-A Brilliant Tomorrow
* * *
Kim Seonho held his breath and watched until all the mages had vanished in their vans.
He was on the top floor of a building near Daemosan. He had been observing the scene through binoculars the entire time.
His feelings were complicated. He was angry, and yet admiration welled up in him too. In any case, he had no choice but to accept the outcome as it was.
“It can’t be helped. I suppose it’s time to move on to the next stage.”
His voice came out listlessly.
He could not help feeling disappointed. Every last one of the creatures he had created had been annihilated.
Though it had not been created exactly as he had intended, the result had been far too remarkable to call it a failure, and he had secretly held expectations for it.
An uncontrollable monster. A creature capable of endless transformations, possessing absurd destructive power.
Not only that, it had even performed the wondrous feat of transforming the animals he had fed it into forms similar to itself.
With that much, he had thought it would cause a proper uproar. The mages were stronger than Kim Seonho had expected. Damn it.
“A person who knows when it is time to leave and does so is beautiful. There’s also a saying that one should leave while the applause is still ringing.”
Muttering to himself, Kim Seonho left the room.
A bodyguard greeted him, snapping to attention.
“Let’s go there now.”
“Yes, sir. Do you mean Samseong-dong?”
“Yes.”
Kim Seonho headed to the underground parking lot with his bodyguards. It was now time to go to the Magic Tower.
It was late at night, but that would not matter. He had already discussed it beforehand, and if he wanted to move about while keeping himself hidden, he had to avoid the daytime anyway.
He found it laughable, wondering how he had ended up becoming such a creature of darkness, but even that thought was soon erased.
‘This is all because of that bastard Oudyn. But I’m going to erase even my grudge against him clean away. What good does bearing a grudge do? It simply means that this is the extent of humanity. If so, they aren’t qualified to possess the golden apple. I won’t give it to humans.’
Trying hard to soothe himself, Kim Seonho got into the car and contacted another bodyguard.
“Get that ready. I’m leaving this country within the hour. Prepare it and come to the underground parking lot at headquarters.”
Kim Seonho hung up without even waiting for the other person’s answer. Then he looked into the mirror and examined his face.
He tried smiling broadly. He tried putting on a deliberately resolute expression. He tried making his face expressionless.
What kind of face should he wear for the negotiation?
It was not his first time meeting the head of the Magic Tower, but it was his first time meeting him one-on-one.
He was an unbearably dark man. Rather than a human, he felt like someone who had already crossed over into the Demon Realm.
Naturally, he would have neither blood nor tears.
It did not matter. Human feelings were not what was needed.
Even if no emotions remained in him at all, his desire for power and his desire for eternal life would remain.
They surely would. And in the face of profit, not only humans but even demons could not help themselves.
Kim Seonho had the golden apple.
‘He’ll certainly covet the golden apple. But don’t expect me to hand it over to you intact. I may be neither a mage nor a black mage, but I have my own field of expertise.’
Kim Seonho had now become almost detached. Thinking that he would let go of everything even made him feel lighthearted.
Of course, that did not mean he intended to disappear quietly.
If that had been his intention, he would not have endured until now. He would not have needed to bear the humiliating reality of being a wanted man.
Kim Seonho intended to throw this country into utter chaos one last time before leaving Korea. He was even planning to abandon the company he had devoted his entire life to building.
‘After all I’ve done for this country. Ungrateful bastards. Now you will pay dearly for rejecting me, for trampling on my goodwill.’
If necessary, he would join hands even with the devil.
That was how Kim Seonho had lived. Without that kind of will, one could never grow a company of that size. Now that he had even made up his mind to abandon that company, what was there that he could not do?
He would ruin this country miserably.
He would bring down the hammer on those insufferable mages.
Perhaps this desire had long since taken root in secret within Kim Seonho, who had spent his whole life enduring the mages’ arrogance.
At this moment, imagining the mages defeated made him feel a little better.
‘Mages, just you wait a little longer. Oudyn, you traitor. I will make sure you are the first one I force to your knees.’
There should be no issue with the negotiations with the Magic Tower. When he had subtly sounded them out first, the response had been positive.
Now all he had to do was finish the final negotiation and leave this country with a light heart. The Magic Tower would take care of the dirty and troublesome matters on its own.
A faint smile appeared at the corners of Kim Seonho’s mouth.
He had the golden apple. As long as he had this, wherever he went, he would be able to enjoy eternal power while receiving people’s obedience.
Eternal life was a temptation no one could resist. And it would grant him power incomparable to anything else.
Though he was now in the position of fleeing under cover of darkness, a new and brilliant tomorrow would unfold before him.
* * *
Gil was reading a book in his room.
The room was warm, but every now and then, wind slipped in through the gaps in the window.
He had just finished the last page of the magic book Oudyn had brought him from the magic space.
Gil closed the book, walked over to the window, and gazed outside for a moment. Even in the darkness, he could feel the wind blowing fiercely.
Looking closely, he realized that the bluish light of dawn was already beginning to brighten the sky. It was daybreak.
“It’s already dawn. Still, I should train.”
Gil turned around, found a spot inside the room, and sat down.
He had now gone through every spell in the magic book. That meant he had first fully understood them in theory. It had not been particularly difficult.
Gil thought it must have been easy to understand because it was a basic magic book, but in truth, that was not the case. The contents of the magic book were not merely basic. Gil’s understanding was exceptionally quick.
Moreover, because he was a mage with a vessel capable of holding an enormous amount of mana within his body, it was even easier for him to understand. Magic was something that required mana even to be understood theoretically.
While reading the book, he had internally operated his mana in that manner, but now it was time to test it in practice.
Of course, he did not intend to fully activate magic inside this small room. Instead, he would use training to draw a blueprint.
Sitting neatly, Gil quietly began to move the waves of mana within his body.
Training was the act of drawing, through waves, the principles and rules of magic operation he had understood in his mind. It was also the act of raising intent and preconstructing the magic circuits.
In order to manifest magic in an actual situation without even the slightest deviation, he had to temper himself through this kind of training.
It was the process of making magic wholly his own by repeatedly drawing its blueprint.
Mana waves rippled through the room. Gil raised his mana in concentric waves and slowly extended them outward. He extended them very far, then drew them back in.
Next, he stretched the mana waves straight upward. He extended them far into the universe, then slowly drew them back.
They were not waves that actually activated magic. They were waves of rehearsal.
But training was not merely a matter of running through a preliminary exercise. It was the moment in which he examined the extent of his own ability and where his limits would reveal themselves.
Gil’s mana waves hardly ever ran into a limit.
‘I may not be skilled in spatial magic like Mage Oudyn, but this is my method. This is my spatial magic.’
Gil was underestimating himself, but in truth, the vessel with which he contained mana was as infinite as the universe. It was as though he held a universe within his body.
In fact, any mage could do such a thing, but most mages never discovered that field.
Gil, however, despite awakening later than others, was unfolding that field almost innately.
That was why Gil’s training knew no limits. He was reaching a realm even deeper and broader than when he actually operated magic.
‘Not bad. If I do it like this, I can greatly expand the area through which my mana waves flow, and I can also invoke enormous magic.’
Gradually affirming himself, Gil continued to repeat his training. At last, his concentric mana waves began to take perfect control of the space.
Gil’s spatial magic was a space of empathy and a space of perception. He could feel and understand everything that unfolded within it as though it were happening to him.
He was beginning to understand what it meant to have absolute freedom of control.
* * *
Deep in the night, Cheon Danbi suddenly left her house and headed for Neo Forest.
It was bitterly cold, and the wind blew fiercely, but she paid no attention to such things. Since earlier, the forest had been sending out a special resonance.
‘The World Tree is calling me. This has never happened before……’
The World Tree of Namsan had nurtured the sacred forest called Neo Forest and raised countless precious things within its embrace, but compared to its fame, it did not usually show much movement.
As a druid, Cheon Danbi always sensed even the faint signals flowing from the forest, but never before had the forest sent out a resonance like this.
‘The forest is moving. What on earth is happening? What is it trying to say?’
She entered Neo Forest through the gap she always used to sneak in and out.
For a moment, she felt as though the forest came rushing toward her. More vividly than ever before. It was warm and gentle. And she felt as though it understood her.
Cheon Danbi felt the presence of the World Tree anew with her entire body. She also keenly felt that she was a druid.
A forest with a World Tree should originally be a druid’s forest. But because the government and the mages had taken charge of managing this place and kept it tightly hidden away, it felt as though the World Tree could not breathe properly.
It was unavoidable. At present, the existence of druids in this country had grown faint. Their line was barely being maintained.
Even Cheon Danbi had no memory of meeting other druids. Not since that day long ago.
Everything was because of the black mage. Though it was only a guess now, that black mage back then had probably been Samir, the current head of the Magic Tower.
Cheon Danbi had been too young then, so she could not remember many things clearly. Still, there were scenes that vaguely came to mind.
‘My parents and relatives, and even druids I didn’t know, followed the black mage into the forest. It wasn’t Neo Forest. What forest was it?’
Cheon Danbi’s parents had told her not to follow them, but Cheon Danbi had secretly trailed after them.
Why had her parents told only Cheon Danbi to stay behind? Was it because they had not yet recognized the young girl as a druid, or because they had sensed that something dangerous and ominous was about to happen?
The young Cheon Danbi hid at a distance and watched the black mage and the druids.