When one wanted to become a vampire hunter one could go to the guild. Once taken one would undergo long, repetitively strict and tough trainings. It’s a highly respected and well paid job. But not everyone could take it. By tough it meant extremely tough. One tiny doubt in your mind why you should be going through all those was sufficient to make you give up.

And once been given the title, you had to be prepared to sacrifice your life at any moment. Everyone had to pledge a vow upon successfully completing the trainings, before being awarded that medallion of honor. A vampire hunter’s life-long mission was to kill vampires. But more importantly they were there to protect the powerless, at any cost.

Vampires were exceptionally dangerous creatures. That’s well known. Years of hard work helped but there was no guarantee a hunter could always overpower vampires. What should a hunter do when he / she encountered a vampire he / she couldn’t bring down? And that vampire was trying to feed, attacking the poor and weak around? Fight till the very end. Offer his / her blood so that the others were given time to flee.

I mentioned the medallion of honor. When one was still a trainee there would be no medallion. Upon completion of trainings one would be awarded a bronze one. All hunters began with that level. When you demonstrated talents you would be awarded a silver medallion. If you’re exceptionally good you would obtain a gold one. Wearing a gold medallion felt like standing at the top of the world.

But gold was not the ultimate level. There was one further up – level platinum. The whole world knew the holders’ names.

It was dusk time. He was running. He set off immediately after he got the news, that the duke was dead. It’s not the duke’s death that concerned him. It’s because they said the duke was killed by a vampire.

That meant a powerful vampire was out there. That’s what mattered.

He managed to enter through the city gate before it was closed. There were a lot of people he saw. Everyone was wearing a wide grin on their faces. People were still excited about the shocking yet welcoming news.

The next minute he looked up at the sky. Sunset was truly beautiful. There’s only one problem. It reminded him of that incident, that bitter moment…

I will live the rest of my life regretting…

Sighing he walked in the direction of the castle.

The castle was guarded. But the guards were just standing there dutifully. They were not really willing to guard anything. Yes there were gold, jewels and a lot of other valuables in the castle. But weren’t they originally from the people? The duke managed to keep such a fortune by squeezing everyone living in the city.

“What’s your business?” A guard asked as he approached the main gate.

“I’m here to check the scene…” He showed his pass. The guard raised an eyebrow and stood aside, letting him in. As he entered he heard the guard whisper. “Why bother?”

With the help of a few servants he finally located the bed chamber where the “crime” took place. Just as he entered the chamber he heard a loud bellow.

“HEY! WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

Turning his head he saw this “colleague” of his eyeing him disdainfully. This person was wearing a gold medallion in front of his chest, right where if one wanted everyone to see it. The name written on the medallion was Jody B.

“I’m a vampire hunter from another city…” He showed Jody his pass.

Either that Jody was just loud or that he thought all other people on earth were having hearing problems. “WHO GAVE YOU THE PERMISSION TO ENTER? THIS IS SERIOUS KID! ONLY HIGH RANKED HUNTERS ARE ALLOWED! WHAT IF YOU CONTAMINATE THE SCENE? WHAT IF YOU LEAK OUT THE NEWS? THIS IS NOT A PLACE FOR…”

That really got on his nerves. He reached into his pocket; shut that Jody up by holding his medallion right in front of Jody’s face.

Jody choked like he just bit his tongue. He had never imagined he’s coming across a vampire hunter of a higher rank.

Yes that’s a platinum medallion.

It turned out that Jody could also speak not so loudly. “W… welcome to the city. You should have let us know about your visit my Lord. Just let me know how we might be of help.”

“Can I enter now?” He put the medallion back into his pocket.

“Yes of course. As you please.” Jody said and humbly bowed.

He entered. Jody was following him like a puppy dog. That’s annoying. Nevertheless he pushed this annoyance aside as there were more important matters to deal with.

The chamber was big... and cozy of course. He wondered why one would need cabinets so many and of such size. All of them were finely ornamented with paintings or engravings. Tapestries, again huge and finely embroidered, covered the walls.

Corpse of the duke had already been removed. There was no sign of struggle. The chamber was dangerously calm, like nothing had ever happened. Spooky…

As he walked around he strained his senses, trying to pick up any trace left behind by a vampire. He couldn’t feel any.

Vampires had a presence. A main part of the vampire hunter training was to develop such a sense through which one could detect this presence. It’s because of this developed sense vampire hunters could tell if someone next to them was a vampire or not.

Good vampires could manage to hide their presence to a certain extent. That made them more difficult to be discovered. They might be able to walk pass a hunter without being detected.

However whenever vampires killed and fed they had to reveal themselves. And they couldn’t hide this presence when they did that. Even after they left the presence could still be felt and picked up at the scene.

The explanation to the lack of presence could only be…

This was not done by a vampire.

Or…

This was done by that vampire.

“Jody.”

“Yes my Lord.” Enthusiastically Jody took a step to stand beside him in an uncomfortably close proximity.

He took a step back and frowned. “Drop the Lord thing. There’s no presence. Are we certain we’re dealing with a vampire here?”

“Yes my Lord. Er… sorry my Lord… Sorry we’re used to address higher ranks like that. Er… yes. We are positive that the bite mark was from a vampire.”

“I assume guards must have been posted in the castle. No one detected anything?”

Jody started sweating since he thought “the Lord” was challenging if they were doing their job well. He made big gestures as he answered. “We had patrols nearly everywhere in the city. And we had the very good vampire hunters as guards in the castle. I questioned all of them. They were all on their highest alerts but no one detected anything. Please understand that…”

A silver level rushed in and interrupted. “We found a little girl who might have seen the vampire!”

Jody threw the silver level a glare, who lowered his head and bit his lip.

As he had no interest in Jody’s ramblings he quickly walked towards the silver level. “Take me to her.”

……

Sarah was clinging to her mother, who was patting her, trying her best to soothe the little girl. They were confronted by several “visitors” (vampire hunters) in their little house. These people kept asking questions like Sarah had done something wrong. And whenever she could not give a satisfactory answer they pressed her loudly, as if that could squeeze the answer out of her.

“What’s the color of his eyes?”

“… I ca… can’t… re…member…” Sarah was shaking and on the verge of tears.

“THINK!! THIS IS IMPORTANT!!”

Sarah hid her face in her mother’s dress and cried. The one who was questioning her rolled his eyes and sighed.

Frowning he walked over. “Let me talk to her.”

The other person was about to protest, but swallowed everything when Jody eyed him warningly.

Silence surrounded the place for some time.

He positioned himself in front of Sarah, kneeled down on one knee and smiled. She was still gripping her mother tightly but it looked like his smile, as well as his ability to silence the place, had calmed her down a bit. Moments later she smiled hesitantly.

“What’s your name?” He asked.

“Sarah…” Softly she whispered.

“Don’t be scared Sarah. Everything’s fine. Oppa would just like to know what happened. Could you tell me please?”

Sarah looked up at her mother, who her hair and nodded. She turned to look at him again. “A prince gave me a gold coin. And he told me to keep it.”

That struck a chord. “Could you show me the gold coin?”

With her little hand Sarah took out the coin from her pocket. Gently he took and looked at it. This is from the east… so are we…

He asked when he was still examining the coin. “Do you know why the prince gave you this?”

“Because he would like to buy some strawberries…”

He clasped the coin in his hand. It’s him.

Heart racing, thrills of excitement circulated inside him. Finally!! It took every effort in him to conceal all these. Smiling widely he handed the coin back to the little girl. “Thank you Sarah…”

Suddenly someone stumbled in and yelled. “Southern part of the city! Many people were found dead… with bite marks… Vampires!!”

All vampire hunters rushed out and ran south, he himself included.

News spread fast. Horror hovered over the city. Fear seeped into its every corner. Chill froze everybody’s heart. Dread paralyzed their veins. The joy brought by the duke’s death was taken over by panic. People were flustered. They looked at each other with eyes widened in disbelief; with helplessness written on their faces. With shaky voices they whispered to each other. “Have you heard? Vampires!! There are vampires in the city!!”

As he ran he thought to himself… Eunhyuk… killing the innocents? Eunhyuk…? No it’s not possible…

What’s his name? Again it’s a name which you might have heard before. Lee Donghae -- the best vampire hunter of the time.

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A/N: Lucky you Sarah! You met both Eunhyuk and Donghae!!! >_<

A/N2: Next chapter? What do you think? Yes you got it! Next chapter is EUNHAE!!! Yeah~~~~ Well... it's not a happy encounter though...