Chapter 152
‘I said it was fine for the big shots to play along, but…… I never asked even a top-tier villain to join in!’
‘Artist’ and ‘Evolutionist’.
According to the information I had gathered while lurking around the community, these two were not ordinary community trolls.
For starters, simply having fixed usernames was proof that they possessed extraordinary power.
In fact, they were villains classified as ‘Black Rank,’ the highest danger level in the International Hunter Association’s threat classification.
Normally, they never appeared in the comment section and only occasionally posted strange things.
Yet today, for whatever reason, both of them had appeared on my post at the same time.
- Whoa, WTF is this? First time I’ve ever seen Artist comment, holy crap;;
ㄴ I’m seeing Evolutionist for the first time too
ㄴ So they were reading community posts too….
ㄴ The True Ancestor even has Black-rank villains worshiping her ㄷㄷ
- True Ancestor, please do something about these bastards ㅠㅠㅠ They’re vile trolls who post disturbing images on the community every day
ㄴ For real, I wish the True Ancestor would just slice them up with her Death Scythe
ㄴ Make the True Ancestor a mod!
ㄴ Upvote!!
It seemed to be an unprecedented event even for the community users, because comments kept pouring in without pause.
‘Vam-maeng-ming…….’
I stroked my chin and fell into thought.
Well, it was nice that my post had become such a hot topic that even villains were interested in it.
But I had to admit it was still rather unsettling.
- Artist) So it means the aura of the original. I understand.
- Artist) The blooming thing, the red truth, the rose.
- Artist) I want to see it again.
‘The aura of the original? The blooming thing? The rose?’
First, Artist’s comments.
They were definitely in Korean, but I couldn’t understand a single word.
Why was he the only one who understood it when I couldn’t understand any of it…!
The words were strung together so incoherently that they almost seemed like a poem.
Creepy. It felt exactly like something a completely insane artist would say!
- Evolutionist) Interesting information.
- Evolutionist) True Ancestor. Would you read my private message?
Next was Evolutionist.
His words were ordinary enough, which somehow made things even worse.
He had even sent me a private message.
I really hate this!
As if I’d read it! Absolutely not……
Ding!
[Evolutionist has donated 1,000,000 gold!]
‘What?!’
One million gold.
Roughly one billion won.
‘……What the hell? Why did this guy donate so much?’
Naturally, I had received plenty of donations from many people for this post as well, but Evolutionist’s donation sat conspicuously among the very largest.
‘Ugh….’
Even if he was a villain, refusing to read anything at all after receiving such a huge sum of money pricked my conscience a little.
Above all.
I was a little curious, too.
What on earth had a supervillain like this sent me?
‘But it’s scary! I’m not reading it after all!’
I simply closed the system window.
A few minutes later.
I eventually found myself hesitating with the system window open again.
Apparently, I couldn’t resist my curiosity after all.
It was like stepping into a bush without a ward—I just couldn’t resist.
‘Would it be all right if I only read it…… even if I don’t reply?’
Gasp, since he was a mad scientist, what if he showed me something like a hypnosis app screen?
Even if he really did something like that, I had mental immunity from [Noble Dignity], so there was little chance I would be endangered by a mental attack.
I had been perfectly fine when I saw that die—or whatever it was—that was supposedly a holy relic of the Abyss Cult.
And nothing strange had happened when I accidentally clicked on Evolutionist’s post last time, either.
Still, it was scary….
‘Ah, then how about this?’
While I was hesitating, I came up with a good idea.
Instead of entering the private-message window itself, I would just read the one-line preview displayed in the message list.
I’d read only that!
So I sneaked a peek.
[Evolutionist: Is there truly no racial connection whatsoever between the vampires appearing on Earth and you? If possible, I would like to obtain a blood sample from you.]
‘Ew…….’
I immediately furrowed my brow.
For starters, it was irritating that he had abruptly addressed me as ‘you’ and made his demand in such an imperious tone.
Send him a blood sample? Was I insane?
I had been cautious even about sending CorpseLover a picture of one of my feet, and this guy had the nerve to ask for a blood sample.
It was a good thing I hadn’t read the full message.
‘Hmph, you gave me a lot of money, so I read one line. I never said I’d reply.’
I immediately closed the system window.
***
A laboratory at an unknown location.
A man was staring intently at a blue, semitransparent system window floating before his eyes.
“Hmm.”
After waiting for a long while, the man eventually closed the system window.
“No reply is forthcoming.”
His voice was flat.
He recalled once more the contents of the post the True Ancestor had uploaded.
“Two contradictory pieces of information.”
The man’s gaze turned toward the reinforced glass window.
Inside the pure-white isolation room, he could see the figure of a man firmly restrained in an experimental chair.
Pale skin and dull, unfocused red eyes.
Sharp fangs protruded between his parted lips, and saliva ran down his chin.
His head was firmly fixed in a precision surgical apparatus, his skull left open while his brain was fully exposed inside a bubbling, green-lit tank.
It was badly damaged, but not dead.
Because it was a vampire.
It was a specimen he valued highly.
The finest individual among the vampires in his possession.
Based on what he had learned through his biological experiments so far,
the vampire race appeared to be divided into a strict hierarchy according to blood purity.
The whiteboard on the wall displayed a hierarchy he had arranged himself.
[ Royalty → Nobility → Knight → Commoner → Slave ]
Most of the specimens he had acquired from around the world had been slave-class, with only occasional commoner-class specimens.
Most were low-intelligence specimens driven solely by appetite and primitive murderous instincts.
This specimen, however, was different.
Knight-class.
It possessed fully intact, human-level intelligence, a clear ability to use language, and an awareness of its own species and class.
Most importantly, it possessed information about the vampire collective.
The man recalled an experiment he had conducted several months earlier.
“Oh-ho. Even if most of the body is damaged, recovery is possible as long as the heart and brain remain intact? Truly marvelous regenerative ability.”
The man recorded the data with an intrigued expression.
The vampire had been reduced to a wreck by repeated dissections and experiments.
Bound in restraints all over, it endured the agony of repeated regeneration and mutilation, yet it refused to submit. Instead, it glared at the man with bloodshot eyes and gnashed its teeth.
“He will…… come soon.”
“Hmm? You can speak human language.”
The vampire bared its fangs and shouted in fury.
“Soon, the Great One will descend upon this land……!”
Blood spilling from its mouth pattered onto the floor.
“When he comes…… all you humans will die! You too…… you’ll die a hundred times more horribly than the death you gave me!”
At those words, the man’s eyes gleamed.
“Interesting. Could you tell me a little more about that?”
The information he obtained after relentless interrogation and nerve stimulation was clear.
The vampires belonged to some sort of group, and those currently scattered throughout the world were connected to that vast organization.
And they blindly believed that a ‘Great Vampire’ of extremely high rank would arrive soon.
They were certain that the situation would change completely once that being arrived.
The man mulled over the True Ancestor’s post again.
[Those recently disturbing the world and called vampires have nothing to do with this body.]
[They are nothing but lowly, imperfect lumps of blood.]
[‘Mongrel vampires’ would be the proper term.]
‘Interesting.’
The Knight-class vampire had clearly said that it was waiting for the arrival of a Great Vampire.
And before long, a being calling itself the ‘True Ancestor’ had actually appeared in the world—an existence incomparably more powerful than the existing vampires.
So until now, he had considered the True Ancestor to be that Great Vampire.
Given the circumstances, connecting those two facts had seemed reasonable.
But today, the True Ancestor herself had called them ‘mongrel vampires’ and drawn a line between them.
“She might simply be a high-ranking vampire who despises commoner- or slave-class vampires. Or one of them might be lying.”
The man raised a surgical scalpel and held it up to the light as he muttered.
The sharp scalpel glittered as it reflected the fluorescent light.
“……Or do they both believe their own version is the truth?”
Either way, it was interesting.
Whether the True Ancestor was a high-ranking vampire or an unknown being of a different lineage from Earth’s vampires.
Uncovering that peculiarity would greatly aid his [Project].
“I need to find out a little more.”
The man’s eyes flashed as he stared at the specimen behind the glass.
With the scalpel in hand, he walked into the isolation room.
“This time, I’ll focus on language and memory……”