Given the unprecedented incident of a 400-million-won notebook left quietly at home vanishing into thin air, Ian could hardly keep his wits about him. He searched the house like he was picking out lice, looking for the notebook.
But all he found was the dust left behind by the previous owner. Not a trace of the notebook, not even a scrap of paper. He was lucky he didn’t find any bugs.
“Haa...”
In the end, Ian slumped onto the living room sofa and let out a deep sigh.
It was truly something that would make a ghost wail. It wasn’t as if the notebook had grown legs—how could a perfectly shelved notebook disappear overnight?
If there were any signs of a break-in, he could track it, but he found nothing of the sort. Unless it had literally evaporated, there was no explanation.
‘A notebook made from materials scavenged in hell, so it returned to hell the moment it was completed...? Or did Pleas scam me...?’
Two plausible hypotheses came to mind, but neither felt like the definite answer.
If it had returned to hell, why would the notebook have stayed intact on Earth while Faust was actively using it? Shouldn’t it have reverted to hell long ago? As for the notebook coming back after Faust’s death, no particular reason came to mind.
Faust didn’t die a natural death, after all—he was torn to shreds by a demon’s hand. Ian wasn’t sure of the exact name of the demon Faust had contracted, but there was absolutely no reason for a demon to forego owning a notebook capable of traveling between hell and Earth and just let it roam free. Why wouldn’t it claim such a precious item?
So the hypothesis of it returning to hell didn’t really fit. The possibility wasn’t zero, but it probably wasn’t high.
On the other hand, Pleas pulling a scam? A mage who openly flaunts his affiliation and workplace, has a solid reputation among mages as a shopkeeper, and even takes pride in it—would he run a scam?
That’s nonsense. This possibility converges to essentially zero. Pleas isn’t an idiot—why would he throw away all the trust he’s built just to swindle a few hundred million won?
But if he dismissed this hypothesis too, no suitable answer came to mind.
“...”
Maybe the notebook really did suddenly sprout legs and run off.
Common sense says it’s impossible, but in a world where the mystical existed, he couldn’t just brush it off as nonsense. Ian let out a deep sigh and ran a hand through his disheveled hair.
“Huff, damn it...”
He forced himself to pour cold water on his boiling head. Slowly regaining his composure, he looked down at the grimoires scattered nearby and spoke.
“Do you lot know anything?”
[Bzzz!]
[Bzz.]
[Bzz, bzz...!]
The grimoires answered as if they’d been waiting. They explained with all their might that the notebook had become a grimoire and had set off on a journey to find its own identity and grow.
The problem was that all this commotion only reached Ian as rough vibrations. He stared silently at the grimoires vibrating in his arms, gave a bitter smile, and stroked their covers.
“Right, what would you know. Let’s just go out.”
He’d started looking for the notebook in the morning, and it was already afternoon. He couldn’t stay fixated on its whereabouts forever. There were surprisingly more things to do besides the notebook. Not only did he need to craft items to hunt and kill Irene, but he also had to get a new gun.
He’d lost his original revolver at the art gallery. He’d just left it lodged in the girl’s maw, so it had probably long since melted into part of her. Rather than retrieving that, it was far more advantageous to buy a new one.
‘I’ll buy a firearm from the cartel shop, and for today, I’ll focus on alchemical crafting at the workshop. I should plan on staying there for about a day.’
Ian gathered his grimoires, got up, and crammed several pre-sorted materials into his bag. The bag became quite heavy, but since he had no intention of walking, it didn’t matter much.
He found the bike key he’d left in the bedroom and slipped it into his pocket. Before setting off, he spread his freshly laundered coat on the floor and recast the vanished defensive spell.
“Thou agent of God. Ward off the evil of the profane and proclaim God’s will. Thou art companion of the otherworld, messenger, eye, sword, and shield.”
Swoosh.
The magic circle drawn with Ian’s blood glowed and greedily devoured the chunk of aberrant flesh placed upon it.
With that, the defensive spell was reinstalled. After confirming the coat rippled like water when subjected to strong impact, he nodded in satisfaction.
Perhaps because it was practically the only defensive spell in the Deep Sea Travelogue, its performance was quite excellent among the spells Ian could use.
Of course, the defensive spells in the Book of the Covenant had the most formidable performance, but using them required various preparations. For quick, on-the-spot use, the Deep Sea Travelogue’s spell was perfect. Besides, the magic in the Book of the Covenant wasn’t the type you could just apply to an object like a coat, so it was a bit cumbersome.
Still, its performance was undeniably solid, so he figured he’d switch over once he could properly prepare later. It just wasn’t now.
“Let’s go.”
Finally, Ian grabbed his helmet, left the house, and mounted his parked bike. When he turned on the ignition, the bike’s AI greeted him.
[Welcome, master. Good afternoon.]
“Yeah. Destination: the officetel.”
[Confirmed. Autonomous driving or manual driving?]
“Manual today. Just look out for the brake system. How are the consumables?”
Click.
Ian asked as he retracted the kickstand. The AI answered immediately.
[All in good condition overall. No components require replacement. However, since it’s new, I recommend changing the engine oil after about five rides. There are some metal shavings mixed in.]
“Engine oil. Got it.”
[Yes. Then please depart at your convenience. I’ll assist you.]
The AI spoke in a bright voice. At the same moment, an emoticon like ‘( ◡‿◡ )’ briefly appeared on the digital dashboard and vanished. Ian chuckled, tapped the tank lightly, put it in gear, and set off.
Brummm.
The bike exited the parking lot and entered the road.
The sky he briefly gazed up at seemed especially gloomy today.
*
Incheon’s Chinatown.
Inside a motel where corpses lay strewn abandoned, a group dressed in black suits barged in. The motel owner, who had been sitting casually at the counter and yawning, jumped up in alarm.
“Wh-What?! We don’t have any group guests or anyth—ㅡ”
Thwack!
Before the man could finish, a short dagger pierced through the crown of his head.
The blade, having smashed through bone and brain to jut out from his jaw, vibrated side to side, making the dead man’s body jerk as if dancing.
A blonde woman in a suit who had been silently watching the scene let out a deep sigh.
“Stop it, Anna. There’s no need to damage the corpse. I don’t want to create a situation where the Management Bureau starts tracking us.”
At her words, a short girl burst into giggles.
“It’s fun, Laura unnie. By the look of that old face, he seemed to have lived quite long, but that long life ended so futilely here. He couldn’t even finish speaking. Haha! I just love that brief moment when something breathes its last.”
Unlike the others in suits, the girl, dressed in a casual hoodie and hot pants, ran her fingers along the daggers at her waist.
But the woman called Laura didn’t leave her be.
“Anna. That’s an order. No drawing attention. Follow me.”
“Aw, unniiie...”
“Anna.”
Laura spoke in a firm tone. In the end, Anna backed down.
“Tch.”
Anna stretched out her empty hand. Instantly, the dagger that had pierced the man’s head flew smoothly into her grasp.
It was a psychic ability that let her freely control a blade exactly one-fifth her own height. She hung the dagger, now smeared with brain matter and blood, back on her waist and stepped after Laura, who was walking ahead.
Florence, a Swiss psychic group led by Laura.
They essentially made a living as mercenaries, but during the Twilight Hour, even they did not take commissions.
The reason was simple: like others, they were hunting mages. They had missed the event last year unavoidably, so this year they planned a proper hunt.
Their chosen destination was Korea—specifically, the neck of the owner of the Lemegeton.
The value of the Lemegeton was so immense that even non-mages could grasp it. She planned to extract that mage’s heart, mince it finely, process it, and share it among all her comrades.
But it was only the third day of the festival. Since they had yet to gather any information on the Lemegeton, they couldn’t act rashly.
So she set aside the Lemegeton’s owner for now and began tracking traces of other mages first.
And that had led them here.
“Here it is.”
They had arrived at an empty upper-floor room in the motel.
Anna whistled as she caught the faint lingering scent of blood, and Laura’s lips moved.
“Louise.”
“Yes.”
At her call, a bespectacled man stepped forward.
Without hesitation, he pulled a goat’s eyeball from his pocket and chewed it up.
The squishy eyeball burst inside his mouth, and Louise’s human-looking eyes transformed into those of a goat.
It was proof of his psychic ability—an ability that could capture the unique ether signature of a mage and visualize it. The price was having to chew and swallow a goat’s eyeball, but the performance alone was remarkable. There was a reason Laura kept him around.
“I’ve found it,” said Louise.
He pointed a finger at the traces of the corpses that had been here and exhaled heavily. Blood that had been boiling up inside him regurgitated and seeped through his throat.
“A fairly powerful mage. Huff, just looking makes my body recoil. This is the first time I’ve experienced such a phenomenon.”
“Can you track the location?”
“Yes, I can. Finding the mage’s presence is difficult, but I can pinpoint the source of the magic used here immediately. Show me a map.”
Laura nodded and handed over a map of Korea. Bloody tears dripping down, Louise drew a circle on the map with a trembling hand.
It was where Ian’s workshop was located.
“The 13th floor of this location.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, certain. More importantly, Laura-nim, it seems I will die here. I can’t deactivate my ability.”
His voice was far too calm for what he was saying, so Laura was momentarily at a loss for words.
After blinking for a long moment, she spoke with a flustered expression.
“...What?”
“The magical energy is too strong. Just visualizing it is causing my body to necrotize. My digestive organs have already completely melted.”
“No, you can just recover. Losing you here would be a pretty heavy loss—ㅡ”
“Bleurgh.”
Louise cut Laura off and vomited blood. Sticky crimson drenched the congealed blood already on the floor. He took a few ragged breaths, then looked up at Laura and spoke with difficulty.
“Hah, huff... Laura-nim, if you intend to hunt this mage, do not attempt any action whatsoever, including observation. You will die in reverse, just like me.”
“...”
“Ah, I’m even getting hallucinations and auditory hallucinations now. The eyes filling every direction are slowly approaching me... .”
Thump.
Before his words could finish, his lower jaw melted off entirely. His long tongue drooped limply, and the eyes engraved with goat-like pupils crunched and burst. Next, his brain caved in, and blood mixed with clear cerebrospinal fluid trickled from his nose and ears.
Thus Louise died. Anna giggled as she looked down at his corpse, and Laura gave her orders expressionlessly.
“Clean up the body. Psychics including Anna, move to the location Louise marked. I’ll rest for a while.”
And so it was.
In an instant, the room emptied, and Laura slumped to the floor, letting out a long breath.
"There was another place Louise was supposed to die... What a shame."
Her sincere lament was swallowed by the silence.
*
Ian, who had parked his car in the officetel parking lot, stopped by a convenience store and bought an energy drink.
He might have to pull an all-nighter, so he figured having at least one high-caffeine drink was a good idea. His body didn't react strongly to caffeine, but it was still better than nothing.
Feeling the cold can in his pocket, he looked up at the sky.
"……."
The sky was still thick with dark clouds. It looked ready to pour at any moment, but luckily, not a single drop had fallen yet.
'I hope it doesn't rain until I get back, if possible.'
Riding in the rain was fine, but he'd rather not soak his coat. Maybe if he were wearing a windbreaker, but dashing through rain in non-waterproof clothing was insanity. Unless absolutely necessary, there was no reason to deliberately enjoy a rainy ride.
Bzzz.
As he moved forward, lost in thought, he arrived at the officetel entrance. He stepped through the automatic doors and headed straight for the elevator without hesitation.
At that moment. Sensing something off, Ian stopped dead in his tracks.
"……."
An inexplicable unease weighed down on the air. He exhaled heavily, took the can from his pocket, and popped the tab with a snap.
He stared at the floor indicator above the elevator door.
The high-rise officetel he used as his workshop had only two residents. One was Ian, and the other was the landlady living on the top floor, the 15th.
But just because she was the building owner didn't mean they were close. She rarely came down from the 15th floor, and they mostly communicated via messages whenever necessary. They sometimes ran into each other on the first floor or outside, but she almost never visited his workshop.
And yet. Why was the elevator's indicator pointing at the 13th floor?
"……Hoo."
A jarring sense of dissonance.
On the off chance, Ian took a gulp of his drink and then called the landlady. She answered within seconds.
[Hello? What's the matter, young man?]
"Ah, hello, ma’am. I called to ask you something. Did you happen to stop by my place today?"
[Your place? Eeing, no? I'm out right now, meeting a friend for the first time in a while.]
An immediate reply.
Ian's face hardened into a cold expression.
"I see. Thank you for letting me know. Stay safe on your way home."
[Eung, okay. You take care, too, young man.]
"Haha, will do."
Ian laughed lightly and hung up.
He shoved his smartphone into his pocket, then gripped the half-empty drink can tightly.
Then he put a cigarette to his lips and lit it with a sharp hiss.
"Hoo... Who the hell are these bastards."