Absolute Dweller

[Episode 14] Vampire (4)

From the moment he openly hunted people within the homebound area, I knew Jegal Seong-gyu was a man without fear.

Dududududu―

Jegal Seong-gyu openly stormed into the apartment complex, brandishing his gun whenever he spotted vampires.

I’m sure I only gave him about 100 shots, but he was shooting like it was a machine gun instead of a rifle.

‘Is he crazy?’

I heard that intelligence would reach a normal human level when they become lower vampires, but looking at this, could it actually be lower?

“Kiaaaek!”

In any case, Jegal Seong-gyu cleaned up the lesser vampires guarding the entrance with his shooting and entered without hesitation.

But that wasn’t the case.

“Graaaah!”

As soon as he entered the first-floor corridor, the lesser vampires rushed at Jegal Seong-gyu.

Dududududu―!

“Die!¹Kick the bucket/croak.”

Jegal Seong-gyu fired at them, emptying one magazine.

Considering that he was firing randomly, the fact he killed nearly ten vampires so far was a good result. Perhaps it was because he had shot at the group in the corridor.

Click! Click!

“You bastard!”

After confirming that the bullets didn’t come out, Jegal Seong-gyu didn’t think of reloading and instead extended his nails.

“Kyaaaack!”

Jegal Seong-gyu’s nails pierced the heart of a lesser vampire that was already stumbling after getting shot.

‘He’s crazy!’

Watching him continue the melee, I could understand why he was abandoned by the guy named Ahn Sang-hyuk, the guy who had turned him into a vampire.

“Argh! Let go!”

He only barely suppressed two lesser vampires in the melee.

One of them was in a shaky state from being shot. In reality, he had caught only one with his ability.

Then, he was overwhelmed by the increasing number of lesser vampires.

‘Warehouse storage.’

Immediately, I confiscated the gun and magazine Jegal Seong-gyu had.

“Let go of me! Hey!”

A woman approached the subdued Jegal Seong-gyu, making a fuss.

“I heard a huge noise so I was wondering who it was. It was you, Seong-gyu oppa?”

“Yeah! It’s me, you bastard!”

The woman sighed deeply and said, “Oppa, oppa, do you even know why you were abandoned?”

“What?”

“It’s because you’re so stupid. Look at you now. You can’t even handle the lowest-level vampires. You’re just wasting food.”

“Arrrghhh!”

At the sight of Jegal Seong-gyu yelling in anger, the woman covered her ear exaggeratedly  and said, “Oh, that’s loud. But there were gunshots just now, right? Did you come in with a gun?”

Although the woman was scanning Jegal Seong-gyu’s body, it was already impossible to find the gun and bullets that had disappeared into my warehouse.

The woman approached the lesser vampire shot by Jegal Seong-gyu and inspected the wound.

“Did you get shot?”

“…Yes.”

The lesser vampire nodded dully.

The woman turned back to Jegal Seong-gyu and said, “So where did you hide it? The gun.”

“Pfft!”

Jegal Seong-gyu spat at the woman.

The woman was hit accurately in the face with saliva and pointed firmly with a hardened face.

“Kill him.”

With her permission, the lesser vampires hastily began sinking their teeth into Jegal Seong-gyu’s body.

“AGGHHHHHHH!”

That was the end of Jegal Seong-gyu.

[Citizen Jegal Seong-gyu has died.]

And then.

“Grah, grahhhh!”

One of the lower vampires who had sunk their teeth into Jegal Seong-gyu began trembling violently.

“Hm?”

The woman watching this smirked and said, “What? Seems like he was more nutritious than I thought? I didn’t expect one to evolve.”

The body of the lesser vampire swelled up, emitting white steam from all over its body.

“Search for something like a gun around here.”

The female vampire looked down at the scene expressionlessly and then sniffed the air.

“What’s this smell?”

At that moment, I used the Communication Ring to tell Seo Ye-jin.

[Ms. Ye-jin, get ready.]

Get ready to cut off the connection.

Fwoosh!

Flames roared to life, and the gas that filled the hallway reacted.

Rumble rumble rumble rumble!

All the vampires gathered there, including the mouse hiding in the corner, were wiped out.

Screech─!

With the death of the mouse, the situation came to an end.

[You have hunted a lesser vampire (Lv. 18).]

[You have hunted a lesser vampire (Lv. 18).]

[You have hunted a lower vampire (Lv. 28).]

…

The notification of the hunt rang loudly.

‘It was a lot closer than I thought!’

If I leveled up again and expanded the territory, there was a high chance that the area they were in would be included.

‘If it weren’t for Jegal Seong-gyu, I wouldn’t have even known about their existence.’

Without knowing about vampires, I would have granted them citizenship without much thought.

It seemed to be quite large in scale.

The thought that dozens of vampires with citizenship could wander around my territory was terrifying.

‘I’m glad I found out now!’

I planned to eradicate them before they were incorporated into my territory.

There was no need for anyone else to get involved.

Now that I knew their location, all I had to do was use Seo Ye-jin’s mice and Yoo Hye-rin’s poison mist to annihilate them.

[Seo Ye-jin, Yoo Hye-rin, please come to my house.]

After using the Communication Ring to call them, I got up from my seat.

Choi Hyeong-jun, who had been sitting quietly next to me, spoke up.

“Are you leaving already?”

“Yes. Please take care of the kids for me.”

“Don’t worry.”

The rescued kids were temporarily left in Choi Hyeong-jun’s house.

Currently, Choi Hyeong-jun’s wife, Park Hye-won, was diligently bathing the children in the bathroom.

Just as I was about to go home to start the vampire extermination operation in earnest, I ran into Yang Ha-yoon, who had finished showering alone.

“Mister? Where are you going?”

There was anxiety in the child’s eyes.

It hadn’t been long since she got to know me, and she was afraid of being left alone.

Probably because of what she had been through.

I smiled broadly like a clown and spread out both hands.

And.

‘Shop open. Buy chocolate!’

Like a skilled magician, I summoned chocolate out of thin air and handed it to Yang Ha-yoon.

“I’m going to work for a while.”

Yang Ha-yoon took the chocolate and looked up at me.

“That’s right. Since you’re a rescue worker, you have to go save people again.”

“…Yeah.”

I stroked her head and said, “I’ll be back soon.”

It was then.

“Unni, I’m Choi Na-yeon! What’s your name?”

Choi Na-yeon stepped forward and approached Yang Ha-yoon first.

“Oh, me? I’m Yang Ha-yoon.”

“I want chocolate too!”

This time, Choi Seo-yeon interrupted from the side.

Looking at Yang Ha-yoon surrounded by little sisters²Might’ve been mentioned a lot especially if you read other Asian novels, but you can refer to unrelated people as brothers or sisters., I asked, “Can you take care of your sisters?”

Yang Ha-yoon smiled lightly and nodded.

“Yes!”

“I’m counting on you.”

With that, I entrusted the children to Choi Hyeong-jun’s family and headed home.

While waiting for Seo Ye-jin and Yoo Hye-rin, I meticulously checked citizen information one by one. I wanted to confirm if any other monsters like vampires had mixed in.

Seo Ye-jin arrived first.

When I looked at Yoo Hye-rin with the Absolute Dweller’s Eyes, it seemed that she was working at another public facility, so it would take some time for her to get here.

Click.

As I opened the door, Seo Ye-jin entered the house familiarly.

“Excuse me.”

Seo Ye-jin sat on the sofa, glanced at my face and cautiously asked, “Mr. Jae-hyun, do you have something you’re concerned about?”

Since there was still time before Yoo Hye-rin arrived, I talked to Seo Ye-jin, “I was checking the citizen information window. Did you just see it too, Ms. Ye-jin?”

“Yes. What were they? They didn’t seem like ordinary people…”

“They are monsters.”

“What?”

I explained to Seo Ye-jin, who widened her eyes in surprise.

“You saw them drink blood at the end, right? They’re vampires.”

“But wasn’t that man a citizen? I remember he started from inside the territory.”

“It’s also news to me, but vampires can be granted citizenship.”

Seo Ye-jin thought about my words for a moment and then asked, “Does that mean human-like monsters such as zombies or ghouls can also obtain citizenship?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

There hadn’t been any zombies included in the territory yet.

“But that man’s case was somewhat special. He was originally a normal human like us.”

“What?”

“So, I think that’s why he was able to gain citizenship. Although he was bitten by a vampire and then became one, he was a human before.”

Seo Ye-jin who was listening to the story asked, “Isn’t that similar to the zombies we saw in Nampo-dong? They must have been humans at one point too…”

From what Seo Ye-jin said, it seemed likely that they would also be granted citizenship.

“That’s why it’s a headache. Maybe there are still vampires somewhere in the territory sucking people’s blood…”

Checking random citizen information screens and also confirming the new ones flowing in was busy enough. I also had to withdraw the system that automatically gave citizenship.

Moreover, as the number of citizens reached 30,000, it was becoming difficult to distinguish between those who had been confirmed and those who had not simply by their name.

Then, Seo Ye-jin said, “When I first accepted citizenship, you teleported me here forcibly, right? Can’t you do the same now?”

It wasn’t something I hadn’t thought about.

There had been times when I had used emergency quests to treat people who were suffering from malnutrition or dehydration and had lost consciousness, or had teleported them here in a hurry.

‘But it costs 30 million won to teleport one person.’

As the territory expanded, the cost of bringing people from the outskirts here was increasing.

Teleporting a thousand people would cost 30 billion.

‘I’d rather spend the money to alleviate their conditions.’

Immediately improving dehydration and malnutrition symptoms and delivering supplies would allow people to survive on their own.

Explaining the shop and monster hunting systems to people was also the same.

In the past, I used to give quests to find Kim Dabin, but now the population has grown too large to handle it that way.

‘Expanding the relief team is much better than using quest assignments!’

Currently, the relief team was operating by giving simple system explanations to able-bodied people and sending those in need of rescue to the medical team.

However, due to a chronic shortage of people, they couldn’t handle the growing population.

‘And I also don’t want to announce that I can set death as a penalty.’

No one would welcome the fact that they could be killed at any time.

‘It’s a headache.’

It wasn’t just because of the vampires. There were many times I worried over this issue.

I’ve thought about giving quests to everyone and penalizing those who harm citizens with citizenship, but that was too extreme.

What would you think if someone stamped you as a ‘potential criminal’?

‘I would lose people’s trust.’

I didn’t want to do unnecessary things.

‘In any case, it looks like I’ll have to intervene personally.’

However, there were limits to what I could do alone.

I couldn’t focus solely on this issue.

‘It would be nice if there was a way to distinguish the inclinations of the citizens.’

That’s when it happened.

[A being satisfying the conditions to be recognized as a citizen has been found.]

[Would you like to offer citizenship?]

As soon as I turned off the system that automatically granted citizenship, this annoying message resurfaced.

I sighed inwardly and checked the information of the new citizens.

‘No problem. Offer citizenship.’

The moment they accepted citizenship,

[The number of citizens has reached 30,000.]

[As the number of citizens has reached a certain level, the ‘Achievement System’ is now unlocked.]

It was the emergence of a new function to overcome this situation.