-The Mansion
“Haaah… What a long day.”
Cheon Danbi said with a yawn as she climbed into the car.
So much had happened today, from the terrorist attack on the dwarf village to coming to Daejeon, raiding the jellyfish, and meeting Jang Jeyeong.
No, wait. That was Cheon Danbi’s schedule. For me, there had also been the contract I signed after going to Vanaheim before all that. It really had been a breathless day.
“Yeah. It’s been a long day. Let’s hurry back and rest.”
It was time to return to Seoul.
Suddenly curious about the situation in Seoul, I accessed the Hall’s bulletin board through my communication device.
It said the intermittent blackouts were still continuing, flickering on and off.
This time, it seemed the mages were having trouble breaking the magic placed on the substations.
As for finding the dwarves who had fled, there seemed to be no progress yet; the mages were only exchanging information about search locations.
‘What a mess.’
On the other hand, I couldn’t help feeling a little satisfied.
The government and some of the Hall’s mages had joined hands with a black mage to pin the monster rat outbreak on the dwarves, blown up the village, arrested the dwarves, and then lost every last one of them.
Whoever had planned that scenario, it had failed spectacularly.
Now the question was who would be held responsible for this incident.
“It looks like they still haven’t found the dwarves who escaped.”
I told Cheon Danbi.
“Oh, right! You said the dwarves ran away, didn’t you? How on earth did they escape? Then did the mind magic on all of them break, and they came back to their senses?”
Cheon Danbi, who had been yawning drowsily, suddenly looked wide awake as she spoke.
“I guess they escaped during the confusion caused by the blackout. Anyway, we can only hope they came to their senses and ran.”
“So the Hall mages are looking for them?”
“Yeah. The government and the Hall mages are chasing them. But since they still haven’t even resolved the blackout situation, things don’t seem to be going well.”
“Hmph! Good. Anyway, Seoul is still a complete mess, huh?”
“Yeah. Seeing as the black mage even carried out an attack in Daejeon, the chaos will probably get worse everywhere from now on.”
“Seriously, what is happening to the world…”
Her voice seemed to trail off, so I turned and saw that Cheon Danbi had already closed her eyes. It looked like she had fallen asleep in the middle of speaking.
Gil, sitting in the back seat, had been quiet for a while already.
“Yeah. You all must be tired.”
Before I started driving, I turned on my phone to use the navigation. I had turned it off earlier for the raid and hadn’t turned it back on since.
But the moment I turned the phone on, notification sounds kept ringing. Text messages poured in one after another. There were also several missed calls.
“Oh! Mr. Mage, looks like you’ve been really popular lately? Why are you getting so many texts? Are you dating someone?”
Cheon Danbi, whom I thought had fallen asleep, muttered. Her eyes were still closed. Then she yawned repeatedly again and went quiet.
Dating, my foot. Popular, my foot.
Still, I was flustered too. Never before had I received this many messages just because my phone had been off for a few hours.
To begin with, the only people who would contact me were the two people in this car.
‘My Hall communication device was on, so it probably isn’t an emergency contact…’
Curious, I quickly skimmed through the text messages.
First, there was a message from Han Dain. Of course. It was work-related.
She was reconfirming tomorrow’s job and had sent me the chairman’s home address.
At the same time, she asked whether I had perhaps gone down to Daejeon, and insisted repeatedly that even if I had, I absolutely had to come back up tonight.
‘How did she know I came down to Daejeon? She’s like a ghost.’
Of course, she would have seen the news about the jellyfish incident in Daejeon, and since I was a freelance mage, it was possible for her to guess that I had joined the raid. Even so, I somehow got the feeling that Han Dain could see right through everything I did.
The next message, unexpectedly, was from Thor. We had exchanged contact information, but I hadn’t expected him to contact me this soon.
[You’re not picking up?]
[In a raid?]
[Did you go to Daejeon?]
[Still, you could answer your phone.]
[Guess you’re not picking up.]
[I’m in Seoul. Contact me when you see this.]
[It’s nothing major, I just had a few things to ask.]
[Anyway, good luck.]
All combined, it wasn’t even that much, but he had split it into short messages and sent them separately. That must have been why the notification sound kept ringing.
The simple messages were like something sent by an elementary school friend, and they made me laugh. Thor was the kind of person who put me in a good mood just by thinking of him.
‘He has something to ask? What is it?’
It didn’t seem urgent, so I moved on for now.
Next was Yantu. It seemed Yantu had called me a few times too, and when I didn’t answer, he had left a message. The message was extremely concise.
[Please contact me when you have time.]
‘Why the sudden polite speech?’
The unusually courteous tone, unlike Yantu, made me tilt my head.
I thought about calling him, but decided against it because it seemed too late. If it had been urgent, he would have said so, and he hadn’t.
I had been meaning to contact Yantu anyway.
With the situation regarding the dwarves taking a bad turn, the atmosphere in the Wolmido dwarf village was probably unusual as well.
I was worried that Ren might be feeling anxious. I decided to contact him tomorrow when I had time.
The last person who had contacted me was Yu Jaeseon, the government mage I had met at the Hall. He hadn’t left a separate message.
‘Strange. Why is everyone looking for me all of a sudden?’
In Han Dain’s case, her business was clear, and there was no mystery. As for Yantu, I didn’t know exactly what he wanted, but I could understand why he had contacted me. Since the situation was frustrating, he had probably wanted to ask me about the mages’ movements.
But Thor and Yu Jaeseon were unexpected. They must have contacted me because they had some reason, but I couldn’t guess what it was.
In any case, I put all of them off until tomorrow. I only sent Han Dain a brief reply, since her message was about something I had to do first thing tomorrow morning.
I closed the message window and turned on the navigation. Then I started driving right away.
Both the passenger seat and the back seat were very quiet. Unlike when we had come down to Daejeon, we headed for Seoul in calm silence.
Everything went smoothly on the way to Seoul. Since it was late at night, there wasn’t any traffic, and because we were on the highway with no traffic lights, I didn’t feel any trouble.
As soon as we entered Seoul, I could sense the chaos. It was a world flickering like Christmas tree lights.
The moment I got onto ordinary roads, I had to drive with every nerve on alert.
Even at this late hour, the mages in Seoul must have been running here and there.
I wondered if perhaps that was exactly what the black mage had been aiming for.
The chaos black mages wanted surely wasn’t this level of cute little confusion.
Somewhere, calamity was probably watching for its chance.
That thought made me tense up sharply, but when I looked at Cheon Danbi and Gil fast asleep, for some reason I relaxed as well.
* * *
The next day, I left home early in the morning.
If I wanted to arrive at the Vanaheim chairman’s house by nine, I thought I had better hurry. There was no telling what the road conditions would be like.
The chairman’s house was located in Segok-dong, near the southern edge of Seoul.
Still, perhaps they had restored the traffic lights overnight, because the roads were operating normally.
“Looks like they suffered quite a bit through the night.”
I turned on the radio and found a news channel.
As expected, it seemed the blackout situation had been resolved. They said the government and Hall mages had worked through the night to restore things.
The matter of the escaped dwarves did not seem to have been resolved. Freelance mages and even ordinary civilians had joined the search, but they still hadn’t found them.
It was an ambiguous problem.
It wasn’t as if only one or two dwarves lived in Korea, so how could anyone tell which of the dwarves walking around were from the underground base?
Of course, since they had been detained in holding cells, their personal information might have been recorded, but judging from the condition the dwarves had been in at the time, even that might not have been done properly.
‘Maybe they’ll never find them.’
But the very fact that they were tracking the dwarves was the problem.
On top of that, the search for Ren had overlapped with it, so the freelance mages were all absorbed in hunting.
On a day like today, when the government and Hall mages had suffered through an all-night ordeal and fallen asleep, and the other mages were focused on the wrong things, it seemed like the perfect day for a terrorist attack to occur in Seoul.
‘I’ll have to be especially careful. I don’t know where something might happen.’
Because the traffic lights had been restored and there were no major problems with the roads, I arrived in Segok-dong earlier than expected.
When I followed the address Han Dain had given me, I unexpectedly came upon what looked like a forest path, and at the end of it, a mansion appeared in a dead end.
“Isn’t this a greenbelt area? Did they buy the greenbelt with money too?”
Security guards were standing on both sides of the mansion’s front gate, but as my car approached, the gate opened automatically without any attempt to stop me. It seemed they had already registered my license plate number.
I drove inside, parked in the lot, and as I got out, I swept my gaze around the mansion while extending my detection.
Layers upon layers of protective barriers surrounded it. Security guards were also stationed throughout the garden in inconspicuous places.
‘Cameras, magical barriers, and even security guards. With security this thorough, they’re still calling me in? Why are they so uneasy? What are they afraid of?’
As I slowly crossed the garden and approached the entrance, security guards were standing in front of the door this time too, but when they saw me, they immediately opened it.
“Mr. Oudin, welcome. I will guide you.”
As I stepped through the front door, a man who looked like a butler guided me.
“Please wait in the drawing room for a moment.”
It was an incredible mansion. A grand, splendid mansion I had never imagined I would set foot in during my entire life.
Then again, it might have been only natural, since this was the home of the chairman of Vanaheim, one of the top conglomerates in South Korea.
The mansion’s drawing room was not an open space like the living room of an ordinary apartment, but an enclosed space like a room with doors.
Even so, with its high ceiling and wide interior, it gave a broad, open impression.
Beyond the large windows, a forest-like garden was visible. The morning sunlight was streaming in softly.
In the center stood a sofa set that looked luxurious yet extremely comfortable, and behind it were many chairs of all different kinds.
It was a place well suited for quite a large number of people to gather and hold a relaxed meeting or party.
“Well then…”
The butler left me alone in the drawing room and went away. He didn’t tell me who I was supposed to wait for, either.
‘Will the chairman appear in person?’
If it was just to explain the work I had to do, the butler could have handled it. But seeing as he had simply left, it seemed the chairman intended to meet me personally.
Or perhaps there was a separate person in charge of the mansion’s security.
While waiting for someone whose identity I didn’t even know, I tried to inspect the security inside the drawing room.
But when I extended my detection magic, it wouldn’t go forward.
An anti-magic device was operating in the drawing room.
‘Don’t tell me this is a trap, is it?’