Fortunately, the only witnesses—the middle-aged women—murmured among themselves and left the scene. As soon as the onlookers disappeared, Eunha and Ian approached the outer wall of Park Seokhyeon’s house and checked for CCTV cameras nearby.
“There don’t seem to be any, right?”
“Yes. It’s on the outskirts. A perfect blind spot.”
In these old, tightly packed residential areas, there were often CCTVs attached to utility poles. But around Park Seokhyeon’s house, no cameras were visible.
He had probably chosen this spot deliberately to coil himself up.
There was no place better suited to avoiding others’ eyes. There’s a saying: to hide a tree, put it in a forest; to hide a person, send them to the city. But for a perfect crime, a sparsely populated place was best. Why else would people bury bodies on mountains?
This was a hillside slum, even notorious within Yongsan.
Of course, Yongsan itself had more such hillside slums and villa villages than the city center. One could say it was a place where new and old buildings coexisted. The infrastructure was wrecked, but for a mage to use as a hideout, it was more than adequate—it was perfect.
“There are dried bloodstains on the wall.”
At Eunha’s voice, Ian broke off his thoughts and turned his head.
The gray outer wall was mostly covered in cracks. Near the bottom, faint, long-dried bloodstains were etched. At a casual glance, they might look like splattered paint, but to a mage’s eyes, there was no doubt it was blood.
Eunha scraped at the dried bloodstains with the tip of her shoe and spoke.
“The fact that there’s blood only on the lower part suggests that a corpse or a living person was dragged along the ground.”
“Hmm.”
“But it’s ironic that a mage who deals in blood would leave bloodstains. It seems he can’t manage very refined manipulation.”
It was a reasonably logical deduction. Ian nodded and reached inside his coat.
“That’s good news for us.”
“Yes. Then let’s go inside before it gets any later.”
Eunha moved toward the front door of the house. Perhaps thanks to seeing the bloodstains, her embarrassment had largely dissipated.
Ian matched her pace as they walked.
The firmly shut iron door was covered in frost. The lock was engaged from the inside, making it effectively impossible to open from outside. But Ian didn’t hesitate to place his hand on the door.
“Be born anew.”
He chanted the spell and reduced the door’s locking mechanism to the size of a cotton swab. As the bar caught in the latch instantly shrank, the solidly shut door opened on its own.
The sound wasn’t loud. There were no eyes watching. Park Seokhyeon’s house was isolated even within the hillside slum, so it wasn’t easy for neighbors to snoop.
That was good for Park Seokhyeon, and likewise good for Ian. Keeping pace with Eunha, he carefully stepped inside beyond the entrance.
As soon as they passed the entrance, a small yard greeted them.
In the yard were a single chair for sitting and resting, and several jars. But they had no intention of sitting on the chair or opening the jars—no sense in creating variables like fools.
“This way.”
Ian led Eunha slowly toward the rear of the house.
All the windows they passed on the way had curtains drawn. There was no sign of anyone.
The back wall was plastered with dead bugs and white bird droppings. Ian turned to Eunha and nodded; she nodded back, drew her grimoire, and held it ready. Ian likewise fully pulled out the Hand of Recreation he had kept at his fingertips, then placed his empty hand on a relatively clean part of the wall.
“Be born anew.”
He activated the magic and bored a hole in the wall large enough for a person to pass through. For a spell cast without any magic circle, it had such powerful force that Eunha’s eyes widened in apparent surprise.
“……For a ritual magic, its effect is remarkably powerful. To just collapse a wall without any conditions…”
“Senior.”
“Ah, yes. Sorry. This isn’t the time for admiration.”
At Ian’s call, Eunha immediately collected herself and moved toward the opening. Ian followed slightly behind her and used his recreation magic on the breached wall again.
*Crunch.*
With a rather gruesome sound, the wall restored itself.
Of course, it wasn’t exactly the same as before. There were slight distortions and bumpy, crumpled sections. But for now, this much would suffice. He turned his gaze from the wall to take in the dark, gloomy corridor.
As befitted an old house, the interior was very cramped. Aside from the corridor connected to the entrance, the only things on the first floor were the living room and a bathroom. From the bathroom wafted a thick stench of blood.
“…….”
“…….”
From the moment they entered the house, the two did not converse. Instead, they exchanged opinions through glances alone. Eunha’s mint-colored eyes, which didn’t lose their brightness even in the dark, met Ian’s black eyes several times. Then, each gripping their weapons, they slowly advanced toward the living room.
‘Nothing here.’
In the narrow living room, only a TV, a dining table, and a few jars stood sparsely. Park Seokhyeon was nowhere to be seen.
On the ceiling, a magic circle seemed drawn in blood, but perhaps thanks to the muffler, it did not activate. Even as they paced nearby, the circle showed no reaction.
‘Performance is solid.’
Ian inwardly nodded and moved to the bathroom. As he poked his head through the open door, the corpse of a woman came into view, dead inside the bathtub.
She did not look very old. It seemed not much time had passed since her death, as there were no signs of decomposition. Her mouth was wrapped in multiple layers of electrical tape, and her upper and lower body were bound inside the water-filled tub to prevent escape.
But her head was above water. They had probably deliberately inflicted wounds, placed her in the water, and slowly killed her through excessive bleeding.
“…….”
There were far too many unnecessary steps for it to be simply for extracting blood. It might have been essential for magic, but to Ian’s eyes, it looked like nothing more than murder for amusement.
‘Crazy bastard.’
Ian cursed Park Seokhyeon inwardly and left the bathroom. Eunha’s expression was equally grim.
[Shall we go up to the second floor?]
With a cold face, she wrote on Ian’s palm. Ian was about to nod in agreement when he noticed something awkwardly protruding from the center of the living room floor and frowned. Eunha also checked where his gaze had landed.
[A basement?]
She asked. Ian nodded.
[Let’s check it out.]
The two headed back to the living room. Then they cut away the veneer sheet covering the oddly protruding section with a knife.
*Rrrrip.*
Pulling it off revealed a door leading underground. Ian let out a short laugh, compressed the door handle into a tiny cube, and tossed it aside carelessly. Thanks to that, the door opened without a sound.
The way down to the basement was a staircase. It wasn’t very deep, but the smell of blood became much thicker from within. Now, even without consciously sniffing, the stench of blood filled the air. Mingled with it was the faint, rotting smell of corpses.
[Shall we go?]
Ian asked. Eunha nodded and stepped onto the stairs first.
The stone staircase made no creaking noise. The two descended into the basement in complete silence.
With each step down, the stench of blood grew heavier. Eunha’s face contorted, and Ian drew a pistol into his empty hand as he scanned the surroundings with cold eyes.
A moment later, the two set foot on the basement floor.
Magic circles were vividly inscribed throughout the dark basement. There seemed no attempt to hide them. They would likely have been met with a vicious barrage of attacks if they had charged in without the mufflers.
“…….”
In one corner, living people hung upside down. Blindfolded and with duct tape wound tightly over their mouths, they were trembling and bleeding out. Blood from the shallow and deep wounds carved all over their bodies dripped steadily into buckets placed beneath them.
‘Victims, then.’
Park Seokhyeon had apparently captured them and turned them into blood-producing pouches.
Pitiful as they were, they couldn’t be rescued right now. If their identities were exposed doing that, things would become extremely troublesome. At least until the situation was completely resolved and the cartel or Management Bureau called, they had to be left as they were. That was best for them, and for him.
As Ian thought that, Eunha tapped his shoulder with her fingers and pointed to a sofa set in the basement. Ian shifted his gaze to follow where her hand indicated.
The basement was smeared with blood.
In the center, upon a black sofa set starkly alone, lay a man with a bushy beard.
His eyes were closed. His chest rising and falling steadily made it clear he was currently asleep.
“……He’s sleeping?”
Eunha murmured in a low voice. At the unexpected situation, Ian let out a dry laugh and nodded.
“……It was densely laid with magic. Even if an intruder came in, the magic would handle it automatically, so it’s understandable he’d sleep without a care. It’s his own house, so napping isn’t strange in itself.”
“That’s true. But, hmm… it’s not a sight that fits the setting.”
Ian agreed with that.
Kidnapped people hung upside down, bleeding into buckets; buckets, flasks, bowls, and baskets around were filled to the brim with blood. It was a place where an ordinary person couldn’t even stand properly, let alone sleep.
“……Gurgle.”
But the man, utterly unbothered, was snoring away, dead to the world. By no stretch of the imagination was he normal.
Well, he was the one who created this space. Ian dismissed it lightly and turned to Eunha.
“How do you want to proceed? Just kill him?”
“Hmm… That wouldn’t be so bad, but we don’t know, so let’s extract more information. He might have sold off information on other users besides Ian.”
“Understood. Then shall we start with this?”
Ian picked up a thick iron stake lying nearby and asked. Eunha nodded and stepped back.
“Let’s avoid unnecessary actions. If we take too long, the people hanging there might die.”
“Yes. I’ll begin right away.”
Ian gripped the stake tightly in his hand and without hesitation slammed it straight into Park Seokhyeon’s thigh.
“……!? Aaaargh—mph?!”
The sudden pain made his eyes fly open and he screamed. But as the muzzle of a gun was shoved into his mouth, he couldn’t scream any further and floundered. Ian pressed the gun in firmly and unwound the muffler from his neck.
“Deactivate all the magic in this basement right now. Unless you want a highway paved through the back of your skull.”
“Keheok!”
His eyes trembled violently.