NAPE - 3

“Doyoon, Kwon Doyoon! Senior!”

Just as Doyoon was about to raise his gun, Namwon returned, having chased after the escaped vampire. He looked like a soaking wet rag squeezed out of a bucket.

“Did you catch him?”

“No. Lost him. That bastard, was he right after drinking blood? He was so fast… Huff, huff… The bike had its limits… Anyway, this woman seems to be a hybrid vampire, not a regular one. Why is she locked up here?”

“Who knows.”

The complicated gazes of the two men turned to Bibi. Under the hunters’ attention, she bared her teeth even more fiercely. Desperate to escape this situation, she squirmed her body. The gag in her mouth was half-broken, and the handcuffs binding her wrists were also gradually twisting.

But this was the limit of the strength she could muster in her starved state. She was far too weak to bend the thick, solid iron bars and get out.

“I’ve heard that sometimes they take hybrid vampires and raise them as hunting dogs. First time seeing it though.”

Doyoon voiced information that had been buried deep in his mind. Namwon clicked his tongue.

“Senior, you decide what to do. She’s tasted blood, so if we let her go, she’ll probably lose her mind and harm people again. But… if we take her to the association, she’ll be sent to a lab and spend her life as a test subject. Maybe it’s better to just deal with her now.”

A hybrid vampire is an individual born between a regular vampire and a human. If they don’t receive proper care in their early years, their cognition, thinking, and even language don’t develop normally, and they become wild beasts driven only by the thirst for blood. Therefore, the principle was to kill them on sight.

“Are we going to deal with her, or what?”

Namwon urged, looking at Doyoon, who was lost in thought. He was soaked like a mop from the rain, cold, and hungry. He was annoyed that his senior, who usually shot without batting an eye, seemed sluggish today.

“…….”

Regardless, Doyoon, who had been carefully observing Bibi, noticed something and his eyes flashed. He looked at Bibi’s forearm and doubted his eyes. The spot where the silver bullet had grazed… the area where blood had clearly been seeping out had completely healed.

“The wound from the silver bullet healed right away, this kid.”

“What?”

“Besides, she spoke earlier. She’s different from regular hybrids.”

“...So what if she is?”

“Only purebloods can recover from wounds caused by silver bullets. The rest all end up like that.”

Doyoon gestured with his chin towards the vampire corpse that had turned to white bones.

“Come on, Senior, you can’t possibly think she’s a pureblood, can you? Talk sense. There’s no way someone that precious would be in a backwater like this. Besides, raising a pureblood as a hunting dog? That’s ridiculous!”

The hierarchy in the vampire world was stricter and crueler than capitalist society. Regular vampires, who were originally human, were commoners, and mixed-blood hybrids were untouchables. And… purebloods were beings in the celestial realm looking down on the lower classes.

They were nobles and kings at the same time. Arrogant beings who held immense wealth and eternal life in their hands, ruling in the shadows. They rarely showed themselves and preferred to exert their influence within their own territories.

Even hunters had to bow their heads before purebloods. Thanks to a treaty made long ago, they were exempt from human laws, and even if they caused trouble, they were not hunted by hunters. They had their own executioners and enforcers and lived according to their own laws.

“Let’s move her for now.”

“Move her? Where to?”

“Where else but our place.”

Namwon’s mouth hung open. He shook his head, trying to persuade Doyoon that they shouldn’t do anything troublesome in this heavy rain. But Doyoon was firm.

“What if that escaped guy comes back? He’s not smart, so if he gets hungry, he’ll go crazy. If he goes on a rampage with a hunting dog out of spite, we’ll be the ones in trouble.”

Unlike Namwon, Doyoon’s breathing was calm, and he even had a relaxed smile on his face. He was ready for more argument. On the other hand, Namwon was hungry and had already learned from experience that once he started arguing with his senior, he couldn’t win with logic or stubbornness.

“This senior bastard is always indifferent, but his eyes only light up at times like this! I’ll bet my left ball that’s not a pureblood!”

Namwon grumbled and headed towards the cage where Bibi was trapped. He took out another gun from his chest, aimed it at Bibi, and pulled the trigger in one swift motion. Seeing the black barrel aimed at her again, Bibi twisted her body to avoid it, but she had already felt a sharp sting in her forearm.

“Ughhh!”

She thrashed in the cage, trying to pull out the large needle, but her body was too weak to withstand the potent anesthetic that could even bring down an elephant. Sleep rushed in at a terrifying speed. Her head drooped, and all the strength drained from her body.

Bibi was swallowed by a vast drowsiness.

________________________________________

Dogs are powerless before dog butchers, and vampires are powerless before hunters.

Inside a room in a villa located in a dense forest, Bibi lay flat on the floor like a piece of gum, rolling her eyes. She couldn’t even breathe properly, overwhelmed by the oppressive presence of the hunter standing before her.

A deadly scent of death emanated from the man who was staring at Bibi indifferently. His black eyes were dull and dry, as if they had never felt sympathy, hesitation, or pity. It felt like facing an executioner, and chills ran down her spine.

Bibi felt viscerally that her life was worth less than a fly. This man was someone who would spare her if he felt like it, and kill her if he didn’t.

“Put this on.”

A large shirt fell in front of her. While Bibi stared blankly at it, Doyoon brought a chair and sat down. He crossed his legs with a dry expression.

“I’m Kwon Doyoon. Nice to meet you.”

Doyoon stated his name even though he knew the other party wouldn’t reciprocate. Self-introduction was a kind of habit for him. He had a unique tendency to maintain his own rules, upright attitude, and etiquette in any situation.

“Yesterday, when you saw my gun, you clearly said something, didn’t you? You said no.”

“…….”

“This.”

Doyoon took out the silver gun from his chest. As soon as Bibi saw it, she let out a sharp vampire scream and leaped up from her spot.

Goosebumps erupted all over her body. She retreated as far as possible, trying to get away, but her hands were cuffed. The cuff chain connected to the bed leg swayed like a wave and then tightened. Even as sharp metal dug into her wrist, causing pain, Bibi retreated as much as she could.

A vampire gun. The silver bullet from the black barrel was a deadly weapon that caused immense burning pain. She couldn’t remember exactly when in the past, but she had been hit by one before. Her body’s reaction was the proof.

“If you don’t like it, say so.”

Even though he saw the other party trembling with fear, Doyoon remained unperturbed. He even performed a trick, twirling the gun by the trigger guard with his index finger.

Click.

The spinning gun stopped. His languid eyes sharpened.

“You can speak, can’t you? You understand everything I’m saying, right?”

“…….”

“Do you want to go back into that cage from yesterday? Or should I reintroduce you to a silver bullet?”

Was this a threat? Bibi stared at Doyoon with her mouth tightly shut. Those words were not just a simple threat. He looked annoyed.

This person is used to eliminating troublesome things. She instinctively felt that certainty. If his interest waned, he would use that gun right now.

“Ugh, I’m dying from yesterday’s hangover!”

As a heavy silence continued, Namwon entered the room with a loud groan. He poured dozens of hangover pills into his mouth and crunched them.

“Senior, let’s go get some hangover soup.”

“I’m not eating. I have something to look into.”

Doyoon let out a dry sigh and put the gun back in his chest.

“What are you going to look into?”

“How many people this woman killed, where her trainer is if she was raised as a hunting dog, and so on.”

“Are you sure this woman… no, this vampire is a pureblood? What if she isn’t?”

“I’ll have to deal with her.”

Watching Doyoon reply without any hesitation, Namwon clicked his tongue.

“I wouldn’t even treat a stray dog I picked up on the street this shabbily.”

“There are a lot of blood packs left in the fridge, right? I should give her some.”

“Yeah. But before feeding the bat, let’s at least grab some hangover soup, man.”

“You took a lot of hangover pills.”

“No, you bastard senior, is that food?”

“Mix it with milk and eat more. Like cereal.”

“I can’t do cereal. I have to eat rice in the morning.”

“Then go out and eat quickly.”

Namwon grumbled, took his card from Doyoon’s jacket, grabbed his coat, and went out. Only the two of them were left in the room again.

Growl…

A mournful sound came from Bibi’s stomach. Doyoon took out a blood pack from the refrigerator and threw it in front of Bibi.

“Drink.”

Bibi blinked, looking at the red liquid in the plastic bag. A hunter was giving her blood. It was utterly bewildering. Could it be poisoned? Ah… that wasn’t the immediate problem. A hunting dog doesn’t eat food given by a stranger.

“Don’t you know how to open it?”

Doyoon, who had been watching indifferently, personally tore open the blood pack for her.