-Role-Playing
In the most literal sense, we were now walking into the tiger’s den of our own accord.
There was no helping the tension, but if we wanted to catch the tiger, we had to enter its den. We couldn’t stop.
When I was looking for a place to interrogate Nasan Haegyeong, the fact that a cave at the foot of Sobaeksan had come to mind without thinking no longer felt like coincidence.
‘Could the Magic Tower be right there?’
There was no way to know without going. So we had to go and see.
In truth, I was the one more tightly wound than Cheon Danbi or Gil. The memories and emotions of my previous life had me bound hand and foot.
But I was the one who needed to be the most keenly alert. More prepared than ever before.
I had to control myself. I had to become Oudin. I must not relive the memories of my previous life as emotions, but handle them only as information.
I straightened my back again, sat upright, breathed evenly, and organized the mana within my body.
“Mm… We’ll be in Danyang-eup any minute now. What should we do? Should we skip going into town and just pass by?”
Cheon Danbi said, checking the road signs.
“No. Let’s go into town. A place with lots of ordinary people coming and going might actually be safer. For now, it’s not as if the black mages are operating openly.”
“Ah, that could be true.”
“And besides, everyone’s hungry. We should eat. We don’t know how things will turn out from here, so we ought to fill up in advance. And prepare some emergency food.”
“Emergency food?”
Gil asked. The words must have sounded ominous to him.
“If we go into a cave or wherever and interrogate Nasan Haegyeong, we don’t know how long it’ll take.”
“Ah, yes.”
“Good. Let’s eat first. They say even Geumgangsan is best seen after a meal, so whether it’s sightseeing at a Sobaeksan cave or searching for the devil’s lair, we’ll need full stomachs to do it properly.”
Cheon Danbi answered energetically and drove the car toward Danyang-eup.
I briefly detected the situation inside the trunk.
It was quiet. Nasan Haegyeong still didn’t seem to have woken up. Even if he had woken up and was yelling at the top of his lungs, the isolation barrier would keep the sound from leaking outside, but in any case, there was no sign of him being awake.
“Let’s go to a tourist spot. We should head somewhere outsiders are likely to be, so we’ll stand out less.”
If there really was a Magic Tower near Danyang, then even if the black mages weren’t acting openly, their minions could be roaming around.
I didn’t think the Magic Tower would have taken control of the region yet, but we had to check what things were actually like.
Still, we couldn’t let them notice us first.
“A tourist spot? Where would be good? When people think of Danyang, Dodamsambong is the most famous, right? Should we go there? Or Gosu Cave?”
“An open space would be better, so let’s go to Dodamsambong.”
“Okay.”
“But if we go to a tourist spot and park in the lot, don’t we have to undo the invisibility magic? We can’t just suddenly appear, can we?”
Gil said.
I had been thinking the same thing anyway.
“We do. Since we shook off Yasin too, I’ll dispel the invisibility magic now. Of course, I’ll keep the protective barrier and isolation barrier up.”
“Yes. It’s still quiet in the back.”
Gil answered, glancing toward the trunk.
The way he carefully checked this and that was better than most mages.
Before entering Danyang-eup, I dispelled the invisibility magic placed on the car and added more mana to the protective barrier and isolation barrier.
If someone had been watching us from Daejeon, Chungjuho, or Jecheon, they might recognize our car, but we had no choice except to accept a small amount of risk.
The one assigned to monitor us had been Nasan Haegyeong, and right now he was in the trunk, so I decided to believe there were no other watchers.
We arrived at the Dodamsambong tourist site.
Maybe because the weather was nice, there were quite a few tourists at Dodamsambong, just as expected.
We parked in the lot and got out of the car.
“Let’s look for a restaurant nearby.”
“From now on, we’re tourists, right? Ah, the weather’s great. If I’d known it’d be like this, I would’ve brought a hat or something.”
Cheon Danbi was serious about role-playing. The moment she stepped out of the car and looked toward the river, there wasn’t the slightest trace of tension on her face.
Gil didn’t even need to act. The moment he saw the scenery of Danyang for the first time in his life, his eyes went round, and he was unmistakably a tourist through and through.
“Wow! The view here is really amazing. I didn’t know there were so many beautiful places in our country.”
“The scenery’s really gorgeous, isn’t it? Instead of just standing there, go over that way and pose. I’ll take a picture for you.”
Cheon Danbi said, guiding Gil toward the photo zone.
“A picture? It’s okay. Taking photos is a bit…”
“Don’t be like that, just hurry up and stand there. Happy moments are meant to be hammered firmly into place with photographs. That’s how they become memories.”
“Then you take one with me, noona.”
“Oh, should I? Then should we all take a selfie together? Mr. Udin! Come over here! Let’s take a picture together.”
Cheon Danbi, who had approached the photo zone, waved and called me.
Unlike usual, she didn’t call me “mage” but “Mr. Udin,” which was, of course, because she was conscious of the people around us, but she also seemed completely immersed in the role-play itself.
“Leave me out. You two take it together.”
I was secretly extending my mana to detect the surroundings, so I intended to decline the tourist role-play.
But Cheon Danbi wouldn’t let me.
“Don’t be like that, hurry up and come here! It’s a keepsake!”
Unable to withstand Cheon Danbi’s nagging, I ended up taking a commemorative photo too.
Once again, I felt that Cheon Danbi had nerves of steel. She had been talking about going into the devil’s lair and all that, yet now she looked exactly like someone genuinely excited to be on a trip.
Only after faithfully doing our tourist cosplay like that did we head to a restaurant.
There was a tofu restaurant a little ways off, so we went in there.
All of us piled rice into our mouths like mountains. The tofu hot pot was incredibly delicious, but for some reason, my appetite surged.
We had used up a lot of energy, so it made sense, but on top of that, being somewhere with clean air seemed to make the food taste even better.
After we each had a vending machine coffee to cleanse our palates, I felt so relaxed it was as if the whole world belonged to me.
“Shall we slowly get going now?”
“Wow, I’m so full. How about we take a short walk?”
Cheon Danbi said, patting her stomach.
“Sure. Then let’s walk around here for a bit.”
“I’ll go to the restroom.”
Gil went to the restroom, and Cheon Danbi and I began strolling around. A loose, tourist-like gait came naturally.
Cheon Danbi even took out her phone and started snapping pictures here and there.
I also leisurely admired the scenery for a while.
Then, suddenly, I sensed mana from behind the rest area. Since I had activated detection earlier, I noticed it immediately.
The mana was drawing closer. It seemed a group of magical lifeforms was approaching.
“From behind there…”
“Yeah, right. I felt it too.”
Cheon Danbi answered before I could even finish speaking. It seemed she had sensed the mana as well.
“Don’t stop walking. Let’s keep moving slowly as if we’re taking a stroll and look around.”
“Got it.”
As if she had been born for role-playing, Cheon Danbi matched my movements perfectly.
Maintaining our tension, we walked slowly and naturally turned our gazes toward the rest area as though we were simply looking around.
At last, the owners of the mana revealed themselves in front of the rest area.
They were zombies. Around twenty zombies walked out in a line. But there was something strange about them.
It wasn’t that they had no consciousness at all, but they didn’t seem to be in their right minds either.
As if they were being mind-controlled by someone as a group, the zombies walked with vacant expressions.
On top of that, they were giving off much stronger mana than ordinary zombies, and though faint, I could sense a grayish aura.
“Those are some strange zombies. Were there this many zombies out in the countryside too?”
“It looks like they’re being mind-controlled. There might be a black mage nearby.”
We whispered in low voices, barely opening our mouths. I was hiding my mana as well.
But the zombies showed no interest in us at all. Even as they brushed right past us, they didn’t seem to recognize us.
Fortunately, they didn’t look threatening, but no matter how I looked at them, they were not zombies in possession of their own minds.
“Oh my! Why are there so many zombies here? There are more than in Seoul.”
“I know. It feels a bit off, having zombies wandering around a tourist spot.”
“They ruined the view.”
“They ruined my mood too. They stink. Let’s go somewhere else.”
The tourists nearby each said something after seeing the group of zombies.
On the other hand, the locals working at the rest area acted as if they didn’t see them. They showed no sign of surprise either.
Both the careless remarks thrown out by the tourists and the locals’ indifference subtly revealed their prejudice against zombies.
Because if humans were walking around in a line with their minds gone and vacant looks on their faces, there was no way no one would pay attention.
A black mage was clearly controlling zombies to carry out some scheme, yet no one sensed the seriousness of it.
In the end, it was people’s prejudice that made such a thing possible.
“Did you see that? The zombies are strange. I think they’re being mind-controlled.”
Gil, who had come up beside us at some point, whispered softly.
When I turned, Gil’s expression was dark. Since he felt a special bond with zombies, he seemed upset.
“Yeah. But it’ll be hard for us to save them right now. It would be like advertising to the black mage that we’re here.”
“I just extended my mana concentric rings toward the zombie at the very back and tried talking to him, but it didn’t work. The mind control seems pretty powerful.”
Gil’s words startled me.
“What? You extended your mana concentric rings?”
“Only a little. But the rings couldn’t penetrate.”
Whether Gil had heard me say it would be hard to save the zombies right away or not, he kept saying only what he wanted to say.
“There may be a black mage nearby. If you use mana carelessly, our presence could be discovered.”
“Ah…!”
Only then did Gil’s eyes widen, and he looked around.
“Let’s get out of here quickly.”
I took the lead and walked toward the parking lot.
But when I looked, the group of zombies had gathered in the parking lot.
It wasn’t just the zombies who had passed by us a moment ago; perhaps more had appeared from other directions, because there were several dozen more.
The zombies were slowly boarding a tour bus.
I slowed my steps slightly and, while layering concealment over my mana, cautiously extended detection magic.
Powerful mana could be sensed from the zombies gathered in the parking lot.
A grayish aura rose in billows like fog.
But I couldn’t find any particularly strong portion of mana that could be said to belong to a black mage.
Thinking it might be better to look with my eyes instead, I activated golden vision and examined the tour bus.
Inside the bus, there were only zombies. Even the driver was a zombie.
“What do we do? Should we go to the parking lot?”
Cheon Danbi asked.
“Let’s wait for the bus to leave first.”
Stopping awkwardly in the middle of walking might attract attention, but when I looked around, I saw no eyes watching us.
There were only tourists murmuring among themselves after seeing the zombies that had suddenly appeared.
Maybe the black mage wasn’t very close by and was controlling them remotely. Just like Yasin had.