Chapter 17

Fact is, the reason I’d been trying to hide my telekinesis till now was probably a very common-sense decision for my own safety.

In a world where science and magic are the norm, a power that doesn’t fit anywhere is like a ticking time bomb that could get me killed just by existing.

So logically speaking, the best thing to do right now was to stay out of this mess, keep quiet, and lay low.

Night Haven is a city crawling with people like me, as common as pebbles.

Even if I don’t step forward, this situation will resolve itself given enough time.

If I accidentally reveal my telekinesis to the world, the target might shift from vampires to me.

Alright, let’s think rationally. For the sake of my future…

‘I don’t wanna. Why should I have to endure this?’

Unfortunately, I’m not exactly the patient type.

I need to buy that deluxe choco-bun that looks so delicious to satisfy my cravings.

And those who do wrong must be punished accordingly to set my mind at ease.

Which is why it’s especially hard to stay silent and hidden while thinking about the future.

I really don’t want to see people I know suffering.

Geez. I’m such a coward, yet sometimes so impulsive.

Even I have to admit, my personality is pretty foolish.

‘Well, that doesn’t mean I’ll jump into the fire without thinking.’

Of course, I didn’t come completely unprepared.

Let’s think about it. Right now, I’m just a ghost wrapped in a white cloth.

The only person who knows my true identity inside is Greg.

So after causing a scene and piling all the aggro onto the ghost, I can simply disappear forever.

You might call it the scarecrow tactic.

Until recently, being a ghost was my only identity.

But starting today, there’s Yuria, Greg’s employee. Things should be fine.

‘I owe so much to Mr. Greg.’

He feeds me, gives me a job, even names me.

He might as well be my father in this life.

Of course, despite appearances, Greg is still in his late 20s.

He’d probably freak out if he heard me calling him dad…

But that would be kind of funny too.

Lost in these trivial thoughts, I suddenly found myself out of the alley and on a main street.

Maybe because there weren’t many bounty hunters around here.

The streets were infested with zombies, more than you’d expect.

“Grrrrr…”

“Keek, krrrk…”

Perhaps sensing my presence, the zombie horde rushed towards me like moths to a flame.

Just looking at the scene unfolding before me, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it a horror movie.

But I didn’t even flinch.

My telekinesis had already spread throughout the street.

‘Neck Crank.’

Crack!

I made a gesture of lightly twisting my wrist outside the cloth.

In response to my movement, the approaching zombies’ necks twisted sideways.

It wasn’t particularly difficult.

I simply grabbed every visible zombie’s jaw with my telekinesis and turned them sideways.

Compared to earlier when I crushed a zombie’s neck with force,

This barely consumed 20% of my concentration.

But the result was quite impressive for such a simple move.

A spectacular sight unfolded as all the zombies filling the street simultaneously collapsed.

“What… what’s wrong with these guys?”

“My, my head’s turned?”

“Don’t let your guard down! We need to finish them off! Zombies can still move even like that!”

Of course, zombies are troublesome creatures that only die when their heads are crushed or their necks severed.

They don’t die just from having their necks broken.

So the bounty hunters who were initially surprised by the fallen zombies maintained their focus.

They proceeded to deliver finishing blows by crushing zombie heads or cutting off their necks.

Though, they didn’t really need to do that.

“Hey. You don’t need to crush their heads, these things aren’t moving.”

“What?”

These fake zombies, filled with an unknown black substance instead of bones and flesh, differed from real ones in their signal transmission structure.

To simplify the explanation, these fake zombies had magical circuits concentrated in their necks.

By simply twisting them appropriately, they could easily malfunction.

In other words, this meant:

There’s a clear hierarchy between the fake zombies with obvious weak points and me, who has weak firepower but is strong against multiple enemies!

‘Let’s cause a little commotion. Let the mastermind behind this incident find my location.’

Sigh, haa…

Taking a light deep breath, I pushed off with telekinesis from my soles and sprinted forward rapidly.

As I passed by, I twisted the jaws of zombies and instantly knocked them down.

Piling up disabled zombies like mountains along my path.

Unlike the bounty hunters struggling to take down one zombie at a time, I was like a sports car blazing through the alleys.

“G, Ghost!”

“It’s real! 7, 700,000 credits… hmm.”

“Ho, ho… What am I seeing?”

“Sh, should we collect zombie heads…?”

Indeed, making such a blatant scene, it was impossible not to be noticed.

Among the bounty hunters regaining composure as the zombies’ threat diminished, some confused voices could be heard.

While I was focused on knocking down zombies, I didn’t pay much attention.

Probably overwhelmed by the absurd speed at which zombie corpses were piling up.

Of course, I had to concentrate on precisely twisting the zombies’ jaws with telekinesis while running fast, so I had no mental capacity to deal with distractions. I was glad they didn’t bother me.

After running mindlessly like this for a while, my concentration was wearing thin, and my head started to feel hot.

Suddenly, someone who wasn’t a zombie blocked my path and shouted.

“W, Wait! Ghost! How dare you show up here…!”

Pale face, dripping chin with blood, sharp fangs.

No matter how you looked at her, she was definitely a vampire.

In an instant, my eyes naturally sharpened with determination.

‘The setting says vampires don’t die unless both their neck and heart are intact. Definitely.’

Then there’s no need to hold back.

I slowed down momentarily and stopped right in front of the vampire woman. With full force of my telekinesis, I snapped her neck.

Most vampires were magicians who used blood magic.

Therefore, even though they use blood as a medium, their throats were a weakness since they needed to chant spells.

Since she wouldn’t die anyway,

I felt no particular remorse about breaking her neck.

“Guh, gah…!”

I threw the vampire, who was clutching her broken neck in pain, against the wall.

Tearing off a thin metal frame attached to the wall, I pierced and securely pinned her limbs.

This way, the metal embedded in her arms and legs would prevent regeneration. She wouldn’t be able to escape on her own until someone helped her.

I immediately lost interest in the completely helpless vampire and continued sprinting through the streets of the western labyrinth.

Zombies, zombies, ghouls, vampires. And then zombies again.

How long had I been rampaging like this?

While running mindlessly through the streets, I instinctively sensed danger.

An intense killing intent, like sharp needles deeply piercing my skin.

I retreated backward while urgently wrapping my body with telekinesis to protect myself from whatever was coming.

Almost simultaneously with shielding myself with telekinesis, a crimson stake flew at tremendous speed, shaking my body violently.

‘Ugh! This is…’

Fortunately, thanks to quickly deploying my telekinesis, I managed to deflect the crimson stake aside.

From its form when it fell to the ground, I could tell it was made of coagulated blood.

Blood magic manifested through blood.

I didn’t need to think deeply to know who the culprit was.

“The reaction is good. So you’re not just some nobody.”

My head naturally turned toward the source of the voice.

There stood a tall, skinny man.

A pale but rather handsome face. Cold yet crazed red eyes.

Thick, dark red hair like dried blood and neat attire resembling a tailcoat.

From these characteristics alone, I could tell he was Drakel, the vampire noble.

The root cause of this situation where the western labyrinth was filled with zombies.

Between the headaches from overusing my telekinesis, anger boiled up naturally.

Could he sense my emotions even through the cloth?

Drakel, who had drawn magical circles with blood all around, spoke with similarly intense emotion.

“I’ve been looking for you, ghost. You who ruined my magnificent plan!”

“…”

“Heh heh, what an amusing turn of events. Just because of one mistake from that son I despised, I, a vampire noble, have to flee!”

He expressed his anger fervently, to the point where veins popped out in his eyes.

Whether his mana reacted to his emotions, a crushing pressure that seemed to compress space itself could be felt with his roar.

Ah, so the vampire I knocked out earlier was Drakel’s son.

That explained why he was showing such intense anger.

Drakel was one of the nobles in the vampire hierarchy.

Although much weaker compared to his prime, his blood’s danger level still ranked high in this world.

Those who investigated Drakel’s son probably discovered Drakel’s existence as a noble from his body.

After persistent tracking, they must have uncovered traces of his preparations for the Blood Night incident.

All ambushes become useless once their existence is exposed.

Naturally, Drakel’s plans were all shattered, and that’s why he targeted me.

‘Serves him right for not keeping his son in check. It’s his own fault. Fool, idiot.’

Drakel had nothing to feel wronged about.

Even if I hadn’t ruined his plan, the protagonist’s group would have destroyed it eventually.

Even if he succeeded, various forces of Night Haven, feeling the crisis, would have launched a concentrated attack.

There’s no way a washed-up vampire like Drakel could withstand that.

The Blood Night incident was a fundamentally flawed plan from the start.

Whether he realized it or not, the agitated Drakel clenched his fist as if grabbing my neck and shouted with wild laughter.

“I’ll kill you and make you into a ghoul, then leave this city! Besides, a vampire’s life is eternal! Even if not now, someday my wish will surely come true! So die, ghost!”

Drakel’s blood vessels writhed noticeably even from afar.

It was a characteristic of vampires that their blood literally boiled when their emotions ran high.

And from all directions, magical circles made of blood unfolded.

Each one contained powerful magic similar to the attack I barely deflected earlier.

At this rate, my telekinesis would struggle just to defend against them.

Indeed, this was the terrifying strength worthy of a monster who once defeated the protagonist.

An overwhelming opponent whose specialized oppression of the weak made it hard to gauge any chance of victory with just my telekinesis.

I simply had no confidence.

Confidence in losing, that is.

‘Well, if I thought I couldn’t win from the start, I wouldn’t have come this far.’

I quietly closed my eyes and recalled the content from the original work in my memory.

Drakel’s weaknesses, the environment and location of the western labyrinth, and the special nature of my abilities.

A method to win appeared in my mind.

[!– Slider main container –]