The road leading to the back mountain on the outskirts of Gyeonggi-do. The taxi Ian was riding sped down the wide-open road.
In the midst of that, the taxi driver casually struck up a conversation.
“Your outfit is really sharp. Are you off to meet a girlfriend or something?”
“Huh? Ah, no, it’s nothing like that. Just a brief outing alone? Something like that.”
Ian answered gently to the sudden question. The taxi driver chuckled, tapping the steering wheel with his hand.
“Nice. Man, when I was young, I really loved wandering all over the place. Back in my day, I would drive cars and motorcycles across the country just li—……”
“…Ah, I see. Haha.”
“Right? When I was young, I was really handsome just like you, customer. Hehe… Girls lined up, lined up.”
“Is that so?”
Ian responded appropriately to the taxi driver’s words and waited until they arrived at the destination.
After chatting like that for a while, they arrived at the destination.
A back mountain with a trail prepared for hikers. Perhaps because it was a weekday afternoon, there weren’t many people. He could only see a few middle-aged men sitting at a makgeolli house.
Fortunately, it didn’t look like he would need to move while avoiding anyone’s gaze. Ian nodded, and the moment the car stopped, he held out his card to pay the fare.
But the taxi driver chuckled and pushed the card back.
“I won’t take any money. This is repayment for listening to my story.”
“Huh? No, even so……”
“It’s really fine. Come on, hurry up and get out. I need to pick up my next customer too.”
The taxi driver lightly patted Ian’s shoulder. Ian pondered for a moment, then bowed his head and opened the taxi door.
“Thank you. If we meet again, I’ll pay you double.”
“Hehe, a polite young man.”
Vroom.
The taxi sped away down the road the moment the door closed. Ian adjusted his rumpled coat and let out a long breath.
‘The world is still worth living in.’
To think there was such a benefactor even in times like these. He talked a bit much, but he was a truly good person. Ian wished him luck inwardly and continued on his way.
“…….”
A wide-open hiking trail. He walked along a path filled only with people descending; no one was climbing up. Perhaps because his attire wasn’t exactly suited for hiking, he felt people’s gazes. Though no one spoke to him, he could clearly sense the curious looks.
As long as they didn’t suspect him of being a mage, it didn’t matter. Ian lightly bowed his head in greeting to those who made eye contact and climbed further up the trail, following the map marked on the Cartel app.
Just as his breath grew slightly ragged, a side path leading to a cave came into view.
Since it was a place people didn’t frequent, it was left unmaintained. Ian carefully made his way down, steadying himself on trees growing beside the path and parting the grass.
‘No witnesses.’
Fortunately, there was no one watching from behind. He couldn’t sense any gazes either.
Ian felt slightly relieved and pre-cocked the hammer of his revolver. The cylinder, always fully loaded with bullets, was cold, yet maintained in perfect condition to spit out rounds at any moment. It was sufficiently oiled.
Click, click.
He spun the cylinder around for no particular reason as he moved toward the cave. He could barely sense any signs of wild animals; only a faint scent of blood wafted from the direction of the cave.
A clear, sharp bloody scent that could be distinctly detected by human senses. Ian gripped the revolver and turned his steps, following the smell.
“…….”
After doing so for quite some time, the cave came into sight.
Inside the dark cave. Between the shadows, three creatures with ashen skin could be seen.
Hunched backs, protruding abdomens and chests where only bones were visible. Long, muscular limbs and sharp claws and teeth.
They wore no clothes. Only torn fabric rolled about on the ground.
The ghoul that had been a woman in life had breasts that protruded subtly, but their shape was nothing like a human’s. If he had to compare them, they were like a dog’s. It was incredibly disgusting.
The ghouls weren’t moving much. They all sat or lay inside the cave where sunlight didn’t reach, blankly staring into empty space. Like zombies, it was proof that they moved by instinct alone, without reason.
Zombies and ghouls had many different characteristics, but to a layman, they were basically the same. If there was a big difference, it was that zombies only craved humans, while ghouls devoured all living creatures indiscriminately.
‘So the blood scent was from the corpse of a beast that lived in the cave. Judging by the variety of clothing, it seems they’ve eaten some humans too.’
Perhaps because they had just finished eating, the ghouls didn’t react even though the scent of a human wafted toward them. Ian boldly approached right to the front of the cave where they were lying and looked down at them.
“……Grk?”
“Grk. Gr-r-rk…….”
Two ghouls that had caught the scent nearby opened their eyes. But even though they turned their heads toward Ian, they couldn’t stare at him properly and only tilted their heads.
It was proof that the magic was working properly.
Ian nodded and summoned a grimoire into his free hand. Then two grimoires were grasped side by side in his hands.
‘No, you need to step back.’
Ian promptly put the Hand of Re-Creation into his bag and only took out the Chronicle of the Deep, opening it. He could feel the grimoire in the bag vibrating, but he ignored it for now. What he was testing today wasn’t re-creation magic.
He flipped past the introduction of the Chronicle of the Deep and checked the summoning section. He drew the summoning circle of the very first creature on the ground. Naturally, he put some distance between himself and the cave.
There was no need to use a pen. He drew a magic circle in the dirt with a tree branch and placed about two chunks of mysterious flesh on top of it.
It was the body of an employee he had obtained during his escape from the theme park, though he hadn’t been able to gather much of it. Since he couldn’t use the ghost’s spirit body obtained from the officetel, he had no choice but to use this.
He drew a bit of blood from his finger and sprinkled it over the flesh chunks. The ghouls reacted to the scent of blood, but since he had distanced himself beforehand, he had plenty of leeway.
He brushed the blood-soaked flesh with his finger and quietly closed his eyes. Holding the grimoire in one hand and the revolver in the other, he chanted the spell.
“O creation of the Great One. O child of God. Son and daughter, slave and holy one. As that one’s proxy, I command you: reveal yourself here.”
Squelch……!
The moment the spell ended, red blood-water trickled out from the grimoire, and light poured into the summoning circle.
Following the glowing summoning circle, the monster’s flesh chunks and blood melted in. Then, the moment the light subsided, a blood fog spread thickly, and a grotesquely shaped creature revealed itself above the summoning circle.
[Kee-kee-geek…….]
A blackish-red body. Its appearance was somewhat like a flower, yet also like a jellyfish. It had no eyes, nose, or ears; only a mouth attached to the center of its body, gaping open and shut.
Four sharp tentacle-like appendages attached to its body functioned like legs, propping against the ground and raising its body.
Commonly called the Messenger.
That small creature, about the size of a human head, turned its body toward Ian and raised its tentacles up, waving them as if in greeting.
[Kee-eeek……!]
The creature’s will wasn’t fully conveyed to Ian, but he roughly sensed by intuition what it was saying. He confirmed that the summoning had proceeded smoothly, nodded, and pointed at the ghouls with his finger.
“Eat.”
[Kee-kee-geek!!]
The creature of the Outer Sea rapidly spun its tentacles following Ian’s will. It charged forward, rolling across the ground like a wheel, and latched onto a ghoul’s face, gaping its maw wide.
The ghoul’s upper body slipped into a maw several times larger than its own body.
And.
Crunch!!
With a horrifying sound, the ghoul’s upper body entered the creature’s stomach. An enormous amount of blood splattered, and organs it couldn’t swallow along with starkly exposed bones tumbled across the floor. The lower body, having lost its upper half, staggered briefly before collapsing to the ground.
[Kee-geek!]
The Messenger didn’t stop there and targeted the other two ghouls as well. It approached quickly as before, plastering itself onto one ghoul’s face and plunging its tentacles into both shoulders.
“GRUAAACK!!”
[Kee-geek!]
As if laughing at the ghoul’s painful scream, the Messenger shook its body and ripped the ghoul apart in two. The bisected body collapsed to the floor around the spine, and the remaining ghoul charged at the predator.
But the Messenger didn’t allow its approach. It stabbed all four tentacles into the ghoul’s head and twisted, grinding it apart.
Splat!
Brain matter, flesh, and chunks scattered in all directions as if ground in a pulverizer. The Messenger shook its body, laughing, then approached the ghoul corpses strewn about and voraciously devoured them.
Ian watched from a distance and let out a hollow laugh.
‘It’s stronger than I thought.’
He had expected it to handle ghouls easily since it was a creature created directly by an Outer God, but he hadn’t known it would kill them this quickly. It was absurd that this was supposed to be the weakest creature.
[Kee-geek.]
The moment he thought that, the predator’s head turned toward Ian.
The atmosphere was different from before. Gone was any sense of gratitude for being summoned; only a predator that had tasted blood and flesh stood there.
“……Does that mean you’re not full?”
The price for answering the summons. A sentence rose in Ian’s mind: if it wasn’t sufficiently full, it would attack the summoner in turn. He pointed to the carcass of a beast inside the cave, moving his lips.
“There’s a corpse over there, so eat more. That should be enough, right?”
[Kee-eek!]
At Ian’s words, the Messenger nodded with a tentacle. It rolled across the ground to the carcass in the cave, immediately buried its head in it, and began voraciously eating the flesh and organs.
‘So even the weakest of the Outer creatures isn’t full enough with three ghouls? At this rate, I can’t even imagine how much the others will devour.’
Its weight class was outstanding, but it couldn’t be said to have very good fuel efficiency like this.
Still, it was excellent as a means of attack. It couldn’t be used quickly in the moment like re-creation magic, but assuming there was leeway, there was no magic better than this.
Ian nodded in satisfaction and closed the grimoire. Then he collected the ghouls’ blood and put it in his bag.
Now it was time to return home.
*
Fortunately, the Messenger turned into blood fog and returned to where it came from the moment its hunger was sated. It seemed that satisfying its hunger itself was the condition for the reverse summon.
He didn’t really know what would happen if it were left hungry, but it probably wouldn’t stop devouring nearby living creatures. Its first target would likely be the grimoire’s owner.
It was undoubtedly an ungrateful bastard, but it was only natural that the stronger the magic, the greater its price. Re-creation magic was a special case; it seemed like it would be difficult to use recklessly.
‘It’s a typical strong-against-strong magic. Unless the opponent is meaty or there’s an overwhelming number of them, summoning it would rather be a loss.’
It was something he wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t tested it beforehand. It was fortunate he found out early.
Back home, Ian washed up briefly and laundered his blood-soaked clothes. They were black, so the stains didn’t show much, but they reeked of a fishy stench, so they had to be washed.
He hung the washed clothes out on the veranda and sat on the edge of his bed, eating the dinner he had bought.
The menu was chicken. The chicken of faith fortunately did not betray him.
After finishing his meal, he placed the two grimoires on the table. Having confirmed that each contained magic of a different nature, it was time to study again.
‘Shall I start with the familiar one first?’
The amount of alchemy and magic written in the Hand of Re-Creation was truly vast. Even though he read it whenever he had time, new things kept popping up. Unlike the Chronicle of the Deep, which focused solely on destructive power, this one could be used in various aspects, so it was well worth continued exploration.
“Hmm.”
Determined to pull an all-nighter, Ian chugged an energy drink and grabbed the Hand of Re-Creation to open the cover.
“Huh.”
He tried to open it. But it wouldn’t open. Ian panicked and tapped the cover with his fingers.
“Why are you acting up all of a sudden?”
[Mmmph!]
The grimoire vibrated once in his arms. Its appearance seemed to throw a fit, as if saying, ‘You seriously don’t know and you’re asking?’ so Ian let out a hollow laugh.
“What the hell? Open the cover. Let me read the book.”
[Mmmph! Mmm-mmmph!!]
“What, you don’t want to?”
[Mmmph!]
The grimoire trembled as if affirming, gaping its cover open, slipped one of Ian’s fingers between it, and chomped down.
“Urk.”
The moment Ian dropped the grimoire from the throbbing pain, the Hand of Re-Creation, fallen to the floor, pathetically crawled across the ground and hid itself in a corner.
Ian frowned as he watched the sight.
“……No way.”
It was truly an absurd situation, but.
It seemed the grimoire was sulking.
A hollow laugh was all that came out.