-Rumors
Kim Seonho sat with his head bowed, lost in thought.
From his perspective, he had ended up caught in a kind of self-contradiction.
To protect the test subjects from Yasin, he needed powerful security, and I, having been commissioned for the job, had carried out the security work flawlessly.
The problem was that it had been too flawless, leaving the test subjects in a state where they could no longer so much as move around alive.
For Kim Seonho, the reason he had tried to protect the test subjects was so he could continue his experiments, but with the subjects turned into blocks of ice and sealed up tight, he could do nothing with them, let alone experiment.
“Until the risk factor called Yasin disappears… I suppose there’s no helping it. I’ll have no choice but to leave them as they are….”
Kim Seonho muttered.
The sight of him looking so dejected was pitiful…. As if.
It only made me more certain that I absolutely must not undo the seal.
I felt sorry for the orcs frozen solid, but I couldn’t release them until I had come up with some definite countermeasure.
There was no telling what Kim Seonho would do with them. For the sake of Golden Apple products, he would undoubtedly stop at nothing.
“Well, there are bound to be various variables. If I get rid of Yasin, the fundamental risk factor will disappear. The job you entrusted to me is defense, Chairman, but defense doesn’t necessarily have to be purely passive, does it?”
Contrary to what I truly felt, I gave an answer that would suit Kim Seonho’s tastes.
At that, Kim Seonho snapped his head up, his face brightening.
“Would that be possible?”
“Why not trust me? Isn’t that why you entrusted the job to me?”
“Of course. Of course I trust you, Mage.”
Kim Seonho once again smiled broadly. A smile that called madness to mind.
Then he continued.
“When you say defense doesn’t have to be passive, do you mean you intend to go after Yasin?”
“Even without Vanaheim’s commission this time, I would be fighting Yasin anyway. Yasin is a dark mage who commits acts of terror, and I am a mage with a responsibility to stop terror.”
“So you mean you’ll take the offensive and go look for him yourself?”
Wow, this guy really knows how to push.
Kim Seonho was urging me to go catch Yasin at once.
I stared at him silently for a moment and took a breath.
“Yasin is not the kind of man to sit still. He’ll commit another terror attack soon enough. Even if I don’t go looking for him, he’ll show himself. Perhaps, as he said, he may even come to this house.”
“Right.”
Suddenly, Kim Seonho looked around. As if he was afraid Yasin might already be here.
“I’ll reinforce the security around the annex, the main building, and the entire mansion. If I do that, I don’t think I’ll need to stay here guarding the house myself. Would that be all right? Yasin may commit terror elsewhere, after all.”
I said this because I wanted to leave this place as soon as possible.
“Of course, I would prefer it if you remained here, Mage, but that would be beyond the terms of our contract. You seem busy with other matters as well.”
As he said that, Kim Seonho glanced at the communication device on my wrist.
“Yes. The outside world has plenty of problems too. Along with reinforcing the mansion’s security, I’ll set up continuous detection magic. That way, when Yasin appears, I’ll be able to detect him immediately and rush over.”
“Understood. Then I suppose I’ll have to trust only you, Mage, and go to the company. The test subjects are unusable for the time being, but fortunately, Golden Apple products are stored in other places as well, so we’ll have to continue the clinical trials.”
Kim Seonho said this with a relieved expression and rose from his seat.
For some reason, a chilling feeling flashed through my mind. I had a feeling this underground cavern was not the entirety of his laboratory.
‘What other experiments is he doing, and where?’
But just as tomorrow’s worries should be left for tomorrow, worries about experiments elsewhere had to be left elsewhere for now.
I rose from my seat as well.
I had too much to do to remain stuck here as one of Vanaheim’s limbs.
After diligently carrying out the promised security reinforcement and setting up the continuous detection magic, I left the chairman’s mansion before noon.
* * *
I planned to stop by home, then head back down to Daejeon in the evening.
First, on my way home, I intended to stop by Itaewon and get a feel for the situation regarding the escaped dwarves.
I parked in a suitable place, got out, and walked around Itaewon Station, but I couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.
There were no dwarves to be seen at all, and no Hall mages caught my eye either.
‘Is the situation already over?’
It was when I headed toward the hill in Bogwang-dong to walk home.
Suddenly, a shadow blocked my view. A huge man appeared out of nowhere and stood in my way.
“Oudin! Found you!”
“Thor?”
The huge man was none other than Thor. He beamed and spread his arms wide.
What? Is he going to hug me or something?
“What are you doing here?”
I took a slight half step back and asked Thor.
Thor wasn’t a Hall mage, so I wondered if he had set out to track down the dwarves. But his answer was completely unexpected.
“No matter how much I contacted you, you didn’t answer, so I went out looking for you myself. I heard from the Hall mages that you live around here, right? So I figured I might run into you if I wandered around. And here you are!”
“Who? Me? You were looking for me?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Did you not get my messages?”
Come to think of it, I had received messages from Thor yesterday. Messages with absolutely no content.
It hadn’t seemed important, so I hadn’t contacted him back.
“Why? Is something going on?”
“No, well, it’s not that something is definitely going on. I was just wondering how you’ve been.”
Thor tilted his head and fumbled for words.
Sending a few messages without any special business was one thing, but going so far as to look for me without any reason at all made no sense.
He had definitely come all this way because he had something to say to me.
“Want to grab a coffee?”
It seemed I would have to give him a chance to talk, so I asked.
“Oh! Sounds good.”
Thor, who had been hesitating in a way that didn’t suit his size, immediately agreed and at once looked around before pointing to a café by the road.
“How about there?”
“Sure. Let’s go in.”
I couldn’t help letting out a small laugh.
Once we sat across from each other with a cup of coffee each, Thor finally opened his mouth.
“The World Mage Conference is the day after tomorrow. You’ll be there then, right?”
“Yeah. If nothing special happens, I’m thinking of attending. But I can’t guarantee it. Korea’s in a situation where you can’t see even one day ahead lately.”
That was all I told Thor.
Originally, I had told him we should meet at the World Conference, but I had changed my mind.
I had intended to attend the World Conference and look over the general trends of the world, but judging from the recent trends in our country, it seemed as if the government and the Hall’s mages were secretly joining hands with dark mages behind the scenes, and that had left me cold.
Kang Yonghun, in particular, was suspicious, and he was a high-ranking executive of the Hall.
If the Hall was rotten, there was no guarantee that the mages invited and prepared by the Hall for the World Conference weren’t rotten as well.
Still, I might attend if nothing happened, but if a terror attack occurred or some other incident took place, I planned to push the World Conference to the back burner.
“True. Terror attacks have really gotten frequent in Korea. You must be worried, right? Oh! I heard you were the one who handled the jellyfish in Daejeon too? As expected of Oudin! What would Korea have done without you?”
Thor suddenly began praising me in a fuss. It felt both out of the blue and as if he had some intention behind it, so I looked straight at him.
If you have something to say, hurry up and say it.
“Anyway, if nothing happens and you do attend the World Conference, just let it slide even if foreign mages say some strange things.”
Thor said, hesitating again.
“What does that mean?”
“There are so many mages that all kinds of weirdos show up. It seems there’s someone going around spreading false rumors about you.”
“False rumors? Who?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know who first went around saying that. But before I knew it, a lot of people were whispering about it, and it even reached my ears.”
It was absurd. What in the world could I possibly have done to be on the lips of foreign mages?
“So what’s the rumor?”
“They say you joined hands with a dark mage. That the terror attacks and your successful clears were all staged by you.”
“What? Staged?”
I was so dumbfounded I didn’t even know how to react. A hollow laugh escaped me.
“Ridiculous, right? They’re saying you did it to raise your name value ahead of the World Conference. They say you’re aiming to become the representative mage of the World Mage Federation. To become the representative mage, you have to enter the Master Class, right? So they claim you’re trying to get recognized as a Master at this World Conference through all those terror-clearing achievements.”
“Hah…!”
What kind of rumor was this, so oddly specific? It was teaching me about my own goals, ambitions, and schemes that even I didn’t know about.
Representative mage of the World Mage Federation? I had never even thought about such a thing.
Just what bastard was going around spreading this false rumor?
“This is seriously unbelievable. I joined hands with a dark mage? Tell them to shut their mouths, because that will never happen, not even if I die and come back to life.”
My words came out harsher than I intended, and Thor grew flustered.
“I know very well you’re not that kind of person. We fought together against a dark mage in Neo Forest. You even saved me from the mud swamp.”
“The one who pulled you out of the mud swamp was Han Dosu.”
“Anyway, we all fought together!”
Thor, with his huge body and boyish expression, was getting angry on my behalf.
“In any case, it’s absurd. Slandering another mage without any evidence is a serious problem. It violates the Mage Code of Ethics. Still, don’t react. Just completely ignore rumors like that. If a fight breaks out between mages, it’ll become a real headache.”
I was grateful that Thor had gone out of his way to find me and tell me this.
We weren’t old friends; we had simply fought together once, so it was a little surprising that he was this concerned.
At that moment, Loki suddenly came to mind. Loki, my old friend.
I wondered if perhaps Loki might be the source of this rumor.
I had been so busy with one incident after another that I hadn’t properly investigated Loki, but I had long suspected him.
That he had joined hands with a dark mage.
Loki must have realized that too. So perhaps he had gone on the counterattack instead?
“Anyway, thanks. Was this what you were looking for me to tell me?”
“You needed to know. If you come to the World Conference, you might run into guys saying weird things for no reason. I’m your friend. Friends should help each other.”
It felt a little premature to call him a friend, but at the very least, it was clear that Thor was not my enemy.
At a time when enemies whose faces I didn’t even know were increasing without my knowledge, someone like Thor was rare and precious.
“I should get going now. And answer when I contact you!”
“Yeah. I will.”
We rose from our seats.
After parting with Thor, I headed straight home.
Vanaheim carrying out dangerous experiments, dark mages dreaming of eternal life, and corrupt mages operating in the shadows of the government and the Hall were already enough to give me a headache, but now someone spreading false rumors about me had appeared as well.
It felt as if enemies were stirring on all sides.
Even so, when I remembered that there were people standing on my side, the temperature of my heart rose.
Gil and Cheon Danbi, and now Thor too.
When I arrived home, I decided to stop by Gil’s room first while I was thinking of it.
I knocked on the door and called Gil’s name, and the front door soon opened.
“Mage!”
“Nothing happened, right?”
As I was about to step inside, I was startled.
Gil’s room was packed full of dwarves.