Madmen (2)
Madmen (2)
Early Sunday morning.
Click, clack.
The sound of dress shoes echoed through the spacious laboratory.
Jaden, his elegant blond hair now touched with middle age, paced his lab, glancing at his watch again and again.
"If he means to arrive by evening, I should have heard from him by now...."
Acting on Baek Woo-jin's orders, Jaden had contacted his mentor the night before for the first time in nearly five years. He had relayed Baek Woo-jin's message verbatim, leaving nothing out.
The moment his mentor heard that the sole creator of the barrier he had never managed to analyze was summoning him, he asked no further questions. He simply said he would come at once and ended the call.
And now, time had slipped by.
Considering the procedures required to use the teleport portal installed at Japan's Magic Association and cross into Korea, Jaden should have received word that the man was departing.
'...The actual maker of the barrier.'
Had anyone else made such a claim, Jaden would have made them regret it. But given who had said it, he found himself believing it to an almost irrational degree.
Above all, it was the Chairman—a man who yielded to no authority and judged people solely on their ability—who had granted this person authority equal to his own.
Though, admittedly, Jaden had briefly forgotten that fact during their first meeting and behaved somewhat excessively.
"Ahem."
As the memory surfaced unbidden, Jaden let out a small cough, trying to dispel the heat rising to his face.
Bzzt-
"This is Jaden Martel."
-I am departing now.
"Understood. And as I told you yesterday, you must not come alone."
-I'm bringing competent people. Just come and meet us.
Click.
Jaden frowned at his mentor's habit of saying only what he wanted and hanging up. He reached for his smartphone to inform Baek Woo-jin that his mentor was on the move.
-BEEEEEEP!!
A shrill alarm rang from the ceiling.
"......No. He couldn't have."
A sense of foreboding creeping over him, Jaden swallowed hard.
The alarm cut off, and an announcement followed.
-An anomaly involving spatial distortion has been detected in front of the checkpoint. All combat-track professors remaining on campus, please proceed to the checkpoint immediately.
-Once more.......
"MASTEEER!!"
Clenching his teeth, Jaden let out a strangled scream and bolted from the laboratory.
Channeling mana into his legs, Jaden tore across the academy grounds like a well-trained Enhancement-type Awakened, reaching the checkpoint in moments.
-H-Hey, Ian McKellen?!
-That's really Robert!!
-Who's the kid? An apprentice?
The area outside the checkpoint was buzzing with heat, a stark contrast to the frantic alarm that had just sounded.
Jaden wiped a hand down his face at the excited atmosphere, hurried past the barrier, and stepped outside.
"That's enough!! Everyone move back!!"
He released his mana to push aside the students who had come outside for off-campus trips, slowly carving a path.
The upperclassmen, familiar with Jaden's usual temperament, quickly came to their senses and cleared the way. Through the opening they created, Jaden advanced toward the center of the commotion.
"Ah, Professor......."
"My apologies."
Jaden offered a brief apology to the flustered, frozen security team leader and turned his gaze toward where the man was staring.
Neat uniforms. Tall, lean figures. And distinctive looks that unmistakably belonged to Westerners.
At the heart of the disturbance stood two middle-aged men of striking presence and a boy who looked as if he had just shed the last traces of adolescence.
Jaden glared at the boy, who was staring right back at him, and spoke to the security team leader.
"...They're my guests. I'll escort them inside."
**
Sean Connery.
Jaden's mentor and an Awakened who had manifested the ability of "Analysis."
The boy took a seat on the sofa at the head of the room and spoke.
"You little wretch. You told me to come as fast as I could, and I got here as fast as I could. What exactly are you so displeased about?"
"How could I possibly not be displeased?!"
Jaden's face was flushed red as he near-shouted the words.
"You've reached an age where you ought to be a bit more dignified! How could you think of opening a portal in a foreign country, right in front of an academy full of students?!"
"What's the big deal about a portal?"
"Not a big deal?!" Jaden shot back. "It's obvious you rounded up the Awakened from one of your research projects again and squeezed every last drop of mana out of them!"
At his disciple's outburst, Sean replied with an indifferent expression.
"I dragged some moldy-smelling sods out of the lab and let them get a bit of sun for once. That's good enough."
"Sun, my foot—you draw every single magic circle underground."
Sean picked at his ear and changed the subject.
"So? When do I get to see the person who summoned me?"
"......Haa. Wait here. I'll contact him now."
Jaden picked up his smartphone and stepped outside his lab. He returned in less than a minute.
"Well? When can I go meet him?"
"He said he'll send someone. If you follow that person's instructions properly, you'll get your chance to meet..."
"Heh heh."
At his disciple's answer, Sean let out a chuckle and stroked his smooth, bare chin. He did it with the practiced motion of a man stroking a well-groomed beard.
"Disciple of mine."
"Yes."
Blue light kindled in the boy's eyes.
"If this turns out to be nothing, I'll rip out your core."
It was an unmistakable threat, but Jaden answered with a profoundly indifferent expression.
"As if you weren't already completely deranged the moment you heard the word 'barrier'......."
"......."
"......."
The two middle-aged men who had accompanied Sean stared at him with mildly exasperated eyes.
Now the target of three gazes at once, Sean clicked his tongue in embarrassment.
"Ahem. My memory's not what it used to be, you see."
**
-Look, it's really Ian McKellen!!
-Whoa, Professor Jaden's connections are no joke.
-I heard Robert came with him, too?
The academy buzzed with the commotion from the alarm moments ago.
"Ah, hello!!"
"Good afternoon!!"
Students who had been enjoying the sudden windfall of gossip greeted Claire as she walked by. She passed them quietly, without so much as a glance.
She never acknowledged greetings, so the students thought nothing of it and resumed their interrupted conversation.
But contrary to what the students thought, the Claire walking down this hallway was slightly different from usual.
-Have a safe trip.
The face of the man who had stood at the entrance to see her off as she left the mansion kept flickering in her mind, as if broken.
It had been so unexpected, and it kept tickling at her chest. She felt that if she relaxed her guard for even a moment, she would end up with the same unfamiliar expression she had glimpsed yesterday, and she absolutely could not let her body relax.
"Ahem!!"
Only after confirming no one else was nearby did Claire let out a short cough. She felt it might help her shake off this restless mood.
-Show them that, and then make use of them as much as you like.
Before she left the entrance, he had handed her the storage-type artifact she'd carried that day and said those words.
She did not know what was inside the artifact, nor did she know who awaited her at her destination.
Her old self would never have tolerated this situation.
She, a child of the God of Amusement who ought to be most sensitive to information, moving without any intelligence at all. It had been unthinkable. It should have been unthinkable.
But right now, she was moving based not on information, but solely on trust in that man.
-A special...... to me.
"Cough!! Cough!!"
Yesterday's memory rose up unbidden, and Claire flustered, releasing a pulse of mana to shake off the inappropriate warmth in her body.
She might let him see it, but she had no desire to show a discomposed face to anyone else.
Ding-
The Magic Department's research building, set a little apart from the main building.
The elevator stopped at the top floor. The doors opened, and Claire stepped out.
[ Jaden Martel ]
Large lettering was fixed to the sign.
Claire opened the door without knocking.
"Hm?"
"Executor?"
Claire scanned the faces of the people gathered on the sofa, looking back at her.
'Ian McKellen, Robert, Jaden. And.......'
A boy sitting in the seat of highest honor, radiating an odd aura.
The face was unfamiliar, but the quality of the mana he possessed felt like something she had experienced once before.
'As expected of the Professor....'
Drawing her gaze away from the boy, Claire looked at the two middle-aged men seated apart from each other and silently marveled again at Baek Woo-jin's influence.
One was an Awakened who had uniquely manifested an ability to manipulate time. The other was the former Chief Investigator of the International Awakened Crime Investigation Agency.
"Heh heh. So the Executor was the errand runner?"
"At any rate, Asen, you're still looking as young as ever."
Claire ignored the words of Ian and Robert, with whom she was acquainted, and approached the gathered group. She opened the pouch she wore at her waist.
A deep darkness that showed nothing.
Slipping her hand into the void, she grasped something that lay alone in the wide space and pulled it out.
Fwoooosh.
From Claire's left hand emanated a blue light, beautiful and not overly intense, as if it might steal the hearts of all who saw it.
A brilliant blue radiance.
A rough gemstone, a little smaller than an adult's head.
Everyone in the room had their gazes stolen by the lustrous crystal now revealed.
An unknown rough stone, brimming with an unconcealable, alien mana.
It was unmistakably the core of a Rift.
"What is this?!"
"H-Ho!!"
"The crystal—how...?"
Jaden, Ian, and Robert stared at the crystal in Claire's hand with appalled eyes, their mouths working soundlessly.
Claire was just as startled and flustered as the three of them, but she swiftly regained her composure and returned the crystal to the artifact.
"H-Ho...."
"What did I just see?"
"V-Vice-Professor, just one more—"
Quiet.
An authoritative voice swallowed the entire laboratory.
Everyone's eyes turned to the boy in the seat of honor.
The boy—Sean Connery, Jaden's mentor and the master of the Clock Tower—opened his eyes wide and spoke.
"Command me as you will. If you desire it, I'll even sever the throat of a royal."