-Black and White
“Who at the Management Bureau?”
“Why should I tell you that?”
King asked back with an impudent expression again.
I really thought he was like a child. It was a clumsy attitude—I couldn’t tell if he wanted to negotiate or just wanted to get on my nerves.
Yeah, I didn’t know if he had enough backbone to keep from trembling in front of me, but now it seemed I had to create a crack in that resolve.
I quietly raised my mana and activated pressure magic before he could notice, applying pressure to his body.
Only then did the color drain slightly from King’s face.
“You’re not supposed to use magic on ordinary people!”
“It’s fine against criminals.”
“I’m not a criminal! What did I ever do to you? I didn’t do anything!”
“Didn’t your underlings attack me? I only came to meet you, yet they rushed me the moment I parked. Ah! And do you think it’s not a crime to keep goblins and chimeras in your organization?”
“Fine. Let’s resolve this with words. Let’s settle it through dialogue like civilized people. You came here because you want something from me too.”
Since a whimpering sound finally flowed out of King, I released the pressure.
Then King let out a long sigh.
He was truly so physically frail that I had almost no desire to use magic on him.
After sighing, King raised his head and opened his mouth.
“Fine. What do you want?”
“Your soul. There’s a lot I want to hear. I want you to empty it out completely and offer it to me.”
“What?”
King’s face grew even paler.
I thought he had finally gotten scared, but it seemed that wasn’t the case.
Perhaps because anger was surging, his face quickly turned red.
“You barge in here, kill all my subordinates, and now you demand my soul on top of that? How dare you insult me?”
Then he tried to raise his hand as if to take some action.
The two taciturn men sitting beside me began to move when they saw that.
I was curious about what they were trying to do, but I stopped them.
“Wait! Let’s get the facts straight first. I didn’t kill your subordinates. They’re just frozen or unable to move.”
“Is that true?”
“Of course. I have no reason to lie.”
“Fine. Let’s say my subordinates are alive. But that doesn’t mean you haven’t insulted me.”
“Is it because of that soul business? That’s just a figure of speech.”
“You’re a mage! How can I believe you aren’t really saying you’ll steal my soul?”
Somehow, a sigh escaped me.
It seemed the only mages King had encountered until now were black mages. That was why he reacted so sensitively upon hearing words about offering one’s soul.
If it were a black mage, they really would steal one’s soul and have plenty to spare.
Anyway, in the midst of all that, I highly appreciated the fact that he got angry rather than scared.
On the other hand, it also seemed to mean he still had something he believed in.
I stealthily scanned the room.
I didn’t detect any particularly ash-gray energy. No one was hiding either.
The two men beside me looked no different from King—just as frail—so what exactly was he counting on to speak so loudly?
“Anyway, let’s talk now. Who at the Management Bureau did you give money to? And who ordered you to carry out anti-activities against me? Besides that, which black mage did you meet? Whose handiwork are the chimeras?”
“How much will you give me?”
“What?”
“I’m asking how much you’ll give me if I tell you all that. Surely you’re not telling me to spill information without any compensation?”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
This guy really seemed to know nothing but money.
And despite having tasted magic, even if only lightly, he still thought of this as a negotiation table. Either I had been too soft on King, or his brain had completely rotted, or else it meant he really had something he firmly believed in.
Now I was curious what that was.
“Get a grip. You still don’t seem to understand the situation—when I ask, you answer me. Hey, King. I’m a mage, right? And a fairly skilled one at that. Do you really think you can oppose me right now?”
I slowly needled him.
As expected, he reacted.
“I know full well that you’re not a hero! You damn mage!”
King shouted and finally raised one hand.
Then the two men sitting beside me quickly rose and simultaneously touched the side of the desk in front of them.
In an instant, the desktop flipped over and a portal opened in the air.
‘Oh! So that was what he was counting on.’
It was a gray portal. It had been well hidden.
It was my first time seeing a portal opened by ordinary people using a mechanical device rather than a mage using spatial magic.
It seemed the desk was a magical artifact, so to speak.
Soon the room was filled with ash-gray energy, and goblins poured out one after another from inside the open portal.
“Hurry, attack him! Attack the mage!”
The goblins pouring into the room initially had bewildered expressions. They looked as if they were wondering where they were and who they were.
But when King gave the command, they understood the words and immediately began rushing at me.
I was curious what system they operated on.
The goblins I met downstairs definitely hadn’t been equipped with language chips, so they hadn’t been able to understand human speech, had they?
I put aside the task of solving that question for later.
Soon, one round of commotion passed.
When I used ice magic to freeze the goblins, new goblins poured out from the portal again.
So when I froze them too, goblins poured out yet again.
What choice did I have? I just had to keep repeating the simple process.
After repeating that several times, the room became so packed with frozen goblins that no one could move.
The two taciturn men beside me ended up half-frozen as well.
“Shall we stop now?”
In the end, I froze the portal entrance and the desk entirely.
I could melt it later to observe the curious magical artifact.
I pushed through the chunks of ice and slowly approached King.
Even amid this chaos, I had carefully taken care to ensure only King didn’t freeze—not because I liked him, but because he had stories I needed to hear.
King still sat there with an impudent face.
“Fine. I acknowledge that your magic skills are impressive. It seems you’re not called a hero for nothing. The mages I’ve seen until now had their limits.”
King spoke calmly. But he couldn’t hide the slight trembling in his voice.
It seemed he had no more hidden cards now.
“Good. Now we can finally have a quiet talk, just the two of us. I have even more to ask you now. Just who gave you that desk as a gift?”
“Do you think I’ll tell you?”
“Of course you will. Or do you want to become a chunk of ice too? Stop being so stubborn. I didn’t come here as a hero. If I want, I can use as much violence as I please.”
King, who had held out until the end, finally tucked his tail. He glared at me with his mouth shut for a moment, then perhaps realizing he had no other choice, he opened his mouth.
“I’ll tell you everything. But I have a condition. Save me and all my subordinates. If you promise, I’ll answer anything and release the mercenaries too.”
“Fine. I won’t touch you or your subordinates. In exchange, release all the people you’ve been holding as test subjects. And I’m taking a few goblins.”
“Okay.”
“Now then, shall we have a pleasant conversation? Ah! I’m recording the entire conversation. Just so you know.”
I took out my phone and turned on the recording function.
The collection of evidence to catch the crooks had begun.
I didn’t know if I could produce King as a witness in court, but at least his testimony would be useful.
King began to talk.
Starting with the answers to the questions I had asked earlier, he unrolled them on his own without me having to ask again.
“First, I rented this place by giving money to Chief Han Huiyeong of the government Management Bureau. Is that a problem? I thought it was a legitimate right. And the one who asked me to carry out anti-activities against you was Loki. I only accepted it to earn money. I hadn’t even properly started the activities yet.”
“You’ve usually done this and that after receiving requests from the government or Hall mages, right?”
“That’s right. I’ve done it a few times. They would ask us to do things they couldn’t openly experiment with. As for us, as long as we were paid sufficient compensation, we had no reason to refuse.”
The fact that Loki was the one who commissioned the anti-activities against me wasn’t surprising. It was exactly as expected.
It was also predictable that government or Hall mages had subcontracted illegal experiments to them.
The biohacker group was a spontaneous civilian group and a gathering of thugs who committed the illegality of hacking and caused petty disturbances, so it was the perfect group for crooks to reach out to and have dirty work done in their stead.
At the government Management Bureau, it was Chief Han Huiyeong who had contacted King directly.
I had hoped for a statement saying he had met a Hall mage directly, but instead, only Loki’s name was repeated.
“So Loki requested this independently?”
“He said he received orders from the General Affairs Committee member of the Hall. Loki seemed to play the role of connecting people here and there. But there was no way to confirm it. As for me, as long as I received the money properly, that was enough.”
If it’s the General Affairs Committee member of the Hall, it’s Gang Yonghun.
Since King hadn’t received direct orders, it might not be direct evidence, but it would be indirect testimony.
It was enough to pressure Gang Yonghun.
‘Just you wait, Gang Yonghun. I will definitely take you down.’
King continued his story.
He said the orcs I met on the stairs earlier, amusingly naive as they were, had been provided directly by the Hall.
When they first came here, they were mad orcs, but the biohackers had made them docile through genetic manipulation.
It seemed some of the orcs that had smuggled in through Incheon Port had been diverted here.
It was said to be compensation for the biohackers carrying out bioterrorism using cats and pigeons. It was an outrageous affair.
“Now talk about the black mage. Which black mage did you meet? Whose handiwork are the chimeras? Who gave you this desk that opens portals?”
When I asked this, King tilted his head and looked at me.
“Wait! Don’t you know that Loki is a black mage? Loki said you two know each other well?”
King called Loki a black mage as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Perhaps that was right. All this time, his behavior as a normal mage had probably been a pretense.
Considering all the things Loki had been doing until now, it was right to see Loki as a black mage now.
And yet I was still hesitant to call him a black mage.
Had I wanted to think of him as just a mage who had briefly changed his mind?
No. Now I had to acknowledge it as a fait accompli.
Loki was nothing but a black mage wearing the guise of a white mage.
“Yes. Of course I know. Then Loki was the one who made the chimeras downstairs too? And this desk?”
I asked back with a composed face.