-An Opponent to Fight
‘Vanaheim’s patch? They really came prepared.’
I now understood why the Hall mages weren’t affected by the gray energy.
As it turned out, I had come to a place I never should have been.
The mages hadn’t rushed here to save the dwarves. They had come to pin the entire mess on them.
The government, the Hall, and Vanaheim had joined hands.
They had all written the scenario together and come to arrest the dwarves according to the script—only for me to suddenly barge in.
‘Wait. Then does that mean they even mobilized a black mage? The magic used here is definitely a black mage’s.’
My head spun at the thought of just how far this conspiracy might reach.
This went beyond simply framing someone.
I looked straight at Kang Yonghun and said,
“I’m perfectly fine. Even without a patch, I know how to create a barrier with magic. But who exactly gave you advance information? Are you saying the dwarves in this village issued a warning about a terror attack?”
I was maintaining my composure, but I couldn’t help the sharp edge in my voice.
“We learned of it through a detection performed by a mage who came here earlier. He discovered that there were magical weapons in this underground base.”
Kang Yonghun answered without batting an eye.
“A mage came here? I heard only police officers came, took a rough look around, and left.”
“What are you talking about? Who did you hear that from?”
Kang Yonghun said, raising his eyebrows.
Then he swept his gaze around the area. It seemed he was checking whether any dwarves were still in their right minds.
The dwarves were not in their right minds. They were still wandering about in groups, out of control and causing chaos.
The mages who had come with Kang Yonghun were subduing them.
“I heard it from a dwarf woman. She said not a single mage came, only police officers, and that they didn’t even search properly before leaving after a quick look around. I heard that before the village ended up like this and before the dwarves started acting strangely.”
Cheon Danbi abruptly stepped forward and spoke to Kang Yonghun.
It seemed she simply couldn’t stand by and listen any longer. Anger was written across her face.
“And you are……?”
Kang Yonghun asked, turning to look at her.
He was barely suppressing an expression of utter annoyance.
He wanted to hurry up, arrest the dwarves, and get out of this filthy underground place, but obstacles kept appearing one after another, and it was getting on his nerves.
“I run a business nearby. I’m a regular at Bolba Restaurant, so I asked the dwarf woman there.”
“Ah, you’re a local resident. That’s unfortunate, but you were deceived by the dwarves. Do you think dwarves plotting terrorism would honestly tell you the truth?”
Kang Yonghun answered shamelessly once again. Then he looked Cheon Danbi up and down with a careful gaze.
“Terrorism? No, that’s…….”
I lightly tugged on Cheon Danbi’s arm as she tried to argue.
This wasn’t the time to stand here and deal with him like this. It wasn’t a situation where logic would work, either.
Cheon Danbi caught on to my intention and immediately stopped speaking.
Kang Yonghun was spouting absurd sophistry right now, but in truth, he surely knew as well.
A mage couldn’t possibly not know.
Gray energy was the trace left behind when black mages used magic.
And that wasn’t all. They were claiming the dwarves had used magical weapons to cause space magic of this level, expanding and twisting an entire space like this?
That was nonsense.
Most of all, why would the dwarves destroy the space they themselves lived in?
On top of that, if they had committed a terror attack, why would they confuse their own minds?
“But it’s dangerous for an ordinary civilian to be here. You need to leave at once. Oudin, she seems to be with you, so take her out quickly. The underground base is currently unsafe. If you have questions, we can discuss them separately later.”
Kang Yonghun said.
Now he was openly trying to drive Cheon Danbi and me away because we were getting in his way.
“Understood. We’ll do that.”
His intentions were obvious, but for now, I decided to step back.
Even while we were talking, the distorted underground space was gradually collapsing, with soil and water pouring down along the walls.
It was true that this place was unsafe.
At least the places that had caught fire had been extinguished by the mages in a hurry.
Looking around, I saw that the Hall mages had already nearly finished arresting the dwarves. They were tying them up one after another with chains of magical power and leading them out.
Perhaps they had used some kind of dispelling magic, because the dwarves who had been rioting until just moments ago were now quiet.
However, they still looked as if their souls had left them.
‘Is this the effect of the patch too?’
Thinking that they had used mental magic and then dispelled it with something like a patch to make the dwarves docile made anger surge within me all over again.
They weren’t treating the dwarves as people, but merely as tools in the scenario they had written.
This wasn’t something I could let pass, but it also wasn’t a problem that could be solved through an argument here and now.
I needed to pressure them with evidence.
Only by finding and breaking every party behind this scripted conspiracy could I resolve the problem.
For now, everyone had to get out of here. The underground space could collapse completely at any moment.
“Let’s go outside.”
I spoke quietly to Cheon Danbi and led her toward the stairs.
That was when a sudden, loud noise rang out. It was the alarm from the communication devices that I and the Hall mages were wearing on our wrists.
When I looked down at the device, a message had arrived.
[A bizarre life-form has appeared in Daejeon. Suspected to be a terror attack by a black mage. Mages are requested to contact the Hall and deploy.]
I turned to look at Kang Yonghun. He was looking at me as well.
“An incident has occurred where you can achieve the kind of heroic performance you want. We’ll clean up here, so you should hurry over and defeat the black mage.”
Kang Yonghun said to me.
His tone was plainly sarcastic. What’s more, even though a bizarre life-form had appeared, he showed no sign of concern and, for some reason, looked almost pleased.
I didn’t bother answering and turned around, quickening my steps.
“What’s going on?”
Cheon Danbi asked as she followed me at a brisk pace.
“They say a bizarre life-form appeared in Daejeon. It’s an order for mages to deploy.”
“What? Another black mage terror attack? Has Yasin appeared again?”
I was curious about that too.
Was it Yasin? Was he alive?
He probably was. We hadn’t found his corpse.
If so, had he finished recovering and begun committing terror attacks again?
I couldn’t be certain of that part.
The terror attack that had happened in the underground dwarf village hadn’t been Yasin’s doing.
I hadn’t finished analyzing it yet, but I had detected and memorized the magic circuits spread throughout this place.
However, I hadn’t seen the infinite pentagon shape in those magic circuits or traces.
Yasin’s fingerprint wasn’t there.
Just like the zombie incident caused by the virus and the emergence of the swarm of monster rats, this case had not been Yasin’s doing either.
Even if they had yet to show themselves, it was certain there was another black mage out there.
“I don’t know whether it’s Yasin or not. Either way, I have to go.”
I had already made up my mind to go to Daejeon.
The terror attack had happened in Daejeon. Though it was some distance from Danyang, it was still in Chungcheong-do.
I would have to go and see, but somehow I felt as if I was getting a little closer to Samir.
“I’m coming with you.”
Cheon Danbi said at once.
“You’re coming with me?”
“Yeah. I’m extremely angry because of what happened in the dwarf village. I feel like I’ll only cool down a bit if I go somewhere and fight a black mage or something. It’s not like I can start fighting the Hall mages right now.”
I understood how she felt.
She must have wanted to fight Kang Yonghun, who was using absurd claims to drive the dwarves into a witch hunt, but since she couldn’t, her insides were probably boiling.
I looked at Cheon Danbi’s back as she climbed the stairs with rough steps. Even though she was angry, she probably understood why I had stopped her.
The opponent we had to fight was not merely Kang Yonghun alone. A cartel of conspiracy must have formed.
“Leaving this place right now doesn’t mean we won’t fight this conspiracy.”
I told her quietly.
“I know. They’re making such ridiculous accusations, so we have to expose it to the very end. I’m going to find out exactly why the Hall mages are plotting something like this. No, not me alone—our team has to do it.”
Cheon Danbi looked back at me and smiled faintly. It was a smile that asked, “We will, right?”
Even in the middle of her anger, the thought that there were people who would fight with her seemed to have improved her mood a little.
“Since you brought that up, let’s go get Gil. We should take Gil to Daejeon too.”
“Good idea! Of course the team has to stick together.”
The reason I wanted to take Gil wasn’t only because we were a team.
Gil had the trait of being able to commune with other life-forms. Through training, he had been developing that trait even further.
And Gil would definitely want to see the bizarre life-form in person.
Even if what he had to do upon meeting it was fight, he would surely still want to encounter it.
‘I told him we’d go on a trip, but I never got to take him anywhere. In the end, this is how we’ll end up leaving Seoul.’
We were going there to fight, not to have fun, but even so, visiting a new city would be good for him.
Gil needed as many experiences as possible, no matter what they were.
“If the three of us go together, we’ll be able to take down any black mage or monster!”
Cheon Danbi clenched her fist by herself, psyching herself up.
Because the underground space was unstable, we hurried our steps, but it still took quite some time to climb the stairs.
As I silently climbed, I thought about who exactly the opponents I had to fight from now on were.
Black mages?
Of course. Among them, any black mage connected to Samir’s Magic Tower was my top-priority enemy.
Because Yasin’s magical fingerprint contained the infinite pentagon shape, he was my clear target.
Vanaheim?
They, too, were an opponent I had to fight. Vanaheim had deceived me in multiple ways. They had tried to use me as bait to catch Ren.
I didn’t like the experiments they had conducted on Ren, and I very much did not like the development of the Golden Apple either.
In particular, my suspicion that black mages were involved in the development process of the Golden Apple was now nearly certain.
And that wasn’t all. They had even confessed to me by now that, for a time, they had conducted experiments together with Yasin.
I had signed a contract to work with Vanaheim, but that didn’t mean I intended to work for their sake.
‘Come to think of it, I was supposed to visit the chairman’s house tomorrow, wasn’t I?’
I suddenly remembered the promise I had made with Han Dain.
Would I be able to return tonight after going to Daejeon? I didn’t know.
If the battle went well, there would be no reason I couldn’t return. But I couldn’t know how things would progress.
‘This is an emergency, so they should take that into consideration to some extent.’
Now I was even beginning to question whether the black mage terror attack in Daejeon was truly unrelated to Vanaheim.
Could assigning me to handle security at the chairman’s house have been a way to separate me from Ren and the other issues?
That was how deeply my suspicions toward Vanaheim had grown.
In any case, I decided to deal with tomorrow’s matter when the time came, and continued my train of thought.