There were quite a few monsters still alive while we were carrying out the work, but even they were under so much pressure that they were dealt with in the process of hauling up the other corpses.
The work proceeded smoothly, and after we had dragged out nearly every last one and loaded them onto the trucks waiting for them, Go Yujin came over and asked,
“Are we going out to eat?”
“Even after wringing them out like that, there’s no helping getting dirty, is there?”
At my words, Go Yujin gave a light laugh. Then, when I let my mana surge, she hurriedly shouted,
“Don’t! I’ll do it!”
“It’d be simple with Clean magic. Why?”
“Haa… I can use that level of magic too. I’m just not very proficient at it!”
“Then wouldn’t it be simple if I did it for you?”
“No? Not at all!”
I wondered what on earth had gotten into her. But since she so adamantly refused, I had no choice but to withdraw my mana. After finishing the remaining work and leaving the site, there were people looking at us with startled expressions.
“Did you give up?”
Jeong Sanghu and the others were in the middle of coordinating with government officials about the Gate.
Go Yujin glared at Jeong Sanghu and answered,
“We took care of it all. You buried most of the monsters and didn’t even hunt them. We basically caught them all, so you should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“Ha, what kind of ridiculous bullshit is that?”
Jeong Sanghu revealed his displeasure with an incredulous expression, and when some of the teammates with him showed hostility toward us, I quietly stepped in and said,
“If you lack the ability, how about taking charge of a smaller Gate?”
“What… did you say, you bastard?”
“I don’t believe we’re close enough for you to call me ‘bastard.’ Wouldn’t it be better to mind your manners?”
Jeong Sanghu growled without averting his gaze. It was then.
“Let’s stop and go. And if they look at the condition of the corpses, they’ll be able to tell what killed them, so the government can judge that for themselves. Right?”
“Go Yujin, how long are you going to keep thinking you’re some amazing Awakened?”
“For life. Since I’ll always be so strong that you won’t even reach my toes.”
The words had barely left her mouth when Jeong Sanghu charged.
There was an assessment that Awakened were like bombs, beings possessing immense power.
It was common for them to cause major social incidents because they got excited easily and failed to properly control their emotions.
But if an Awakened of first-generation caliber lost his temper and ran wild, that was not something to be taken lightly.
I raised my hand, rapidly completed a pattern by releasing mana in an instant, and used a curse on Jeong Sanghu.
“Deep Paralyze.”
The mana formed in an instant enveloped Jeong Sanghu, a curse that very simply pierced through his resistance and burrowed into his body.
His movements slowed in a flash, and soon he stiffened rapidly.
“Ggh… ugh!”
I looked at him, unable even to open his mouth, and at Jeong Sanghu’s lackeys, whose faces filled with panic at how easily he had been suppressed.
“If anyone else wants to make a scene, come on. I’ll play with you.”
At my words, they only flinched and looked around warily. Just then, Go Yujin said,
“Stop. There are too many eyes watching.”
Black magic caused revulsion in many people because of its “black mana.” In truth, because certain black magicians treated as “villains” had caused considerable harm to civilians, it was common for people to look at black magicians as though they were insects or diseases.
Even now, countless gazes were pouring down on us.
I wanted to say it was a misunderstanding, but in reality, cases where damage caused by black magic spread to the surroundings were common.
It was merely unfortunate that damage sometimes occurred to an extent that even the excuse of “it couldn’t be helped” could not smooth over.
I snapped my fingers, and Deep Paralyze quickly dissipated as mana was drawn out of Jeong Sanghu’s body.
However, the agony Jeong Sanghu would have to feel in the process would be no small thing.
“Ggh… D-damn black magician bastards…”
“If you show courtesy, then we have no reason to be at odds with people like you. You must respect others in order to be respected yourself, so conduct yourself with propriety. Especially if you are the head of an organization.”
When I lectured him in an old-fashioned tone, Jeong Sanghu’s face twisted fiercely.
If I had been harboring malice, Jeong Sanghu would have died the moment he was subdued.
“H-how about you stop there?”
At the cautious words of the government official who had been watching for the right moment, Jeong Sanghu took a step back. I, too, stepped back at Go Yujin’s restraint and said to her,
“I said I’d buy you a drink today, so let’s go.”
“Weren’t we just going to have a drink?”
“We were. But I’ll pay. I’m in a good mood now.”
Seeing me grinning broadly, Go Yujin smiled awkwardly. After that, we left the place behind, with those people glaring at us as though they wanted to kill us.
* * *
“You didn’t overuse your mana, did you?”
“Deep Paralyze is a spell I keep memorized, so it doesn’t consume much mana.”
“I’m sorry. It seems bad blood from the past can’t help but continue…”
Go Yujin let out a sigh.
Go Yujin was a first-generation black magic Awakened who had achieved great feats on the battlefield.
If she had not withdrawn from the front lines, most of those currently called heroes would surely have been treated as nobodies. Her exploits had been that tremendous, and those now called heroes also knew Go Yujin. Not a single one of them ignored her achievements or her strength.
However, the reason she was treated poorly was because they tormented her over the fact that she had cowardly fled the battlefield.
“Why do you put up with it?”
“I have to. It’s not as if I can beat them all to death, right?”
I thought for a moment before speaking.
“If they’re worse than beasts, then they deserve to die. Don’t they?”
“Do you not feel that you changed after awakening black magic, Seongchan?”
“I know I became impulsive and hot-tempered. And that my aversion to killing disappeared too. But that’s a phenomenon that happens to most people who awaken, isn’t it?”
It would be more accurate to say that my emotions had dulled.
Among joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure, it was almost as if all my emotions had become biased toward “joy and pleasure.”
However, there were sometimes cases where even “anger” intensified, and I wondered if perhaps Jeong Sanghu was that type.
He was easily excited and emotional. That was why he had charged in without knowing what was what just moments ago.
“Is he a moth flying straight into the fire?”
There was even a saying that a prepared magician was no different from a calamity. In a way, it was almost worthy of praise that he had the guts and courage to charge at a black magician, who belonged to an even more dangerous category than such magicians, but we called that recklessness.
“I hated those emotions that made me lose myself. Wandering the battlefield and slaughtering monsters—the sensation was undoubtedly no different from an object of tremendous pleasure, and I felt highs and lows of emotion so great that I thought I might lose myself… no, that it would be all right even if I forgot myself.”
“But that isn’t why you left the battlefield, is it?”
The reason Go Yujin avoided the battlefield would not be some simple emotional impulse.
And hearing my words, she looked at me seriously and asked,
“Then tell me the reason you left the battlefield, Seongchan.”
“Mm…”
I thought about it for a moment. The reason I left the battlefield was extremely trivial and insignificant.
“I couldn’t live with my lack of mana.”
“Excuse me…?”
She looked dumbfounded. So I spoke calmly.
“How am I supposed to be active on the battlefield when I can’t even use wide-area magic five times?”
“That’s…”
Go Yujin looked at me with an awkward expression, so when I asked why she was looking at me like that, she sighed.
“I think you’re the only one who doesn’t know. How many black magicians do you think can use wide-area magic as many as five times?”
“…I’ve seen plenty, though?”
“Those are people on the front lines who receive every form of support and are covered head to toe in mana amplification artifacts. They can only use it five or six times. There’s no one who can use that much without any help like you, Seongchan!”
“You’re praising me too much again. Anyway, that’s why I left the battlefield. I couldn’t keep doing it.”
Go Yujin looked as if she no longer wanted to argue.
“Now, tell me.”
Go Yujin looked at me, then grinned and said,
“It’s a secret.”
“…Is that what you’re going with?”
Go Yujin walked ahead, smiling brightly, and I followed behind her, urging her to tell me the secret, but she remained utterly unmoved.
Afterward, we returned to the office and I asked An Somi, who was in the middle of working,
“We’re going for a drink. Are you coming?”
“I’m busy. Later. You two go on your date.”
An Somi was typing hard and writing up documents. She didn’t even glance at us and just kept working.
So, with no other choice, Go Yujin and I left the office and headed straight to a nearby bar.
We took seats somewhere suitable and were watching the news playing on TV when Go Yujin said,
“It feels like Gates have noticeably decreased lately.”
“The large-scale Gates have definitely decreased. Thanks to that, I can hear the Awakened bastards whining all the way over here about losing their livelihood.”
It had become a social issue.
Large-scale businesses related to Gates had begun to develop, and now monster byproducts had become mainstream in the world, exerting a strong influence on daily life.
So the world felt uneasy at the phenomenon of Gates decreasing.
“That’s the sound of our livelihood being cut off too.”
“Even if our livelihood gets cut off, we have enough money to spend for the rest of our lives, don’t we?”
The money earned roaming the battlefield was enormous.
In truth, since we had been able to have the rights to the byproducts of the monsters we hunted acknowledged, first- and second-generation Awakened had earned sums they could not spend even over a lifetime.
By comparison, from the third generation onward, the government had caught its breath and gradually tightened its grip on Awakened, and as a result, they ended up unable to enjoy most of the benefits we had received.
That did not mean Awakened could not earn money.
After all, there was even a joke that the moment you set foot on the battlefield, you could earn enough money to live on for the rest of your life…
Just then, the drinks and side dishes came out. Looking down at the dish made with monster meat, I said,
“These days, seeing pork or beef is like plucking stars from the sky.”
“It can’t be helped. There’s meat everywhere that can be used for food. There’s no need to raise livestock anymore. Just like our usefulness.”
You could obtain beef and pork if you wanted, but their popularity had fallen greatly.
Perhaps it was because there were many kinds of monster meat that were vastly superior in taste and texture.
There were no side effects, and it was nutritionally superior as well, so it was naturally disappearing.
“Cheers!”
I looked at Go Yujin, who had poured the alcohol so quickly I hadn’t even noticed when she did it, and said to her cautiously,
“Only half a bottle, all right?”
“Why? Afraid I’ll get drunk again?”
“No, afraid you’ll pass out.”
“I’m not that much of a lightweight, you know?”
Go Yujin was indeed a lightweight. A chronic one, at that. On top of that, those who had awakened generally could not get drunk from alcohol.
That was why there were even people who said Go Yujin was blessed for being able to get drunk on a small amount.
I was the same, after all. Even if I brought over a whole jar of liquor and poured it down my throat, my stomach would only get full; I could not get drunk.
“Cheers!”
Go Yujin tilted her glass with a bright, innocent expression, and seeing that clear, cheerful 모습, I tilted my glass as well.
The feeling of having a drink after finishing work—I had always rather enjoyed it.