wasn’t she?”
With 300,000 followers, she was a sufficiently successful streamer.
But on closer look, perhaps because of the makeup, her face was subtly different.
Her beauty itself had diminished compared to reality, but she looked livelier and more approachable.
‘Well, vampires do have pretty faces, but they’re subtly inhuman. They even feel like dolls.’
When I clicked on a replay of her last broadcast, her cheerful figure appeared.
After watching for a short while, I skipped ahead, and on one side of the screen was a notice about her hiatus.
‘If Heinz hadn’t gone there, that notice would have been the last time her stream ever turned on.’
I sank into my chair and closed my eyes.
Currently, Heinz was at the very edge of pureblood—by Earth’s standards, somewhere between Level 6 and Level 7.
‘First, let’s start by making Heinz a true-blood.’
To do that, I needed more prey...
And the information on their habitats, along with the hunting tools, were all in my hands.
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