Return of the Frozen Player

The Vampire’s House located east of Trium was a hideout used by vampires to carry out secret tasks.

‘There are apparently torture facilities here.’

Fortunately, the torture that was being conducted here wasn’t the kind of torture that Seo Jun-Ho was worried about.

‘I hope I’m not too late.’

As long as Yuri Alekseyev was still breathing, Seo Jun-Ho would still be able to save her life. It didn’t matter even if she no longer had any limbs. However, the story would change if she was no longer human.

‘If she got bitten and became a vampire… I’ll have no choice but to kill her with mercy.’

Seo Jun-Ho approached the Vampire’s House.

“I really feel like I’m walking on thin ice these days… am I the only one who feels that way?”

“I bet everyone feels the same. From the apostles to even Paradox… it feels like something is going to happen.”

“And who was that human that Stigma brought back with him?”

“Who knows? No one really knows what he’s thinking.”

A few ordinary vampires were playing card games inside the Vampire’s House, and not a single one of them was standing guard outside. Naturally, it was all because of the sunlight.

“Well, I guess there’s no need for us to worry about that—hmm?” One of the vampires stood up when he noticed a clump of darkness on the ceiling while raising his head to drink his alcohol. “Is that dust?”

He instinctively reached out his hand for the ceiling, but the clump of darkness fell on top of the table and turned into a human.

“W-what?!”

“An intruder!”

Crack!

The vampires froze before they could even make a move.

‘Paradox’s memories were right. The security here is pathetic.’

Seo Jun-Ho reached out to read the memory of the vampire on the left.

- Hey, I locked a human in a room. Tell the therapist about it when he gets here later.

- Yes, sir.

- Well, I gotta get going because Tepes is looking for me. I’ll be back before it’s too late.

The memory projection of a short conversation appeared in Seo Jun-Ho’s eyes.

‘True Vampire Stigma.’

A devil in the form of a little boy.

The fact that Stigma wasn’t around here at the moment was certainly motivating.

‘Let’s rescue her as soon as possible and leave right away.’

Seo Jun-Ho turned into a clump of darkness that quickly flew away.

***

The bound Yuri glared at the man in front of her.

‘Chef.’

Chef was one of the executives of the Fiend Association. He was currently a wanted criminal traveling the world with the Heavenly Demon.

“Haha. What’s up with that hateful look?”

“...”

“I don’t remember having done anything that deserves such a gaze from you.” Chef shrugged and asked, “Did one of your family members or friends disappear many years ago?”

“...”

“I’ll take that as a no. Then, why do you hate me so much?”

‘Is he being serious right now?’

Yuri’s glare didn’t abate despite Chef’s words.

‘The official numbers say that this bastard has killed a thousand and four hundred twenty-seven Players, while the number of civilians who died by his hands…’

The poor children who died in Rome’s Paradise were certainly more than just a few thousand. Yuri couldn’t believe that such a degenerate was asking her why she hated him.

“Do you like cooking?” Chef asked. He put a few assorted balls inside the pot and continued. “I love cooking. I was a chef before I became a fiend, and everyone loved my cooking back then.”

Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh…

Chef stirred the pot with a ladle. He tasted the soup and smiled. “A chef will never feel sorry for their meat.”

“...”

“After becoming a fiend, the only thing that changed is that my source of meat has become humans rather than pigs, cows, and poultry. I’m just a chef, so I have no idea why everyone wants to kill me.”

Hearing that, Yuri spoke for the first time with a sneer. “Perhaps it’s because you lack empathy that your parents treated you like shit and abandoned you.”

“...”

Chef’s smile vanished.

He made a sidelong glance at Yuri and stared at the latter with an expressionless face.

“You know my past?”

“I know you very well, Roxan Imir. You’re a psychopath who got expelled from the kitchen. You have never been a chef!”

“I wasn’t expelled!”

Bang!

Chef jumped up from his seat and roared. “The position should have belonged to me! A bastard stole it from me!”

“Wake up,” Yuri mocked.

Chef was a kitchen assistant whose job was to chop onions, according to Russian intelligence records. In other words, he had the lowest position in the kitchen, and his food had never even been served in the restaurant.

He was far from being a chef.

“You have been introducing yourself as a chef, but you haven’t even held a knife in a proper kitchen!”

“Shut up! Shut up!” The furious Chef started punching Yuri in the face. “Shut up! Shut your trap! Shut up!”

Yuri spat blood and fragments of her broken teeth before laughing.

“If you’re that angry, why don't you kill me?”

“Why, you…!”

Squeeze.

Chef gnashed his teeth while squeezing Yuri’s throat.

He wanted to rip her apart, but he didn’t dare to do so.

‘True Vampire Stigma…’

His ego was hurt, but it wouldn’t make sense for him to turn Stigma into his enemy just to recover his ego.

“Aaahhh!” Chef let go of Yuri’s throat and slammed a chair against the wall.

Yuri clicked her tongue as she stared at the furious Chef.

‘That’s too bad.’

Yuri wanted to die in Chef’s hands.

It was better than becoming Stigma’s toy.

“That’s it. Open up!” Chef approached Yuri with a distorted expression and stuffed a ball he had taken out of his Inventory into her mouth.

“...!” Yuri’s eyes widened. She started groaning at the terrible pain that made her feel as if she were being torn apart into countless pieces.

“Kehehe, do you really think that you can get off scot-free after provoking me?”

Chef checked his watch and muttered, “Relax, we still have an hour. I’ll show you what hell feels like until our time together is up. Don’t worry, I won’t kill you.”

Crack!

“A—aaarghhh!” Yuri screamed as her bones were shattered at once.

Chef boisterously laughed as he stuffed a gag bite in her mouth. “You should be quiet while eating. It seems that you weren’t taught proper table manners when you were still young.”

“Ah! Ugh…!” Yuri let out a groan as the waves of pain abated. It hadn’t even been that long, but Yuri’s eyes already resembled a dead fish. She was exhausted, and her voice had long gone hoarse from the screaming. She was incessantly trembling as well.

“What’s up with that relieved look? It’s only been ten minutes.”

Chef shoved another ball into Yuri’s mouth.

“...!” Yuri was terrified. She had already gotten a taste of how painful Chef’s torture could be, so she knew that she was about to experience the same or even worse pain.

“Ugh, Uuuufff…!”

“Enjoy your meal~” Chef picked up the chair from the floor and casually sat down.

Yuri’s suffering made Chef smile softly once again.

“Now… what other dishes should I make for you?”

Chef retrieved a few more balls from his Inventory, and he started cooking them while humming. He still had four more balls, and he was planning on letting Yuri experience a pain that would make her wish that she was dead.

“Oh, I know! How about an electrifying flavor? You’ll feel like worms are crawling all over you,” exclaimed Chef.

Ten minutes later, Yuri’s head helplessly drooped to her chest.

She couldn’t move anymore.

At the sight, Chef grinned. “Are you already full? I still haven’t served you the main course.”

He approached Yuri with another ball, but the door was smashed open.

Bang!

“Argh!”

Chef reflexively mustered his magic, but he was helplessly thrown against the wall.

The man who entered the room didn’t even glance at Chef.

He examined the figure whose head was drooping to her chest.

‘She’s still alive, and she must be Yuri Alekseyev...’

Seo Jun-Ho was a little surprised to see that Yuri was female. He thought that Yuri was a man, especially when he recalled the rumors about her.

She was in terrible condition, but her energy certainly belonged to a human being.

‘Thankfully, I made it in time…’

Seo Jun-Ho breathed a sigh of relief before finally turning to look at Chef.

Chef was not only the being that Seo Jun-Ho had encountered in the memories of many fiends, but he was also the founder of Paradise in Rome.

“Chef.”

“Ke… kekeke!” Chef staggered to his feet. He waved his hand with a look of joy upon recognizing Seo Jun-Ho. “Look who came here! It’s Specter—a hero of mankind!”

“You better get ready...”

“As far as I remember, you’ve ruined my Paradise both times—”

Crack!

Seo Jun-Ho punched with all his might. Chef’s head was forcibly turned in the other direction before he could even finish speaking.

However, Seo Jun-Ho wasn’t done just yet…

He grabbed Chef’s hair with his other hand and crushed Chef’s face with his elbow.

Crack!

A horrible sound echoed.

Chef’s face caved in upon taking the brunt of Seo Jun-Ho’s attack.

“Ugh…ughh…”

Chef groaned while covered in his own blood.

Seo Jun-Ho coldly spat, “Get up. I haven’t even used my magic yet.”

Seo Jun-Ho wasn’t planning on giving Chef a painless death. He had to avenge the children and the Players who had suffered greatly from Chef’s torture before they were allowed to perish.

Seo Jun-Ho had to give Chef a taste of his own medicine.

“Keke… kehehe!” Chef laughed as he retrieved a green ball from his Inventory. He barely managed to open his mouth, and he swallowed the ball without chewing on it.

The green ball quickly took effect and healed him.

“You’re a hero of mankind, right? You’re supposed to protect humans, so why are you so merciless to me?”

“I only protect humans, and…” Seo Jun-Ho replied coldly. He swung his knee and shattered Chef’s nose. Then, he leaped into the air and stomped on Chef’s face. “A bastard like you isn’t human based on my standards.”

“A—aaarghhh!” The agonizing pain made Chef scream, and he desperately searched his Inventory for a way to survive this ordeal.

‘A-a dish…! I need a dish that can deal with Specter…1’

Chef had made countless dishes using his Perfect Taste (S). However, he was more of a researcher rather than a combatant. He quickly examined his arsenal of dishes, but none of them could deal with Specter.

“If you want to take something out of your Inventory, then you better take it out now…”

Seo Jun-Ho’s cold voice reminded Chef of someone else.

‘The Heavenly Demon…?’

It was often said that rivals would eventually resemble each other, and it seemed that the saying was true because Chef had caught a glimpse of a ruthlessness that was even more ruthless than anything he had seen so far from within Seo Jun-Ho’s cold eyes.

“Kehehe.”

At the thought that Specter might end up being his life’s greatest work, Chef started laughing without realizing it.

“Just kill me…” Chef stretched his head toward Seo Jun-Ho. He no longer had any regrets, and he had already accomplished his goal on the 6th Floor.

However, Seo Jun-Ho only stared at Chef.

“I thought about it dozens—no, hundreds of times.”

‘I thought about the best way to kill this hopeless scum so that the poor souls of the hapless people he had killed would be satisfied upstairs.’

“You should look forward to what I have prepared for you. It’s a kind of death that perfectly suits you,” said Seo Jun-Ho.

He beckoned, and two vampires surrounded by four flying blades entered the room.

Once they were in the room, Seo Jun-Ho immediately ordered. “Bite this bastard.”

“What, I’m sorry?”

“But…”

The vampires hesitated and started alternatingly between Chef and Seo Jun-Ho.

Chef snorted at the sight and said, “Do you really think that they’ll bite me just because you said so? I’m here as True Vampire Stigma’s guest.”

Bang!

Seo Jun-Ho pulled the trigger of a gun he had pulled out without anyone realizing it.

A headless vampire collapsed to the floor, and the last remaining vampire in the room screamed.

Seo Jun-Ho pointed the gun at the last remaining vampire and ordered. “Bite him.”

“Hey, once again. I’m True Vampire Stigma’s—” Chef started.

However, the last remaining vampire pounced at Chef with his eyes tightly closed.

“A-aaargh…!”

Upon being bitten, Chef started convulsing. Blood started flowing out of his orifices, but he didn’t really need his own blood anymore to survive.

“...”

Bang!

Seo Jun-Ho shot down the last remaining vampire and bent down to whisper into Chef’s ears.

“How do you feel?”

“...”

Chef closed his mouth tightly, and his eyes gradually widened as the puzzle pieces slowly came together to form a picture.

Why did Specter turn him into a vampire?

Upon realizing that, he opened his Inventory and started pulling his dishes out as if he had gone mad.

“No! There’s no way! This can’t be…!”

Munch! Munch! Munch!

Chef quickly swallowed a few balls, but his face became paler the more balls he swallowed.

‘I can’t… I can’t taste anything…!’

The dishes he was proud of had become tasteless to the point that they were now more disgusting than anything else he had ever eaten throughout his entire life.

“Bleeeck!” Chef vomited and emptied his stomach several times.

“It is said that vampires only drink human blood. I guess even water tastes disgusting to vampires.”

“...” Chef wordlessly stared eyes at the dirty floor.

The floor was covered with his own blood.

‘I-It’s so filthy… it’s so filthy, but…!'

Blood was neither a dish nor an ingredient.

However, he was already licking the floor before he even realized it.

“Ah! Ugh… ah…!”

‘It’s delicious!’

The dirty blood on the floor had become a thousand times tastier than any of the dishes he had made, including the ones he had been treating as his masterpieces. However, Chef insisted on denying it—he couldn’t possibly admit it.

“It’s about time.”

Seo Jun-Ho flung his magic toward the ceiling, poking a massive hole in it.

Chef raised his head and looked up.

The bright sunlight pervaded the room through the hole in the ceiling.

“No, no…!” Chef desperately shouted as his skin started to melt beneath the sunlight, sending waves of terrible pain all over him. He collapsed and started trashing around on the floor as the sun incinerated him.

In the end, Chef turned into ashes, leaving only his frozen head behind.

“...”

Seo Jun-Ho closed his eyes tightly after confirming Chef’s demise.

He had promised to kill Chef in the most painful way possible.

‘And I finally fulfilled that promise…’

Seo Jun-Ho prayed earnestly—he prayed that the souls of the children and the people whom Chef had sacrificed would finally rest in peace.