-The Hall of Magic
As I stepped out of the alley, my phone rang. I took it out and checked the caller. It was Kang Yonghun.
[You haven’t forgotten that you’re supposed to come to the Hall today, have you?]
“How could I forget something we discussed yesterday?”
[Ah, yes. Good to hear. Come right away, if you would. The situation is rather serious, so we’ll be holding a countermeasure meeting. I’d like you to attend as well.]
“I’m on my way.”
My reply was short and blunt.
Rather than a mage, Kang Yonghun felt more like a politician of the magic world. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to like him. If possible, he was someone I wanted to keep at a distance.
But was the situation bad enough that he had to call and hurry me along? Had something else happened overnight?
I had been on my way to collect the reward for yesterday’s raid and get some information about how things were unfolding, but now it seemed I had suddenly been roped into attending a meeting.
Still, I had been heading there anyway.
Oudin must have had some reason for storming out of the Hall of Magic, but in the current situation, I had no choice but to get involved with the Hall again.
If I wanted detailed information on the black mages and the Magic Tower, I had to enter the center of this country’s magic world.
From my house to the Hall of Magic was, with only slight exaggeration, close enough that I could fall over and land there.
Suddenly, it struck me as strange that Oudin had continued living so nearby even after running out of the Hall.
It must have been annoying to have people from the Hall come to his house.
‘Is it because of the magic space?’
The thought came to me abruptly.
If so, did that mean the magic space couldn’t move around like a subspace, but was physically fixed in that room?
If that was the case, then it made sense that he had stayed in the rooftop room. What condition could possibly matter more than the magic space?
Thinking about it, I realized I didn’t know much about the magic space.
Most of Oudin’s memories had been transferred to me, but there were holes here and there. In particular, my memories regarding the magic space were hazy.
‘Is it really a space I created?’
‘But it’s being controlled without me even knowing.’
‘Was it even a space I could control in the first place?’
There was no way to find out right away. I decided to dig into it gradually.
In any case, what mattered was the fact that the magic space existed in that house, and that was why I had to stay there.
Since I had even managed to find Gil a room in the same building, there was even less reason to leave that house.
I entered the Hall of Magic.
As I crossed the garden, the elven guards I passed greeted me silently. They knew who I was.
But after passing through the garden and the long corridor, just as I was about to enter the front door, an elf blocked my way.
“Mage, please wait a moment. We will verify your identity.”
He knew I was a mage, and perhaps even knew exactly who I was, yet he said he would verify my identity.
It meant their security was stricter than usual.
The elf performed a mana scan on my body without making it obvious. At that moment, a voice flowed out from somewhere through a speaker.
[Let him in. That is Mage Oudin. He has come to attend the meeting.]
At a glance, it sounded like Kang Yonghun’s voice.
Had he been watching through a camera? Or could they immediately confirm my identity through the results of the mana scan?
I was no longer affiliated with the Hall of Magic, but since this had once been Oudin’s organization, I couldn’t exactly object if they had stored a unique mana pattern here that could distinguish my identity.
“My apologies. Please go in.”
The elven guard bowed politely and stepped aside, and the front door opened automatically.
Through the open door, the interior of the hall came into view. As expected, it was splendid.
But the splendor of the hall was quite different from the absurd gaudiness of the building’s exterior.
The interior was decorated in an antique, classical opulence, to the point that it felt imposing.
It was a space that clearly revealed the Hall of Magic to be a privileged organization.
I stepped inside.
Even though it was early morning, the hall was bustling with people.
They weren’t doing anything in particular. Mages gathered in small groups and talked, while staff members moved busily here and there.
When I entered, people’s eyes turned toward me. Some even began whispering.
“Mage Oudin, good morning. This way, please.”
A staff member in a black suit approached and guided me.
His expression was stiff, and when I looked again, I recognized him as the man who had come to my house last time and been caught in my ice magic. The younger of the two.
He had been badmouthing me carelessly behind my back and paid the price for it.
Back then, not much time had passed since I had been transferred to this world, so I had used magic before realizing it. Still, a person shouldn’t behave like that.
I gave a faint laugh and followed behind the staff member.
As we crossed the hall, I carefully examined the buildings connected to it, and Oudin’s memories began to return little by little.
‘Right. This building is the main hall, and behind that is the training hall where the academy cadets stay.’
The cadets ate, slept, studied, and trained together in the training hall, cultivating to the fullest their pride as mages granted special privileges.
In that way, they became the ruling class.
“Everyone is waiting in the conference room.”
The staff member said, pointing to the elevator with his hand.
We had passed through the hall and entered another building connected by another corridor.
The northern building, the Leadership Hall, was where the executives stayed.
The place we reached after taking the elevator was the fifth floor of the Leadership Hall, a floor with conference rooms both large and small.
After guiding me to one of them, the staff member opened the door, gestured for me to enter, and quickly disappeared behind it.
The conference room was spacious.
A large table sat in the middle, big enough for around twenty people to sit around, and roughly ten people were occupying seats.
As I stepped inside, everyone’s gaze turned to me at once.
“Mage Oudin! Welcome. You came quickly.”
Kang Yonghun rose from his seat and approached me, speaking warmly.
He wasn’t truly pleased to see me. Most of his actions were calculated.
“Good morning. What kind of meeting is this?”
“A countermeasure meeting regarding the terror attack. A major act of terrorism occurred, and as a result, quite a few mages were sacrificed. Sit over here.”
The seat he told me to take was the innermost one, farthest from the entrance. It was, in a sense, the seat of honor. It felt strange.
As I sat down, I looked over the faces gathered around the table.
The white-haired old man sitting right beside me was Lee Jiwon, the chairman of the Hall of Magic.
Rather than an actual chairman, he was closer to an honorary chairman. Once, he had been a legendary mage, but now he was a tiger without its fangs.
In practice, the Hall’s real power was held by Kang Yonghun, the general affairs committee member.
Beside Kang Yonghun sat Han Dosu. I had heard he had been injured at the sinkhole site, but it didn’t seem to have been a serious injury. His complexion, however, was very dark.
“Are you all right? I heard you were injured.”
“I’m fine.”
Compared to how warmly he usually treated me, his answer was extremely short.
The reason Han Dosu’s expression was dark and his attitude gloomy was because countless mages had lost their lives at the sinkhole site.
Unlike Kang Yonghun, he was deeply grieved by the sacrifice of the mages.
As someone in charge of raising cadets at the academy, he tended to care for mages even under normal circumstances.
“Before we discuss countermeasures for the terror attack, let us first go over yesterday’s raid. Mage Oudin, can you give us your account of the process?”
Kang Yonghun led the meeting. At his question, I asked in return,
“Haven’t you already grasped the circumstances of the incident? When I arrived, the police, soldiers, and mages from the Hall were already on-site. It must have been recorded on camera, and the analysis should be complete as well. I’m not sure where I should begin…”
“Of course, we understand the general outline. It was recorded as well. However, from the moment the monster attacked the Hall mages, the records became confused. For some reason, it wasn’t filmed.
It was likely due to the intense emission of mana. And since most of the people on-site either fled, died, or were injured, there aren’t many testimonies either.”
Before giving my statement, I had been trying to gauge whether they knew about Gil’s mana absorption.
If it wasn’t mentioned, I intended to hide it as well. I still didn’t want to reveal Gil’s ability.
From what I heard, it seemed that from the moment the tentacle monster attacked the mages onward, the analysis had not been properly carried out.
“I see. After the tentacle monster launched one wave of attacks, I stepped forward and attempted to subdue it. Since the monster possessed a considerable amount of mana, I thought it had to be sealed off. So I used ice magic.”
I tried to make my statement as brief as possible. Since I had to omit Gil’s role, I had no choice.
“How was that possible? Of course, everyone knows you excel in ice magic, but the amount of mana that tentacle monster possessed was truly enormous. How were you able to seal that off with ice?”
“Ice magic is my specialty.”
When Kang Yonghun pressed me, I gave a simple answer and tried to move on.
But even Han Dosu joined in with a question.
“However, the spells cast by the other mages, including myself, had no effect. They wouldn’t budge, as if caught in an interference wave. That was why the mages were defeated. So how was your magic not nullified?”
“Wait a moment. Are you suspecting me right now?”
“No. I’m not suspecting you. It’s just that there are parts that don’t sit right if we explain it merely as a difference in magical skill…”
Han Dosu had been at the scene. On the very front line, no less. And he was an outstanding mage, enough to serve as the director of the training hall.
It was only natural that he found it dubious.
I wondered how to talk my way around it, then once again gave a theoretical and simple answer.
“I merely constructed the circuits of my ice magic in fine detail and pierced through the monster’s interference wave.”
At that moment, a man sitting at the end of the table raised one hand and opened his mouth.
“I’ll add to the explanation regarding the interference wave.”
After meeting my eyes, the man first introduced himself.
“My name is Yu Jaeseon. I am a government-affiliated mage. I’m currently dispatched to the Hall. Because of the terror incident. My duty is to cooperate with the Hall and assess the situation. I’m an analyst who mainly studies raid processes and magic circuits.”
He was someone I had never seen before. With shaggy hair and thick-framed glasses, he looked less like a bureaucrat and more like a genius hacker.
“The moment the cameras went out appears to be when the tentacle monster output its mana wave at maximum intensity. The amount of mana was immense, of course, but a unique wave was mixed into it as well, interfering with the mages’ spells and even affecting the surrounding devices.”
Yu Jaeseon’s explanation was specific.
I had to dispel this man’s suspicions if I wanted to escape the suspicions of everyone here—that was the thought that came to me.
I looked straight at him.