The Purple-Eyed Maiden
Screech!
Crunch!
The way the mercenaries made them talk was cruel, and efficient.
Crash!
It wasn't only Wi Kang-jun, who had been rolling across the floor. The man bound to the chair was drenched in blood within moments, and the combat gear had turned into instruments of torture in a flash. I couldn't keep watching. I put on a show of indifference and headed outside the abandoned factory.
"Gyaaaaaah!"
"P-please, spare me—aaaaagh!!!!"
The screams tore through the air, raw and desperate, tangled with the mercenaries' furious shouts and curses.
It looked brutal. From their side, though, this wasn't something they could simply let pass.
Set the request aside, and they had nearly lost their lives outright. If I hadn't smashed the detonator, they would have died in a heap.
Depending on one's abilities, an Awakened might endure bullets. Explosives were a problem of an entirely different order. They were still human. All the more so when the charges had been prepared with the open intent to kill. Beat the men to death on the spot, and no one would have had a word to say about it.
In the end, what the mercenaries were doing might as well have been called self-defense.
The screams that had gone on and on slowly died away. Sobs and ragged breathing filled the space they left behind. Only then did Son Soo-min come to my side.
"…Mage."
A thick smell of blood clung to him.
"They talked."
I laughed inwardly.
Their mouths had opened a long time ago. I knew that perfectly well. I didn't bother saying so.
When the target had tried to take your life, even torture wasn't illegal. Private sanction, already recognized by the state. The man tied to the chair—identified as the cargo truck's driver—was no exception. If an ordinary person deliberately took part in a crime, they fell under private sanction as well.
Judging by the mood inside the factory, those two were unlikely to keep their lives.
"Looks like they tried to skim the goods and sell them off, and got hit hard for it. The crew they were supposed to deal with ambushed them and left them like this in the abandoned factory."
"And Wi Kang-jun?"
"He was hired by the organization that has the goods now. They promised him a hefty payout, right down to pressing the remote if it came to that."
For a moment I had nothing to say.
The man who had stabbed them in the back had taken a knife in the back himself. Was this what the world of the Awakened looked like? I had never felt the old saying—that there isn't a single soul you can trust—so vividly.
Freshly aware of just how precious my own strength was, I nodded.
Son Soo-min stole a glance at my face, then went on.
"Unfortunately, there's no way to track them right now. That bastard Wi Kang-jun was only bought off with money. He couldn't pin down who ordered this. And there's nothing on hand we could use a tracking skill on."
I nodded and spoke to him.
"…Follow me."
Maybe I'd talked too much. A rasp was starting in my throat. I hadn't fully recovered, and I'd used my voice far too much.
I led a bewildered Son Soo-min up the mountain path—the opposite of the way we had come. The side where I had burned an Awakened to death.
We reached the spot where the man had stood in no time. I lifted the fallen detonator with Telekinesis, pulled the battery free, and shattered the device with a mana thread. Leaving Son Soo-min gaping, I scanned the area.
Wi Kang-jun had been with us the whole time. Aside from the detonator, he couldn't have been carrying anything that would draw suspicion.
This one was different. He wouldn't have thought for a moment that he'd be found out, so the odds were good that physical evidence remained nearby. Even if he had prepared for the worst, there was no way he had walked all the way here.
"Vehicle."
My throat hurt, so I kept it short. Son Soo-min understood at once.
"I'll search immediately."
He sprinted straight for the factory. The mercenaries scattered in every direction and began hunting for a vehicle. A little later, my gaze—slowly sweeping the surroundings—stopped in one place.
On a rock of modest size. A small bag.
…Found it.
A bag that looked as if it had belonged to the dead man.
"Found it!"
The vehicle turned up in an instant.
At the edge of the woods, on a dirt road: a four-wheel-drive jeep with a light coat of dust. The mercenaries stripped the navigation system with practiced hands and began narrowing the trail down to a handful of suspicious locations.
I handed them the phone I'd found in the man's bag. A sharp-faced mercenary took it, and he hadn't been working long before he reached a conclusion.
"There was a rat on the inside."
"…What? Who?"
"Director Woo. From the moment they seized the cargo truck, he meant to steer things this way."
Son Soo-min, who had been listening with a frown, ground his teeth. He barely held his anger down before he spoke to me.
"Director Woo handles the day-to-day work under the factory manager. I checked the messages. He'd been getting reports on every single one of our movements. His conduct always looked clean… Anyway, in this line of work, there isn't one person you can trust."
The mercenary analyzing the navigation pinned down a destination. The vehicle we had arrived in was ready in a flash, and everyone boarded. Our car took the lead. One mercenary followed in the jeep. South.
Son Soo-min stole a glance at me and opened his mouth.
"Between Seongnam and Bundang, there's a mountain called Yeongjang. Director Woo's estate is out that way. He bought up what used to be a golf course and built a house on it. I always wondered how a nobody of a director had that much money. Turns out there was a reason."
My throat hurt, so I didn't particularly speak. Son Soo-min's face stiffened slightly. My silence seemed to unsettle him.
"…Originally this was a simple tracking request, so I can only apologize to you, Mage. And you saved our lives on top of that. Thank you, truly. Still… I'm ashamed to ask, but if you'll help us through this as well, our mercenary unit will see that you're compensated separately."
I'd been planning to anyway. The situation had turned complicated and vicious, but the request I'd taken was to recover the goods. I hadn't even laid eyes on them yet. Stopping here wasn't an option.
Besides, I'd heard it from Yu Seo-ha. In this business, nothing mattered as much as reputation. Especially at the very start, when you'd just set foot in the industry—a single small blemish could be blown wildly out of proportion.
I gave a light nod. Son Soo-min's face brightened noticeably.
"Thank you, Mage…!! I will never forget this kindness!"
Even as he spoke, the vehicle kept moving south. Before I knew it, rain had begun to fall in a thin, steady drizzle. It wasn't long before it turned to a downpour.
The already gloomy mood sank all the way to the floor. Silence settled over the cabin. Only the frantic sweep of the wipers broke it.
"Stop."
The method the mercenary unit chose for the ambush was rough. They got out on the north side of Mount Yeongjang and simply started climbing.
We cut across a wide stretch of land that had once belonged to a state-run enterprise, then headed south along a faint mountain trail that had almost no trace left of it. We went on like that for a long while. The pace of our advance dropped sharply.
Past the shoulders of the crouched mercenaries, a broad lawn that looked like a golf course came into view, and on it a luxurious mansion. Late at night. Faint lights leaking outward.
I looked at the board. Gray figures. Thirty.
"Hold for a moment. First we get a count of the enemy, then… hm, Mage?"
I tapped Son Soo-min's shoulder with a mana thread as he started giving orders. Watching his bewildered face, I sighed inwardly.
I hadn't wanted to do this. My throat hurt too much to speak, and the situation was too urgent to skip the explanation. I drew out a mana thread and carved mana into the empty air.
Inside: thirty Awakened, three civilians. They're civilians, but they're getting along just fine with the Awakened. Looks to me like they're involved.
Letters of pure blue mana, carved into the air. At that bizarre method of communication, Son Soo-min froze solid, and the mercenaries' mouths fell open. I added another message.
Focus on the content.
"Ah…!!"
Only then did Son Soo-min come back to himself. Using what the Detection skill had picked up, I described the civilians' builds and how they were moving. He listened in silence, then nodded.
"I was told the hired staff go home once dinner is over. The ones left must be Director Woo's inner circle."
Then it shouldn't matter much if I blow them away.
"…Th-that's right."
Mana kept being carved into the air without pause. Even after the conversation ended, the messages remained, perfectly clear. Son Soo-min's pupils shook. The mercenary unit stared at me the way one stares at a monster.
Seeing that, I grew curious in spite of myself. Scattering mana into empty air did burn a great deal of it, but was it really something to react to this extremely? Then again, thinking of how markedly respectful Yu Ji-seong and Yu Seo-ha had become after seeing this, there was probably some reason for it.
What kind of reaction was I supposed to show at a time like this? I had no idea at all. I gave up on reacting and simply took a step forward.
Fwoosh!
Flame rose into the air. I expanded it, then forced the heat into the vacant space within. The enormous mana cost stopped my breath for an instant, but mana surged in like a tide and filled the gap in a flash.
The fire, condensed to a brutal density, howled like a wounded beast.
Krrrrrr…!!
"…My God."
"What is that?"
"Don't tell me—Flame Burst…?"
Leaving the mercenaries' cries of shock behind me, I seized the flame with a mana thread and hurled it at the mansion.
The fire receded, leaving only a faint afterimage. It shrank to a point, then vanished from sight entirely.
The next moment, beyond the dark night sky, a thin flare of firelight flashed—and crimson flame burst outward in every direction, as if it had exploded.
KWA-BOOOOM!!!
The mansion blew apart as if a bomb had been dropped on it, and a colossal pillar of flame surged up over the wreckage.
"…What?"
"What was that…?"
"I wanted to seize the initiative, but there's nothing left. How are we even supposed to figure out what happened…?"
The stunned mercenaries muttered on for a moment. Then Son Soo-min's voice came—the first of them to recover his wits.
"What are you all doing? We need to get in there and check whether anyone's still alive—"
"Wait."
I cut him off. Narrowing my eyes, I spoke in a rush.
"Fall back. Now."
My throat burned. I swallowed dryly and pushed my senses to their limit. Something was coming.
The movement was wrong.
Damn it.
I pulled out my phone with a mana thread and tapped the emergency contact line. I tossed the phone aside without a care and lifted my head.
On the board. A gray dot that had already closed to point-blank range, rendering a kilometer and a half meaningless. This wasn't a skill. It was an Awakened.
A person, running like that. Was that even possible?
My body reacted before my head. With mana hauled up in an instant, I compressed the air and threw it across the front.
CRAAAAACK!!!!!
The shield burst apart all at once with a savage impact. Instead of panicking, I raised the next one. Confirming that what had broken the shield was a small white fist, I lifted five Crimson Arrows into the air and launched them at the opponent, who had stopped.
A scoff came back at once.
"Hmph."
BOOOOM!!
The explosion rang out, and the sparks that burst free embroidered the night sky. The woman I had glimpsed was nowhere to be seen. No—she was there. My eyes couldn't find her, but my senses caught the ripple.
CRAAAAACK!!!!!
Two shields guarding my flank were torn apart in a single breath. Instead of retreating, I caught the fist on a third. The ground turned to shackles and seized her ankles, and hundreds of mana threads closed in around her.
"What is this?"
With a voice that sounded amused, a violet radiance burst out. The shackles snapped. Hundreds of mana threads were ripped apart in midair.
"This one's actually pretty fun, huh?"
Crunch!
Hundreds of mana threads, burst by a single punch, returned to mana and stitched the air in vivid blue.
Beneath that, a woman with the corner of her mouth lifted, light and easy.
Son Soo-min came forward with an urgent expression.
"Please, wait just a moment. There's some misunderstanding—"
"Misunderstanding? What misunderstanding?"
BOOOOM!!!
The woman lifted the corner of her mouth and stamped her foot. The ground shook hard, and a shockwave burst out in every direction. The mercenaries' legs gave out, and they dropped where they stood.
"……."
I, on the other hand, lifted myself on mana threads and quietly studied her.
A small frame. Skin pure white. A violet gleam flashing in her eyes, as if jewels had been set into them. The one who had torn the shields like paper was, unexpectedly, a young girl.
Son Soo-min's expression twisted. Unlike me, who had only just set foot in the industry, he looked as if he knew exactly who she was.
"W-wait a moment."
The color had drained from his face.
"Hunter Hwang Seol-hwa. What brings you to a place like this?"
I had heard the name. The Purple-Eyed Maiden, Hwang Seol-hwa.
Because of her small frame and youthful face, the epithet of maiden had stuck even after she came of age. A being who belonged to neither good nor evil. A freelancer who had built her name on nothing but her own power. She was known as a troublemaker who did exactly as she pleased, but no one could deny her skill.
It made sense that Detection hadn't caught her. Just as I had failed to catch the Snowwood Fiend even with it right in front of me, Hwang Seol-hwa was the same. My ability still wasn't enough to cleanly pick out a monster that stood outside the standard.
"What brings me here? What's a freelancer doing in a place like this, you think? I came on a request."
Hwang Seol-hwa snorted. She cracked her neck, then bared her teeth at me in a wide grin.
"Hey, Mr. Mage. Thanks to you, my request is a complete mess. I'm pretty heartbroken about it."
"……."
"How about we finish having some fun?"
Heartbroken, she said—while grinning from ear to ear. One thing was certain. She wasn't the type to put much weight on a request. She had no great interest in the person she had been guarding, now dead and sprawled in the mansion I had hit by surprise. She wasn't holding a grudge because I had attacked her, either.
"Let's have a good, wild time!"
She simply, purely enjoyed matching strength against the strong. In my eyes, she was nothing but pure… a crazy bitch.
In that instant, with no warning at all, Hwang Seol-hwa's form blurred. She appeared right in front of my nose without so much as a presence. Her shoulder, already cocked far back, began a savage rotation.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Three shields tore apart against a violet fist. I didn't panic. I backed away and chained the shields together.
Son Soo-min's sword came in sharp, aiming for her side, but a single knife-hand blow shattered it to pieces. The shockwave that burst out shoved the mercenaries back. Then Son Soo-min barely dodged the fist Hwang Seol-hwa swung.
She pursed her lips, as if surprised.
"Oh? What's this. This one's not bad either?"
For an instant, her gaze turned to Son Soo-min. I had slipped off her target, if only briefly. I had to accomplish something while he held her attention. I swept the surroundings quickly with Detection and sorted every available method of attack in my head.
Then, the moment I raised flame into the air, Hwang Seol-hwa whipped her head toward me.
"No use, Mr. Mage."
She laughed.
"Don't resist. Just die."
Hwang Seol-hwa's form blurred, and Son Soo-min clenched his teeth and threw himself in front of me. A shockwave burst out savagely at point-blank range. Sparks leapt up and embroidered the night sky, and a faint groan escaped him.
He stumbled back, clutching his wrist. Hwang Seol-hwa snorted as she looked at him. Open mockery. But thanks to the time he had bought me, I was able to finish preparing.
Fwoosh!
Twenty Crimson Arrows rose into the air and aimed at a single point all at once. Hwang Seol-hwa's expression hardened slightly. She narrowed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and her whole body was dyed violet.
"So you want to try it, huh?"
She kicked off the ground hard, and her form shot forward as if fired from a bow. The twenty Crimson Arrows poured out a keen edge and cut across her path.
Flame burst out, savage.
KWA-BOOOOOOM!!!!