Episode 5
Episode 5
The invisible person facing the man stopped abruptly, seemingly tense, then kicked off the ground.
Tadadak-.
Just as Emul was admiring the sight of them stepping on cracks in the wall to climb to the rooftop.
Ppaak!
The invisible person was hit by something and plummeted. Golden hair fluttered beneath a fluttering metal hood.
'Wasn't it a man?'
Gender didn't really matter, though. With that indifferent thought, Emul looked straight ahead.
The woman who landed rolled her eyes in panic. Perhaps because her escape route was blocked by the newly appeared man.
"Hyung. Be careful. Even if she looks like that, she's a Real Mage."
"Nah. Something like that?"
Two men chatted from a distance, with her in the middle.
The one called Hyung dusted off his hands and approached slowly.
Pajik-.
Small sparks flew from his wrist.
A precursor to mana manifestation.
According to the information Emul had collected, mages in this world were divided into two categories.
The so-called 'Real' ones, who intuitively understood and utilized the principles of mana.
And the 'Fakes', who possessed mana but had to rely on the help of a terminal.
'Wannabe mages.'
Since he had come to peek at their magic, he had achieved his minimum goal.
Emul started watching leisurely, intending to leave after observing for a bit.
Sswaeek!
A body wrapped in blue energy rushed at the woman like a lightning bolt.
It happened in the blink of an eye. At that absurd acceleration, Emul quietly drew up his mana.
Only then did the unfolding situation begin to flow at a normal speed.
Just before the sharp fingertips could touch the woman's ribs, the metal hood spun in the air and brought a heel down.
Chiiik-.
The Hyung, not slowing his acceleration, slid across the floor to dodge the attack, and the younger brother who had intruded from behind used Hyung as a support to launch himself.
Huung-!
The woman flexibly dodged the man, who had become a human tank, by arching her back.
As soon as she straightened her upper body, Hyung rushed in.
This whole process took barely three seconds.
Emul realized how lucky he had been to survive his encounter with Chadric.
'It's a good thing that guy was an idiot. If I had encountered guys like this before awakening my mana, I wouldn't have even been able to collect my bones.'
Feeling a chill, he watched the battle again.
"This bitch is faster than I thought...!"
The man called Hyung hardened his expression.
Looks like they were going to fight for real.
Just as Emul predicted, he started rampaging like an angry bull.
Tukwang-!
The concrete outer wall crumbled with a single punch. He poured out a barrage of attacks through the rising dust.
The woman didn't take her eyes off the pouring onslaught and kept dodging the attacks.
The breathless man caught his breath.
"Hoo. Hoo. So you're a mage, huh?"
Pajik, pajijik!
Mana gathered intensely at his wrist.
Perhaps the power shown so far wasn't everything; a denser energy than before was condensing.
Was he finally about to deploy magic? Perhaps feeling the same as Emul, the woman's gaze was fixed on the gathering mana.
The moment a pale blue light from the device obscured her vision.
'That was... careless.'
Along with Emul's sigh.
"......Keu-heut!"
The metal hood was kicked away by a kick from behind.
She rolled a few times before stopping, twitched, and then went limp.
The younger brother, who had withdrawn mana from his foot, grumbled.
"I told you to be careful, Hyung. What if that bitch decides to self-destruct in a fit of rage?"
"Hey, kid. People who have a lot to lose know how precious their lives are. If you had a bright future ahead of you, would you want to die in a place like this?"
"I guess. She was probably raised preciously, so her head is probably full of flowers..."
The man trailed off and approached the fallen woman, reaching out his hand. Mana gathered in the terminal strapped to his wrist.
It wouldn't matter if he waited for them to cast magic, but Emul had already made his judgment.
'I wasn't expecting a harvest like this.'
A faint smile played on his lips.
In the midst of the urgent battle, a fair white wrist had been revealed beneath the fluttering metal hood.
There was no 'terminal' strapped there to assist with calculations.
'A Real Mage.'
The conversation the brothers had added credibility to his guess.
No matter how eccentric mages might be, they wouldn't be so shameless as to not know the grace of owing their lives to someone.
Emul intentionally spread the presence he had been erasing.
The younger brother's hand, which had been reaching toward the hood, was slowly withdrawn.
He stepped back without making a sound, trying not to attract attention as much as possible.
Hyung also seemed to feel something, watching the retreating younger brother without stopping him.
By the time the two brothers had put some distance between them, Emul approached the fallen woman.
No attacks or interference occurred.
Only a terrible silence swept through the shaded alley.
Emul looked down at the unconscious 'Real Mage' carefully, then cast his gaze toward the two men.
Camellia did not regret entering the outskirts.
If she were going to regret it, she wouldn't have even started.
A vast amount of mana and phenomenal calculation speed.
She was praised as a genius worthy of a prestigious magic family, but she had a deformed talent that couldn't achieve the family's symbol, Full Bloom.
That was Camellia's hidden tag.
The options available to her were limited.
She couldn't even consult a legal counselor or a professor at the Academy for fear that the secret would leak.
A society of thorough survival of the fittest.
If it were revealed that she, known as the family's greatest genius, was only half-baked, she would become the best prey for her political rivals to tear the family apart.
That was why, even knowing she was walking on a blade, she had jumped into the fire.
She was impatient, but she hadn't come without preparation.
The Perception Inhibition Device she had obtained from the black market had hidden her.
Because if they touched a student, the government of Academy City wouldn't just sit by.
The probability of something dangerous happening was extremely low.
That meant... it wasn't zero.
"...Ptoo."
A clot of blood that had come up her throat was sprayed onto the asphalt.
It didn't seem like her internal organs were injured, but she had fallen on her back, making it hard to move.
'Would it have been different if I had used magic?'
She had hesitated for fear of exposing her identity, but even if she had used it, it didn't seem like the result would have changed.
She had only operated mana, but her talent didn't just go anywhere.
Despite possessing extraordinary cognitive abilities, for some reason, she hadn't detected the attack that came from behind.
It meant that people as skilled as that had been chasing her. Perhaps a huge criminal organization was involved.
'I'll be taken away like this.'
She didn't know what stance her family would take, but the future afterward was not hard to imagine.
Ransom demands would be the basic, and she would suffer terrible things she didn't even want to imagine.
'Rather than that...'
She had to sever her blood vessels all at once to meet a clean end.
The moment the thinly spread mana blade aimed at her heart from inside her body.
Heumchit-.
Goosebump-inducing mana was felt right beside her.
How could she, who had steeled herself for death, feel fear?
With rising questions, Camellia barely turned her stiff neck to look to the side.
"It didn't even get caught on the lens. It even detected the Optical Camouflage... Hyung. It's dangerous. It's dangerous!"
The dumbfounded man kept stepping back as if terrified.
"Fuck. Run!"
The moment another man grabbed him and ran away quickly.
Piing——!
A high frequency so high it made her eardrums tingle struck her ears.
Thump, thump.
One spell, and two men collapsed.
'Uh, uh......?'
At the completely unrealistic sight, Camellia's eyes lost their focus.
The interval from the precursor of the magic to the casting was extremely short, but.
'Aero Bolt...?'
Two attackers subdued in an instant. No matter how much they were wannabe mages, they possessed basic mana resistance.
Moreover, they had even deceived Camellia's perception. They weren't opponents who could be sent away with a single basic spell.
Jeobeok-.
Camellia shivered at the chill running down her spine.
Mages go astray as their level gets higher.
Because they build their own world and eventually become bound to that world.
The reason such a monster was approaching her was...
"Hey."
She was surprised by the surprisingly normal voice for a moment.
The mage asked as if truly curious.
"Are you a mage, too?"
Trying to grasp the intent of the question, Camellia nodded cautiously.
Her face naturally grimaced in pain, but she didn't know what result she would face if she let him misunderstand.
"I see. But why were you just taking the hits?"
"Why, you ask. Well..."
Was she really hesitating to use magic because of 'exposing her identity'?
Perhaps... she had been wandering around looking for a grave site, having given up on everything.
"......I wonder."
Camellia bit her lip unconsciously.
Drip. Blood flowed between her torn lips, but it wasn't distinguishable from the blood already splattered.
"Tsk."
The mage who clicked his tongue turned around.
It was a trivial action, but Camellia closed her eyes.
People expect and get disappointed as they please.
When they find a swollen flower bud, they rashly conclude that it will bloom someday.
Without even glancing at how rotten and festering it is inside.
What's so great about that magic...
Jeobeok.
Camellia's eyelids trembled at the approaching footsteps.
A feeling of discomfort reflected through the shaded shadows beneath the hood.
At least that's how Camellia felt.
Sseuk.
As a hand covered in scars approached, Camellia's body stiffened.
Scared——
As if mocking her fear.
A blue wave spreading around her blood-stained face.
Mana should be cold.
Somehow, it's warm.
"I'll bill you for the treatment later."
The mage who said that disappeared into the darkness.
Camellia, who had been dazed, stroked her lips.
Perhaps because of the cold weather, the flowing blood had already hardened.
Emul reviewed the experiment from a moment ago.
Stimulating recovery cells to increase the human body's regeneration speed.
The operation of mana woven using his own bizarrely fast recovery rate as a reference.
It's a flaw that heat is temporarily generated in the area, but compared to the performance, it's a side effect worth enduring.
'The problem is that the effect is terrible compared to the mana consumed...'
More than half of his possessed mana was consumed.
The amount of mana that would remain even after firing Aero Bolt dozens of times.
'Well, if I can exchange mana for the favor of a Real Mage, it's a cheap trade.'
Emul, who was thinking that, opened his mouth.
"You guys. Do you think I'm an idiot?"
The two men who were running while limping turned around, terrified.
"N-no, sir. Hyung, right?"
"Y-yeah. Right. Haha. How could we think of you as an idiot, Mage-nim? A Real Mage-nim."
Emul nodded.
"Then, use some magic. Let me watch."
Perhaps because they couldn't bear it due to the pain, the two men's expressions changed strangely.
"Are you not going to do it?"
A desperate struggle to live.
Blue sparks flew from the wrist of the man called Hyung, and vibrations causing dust to rise occurred from the younger brother's terminal.
At that moment, the structure of the magic was dismantled and transparently traced over Emul's retina.
The crudely rising mana was assisted by the terminal and completed into a precise and delicate spell.
'Hyung's side is body enhancement using electricity... and the younger brother's side is magic related to shockwaves.'
"A-are you going to let us live now...?"
"Good work."
Piing——!
Having finished his business, Emul turned around.
The main point is this. A Real Mage. Calming his strangely excited heart, he returned to the alley where the woman should have been lying.
And then he sighed.
The person he was waiting for was not in the spot where even the bloodstains had disappeared cleanly.
He briefly wondered what kind of magic she had used to erase the traces.
Emul, having discovered something, examined the pile of broken concrete debris.
"...A hair tie?"
Looking closely, something like a jewel was embedded inside the red flower decoration.
Did she leave it in place of the treatment fee he said he would bill? He didn't know how much it was worth, but it was a different result from what Emul had jumped in for.
If it were tracking magic, he might be able to catch up to her, as she couldn't have gone far.
Not only did he not know any related magic, but it also seemed likely that he would get involved in more troublesome things than this time.
'Since there probably isn't only one Real Mage in this world.'
Smacking his lips in regret, Emul looked at the hair tie in his hand for a moment, then put it in his pocket.