-Suppression
When I listened closely, the screams were coming from a narrow alley between two restaurants.
“Let go of me. Don’t do this!”
“Please, spare me!”
“Why don’t you experience it for yourselves and then tell us whether we’re fake mages!”
“Aaagh! Stop!”
“What are you whining about over this much?”
This wasn’t horseplay. It was a real fight. In one corner of the riot that had the air of a festival, it seemed a situation of violence against people had broken out.
We hurriedly ran that way.
When I peered into the alley, two men were collapsed on the ground, surrounded by about ten people.
If there was one thing that made it different from an ordinary assault, it was that they were all using magic to torment people.
Some were pouring flames from their fingertips, while others were dumping torrents of water on them. There were even those who stirred up wind with their palms as if launching palm blasts, sending it at the men lying on the ground.
They weren’t cooperating in battle; each of them was using magic however they pleased, as if showing off their own abilities. Flames were extinguished by water, flames were carried by the wind and caught on their own people—it was utter chaos.
“Stop right now!”
I shouted as I walked into the alley. The men surrounding them all turned to look at me at once.
“And what are you?”
“You a government mage too, like these bastards?”
“Perfect timing. You can get a taste of us new mages’ skills too.”
A few of them swaggered toward me.
Their way of speaking and the way they moved made it obvious at a glance that they were thugs.
Because they moved away, a gap opened in the circle that had been surrounding the fallen men, and I could see the figures on the ground.
But one of them looked familiar. It was none other than Jang Jeyeong.
A sigh escaped me on its own. To think officially recognized mages were being beaten by the newly awakened.
“You don’t look like some random passerby. You’re a mage, right? If you’re a mage, then try blocking this. Block my magnificent fire magic!”
One of them abruptly raised his hand and cast fire magic.
A fireball the size of a soccer ball flew at me. Of course, it never reached me. It was stopped by the barrier I already had spread out.
Still, perhaps he was a little better than the guys I had seen earlier; the fireball didn’t vanish immediately, and remained intact until it bounced off the barrier and rolled across the ground.
But soon, it fizzled out with a hiss.
“Oh! Was that a barrier just now? How do you make one of those? I need that too.”
The bastard had the gall to ask me how to make a barrier.
I was so dumbfounded that a laugh slipped out. I gave a faint chuckle, and instead of answering, I asked a question.
“Hey, if you people are mages, why are you tormenting other mages?”
“Tormenting? Us? Those bastards picked a fight first. We’re just defending ourselves.”
The way they denied it while very clearly tormenting them was just like gangsters. Even the bastards behind them joined in and complained about how wronged they were.
“That’s right! Those bastards used magic on us first!”
“If they’d treated us like fellow mages, would we be doing this?”
“Exactly. Why are they treating us like rioters? If we awakened magic, aren’t we all mages just the same? If they can’t treat us properly, then why bring the police here and try to control us?”
“You think we awakened for this? What the hell is this? What kind of bullshit is this?”
Of course, there was some truth to their complaints. From the perspective of the ones being subjected to it, it could certainly feel unfair. It wasn’t as though they had wanted to be possessed by the black mage’s mental magic.
However…
“Huh? There are two more back there.”
“A brat and a woman? Drag them over too. Let’s beat the shit out of all of them together.”
Whether they had awakened or not, what these broad-shouldered men were saying was no different from what gangsters would say.
Maybe they wanted to be treated as mages because they had awakened magic, but judging from what they were doing now, they were hopeless cases who didn’t deserve respect in any form.
I gestured to Cheon Danbi and Gil to stay back. Then I spread both arms wide and blocked the thugs trying to approach them.
The alley was narrow, so that alone was enough to stop them.
“Don’t even dream of it.”
It seemed these bastards were violent by nature, and on top of that, they were in a state of euphoria, so talking wouldn’t work.
If they had seemed like people who would listen, I would have tried to admonish them moderately and send them away.
“What? This bastard!”
“You little shit, get over here! You think you’re hot stuff just because you can put up a barrier? Try blocking this too!”
Perhaps because they were impatient, their fists flew before their magic did.
I took one step back and drew a large circle with the two arms I already had spread out.
First, I used air magic to raise a wind and pushed the bastards backward.
“Whoa? Shit. That’s pretty strong?”
“We should counter with magic too! Fire off palm blasts!”
“Hold on. I’ll burn him with flames.”
“But shit, that bastard has a barrier, doesn’t he?”
Even as they were pushed back by the wind, the bastards had plenty to say. They were noisy enough to drive me mad.
Noisy or not, they were still people, so I couldn’t bring myself to kill them, but making bastards like these shut their mouths was my specialty.
‘Freeze! Freeze solid, just like that!’
Frost-like ice magic poured from my fingertips.
In the very postures they had taken while trying not to be pushed back, in the very shapes of them reaching out their hands to use magic, the bastards froze solid in an instant.
The alley was packed full of ice sculptures.
“Now it’s finally a little quiet.”
If there was one problem, it was that Jang Jeyeong and the other mage inside the alley had also been frozen stiff, unable to move.
And to approach them, I would have to climb over the ice sculptures filling the alley.
“What should I do…?”
After pondering briefly, I decided not to go over there.
I didn’t want to face the mages, who had been beaten by thugs and looked utterly miserable, and listen to their pitiful whining.
Instead, I decided to send them a strand of warm wind. They had to wake up before the thugs at least, so they could run away.
‘Jang Jeyeong, honestly… He really goes around disgracing mages everywhere.’
I stirred up warm wind at my fingertips and blew it over the heads of the thugs who had become ice sculptures. Then I adjusted the direction of the wind again and sent it toward the fallen mages.
Gradually, I heard them waking. They were groaning.
“Let’s go now.”
I turned around, approached Cheon Danbi and Gil, and spoke quietly.
“Will the mages be all right like that? Shouldn’t we heal them?”
Cheon Danbi whispered.
“They’ll go get treatment. If they can’t even run away on their own, can you call them mages? In any case, I don’t want to face them and listen to them whine.”
“All right. Let’s go. Whew… Our regular mage really is in a sorry state.”
Even though Cheon Danbi had been in the back, it seemed she had recognized that one of the fallen mages over there was Jang Jeyeong.
I could only chuckle.
We left the alley and headed toward the main road.
“We need to resolve this quickly now. The longer time passes, the more chaotic it’s going to become.”
As I said that while walking, Gil asked,
“What are you going to do?”
“There are thousands of people running wild, and among them are all kinds of people, so I don’t think this can be resolved politely. But I can’t just injure them recklessly either. I’ll have to try using magic to calm them down.”
“Magic to calm them down?”
“I’ll have to use mental magic. First, the urgent priority is to suppress their euphoric state. There are too many of them to respond one by one, so I’ll set an area and use mental magic on a wide scale.”
“Wow! Wide-area mental magic? That’s really amazing!”
Gil exclaimed in admiration, and Cheon Danbi also whipped around to look at me, her face full of surprise.
In truth, wide-area mental magic wasn’t an easy thing.
Mental magic itself belonged to a fairly high-level class of magic, and it was difficult enough to apply it to a single person. Since I said I would use it over a wide area, it was only natural for them to be surprised.
Even for me, it was a magic I had no memory of having used before, and it required constructing an extremely delicate magic circuit.
Still, I wasn’t trying to manipulate people’s minds, but merely remove the euphoria and calm them down, so it was well worth attempting.
Besides, for some reason, I was confident.
An inexplicable confidence was overflowing inside me.
Perhaps the source of that confidence lay in Oudin’s memories, which I had yet to fully recall.
“What should I help you with?”
Gil asked from beside me.
“That communication you send through your mana concentric circles—can you do it with humans too?”
“I haven’t tried, but probably, right? It worked with the dwarves, so I think it should work with humans too.”
“Then try it once. When I spread out the mental magic, you send the thought to calm down to the people through your concentric circles. It might perhaps amplify the effect.”
“Yes. I’ll do that.”
“But don’t absorb those people’s mana. It’s mana contaminated by the black mage.”
“Understood.”
In the meantime, we had come out onto the main road.
On the main road, where vehicle traffic had been restricted, thousands of awakened people were running around, causing a riot.
“Oh my. It’s even more chaotic than before.”
Cheon Danbi muttered.
As expected, as the euphoric state dragged on, people were becoming even more excited and running wild.
Moreover, perhaps because they had kept repeating their magic and improved their skill, when I looked toward the place where loud cheers were bursting out, a fairly large fireball was flying around. A roadside tree had caught fire, and a sign thrown by telekinesis flew through the air.
The police and firefighters were trying to suppress both the people and the fires, but it wasn’t easy. Rather, they were being surrounded and attacked by the awakened.
The street was gradually turning into a battlefield.
“Those people’s mana is extremely unstable. It hasn’t properly settled into place; it’s roiling and bubbling. They all need to drink a potion…”
Hearing Cheon Danbi mutter to herself, I asked,
“Do you have enough potions with you to feed thousands of people?”
“No. Who would have known there would be this many people who awakened?”
I had asked because if we could calm them with potions, that would be fine too, but in truth, there was no way that would be possible.
Even if we handed out potions now, those people were in no state to obediently accept and drink them.
“Right. No need to waste precious potions. Cheon Danbi, watch from the back, and if any injured people appear, treat them. Keep an eye out for any strange movements.”
“Got it.”
“Gil. Let’s get ready. We need to start immediately.”
“Yes.”
Gil and I slowly walked forward.
I could feel Gil concentrating beside me and drawing up her mana.
I, too, concentrated intensely and gathered my mana. Mental magic consumed a large amount of mana, so I had to draw upon even the mana in the surroundings.
“First, I’ll set the area.”
I drew out a long line of silver mana and sent it flying into the air. With that line of mana, I set the area as if weaving a net.
“You can see it, right?”
“Yes.”
“Now extend your mana concentric circles into the area and try communicating the thought to calm down to the people inside.”
“Understood.”
Gil and I stood side by side and spread both arms wide at the same time.
81
-Filming
‘Everyone, calm down. Euphoria, subside like a tranquil lake!’
I strongly roused my intent and extended the mental magic.
From the space between my outstretched arms, an unfamiliar yet familiar wave of mana flowed out like a warm wind.
For an instant, a pure white light flashed. It was light generated from me.
Silver ring-shaped magic circuits rode that light and spread out all at once.
“Ah…!”
For some reason, Gil let out an exclamation of admiration.
But she had not forgotten what she had to do. I could see Gil’s mana waves forming concentric circles and flowing outward like ripples.
‘Calm down!’
‘Everyone, please calm down!’
The silver rings of the mental magic circuit I had released stretched farther and farther along the waves of Gil’s mana concentric circles. Two intents overlapped.
In an instant, the silver rings filled the designated area, rippling like waves as they wove and intertwined with one another.
At last, the chains of mental magic, woven like a massive tapestry, began to descend upon the people in their entirety.
‘How fascinating. Beautiful, too.’
Even though it was magic I had unfolded myself, it stirred a somewhat unfamiliar sense of wonder in me.
Even though I had realized a magic circuit contained within my memories, for some reason, it was astonishing.
It was a different kind of astonishment from what I had felt this morning, when I developed my magic in the basement of Kim Seonho’s mansion.
If that had been the astonishment of witnessing a moment of realization and growth, then this was the joy and wonder of discovering a treasure long forgotten.
My right eye began to shine brightly. It glowed with a hue beyond gold, a color impossible to describe. It felt as though I had stepped into a new world.
‘What is this? Is there still something I haven’t remembered?’
I had the sense that I was still missing something terribly important. But it also felt as if now was not the time to uncover it.
“Wow, the effects of mental magic are incredible.”
Beside me, Gil spoke quietly.
I looked into the distance and surveyed the street.
The world, covered in the silver tapestry of mental magic, gradually calmed.
The flames leaping about in every direction died down, the gushing streams of water subsided, and the signboards and trash that had been lifted by telekinetic magic and left drifting through the air dropped one after another.
The silver rings of mental magic were especially effective on the Euphoria afflicting the Awakened. The mana waves that had been causing the Euphoria collapsed and melted away.
Then the people who had been running around like mad came to a halt, standing still for a moment before sinking to the ground with dull thuds. Some simply toppled over where they stood.
“It’s really powerful. Everyone looks like they’ve been put under sleep anesthesia. At this rate, they’ll all fall asleep in the street.”
One problem was that because I had spread the mental magic throughout the entire designated area, it affected not only the Awakened, but the police officers and firefighters as well.
They had no mana waves to collapse, and they had not been under Euphoria to begin with, but the calming mental magic seemed to have made their minds far too at ease.
One by one, they slowly sat or lay down on the ground. Then they closed their eyes as if falling asleep.
It seemed the only people still standing properly here were Gil and me.
“Mage, you calmed thousands of rioters in an instant.”
Gil looked at me with shining eyes as he spoke.
“It wasn’t as if I did it alone. You had a part in it too.”
“But I don’t know if those people heard me and calmed down because of what I said. They didn’t answer me. When I communicate with other living beings, I can usually hear their thoughts, but there was nothing like that this time.”
“That’s because it unfolded at the same time as the mental magic. They probably couldn’t think at all because they calmed down immediately. In any case, you were a big help. Thanks to your mana concentric circles, the circuits of the mental magic spread quickly and thoroughly.”
“Really?”
Gil was delighted.
It seemed he still did not know how incredible his own ability was. Or perhaps humility had simply become second nature to him.
Like that, Gil and I stood looking at the scene we had created and chatted in low voices.
The fact that we had subdued so many people at once without a violent battle was something quite new and refreshing even to me, so I kept looking at it.
“Mage!”
Just then, I heard Cheon Danbi calling from behind me.
At the same time, from somewhere, came the click-click of a camera taking photos.
Since the world had grown as quiet as if everyone had fallen asleep, even such a small sound could be heard. Thinking that, I quickly turned around.
Cheon Danbi was standing in front of a building. Because she had put up a barrier in advance, she had not been affected by the mental magic.
When our eyes met, Cheon Danbi jerked her chin. She meant for me to look at the building next door.
When I examined the neighboring building, I saw someone taking photos through the slight gap of a front door left ajar.
No matter what happened, even if a volcano erupted and an earthquake broke out right before their eyes, it was only natural for people these days to take pictures first, so the act of taking photos itself was not strange. Yet for some reason, it did not sit right with me.
‘Was that person inside the building, so they avoided the mental magic?’
I strode toward him.
Then the building’s front door opened and a man stepped outside. Unexpectedly, it was Jang Jeyeong.
‘Jang Jeyeong? Why are you coming out of there?’
It was unmistakably Jang Jeyeong. His clothes were burned and soaked, and he was covered in bruises and wounds from being beaten here and there.
Even so, he had somehow managed not to lose his phone, and he was holding it in his hand. That was what he had been using to take pictures.
“Mage Oudin.”
Jang Jeyeong called my name as he approached, indicating that he recognized me.
“Mage Jang Jeyeong, why are you still here? Your clothes are a mess, and you don’t seem to be in good shape. Why haven’t you gone home?”
I said it to show that I knew what had happened to Jang Jeyeong in the alley a little while ago.
Jang Jeyeong’s expression stiffened for an instant, then relaxed. He quickly put his social mask back on and said,
“How could I go home alone when the situation here hadn’t been resolved? There aren’t enough mages to control things as it is. But once again, Mage Oudin, you’ve resolved the situation splendidly. What was that just now? Did you use mental magic?”
“Yes. Calming down the people who were growing increasingly violent was the first priority. But why were you taking photos? Were you planning to report the situation to the Mage Bureau?”
“Ah, yes, yes. That’s right.”
For some reason, Jang Jeyeong answered in a flustered hurry. It was practically an admission that reporting the situation was not his only objective.
What else could there be? Surely he had not been taking pictures out of admiration for my accomplishments, like some fan.
“Then since you’ve conveniently taken photos, Mage Jang Jeyeong, please make the report to the Mage Bureau. I’ll post my report to the Hall with this.”
I said, holding up the Hall’s communication device. At that, Jang Jeyeong again failed to hide his agitation.
Why? Was the reason he had taken the photos related to the Hall?
“Understood. I’ll handle the report to the Mage Bureau… But are those people all right? They’re not dead, are they?”
“No. They simply fell asleep after being calmed. They’ll wake up in a little while without any issues. Though they won’t be able to use magic anymore.”
“They won’t be able to use magic anymore? Then are you controlling their minds through mental magic after all?”
I felt like I understood why Jang Jeyeong had been so flustered.
If he had seen the scene just now, it was only natural to be surprised by wide-area mental magic, and since he had seen everyone in the street collapse, I could understand him suspecting that they might be dead.
But mind control?
If an ordinary person heard “mental magic” and immediately thought of mind control, I could understand that. But wasn’t Jang Jeyeong, for all intents and purposes, a mage?
“Control? Why would I do something like that? Mental magic isn’t only about control. Those people were originally possessed by Euphoria. They were caught in the mental magic that the black mage scattered during the jellyfish incident last time. I merely removed that Euphoria. But since that was the source of their mana, they lost their mana along with it.”
“Ah! Then the swarm of jellyfish was the reason the number of Awakened suddenly increased?”
“That’s right. You would have known if you had analyzed those people’s mana waves and magic circuits.”
“Ah…!”
Jang Jeyeong abruptly walked over to the people lying on the ground. It seemed he intended to analyze them now, at once.
But of course, there was no longer any mana left in them, so there was nothing to analyze at this point.
Jang Jeyeong was merely checking what condition the fallen people were in and whether they were breathing.
Cheon Danbi approached him.
“Mage, are you okay? Those people are fine, so leave them be and take care of yourself first. You look pretty bad.”
“No. I’m fine. There was no way to deal with a whole mob of rioters rushing me at once. I just got hit a few times and had my clothes singed a little.”
“You’ve been through a lot. Drink this bottle. You know my potions work well, right? Since you’re one of my regular mages, I’ll give it to you for free today as a special favor.”
Cheon Danbi quickly took out a bottle of potion and handed it to Jang Jeyeong.
“Thank you.”
While Jang Jeyeong accepted the potion and drank it, I approached Gil, who was standing alone some distance away.
Gil was watching the people around us while keeping his concentric circles of mana waves spread out.
“How does it look?”
When I asked, Gil turned back and answered.
“They’re still in a calm state. I think it’ll take a little longer before they wake up. But if someone happens to pass by and sees this, they’ll be pretty shocked, won’t they?”
At Gil’s words, I looked around again.
The sight of thousands of people collapsed in the street was certainly bizarre.
Up close, you could tell they were asleep, but from a distance, one might think they were all dead. On top of that, it was the middle of the night, so it was hard to see clearly.
“Maybe. Still, they’ll wake up soon enough.”
I replied lightly, but at that moment, the alarm on the Hall’s communication device rang. At the same time, the phone in my pocket vibrated.
‘What is it now?’
I took out the phone first and checked it. The caller was Kim Seonho.
I quickly pressed the call button.
“This is Oudin.”
Before I could even ask what had happened, an urgent voice poured out.
[Mage! He’s here! Yashin has appeared! Where are you right now? Please come here quickly!]
‘Already?’
I had not expected Yashin to go to the mansion in that short span of time.
Of course, he could have appeared at any moment, but for it to happen just when I had come down to Daejeon of all times.
I hurriedly opened the Hall’s communication device and checked it. As expected, it was a message reporting the same emergency. It said that since a terrorist attack by Yashin was anticipated, all mages were to deploy to Segok-dong immediately.
[Mage? Mage!]