-Thor Hammer
For some reason, it was noisy in front of the gate.
The mages had surrounded Gang Yonghun and were murmuring in a mood of protest.
I listened for a moment.
“We can’t enter Neo Forest?”
“You’re telling us to just patrol the perimeter? We’re mages!”
“Let us go inside. There might still be black mages hiding in the forest.”
“You said the Blackout has been resolved too, so why won’t you let us into Neo Forest?”
The executives of the Hall must have discussed it in advance. That Han Dosu would enter the forest with only Thor and me to investigate.
It seemed Gang Yonghun had drawn the difficult role. When he told the other mages they couldn’t enter Neo Forest, they pushed back.
He was sweating profusely as he tried to persuade them.
“Many people cannot enter Neo Forest all at once. Please understand. There is plenty to do outside the forest as well, isn’t there?
A black mage may be hiding somewhere nearby, so we need patrols, and there is also the matter of investigating the swarm of rats.”
At Gang Yonghun’s words, the mages raised their voices even more.
“A swarm of rats? You want us to investigate rats?”
“Are you telling us to clean up rat corpses?”
“The police can do that sort of thing! Do you think we came all the way to Korea just to investigate the corpses of rats killed by zombies?”
Gang Yonghun waved his hands and shouted again.
“No, no! I’m not saying you necessarily have to deal with the rat corpses... But that isn’t exactly unrelated to a mage’s work either. They were monstrously huge mutant rats, weren’t they? In any case, investigation and analysis are necessary.”
The uproar only grew louder. The Hall’s mages, at least, remained quiet as if resigned, but the foreign mages who had gathered to watch did not hold back.
“We are first-rate mages of the world! We came here to stand against black mages!”
“To tell us to clean up rat corpses, honestly, this is beyond absurd!”
“I said let us into Neo Forest at once!”
Seeing Gang Yonghun at a loss made a sly smile creep onto my face.
At the same time, I found the mages who looked down on the swarm of rats rather pathetic.
Even if the rats had already been wiped out, investigating and analyzing them was hardly a trivial task.
Besides, they were mages—were they not even curious how the zombies had dealt with the rats?
It seemed that mages, having lived their lives being upheld as a privileged class, only wanted to do work that brought them great glory.
“This way. We won’t open the main gate. We’ll enter through a side door.”
Han Dosu whispered in a low voice.
It seemed the plan was to avoid the mages making a scene and slip quietly into the forest.
Thor and I silently followed Han Dosu into the darkness.
“Hey, you know. Since we’re both mages, how about we speak casually?”
Once we had passed the gathered mages and only the three of us were walking, Thor spoke to me.
He was asking, but he was already speaking casually. I couldn’t help but chuckle.
The automatic translation system was excellent enough to distinguish between informal and polite Korean speech.
But perhaps because Thor was a foreigner, polite speech seemed awkward to him.
“Sure. That’s more comfortable for me too.”
I readily answered.
If this had been my previous world, I would not have been able to converse so freely with a foreigner. I could barely speak a word of English.
But in this world, no one faced a language barrier. You could converse without restriction not only with foreigners, but even with other races.
Ever since the various other races had migrated to Earth, an automatic translation system had been operating in this world.
By having a simple chip implanted, everyone could communicate freely.
“Good. Then from now on, we’re close friends!”
“What?”
For a moment, I suspected the automatic translation system had malfunctioned.
I had never met anyone who spoke like Thor. Only a few minutes had passed since we met, and we were already close friends?
Was that something one could simply declare?
Another chuckle escaped me.
A giant of a man like an innocent, bright-eyed mischievous boy. That impression of Thor settled firmly in my mind.
“In Korea, they say only friends speak casually to each other, right? So we’re close friends. And from now on, we’re doing very important work together. We’ve become people who have to watch each other’s backs. So, friend, let’s do our best!”
“Sure. We should do our best with the work.”
Han Dosu, who had been listening to Thor from beside us, let out a low laugh. However, he seemed already used to Thor’s character.
“I have a feeling today’s investigation is going to go very well. You two will work together perfectly. The two of you suit each other in a subtle way.”
Han Dosu, who always had a serious air about him, was saying something relaxed as if he had been infected by Thor.
Even though we were on our way to investigate an explosion that had occurred in Neo Forest, no less.
Thor seemed to possess that kind of power. The power to make the people around him silly? No, let me put it nicely. The power to make the atmosphere comfortable.
After walking several dozen meters from the south gate, there was a side door I hadn’t even known was there.
The police officer standing guard saw us and stepped aside. Behind him, a small door appeared, one we could barely pass through by bending at the waist.
We entered through it one after another.
Once we stepped inside, pitch-black darkness greeted us. The trees were so dense that none of the outside light filtered in.
The air had changed completely as well. The fresh yet dense air seemed to say that this place was another world.
It felt as though even the laws of physics might operate differently in here.
‘Could it be that my phone won’t work here either?’
My heart grew anxious at the thought that I had to contact Cheon Danbi.
We walked in single file along the narrow path. Han Dosu led the way, and Thor followed behind him.
I brought up the rear, and using the cover of darkness, quickly moved my hands and sent Cheon Danbi a text.
[Just entered through the side door west of the south gate. Only 3 mages.]
Fortunately, the text went through. It seemed the cell towers densely covering Seoul reached even here.
I needed to inform Cheon Danbi of our route in detail as well, but I still didn’t know where we were going.
We had entered a dark, deep forest. I felt my body becoming lighter. It seemed the magical waves possessed by the forest were having that effect.
A sacred energy flowed through it. I had the impression that every living thing here was being protected by the World Tree.
“Ooh! As expected, this place is full of sacred magic. Looks like the World Tree is guarding this forest.”
Thor voiced a thought similar to mine.
When we reached a slightly wider space, wide enough for the three of us to stand side by side, Han Dosu stopped us.
“We’ll begin the investigation from here.”
Thor stopped walking, raised the hammer in his hand high, then swung it in every direction as he spun in place.
“What are you doing? Is someone in the forest?”
I asked, thinking he was taking a battle stance. But Thor’s answer was unexpected.
“No. I’m running a basic detection. This thing’s a magic tool, you see. It’s pretty good at detection too.”
“A hammer? Wasn’t that a combat hammer?”
“Of course I use it in combat too. But it’s useful for detection as well. It reacts well to magical waves. Kind of like me. Combat may be my main field, but I’m also famous for detection magic.”
Thor spoke while looking down at his hammer with an expression brimming with affection.
An innocent giant of a man. A mage proficient in both rough combat and delicate detection, and his hammer too, a magic tool that performed conflicting functions.
Perhaps Thor’s defining trait was that things that seemed contradictory achieved harmony in him.
I revised the image of Thor from Norse mythology that I had carried from my memories of my previous world.
“Moving all together as three would be inefficient, so from here, we will spread out like the ribs of a fan. Each of you will advance while detecting, and every fifteen minutes, gather at the place where I send a signal. We repeat this until we find a special trace. Understood?”
Han Dosu explained the detection work. He spread both arms and used his fingertips to show us the directions we should go.
“Okay.”
“Understood.”
“However, if you discover an enemy or if something happens, send a signal immediately and regroup. The signal will be firing violet flames into the sky.”
As he said that, Han Dosu lit a tiny violet flame at his fingertip. He mimed shooting it into the sky, but did not actually fire it.
Perhaps because he had the habits of an Academy instructor, Han Dosu’s explanation was almost excessively kind.
“Understood.”
“Okay!”
We immediately scattered in three directions.
I sent Cheon Danbi a text first again.
[We’ve split in three directions. I’m heading east.]
With that much, Cheon Danbi would be able to orient herself. Since she was probably the person who knew this forest better than anyone, I wasn’t particularly worried.
I began walking, pushing through the undergrowth.
It was dark, and the forest untouched by human footsteps was overgrown with grass, while tree trunks and branches stretched out in every direction, making it difficult to take a step.
But I couldn’t exactly burn or break them with magic as I advanced.
As I slowly pushed through the primeval forest-like woods, I extended detection magic in every direction.
Lines of magic glowing silver stretched out as if dancing.
After several minutes, I drew the magical lines back in and examined them. Then I was startled.
“This much...?”
When I first entered the forest, I had doubted whether we could really find traces of the explosion.
If the black mage had been bold enough to attack Neo Forest, I thought they would have erased every trace and disappeared.
Yet unexpectedly, the traces remained distinct. It seemed I wouldn’t even need to wander through the forest with difficulty searching for them.
The traces were clear. They were traces of the infinite pentagon magic circuit. It seemed certain who had caused the explosion.
‘So it was Yashin after all.’
However, there was something different about the traces compared to before. The magic circuit was broken here and there.
It looked as though the infinite pentagon had failed to fully form. There were holes, it was distorted, and one corner had collapsed and lay open.
There were two possibilities.
Either these traces had been left when Yashin’s magical attack was destroyed by someone, or they might be traces of another mage who belonged to the same group as Yashin.
‘They said that at the moment of the explosion, a pure white light appeared and canceled it out. What was the true nature of that pure white light? Wouldn’t there be traces of that as well?’
I examined the traces of the infinite pentagon magic circuit more closely.
If the broken parts had been caused by its destruction, then traces of the mage who had produced the pure white light might remain there.
But I could not find any traces of another mage.
It was then. Violet flames rose into the western sky.
It was not the direction Han Dosu had headed. Fifteen minutes had not passed yet either.
It was the direction Thor had gone, and if so, it was an emergency signal. I also heard a sound that seemed like a scream and a shout at once.
I quickly ran in that direction.