A week had passed since dealing with Park Seokhyun. In that time, Ian had cleared out his studio apartment and signed a contract for a single-family home.
Of course, he had purchased it outright.
He never could have bought a normal house for just a few hundred million won, but the area had been devastated by a major fire and was haunted by frequent ghost sightings, so the price was quite cheap. Thanks to that, Ian had been able to buy it without any burden.
What was there to hide?
It was the exact neighborhood he had visited while handling the library request. There were hardly any people, and it was full of empty houses; for Ian, there was no reason not to move there. With the price being so cheap on top of that, finding a better property was practically impossible.
Fire? He couldn't care less about that. Ghosts? Even better. He was running low on materials at the moment, so he would welcome their appearance.
He knew that the burning ghost appeared as quite a dangerous ghost in Buddhism. But people were scarier than ghosts to begin with, and mages were scarier than people. Thus, ghosts needed to show mages a bit more respect.
The fate of ghosts that failed to do so was being personally demonstrated by Ms. Lee Seoah, the Ghost-type Pokemon Master residing in Busan.
'Come to think of it, didn't Seoah say she was coming up to Seoul? When is she planning to arrive?'
Ian suddenly thought of that as he neatly stacked the belongings he had brought into the house.
A storage cabinet containing alchemy supplies, a box of bullets, a bag of money, and so on.
Things he could move himself, and indeed had to move himself, were scattered around the spacious living room. He hadn't yet brought over bulky items like the refrigerator or wardrobe.
They were probably loaded on a moving company truck right about now. There wasn't anything particularly important inside, so it was no big deal if someone else handled them. Ian roughly pushed aside the drawer he had brought with his foot, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and stepped outside the house.
Just then, he ran into Cecilia, who was carrying a computer. Holding a computer tower almost as large as herself, she looked up at Ian.
"Where should I put this?"
"The last room on the first floor. There's a white desk in there, so put it on top."
"Okay."
Cecilia nodded and strode briskly into the house. Ian stared at her bright golden hair for a moment, then went out to the parking lot and put a cigarette in his mouth.
There was no mystery as to why Cecilia was moving his luggage. Ian had simply called her to help him move.
Perhaps because she had nothing particularly urgent going on, Cecilia had immediately accepted his offer and rushed all the way to Seoul for him.
He had considered calling someone else, but no matter how much he thought about it, among his acquaintances, there was no one but Cecilia whom he could ask to do physical labor.
Han Yuna? Eliminated. She gave off the impression that she couldn't even move a normal kettle or rice cooker. Even if she used magic, she would probably just turn a steel rice cooker into a tofu rice cooker, so she wouldn't be much help.
Lee Seoah? The physical distance was too far. She wasn't worth considering.
Kim Yul? If he called her, his house would probably smell like water. She wasn't particularly athletic, so calling her for no reason would clearly just waste time. Eunha was similar. How fit could a hikikomori mage who never left her house possibly be?
Kim Iseo had the best conditions out of all of them, but calling an Administration agent to his house felt a bit awkward, so he gave up on that. That was how he had settled on Cecilia.
Well, Cecilia was affiliated with the Vatican too, but she felt a bit more trustworthy than the Administration. At the very least, he didn't get the feeling that she would betray him.
Of course, he didn't completely trust her. There hadn't been enough interaction between them for that yet. He felt they would need to meet and talk at least five more times.
Perhaps she was aware of that fact too, which was why she had immediately volunteered to help.
Either way, it wasn't a bad thing for Ian. He tossed the finished cigarette into a portable ashtray, grabbed a box he had loaded in Cecilia's car, and went back inside.
"Is this the end...?"
After setting the box in a corner, he sat on the included option sofa and caught his breath. While he was doing so, Cecilia, who had placed the computer on the table, walked over with quick steps and sat down beside him.
"Are we done now?"
"Yeah, good work. Thanks for helping."
"It was nothing."
Cecilia leaned back against the sofa and looked up at the white ceiling. The sparkling light fixture scattered light downward.
"I'm hungry."
"...Really? Should I order something?"
"The nun said you eat jajangmyeon when you move. I want to eat that too."
"...One bowl?"
"No. Seven bowls, plus sweet and sour pork, fried dumplings, palbochae, and honey walnut shrimp and dongpo pork."
Ian let out a hollow laugh at the menu that far exceeded his expectations. Cecilia, seemingly embarrassed about something, hugged her knees and muttered.
"...I'll pay for my own. So don't laugh at me like you're making fun of me."
"No, I didn't mean it like that... Forget it. I'll pay, so just eat. Consider it a reward for helping."
Ian said so and ordered food from a Chinese restaurant.
It was quite a large establishment, so he could order everything Cecilia had mentioned. He set his phone down beside him and turned to look at her.
"By the way, your Korean has gotten pretty good now? Your pronunciation and speed have improved since I met you at the hospital."
"...I kept learning from the nun. It wasn't easy."
Cecilia rested her cheek on her knees and met Ian's gaze. Ian's black pupils were reflected directly in her amethyst-like purple eyes.
"I heard mages use magic that makes it easy to learn foreign languages. Do you do that too?"
"There is such a thing, but I haven't tried it yet."
It was a magic recorded in the Hand of Re-creation.
It was not a magic written only in foreign grimoires. It was a very traditional magic devised long ago in Europe, where languages had all differed, to facilitate communication between mages.
Nowadays, with English as the global common language, its significance had faded greatly, but back then it was an essential spell. Those who couldn't master it were treated like idiots as a matter of course.
In fact, they really were idiots. A spell that was finished just by drawing a triangle and a circle and writing down a few languages one wanted to learn—being unable to use that was disqualifying as a mage.
So many of them died. Being hanged while hearing, 'You are a disgrace to mages!' was not even an uncommon occurrence.
Of course, they didn't do that now. Since the invention of translators and the establishment of English, language-learning magic had been downgraded from essential to optional. Mages also didn't care much whether their counterpart knew their language or not.
"I don't have any plans to visit another country yet. If that happens, I'll use it, but there's no need right now."
"...I see. Then can you use it on me?"
"It's a spell that can't be used on others."
"Selfish spell snobs."
Cecilia narrowed her eyes and grumbled. Ian chuckled and leaned back against the sofa like Cecilia. The plush sofa gently enveloped his body.
'Not bad for an option.'
Just as Ian thought that and reached for his phone, a sudden thought made him swivel his head to look at Cecilia.
"Ah, right. I'm planning to go catch a high-ranking vampire soon. Want to join?"
"Vampire...?"
"Vampire. Dracula."
"Ah."
Understanding Ian's words, Cecilia stretched out her legs. Her short legs dangled.
"I actually got a call from the Korean Catholic Association because of the ghouls."
"Catholic Association? There's such a thing?"
"Yes. Think of it as a branch established by the Vatican? Normally only exorcist priests are active there, but sometimes they make requests to clergy stationed abroad like this."
Ian understood.
Ian nodded and leaned his upper body slightly forward.
"Are you going to refuse?"
"No. I was planning to accept, of course. We can't just let vampires run rampant."
Cecilia continued with a serious face.
"I'll go with you. I don't need payment. The Holy See provides it anyway."
"That's good news. Some other vampire hunters, mages, and a few Administration agents might join too. Is that a problem?"
"Hmm... Yeah. I think it'll be fine. As long as they're not civilians, there's no need to hide my identity."
If that was the case, that was a relief. Ian smiled and nodded.
"I'll contact you when we depart. Rest up until then."
"Then can we hang out while I'm resting? I want to visit a PC... bang? Is that what it's called?"
"Uh... If I have time. Send me a text."
"Okay."
Cecilia smiled bashfully and swung her legs.
The two continued chatting for a while, then ate the delivered food together and organized the luggage.
*
The Administration had a facility called the Observation Room. It was a space established to observe unidentified flying objects intruding into airspace or to check for something flying in from space, and among Administration agents, it was virtually a dream workplace.
Usually five people were assigned to the Observation Room. Their job was simply to check or manage the radar in shifts, 24 hours a day. They were normally not given any other duties. Despite that, they earned just as much money as Response Division agents.
Naturally, it was structured in a way that made people call it a dream workplace.
The risk wasn't completely nonexistent, but it was minimal compared to the Response Division.
The difficulty of the work was also extremely easy. All they had to do was sit and watch the radar—what was so hard about that? If this were difficult, the desk workers would have all died from overwork long ago.
Of course, it wasn't entirely without downsides.
If one didn't go on leave, they had to live in the dormitory inside the radar room almost year-round. And if whatever flew in from space turned out to be something cosmic horror-esque, they would be the first to go insane—those could be counted as downsides.
But the biggest downside, without a doubt, was the overwhelming drowsiness.
"...Nggh."
The man sitting in the Observation Room patted his increasingly heavy eyelids with his palm, trying to shake off the sleepiness.
"Going crazy from looking at nothing but a green radar for 24 hours..."
The man knew this was a privileged complaint.
Right now, Response Division personnel were fighting anomalies with their lives on the line. Meanwhile, he was just sitting here watching a radar. To complain about feeling sleepy in spite of that was something for which he could not complain even if Response Division agents lynched him.
But what could he do? Sleep was coming.
It was only natural that one's own work felt the hardest.
"Yawn... Maybe I should drink some coffee."
The man muttered and took out a can of coffee from the refrigerator in the corner of the Observation Room.
That was when.
Beep. Beep.
Noise erupted from the radar, which had been silent until now. It meant something had been detected.
"...!"
The man's expression instantly sharpened. He gripped the coffee can and turned his head to check the radar that filled the entire wall.
"...A blue dot."
A blue dot was blinking vividly on the radar. It was the signal for an unidentified flying object.
Naturally, fighter jets or airplanes did not show up on the Administration's radar. The man let out a murmur and checked the estimated trajectory of the flying object.
A dotted line stretched out. At its end was Earth's pale satellite—that is, the Moon.
"..."
It went without saying, but aliens did not live on the Moon. Neither was there anything there that corresponded to it.
The man gulped and switched the radar screen to a wave camera. It was a camera that confirmed the shape of a flying object using sound waves emitted from the radar.
Zeeeeeeen.
The radar screen that had filled the wall turned black and white. A white image began to form at its center.
A picture in the shape of a flying saucer. It was clearly a UFO. He nodded at the quintessential mystery associated with aliens.
Just as he was about to report it, he discovered a familiar symbol engraved on the UFO and furrowed his brow.
"...This is."
A symbol one inevitably sees at least once in their lifetime.
A design resembling a reversed and rotated swastika.
"...It's the Nazis."
Hakenkreuz.
It was unmistakably the symbol of Nazi Germany.