A Line That Must Not Be Crossed
“Then shall we go get dinner now?”
Cheon Danbi suggested briskly.
“Good idea. That was part of why I called everyone on the team—to have dinner together. Let’s go.”
“What should we eat?”
“I haven’t eaten a thing all day, so I don’t even have the energy to choose. Let’s just go anywhere that sells something edible.”
“Still, at times like this, we should eat something hearty.”
We headed back toward the restaurant street.
The zombies were no longer in sight.
This time, since we were actually going to eat, we kept our eyes peeled for restaurants and nothing else.
“Ah! There’s a charcoal-grilled pork rib place over there. How about pork ribs?”
“Sounds good. Anything’s fine.”
We went into the first restaurant that caught our eye.
As soon as we stepped inside, the owner greeted us noisily with a “Welcome!”
But what a coincidence.
The male owner was none other than the man who had been waving a lit charcoal briquette around in the alley a little while ago, threatening the zombies.
When he saw us, he flinched and backed away.
He seemed to think we had come to arrest him.
“We’re here to eat.”
When I said that, the man finally seemed relieved and showed us to a table.
Still, he apparently wasn’t completely at ease, because he pushed our order off onto an employee and disappeared through the back door himself.
Whatever. I stopped paying attention to the owner and ordered plenty of pork ribs.
When I looked back, Gil’s gaze had gone sharp, but that couldn’t be helped either.
“Wow, the smell of ribs is killer.”
“I’m seriously dying here. Let’s hurry up and grill the meat!”
“Eat it once it’s cooked. Don’t grab half-raw pieces just because you’re hungry.”
“I know. I still have that much common sense left.”
“Please give me the tongs. I’ll turn them over.”
We were so terribly hungry that we focused on nothing but grilling and eating the meat in a frenzy.
Because of that, no other sounds reached our ears.
Once our stomachs had filled somewhat, the sounds around us slowly began to come through. Quite a few people were murmuring.
But the atmosphere somehow seemed both excited and on edge.
Everyone was looking at their phones as they talked, and it seemed they were watching a video someone had uploaded online.
‘What is it?’
On my way to get some water, I glanced over and saw a shocking scene in the video.
My eyebrows rose on their own.
‘What the hell is this now?’
When I returned to my seat, I quickly searched the internet.
Wondering what was going on, the rest of the team all leaned in and looked at my phone as well.
“What is it? Did something happen?”
“Is that the video the people in the restaurant are watching right now?”
Their questions vanished the moment I played the video. Instead, everyone stared at the screen with their mouths hanging open.
In the video, zombies were being burned.
“My God! They’re burning zombies to death with fire magic!”
“What in the world……?”
“What is this? Is this from today?”
I checked the background and description of the video.
It was dated today, and it had happened somewhere in Gangnam.
In other words, the zombies showing abnormal behavior today had not appeared only in Junggye-dong.
Even if there hadn’t been as many as in Junggye-dong, incidents had occurred in other neighborhoods as well.
While we were subduing the zombies in Junggye-dong, mages had been dispatched elsewhere too. The problem was that some of those mages had not stopped at simply subduing the zombies; they had treated them outright as enemies, as if clearing a terrorist operation, and burned them to annihilation.
“Why are they doing this? They don’t have to kill them.”
“Exactly. The mages are recklessly killing the zombies.”
During the old zombie virus incident, zombies had been burned to death as well. Back then, some mages had rashly assumed zombies would transmit the virus to humans and burned them to death.
But it was soon revealed that zombies did not spread the virus, and the zombie virus itself did not spread widely either, so the disturbance quickly died down.
‘Come to think of it, the one who caused that zombie virus incident back then was Loki. And then he took the lead in burning the zombies to death.’
He had even nearly burned Gil, who had been with the zombies.
Loki had deliberately tried to stir up racial conflict by staging a dramatic scene.
The one who had quelled the racial conflict back then was Freyja.
It made me realize we had passed through some precarious moments.
In the meantime, Gil had become my teammate, Freyja had become an ally, and Loki had become an enemy.
Now Loki was locked behind the bars of the Bureau, and yet something like this had happened again.
But today’s incident had not been intentionally caused by a dark mage, and perhaps it was something no one could have predicted.
Vanaheim had merely scattered mutated pigeons through the streets to drain people’s life force.
They surely could not have anticipated what effect the strange abilities of those mutated pigeons would have when combined with the zombies’ regenerative power.
Considering that even the pigeons had died as a result.
No one knew, and no one had planned it. And yet, in the end, it had led to this situation where zombies were burned to death.
“Gil, calm down. You mustn’t let your mind be thrown into turmoil. I’ll go find out what’s happening, so stay still and wait.”
“Yes……”
Now that I could hear the murmuring of the people inside the restaurant clearly, quite a lot of the resentment mixed into it was calling for zombies to be burned to death.
I gave Cheon Danbi a look telling her to keep an eye on Gil, then stepped outside the restaurant.
I called Yu Jaeseon.
“The situation in Junggye-dong has been wrapped up. But what on earth happened in the other places? There’s a video circulating online of zombies being burned to death with fire magic.”
[Yes. I confirmed it a little while ago as well. It wasn’t a serious terrorist situation, but it seems the mages overreacted. The Bureau did not give any order to kill the zombies.]
Yu Jaeseon sounded troubled too.
Considering how he had not taken it seriously when we spoke earlier, it was certain the Bureau had not given such an order.
Even so, managing mages was the Bureau’s job.
“Please warn the mages, even now. Subduing them is enough, and burning zombies, an other race, to death for no reason will only provoke people.”
[I understand. The situations there have already ended, but I will issue a warning even now. I’m truly sorry.]
“It’s not something you need to apologize to me for. But you’ll need to prepare for the movements that follow. Hatred toward zombies could become a problem. This is already a chaotic time as it is.”
[You’re right. Let’s discuss countermeasures afterward tomorrow. I’ve scheduled a meeting for the Magic Tower investigation team at nine tomorrow morning. Will that time work for you?]
“For that, I’d drop everything and come running. Has the investigation team already been formed?”
[Yes. I rushed that first as well. We never know when the Magic Tower might commit another act of terror.]
It was true that the Bureau had a great deal to do.
Freelance mages like me only needed to handle operations as they came, but all the cleanup fell to the Bureau.
Setting aside their routine work of managing mages, they would have had to interrogate the Vanaheim dark mage and Loki, and they would also have needed to conduct document investigations in preparation for the launch of the Golden Apples.
Since it was a government agency, they had to secure solid legal evidence in order to stop Vanaheim.
Even so, the fact that he had hurried to form the Magic Tower investigation team I had requested first showed that Yu Jaeseon definitely had good instincts for the job.
Even if Samir and the Magic Tower were quiet for the moment, this was not peace.
Rather, it was more like the brief calm one felt inside the eye of a typhoon.
“Then should I come to the Bureau at nine tomorrow morning?”
[Yes. I’ll see you then.]
After ending the call and going back into the restaurant, I somehow felt that the atmosphere among the people had softened.
Just a little while ago, everyone had been staring at the video of zombies being burned to death, talking in agitation with an atmosphere that felt sharp and tense. Now, for some reason, everyone was eating comfortably.
As I returned to our table, I quietly cast detection magic and examined the surroundings.
I had wondered if that was the case, and sure enough, it was Gil’s doing.
Concentric waves of mana were spreading out from Gil, filling the restaurant.
What those waves carried was none other than mental magic.
He was using mental magic to erase people’s hatred of zombies from their minds.
‘When did he train his mental magic this much?’
It was quite refined mental magic.
He was using magic so covertly that even Cheon Danbi and Ren, who could detect most mana, had not noticed.
The three of them had finished off all the remaining meat and were chatting comfortably.
Of course, Gil’s face did not look quite so at ease, but Cheon Danbi and Ren probably assumed it was simply because of worry and anger over the zombies.
In truth, guilt over using magic on ordinary people had been added to it.
Because he was using magic even though he knew very well that he must never do such a thing.
“You’re all done eating, right? Let’s leave now.”
A hard voice slipped from my mouth.
Cheon Danbi and Ren did not seem to think much of it, but Gil immediately sensed my mood and the reason for it, and quietly withdrew his magic.
Withdrawing the magic now did not erase the wrong he had already committed. The water had already been spilled.
Because of the mental magic he had spread until now, the people inside the restaurant were inevitably affected. For a while, they would not hate zombies.
That result was something I could welcome as well, but it could not serve as a pardon for using mental magic.
“Ah, that was a satisfying meal!”
“Even in the middle of all this chaos from back-to-back terrorist attacks, food goes down just fine.”
As we left the restaurant and Cheon Danbi and Ren spoke carefree words, I looked straight at Gil and said in a low voice.
“You know you did wrong, don’t you?”
“I know.”
Gil answered, his head lowered deeply.
“Let’s go home first. We’ll talk once we’re home.”
“Yes. But then…… is it all right to just leave this place as it is?”
“It’s not all right, but there’s nothing we can do.”
At my words, I thought I saw a faint smile appear at the corners of Gil’s mouth.
So in any case, he had achieved his goal.
I would have to scold Gil, but what had already happened could not be undone.
Was I supposed to use mental magic again to gather up the spilled water?
Or should I inform everyone, “Ladies and gentlemen, you have just been affected by this mage’s mental magic and have stopped hating zombies, so please come to your senses and hate zombies to your heart’s content”?
There was nothing I could do.
Mental magic was the kind of magic that was difficult to reverse in exactly this way. That was why one must not use mental magic on ordinary people in the first place.
“But that doesn’t mean what you did this time was acceptable. You crossed a line that must never be crossed. Remember that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It isn’t me you need to apologize to. Anyway, let’s talk when we get home.”
By then, Cheon Danbi and Ren had turned back to look at us, wondering what was going on, so I cut the conversation off there.
It was not a conversation to have out on the street.