Chapter 21
– Investigators are suspecting the involvement of Vampires for the Fissure’s eruption, after discovering numerous skeletal remains and bodies drained of blood at the abandoned church near the eruption’s point of origin. With the first Monster Outbreak in nearly 5 years as well as the sudden appearance of Vampires that hadn’t been seen in recent times, the citizens are worried that… (TL: Had a real trouble with the word "구밀교회" I literally have no idea what it means, other than that it's a church. Google says it’s an "old" church. In the previous chapter, there was a mention of a nameless church, so I went with "abandoned". Hope it’s more or less accurate…)
In the middle of sorting out things to throw away and things to take with him, Sae-Jin’s eyes were pulled towards the images coming out of an old TV. It was a news about the suspected reappearance of the Vampires.
"…."
He unconsciously held tighter the photo frame in his hand after seeing that news. It contained his one and only family photograph. Taken the day before he lost his mother, it was a memento now stuck in the boundary between nostalgia and an old, unhealed wound; this faded photograph signified the final day of his childhood he had shared with her.
When he thought back to that day, perhaps she must have sensed her own death approaching. That day, the one before what they packaged it as an "unfortunate accident". He remembered her unusually bright, yet somehow, unusually sorrowful face. She took the photo with her young son and had the frame made, and in the following morning, she left home for work - and never came back.
Officially, at least, they said it was a car accident. But even in his young age, Sae-Jin suspected something was amiss. If it was indeed a car crash, then her body would not have been that clean, nor would she be that pale. When they were putting her inside the casket, she seemed to be in a deep, peaceful slumber instead.
But whatever the case might have been, there was nothing he could do at that time. He was just a 7 year old, recently orphaned kid back then.
– Since the government declared the "war on Vampires" 18 years ago, all Vampires had temporarily hidden from the world, but this incident serves as a proof that they still operate in underground societies….
Sae-Jin bit his lip without realising it. They were just stinking bats, or maybe just trash, or something much worse than that, like pieces of excrement utterly devoid of any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Because they lived off human blood as their sole food source, Vampires just could not coexist with the rest of humanity. Actually, it wasn’t like humanity acted inconsiderately towards them; not at all. But it was they who betrayed the mankind with a reasoning of "animal blood is unfit." (TL: literally said "animal blood is unclean." Thought that under the context, unfit sounded more correct.)
And now, those motherf*cking bat bastards were acting up again…
Sae-Jin clenched his fist and stared at his reflection in the mirror.
The kid from 15 years ago who only knew how to cry was not there anymore.
***
Orcs were truly special Monsters in that their individual ways of life were remarkably different depending on their rankings.
Orcs and Orc Warriors found in the Lowest to Low Tier Hunting grounds never formed packs. They lived lonely lives, only meeting others out of necessity to copulate and to proliferate. So, they didn’t use any weapons, and if they did, it was only to the extent of wielding crude wooden things.