Self-Evident Certainty
“Now that the raid is over, everyone should go home and get some proper rest. You all truly worked hard today. Your roles were significant. Thank you.”
Yu Jae-seon said this to the team members and bowed his head.
“Yes. I’m going to go rest now.”
“I stayed up all night, so I want to sleep the entire day.”
The team members responded with bright faces. They looked genuinely happy that the raid was finally over.
Even so, Cheon Dan-bi added, as if she still couldn’t quite believe it.
“But it really is over, right? Every time I thought it was over, something else would happen, so I can’t really believe it’s done.”
“This time, it’s really over. For the time being, the Magic Tower won’t have enough strength left to carry out any more terrorism. The head of the Magic Tower has fled, so you can relax.”
When I confirmed it again, Yu Jae-seon asked with a startled expression.
“The head fled? You met the head of the Magic Tower?”
“Yes. It might only be temporary, but he’s fled for now. Samir appeared before me in person just a little while ago. I wouldn’t exactly call it a conversation, but we did exchange a few words.”
“Ah! Then earlier, when you were standing still…”
“That’s right. We exchanged words briefly through voice transmission.”
Everyone slowly nodded.
Only now did they understand. Of course, they probably didn’t understand it clearly.
“In any case, Samir is gone, so things should be fine for a while. We don’t know when he’ll sharpen his blade and come back again, so let’s hurry up and rest while we have the time.”
When I said that to the team members, they, who had been nodding like dolls, came back to life and began to move.
“Good, let’s hurry home!”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
“I’ll make sure the reward for this raid is deposited generously. So please have a hearty meal and get some good rest.”
At Yu Jae-seon’s words, Cheon Dan-bi suddenly hopped in place.
“Oho! A raid reward! My goodness, there was such a thing, wasn’t there? Lately, we’ve been running around doing so many raids that I haven’t even checked.”
“What? You haven’t checked your account all this time?”
“I have. I bought good food with it and paid my rent too. I just mean I forgot because I’ve been busy for the past few days.”
“I see. Then please check it right away today. It should be deposited before you arrive home. Then I’ll be going now.”
“You worked hard too, Mage!”
“Goodbye!”
Listening to them talk about money, food, rent, and the like made me feel as if daily life had returned.
Though because those things had a different texture from what was flowing through my head, it somehow felt distant.
Even just hearing my companions’ voices brush past my ears made me feel at ease.
We parted ways with Yu Jae-seon and walked off to catch a taxi.
The scenery of the streets was slowly regaining its original shape as well.
The sandstorm and sand dust had vanished, the sandworms had been dealt with, the buildings they had destroyed had been restored, and the rift in space that had opened in midair had been closed.
Even the firebolts that had brought pain like being burned in hellfire, though they were only illusions, had disappeared.
Now the scene before me was no different from usual, to the point where it was hard to believe such incidents had occurred.
People walking with light steps. People checking their watches as they quickened their pace.
They had simply left their homes and were walking down the street, to live their everyday lives as on any other day.
Among them, there must be people who had no idea what had happened here overnight and early this morning.
That was probably better. Better than everyone living with their nerves finely attuned to every detail of terrorism.
After all, that was why mages fought against terror—so that people could live each day without a single worry.
But today, for some reason, I suddenly felt as if I were standing alone and naked in a wilderness.
A feeling as if I had been dropped into another world all by myself.
The world flowed swiftly without me. It spun busily without knowing the dense scent of fear. It was peaceful and joyful all on its own.
Then why did I have to fight?
Seeing the ground beneath my feet keep sinking, was this not a wilderness but a swamp?
‘No. This isn’t it. Raise the light. Be embraced in the arms of pure white light.’
I took a deep breath and drew light up from my heart.
The chaotic thoughts and feelings chattering away in my head were none other than the aftermath that had continued from my confrontation with Samir.
Even though my soul had clearly not been drawn into his pitch-black energy, at some point his aura had seeped in and was rippling like an afterimage.
That was how powerful and destructive Samir’s aura of malice was.
When I had actually been facing him, I had instead been able to avoid being devoured by that malicious energy thanks to the strength of my long-held anger toward Samir.
Yet after he disappeared from before me, it had started crawling out instead.
On the other hand, Samir seemed to feel threatened by the pure white light I raised, as if sensing danger.
Thinking of that improved my mood.
Now, I was standing face to face with Samir as an equal.
He and I were like opposite extremes, pulling each other in while also pushing each other away. Unable not to oppose each other, yet shuddering at one another.
It was fate, perhaps. But it was also something I had chosen.
I slowly breathed in and out as I watched that earlier confrontation replaying over and over in my mind.
There, even scenes from my previous life were spreading like ink dropped into water, casting dark shadows.
But I would not be consumed.
In my previous life, and even now, I was the only person who did not get swept up in his brainwashing, and I was his adversary.
In my previous life, I had failed because I had no power. But now was different.
‘I am a mage. A great mage who wields spatial magic freely, and a divine mage who raises pure white light.’
That thought settled within me on its own. It was a certainty as self-evident as the light of midday.
I wanted to return to my magical space and train as soon as possible.
* * *
As expected, I couldn’t even rest for one full day.
After leaving the scene, we scattered to our respective homes.
Because rest was urgent, we agreed to sleep first and then meet again later to eat together.
As soon as I got home, I went straight to my magical space.
For me, training was more urgent than sleep. Besides, training in my magical space also served as a substitute for sleep.
While I was spending time inside my magical space like that, the crows flew in.
[How long are you going to do nothing but train?]
[Your phone was ringing for ages. It was so noisy that Gil came upstairs looking for Oudin, then went back down.]
[In the end, Gil even answered the phone for you.]
[The person who called said he was Mage Yu Jae-seon.]
The crows urged me to come outside quickly.
Fortunately, they had come in right when I had finished one round of spatial magic and was resting.
If they had entered in the middle of my spatial magic, they wouldn’t even have been able to find me.
I had been testing connections to other dimensions and moving in and out of various dimensions.
“Got it. Let’s go out. Why are you making such a fuss over a phone call?”
I answered lightly and left the magical space.
As I passed through the portal, a rush of heat washed over me.
The room was hot, but it also meant that I had been wrapped in the cold energy of the snowy mountains to that extent.
The more I trained in spatial magic and divine magic in my magical space, the colder my body became.
I was gradually coming to understand why my magical space had such a natural environment, and why freezing magic was my specialty.
The place I reached through high-dimensional spatial magic was like the world where the gods of Norse mythology had lived.
Perhaps it was the world within my consciousness. The world I had dreamed of in my previous life.
The space I had reached through magic unfolded by will was another world, cold and vast.
And I was the master of that place.
Within my world, I gradually came to know.
How I could raid the Magic Tower, what magic I could use to subdue Samir so he couldn’t move—little by little, the path began to appear.
I immersed myself in magic training with a loftiness like that of a snowy mountain.
Because I had trained like that, my consciousness had settled coldly.
When I returned to reality, the rush of heat snapped me awake again.
[Gil answered the phone, then hurried off somewhere.]
[He was running really urgently.]
[I thought about following him, but I figured I should tell Oudin first, so I came to call you.]
[Still, should we have followed him?]
The crows continued to relay the news.
When I heard that Gil had received a call from Yu Jae-seon and rushed out, I finally became curious about what had happened.
I hurriedly found my phone and called Gil first. Gil did not answer.
Then I called Yu Jae-seon, and fortunately, he picked up right away.
[Ah! Mage Oudin. I’ve finally gotten in touch with you.]
Judging from how relieved Yu Jae-seon sounded, he must have called several times.
His voice was not dark. It seemed it wasn’t as serious as I had expected, so I felt a little relieved.
“I was focused on training, so I couldn’t answer the phone. What happened?”
[I see. The Bureau is busy with various matters, so I was going to ask you to handle an incident, but now that I think about it, I’m sorry. You must have needed personal time too…]
“An incident? Did something else happen?”
[A zombie situation has occurred. But we have a pile of things here that have to be handled quickly, so it’s difficult for us to go out immediately. Even I have to interrogate An Seok-ju and Loki now…]
“A zombie situation? Please explain in detail.”
For some reason, Yu Jae-seon’s words kept drifting off into side topics today, so I had to interrupt him several times.
In the end, what mattered was that Gil had rushed out because of a zombie situation, so it bothered me.
What kind of incident were the zombies involved in this time?
[Well, it seems the mutant pigeons started moving around again from dawn, after the sandstorm disappeared. It looks like they sucked the life force out of the zombies, and as a result, the zombies have become strange.]
Dawn would have been the hour when most people were at home.
On top of that, because of the sandstorm, warning messages had already been sent to the citizens of Seoul telling them not to go outside.
However, that did not apply to zombies who lived on the streets.
I didn’t know where the zombies had been sheltering while the sandstorm raged, but in any case, when things calmed down, the only ones who caught the mutant pigeons’ eyes were the zombies.
They became the pigeons’ targets and had their life force stolen.
The problem came afterward.
[Unlike humans, zombies have regenerative abilities, don’t they? So even after the pigeons stole their life force, it must have filled back up quickly. But since they had nowhere to escape, it seems the same thing kept happening as the pigeons attacked them again and again.]
They said the regenerative ability the zombies possessed and the characteristics of the mutant pigeons had combined to produce a bizarre effect.
As the depletion and regeneration of life force repeated over and over, a phenomenon occurred that even the experimenters likely had not foreseen.
[After repeating that cycle of life force depletion and regeneration, starting in the afternoon, the zombies began attacking humans. Similar reports have been coming in from several locations. They say the zombies are trying to bite people.]
In other words, the zombies had become like real zombies.
The kind of zombies I had known in my previous life, the ones that attacked humans.