Magic Missile
Magic Missile.
That was the culprit behind the daily thunderclaps that rolled across the academy’s outdoor magic training grounds. The noise had irritated me more than once, but until now I’d never actually seen the spell in action.
Mana Off.
I stripped Ahn Jihyun of her mana. Even a Transcendent wasn’t exempt. Cutting her power worked the same as it did on anyone else.
What I couldn’t stop was the magic she’d already cast.
She looked at me and smiled, thin and venomous.
This bitch was going to die.
—Whoosh!
BOOM—!
CRASH—!
A ferocious bolt of mana slammed into me and detonated on impact. The rear seat I was sitting in shredded into ribbons. The windows blew out, glass spraying in every direction.
But—
Auto Shield has successfully defended against a powerful attack.
Energy consumed: 21%
I was fine.
In an instant, nearly half of my remaining energy was gone. That was the only reason I was still in one piece.
I’d stolen her mana, but the fight wasn’t over. Her subordinates were still very much alive. Complacency would get me killed. Every last one of them would be top-tier Awoken.
Thought Acceleration has been deactivated.
Still, the biggest problem was handled. As long as the opponent wasn’t a Transcendent, there was no reason to burn energy on Thought Acceleration. Energy was precious. Recovering it meant working my hips half to death.
I currently had Kim Isol’s abilities active. After focusing hard on weapon techniques lately, I’d selected and was running her mana. Close-quarters combat? I was confident.
“Guhhk…”
The man who’d been gripping my opposite arm coughed up dark red blood. Ahn Jihyun’s Magic Missile had caught him. With his mana gone, he’d been completely exposed to the blast. Looking at the wound, he probably wouldn’t make it. The only reason he still had a pulse was because I’d taken the direct hit in front of him.
The man in the driver’s seat was badly hurt as well.
“Gyaaaaagh…”
Outside the car, Ahn Jihyun was groaning roughly. Losing her mana hadn’t spared her from the explosion’s aftermath either. The backlash from her own spell had flung her backward, and she’d crumpled to the ground.
The great Transcendent, looking absolutely ridiculous.
Unlike them, I didn’t have so much as a scratch. I climbed out of the car, slow and deliberate.
Awoken from the other vehicles were already sprinting this way, one after another. One of the two she called her right-hand men was propping up the collapsed, moaning Ahn Jihyun. The other charged straight at me.
I wasn’t carrying a weapon. Neither was he.
“Concentration.”
Kim Isol’s skill. Fierce light gathered into my fist. He was probably an A-class mana user himself. Without Thought Acceleration, this might have been a little rough. He was a veteran; I was still green.
Reality had other ideas.
CRACK—!
My punch landed square on his left cheekbone. I felt something break—the sound, the give of bone under my knuckles. He never even got a chance to react. His neck twisted, and he dropped right where he stood.
In a word, we were on completely different levels.
The Awoken who’d been running toward me all stopped dead. Every face was pure shock. Some even started backing away.
Where the hell did they think they were going?
“Freeze. If you don’t want to die, shut up and gather in front of me.”
I didn’t even need to raise my voice. These guys were already terrified of me—no point wasting the energy.
I set my hand on the fallen man’s head and quietly stripped his mana. Don’t worry. Get treatment and you’ll live.
To the ones still hesitating in place, I added one more line.
“First come, first served.”
They scrambled over in a panic. I stripped the mana from every last one of them except the first to arrive. That guy’s mana I only dropped to F-1. I still had work for him.
“This can’t be… my mana…”
“If you don’t want to die, don’t try anything stupid. Put every smartphone and communication device you have on the ground at your feet. And you.”
“Y-yes… yes, sir!”
“Load the wounded and take them to a hospital. Bodies included. Ahn Jihyun’s the exception.”
“U-understood.”
They were thoroughly terrified. Every single person here. Of course they were. To an Awoken, I was basically a natural predator. Before long, the Transcendents would be in the same boat.
I dialed immediately.
"Get in a car and get to the business building’s B2 parking garage right now. You’ve got five minutes."
"What? I can’t. Just getting to where I parked takes more than five minutes. And I just started eating dinner…"
“Stop making excuses and get over here. I’m in a very bad mood right now.”
"Ah… okay. I’m coming. But five minutes…"
I called Hong Eunyoung. I could have stolen one of their cars, but that would make me easy to track.
I turned to the bastards still trembling in front of me, mana gone.
“Affiliation? Dragon Guild? Or the Community?”
“……”
“Answer. Now.”
“We… don’t belong to either, strictly speaking. If we have to pick, we’re under Vice President Ahn Jihyun. Day to day, we’re treated as Dragon Guild Awoken.”
“Is the Awakened Community involved in this?”
That was the critical question. If that massive organization was targeting me, life was about to get extremely unpleasant. I needed to know whether this was Ahn Jihyun acting alone, or the Dragon Guild operating independently—or whether the Community’s leadership itself had put a mark on me. You can’t take proper revenge when you don’t even know who the enemy is.
“That… we don’t really…”
Better to ask the person responsible directly. I walked over to the collapsed Ahn Jihyun. Glass from the car windows had sliced her skin in multiple places; she was bleeding freely. The side windows hadn’t had protective film.
I crouched, looked down at that bitch’s face, and asked.
“Hey. How about answering? Is the Awakened Community involved in this? And how much do you know about my ability? Did you hear anything from the Diamond Guild?”
“Kh… g-give me… my mana back…”
I pressed a finger lightly into one of the cuts on her arm.
“AAAAAAGH—!”
“Do I look like I’m joking? You think I’m just going to let the people who tried to kidnap me walk free? If you don’t want to die like this, talk, you fucking bitch.”
I repeated the same questions. The wounds weren’t huge, but if the bleeding kept up she might be in real danger. My head was a mess.
“Kh… I… did this alone…”
“Don’t bullshit me. I heard that whole phone call earlier. Who was that guy?”
“……”
Ah, for fuck’s sake.
Ahn Jihyun had passed out. I slapped her a few times—no response. She wasn’t dead, at least. Good thing I’d already called Hong Eunyoung, the healer.
So why the hell was that woman taking so long?
I temporarily restored the unconscious Ahn Jihyun’s mana, then immediately dropped it to F-1. A stopgap measure so she wouldn’t die on me. I had far too many questions for this bitch.
Once Hong Eunyoung got here, I’d have her heal her just enough, then strip the mana again.
The situation had gotten awkward. Reporting this to the authorities was messy. People had died. The ones in the wrong were obviously the ones who’d tried to kidnap me, and the deaths were from Ahn Jihyun’s own Magic Missile. But the moment an investigation started, I’d be in trouble too. No witnesses on my side, no evidence—and I was the only one who hadn’t taken any direct damage. Perfect setup for them to play the victims. If the government took their side, it’d be over.
Securing the car’s black box or the security cameras might help a little, but—goddammit.
I’d overlooked something.
“Hey, you. Call that guy right now. The one who went to mess with the security cameras—security office, management office, whatever. Hurry!”
I’d wanted to handle this quietly. If that guy had been watching this whole thing, there was a high chance he’d already contacted Dragon Guild headquarters or the Community. Then it would be more than I could handle alone. There’s a huge difference between ambushing people and wiping them out, and having battle-hardened veterans who’d survived death more times than they could count actively hunting me. Once word of what happened here got out, they’d come in force. And the government already seemed to be on their side…
Screeech…
Right then, Hong Eunyoung’s car came screeching in with a racket.
Why the hell did you take so long!?
“What on earth is all this?”
“Shut up and get over here. Heal this bitch.”
“Yeees…”
Hong Eunyoung cast Heal on Ahn Jihyun the moment she stepped out of the car. No need to get close—Heal worked fine from a decent range. The bluish cast draining from Ahn Jihyun’s face improved. She still didn’t wake up.
“Can’t you bring her around right now?”
“If she’s already fully unconscious, all you can do is wait. If she were still barely hanging on, there might be something I could try, but…”
“Hmm… fine. Put her in the back seat.”
“What?”
“Hurry. Staying here any longer might get dangerous.”
Hong Eunyoung looked doubtful, but she obeyed. Not like she had a choice.
While she worked, I took the smartphone from the man I’d ordered earlier. The person on the other end was their colleague—the one who’d gone to deal with the security cameras.
"Hello there."
“……”
“Looks like you’re still watching, doesn’t it? No answer, trying to hide your voice—you saw me take the phone, didn’t you? You’d better start talking before I come find you myself.”
As I spoke, I checked the positions of the security cameras around us. I locked my gaze on one of them. Only then did he open his mouth.
“Yes…”
“Good. Here’s how this works. Wipe every recording. In exchange for keeping the kidnapping attempt off the public record, everything that just happened never happened. The injured and the dead are on you—you started this, so you clean it up.”
“……”
“And… did you make the call, or didn’t you?”
“……”
“Should I come over there right now?”
“…I did. To our guild…”
“So Dragon Guild is sending elites this way as we speak.”
“That’s correct.”
“Then just promise me what I said. Do that and I won’t lay a finger on you. Wipe every single recording from the underground parking garage. Clean.”
“……”
“Or should I start digging into your background and track down your family one by one? You people tried to kidnap me first. Deleting the footage is in your interest too, isn’t it?”
“…Understood.”
“Good. Everything else, I don’t care. Tell them whoever I left with, whatever car I took—knock yourselves out. But one thing. That I took Ahn Jihyun with me. If they want her back in one piece, they’d better stay quiet. Pass that along. If I hear anything different later, I will stake everything I have on killing you. That’s all.”
“……”
That level of threat should be enough. Unless they planned to broadcast the kidnapping attempt to the entire world, they’d do as they were told. Of course they’d wanted the garage footage to analyze my ability. I’d just blocked that.
Dragon Guild, other major corporations, the Community, maybe even the government—all potentially on the same side. What good would “evidence footage” do me? They’d twist it and use it against me. Better to keep the one solid card I had: Ahn Jihyun herself.
She was a Transcendent. Whatever faction was after me, they wouldn’t throw away a card like her lightly. Especially not a rare mage.
Her name definitely wasn’t on South Korea’s list of seven registered Transcendents. They’d hidden her deliberately? Or maybe she’d only recently broken through. Her current mana had been S-1, after all.
I picked up Ahn Jihyun’s phone from the ground and climbed into Hong Eunyoung’s car. I pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and gave the order.
“Drive.”
“Uh, where to?”
“Just go for now.”
“…Okay.”
I drew in the smoke and let out a long breath.
Haa…
All my carefully laid plans were in ruins. But it was fine. A new path had opened up.
S-class mana. Looks like I was going to have to roll around with this fucking bitch for a few days and nights straight.
I still didn’t know exactly which bastards, which goddamn faction, was behind this—but just wait. The moment I get Transcendent-grade mana, I’m wiping every last one of you out. No survivors.
“Hong Eunyoung.”
“Yes.”
“If I need to disappear completely for about a week, where’s a good place?”
“Disappear from who, exactly?”
“Hmm… the government, or the Awakened Community?”
“……”
“Answer. Fast.”
“Is… is that even possible? Unless you don’t value your life…”
“So you’re saying no?”
“I don’t know either…”
“Tch…”
My reaction put Hong Eunyoung on the verge of tears. Ugh… if she didn’t know, what could I do? Nothing was coming to mind for me either. I couldn’t just drag her to the old jeonse apartment where I’d lived with Shin Haneul.
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
“Hm?”
The phone in my hand suddenly vibrated. It wasn’t mine.
It was Ahn Jihyun’s smartphone, ringing in my grip.