Return of the Frozen Player

Seo Jun-Ho slowly opened his eyes. The CEO’s name was Allen Schneiker. He was an up-and-coming businessman of Trium and had been a loyal servant to the vampires for the past two years.

The total number of humans he had handed over to the vampires until today was a whopping twenty-seven thousand.

“I let him off too easily.” Seo Jun-Ho was dismayed. Bastards like this Allen Schneiker deserved to die a painful death that would make them regret every single evil deed that they had done throughout their life.

“Got it,” said Seo Jun-Ho. The werewolves finally stood up. It hadn’t been that long since they started waiting for Seo Jun-Ho. They had been waiting for five minutes at most.

“Really? You found what we need?”

“How fascinating. How can you extract memories from the dead?”

“It’s just something I can do,” said Seo Jun-Ho. Then, he started sharing what he had found from Allen Schneiker’s confession. “First of all, the drugs that Astaneca are producing have nothing to do with the red fog.”

“Ugh…”

“I guess we were wrong.”

“But I found something even bigger…” Seo Jun-Ho said.

This factory was serving as a hub for one of the ingredients necessary to create Astaneca’s drugs. The drug that Astaneca was producing for the vampires was like a stimulant for vampires.

“So a vampire temporarily becomes even stronger upon consuming it?”

“In that case, why didn't those vampires earlier take the drug?”

“It’s too expensive for them to take,” Seo Jun-Ho explained.

Not even vampire supervisors could take the expensive drug. According to Allen’s memories, the effects of the drug were also incredibly dangerous.

“The drug numbs them to pain and greatly enhances their physical prowess? Hm, why does that sound familiar?”

“Geez. It’s similar to our transformation.”

“Yes, and I saw it.” Seo Jun-Ho swept his gaze across them and said, “Blood is one of the ingredients to create the drug.”

“You don’t have to tell us. We can see those human corpses—”

“No.” Seo Jun-Ho shook his head. “Human blood is nothing but food for the vampires.”

“Are you trying to say that…” The werewolves’ eyes widened.

“That can’t be…”

The werewolves erupted in fury.

“Are you saying that they’re using the blood of our warriors?!”

“Those evil bastards…!”

It was for too common for them to lose fellow werewolves, who went to the city to gather information. And the vampires had been disappointed that the blood of the dead wolves had gone to waste.

The vampires had always been disappointed about not being able to put the blood of the dead werewolves to use.

‘They said that they don’t drink the blood of werewolves because it’s disgusting…’

However, they couldn’t help but wonder if there was a way for them to make use of the werewolves’ blood. It had already been a year since Allen was put in charge of the research.

“Seo Jun-Ho. Where are those drugs? We have to tell Team A about this,” Nelson growled with bloodlust in his eyes. He wanted to destroy those drugs as well as the documents containing the method to produce them as fast as possible.

“Good question.” Nelson’s question was connected to Allen’s midnight visit to the factory. “Today’s the shipment day.

“The shipment day? They’re sending them out today?”

“Yes. Allen knows the importance of those drugs, so he would always come here to supervise the shipment of those drugs.”

Seo Jun-Ho’s eyes darkened.

If his presumption was correct, then Team A was in grave danger right now.

***

While Team B was in the middle of breaking through the front entrance of the factory, Team A was currently taking a leisurely walk around the factory. Their mission objectives weren’t that difficult to find, after all.

“Bigal! They’re over here!”

“I thought that they would be using trucks, but it seems that wouldn’t be the case considering how there aren’t as many of them as I expected.”

“The packaging is fancy, are you sure they’re related to the red fog?”

“It’s too early to say for sure, but grab as many of them as you can,” said Bigal.

The werewolves then picked up a few expensive-looking briefcases, and just like that, their mission was complete. It was uneventful, so the werewolves couldn’t help but feel dejected.

Bigal noticed that and spoke, “Let’s meet up with Team B. They might need backup.”

“We’ll just go to the front entrance.”

When they exited the building, something unexpected happened.

“Hm?” A man with slick-backed hair stepped out of what was clearly an expensive car. He scowled upon seeing the werewolves. “Geez, is the factory hiring dogs now?”

“Oh, well, uh…” The factory workers were flustered as they stared at the werewolves.

“Hm. I suppose not.” The man smirked. He seemed amused as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it up. “All right, it’s been a while since I’ve had a good workout. Hey, dogs. You better start running.”

“What?” one of the werewolves asked nervously.

“Are you deaf? I am saying that I’ll let you run until I’m done with this cigarette.”

“You’re telling us to run away?”

“So you finally understand. Yes. Run with your tail between your legs. Keep running while you can.” The man cackled, and he made sure to consume his cigarette as slowly as possible.

The werewolves were furious.

“You little—”

“Wait.” Bigal stopped them.

‘He’s too calm.’

Moreover, the man had alighted from a limited-production car.

Bigal was sure that there were only a hundred of those cars in all of Trium.

‘He has to be an apostle, at the very least. It’s either that, or he’s as strong as an apostle.’

Bigal made his decision and turned to the others.

“We’re not going to meet up with Team B. Grab those briefcases and scatter.”

“What, we’re actually going to run away?”

“Come on, man! He’s alone!”

“Even if he’s an apostle, as long as we work together—”

“No, you guys should get it together!” Bigal yelled. It was only one time, but Bigal had encountered an apostle before. He started trembling when the memories he had buried in the deepest recesses of his mind surfaced one by one.

“I’m telling you guys, we can’t beat him. He can only be beaten if our strongest warriors are here...” Bigal muttered.

The werewolves gulped nervously.

“If you insist, you must be right…”

“Damn it. A warrior shouldn’t do this...”

They complained, but they still transformed to follow Bigal’s orders.

The werewolves then looked at each other and nodded.

Step!

They kicked off of the ground and scattered in all different directions. The vampire would definitely manage to catch some of them, but a few of them were bound to survive as well.

“Aw, you’re making me cry. Oh, wait, I’m a vampire, so I can’t cry.” He cackled and waved the remaining half of the cigarette in his hand. “Run, run as fast as you can!”

The werewolves sprinted without looking back.

***

Bigal suddenly came to a stop after running madly. He turned around.

“Huff! Huff!”

He could smell blood—he could smell his brothers’ blood.

“Son of a…!” He squeezed the handles of the briefcases and trembled.

‘At this rate, I’m going to die as well.’

The smell of blood grew stronger as time went on, and Bigal had no idea how many of his brothers had died at that man’s hands so far.

‘If one of us has to buy time…’

Having made up his mind, Bigal threw his head back and howled. “Awoooo!”

His howl ripped through the air, and the other werewolves howled as well.

“What are those idiots doing?!”

Bigal was sure that they knew what he was trying to do here, so why weren’t they running away? Why did they copy him?

Of course, Bigal knew the answer.

He smiled—touched by their loyalty—and slowly turned around.

‘He’s coming.’

Someone else heard him and was rapidly approaching him.

The man with slicked-back hair jumped down a building and landed gracefully in front of Bigal.

“Ah, it was you. The one with the best chance of survival.”

“…”

Bigal silently put down the briefcases and prepared for battle.

“Can I ask why you lured me here? I’m curious.”

The answer was simple.

Bigal was the strongest werewolf in Team A, so if someone had to buy time, he was the best candidate.

“Don’t you feel resentful? The others ran away and left you to die on your own.”

“Wolves travel in packs,” said Bigal.

Even if he had to give up his life, it would be worth it if it was for the sake of his pack.

“…How boring.” The man lost interest and slowly held out his hand. “Hand them over.”

“Never!” Bigal gnashed his teeth.

However, he was suddenly struck with a strange sense of déjà vu.

He looked down at his hands.

“Thank you very much.” Somehow, the man managed to take all the briefcases away from him. “It’s time to die. How about your rip your own heart and crush it?”

“What kind of bullshit—”

Beeeeep!

Bigal’s words were interrupted by his ringing ears, and he broke out into a cold sweat.

His right hand was moving toward his chest on its own.

“Pffft!Ah, this is really fun.” The man chuckled and reveled at the sight.

Mind Control.

He became an apostle and earned the ability to take over someone’s mind and control them.

“Guh…” Bigal gnashed his teeth as his breath grew rough and short.

No matter how much he tried, his hand wouldn’t listen to him.

His sharp claws dug into his own chest and grabbed his heart.

‘N-no…!’

He had never held his own heart before.

‘I had no idea that… a heart is this warm.’

Was this how he was going to die? Was he going to die by crushing his own heart?

‘I-I won’t…!’

He refused to die in this manner.

He had thought and had imagined his own death many times before, but he hadn’t imagined that he would die in this manner. He thought that he would breathe his last in a valorous battle as a warrior—like a true descendant of the wolves.

“Fuck you. Fuck you all!” he cursed.

The man grinned at the sight and snapped his fingers.

“Bang.”

Baaaang!

A loud sound rang in the man’s ears.

He staggered backward.

‘Huh..?’

He wasn’t the one whose heart had just exploded, so why was he the one who was staggering?

He collapsed and landed on his buttocks.

“What is this?” he muttered after touching his head. He could feel that about half of his head had exploded, and he could also feel a gaping exit wound from what remained of his head.

‘A sniper?’

“Ha. Haha.“ He was so dumbfounded that he couldn’t help but laugh. An apostle like him failed to dodge a bullet? The laughter quickly turned into rage. “Which one of you fucking bastards—”

Baaaang!

He was shot once again. This time, he no longer had a head.

“…” However, he was an apostle, so he could easily regenerate his head.

“Bigal! Are you okay?!”

“Shit, take his hand out of his chest! We have to stop the bleeding!”

Bigal stared at the wolves running toward him.

“Team… B?”

They were the ones who had gone to save the humans.

However, as far as he knew, none of them knew how to shoot a gun.

‘No, there’s a stranger among them.’ Bigal unwittingly turned his head.

“This one’s pretty hard to kill.”

Click.

It was the human mercenary.

Seo Jun-Ho reloaded his gun with an emotionless face and walked toward the apostle.

“W-wait! He’s dangerous! His voice can control you!” Bigal hurriedly shouted.

At the same time, the vampire apostle looked up and yelled through his partially regenerated head.

“Put a bullet in your head!”

Baaaang!

There was a loud gunshot, and the vampire apostle was sent rolling away.

“…Huh?” He had definitely given the order. He had activated his ability.

So, why did that lunatic shoot him?

Seo Jun-Ho walked over until he was standing right in front of the vampire apostle.

He then looked down at the vampire apostle and coolly said, “Sorry, but you messed with the wrong person.”

He had a hero’s mind, after all.

Click.

The barrel of the long rifle pressed against the roof of the vampire apostle’s mouth. The cold barrel of the long rifle made the vampire apostle feel a shiver down his spine.

“W-wait…I’m an apostle, so I know a lot. I-i’w tewl you ev’ything…!”

“I appreciate the offer…” Seo Jun-Ho smiled warmly. “But I think your memories will tell me more.”

He then pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Baaaaaang!

For the first time in eleven years, a vampire apostle died that night.