A lot had happened to Ian in quick succession, but surprisingly, the festival was still far from over. Since annihilating a mercenary corps had been on the third day of the Hour of Twilight, excluding the sixth day when the festival effectively ended, there were still two full days left.
And the longer the festival lasted, the more the highlights were inevitably pushed toward the end.
As time passed, Korea would descend further into chaos, and mages and hunters would clash continuously in places light could not reach. Whether those encounters were intentional or not. From a mage’s perspective, it was all equally bothersome.
So Ian resolved to lock himself inside his workshop for the remaining duration.
Spending several days carrying out daily activities, including sleep, inside the workshop meant that some of the space’s inherent sorcerous effects would inevitably fade, but that was still better than getting entangled in troublesome matters.
He could just refill the ether later. Simply using alchemy, he could easily dissolve ether into the air.
“Nnng….”
And so, on the fourth day of the festival. Ian opened his eyes early in the morning on the sofa and picked up his phone with bleary eyes. When light suddenly flooded his dark-adapted pupils, his face scrunched up involuntarily.
“Ugh.”
He immediately adjusted the brightness and checked the time.
9:30 AM.
Late if you considered it late, early if you considered it early.
To Ian, who had no outside schedule anyway, it was a meaningless wake-up time. He raised himself from the bed, yawned, and turned on the lamp sitting on the table.
Click.
The lamp-shaped light illuminated the living room dimly. Even so, it was still dark.
Due to the workshop’s nature, it was necessary to keep the brightness to an absolute minimum, if only to avoid drawing the attention of ‘something.’
It was not for nothing that all windows were blocked with blackout curtains and that only small lamps and candles were used. There was a reason for all of it.
‘No signs of anyone breaking in overnight. If there had been, I would’ve woken up anyway.’
He ruffled his disheveled hair, sat on the sofa, and gulped down a mouthful of water. As the cold water ran down his throat, some of the drowsiness seemed to fade.
Inside the self-maintaining fish tank, fish were wriggling and swimming about. He had not paid particular attention to the species when bringing them in, but they were still alive and well for now.
Ian gazed at the blue-glowing fish tank for a moment, then filled the nearby feeder to the brim and headed into the bathroom.
“Hoo….”
He organized the day’s tasks while showering in lukewarm water.
He had no intention of going outside. He was worried about his acquaintances’ safety, but he could simply ask them via message. As for Eric’s condition… since he had said the hunt failed, Ian figured he must have escaped on his own.
Still, he thought it would be good to visit at least once after the Hour of Twilight ended. Maintaining a lasting friendship with a mage from the Clock Tower would not be a bad idea.
Well, that was all for later. For now, he planned to focus on alchemy today. He had already gathered all the materials, so it was time to begin crafting in earnest.
‘The things I’d planned to make. The Bewitching Lantern, the Candle of Transition, and the Hemostatic Feather. Let’s get started on these three right away.’
Squeak.
Ian, having sorted out his thoughts, finished showering and stepped out. He roughly dried his hair and threw on some comfortable clothes. There was no need to dress up when he was just staying in the workshop.
He plugged his nearly dead phone into the charger, opened a delivery app, and ordered breakfast.
The menu was hamburgers. There was no better food for eating quickly and conveniently, so it was more than enough for breakfast.
While waiting for the delivery, he briefly scrolled through the community. There was no grand purpose; it was simply to roughly check if his acquaintances were safe.
[Today’s breakfast menu.]
[StrawberryYogurtSmoothie]
(Sandwich and egg tart, strawberry yogurt smoothie, salad picture)
Gotta eat hearty to survive today too.
This baby mage is so scared of the festival he’s experiencing for the first time.
[Comments]
-Didn’t you kill some mage hunter you ran into like two days ago? What are you scared of, fuck.
└StrawberryYogurtSmoothie: (If not that serious, mage-con)
└(For real aaa mage-con)
[Guys, I found something funny]
[DeepSeaMonkfish]
(Solid black picture)
It’s your faces right here. Did you crawl up from the deep sea?
Ah, our secondhand newbie is excepted.
[Comments]
-Ha. The bastard knows he’s handsome.
└DeepSeaMonkfish: Retard.
└Why’d you call me.
-Why is the psycho pretending to be a newbie an exception? I didn’t see him myself, but he’s really ugly, yeah.
└DeepSeaMonkfish: keke
└No, I’m telling you it’s true.
└DeepSeaMonkfish: KEKEKEKEKEKE
└StrawberryYogurtSmoothie: KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE
└Dolores: Wasn’t he handsome though?
└★Matriarch: (I’m starting to like him… mage-con)
└SevereMagicAddict: (Then die, mage-con)
[Hour of Twilight, Day 4 morning. The number of community users currently deceased.]
[★Matriarch]
There’s no such thing. I hope everyone makes it to the end safely.
[Upvotes 153][Downvotes 0]
[Comments have been disabled by admin authority.]
[It’s been a while since I visited the Mystery Gallery to correct some wrong info.]
[SevereMagicAddict]
The talisman crafting method via Pentacle Magic was written strangely, so I went and taught them about the Knowledge of Solomon, including planetary days.
Proud of myself.
[Comments]
-Aren’t you getting gank-killed there for being a well-liked regular? Did you check?
└SevereMagicAddict: What.
Seeing the posts written by the internet phantoms with those familiar nicknames, Ian burst into a scoffing laugh.
There was no need to send messages; this alone confirmed that they were all fine. Needless to say for those who had posted, and seeing Dolores and Kim Ari leaving comments, it seemed they had not encountered any major danger either.
There was no guarantee they would all be safe for the remaining two days including today, but all the acquaintances Ian knew were mages recognized to some extent in this field. They probably would not just die helplessly without any resistance.
Still, just in case. He left a post on the community, partly as a survival check.
[Guys, I caught an Esper named Laura? Is this a good thing???]
[Yeah]
Sorry I couldn’t take a proof pic ㅠㅠ Killed her without even a chance to take a photo……
Victor and Picher? Killed almost all the other mercenaries besides those bastards too…… It was hard…….
Is everyone else okay? If you find yourselves in danger, those close to me, please contact me! I’ll help you!
Wink!
He did not bother looking at the flooding replies. He put down his phone and began preparing for alchemy.
There were three items to make. Among them, the Bewitching Lantern would take the longest, while the Hemostatic Feather could be made the fastest. So Ian put the feather last in the queue and set up the lantern’s materials first.
“Come here.”
When he reached out into the air, the Hand of Re-creation, reading his intent, flew over and settled into place. Ian set down the bag containing the materials nearby, sat in his chair, and turned the pages of the grimoire.
[Bewitching Lantern]
[Any target beholding this lantern’s flame will experience bizarre hallucinations and perceive reality as if it were a dream.]
[Materials: 1 oil lantern, 5mL holy water, 25mL mage’s blood, a small amount of finely ground monster flesh, 500mL water, 1 dying eyeball.]
[Caution: This lantern’s effects persist permanently as long as the flame is lit. Only the owner of this grimoire, ‘Shin Ian,’ can deactivate it, and to do so, the oil contained within the lantern must be splashed out.]
[The Bewitching Lantern cannot distinguish between friend and foe, so it must be used with care.]
[The oil used in the lantern is not ordinary oil. The crafting method is recorded in the grimoire, so please refer to it.]
The explanation went on. Ian tapped the grimoire’s cover with his finger and nodded.
Most of the tools he currently possessed were either specialized in physical attacks or utility. Even the rather peculiar ‘Knowledge-Eating Paper’ could affect the mind to some degree, but its usage conditions were somewhat risky, making it difficult to use freely. If an intense battle broke out, it was practically useless.
But the Bewitching Lantern had virtually no restrictions. Simply beholding the flame could inflict confusion, so there was no better means of preparing a mental attack.
That was why Ian had decided to craft this item. To prepare a means of mental attack, rather than just physical ones.
He could resolve things with magic, but rather than drawing magic circles and chanting spells one by one, alchemy that could be used with a simple click was far more convenient. There was no harm in making it.
“Shall we get ready?”
Ian set the grimoire down for a moment and took out the items needed for the lantern from his bag.
The black lantern purchased from the Owl’s General Store and a bottle of holy water received as a reward yesterday. And one portion of blood water and one dying eyeball he had prepared in advance, plus water drawn from the water purifier, were placed on the crafting table.
The remaining material was ground monster flesh. Since this required manual labor, Ian placed the bead he had made by recreating a ghost into the soul-containing goblet. Then he stirred it wildly with a stick and smashed it to pieces.
With a crunching sound, the crushed bead crumbled like powder.
He had been at it for a while when the ordered hamburger arrived. Ian paused his work and flung the door open at the sound of the doorbell.
Their eyes met.
[Heelllloooooo there.]
Before the front door. A woman in a crimson dress, clutching a kitchen knife, opened her mouth while reeking of sewer stench. Bloody fluid trickled from her bloodshot eyes, and bugs crawled through the grotesquely twisted and torn flesh of her arms and legs.
No matter how or where you looked, she was a monster. Standing well over two meters tall, she looked down at Ian and let out a kihkihkih laugh.
[Could youuuuuu perchaaaaaance give me soooooome waaaaater—]
A scraping voice flowed from her maw, from which blood and sewer water dripped steadily.
It was a sight that would have made an ordinary person faint on the spot. However, Ian’s brow furrowed deeply as he glared at the hamburger bag held in her other hand, the one not clutching the kitchen knife.
“Is it because of the festival? Every freak and their mother is crawling out…… Hand over my hamburger, you crazy bitch.”
Snap!
Ian grabbed her wrist. And before the monster could even be bewildered, he summoned his grimoire.
“Be born anew.”
Crunch!
The compressed monster fell to the floor with a sickening thud and a terrible sound. The bag fell along with it, but Ian snatched it up just in time and checked the contents.
“Hoo, it’s not spoiled.”
There did not seem to be any signs of transformation. He let out a sigh of relief, collected the monster flesh that had fallen, and returned to the workshop.
He did not forget to add the freshly obtained monster flesh to the goblet either.
*
After working on the mixture of flesh and bead for about three hours, Ian formally began the lantern’s production.
Click.
He detached the lantern’s lower section and took out the oil container. He poured 500mL of water inside, mixed in the holy water and blood water as needed. He added the ground flesh in several small batches, letting it dissolve into the mixture.
Once all that work was finished. He reassembled the oil container and carefully placed the dying eyeball on the slightly damp wick.
The preparations were complete. Ian placed the lantern atop a pre-drawn magic circle and, opening the grimoire, chanted the spell.
“As His proxy and bridegroom, I command you. Paradise has been prepared for you, so walk toward where the flames bloom. Thus shall you escape from hell and become the flowers of that exotic garden.”
Fwoooosh!
At the spell’s conclusion, the eyeball embedded in the wick burned away. The liquids inside the oil container also all evaporated, and heat briefly flared up inside the now-empty lantern before vanishing just as quickly.
“……It’s a success.”
Ian let out a deep breath and examined the completed lantern.
Its appearance was little different from an ordinary oil lantern.
As for the design, it had originally been an item used by mages, so it was already on the refined side. The only thing that had changed, if one could call it a change, was that the wick had been dyed black. It had become a wick that could be used permanently.
However, once he poured in the oil he had made and lit it, a light of a different color from an ordinary flame would bloom, making it impossible not to stand out.
Well, it wasn’t really a problem. In any case, by the time he needed to use the lantern, the fact that he was a mage would have long since been exposed.
“The grip is… not bad.”
Ian held the lantern in his hand and moved it this way and that, then nodded and set it back down on the table.
Now that the lantern was complete, it was time to make the oil that would go inside it. This part of the work tended to take quite a while.
[Oil of Ecstasy]
[When this oil burns, those who smell it will feel an extreme headache and pleasure.]
[Ingredients: High-grade oil in the amount you wish to produce, sulfuric acid equal to 20% of the high-grade oil, 100 mL of a mage’s blood, 2 goat hearts, 300 mL of a virgin’s blood]
[This oil can be used in the ‘Bewitching Lantern,’ but if used in the lantern, the oil’s inherent ability will disappear.]
[Regardless of quantity, this oil takes a total of 30 hours to produce, and after reciting the incantation, it must be stored somewhere no light reaches.]
The oil’s own performance was not half bad, but compared to the ingredients, it was not exactly cost-effective.
And its effectiveness was a little awkward when used on its own.
When, exactly, would he sprinkle oil around and then carefully set it on fire?
The headache and pleasure it induced were certainly nice, but it couldn’t inflict direct harm, and in terms of utility, it performed markedly worse than other tools. There were many ways in which it fell short if he were to go out of his way to carry around bottles of oil and throw them.
So he intended to make only enough to use in the lantern. Roughly two to three liters should be enough to keep using for quite some time.
If it wasn’t enough, he could just make more then.
‘Let’s get right to it. No time to dawdle.’
Without taking any separate time to rest, Ian immediately began producing the oil.
*
This sort of alchemical production continued the next day, and the day after that as well.
Time passed like that, and while balancing rest and production as evenly as he could, he finally succeeded in completing all three items.
“…Nngh. It’s finally over.”
Holding the last item he had made, the Stanching Feather, Ian waved it in his hand with a satisfied smile.
Along with the production that had continued for about three days, the Twilight Hour had finally reached its sixth day.
It was effectively the final day of the festival, a time when the hunters had all returned to where they belonged and there were no further threats to speak of. Ian stretched his stiff body, went out into the officetel corridor, opened a window, and smoked a cigarette.
“Whew…”
It was extremely bright outside the window. There was not a single cloud in the sky, and the sun, which had risen not long ago, was shining brightly down on the earth. It was enough to make the torrential rain that had poured down a few days ago feel like a lie.
Ian stared at that sky for a moment, then suddenly thought of Eric and Amelia as he tapped the ash from his cigarette into a portable ashtray.
‘It’s already been quite a while since the attack. I wonder if the two of them are doing a little better now.’
Laura had not told him in particular how badly the two had been injured.
But the mercenary band that had gone to kill them had apparently suffered serious injuries, so Eric’s body probably wasn’t unscathed either. He was likely badly hurt.
As for Amelia… he wasn’t sure. Still, since Eric had been injured, she likely hadn’t gotten away completely fine either. Even if she had not been severely injured, she had probably sustained at least some minor wounds.
‘I was thinking of going out to buy more cigarettes soon anyway, since I’m running low. Maybe I should see their faces while I’m at it. And ask who the mage that helped Eric was.’
It was a thought that had occurred to him on impulse.
There was no particular reason not to follow it. Ian gave a small laugh, stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray, and went back into the workshop to prepare to go out.