Aaron looked up at the ceiling with the hole in it, then looked back at me and Hannah.
His face twisted into a deep frown. After pressing hard at the space between his brows, he said to me,
“Judging by the situation, it seems both operations have failed.”
I offered him a few words of consolation as he looked disappointed.
“Well. The second operation, the one meant to kill me, failed, but since I’ve come here like this, couldn’t you say the first operation succeeded?”
At my words, he let out a hollow laugh.
“Are you mocking me?”
“You catch on quickly.”
At my answer, he threw the tablet he was holding onto the table.
On the tablet he had tossed onto the table was a message window containing the text he had just written.
After checking its contents, I looked at Aaron.
He had his arms crossed and was looking me up and down.
“I didn’t think you’d make it all the way here within an hour of contact being cut off. Had I known this would happen, I would have moved a little faster.”
What he had written on the tablet was a request for help to someone else.
Even while wearing a surprised expression, he had used the tablet in his hand to send a rescue request himself.
“The fact that you appeared before me this quickly, and even brought a woman all the way here without being detected by the soldiers, must mean you can use magic on Earth just the same.”
As expected, he grasped the situation quickly.
I played along with his words.
“That’s right. Even now, I have a shield spread around the plane to keep radio waves from getting out.”
The message Aaron sent did not reach anywhere else.
He had thrown away the tablet because he had confirmed that communications were blocked.
The radio wave-blocking magic I had cast before entering the plane had been devised and created by Soph.
[It has been quite some time since I had this much fun making magic.]
It was one of the many spells he had made after coming to Earth, looking through the internet, and deciding they were necessary.
After seeing the magic Soph had created, I could be certain.
He was not merely an artifact or something like the ego of a staff.
He had said he was nothing more than a copy of an archmage whose creativity had vanished, but if he were merely a copy, there was no way he could create new magic like radio wave-blocking magic.
“It has truly been a long time since I suffered such a great failure, not since the Mars colonization. Back then, if I hadn’t discovered the ancient ruins on Mars, I might really have fallen into despair.”
After letting out a sigh, he continued.
“Do you know how I discovered the ruins back then? The exploration team’s vehicle crashed into a fissure, and that’s how we found a cave…”
He continued with his thrilling tale of exploration after that, but I had not sat down across from him to listen to such stories.
I cut off his torrent of words and asked him,
“Who knows about this plan, and who participated in it?”
“After we began researching those ruins… Pardon?”
He pretended not to have heard me properly, but it was useless.
I had not blocked the radio waves for no reason.
He was not someone connected to me like Jeong Il-su.
I got up from my seat and asked Hannah,
“Are you going to watch? It’ll be fairly unpleasant to see.”
“I’m fine. I’ve seen plenty of sights worse than this.”
Then again, that made sense.
Not only had the environment she grew up in been far from easy, she had experienced many battles and hunts on Trappist.
Compared to then, the torture I was about to carry out now might not even be that severe.
[Tsk, tsk. To think torture is no big deal. You and Hannah both have many problems.]
Even without Soph saying it, I knew we were broken somewhere.
If ordinary times came someday, we might suffer because of this.
But when extracting information from someone like now, being this broken was helpful.
I held my spear and reached out toward Aaron.
“Why are you acting so frightening? Fine. Let’s negotiate. You must still need something else, don’t you? I can help. There must be a way for us to benefit each other!”
He shouted urgently, but I grabbed him by the collar.
Looking into Aaron’s terrified eyes, I cast a spell.
[Lightning.]
Electric magic cast with only a simple incantation swept through his body.
“G-g-g-ggh!”
Aaron trembled all over while being held by the collar.
I asked Aaron again,
“Who knows about this?”
***
As expected, electricity knew the answer.
After a few lightning spells, Aaron spilled everything he knew.
He did not even mix in lies like Jeong Il-su.
He was a tremendous rich man and an explorer, but his mental fortitude was not as strong as soldiers or agents.
He told me everything he knew, and I was able to let out a sigh of relief.
“Good. It wasn’t a major problem.”
It was not something he had done alone, but still, the American president and the Geographic Intelligence Bureau where Margreta was had nothing to do with it.
It had been carried out by the CIA, which had been pushed aside by the Geographic Intelligence Bureau, a few politicians, and the conglomerates who had remained on Earth.
That alone was a serious matter, and the number of people who knew was not small, but it was not something I needed to concern myself with.
It would become a problem if the number of people being sent to Trappist decreased, but if not, this was something for America to handle on its own.
“If I tell Margreta, she’ll take care of it on her end.”
If they could not resolve it internally, I could think about it then.
I checked Aaron, who was lying there foaming at the mouth, then took plastic explosives out of a box and placed them on the table.
Since they were U.S. military goods I had obtained in Pyongyang, even if people found them suspicious later, they would likely suspect an ordinary accident or terrorist attack.
‘Though it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t turn out that way.’
There would be people who suspected me even after this, but that did not matter.
I placed the plastic explosives only to create a bit of confusion and to give myself something to use as an excuse.
I took Hannah back into my arms and cast gravity magic.
Whoosh!
We shot upward again, and the moment we exited through the hole in the ceiling, I launched fire magic downward.
Fwoosh.
A ball of flame fell to the floor. The flames engulfed Aaron and the explosives on the table.
Boom!
The bomb exploded.
The bomb went off after Hannah and I had left the plane.
The plastic explosives that detonated inside the private jet split the plane in half.
Flames surged up, and the plane, torn in two, collapsed onto the ground.
Fortunately, the fire did not spread to the fuel.
The pilots in the cockpit and the attendants in the back were also unharmed.
However, the bodyguards guarding Aaron outside the cabin were all caught in the explosion.
That was only natural, since I had not protected them with magic.
After watching the explosion subside, Soph withdrew the shield protecting the pilots and attendants.
At the sudden explosion, not only the U.S. soldiers guarding the private jet, but also all the Self-Defense Force members guarding Fukuoka Airport began running in every direction.
There were soldiers aiming their guns everywhere, soldiers fleeing into buildings, and soldiers flattening themselves to the ground and burying their heads.
Unfortunately, there were not many soldiers reacting properly.
That was because they had yet to experience war.
I had no intention of laughing at them for that.
When the country was at peace, Korea had been no different.
“Maybe that sight is the better one.”
Soon, the Self-Defense Force would also have to move properly.
Whether they fought enemies outside or enemies within, the time to fight would come.
Watching the situation at the airport from high in the sky, I turned and headed for Jeju Island.
Bang!
Unlike when I had arrived here, I produced a proper airburst.
It was not a quiet sound, but it was all buried under the commotion on the ground.
Hannah and I flew at high speed toward Jeju Island.
After arriving on Jeju Island, we boarded the helicopter Margreta had sent and headed to the Baekdu Mountain base.
I had obtained all the items I needed while traveling with Hannah, and I had handed over the awakening drug I had promised to give the president through a National Intelligence Service agent, so I had no more business in Korea.
Of course, even now, calls were coming in from the ruling party leader and the heads of conglomerates, but I did not answer them.
There was no need to answer, and no reason to.
Since martial law had been declared, if I wanted to procure supplies or receive help in Korea, it was far better to speak to the president.
The president had also said that if I needed anything, I should tell the National Intelligence Service agent, so only the person making the request had changed.
The dealings with America had been left to Margreta from the beginning, and Margreta had brought the payment for those dealings to the Baekdu Mountain base.
Countless U.S. military supplies were piled up at the base unloading area.
Those weapons and pieces of equipment were the price she had received.
At the Baekdu Mountain base, aside from the supplies, there were also people waiting for me.
They were the exploration team members who had come with me and their families.
At the Baekdu Mountain base were Sergeant Woo’s mother and wife, whom I had seen in Seoul, and Tom had also brought his family.
His parents and two younger sisters, an entire family intact, were waiting for me in Margreta’s office.
Fortunately, Tom’s family did not give me a bad feeling either.
None of them lied to me, and perhaps because of whatever Tom had told them, his sisters’ eyes sparkled when they looked at me.
There were Tom’s younger sisters looking at me with expectant eyes, but conversely, there was also someone glaring at me as if shooting daggers.
It was Margreta.
“Don’t you have something to tell me?”
She was looking at me as if looking at a son who had caused trouble.
I had not caused trouble, but reflexively, I looked back at Hannah.
Hannah turned away from me.
Shocked by the betrayal of a comrade I had trusted, I put on a pitiful expression and took Margreta’s hand.
[What happened was…]
Through the hand I held, I conveyed the circumstances to her.
From the story of Jeong Il-su coming to Udo, all the way to meeting Aaron.
After hearing me, Margreta’s eyes widened.
“Aaron?”
She must have truly been surprised, because she spoke aloud.
The family members with us looked at us with puzzled expressions.
Seeing that, the team members stepped in.
“Now, now, it seems you have things to discuss. Since the introductions are over, we’ll go wait at the lodgings.”
Tom and Sergeant Woo took their families and left the container, and Hannah fled with them as well.
In an instant, everyone had left, and only Margreta and I remained in the container office.
I immediately cast soundproofing magic, and after confirming the spell had been cast, Margreta shouted once again.
“Is that true? Aaron Jetson is dead?”
The reason Margreta had asked was not because of Aaron.
“Weren’t you asking because of Aaron?”
“The CIA contacted me and said contact had been lost with the helicopter sent to Hyeon and with Jeong Il-su. That’s why I asked what happened.”
Come to think of it, Aaron was not the only one I had killed.
So I struck first.
“That was self-defense too.”
Both deaths had been self-defense.
At my words, Margreta shook her head.
“That doesn’t matter. If you took action, Hyeon, then there must have been a reason.”
Contrary to my expectations, Margreta had no interest in whether it was self-defense.
“The problem is that Aaron is dead. This will make things complicated.”
From what I had heard from Aaron, he had felt like the core of that faction. Would his death become a problem?
I did not know what the problem was, but it was none of my concern.
“Tell me if you need help.”
At my calm words, Margreta, who had been lost in thought, let out a small laugh.
Her expression relaxed, and she took out her phone.
“Well, there will be more problems, but Samuel will handle that.”
She was right.
We had to go to Trappist now. The problems of Earth could be solved by the people on Earth.
Margreta immediately called Samuel, and I also left the office to meet the team members’ families.
The sky outside the office was darker than it had been a few days ago.
Companions (1)