-Our Side
“Could it be… Ren? Is that you?”
I asked point-blank. It seemed like the better option.
The third crow nodded. Then a bluish light began to spread over its entire body, and its form started to change.
Gradually, the crow transformed into a human body.
“Wh-what is that?”
“Ah! Biological transformation… is it?”
Cheon Danbi and Gil, who had only been watching from the side as I spoke with the crows, jumped in surprise and stepped backward.
Even so, they couldn’t take their eyes off Ren as she transformed.
The crows were not surprised to see Ren pull off a polymorph. They must have seen it already while traveling together.
It seemed Ren had shown them in order to prove who she was.
The reason the crows had been referring to Ren respectfully as “that person” while we talked until now was probably because they had seen her polymorph ability.
‘These guys don’t even use honorifics or respectful titles for me, their master….’
That was how rare polymorphing was. It was not something just anyone could do. It was an ability regarded as exceedingly rare and noble.
“My word! That’s incredible!”
“Wow… I never thought I’d see a complete biological transformation right in front of my eyes.”
After witnessing a polymorph right before them, admiration spilled naturally from Cheon Danbi and Gil’s mouths, and the astonishment did not leave their eyes. Anyone would have reacted that way.
Even in this world, where biological transformation techniques had developed, it was still a mysterious thing for one living being to completely transform itself into another.
Even a mage could conceal their appearance or deceive others, but they could not perform such a perfect biological transformation.
It would require constructing circuits so that every single cell in the body expressed itself as a different possibility.
Even if it was not impossible, it was certainly an extremely difficult task.
“Say hello. This is Ren.”
When Ren’s transformation was completely finished, I said to Cheon Danbi and Gil.
“My name is Ren. You must have been surprised.”
Ren greeted Cheon Danbi and Gil first. A faint smile rested on her face.
“Ah, yes. Ren, then. I’ve heard a lot about you. Nice to meet you.”
“Hello.”
Cheon Danbi and Gil were clearly nervous. They managed to greet her somehow, but they did not introduce themselves.
“This is Cheon Danbi, and this is Gil. The two of them are on my team, so you don’t need to worry.”
I introduced them in their place and reassured Ren.
“I know. I heard from the crows. That’s why I’m showing you my original form without worry. I can’t speak while I’m in a crow’s form, after all.”
Saying that, Ren smiled again.
She did not seem nervous at all. If anything, she looked to be in a good mood. Was it because she had returned to her original form after so long?
Seeing Ren smile made me feel somehow lighter too.
Still, just in case, I extended detection magic around us.
The situation was different from when it was just us. If someone were hiding nearby and happened to see Ren, it would be a serious problem.
[There’s no one around here right now, so don’t worry.]
[We already checked everything.]
[Oudin doesn’t seem to know, but our eyesight is quite good.]
[And we can fly through the sky too.]
Perhaps they had grown bored of quietly keeping their beaks shut, because Hugin and Munin sent voice transmissions and butted in.
“Right. There’s no one living around here except us. We can talk freely.”
I said that for everyone to hear, not just the crows, then looked at Ren and asked a question.
“What happened? Why did you leave Wolmido?”
“The police were coming to search that place because of me. Not only that, but there’s even a bounty on my head now, so hunters might come too. I didn’t want the dwarf village to suffer for my sake.”
As expected, her reason for leaving that place was just as I had guessed.
And my expectation that she would be safely fleeing somewhere, out of people’s sight, had also been correct.
Transforming not into a human or another race, but into a crow, was a wise choice. People rarely looked up into the sky.
“Did you meet those guys by chance?”
I asked, gesturing with my chin toward Hugin and Munin.
“Yes. I met them by chance. I sat beside them, and I heard a voice transmission. I was so glad. To meet special crows like that. But after following them around for a bit and listening to them talk, I found out they were Mage Oudin’s crows. I really was so happy then.”
Ren could not live forever in the form of a crow. Nor did she know how long she would have to keep running.
She needed someone to talk to.
So, Ren said she had asked the crows to bring her to me.
“You managed to find us well.”
“We did wander around for several days.”
It seemed the crows had taken Ren around here and there.
They said they had gone to Seoul, visited our house, and stopped by the herb shop as well.
But by then, we must have already left for Daejeon again.
Since they did not know where we had gone, they wandered from place to place, even going to Neo Forest and to Chairman Kim Seonho’s house, which had been thrown into chaos by Yasin’s terror attack.
“You went there? You know that’s the Vanaheim chairman’s house, right?”
“We didn’t go near it. The black mage had already made a mess of the place and left by then.”
Of course, since she would have flown there in the form of a crow, it would have been difficult to recognize her. But if the people of Vanaheim ever found out about this later, I thought they would feel terribly regretful.
To think the very Ren they were searching for had flown right over the chairman’s house.
I found myself thinking that Ren had a surprisingly strong nerve.
After that, while wandering around Seoul, she had seen the post and photos I asked Jang Jeyeong to upload to the internet and learned that we had gone to Chungcheongbuk-do.
“I heard people talking about you, Mage.”
She said people here and there were talking a lot about me.
Ren seemed about to say something more about that, but stopped and only briefly explained how she had found us.
“Even after coming down to this region, I wandered around for quite a while. I had no way of knowing where on earth you had gone. Then I saw an enormous mana wave rising right here and hurriedly flew this way.”
“You did well to come. You were right to look for me.”
A life on the run wore a person down. One had to live in constant anxiety and fear, avoiding people and remaining alone.
In short, it was not something one could keep doing for long.
“From now on, come with us. We’ll help you.”
Cheon Danbi said, taking Ren’s hand.
I felt the same. So I nodded and told her as well.
“That’s right. Until the problem is resolved, you’ll probably have to keep transforming, but in any case, stay with us.”
But Ren shook her head.
“I wanted to meet you, Mage, but I don’t intend to burden you. I only wanted to know how things were going. I couldn’t properly understand the situation from the news alone.”
She must have wanted to know how long she had to keep running.
Not only that, since she had told me about Vanaheim’s corruption, she must also have hoped, at least a little, that I would resolve it.
“I will definitely reveal to the world the unjust things Vanaheim did to you, Ren. But I need time. Until then, stay with us. You won’t be a burden at all.”
I said it while looking into Ren’s eyes.
In order to solve Ren’s problem, we had to expose the illegal experiments Vanaheim was conducting.
We had to reveal to the whole world the problems with the development of the Golden Apple, and we had to drag out the test subjects imprisoned beneath Kim Seonho’s house.
Above all, we had to address the matter of their collusion with black mages.
Behind all of this, there were surely relationships formed through vested interests, not just Vanaheim alone.
There were bound to be people connected to them among the government and the mages of the Hall as well.
It was no ordinary matter.
But I did not feel as though I had taken Ren’s problem onto my shoulders.
Rather, I had gained a clue from Ren regarding the black mage’s experiments, and although we had only witnessed a scene of destruction after coming here in search of that answer, there were still threads left that we could gradually dig into.
Besides, now that I had met Ren again like this, I even felt somehow reassured, as though I had met an ally.
I kept getting that feeling today.
Though they had not revealed themselves in the end, the divine mage who had produced that pure white light also felt like an ally standing with us.
Before I knew it, the number of people on our side was gradually increasing. People who would protect my back on the front line against the black mages.
“I’m truly glad to meet you again. Come with us from now on. You can help us too, Ren.”
Once again, I spoke to Ren with sincerity.
“Yes. I understand. Then, for now…”
Ren trailed off, but her expression had brightened. Just as when she had first arrived earlier, a smile appeared on her face.
“We can talk gradually. For now, we should get down from here. The police or mages might already be down below. After all that commotion, they’ll come to check it out one way or another.”
“Then I’ll transform back into a crow. I mustn’t be seen by people.”
“Right. Follow us together with Hugin and Munin. If you see people, fly higher.”
“Yes. I’ve gotten somewhat used to living as a crow now.”
Ren immediately raised a bluish light over her entire body and transformed into a crow once more.
Even seeing it again, it was nothing but astonishing and wondrous.
When I turned to the side, Cheon Danbi and Gil were staring with their mouths hanging wide open.
“Let’s go. I said, let’s go!”
When I clapped my hands and spoke, only then did the two of them come to their senses and prepare to descend.
“Uh, right. Got it.”
“Yes. Let’s hurry.”
The three crows leapt into the sky first.
We humans soon began to walk as well.
The ground had now been leveled enough that there was no problem walking on it.
It seemed that even while we had been talking with the crows and Ren, the fragments of light brought by the whirlwind had been diligently working their magic.
The cracks in the split ground had been filled with ferns and soil, and plants that had bloomed with flowers here and there had taken root, supporting it even more firmly.
The magical flame Gil had brought to life at his fingertips lit the ground beneath our feet. Cheon Danbi and Gil walked while chatting quietly with each other.
Following behind them, I stopped for a moment and looked back.
I cast my gaze into the distance.
The place where the black mages’ laboratory and factory had been, the place where the secret cave had been, the place where the earth had shaken and overturned in destruction.
It was dark and hard to see, so I activated my golden vision and looked.
In that instant, an exclamation escaped me.
“Ah…!”
Seen through my golden vision in the darkness, it was even more astonishing.
That place, once filled with ashen energy, that spot where the land had been overturned everywhere like the surface of the primordial Earth, was now shining beautifully.
Between the forest of giant ferns, flowers of every color raised by the fragments of light and unknown plants were filling the place in scattered patches.
All those plants shone with a silver light like moonlight. The forest was filled with waves of mana.
Perhaps this place would become a unique and wondrous forest found nowhere else in the world.
Like the Neo Forest nurtured by the World Tree of Namsan.
‘It’s a forest created by the divine mage.’
Suddenly, the thought passed through my mind that it felt like a scene I had seen somewhere before.
But that could not be. It was my first time in my life seeing a forest made of ferns like this.
It must have simply been something like déjà vu.
I rummaged through my mind for a moment, then soon turned around and took a step down toward the lower slope.