-Behind the Cemetery
The crows shook their heads.
[No. We couldn’t find him.]
[He vanished without a trace. We couldn’t spot even the slightest sign.]
When they said they had been searching for Yashin, I’d hoped the crows might have found even a small clue, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
“I see.”
When I muttered that, Cheon Danbi asked me,
“What did they say? Did they find Yashin?”
“No. They couldn’t.”
Cheon Danbi let out a sigh, and the crows continued sending their telepathic messages.
[Anyway, while doing that, we ended up coming around here, and there were strange things flying in the sky.]
[We were the first ones to discover the swarm of jellyfish!]
[Of course, that doesn’t mean we told the mages about it.]
[It’s an absolute disgrace. The air belongs to us birds, but sea creatures are taking over and strutting around up there!]
The crows I hadn’t seen in a while were, as expected, talkative. But thanks to them, we now knew where we had to go.
When the light changed and I started the car, intending to head toward downtown Yuseong, the crows flapped their wings.
[Not that way. You have to go to the National Cemetery. The jellyfish are being generated there. They’re still multiplying even now.]
“Really? At the National Cemetery?”
I hurriedly turned the wheel and changed lanes. Then I looked back at Cheon Danbi and Gil and said,
“They say jellyfish are still being generated at the National Cemetery. We need to go there.”
“Ah, then there’s a high chance the black mage is there. But, Mage, you can have such detailed conversations with crows?”
Cheon Danbi looked at me with startled eyes.
“These crows are my crows.”
In truth, I didn’t know why I could understand their telepathic messages either, but I still felt oddly smug.
Cheon Danbi shook her head.
We soon arrived at the National Cemetery.
After parking the car, I was about to get out when Cheon Danbi grabbed my arm.
“Wait! Let’s each drink a cup of this first, just to be safe.”
Cheon Danbi poured something from a tumbler into cups.
“What is that?”
“Herbal tea. It’ll activate your mana and make it easier to control.”
Gil and I obediently accepted the herbal tea and drank it. It seemed like she was giving it to Gil because he needed it, but there was no harm in me drinking it too.
Just as Cheon Danbi had said, we each drank a fortifying cup before getting out of the car.
“Now that we’re here, it’s really noisy, but after drinking the herbal tea, it sounds even louder.”
Gil said.
I looked up at the sky. It had grown dark, so I couldn’t see well, but even without deliberately using mana detection, I could feel the air teeming with mana life-forms.
To me, it didn’t sound like anything. But to Gil, it seemed to feel like noisy chatter.
Come to think of it, when it came to hearing the telepathic messages of other life-forms, Gil was a step above me.
“Can you understand what they’re saying?”
“I can’t understand them. It just feels like they’re excited.”
The three of us stood side by side for a moment, looking up at the sky.
“They’re transparent, so it’s hard to see them.”
“But I can definitely feel that there are a lot of them.”
“Doesn’t it seem like there are especially many over there?”
We slowly looked around.
The jellyfish weren’t only in the sky. They were also filling the air not far above the ground.
Among them, the area behind the cemetery felt especially crowded.
“Let’s enter the cemetery now. We don’t know where the black mage might be, so everyone put up your barriers first.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Cheon Danbi drew the life force of the surrounding forest around us. Gil, too, could now easily manage magic to the extent of putting up a barrier.
After watching them briefly, I stepped toward the entrance of the National Cemetery.
[Caw! We can’t even fly properly.]
[If we get caught by those things, I feel like we won’t even have bones left.]
The crows, which had been following us by flying above our heads, didn’t rise high into the air and instead hopped along the grass.
The closer we got to the entrance, the more we could see jellyfish moving even in the low air. Fortunately, none of them broke through our barriers.
At the National Cemetery, soldiers and police were controlling access from the entrance, but there weren’t very many of them.
I didn’t see any mages.
It seemed the mages in Daejeon had been dispatched mainly to residential areas where people lived.
As we approached the entrance, two patrol officers came toward us.
“Entry is prohibited. Please turn back.”
“We’re mages from Seoul.”
I raised my wrist and showed them the Hall’s communication device.
“Ah, you’re mages from the Hall? Thank goodness you’re here.”
The patrol officer’s face lit up as he opened the way for us.
Strictly speaking, we weren’t mages from the Hall, but I decided to omit the details.
Even when I went to the scene with the tentacle monster last time, my access had been restricted because I wasn’t a mage affiliated with the Hall or the government, but now simply showing the communication device was enough.
“How are you handling the situation?”
I asked the patrol officer.
“It seems like the number of jellyfish is gradually increasing. After it got dark, they became hard to see, which has made it even more difficult to respond. There are many jellyfish here, so soldiers and police have been deployed, but since this isn’t a residential area, the mages haven’t come, which has made things difficult.”
The patrol officer told us how they had been responding so far.
In reality, the military and police had no way to stop the swarm of jellyfish.
Even if they threw nets to try to catch them, the jellyfish slipped through like slick foam, and even when they fired stun guns, the jellyfish showed no reaction at all.
Occasionally, they had tried burning jellyfish that drifted down lower, but apparently those didn’t burn either.
“We’re still trying, but it doesn’t seem very effective. They keep being generated like bubbles from behind that cemetery over there.”
The patrol officer said with a discouraged expression.
Since there were no mages here, the situation was not being effectively controlled.
There wasn’t even a magic barrier, so they were unable to prevent the jellyfish generated here from flying elsewhere.
Not only the mages, but also the military and police were focused on the residential areas, so this place had effectively been left unattended.
“Understood. From now on, we’ll take control here.”
When I said that to the patrol officer, he rejoiced and ran off to inform the police and soldiers.
“Understood. Thank you!”
We walked deeper into the cemetery.
The farther in we went, the more jellyfish there were, to the point that the ash-gray sky looked white.
The jellyfish weren’t completely transparent, so with so many of them gathered together, they appeared an opaque white.
They were undoubtedly mana life-forms created by a black mage. A dense gray aura lay over every part of the cemetery.
“At least they don’t seem to be attacking people yet.”
“If they had attacked people, we would’ve gotten an alarm through the communication device by now.”
“It’s strange, isn’t it? There’s no way they made this many mutant jellyfish for no reason.”
Gil was still thinking hard about the black mage’s objective.
I had been pondering the same thing, and I had some guesses, but I would only be able to judge accurately after analyzing the magic circuits.
“First, we need to put up a barrier. So the jellyfish generated here can’t fly elsewhere.”
We had to deal with the urgent matter first.
I focused and drew up my mana. Since I had to put up a barrier enclosing the entire National Cemetery area, it required quite a lot of mana.
“I’ll help too.”
Gil said. I glanced back at him, then answered.
“Okay. Then when I create the barrier, send your mana into it and make it thicker.”
“Yes. I will.”
Taking the area behind the cemetery, where the gray aura felt strongest, as the central point, I created a barrier that drew a large circle around the perimeter.
Soon after, I felt Gil’s mana being added.
Gil’s mana waves, which had the characteristic of forming concentric circles, were extremely useful in forming a barrier that covered a wide area.
“Ah! The jellyfish are talking even louder. This time, I don’t think they’re happy.”
“That’s only natural since we’ve restricted their freedom.”
It wasn’t a barrier that kept the jellyfish from falling down. It was a barrier that imprisoned them so they couldn’t fly outside.
In the end, from the jellyfish’s perspective, it wasn’t a barrier but a prison.
Even to the eye, the air seemed to have become more chaotic. The jellyfish were flying madly in every direction.
No matter how I looked at it, it was an absurd and fascinating sight. Jellyfish in the air.
After completing the barrier, I extended my detection magic.
Immediately, magic circuits in the shape of infinite pentagons were detected in every direction.
But they weren’t exactly the same as Yashin’s.
The infinite pentagon symbol remained the same, but the characteristic of these magic circuits was that they were multicolored.
‘It’s definitely a black mage connected to Samir. But it isn’t Yashin. Another black mage has appeared.’
My heart pounded. It was anticipation.
When I heard that strange life-forms had appeared in Daejeon, I’d thought that it might bring me a little closer to Samir, and that prediction hadn’t been wrong.
I wanted to face that bastard as soon as possible.
“Now let’s search the area. Rather than the three of us moving together, it’d be better for each of us to split up.”
If they were afraid to split up, I had intended to move together. But to quickly sweep through such a wide area, splitting up was better.
Most of all, I was planning to go alone to the place where I suspected the black mage would be.
“Since the burial grounds are so large, that would be better.”
“Sounds good.”
Gil and Cheon Danbi did not hesitate.
“Then let’s split up in three directions from here. I’ll go to the back of the cemetery over there, so you two go in opposite directions. Judging by how the black mage’s magic circuits are spread everywhere, we don’t know where they might be, so stay thoroughly on guard.”
“Got it.”
“Yes.”
“Gil, if anything happens, immediately shoot a flame into the air and signal us. Cheon Danbi, you… shout or something.”
At my words, Cheon Danbi gave a small laugh and answered.
“Don’t worry. If I run into the black mage, everyone will know right away.”
Was she saying she’d let out a loud scream or something?
I smiled faintly too. For some reason, I felt reassured.
This was the first operation where I moved together with Gil and Cheon Danbi as a team. We hadn’t yet learned to work in sync, but I had faith in them.
More than any other mages, I wanted to be with these two.
After all, when it came to forming a team, trust was the most important factor.
“Even if you can’t send a signal, the crows will let me know, so don’t worry too much.”
Still, it wasn’t as if I felt no unease at all.
Gil was a teenager and a rookie mage who had only just awakened, and Cheon Danbi had her unique ability, but in any case, she was not a mage.
So I told Huginn and Muninn to follow Gil and Cheon Danbi respectively. If they ended up in danger, the crows would be able to fly to me quickly and let me know.
“Good. We’ve got an emergency communication method too, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Come here. Let’s go together.”
Cheon Danbi and Gil readily allowed the crows to perch on their shoulders.
“Then everyone be careful. Let’s begin the search.”
I stepped forward first, striding toward the back of the cemetery.