Find Her [2]

In the end, Yu Min-seo succeeded in summoning a pixie on her fourth attempt at the ritual.

"Hi! I'm Pix—"

"WAAAAAAAH, IT CAME OUT!!!"

Tears in her eyes, Yu Min-seo threw her arms around the pixie. Startled, the little thing squirmed for a moment before gently patting her on the back in return.

Pat, pat.

"What's the matter, human? Did you want to meet me that badly?"

"Yes! Yes! I wanted to meet you SO badly!"

Now — this was where the truly crucial stage began.

"Yu Min-seo."

"Y-yes!"

Yu Min-seo set the pixie down and spoke in her most serious voice.

"Yu Min-seo asks for your name."

This was the exchange of names, the single most important step of any contract. If the other party refused to give theirs here, that was game over — back to square one. Fortunately...

"I'm Lentil! Looking forward to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠working with you!"

Lentil the pixie had accepted the exchange of names.

Next came the settling of concrete terms. Yu Min-seo took out the A4 sheet I had drafted in advance and read from it.

"So... when I need to, I can borrow your power? Specifically, when I want to make someone go wandering pixie-led? If you accept these terms, I'll pay you one loaf of rye bread [300g] for every time I call on you."

"Hmm..."

Lentil pondered. This, too, was part of the charm of fairy summoning. Unlike demons or angels, who are summoned under conditions spelled out from the very start, a contract with a fairy is pure haggling from beginning to end. Why, the water fairy we'd called up earlier originally demanded her tribute once a week, but she took such a liking to us that she cut the rites down to once a month. In my own case, I'd refused the contract outright — there was no way I was letting anything trespass on my inner cosmos, terms or no terms.

As this showed, winning over the summoned party was itself an important talent for a summoning mage. And Yu Min-seo, sure enough, had a gift for it.

"What's there to be so stingy about? Call me as many times as you like! In return, just leave me one loaf of rye bread on the last day of each month you call me!"

"R-really!?"

"Min-seo."

I called the delighted girl back to earth with a word of caution. Lentil had said "a loaf of rye bread" — vague as could be, with no exact weight or volume attached. In contracts with non-human beings — no, truthfully, even in contracts between humans — you never know how that kind of fuzzy wording might be turned against you. In the worst case, if "a loaf of rye bread" turned out to mean a hundred kilograms of the stuff and she dug her heels in later, things would get seriously ugly.

"Th-then, could you tell us the exact unit of weight?"

"Unit?"

"Yeah — when I made the first offer, I said three hundred grams, remember? A unit of weight like that."

"G? Never heard of that one. I do know pounds..."

"P-pounds...!?"

Yu Min-seo turned to me with a face begging for rescue. I shook my head. First time or not, she needed to build the habit of solving simple problems like this on her own.

"Okay, hold on just a sec!"

Yu Min-seo hurriedly rummaged through the fridge, pulled out the rye bread she'd bought in advance, and held it out to the pixie.

"THIS much is 300 grams!"

"Wow...! That's more than I imagined! Sweeeet! Make it once every two months instead of once a month, and we're golden!"

"Really!?"

"Yep! So, here!"

The pixie held out a single grain of wheat, and Yu Min-seo accepted it with the utmost care. The grain melted away like smoke and seeped into her fingertips.

That grain of wheat was the token of the contract. With it, the contract was sealed.

"Thank you!"

"Think nothing of it! Call me whenever you need me!"

And with those words, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the pixie vanished. There had been a few bumps along the way, but as of this moment, Yu Min-seo was a fully-fledged summoning mage.

"Good work. All my useless advice did was waste your time — sorry about that. I don't have much experience teaching anyone."

"Th-that's...! No, you taught me wonderfully...!"

Yu Min-seo swallowed whatever had been rising to the tip of her tongue and settled on gratitude. Afterward, I opened my phone and pulled up Solomon's Grand Encyclopedia of Anomalies — the Anomaly Compendium section in particular.

Unless I face them head-on as anomalies, the counter doesn't go up? The Living Broadcast Station and the Baegmureo had filled two more slots, but there were still no active benefits to show for it.

What on earth are these "benefits" supposed to be? Honestly, I was dying to know. Left to my own devices, I'd have been out combing the city for some soft target to farm.

That was when a call came in from an unknown number. Bzzt.

"Oh, is it one of those election calls?"

"Yeah. They've been coming in day after day lately."

It had been nearly two weeks since President Lee Jin-seok died. The government had scrambled to arrange the next presidential vote, and the snap election was a little over a week away. The problem was that the presidential race fell less than a month apart from the general election — the general's schedule was fixed by law, and the president just had to go and die right on top of it, hence the whole mess.

A single election on its own is enough to flood your phone with campaign calls. With both stacked on top of each other, of course the calls were coming in like machine-gun fire.

The amusing part was that the overlapping races weren't keeping only the National Election Commission and the polling firms busy. Psychics were working overtime over this unprecedented situation, too.

What do psychics have to do with elections? Everything. A whole lot of everything.

Think about it — when psychic power and sorcery genuinely work, would politicians really leave them out of an election? Cursing their rivals, staging rituals to draw luck and the public eye toward themselves, and so on and so forth. And with still more psychics hired to return fire and hold the line against all of it, the election had become, quite literally, an invisible spiritual war zone.

The punchline: since practically every candidate on the ballot had psychics on retainer for offense and defense, it all canceled out to plus-minus zero — and in the end, the result came down to the people's choice.

Tsukumo Momo, who'd been listening, marveled with shining eyes.

"Ooooh! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠That's really something, isn't it?"

Bzzzzzt. Declined.

"What is it?"

"The same ones I just hung up on. Calling again..."

Bzzzzzt. Declined.

"And this time...?"

"Same place as before..."

Bzzzzzt.

"Aish — if I'm not picking up, quit calling already!"

"Master Kim. Been a while."

I had finally picked up, intending to give them a piece of my mind — and a familiar voice came through the receiver.

"Giselle Breed?"

It was Giselle Breed, the Deva-affiliated psychic we'd met alongside Shin Han-hee at Yoon Chang-sik's mansion.

"How did you get my number?"

"Got it from Shin Han-hee."

Honestly — handing out other people's numbers like that... I'd only given mine up because she begged and pleaded, and this was how I got repaid...

"Anyway, did you see that high-rank demon hunt video?! Absolutely insane, right? You really are the man I put my faith in — honestly, that performance puts you practically at Special Grade... You remember my offer, don't you? Deva's door is still wide open for you!"

Fair enough — if Shin Han-hee had recognized me, then of course Giselle Breed had seen my face in that video too.

"And above all, that Baegmureo incident! Krrrrgh! Master Kim, you are a true hero to us psychics!"

"Look, I didn't step up for 'psychic rights' or any of that, so can the hero worship already."

And Giselle Breed was far from the only psychic calling me a hero.

Being hailed as the hero who revealed the existence and grandeur of psychics to the world made me break out in hives from head to toe, but fine — I would grant that much and endure. The psychic supremacists, though — the ones who openly sneered at ordinary people as "non-psychic primitives" — turned my stomach to the point of nausea.

"Spare me the flattery and get to the point."

"No, this isn't flattery at all—"

"Your point. You have five seconds, or I hang up."

"W-wait, Master Ki—! I took a request from a politician. Want in on it with me?"

"A politician's request?"

"Yeah! The pay is absolutely killer! But it's a bit much to handle solo, and I was chewing over who to bring along — and you came to mind!"

I mulled it over for a moment before answering.

"Sorry, but I'm a broadcaster. I have to maintain political neutrality — I even switched my favorite color from yellow to black on principle. My apologies."

"Wait, wait! It's not an election-related request, so don't worry!"

"It's not?"

"Right. What the client wants is a person found."

"A person?"

"Yep. Apparently they want us to track down their missing lover."

"Th-this lover of theirs isn't the kind of lover I'm imagining, right?"

"Correct. The affair partner — no, it's closer to the concept of a second wife."

A politician's missing lover... Honestly? I wasn't exactly keen.

"Yeah, so, about that—"

"They've promised one billion won as payment."

"...Then that's a job I'm perfectly suited for!"

If anyone ever turns down an offer, check first whether the money was simply too thin. That said, separate from that...

"Why is this politician looking for their lover?"

If they left, they left. Why go groveling after them? If the reason was revenge, or a means of binding someone who'd already walked out, I intended to refuse no matter how much money was on the table.

"No, it's nothing like that."

"Then what?"

"Apparently there's something they absolutely must say if they meet again."

"Something they need to say?"

Come on. It wasn't some twilight-years romance — a billion won burned, all to deliver a message?

"Going by the vibe, at least, it doesn't sound like they're searching with bad intent."

"...Fine. Whether the intent is truly good, we'll judge once we meet them. If I see any malice toward the person, I'm out. That work for you?"

"An outstanding choice! As expected of the Che Guevara of the psychic world!"

After much deliberation, I accepted Giselle's offer. And having accepted, this was where the real work began.

"Nine to one."

"Huh?"

"We settle the payment split in advance."

"Y-yeah, that's fair... wait, NINE TO ONE!?"

"Yep."

"Are you insane? That's way too steep!?"

"Giselle, the only power you can actually use is psychokinesis anyway, isn't it? Be honest — what good is telekinesis for finding a person?"

"N-no, even so, that's — leaving me with one is crossing the line!?"

"And that's me being generous, referral fee included. Seriously, what could you possibly contribute to finding this lover?"

"Th-that's... no, come on, I'm an Eul-mid psychic! I'm not that useless!"

"So what, specifically, can you do?"

"Uh......"

Giselle had no answer. Naturally. Where, exactly, would you deploy telekinesis to find a missing person?

Now — this was the delicate part. Push Giselle any harder here, and the whole deal might collapse. So......

"Fine. Nine-to-one was harsh of me, so let's make it eight-to-two."

"Oh! O-okay, that works...!"

"But!"

"But...?"

"Giselle, it's eight-to-two only if you deliver a performance in this job that the client can't help but acknowledge as objectively impressive. Fall short of that, and we go back to the original nine-to-one."

"Uh... so you're saying I have to actually be useful?"

"That's right."

"I'll be expecting great things."

With that, the call ended. I turned to Yu Min-seo, who had been listening in on speakerphone by design.

"Did you take anything away from that conversation?"

"Huh? Um... that Giselle guy seems kind of pitiful?"

I shook my head. She'd carried off her first summoning admirably, but she was still young, and lacked the knack for grasping the heart of a matter.

"Remember the condition I attached to the eight-to-two split?"

"Ah... yes — you said, 'only if you deliver a performance the client can't help but acknowledge as objectively impressive,' right?"

"Right. The key here is that vague, abstract condition."

At that, Yu Min-seo's eyes went wide. This girl truly had a gift for summoning magic. Drop the slightest hint and she'd "catch" it — she read exactly what I meant.

"If it looks like our side can land a punch with that abstract condition, you don't hesitate. You swing."

Choi Eun-ha, who had been listening to all of this, muttered in horror.

"Wow... you trash. What are you even teaching a kid who's still in high school?"

I was being slandered. And she had every right to say it — no, wait. This advice was not my personal opinion at all. It came from the first entry of the Summoning White Paper...

...because all of it came from that work's very first paragraph.

A few days later, I linked up with Giselle and we headed for the client's home. And upon visiting the client's mansion, I came to realize one very important fact.

The client's missing lover was no ordinary[?] politician's hidden mistress.

"Well, look at this?"

One look at the hundreds of talismans, scrawled in blood, plastered beneath the client's bed settled it beyond any doubt.