-Red Portal
At last, the chimeras vanished without a trace.
Once their cores burned and were destroyed, they disappeared completely.
In the places the chimeras had occupied, only blue flames drifted for a moment; then, with nothing left to burn, even the flames finally died out on their own.
When I withdrew the ripples of spatial magic, the spatial pocket was the last to vanish.
“It’s finally over.”
“Ah, I’m dying here.”
“Amazing. So that’s how you make them disappear. But just now—that was spatial magic, wasn’t it?”
Gil and Cheon Danbi merely let out a word each, almost like sighs, but Yu Jaeseon immediately asked me about the spatial magic.
“That’s right. The chimeras were packed into the alley, so I was worried that if I burned them with flames, the people inside the buildings might get caught up in it. I created a spatial pocket and sectioned the area off.”
“Incredible. Not only that you calculated all of that in such a short moment, but that you can use spatial magic so freely as well.”
Yu Jaeseon was sincerely impressed.
From behind, he had seen through the circuit of the spatial magic.
He also knew very well that it required precise calculation.
But creating a spatial pocket was not even among the difficult feats of spatial magic.
This was my first time making a spatial pocket as well, but it had been relatively simple.
Compared to the far deeper and more varied things that could be accomplished with spatial magic.
“In any case, I had no idea they would disappear so completely, without leaving a trace.”
Yu Jaeseon walked over to the spot where the chimeras had been and examined it as he spoke.
At the same time, he extended his detection and collected the magic circuits remaining in the area.
“You have to destroy the core no matter what. You need to destroy each of the hearts one by one and trace your way back to the core, so it takes quite a bit of time.”
“It seemed much faster than I expected.”
“That’s because Gil supplied me with mana. Gil’s mana is highly pure, and the quantity is very abundant too.”
At my words, Gil waved both hands in modest denial.
“No, not at all. I only added a little mana. You did everything, Mage.”
As always, Gil was lowering herself beneath her actual ability, but I did not continue praising her any further.
For a mage, hiding one’s abilities was an asset.
Of course, by now, Yu Jaeseon must have noticed already that Gil possessed mana and abilities of an unusual nature.
“But this is surprising. This lump of concrete, these rebars and guns—all of these were things the chimeras were holding, right? Do chimeras know how to use weapons too?”
Cheon Danbi said as she examined the ground.
The parts of the chimeras’ bodies that had melted in the flames and fallen to the ground had all vanished, but the objects they had been carrying remained there, charred black and half-melted.
“Ah! I was curious about that too. Could the chimeras still have reason left, so they can think like humans?”
Gil quickly chimed in with Cheon Danbi.
I had known the two of them would be curious about that.
“I don’t think so. Rather than reason like a human’s, they likely showed the intelligence of animals that use tools. That rifle wasn’t being fired; it was just something they picked up somewhere and swung around.”
“That’s right. From what I saw, it didn’t look as if the chimeras still had reason. We should assume they’re simply moving according to the purpose implanted by the dark mage.”
Yu Jaeseon backed up my words.
“But isn’t it possible that a little bit of reason remains?”
“It could be. When you make a lot of anything, defective products can come out. Ah! Of course, I’m speaking from the dark mage’s perspective. At any rate, you shouldn’t regard the individuals making up a chimera as the same living beings they were before. They won’t have any reason left that deviates from the dark mage’s purpose.”
At Yu Jaeseon’s words, Gil did not respond further. She merely stared intently at the ground, lost in thought.
The zombie we had seen had definitely asked us to save it. It had spoken.
According to Yu Jaeseon, should that chimera be interpreted as a failed product in which enough reason remained for the zombie individual to speak, but since the scope of that reason was merely a survival instinct, it did not possess complete reason as it had before?
There still seemed to be unclear parts, but now was not the time to discuss the reason of the living beings composing the chimeras.
“Let’s move now. Let’s keep going.”
I said as I looked around at the group.
The part weighing on Gil’s mind was something Gil would have no choice but to resolve on her own.
Right now, in any case, we had to deal with the chimeras. Stopping the dark mage’s terror attack was our job.
“Ah, wait a moment.”
Yu Jaeseon quickly took a small megaphone out of his pocket and informed the people.
“Residents! We have just finished taking down the chimeras in this area. However, there are still many chimeras nearby, so do not come outside. If you have a basement, hide underground, and do not show yourselves at windows close to the street. If you wait a little longer, the military will come to evacuate you. Please stay well hidden until then.”
That was right. The people we had to think of first were the residents.
Whether or not the individuals composing the chimeras had reason was a matter for later.
Once we entered the northern district, that became even clearer.
The extent of destruction here was far worse. Buildings had been smashed without mercy, and some had collapsed completely.
Beyond concrete walls sliced away like tofu, the interiors were clearly visible. The chimeras had undoubtedly harmed the residents as well.
Gil seemed to understand enough, and no longer raised any questions.
Even though we had succeeded in taking them down, no cheers broke out. No one dared poke their head out the window either.
Since morning, they had done nothing but hide in terror.
If Yu Jaeseon had not informed them, they would not even have known that the chimeras in this alley had been dealt with.
Only when we were about to leave the alley did a person’s face briefly appear at the window of a two-story building.
Yu Jaeseon waved toward that window. Then the person beyond the window waved back.
It was a small gesture, but it was the first response we had received.
‘He really is like a mage of the Administration Bureau. He’s good at reassuring civilians.’
Though he was not particularly strong in combat, Yu Jaeseon handled his work calmly and well.
He was excellent when it came to analyzing the situation, considering various circumstances, and leading the overall operation.
After turning away, he immediately took out his communication device and contacted Mage An Guktae in the situation room.
He instructed that police and military be sent to this alley to evacuate the residents.
We all left the alley where the chimeras had been.
“Let’s try that road over there.”
Once we emerged from the alley, I led the group toward the northern shopping street.
The glass windows of the roadside shops were all shattered without exception, and everything in sight had been broken.
There were also many bloodstains inside the shops and on the street.
It was clear that the chimeras had rampaged through the area.
“I see bloodstains, but no bodies. Didn’t you say the military hadn’t been able to approach this side either?”
When I asked, Yu Jaeseon nodded with a grave expression.
“That’s right. They couldn’t come this way, so they wouldn’t have been able to transport the injured or the dead…”
Yu Jaeseon understood what I was concerned about as well.
I wondered if the chimeras were not simply killing people, but doing something beyond that.
But neither of us voiced the question aloud.
Everyone in the group focused on keeping watch.
There was no ashen mist like before, but gray energy still lay spread in all directions.
On top of that, it was still terribly hot. No, it was even hotter than earlier.
The weather had already been humid and sweltering, and since I had used high-temperature fire magic on top of that, the surrounding temperature seemed to have risen another notch.
Even though we were walking slowly, sweat streamed down.
I was also worried that perhaps the energy of disease had already spread.
We had meticulously put up barriers, so there was no problem for us, but among the residents, there might already be people infected or dead.
‘Where did the bodies disappear to?’
Once again, that question circled in my head.
It was then.
From somewhere, the ferocious roars of chimeras rang out.
The sound struck my ears dully, as if someone were pounding my heat-melted head with a hammer.
“Mage, over there!”
Gil raised one hand and pointed up the road.
About fifty meters away from where we stood, a great number of chimeras had gathered.
There seemed to be roughly thirty of them, standing in a circle as if forming a ring, facing something at the center.
It looked almost as if they were holding a meeting.
“What are they doing?”
“Who knows. What’s in the middle?”
I activated my golden vision and focused my gaze in that direction.
At the center of the chimera pack, something like an ashen cloud was gathered thickly. I could not make out what it was.
“There are quite a lot of them. Will it be possible to take them all down at once?”
Yu Jaeseon asked quietly.
“I did take down about that many at once near the terminal as well. Though I didn’t completely destroy them; I only froze them with ice magic.”
“Then will you use ice magic this time too?”
“I’m not sure. If possible, I should annihilate them.”
Even while conversing with Yu Jaeseon, I remained focused on the ashen cloud gathered at the center of the chimera pack.
I also considered whether Na Sanhaegyeong might be there, but I could not see him.
But when I drew up mana and examined it closely, I glimpsed red energy flickering faintly through the ashen cloud.
It seemed that was a portal.
‘Is it Na Sanhaegyeong’s portal? Is he coming here?’
Dark mages, in general, tended to be skilled in spatial magic. It seemed creating a small portal for movement was not difficult for them.
Not only that, but the fact that Yashin or Samir could cause terror attacks through remote control without appearing at the scene must also be due to their use of spatial magic.
Unlike remote control that operated only within a certain distance, remote control combined with spatial magic was not bound by distance.
Not only could they come and go through the portal, they could also transmit only commands beyond it.
I wanted to run over and check immediately, but there were too many chimeras, so it did not seem easy to break through to the center.
On top of that, as if Na Sanhaegyeong had already finished giving his orders, the red portal gradually began to disappear.
Then, before long, the ashen cloud at the center moved over to the chimeras.
The chimeras, wrapped in dense gray energy, turned around.
“Kraaaak!”
“Kraaaak!”
“Kraaaak!”
They stared straight at us and let out hideous roars.
The next moment, the chimeras advanced toward us, taking pounding steps that made the road tremble.