-Private Property
* * *
“Gil, get up!”
As soon as the sun rose early in the morning, I went down to Gil’s room and knocked on the door.
They said to strike while the iron was hot, so I intended to go find the biohackers right away.
A few hours of training, a few hours of sleep—it had been short, but I’d spent the time well, and I had only just come out of the magic space.
“Mr. Mage? You’re already awake?”
Gil opened the door and looked at me, his hair sticking up like a bird’s nest.
He could barely open his eyes, but soon broke into a bright smile.
For a moment I almost got smug, wondering if he liked me that much, but the reason Gil was smiling lay elsewhere.
“Huh? It’s the crows. Hi. But why are you sitting so quietly on Mr. Mage’s shoulders today? Come here.”
Even to Gil, the disciplined crows seemed fascinating.
I tensed for a moment, afraid they might promptly move over to Gil’s shoulder when he told them to come, but perhaps the firm talk I’d given them had worked, because the crows didn’t budge from my shoulders.
Or maybe it was less because of the discipline and more because I’d let them feast all night in the magic space.
“Hurry up and get ready to go out. There’s somewhere you’re coming with me.”
“This early? Where are we going?”
Gil asked while yawning and stretching.
He should have slept enough, but he still didn’t seem fully awake.
It was probably because he was a teenager. He was at the age where he needed lots of sleep.
But for a mage, even a short period of training was a more efficient way to recover stamina or replenish mana than sleeping a lot. I was about to tell him that, but it sounded like nagging, so I stopped.
More importantly, I thought I should take Gil into the magic space with me next time. Cheon Danbi too.
It seemed like it would be all right now. The two of them were unquestionably my teammates.
“We’re going to the biohackers’ main base. You know exactly where it is, right?”
“What? The biohackers’ main base? Why all of a sudden?”
It was only natural that he’d find it abrupt.
In truth, it was a place I should have visited and dealt with long ago, but I hadn’t been able to. Because the terror incidents kept happening one after another, I’d simply ignored the biohackers, who had felt relatively less dangerous.
Maybe Gil had felt hurt about that. They were a group he personally held a grudge against, and I hadn’t paid attention.
I briefly told Gil what I’d heard from Jang Pildu yesterday.
“So I thought you’d want to come too.”
“Yes. I’ll get ready right away.”
As expected, Gil didn’t hesitate in the slightest.
It seemed he hadn’t forgotten his grudge against the biohackers who had kidnapped the zombies and had even tried to kidnap him.
A short while later, Gil came out ready.
We got into the new car and headed for Yongsan Family Park, where the biohackers’ main base was located.
I told the crows to stay home. I had told them to stick close to my shoulders, but honestly, taking them around everywhere all the time was a bit much.
“It’s a new car. Are you sure it’s okay to ride it somewhere dangerous?”
“They gave it to me to use at times like this. Surely they didn’t give it to me just to drive around for fun. And I put a protective barrier on it, so it’s fine. Anyway, this is the first raid since getting this car, huh?”
“I guess it is.”
While waiting for Gil to come down, I had put a protective barrier on the car, and it had felt similar to how people in the old days supposedly held a ritual when they bought a new car, so I’d laughed to myself.
As expected of a luxury car, it drove extremely well. The ride was so comfortable that it naturally lifted my mood.
Because it was early, there weren’t that many cars on the road.
So I felt like I could really let it run, but since we were in the city, I couldn’t, and Yongsan Family Park was close enough that there wasn’t really any point in accelerating anyway.
It was a shame, but I had no choice but to put off the Autobahn for next time.
I didn’t stop at the parking lot by the park’s main gate, but used the internal road for staff and drove the car inside.
No one tried to stop me. Now I didn’t even need to show a separate ID. My face itself was my ID.
Being a hero was convenient in ways like this.
“This is the right way, isn’t it?”
“Yes. If you go deep inside, there’s a closed-off area. It’s that way.”
He said the biohackers’ main base was hidden behind the forest in the park.
Behind the park, which looked nothing but peaceful, the former U.S. military base site remained as it was, closed off.
It was land left idle on the grounds that there were many contaminants.
But the biohackers had snuck in there, set up a laboratory, and were conducting suspicious experiments.
To them, contaminated land might have seemed like blessed land. It must have suited suspicious experiments very well.
But as we passed through the park, the scenery remained so peaceful and beautiful that it was hard to believe such a place existed.
“That way. If we go around that greenhouse, the closed-off area is right there.”
Gil pointed to a greenhouse with his finger.
There was a large greenhouse that looked like it was used to grow saplings and flower seedlings to be transplanted into the park.
When we went around behind it, the closed-off area appeared, but although it was called a closed-off area, it wasn’t closed off at all.
The flimsy wire fence was already broken. It looked as if no one was managing it.
The tracks of cars going in and out were clear.
Rather than simply not being managed, it seemed more likely that someone connected to the park was taking under-the-table money from the biohacker group.
We entered the closed-off area and stopped the car in front of an old abandoned concrete building. It was a place where former U.S. military buildings stood here and there.
Since we’d come this far in, we were already on their radar.
I didn’t know what kind of security facilities they had set up, but in any case, they wouldn’t be living here completely defenseless.
Sure enough, as we got out of the car, two men already came bursting out of the building across from us.
“Hey, what are you doing there! How did you get in here?”
“This is private property, so get out right now!”
The men shouted as they ran toward us, and their lines were so absurd that a snort escaped me on its own.
Get out because this was private property? They must have watched too many American dramas.
“Don’t make me laugh. Private property, my ass. If you had to pick the least privately owned land in the whole country, wouldn’t it be right here?”
I answered with a smile, but of course the men didn’t take that as goodwill, and they didn’t seem to have the slightest intention of responding amicably either.
They stopped at a suitable distance and immediately began attacking.
One cursed as he threw the spear in his hand, while the other raised an arm fitted with a mechanical device and abruptly fired bullets.
If this had been out on the street, no matter how thuggish they were, they wouldn’t have been able to attack so freely, but since this was a closed-off area, it seemed they had nothing to fear.
Their own front yard, was that it?
Judging by how they’d blabbered about private property, they didn’t seem to have recognized who I was yet, but their attitude was that they didn’t care who the other party was.
With the dense forest blocking outside eyes and only abandoned buildings standing gloomily around us, this place did have an atmosphere where it felt like a few people could die and no one would bat an eye.
“Done with your welcome? Now we’re coming.”
Naturally, the spear they threw and the bullets they fired never reached us. The protective barrier I’d placed on the car blocked them.
Gil and I, now out of the car, put protective barriers around ourselves as well and strode forward.
“Damn it! He’s a mage?”
“Uh! That bastard… it’s O-Oudin!”
Only then did one of them recognize me, boldly calling me a bastard before immediately trembling and stammering.
The one with the mechanical device attached to his arm kept firing bullets anyway, while the one whose only weapon had been a spear quickly turned around and went inside the building.
It seemed he was trying to call for reinforcements.
So their gang is in that building. We’ll be following soon enough.
“Gil, use a snare and keep that one from moving.”
“Yes!”
When we got a few steps closer, the man checked my face once more and, with an expression of complete resignation, simply wasted bullets.
Rather than fighting with the resolve to kill, his attitude was that he knew it wouldn’t work, but since he’d been assigned guard duty, he had no choice but to put on a show.
He was every bit the low-ranking member of a pathetic gang.
While I was briefly appreciating his pitiful face, the magic snare Gil activated flew through the air and wrapped tightly around the man’s body.
Then the man seemed to think he was about to die and squeezed his eyes shut.
But we didn’t kill people that easily.
Gil hadn’t used a snare of fire either. It was merely a magic snare imbued with blue mana, constricting the man’s body so he couldn’t move.
We left him alone there and headed for the building.
“This is their headquarters building. The laboratory is in the building behind it.”
Gil looked around and said.
For now, our goal was to catch the leader rather than go to the laboratory, so we went straight into the headquarters building.
The moment we stepped inside the entrance, attacks poured in from every direction.
There were men swinging things like clubs, and there were men firing bullets wildly.
Flames burst out from something as well, though of course it wasn’t magic.
The first floor of the abandoned building was dark and musty.
It was an ambush inside a dark building, but the attacks of humans who weren’t mages couldn’t pierce our barriers, and each of their movements was so clear it felt as if I could grasp them in my hand.
But there wasn’t even a need to respond to each one individually. All I had to do was sweep them away with a simple wind spell.
‘They think they can face a mage with just this? Or did they send them out first as bullet fodder? Where are the ones worth fighting?’
When I made a single sweeping gesture with my hand infused with mana, the men fell over lightly like scarecrows.
Bullets and clubs were sent soaring into the air by the cold, fierce wind, and the flames scattered before soon going out.
“Aaagh! Please spare me!”
“Boss, this won’t work! We can’t handle them!”
“Hurry up and get over here…!”
The men sprawled on the floor screamed and called for help.
Then I saw black shadows approaching from the far end of the corridor.
As expected, there was something here. There might have been a slight delay in mobilizing them, but it seemed they hadn’t been trying to deal with me using only neighborhood thugs after all; they had made some preparations.
The shadows stopped at the end of the corridor.
Only one man continued walking out into the lobby area. First, he made a grinding sound with his teeth, then opened his mouth.
“What brings you here, Mage Oudin? To think you’d come here on your own two feet. You haven’t forgotten there’s a deep grudge between us, have you?”
The man speaking so boldly was none other than X.
“Right. We meet again. I can’t say it’s nice to see you, though. I didn’t come because I had business with you. I came to find the mercenaries from Phil Office. I heard you were holding them.”
“Why are you looking for mercenaries? I didn’t know the great hero mage concerned himself with such trivial matters.”
X sneered.
When he said the word hero, his mouth twisted on its own, as if antipathy were surging up from within him.
“If you’re not the person in charge, call the one who is. Who’s the representative of the biohacker group? If this can be resolved through dialogue, that would be better for both of us.”
“Better for both of us? Hahaha! Looks like you’re afraid of us after all, aren’t you?”
“Afraid? As if. Well, it would save me a little mana.”
“Shut up! How dare you come to our front yard and act tough! Get lost!”
X suddenly shouted and flung both arms wide to either side. Then he made a motion of thrusting his arms upward.
At that, flames erupted from his chest.