Chapter 5
I rested fully for several days, taking time to calm my mind.
I still sometimes woke up screaming, or was seized by intense fear or incomprehensible madness, but I was more or less fine.
It was all over now.
I deliberately avoided touching the status window.
The vampire, the truth behind the world, even the pain of death and regression—all of it no longer existed. I'd returned to everyday life.
After all, strange incidents like that are never common, and if I stayed away from them, I should be able to keep living without getting involved again. If encountering vampires were a common thing, humanity would have gone extinct long ago.
"Tasty pizza! Crab pizza! Free delivery!"
On the way home with the boxed pizza, I walked while singing like SpongeBob, wiggling my hips. My dream is to train my glutes to the limit and become like Omni-Man.
I'm going to eat it with Mom and Dad when I get back. Lately, I've been thinking it's really nice to have dinner with my parents like this.
Back when we were all under the same roof, I'd eat alone in my room while using the computer, but I'll never do that again. There's nothing more precious than time with family.
"Knock knock knock!"
In rhythm, I kept knocking while entering the door lock code.
Pizza...!
You're dead, pizza, you fucking bastard!
After greedily devouring the pizza's succulent flesh, I'll gather up the last of the pizza bones and dunk them hard into the dipping sauce!
That's what I bought the dipping sauce for.
Come on, get into my stomach quietly.
You were made for that.
"Mom! I bought pizza!"
The moment I opened the front door and shouted, imitating Jimi Hendrix's vocal style.
"Oh."
Thick.
A thick smell of blood wafted toward me.
"Uh, Mom...?"
No.
It can't be.
No.
It mustn't be.
"Mom? Are you there?"
No one was in the living room.
I set the pizza down and slowly went inside the house.
Silence.
There's no sound at all, suspiciously so. Then what is this smell of blood...? No, was there even really a smell of blood?
Was I, once again, seized by the madness of that day and reacting as if to a hallucinated smell of blood that didn't even exist?
That had to be it.
It had to be.
There was no other possibility to begin with.
I stood in front of the master bedroom.
Carefully, I grasped the doorknob and opened the door.
"Mom?"
The scene inside came into view little by little.
I didn't want to acknowledge what I was seeing. Something red had been spilled across the master bedroom floor. And on top of it, my blood-soaked mom was crouching there.
with her face buried in the pool of blood on the floor.
"Smack, smack."
Mom raised her head. The area around her mouth was bright red. She was licking her lips, and the fangs exposed there were extremely long.
I felt like I was going to throw up.
"U, ugh...! N-no! No! Mom!"
This is a nightmare.
I started to rush toward Mom, then froze. The mom who had been crouching suddenly sprang to her feet. Then she slowly walked toward me, both arms outstretched.
Normally, I would have gone into those arms. It'd be a little embarrassing, but she's my mom... but, but!
"Then why are you trying to bite me!"
"Kieeeek!"
"H-huagh, hyaaaagh!"
I rolled once on the floor like I'd fallen off a treadmill, then flailed ridiculously and got back up to run.
I have to get out, right now!
"Shiiiit!"
A vampire!
That fucking vampire bitch found me!
Running away hadn't made me safe! She found me somehow! She shouldn't have come to the house! I came home, and then Mom!
"Mom, Momaaa! Hic! Grrrrrgh!"
had turned into that!
Because of me, Mom had been murdered by the vampire and turned into a monster!
"No! Mom and Dad can't! Grrrgh!"
Fear, disgust, self-loathing—an emotion so heavy and sticky it transcended them all surged up from inside me. Why? Why was I having to go through this?
The moment I opened the front door and stepped outside.
"Huh?"
A blood-soaked hand grabbed my forearm.
"Kuhack."
"Dad?"
Empty eyes. No. Two emotionless eyes, like a beast's, stared at me. Dad was covered in blood too. His fangs were long, and he seemed to have recognized me as prey.
This wasn't my usual slightly weird but cheerful dad...
"Dad, please. Please! Pleeease!"
"Kyaaaagh!"
Dad shoved me down. I slammed into the floor. I thrashed and screamed, crying hard with tears streaming down my face.
"Hiek! Hieeeeeek!"
Fangs sank into my forearm. Dad was tearing into my arm. Please. Please, somehow. I just want it all to end.
"Guhk...!"
My stomach burned. Dad's rough hand reached into my belly. The front door opened again. Mom came out.
"Kyaah!"
Mom charged at me. Then, together with Dad, she started ripping open my stomach and pulling out my intestines.
"—Thwack! Thwack!"
In the midst of the horrific pain and dizziness, I closed my eyes as I watched my parents gnawing on my intestines.
.
.
.
[You were devoured by your parents.]
[Death count: 3 -> 4]
.
.
.
[Restarting.]
* * *
"Hwaaaagh! Hahk! Agh! Urgh, uuuuuugh! Kkeeeek!"
The moment I opened my eyes, tears and vomit gushed out. I clutched my stomach and rolled on the floor, spewing out every bit of pain.
"Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!"
I died...!
I died again!
And this time I was eaten by Mom and Dad!
"Khaaaagh!"
The sight of Mom and Dad as monsters wouldn't leave my head. It's all because of me. No, not because I'm some fucking idiot—because I went home! The vampire tracked me down and turned my mom and dad into monsters!
"That fucking bitch!!!"
Pain and rage surged up to their limit. What the hell am I supposed to do to that fucking bitch? What am I supposed to do to the bastard who messed with my parents!
There was only one answer.
A cross.
"Huh?"
The moment I was about to stand up, I realized something was off.
"Am I not on the subway?"
It wasn't the subway. What I could see was my studio apartment plastered with cross drawings. Once I realized that, I sat there blankly, trying to make sense of reality.
Why... was I back in my room instead of on the subway?
Had the regression point changed?
"Status Window."
——————————
[●Status Window]
Name : Kim Geunhong
Age : 24
.
.
.
Round : 2
Death Count : 4
[●Collected Endings]
——————————
Only the death count had changed. Nothing else had. Just to be sure, I checked my phone, and it was already dawn that same day.
The dawn after I escaped the subway and spent the night wide awake in my room.
"..."
I couldn't tell why I had regressed here instead of to the subway. Still, after facing this new bizarre phenomenon, my focus had been scattered for a moment, and that calmed me down a little.
"Mom... Dad... haah."
If I had regressed here, that meant both of them were safe. Thinking that eased my mind quite a bit.
"I have to call."
I called Dad first.
[Ugh... uh, Red Sun. What? Why.]
"That really is Dad."
It was Dad!
"Phew!"
After hanging up, I let out a long breath. Both of them were safe. Thankfully, the regression had erased what happened.
"Get a grip."
I stood up and pressed both temples hard with my thumbs, rubbing them.
"I need to stay sharp. The vampire will find me."
So I can't flee to my family home. I don't know how it found me, but if I go home, it'll follow me there in just a few days. Then Mom and Dad will both die.
"Somewhere else."
I need to run somewhere else.
But there's no guarantee the vampire won't come looking even if I flee somewhere else. Even if I went to Gangwon-do or someplace like that, there was still a chance it could find me.
So I need to prepare to face the vampire whenever it comes. Just like the legendary vampire hunter Van Helsing, I have to lug around anti-vampire weapons and live every day as if I'm walking the knife edge between life and death.
That's the life of a vampire hunter, all right.
But where the hell am I supposed to get the money for that?
"Regression."
As if lightning had struck my mind.
The information on stocks and crypto I'd been checking over the past few days came flooding back to me. I barely had any money on hand right now, but if I used only these memories, I could pile up an overwhelming fortune in an instant!
With that alone, living on the run would be nothing!
"Good thing I memorized it."
I didn't have time. I had to prepare from this moment on. Mom. Dad. Friends. Relatives. I couldn't meet any of them. I had to live alone on the run.
After psyching myself up, I immediately got to work.
After seeing Mom and Dad turn into that, I wasn't allowed to act spoiled.
* * *
[A person is dying!!!!!!!!!!]
[If your heart feels like it's gonna burst, hit the upvote lol]
[You still trust America???????]
Using the information I'd memorized before regressing, I made a literal fortune.
I played both sides of the market and never lost a dime.
What had been no more than a college student's bankroll ballooned in no time to beyond what a professional investor would handle, then multiplied several times over as my wealth kept soaring.
It was an amount that would normally be beyond imagination, but to me now it felt like nothing more than cheat money in a single-player game.
The Kim Geunhong who, just a month ago, would spend all day basking in manic joy over making a paltry 50,000 won no longer exists. With the power of regression in my hands, money is nothing more than a free resource I can create as much of as I want.
Having grown my fortune, I started living on the run.