Click.
Quietly opening the front door, I stepped inside. After taking off my shoes and entering the living room, I saw my older sister, back from work, asleep on the sofa without even changing her clothes.
After putting the meat I’d brought into the refrigerator, I took off my older sister’s outerwear and carefully lifted her into my arms.
"Mmmnya."
My older sister was a light sleeper. She wasn’t the type to sleep deeply through the sound of a cat yowling outside. But right now, she was sleeping so deeply that she wouldn’t have noticed even if someone picked her up in complete silence.
Walking on my tiptoes quietly, I entered the room with my older sister in my arms. I carefully laid her down on the shabby bed, covered her with a blanket, and left the room. Before closing the door, I poked my head in to check that she was sleeping soundly.
"Snore, snore."
My older sister’s slender neck and arms, lying on the bed, caught my eye. My older sister, who’d dragged her exhausted body home after working until midnight despite her frail frame. How long could she endure, having abandoned her dreams to devote herself to me and our younger sister?
She was already someone with a weak constitution. If she kept up a schedule like today’s, it wouldn’t be strange for her to collapse someday. I needed to tell my older sister to reduce her workload immediately.
But my older sister’s stubbornness wasn’t so weak that she would quit just because I said so. Because she was someone with a strong sense of responsibility. Besides, if she quit her job right away, we wouldn’t be able to pay next month’s hospital bills.
But if I earned enough money, my older sister could rest.
Squeak.
Carefully closing the door, I lay down on the living room sofa and looked at my phone screen. Entering the messenger and clicking the link Gusechan had sent, massive letters welcomed me.
[Seoul Magician Community]
The old-fashioned font flashed and disappeared, and a notification window popped up saying I needed to complete identity verification to view posts.
Identity verification? Since it was a community for magicians, I was nervous that something magical might happen.
But when I pressed the notification and entered, the screen I saw was an ordinary identity verification window listing telecom companies. Seeing that familiar screen I could see anywhere, my tension snapped and dissipated.
"Is it okay to do this? What if my identity gets leaked?"
Our country’s telecom companies were famous worldwide for their towering security standards. You could say my worry was a valid one.
Anyway, as I was worrying like that, something caught my eye.
In the corner of the screen. A translucent window was flashing, announcing its existence.
[Magicians Only, Please Click]
Oh, this must be it. I figured it was a window only those with magical talent could see. How the hell do they make something like this?
When I pressed the translucent window with my finger, the screen moved.
Flash.
"Argh! My eyes!"
The brightly shining screen hurt my eyes. I hurriedly lowered the brightness and waited for the page to load.
Then, text appeared in the center of the white screen.
[Determining the User’s Realm]
How does it determine it? As I was pondering for a moment, the letters on the white screen trembled, and a blue haze flowed out from the phone.
The flowing haze gathered together, took on a serpent-like form, and slowly approached me. The blue serpent that came right up to my nose didn’t stop and kept thrusting its head forward as if trying to enter my body.
"Shit! How far are you gonna shove in?!"
Slap!
My hand reflexively rising to swat the serpent away was inevitable. It was pretty scary-looking, after all.
So it was something you could touch. The texture of the fellow made of blue haze was cool yet soft.
Hiss.
The serpent that had fallen to the ground was briefly confused, then began approaching me again.
Watching how far it would come this time, I swatted the fellow away again as it tried to come close enough to touch my lips, not knowing when to stop.
Hiss—
This time too, I grabbed the confused serpent by the neck and lifted it up.
"I don’t know if you understand me, but can you only examine me if you come this close?"
It was a slightly embarrassing moment, talking to a serpent, but since no one was watching, who cared. Suppressing the shame trying to surge up from my chest, I looked at the serpent with a brazen face.
At that moment, I met eyes with the serpent.
Hiiiissssh—!!
The fellow’s pupils dilated upon meeting my gaze, and it began struggling violently. The blue serpent, terrified, tried to escape my hand. I held on tight so I wouldn’t lose the fleeing fellow.
"What the hell, why are you doing that?"
Of course, the serpent couldn’t answer. The blue serpent, which had kept trying to escape my grip, seemed to give up and went limp, then lowered its head and tried not to meet my eyes.
Its head-bowed appearance looked exactly like a posture of surrender, bowing to me. Of course, it was just a feeling. Why would a serpent suddenly bow its head to me?
It was probably terrified because I had swatted it. Though I wasn’t sure.
Anyway, I let it slide for now. There was something more important than this serpent at the moment.
"So when does this end?"
I lifted my phone with the hand opposite the one holding the serpent. The white screen saying 'Measuring realm...' remained unchanged.
Hiss—
Then the blue serpent disappeared, exhaling blue vapor. The vapor was sucked into the phone, and soon the text on the screen began to change.
[Realm Measurement: Impossible]
"What, what happens now?"
Could my registration be rejected? I scratched my head and briefly regretted swatting the serpent.
But as if laughing at my worries, massive letters flashed on the screen.
[Registration Successful! Please enter your display name!]
Even though it had said realm measurement was impossible, it seemed there was no problem joining the community.
"What should my nickname be?"
I thought for a moment. I had absolutely no naming sense.
"My real name should be fine, right?"
In a normal internet community, I would never use my real name, but wasn’t this a refined place where magicians shared information? I thought there wouldn’t be a big problem using my real name. My name was common enough that I didn’t have to worry about my identity being exposed.
[Please enter your display name!: Siu]
[Applied! Welcome! Rank 10 Magician Siu!]
And so I successfully joined the community.
But I discovered one problem.
"...What the hell is this."
[Alchemy is Invincible]
[Ehehe attaching poop pics!!]
[Ah ja ja ja jit!]
[The tip post below is a grimoire copy scarier than poop pics. Newbies, don’t be fooled]
[Tip Post for Newbies]
[Got scammed on talismans, going to kill the bastard who sold these]
I could tell the atmosphere of this place without even entering the posts. I couldn’t see any big differences from ordinary internet communities. No, it looked to be of even worse quality than the ordinary communities I knew.
Wait, weren’t magicians supposed to be refined people?
I quickly pressed the gear-shaped icon and went to user settings. I needed to change my display name. I couldn’t use my real name here.
But no matter how much I looked, I couldn’t find a change function. It seemed once set, the display name couldn’t be changed.
"Is this for real...."
If it can’t be changed, they should tell you that from the start....
"Sigh... it can’t be helped."
I tried hard to rationalize it. The name Siu wasn’t exactly rare, and it felt like the 21st century’s version of Cheolsu. So it was fine. Yeah.
Thinking about it again, if someone went by the name Cheolsu on an internet community, no one would think his real name was actually Cheolsu. In that sense, I figured my name would probably be the same.
With a much more comfortable mind, I began looking through the posts.
[The tip post below is a grimoire copy scarier than poop pics. Newbies, don’t be fooled]
Author: I Like Bread—Rank 5
This is real. I accidentally clicked and saw it. Mental contamination in progress. I feel like my head’s going to explode and die right now. Not taking questions.
→Is this real?
→There are still crazy bastards like that, doesn’t the moderator work?
→→The moderator got suspended by a high-rank magician last time and was burned at the stake
→→→Fuck, no wonder the gallery’s in this state
→If a Rank 5 is making dying sounds, isn’t that a high-rank grimoire? You’re telling me they uploaded something that dangerous here?
→→Guess they were bored
→→→But this isn’t right, the newbies are going to get mentally corrupted
→→→→You fucking from the management bureau?
As I read the post and comments slowly, questions arose.
Grimoire? Can’t you learn magic by reading that?
According to Gusechan, I have tremendous magical talent. It was hard to believe. I’ve never even used magic, so how could he know my talent?
But that didn’t mean I thought I had no talent at all. If killing someone with an actual cursed doll was proof of my talent. To confirm that, I had no choice but to try learning magic, didn’t I?
"Shall I try reading a grimoire?"
So I entered the post below.
[Tip Post for Newbies]
The moment I entered, letters of unknown origin came into view. The moment I saw those letters, the strength in my body completely drained. I grabbed my head with both hands and lowered my head.
"Fuck, it’s a foreign language!"
It wasn’t even English. I couldn’t read a single one of the twisting letters filling the screen. Could it be that all magicians had to learn these new characters?
Then it was impossible. I have no talent for foreign languages.
To confirm the truth, I scrolled down to the comment section. If it was true that I needed to learn a new language, wouldn’t they be exchanging words only they could understand in the comments below? But checking the comments, I couldn’t help but freeze.
→nㅓ;ㅐㅑㅑㅏㅓㅐㅑㅓㅏㅣㅑㅓ;ㅑ
→nㅐ;ㅐㅑㅐㅑㅏㅐㅐㅑㅣㅐㅏㅣㅑㅔ
→nㅓㅑㅡㅑㅓㅡ,ㅣㅑㅓㅣㅑㅓㅑㅔ;ㅏㅐ
What does that mean?
In that moment, the words the author and comments had talked about in the warning post I’d seen earlier came to mind.
Mental contamination.
From context, it seemed that reading that grimoire caused one to suffer mental contamination or something.
But why was I unharmed?
Tilting my head, I began looking through more posts.
Wasn’t there anyone who teaches magic?
Since I couldn’t understand a single bit of those grimoires that supposedly caused mental contamination, I needed something like a basic introductory magic book for newbies like me. It was a community with a strong atmosphere where people were somewhat savage and rejected newbies, but I believed even in such a wasteland, a single flower would bloom.
But after looking through the gallery for a while, I despaired. Because I couldn’t find any posts for newbies. Far from sharing information, everyone seemed busy talking about their daily lives.
"Should I ask?"
So I decided to try writing a post.
[Where Should a Newbie Learn Magic?]
Author: Siu—Rank 10
I’ve looked through the posts but can’t find where to learn magic. Senior magicians, where did you learn magic? I would be grateful for any precious teachings for this junior.
"This should be fine, right?"
Looking it over again, I couldn’t see any rough parts. Good, no matter how savage they were, they would surely nod at my politeness and resolve my curiosity.
So with a satisfied smile, I registered the post.
Ding.
Not long after, a comment appeared immediately.
"Oh, faster than I thought?"
I quickly checked the comment. Praying it wasn’t someone just cursing out a newbie.
But the comment was none of the answers I had expected.
→??
"Question marks? What does that mean?"
Just as I was thinking, dozens of comments began appearing in an instant.
→An Archmage has entered the gallery lolololol
→You forgot to log into your alt account
→I’m so scared... a Rank 10 Archmage is pretending to be a baby newbie... if I’d said bad things to a newbie like usual, I would’ve been killed, right?
→I didn’t know Archmages browsed the gallery too
What the hell were these people saying? Archmage? Rank 10?
Wasn’t Rank 10 the lowest? I naturally thought Rank 1 was the highest, like with civil servants, but Rank 10 was the highest rank?!
"What is this...."
Feeling dizzy, I exited my post where comments kept pouring in. Because I needed time to think. But even leaving the post didn’t give me time to think.
[An Archmage has graced the gallery.]
[Real-time Rank 10 caught pretending to be a newbie lololololol]
[Ah fuck I’ve been cursing at newbies all this time, what if one of them was an Archmage?]
[Phewㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ with this all those alchemists who rejected newbies will be purged!ㅜㅜ]
[I had no idea Rank 10 Magicians actually existed]
The gallery was blazing because of me.
Seeing the posts actively rising, my eyes closed on their own.
Ah. I should’ve just shut up and lurked.