Chapter 1 - The man born on Saturday

The street was full of water as the rain had just stopped.

Ben, walking around the entrance of an alley, cursed softly. He didn’t want to be troubled by missing what he almost caught, but it was hard to chase their trace on such a humid day.

Ben wondered whether he should enter the alley or not. He was being more careful than ever because a bad decision could mean he falling into a trap.

Ben stared deeply at the alley as if he didn’t want to miss even the slightest movement.

Tadada.

At that moment, as he heard the sound of a hasty running at the end of the alley, Ben reflexively checked the weapon in his hands.

As he was grabbing one side with his hand, the weapon was lukewarm, forgetting its original temperature. He touched the surface with his stiff fingertips and swallowed dry saliva.

Ben slowly closed his eyes and began to focus on the sound. He held his breath for a moment feeling the wind flowing through his ears.

A little later, the smell of the jerks he had as enemies flowed because of the wind to the tip of his nose. As he turned his body toward the wind, the sound was clearer and their direction became clearer than before.

He opened his eyes and moved in the direction of the sound without hesitation.

They had already been injured. If he just knew their direction, he was sure that he would catch them in an instant.

He stepped while putting strength on his feet so he would not make a sound at all. Stopping at the end of the narrow alley, Ben once again checked the weapon in his arms.

Ben’s skilled sense pointed him to the right.

Take the corner to the right.

He had to take care of it right away without delay or hesitation.

Looking at the starless sky, Ben held the weapon tightly in his hands. The object that was wrapped around his hand was the sensation that he became accustomed to.

Ben turned to the right and placed his finger at the trigger at the same time.

Now, when he pulled the trigger, he should have heard a noise that cut through the air and the sound of falling down, but he didn’t.

The alley where Ben aimed was empty. Feeling bewildered, Ben put the weapon he had pulled out back to him.

This can’t be. Obviously, his senses pointed out clearly, but it was hard to see why not a single rat was in front of him.

With his head tilted, Ben cursed low, thinking that his senses were now dull, but he still took a step without loosening his guard.

He looked through the streets without rushing. He was sure they weren’t far away.

As he moved on, he stepped on a paddle of water that was on the floor. The black sneakers he was wearing got wet and Ben frowned.

After taking a few steps, Ben clicked his tongue in front of the piles of trash. Today’s plan was clearly a failure. The legs of a man were protruding from the piles of trash. Now it was clear.

This seemed to be the identity of the person he felt.

He felt bad when he saw a red color smeared in the middle of the garbage bag under the faint light of a streetlight.

It wasn’t easy to judge whether he was already dead or just collapsed.

Usually, one can see it at a glance, but it wasn’t so easy when the person was lying in a pile of garbage. It seemed like he was human, but his pale face didn’t seem to belong to someone of this world.

Standing still and thinking, Ben judged him to be a human being, so he squatted down to wake him up. The skin reflected in the moonlight was white and blue, and the black hair that seemed to be well combed was slightly messy.

Under dark eyebrows, his eyes were closed. When he looked down to the outstretched nose, he kept looking down now to the thin lips tightly closed, but maybe because his skin was too white, the lips looked exceptionally red.

In Ben’s mind, while he was looking closely at his face, it occurred to him that he should suspect him as he did not know the target’s face exactly.

Ben sighed deeply and put two fingers, his index finger and middle ones, on the neck of the man lying against a pile of garbage, and the other hand naturally headed for the weapon.

He prepared to shoot right away at the moment, but soon Ben had no choice but to laugh at the faint pulse he felt at his fingertips. Maybe he needed to stop suspecting him.

“Sir.”

Ben patted the man on the cheek and called him, but the man didn’t move a bit. He shook his shoulder a little harder, and this time he didn’t react again. Ben slowly examined the man’s appearance this time. Dressed in a neat three-piece suit, he didn’t suit a London’s alley at all. He didn’t really know, but the sleek shoes also looked luxurious.

Ben clicked his tongue while alternately looking at his sneakers and the man’s shoes. He had no idea how the man came all the way to this place in London in that outfit.

Ben pondered for a moment. He thought the man might be their prey if he left him like this, so he stood up holding the man’s arm over his shoulder and supporting him.

As his face got closer, he looked at the man once again. Even though he checked his pulse, his pale face still didn’t look like the one of a human being, so he felt uncomfortable in a corner of his heart.

He leaned the man back against the wall and looked at him, turning his neck to the right and once to the left. He didn’t see any particular marks, but somehow he didn’t think he should take him to the headquarters.

It wasn’t clear whether he was a victim or not, and the perpetrator could have been acting.

Ben laughed so pathetically that he couldn’t stop doubting him even though there was no clear evidence, and helped the man lean back on him. He pulled the man’s arm closer to his shoulder, and he still didn’t show any signs of coming to his senses.

Because of Ben’s height, the man’s feet were dragged and his luxurious shoes were likely to be damaged, but he couldn’t afford to care about it. For now, it was enough to take care of him with an umbrella. It wasn’t pleasant because the smell of them still remained in his nose because of the damp air of London. Plus, the fact that he missed the target made me feel worse.

Out of the alley, Ben reached out for a taxi home.

He threw the umbrella on the floor of the taxi and pushed the man in the back seat first. As he got on the side, he said the destination, and leaned on the seat.

The taxi driver looked suspiciously at the half unconscious man, but Ben pretended not to notice. Feeling the body moving, Ben looked back at the face of the man sitting next to him.

Although I’ve never done this before, I still can’t tell if the man sitting next to me is human or not.

If he were a person, Ben could help him, but if not, he had to finish him at once, but Ben couldn’t say hastily how to act because he couldn’t tell it. Ben turned his head and stared still at the moon that appeared on the car window. The unpleasant sensation and smell stuck deep in his nose and didn’t fade away.

It was hard to know whether the congestion was due to the man next to him or the irritation of missing the target. A feeling of discomfort similar to what he felt after learning his identity for the first time surrounded his body.

Ben buried himself deeper in the seat and closed his eyes. Memories swarmed as his past and present were mixed up.

***

A 27-year-old affiliated with the London Police Department was Ben’s personal information. Ben, with blonde hair and blue eyes, was raised by a single mother, who passed away when he was 20 years old and became an orphan.

But his real job was working with the police department as a professional vampire hunter. His mother was a victim of vampire sexual assault and attempted murder.

Originally she had been born outside London and was raised in a world full of beauty without knowing how the real one was. She was a very ordinary girl who was happy in it.

If she hadn’t been through that, it would have continued like that all along.

His mother’s misfortune began the night when she came to London to marry the man his parents decided to marry.

On her way to the lodging that night, she first encountered it, a vampire sucking human blood. There was nothing that a delicate woman could do with her body, so she ended up fainting after one scream.

When she opened her eyes again, it was a police hospital and there were traces of sexual intercourse on her body.

The break-off of the engagement went on as if it were only natural and her mother went back to town. She learned later that she was pregnant, and that made her no longer able to live even in the town.

Dreaming of a happy wedding and a happy family, the girl became a woman who only had malice. She gave birth alone in a warehouse and gave the child the name Benjamin herself.

Without a proper father, the child naturally followed his mother’s last name. Benjamin Edgar. That was the only thing Ben inherited from his mother. It was only once that she smiled in front of Ben’s eyes.

“You don’t know how happy I am that you were born on Saturday.”

He didn’t know why she was so happy at that time. It wasn’t until later that he found out that people born on Saturday had the ability to recognize them .

When she lived with Ben, she worked in a small bar. She was always either drunk or mumbling as she read a thick book full of strange pictures.

Thanks to her beautiful appearance and body shape, it was routine for Ben to see how men came out of his mother’s room in the morning.

They often had breakfast, gave Ben candy or an allowance, sometimes hit his mother who was a little less drunk, and when she was hit, the mother often murmured that the child born on Saturday would grow up quickly and kill them all.

When he first heard that, Ben mistook his mother for asking him to kill the men, so he once punched a man who hit his mother. Of course the little kid’s punching had no effect.

Ben’s mother said when the man just left as if she was in a bad mood.

“Don’t do useless things.”

“You asked me to kill him.”

Seven-year-old Ben responded to his mother, and then was slapped on the cheek. His mother stared at him.

“I’m not talking about those things. What you have to kill is them , you must kill them for your mom. You can do it, right?”

The younger Ben couldn’t figure out what needed to be killed, that wasn’t those men. He didn’t understand what to kill or if that was something you’d say to your son.

Ben didn’t really know a thing.

Why does mother always look at herself with a painful face? And why don’t you love yourself like other mothers?

The younger Ben was full of unknowns and loneliness grew in him.

“Just who do I need to kill! If you want me to kill them so badly, then force me.”

He couldn’t stand it anymore and Ben screamed. Ben was too young to know he had to kill someone, and his mother’s gaze was so heavy that he could no longer stand it.

The moment Ben screamed, a heavy silence stayed briefly. Then, his mother’s scream followed.

“That’s the only one reason I gave birth to you. That’s why I didn’t kill you!!”

Having repeated convulsions, she pretended to have lost her mind. Frightened by the sight, Ben finally cried and prayed for a long time that he was wrong. It wasn’t until he crawled all over the floor on his knees that his mother finally forgave him and went to sleep like she had fainted.

“Ben.”

After he cried himself to sleep, Ben opened his eyes to the voice calling for him early in the morning.

As far as he could remember, it was the first and last time his mother gently called him Ben, not Benjamin. It was a very friendly voice, but it felt creepy and scary.

Ben got up from bed.

“Listen. You’re not human.”

As he moved to straighten his posture, his mother’s words were like a heavy and firm rock moving toward Ben, who was disconcerted by the sudden statement. It was scary for a seven-year-old to hear that he wasn’t a human. He was so scared that he couldn’t even cry.

“I tried to die several times knowing that you were in my womb.”

His mother sat down on the edge of the bed and spat out the cold words in a calm voice.

“I-if I’m not human then?”

Ben managed to ask in a trembling voice. He felt like he would just cry if he didn’t ask something. His mother put her hand slightly on Ben’s shoulder. The body temperature that he felt on his shoulder felt awkward and unfamiliar, so his back was full of cold sweat.

“A dhampir.”

Ben blinked at the word he heard for the first time. He was confused as the story that his mother told Ben didn’t feel realistic at all. Nevertheless, he had no choice but to believe it.

The power of his mother’s grip on his shoulder as she talked was growing to the point of having pain. The eyes facing him were clear, not drunk or murky.

She said that he had an ability that existed only for a child born between a woman and a vampire, and that was called a dhampir, the only cursed beings who could kill those who lived an eternal life.

If a dhampir decided to stab a vampire’s heart or neck, he could kill a vampire even if he didn’t have any ability. In the same way, humans can only kill the humans, but dhampirs can kill vampires. Moreover, a dhampir who was born on Saturday can identify them. It is said that no matter how much the appearance of a human a vampire had, a dhampir could distinguish them by a sixth sense.

It was amazing that vampires actually existed, but he couldn’t believe that dhampir, their natural enemy, existed. How can a creature with a natural enemy live forever in the first place? As if she had read the curiosity on Ben’s face, his mother kept telling him.

A dhampir wasn’t as easy to be born as Ben thought.

It’s the same as if humans bleed a lot, they’ll die. Sometimes they become a vampire if all the blood wasn’t sucked.

It was rarely left on purpose, and newly generated blood from the heart and the saliva from the vampire were mixed to circulate through blood vessels, turning humans into vampires.

The process was so painful that some people died because they couldn’t stand it. In the end, they were reborn as a vampire only when several conditions and odds matched, and the more difficult thing was the birth of a dhampir.

Vampires were like beasts who became more eager to suck blood during sex. Few vampires could endure the desire to drink blood when doing it, and there was no reason for vampires to create conditions for the birth of a dhampir.

In short, it was really a coincidence.

For his mother, however, vampires were the source of evil that ruined her wish for happiness.

She, who lived without any motivation, said that when she heard about dhampirs like an urban horror story because of children passing by while walking on the street, she was sure that God gave her a chance for revenge.

If vampires existed, why wouldn’t dhampirs? Since then, his mother had studied vampires and decided to keep living.

After that, she gave birth to her son and said that she waited for her son to grow up.

“I think you’re still young, but sooner or earlier…”

His mother stopped talking for a moment and looked into Ben’s eyes. Ben couldn’t avoid her gaze and looked at her holding his shoulder.

“It will be something you must do.”

After hearing the story, Ben realized thoroughly why his mother didn’t kill him. The day he was born, he became the perfect person to complete her revenge. However, no matter how talented he could be, it was useless if he didn’t develop it.

After telling Ben all the story, she persistently taught Ben only one thing: revenge. If Ben hadn’t been born on Saturday, she would have abandoned Benjamin. She raised Ben solely just for revenge.

After that day, Ben learned everything his mother taught him faithfully. It was better than doing what he was told than not knowing anything.

The reason his mother didn’t love him was because of vampires, so he turned all his hatred to them. He decided to take revenge for the woman who was trapped in misery and lived lonely.

Ben desperately learned because he didn’t want to be hated by his mother and didn’t want to be abandoned.

He got up in the morning and ran up to the mountain to learn how to handle knives and guns from his mother’s guests. They were all full of bluff, but some of them were excellent.

After teaching Ben for half a day, they would go to his mother’s room as if it were natural at night. Ben wondered what they were doing in her room until he was ten years old, because as he grew older, Ben decided not to think deeply about their relationship with his mother.

Ben, who had always been quiet, became less and less talkative.

His mother frantically researched and constantly studied vampires during the course of time. She was busy teaching them all to her son. She acted as if he existed in the world only for that.

His mother cursed her fate, hating Ben, who was the proof of what happened, but lived in hope that one day Ben would kill them all.

When Ben took the neck of the vampire for the first time at the age of fifteen, his mother was happy at first but soon disappointed that it wasn’t him .

Every day, he went around looking for a place where vampires might be, and killed them after meeting them, but his mother complained that none of those were him.

When Ben was twenty, his mother was stabbed to death by a drunken man. It really was a futile death.

She was taken to the hospital for first aid, but she didn’t last a single day, closing for the last time her eyes to Ben, who needed to find him and kill him .

And at that time, Ben was so quick-witted that he could naturally tell that, when his mother said him , it meant his biological father.

No one had ordered Ben to kill the vampire since his mother died. That’s why he didn’t have to go around hunting vampires anymore.

But while he was born and raised, Ben learned nothing but vampire hunting and, of course, there was nothing else he could do.

Ben moved to London and hunted vampires to make money. Ben, who was left alone in the world, wanted to find the man his mother told him.

And if he had the chance, Ben was willing to kill him as his mother wanted. But for now, finding was more important than killing. Twenty-eight years ago, a vampire who disappeared after a sexual assault in a London’s back street. Ben wanted to find the culprit of the vampire rape case, that was an unsolved case, and ask him why he didn’t suck all of her blood.

If she had been a proper vampire, he would never have been born, and either she had died or become a vampire, his mother would have been less unhappy.

***

When the taxi stopped, Ben grabbed the umbrella in one hand and pulled the man out of the back seat with the other one.

With the front door opened and the umbrella leaning against it, Ben laid the dragging man down to the bed with a thud.

With awkward hand movements, he unbuttoned the vest and untied the tie that was tightening his neck. He still looked stuffy, and he was muttering while the buttons were being unbuttoned carefully one by one. Ben couldn’t figure out why he was lying down there, but he missed the target and found someone that was like a strange lump of luggage.

Ben thought he’d ignore him as if he didn’t notice it, but it was strange to do so.

First of all, I didn’t want to let him go easily because Ben felt like he wasn’t human, and if he was, he could be their prey, so this act of kindness was nothing.

He unbuttoned three or four buttons and looked again, but there seemed to be no particular wound on his body. As there were no outward wounds, he got more curious. There was blood all over the garbage bag where the man was lying, and he fainted and fell down. It was as if someone had moved him there. Or maybe he deliberately leaned over there and closed his eyes.

The thought that this person might be the target crossed his mind once again.

Ben shook his head slowly as he stared at the man who still couldn’t open his eyes. Then he tried to remind that the man had fainted but clearly felt his pulse.

After unbuttoning it to make it easier, Ben pressed the abdomen where the man had muscles with his palm. Since the wound may not be visible because it was covered by clothes, he pressed here and there with his palm in suspicion of internal damage, but there was nothing particularly noticeable.

Ben took a step back and took a slow look at the man lying in bed. Ben, rolling his eyes, slightly moved his head up, sat on the floor and leaned on his back on the bed. With the perception that this was a safe space, the tension was relieved, and the fatigue caused by the mission failure hit his body. Ben thought it would be more comfortable to lie down on the couch, but he didn’t want to lift a finger, so he blinked and then closed his eyes.

When Miller opened his eyes, he frowned as he saw the ceiling much lower than he remembered.

Miller, who closed his eyes again to recall his memory, was convinced that it was the darkest time right before dawn, around 3 a.m. Miller tried to remember his day until he fell asleep. He intentionally leaked information that a big shot among vampires would move. He took the blood and drug that he had prepared to the end of the alley to avoid the chasing dhampir’s presence, and intentionally put blood in a garbage bag to make it look like an accident.

He sat on a pile of messy garbage although he didn’t want to, combed his hair a few times with his palm and fell asleep right away.

He was sure that he had asked for a drug that would have woken him up in an hour, but Miller’s dongsaeng seemed to have given him something that lasted longer. He had always been a little devil, so even if Miller thought two hours would be enough, he shortened it and asked for the one hour one.

As he slowly raised his body while forgetting about his dongsaeng for a while, he saw the back of a blonde head at the foot of the bed.

A dhampir, Benjamin Edgar, who he deliberately came to meet in advance. It had been difficult to recognize his identity at a glance when he had met him a yard away. He made it look like an accident on purpose to break down the boundary between them before they worked together.

According to the information he had collected so far, he didn’t easily trust others, but he wasn’t tough enough to ignore those in trouble. It said that he was a good person with a sense of justice, and to be honest, he was stupid. Doesn’t you bringing me to your apartment for the first time count as evidence?

Based on the information, he couldn’t fail, and as Ben was worried about him, it seemed to be a success. Of course, in the current situation, it’s a half success.

Miller slowly stepped down from the bed. He didn’t like the way the buttons were loosened, but for now, he checked Ben first. He went to the front of the man dozing on the floor with his back leaning on the bed.

He couldn’t see his face because he was lowering his head. Miller licked his lips with his tongue, looking at the back of his head that had fallen forward.

An unstable sensation, an ominous atmosphere. The blonde man seemed to not feel any of it.

Then, he squatted in front of him and touched his chin to get a closer look at his face. Ben didn’t show any signs of waking up, but Miller felt uncomfortable with the cool touch that had just touched his chin.

“What the-?”

It was clear that he had a habit of taking weapons even when he was sleeping.

“I’m sorry.”

With a startled voice, his body fell to the floor and spread out the soles of both hands as a support. The man with the round back of his head slowly raised his face as the gun that touched his chin was put away. The blue eyes, which were blue enough to make him wonder when he started to doze off, sparkled darkly. Even though his opponent made a gesture of surrender, Ben still remained vigilant.

Showing his displeasure, Ben looked slowly at the man in front of him. He was wearing the same clothes.

The close man’s body smelled pungent. His head was all dizzy because of the unknown smell of the fabric softener, perfume, or its unique scent.

Although Miller was disconcerted by the aimed gun, he didn’t feel like begging for his life. There was a sigh when Ben saw a fake smile hanging around Miller’s mouth, trying to look like a good person.

“If you’ve come to your senses, you should go.”

Ben standed up while rubbing his neck. He checked the weapon once again, sat on his butt on the bed and checked his shoelaces again.

Because of a habit that he didn’t even remember when started, Ben couldn’t take off his shoes even when he was going to sleep. Ben’s life didn’t know whether to run away or chase him.

The man’s gaze stayed tenaciously checking his shoes. It occurred to Ben that he must have picked up a cumbersome lump of luggage.

“Is there anything you want to ask?”

“Ah, where is this place?”

He was at a loss because of the question, as it was one that any human could ask.

It’s time for me to quit this job. I don’t know how many times I’ve been wrong today.

“Do you know any taxi numbers?”

Miller didn’t rush but quickly asked for the information he wanted. Ben answered the questions one after another and tried to lie in bed.

“I’m in debt with you. Can you tell me your name?”

Miller begged in a polite tone. It felt antique, like a movie set in the Middle Ages.

Leaning on the head of the bed, Ben tilted his head to the left and looked at him again. He seemed determined not to budge unless he told him too. A pointless proud temper had appeared.

“Didn’t you learn that it’s polite to reveal yours before you ask?”

The face of the man, who apparently grew up in a wealthy environment, slightly changed and then returned to its original state.

“O’Donoughue. Miller O’Donoughue.”

A soft voice said in the quiet room.

“Benjamin Edgar.”

Leaning on the bed, Benjamin spit out his name, saying, “Is that all for now?” and turned around, making a posture to sleep.

Miller’s clear gray eyes glowed as he looked at him. Now the only thing that filled his head was the fact that he found him.

As Miller swallowed his dry saliva once and slowly reached for him, an annoying voice was heard in the room.

“You can leave the door open.”

Now it just meant that he needed to leave right now.

When he looked out the window, the darkness was fading. Miller stepped back about two steps and turned back as he stared at the bed. He said as he opened the door and went out.

“See you later, Ben.”

The sound of his voice calling his name pretending to be friendly got stuck in his ears.

He shouldn’t hate people for no particular reason, but he didn’t like the man he just met for a little while. Ben didn’t know if he was a human or not, but no matter how much he thought about it, it was clear that it was useless.

Hello! Someone already translated half of the book, but as they dropped it, I picked it up. I don’t really like to tl where someone else left it, so I’ll start from scratch. I know almost everyone won’t read my version until I’ve caught up with the previous translator, so I’ll update when I can. Also, if you’re willing to read my translation, I’ll give you a cookie~~

Oh, btw, I’m looking for an editor or a proofreader for this novel, so come and join the foxaholic discord server if you’re interested.