Chapter 2 - MKV

Feeling down as he couldn’t sleep because of the man last night, Ben began to prepare for work. After taking a shower, he dried his hair with a towel, making his golden hair sparkle under the sunlight that came into the room through the window.

Ben pulled a black shirt over his head as he walked back and forth in the living room with a frown after drying his hair.

He was thinking about something to eat, but he didn’t have appetite, so he stopped. He wanted to smoke rather than eat.

He put on jeans and his old sneakers he had taken off before taking a shower. He shouldered the gun, checking the ammunition as a habit, and putting it in the gun. Finally, he wore a leather jacket and looked into the mirror.

The blonde hair still looked dark as it was wet. Because he didn’t eat properly, his body was skinny with only muscles.

Ben swept his hair once with the palm of his hand, reached out to open the door and saw the umbrella next to the door. It was clear that it belonged to the man.

Did he just leave without taking it?

Ben opened the door, thinking that he would never return the umbrella as they would never meet again.

The cold wind of a winter morning slapped him on the cheek and passed by. Ben mumbled in his heart that it was very cold and then moved on.

Ben usually was free to go to work whenever, so he didn’t have to go in the morning, but he failed yesterday, so he wanted to go early and get new information about the target.

The most dangerous time was when winter was over and spring was approaching. When people who stayed at home all winter began to wander around until late at night, the vampires began to act like predators, and children often didn’t come to their senses because of the rapidly increasing number of people.

At that time, he wanted to stay home, saying he didn’t know anything, but he didn’t want to let them around freely.

The target he was chasing last night was said to be the one who was close to be the head of all of them. Ben wished he had captured him alive, but if he hadn’t, he should have killed him, but he lost him during the chase. This was really a big failure.

He had never made a mistake, but he had failed such an important task. He might be restricted from doing future works.

Arriving at the London Police Department on foot by the subway, Ben stood in front of the building and read the words Scotland Yard. The nickname “The Scottish Police Department” originated from the location of the Scottish Castle and was now more famous than the word “London Police Department.”.

When he looked up at the yard building, the newly built glass building shone beautifully. It was clear that the glass building would be bright inside without the light being turned on because of the sunlight that came through.

Ben walked being tense. Ben’s sneakers slipped on the well cleaned hallway floor. He passed the familiar interior, took the elevator inside and got off on the 4th floor.

The entire long hallway was so bright that the winter sunlight that had just risen showed off its presence that it stung his eyes.

When selecting the location of the headquarters for the first time, it was talked about selecting a location underground because the department MKV to which Ben belonged was not an official department.

After hearing that, Ben threatened them to do so if they wanted them to barge in at any time.

Vampires adapt as humans do. As a result, there were some who could walk around during the day if the sun hid through the clouds as they got older.

That’s why Britain was the most densely populated place for vampires. Britain had more cloudy days than bright ones, so it was just the right place for them to live. But what’s the difference if the headquarters are underground, why don’t you just take them in?

Even the little ones won’t be able to rush easily if they see the light of the sun. Ben literally objected, saying he would quit his job if the headquarters were located underground.

No one directly agreed to Ben, who was just a sergeant at the time, but MKV was finally located on the fourth floor with the most direct sunlight within the yard.

Standing in front of the office door, Ben chuckled at the sign on the door. MKV, it was a childish name to see at any time.

As Ben opened the door, the noisy headquarters became quiet and attention to him was poured all over. It was also clear that the mission failure that happened yesterday was already known.

Ben trotted over as if he didn’t care a bit and began to head to his seat at the very end.

The MKV headquarters had good sunlight in every corner because the wall was all made of glass. The size of his private desk was small because he rarely sat at his desk. Instead, there was a large table in the middle that was about three meters long and on top of it was a large map of London.

On the map, it was checked on every place where a vampire’s blood suction had occurred: once in yellow, twice in orange and more than three times in red.

Data on the marked points could be found on the bookcase occupying the wall across the window and the computerized data also could be viewed.

In the event of a murder or kidnapping, MKV was divided into an intelligence team to determine whether it was committed by a human being or by a vampire, an investigation team searching for vampires based on information sent by the intelligence team, and finally, a killer team that catches and kills them, Ben was, of course, in the killer team.

However, the relationship between the three teams worked so organically that they had to be able to do all the work no matter which team they belonged to. In other words, a field team and a non-field team would be the right expression.

In the middle of the map on the table, Ben checked where he missed his target yesterday, but there was no sign that a blood absorption had happened.

Then what on earth did I sense?

No matter how hard he thought, the cause of his failure is the lack of information about the target.

“Ben, come in as soon as you get here.”

Roxy, who tied her red hair high before she even sat down, said. Roxy was an office worker at MKV who used to work in the field. He didn’t know exactly, but now she just worked as the secretary of the inspector.

Ben sighed quietly, looking up at the private office that was half-step away. He seemed to think that he had gone to work because he failed his mission yesterday. It seems like he’s going to nag hard, the blinds are all closed so that it can’t be seen from the outside. He could already see what he was going to say.

As he was heading to his seat, Ben turned around and went up the stairs. As he approached the office door, a familiar smell wafted faintly and Ben sniffed with his head slightly tilted. The smell was somewhere hanging in front of the inspector’s room door.

Unable to hide his suspicion, Ben slowly opened the door by turning the handle with strength in his hand.

When he opened the door, there were two people inside who were invisible to him because of the blinds. One was Inspector Bradley, now in charge of the front line, and the other was surprisingly the man of last night, Miller O’Donoughue.

Miller O’Donoughue had tousled hair and passed his hand through his pitch-black black hair that had flowed over his forehead to prevent it from falling down, and was wearing a tight navy three-piece suit.

The umbrella he saw on the front porch of his apartment in the morning flashed through Ben’s head.

“We met again.”

Ignoring Miller’s friendly words, Ben looked at the inspector and asked who he was.

“Have you met before? Then it’ll be easier. Come sit down.”

The gray-haired senior inspector spoke affectionately to Ben, who was still standing by the door.

Ben walked slowly, staring at the man sitting at the meeting table. During the short moment of walking from the door to the chair with a strong unpleasant scent, all the thoughts came to his mind.

Is Miller the same person, he came here as a victim, or is he the vampire that my sense told me yesterday?

While various hypotheses were going through his head, what he heard was completely different from what he expected.

“This is Director Miller O’Donoughue of MI6, and this is chief inspector Benjamin Edgar of MKV. Ah, maybe you knew about this already?”

O’Donoghue shook his head at the chief inspector who spoke noisily, and Ben was still busy cleaning up his confused head.

‘MI6? Why MI6? Isn’t it just a normal human organization no matter how prominent it is?’

Ben blinked his big eyes and sat opposite O’Donoughue in a slow motion. The word handsome came to his mind when he looked straight at the forehead and sleek nose in front of his clear mind from a bright place.

But he looked too young to have the title of MI6 director. Ben didn’t know if he was older than he looked or if he was raised through his skills. Ben was just confused because he didn’t look like the director he saw on the news.

“How far did you tell him?”

“I failed to capture him alive yesterday.”

The inspector seemed so nervous that he even sweated on his forehead and gave a servile look to O’Donoughue.

“What are you doing?”

“As a result of yesterday’s failure, I decided that I couldn’t leave this to MKV alone, so MI6 decided to intervene.”

“Isn’t MI6 the intelligence office? What could they do? It has nothing to do with going to another country and stealing information.”

As Ben sarcastically said, O’Donoghue’s neatly brows were frowned. Ben was offended by the way he expressed displeasure with simple actions without saying anything. He was the epitome of unhappiness.

“Didn’t you fail yesterday because there wasn’t enough information?”

Without being easily taken for provocation, he spoke decisively. The way he said that he already knew everything was annoying. Miller looked at Ben with a brazen face. In fact, yesterday’s failure was natural. Yesterday Ben moved based on the information leaked from MI6, and more than half of the information was false.

“How much do you know? Why were you there yesterday?”

“I was just working, like the chief inspector.”

Ben blatantly laughed at him when he said he was there. Miller frowned his brow once again and opened his mouth.

“As a result, everyone was on edge because of yesterday’s mission failure.”

For a moment, Ben wondered how far everything the MI6 director said would go. The queen knew it, so it wasn’t easy to determine whether she was declaring that she would intervene so confidently, or even the prime minister, who is lower than that.

“Does MI6 know everything we do?”

“Not really.” Miller answered Ben’s question in a monotonous voice. “MKV is a special organization, so of course we only know the minimum amount of information, but we know it’s dangerous when spring comes.”

“…”

“The goal of this mission is essentially to deal with it before spring begins.”

Miller immediately brought up the main point when Ben didn’t respond to the follow-up explanation.

“We’re not dealing with human criminals. I don’t know how much their information can help us.”

“Benjamin Edgar, you were 15 years old when you started and it wasn’t until you were 23 that you were affiliated. Isn’t the reason you’ve been good enough for nearly a decade alone without belonging to this organization but then joined because you need information? In MKV you can shoot and stab, like you usually do, and our part is to collect the rest of the information.”

As Ben squeezed his lips as if he was annoyed, Miller wedged.

“And, do you know? The guy you’re looking for is in the information we handed over?”

The prominent MI6 director seemed to have thoroughly investigated this civilian, Benjamin Edgar. Then maybe he already knew his identity when he saw his face yesterday.

Ben’s eyes flashed sharply. Miller slowly rose from his seat as he seemed to bite off his mouth if he teased him anymore.

“I don’t think I have anything more to say.”

Miller said to the inspector and walked toward the door without hesitation. Every movement overflowed with elegance.

Ben didn’t take his eyes off Miller until he closed the door and left. As the door closed with a click and Miller wasn’t seen, Ben stared at the inspector and opened his mouth.

“All of a sudden?”

“MI6 knew it from the beginning, because their eyes are everywhere, and O’Donoughue is directly sent under the Queen.”

The inspector spoke slowly in a tone that sounded very natural. Ben looked at the inspector. Somehow he didn’t have any motivation to work. It wasn’t a sweet intervention from Ben’s point of view that only humans would do it if it were the Queen’s direct organization.

“MKV was with MI5, and now suddenly with MI6.”

Ben shouldn’t have argued that it wasn’t really important.

The security of the United Kingdom was largely divided between MI5 and MI6, and if MI5 strives for security in its own country, MI6 was in charge of foreign security. Because MKV belonged to the London Metropolitan Police Agency and Yard, Ben argued that it should strictly belong to MI5, not MI6. MI6 was a useless organization that appeared out of nowhere.

“MKV originally belonged to MI6.”

He shook his head, meaning that it was no use considering it. Ben held back when he wanted to ask if it really was originally with MI6 and waited for the next words.

“Simply put, it’s a state secret organization, so of course it belongs to MI6.”

He wondered what it would matter whether it was MI5, 6, or even 7 if it was directly under the control of the Queen.

“I thought MKV was only in charge of the country’s cases.”

When Ben sneered at him as if he was catching straws, the inspector sighed quietly.

“Not all of the MKV agents were born on Saturday, or they were born as humans, so they’re at a disadvantage in many ways. And according to information from MI6, their number has been increasing rapidly in the U.K., especially in London. We’ve decided it’s urgent, so we’re going to provide the information collected by MI6 to the MKV.”

“So was MI6 involved in yesterday’s capture mission?”

Ben stopped talking for a long time and asked what he was most curious about.

“The source of the information was MI6, but I didn’t say much because you didn’t really care about it.”

Upon hearing the answer, Ben jumped out of his seat swearing low and left the office. As he closed the door to make a bang, all the other employees outside looked at Ben. It seemed that everyone knew Miller’s identity.

“Are you all right?”

Roxy asked and Ben raised his hand lightly and stepped out of the office.

I can’t believe what the inspector said. I don’t know if that man really didn’t know or if he did but didn’t tell me.

In his fifth year at MKV, Ben seriously wondered if it was time to leave the organization. If the organization is that large, he will be restricted from working. He would be in trouble this way.

It would be better to move alone if he thought about hunting, but Ben wanted to find the guy his mother told him. Given that, the amount of information coming from the organization couldn’t be ignored. However, there was no guarantee that the quality of information would improve more if humans intervened.

Damn MKV. I thought it standed for Meeting to Kill the Vampire. I didn’t know it was actually Military to Kill the Vampire.

Ben left the yard building and headed for the convenience store. Even if he had the urge to smoke, he felt like his current frustration would go away.

Feeling a car following him on his way out of the building to the convenience store, Ben blatantly frowned.

Are they following me because it’s an information gathering organization?

Ben slowed his steps on purpose. As Ben slowed down, the following car slowed down as well.

As Miller said, he belonged to the organization because he lacked information, but he didn’t want something this annoying to happen.

When Ben stopped walking completely, the car slowed down and stopped next to the sidewalk. When he turned his head and glanced at it, the car window went down smoothly, showing the face he just saw in the meeting room.

“If you haven’t eaten yet, shall we eat together?”

“I’ll reject it.”

“I don’t know what you don’t like, but be mature. It won’t do you any good to be awkward when we’re working together.”

Ben tried to get angry again because his tone and behavior seemed to be dealing with a rude dongsaeng. But I’m not Miller O’Donoughue’s dongsaeng?

But if he got angry now, he would really think he was being immature, so he touched the handle of the stopped car door. The door opened smoothly, and Miller moved inside to provide a place for Ben to sit.

The air in the car was no different from the outside, perhaps because the heater wasn’t turned on. Ben cringed at the cool energy.

The smell became thicker when they were close in the enclosed space. He didn’t like the smell from him because it was just like theirs . The smell was sweet and soft enough to seduce ordinary people, feeling cool and warm at the same time.

Ben looked sideways at Miller, who didn’t even say where he was going.

Pale and lifeless, his skin didn’t seem human at all; it would feel as cold as the air was if he touched it. Even though Ben checked his pulse yesterday, he turned his head out of the car window because he found it funny to observe from the side of his eye.

The clear sunshine he felt on his way to work was all gone and now it was cloudy. He felt frustrated because he couldn’t see it properly because of the black tinted glass.

As Ben turned his head, Miller looked at him slowly this time.

His eyes sparkled to the point of having the light sunlight reflected. His golden hair was clean and he had roughly combed it without proper care. Miller thought the sun-like color of Ben’s hair and the gloomy London were very out of place.

As Miller shifted his eyes, he noticed his tightly closed lips and blue eyes with innocence. The color of his eyes were western, but the slightly raised eye corners felt oriental. The exquisite harmony was young, lively and not human-like.

It was clear that it was a very handsome face. Who would think he was doing such a thing with such a graceful face.

The car stopped past Tower Bridge, to the entrance to the hotel, which felt too luxurious to only eat.

After getting out of the car, Ben looked at Miller silently.

Miller felt Ben’s gaze, but he still moved, and the bellboy, who was standing at the entrance, opened the door. Ben followed Miller, who disappeared as if he were sucked into the door in a smooth motion. Entering the colorful interior, Ben thought his attire wasn’t suitable for such a luxury hotel. Miller turned right at the hotel lobby and entered the hotel restaurant. The staff led Miller to his seat when they saw his face, and Miller sat down first and waited for Ben to do so too.

As Ben sat across, Miller opened the menu. He looked at the menu and then at Ben.

Ben opened his mouth wanting to say that he would not order.

“I don’t know much about this stuff. Order in moderation.”

Miller finished the order by calling the staff immediately without saying anything more and he talked about the courses and chef recommendations.

A little later, a series of delicious dishes came out, but somehow Ben couldn’t move his hands easily.

The feeling that he had believed and relied on since he was born was that the man sitting in front of him should not be trusted. It was a bad habit to doubt a person only with their sincerity, but he decided not to think of it as a big problem because the object of suspicion may not be a human.

Ben stared at his mouth after Miller cut the meat and tasted it as if it was a standard meal method in a book. Although there are often people who eat human food, he had never seen such a well-educated movement. Was it his pure sense as he expected? Even now, he was barely holding back what he wanted to see again due to the subtle scent.

“What are you thinking about?”

“I thought the meal was brilliant.”

In a subtle twist, Miller put down the knife he was holding with a noise and stared at him.

“What makes you so unhappy?”

“You knew me, but pretended not to.”

Ben spoke right away as if he had spoken the truth. Judging from the words in the senior inspector’s office, it made no sense that the celebrated MI6 director didn’t know MKV member Benjamin Edgar’s face.

“I haven’t seen nor received any pictures separately.”

Miller said smoothly whether he received any expected questions. He did a background check on Benjamin Edgar, so Ben didn’t believe that he had never seen the picture.

“Believe me when I speak, I don’t think I was a problem to you that day.”

Ben kept his mouth shut like a mute. If he believed his words that he had never received photo reports, Miller didn’t do anything from the night he first met to today. Only his own intuition made him suspicious and wary. He only had a hunch.

Because of his habit of not being able to sleep deeply, Ben could tell it right away from anyone nearby by moving just a little. But last night, he didn’t notice the man in front of him even though he was right in front of him. He only realized it the moment he reached out.

He had never seen anyone so capable of hiding their presence before. If he wasn’t a human, then his imagination alone creeped him out.

Miller stared at the silent Ben. He was more doubtful and cautious than he thought. If his memory was correct, he certainly didn’t do anything that would end in him being caught when he first saw chief inspector Benjamin that day. He didn’t know whether it was wisdom from experience or just too good.

Anyway, it was frustrating now that he didn’t release his guard easily so he was annoyed.

“First you cover me up and now you’re suspecting me?”

“I’ve done it before, and I’ve been hurt more than once.”

Ben said face to face without avoiding the eyes he encountered. An unknown air current flowed between the eyes of the two.

It was Miller who first raised the white flag in the tense atmosphere as they weren’t stepping back from each other. He gazed at the wine glass with a light sigh.

“Well, then we’ll get to know each other little by little.”

Ben, who was going to say he didn’t want to get to know each other, kept his mouth shut as he had a smile that looked like he was a good person. Instead of having a conversation, he picked up the fork on the table and dipped the salmon in front of him. Then he cleaned the food in his lips without saying a word.

After dinner, Miller left with Ben who got into the car, nervously closing the door. He tried to look like a nice guy, but he didn’t say a word properly throughout the meal. Ben knew he deliberately chose the dishes so it’d take a long time to finish. He didn’t stop being suspicious, nor did he let go of his guard.

He was sensitive unlike how he was born. Well, he was so sensitive that that could be the reason he killed so many vampires, but he didn’t like it.

At this rate, it wasn’t worth meeting in advance before work. But last night, he thought of him as a human being and took him to his apartment to take care of him. He was frustrated because he didn’t know the point when his vigilance was shut down.

He thought it wouldn’t be easy, but Ben didn’t seem to be much more of a person to move his way than he expected. He was waiting until he passed out, but it wasn’t worth it.