-Complete Transformation
* * *
It felt like we had returned to everyday life for the first time in ages.
Opening the door to the herb shop and stepping inside felt as though we had opened a portal and entered a whole new world.
It was somehow unfamiliar, and yet, on the other hand, incredibly comforting.
As we entered the shop, all of us, without exception, let out deep sighs of relief.
“Ahh, this is nice. My shop, my home. Home sweet home!”
“Did herbs always smell this good? It’s making me feel so calm.”
“It’s even cool in here.”
As our breaths and voices filled the space, the unfamiliarity of a place that had been empty for a while seemed to be replaced by familiarity.
The coolness of the indoors, felt after so long, made my chest open wide.
After roaming through Incheon, which had been as hot as hellfire, returning to the herb shop beneath the shade of Neo Forest made it feel like a place where immortals lived.
“First, everyone gets a potion shower. And drink a bottle each, too.”
Cheon Danbi took potions from the shelf, poured them over each of our heads, and had us drink them as well.
In no time, my eyes grew bright and my mind snapped awake.
This was why all of us had come to the herb shop together.
It wasn’t necessarily that we needed potions; we needed time to relax together.
Part of it was that we wanted to see Cheon Danbi safely home, but rather than each of us scattering to our own houses right away, I wanted our team to gather and at least share a meal.
The long, complicated Incheon raid had finally come to an end.
“Now, come this way. Everyone needs to wash, eat, sleep, and undergo a complete transformation back into human beings.”
Cheon Danbi led Gil and me to her house behind the shop.
We trailed after her in a line.
“So right now, we’re not human?”
“No. Absolutely not. None of us look remotely human right now. We’re soaked in sweat and reek so badly it stings my nose.”
“Well, we’ve been fighting monsters all this time, so I guess it makes sense that we look like monsters too.”
“Mm. Not monsters, exactly. Let’s just say we look like beggars.”
Perhaps because they had truly relaxed, Cheon Danbi and Gil chattered away like real-life siblings.
As for me, it was my first time entering Cheon Danbi’s house, so I found myself needlessly nervous and awkward.
When we went out the back door of the shop, a modest old house with a small yard appeared. The wall of the herb shop served as its fence. It was a secret garden and home that could not be seen from outside.
But there were others there who had arrived before the homeowner.
Three crows.
“Huh? It’s the crows.”
“Ah! Ren! You’re already here. Why are you staying like that? Transform and make yourself comfortable. You know it’s safe here.”
Gil welcomed the crows, whom he hadn’t seen in a while, and Cheon Danbi showed Ren the generosity of a homeowner.
At her words, Ren immediately transformed into her true form.
Even without the hidden structure of the house, there was a solid protective barrier covering the herb shop and the entire main house, so there was no need to worry.
The real crows hopped onto Gil’s shoulders, expressing their delight.
[Boy, you’ve been well, right?]
[Everyone worked hard. You scored a huge success in the raid and returned home in glory.]
[Glory might be a bit much, don’t you think? You look awful. Ah! What I mean is, that’s just an expression… You were really cool, Oudin!]
[Truly magnificent.]
[Incredibly cool, I’m telling you!]
[It couldn’t have been more splendid.]
They seemed to be greeting Gil, but then started spouting nonsense for no reason, glancing at me while showering me with excessive praise that didn’t suit them at all.
I fulfilled my duty as their master.
“Where the hell have you two been wandering around all this time, only to show up now?”
I barked the question at them, but the crows paid no attention whatsoever to my tone.
[We were busy, of course. The world was in complete chaos. We were unbelievably busy going around everywhere gathering information.]
[Anyway, ever since the terror attack started in Incheon, we were at Incheon Airport the whole time.]
[Incheon Airport had been reduced to a mess, so of course we thought Oudin would come there. We didn’t expect you to go somewhere else first.]
[In the end, though, we met Ren.]
The crows talked about what had happened to them, but nothing especially useful came out of it.
I ignored Hugin and Munin and turned to Ren.
“Ren. Thank you so much for earlier. Thanks to what you told me, I was able to save these two.”
At that, Cheon Danbi and Gil opened their eyes wide and looked at me.
“What? What does that mean? Are you saying you wouldn’t have been able to save us if not for Ren?”
“I was focused on spatial magic, so I hadn’t noticed you two were in danger. Ren told me, so I was able to get there in time.”
“Oh! Then Ren is our lifesaver, isn’t she?”
“Ren, thank you so much.”
Beside us, the crows cawed furiously. They were probably saying that they had come to me too.
I gently ignored them.
Cheon Danbi and Gil surrounded Ren and thanked her enthusiastically.
“Please, there’s no need to thank me. It was only natural. All of you were fighting so hard, and I didn’t do anything special.”
Ren waved her hands modestly as she replied, and only then did the crows finally quiet down.
“Now let’s hurry up and transform ourselves. Everyone needs to wash and rest.”
“Yeah. Who wants to wash first? Should we decide the order with rock-paper-scissors?”
“The homeowner should enjoy the privilege first.”
“Should I? There’s only one bathroom, so it can’t be helped.”
After we washed one by one and eventually gathered again, just as Cheon Danbi had said, it truly seemed as though all of us had undergone a complete transformation.
Only then did I realize just how dirty we had been until a moment ago.
“Wow! You look like a different person. Your face is completely bright now!”
“Where did all the people who were here earlier go? I can barely recognize you.”
“Everyone feels refreshed, right? Hahaha!”
The light, joking everyday conversation felt as sweet as honey.
After washing up thoroughly, I really did feel as though I had returned to being human.
Just then, Cheon Danbi shouted from outside.
“Everyone, come out here! Let’s eat in the yard.”
When I went out to the yard, a wooden platform had been set up under the shade of a tree at some point, and all kinds of food were piled on top of it like a mountain.
“What is all this? When did you order all this?”
“I’ve got good sense, don’t I? It was ready right on time.”
It was all delivery food, but even so, she must have put thought into preparing it.
It seemed Cheon Danbi had quickly ordered and received everything as the homeowner.
“Wow! It all looks delicious! Steak, hamburgers, chicken… And what is this? It smells uniquely spicy.”
“It’s malatang. Have you never had it?”
“No. This is my first time.”
“Then hurry and try it.”
“Thank you. I’ll enjoy it!”
The conversation cut off in an instant.
None of us had eaten proper food for two days, so we all devoured it like people possessed.
Gil, in particular, was sucking up the food like a vacuum cleaner.
‘Teenagers are terrifying.’
Cheon Danbi had prepared a fairly generous amount of food, but none of it was surviving.
My stomach was so full that there was no room for anything else.
Only then did I put down my spoon and look around, and I saw that Cheon Danbi and Ren had already leaned against a tree and were nodding off. They must have been terribly tired.
“Go inside and rest. Don’t just doze off. You should actually sleep.”
When I said that, Cheon Danbi and Ren barely managed to open their eyes.
Gil put the last piece of chicken into his mouth and stared blankly at me.
“Are you done eating?”
“Yes. I ate everything.”
“Then let’s go over to the shop.”
“You’re going to the shop? Why? Go into the house. There are two rooms.”
Cheon Danbi said this while yawning, but I shook my head.
“No. We can go home and sleep tonight. You and Ren go in and rest. We’ll watch the shop in the meantime.”
“Oh, you don’t have to watch the shop. There aren’t any customers. I’ve been closing up and going out all the time lately, so the customers will just think that’s how it is.”
“Still, you should open it once in a while.”
After sending Cheon Danbi and Ren into the house, Gil and I crossed over to the shop.
“Let’s train. That’ll serve in place of sleep.”
“Ugh, I think I ate too much. I’ll train after resting for just a bit.”
“Sure, then.”
Watching the shop, training—all of it was just something we were trying to do.
Right now, I had no intention of forcing anything. There was no particular reason we had to do anything either.
I simply wanted to spend a little time together in everyday peace.
Just because we had finished off Yasin didn’t mean everything was over. Before long, another fight would begin.
Even so, I wanted to spend at least a day like this, taking it easy.
Perhaps Gil really was full, because he didn’t even sit in a chair and instead wandered around the herb shop, looking into every corner.
It wasn’t his first time here, but he probably hadn’t had the chance to look around this leisurely before, so he seemed to be enjoying it.
He smelled the dried herbs hanging down from the ceiling one by one and examined the potions on the shelves with great interest.
From time to time, he also carefully read the notes Cheon Danbi had written explaining the herbs.
Now that his magical skills had improved and he had become a proper mage, it seemed he was taking an interest in potions too.
I sat in front of Cheon Danbi’s worktable and entered training, breathing with my eyes open.
Rather than sinking deeply into training, I intended to simply straighten out the waves of mana inside my body.
Since a customer might come, it didn’t feel right to immerse myself completely in magic training.
But even after quite some time passed, not a single customer came to the shop. It seemed Cheon Danbi hadn’t said that for nothing.
“There really aren’t any customers. At this rate, it’ll be hard to make a living.”
I tossed the words out lightly. Gil responded seriously.
“Mm. The main customers of an herb shop are probably mages, but maybe there just aren’t any mages with time to spare right now. A lot of people died this time, and the surviving mages are probably still at Incheon Airport.”
“That makes sense.”
He wasn’t wrong.
More than a few mages had died in the repeated terror attacks.
It was true that the number of mages was gradually decreasing. In other words, the herb shop’s customer base had shrunk.
This wasn’t only a concern for the herb shop’s business; it was a problem for our entire country.
The war against the Magic Tower would continue from here on out, but the number of mages had fallen too much.
It wasn’t as if the number of newly awakened mages would suddenly increase.
“Even if not right away, the surviving mages might come later. Potions are the best for recovery, after all. And there are mages in the provinces too, so customers will come again.”
“Right? Anyway, even if business is bad, we can make a living from raids, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
I said this while thinking that I needed to hurry and receive the raid reward money so I could share it with Cheon Danbi and Gil.
In truth, that alone would probably be enough to live on for years. Though these had become times when making a living wasn’t the issue—surviving was.
Slowly, I closed my eyes and entered focused training.
No customers were coming anyway, and Gil seemed to have digested enough by now, because he had taken a seat and started training as well, leaving the shop quiet.
Once I closed my eyes, the scent of herbs felt even more distinct. My heart was at ease.
Calmly, I began reviewing today’s raid.