The Wolf and the Ice Mage
Jo Jinyoung of the Ghost Temple stared intently at Lee Sehan.
‘The Wolf of Astelgard’s hometown association. They said he’s dangerous in a direct power struggle.’
After getting hit once by Go Wonjin, the Ghost Temple had launched a counterattack to preserve their pride.
Of course, they had no intention of fighting seriously.
Dealing with that one lunatic, the Mad Dog Go Wonjin, was already a massive pain. There was no reason to widen the battlefield.
Still, touching another Astelgard returnee was a kind of warning.
It was their way of saying, ‘Touch us and we bite!’
That was why Jo Jinyoung planned to deal with Lee Sehan just enough before pulling back.
-Sssssss
When he lightly flicked his hand, a spell activated. The other customers inside the café collapsed unconscious.
It was never good to let ordinary people witness returnees causing trouble.
If things got too chaotic, both the Returnee Union and government agencies would step in with sanctions.
Even for the Ghost Temple, that kind of heat was burdensome, so they simply put the civilians to sleep.
‘We can clean up the CCTV later. This should be enough.’
Jo Jinyoung turned his gaze back to Lee Sehan, only to find the man already on his feet, throwing a punch.
“Hup!”
He dodged, but the wind pressure from the strike still blasted outward.
“You’re impatient. I haven’t even introduced myself yet.”
“Oh? You dodged?”
Lee Sehan grinned.
His already hairy, bearded face began to change.
-Crack! Thud!
The hair all over his body grew longer and turned gray. His height and build swelled, and his face elongated.
His shirt tore apart and burst open, while his loose pants tightened around him.
In an instant, Lee Sehan had become a werewolf.
“Awooooooo!”
His roar made the air around them sink heavily.
Right after, he charged at Jo Jinyoung like lightning.
-Baaang!
The punch Lee Sehan threw completely shattered the table, chairs, floor, and even the wall opposite them.
“Come on. Take it easy, wolf. If you keep this up, knocking those people out was pointless.”
Jo Jinyoung frowned from within the raining debris.
He had been hit by that strike just now.
Yet the fist had passed through him as if nothing was there. Lee Sehan glanced down at his own fist.
“Phasing? Ghost form? I don’t know what you call it, but you turned your body into a spirit and let it pass through.”
Lee Sehan’s expression hardened.
This was exactly why spellcasters were such a pain.
They attacked and defended in bizarre, unpredictable ways.
Unlike simple power-based warrior types, they required a lot of brainwork.
-Crackle!
Blue electricity began flowing across Lee Sehan’s body.
As sparks of lightning jumped between the gray fur, tension flickered in Jo Jinyoung’s eyes.
“...Since when do wolves use lightning?”
“This is it, huh? I see you can’t just phase through this one.”
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
Even as Jo Jinyoung smiled like he was relaxed, his eyes darted around nonstop.
‘Should I pull back now?’
He had only come to deliver a warning, so he had never planned to go all out.
Getting hit by a fist wrapped in lightning didn’t seem like it would end “moderately,” so Jo Jinyoung cleanly abandoned the idea.
-Creeeeak. Crack.
“!”
At that moment, the floor and walls began to freeze over.
Chilling cold spread, freezing the ground solid. The frost crawling up the walls sealed off the already shattered sections.
Before they knew it, the entire space had become a rectangular room made of pure white ice.
“Slurp.”
The source of the cold was the table where Lee Sehan had first been sitting. Lim Dojun was still there, legs crossed, calmly drinking his coffee.
The whole area had turned white and breath was visibly freezing in the air, yet only the coffee in Lim Dojun’s hand continued to release warm, curling steam. The sight was strangely out of place.
Both Jo Jinyoung and Lee Sehan noticed that the cold was being controlled with near-perfect precision.
“...So you weren’t just meeting an acquaintance? You had a mage as backup.”
Jo Jinyoung grew even more tense. He scanned the ice barrier, trying to figure out how to escape it, when Lee Sehan’s surprise proved just as great.
‘Wait, Dojun…?’
The Lim Dojun he remembered was a kind returnee from the same hometown.
He had assumed the man died early and never managed to build up any real power.
Reading that exact thought on Lee Sehan’s face, Lim Dojun gave a small chuckle and said,
“I never once claimed I had no ability.”
“...You’re right.”
Since Lim Dojun had never joined the Returnee Union and had never shown his strength, it was only natural to misunderstand.
‘Well, there are plenty of returnees who prefer to stay independent and avoid the Union.’
Besides, Lee Sehan found Lim Dojun’s aura strangely familiar.
“Isn’t this Blue Magic Tower magic?”
Lee Sehan had seen this spell before—the one that endlessly amplified cold.
Ordinary magic could be used regardless of tower, but the secret arts carried a distinct flavor unique to each tower. There was no mistaking it.
“Correct.”
“Whoa… You were a silver spoon all along. You traitor! I hate silver spoons like you—I came from the bottom as a mercenary!”
“Haha…”
When Lee Sehan playfully scolded him, Lim Dojun scratched the back of his head.
Most returnees suffered tremendously after being dropped into another world.
Silver spoons who joined major powers like the Blue Magic Tower were rare among them.
People usually fell into that world as adults. For a large organization to take in someone at that age who couldn’t speak the language and lacked common sense, they needed to possess truly monstrous talent.
The information in Lee Sehan’s head about Lim Dojun was completely rewritten.
-Whoosh!
At that moment, Jo Jinyoung charged forward at high speed.
‘Most spells disappear if the caster dies!’
Whether it was sorcery or magic, the principle was nearly the same.
And spellcasters usually had very few options in close combat.
Jo Jinyoung wasn’t a close-combat specialist either, but he had learned some martial techniques just in case.
He couldn’t fight a true warrior like Lee Sehan head-on, but he was confident he could ambush and kill a single mage.
-Creeeeak!
Lim Dojun watched the approaching Jo Jinyoung and lightly raised his hand.
A black lattice formed, instantly transforming into a sword of vivid blue ice. When he swung it, a blade of energy shot forward.
“Aaaaaaaaagh!”
When a sorcerer’s body was launched straight into an energy blade, the result was obvious.
Jo Jinyoung barely avoided a fatal wound, but one of his arms was severed. He tumbled across the ground.
Even his ghost form couldn’t phase through sword energy.
As Jo Jinyoung rolled across the floor, the ice on the ground suddenly surged upward and wrapped around him.
Lim Dojun was no fool.
Last time, he had accidentally killed one of the Ghost Temple’s sorcerers and nearly let the soul escape. Trapping it in a soul stone and then breaking the seal had been incredibly annoying.
‘I need to keep him alive.’
Since these people dealt with souls, their lives had to be preserved.
“Slurp.”
“Is it good?”
“Yes. This place really does have great coffee.”
“Unbelievable…”
Lee Sehan shook his head, feeling the bone-chilling cold.
He couldn’t understand how much mana control was required to keep only the coffee in one’s hand perfectly warm inside such a frozen space.
What’s more, it seemed to have friend-or-foe recognition. Even though Lee Sehan was standing a bit away, he didn’t feel particularly cold.
‘So that’s why he entered the Blue Magic Tower despite being an outsider?’
It was a truly unbelievable talent.
* * *
Mages and sorcerers usually preferred holing up in their rooms doing research.
Even in battle, they stayed in the back or completely out of sight, pulling dirty tricks from the shadows.
One common trait among such people was that they were extremely weak to pain inflicted on themselves.
-Aaaaaagh! I’ll tell you everything! I’ll tell you all of it!!
After freezing the wounded areas and lightly prodding a few spots, the man screamed and spilled everything he knew.
The most crucial piece of information was the Ghost Temple’s main headquarters.
It was their private hideout, unknown to the outside world. Once they learned its location, the two men headed straight there.
Jongno, Seoul.
Amid countless buildings always bustling with office workers, a rather large structure served as the Ghost Temple’s headquarters.
“Looks pretty fancy.”
Lee Sehan muttered as he looked at the entrance crowded with people coming and going.
On the surface it appeared to be an ordinary company building, but in reality it was the Ghost Temple’s main base disguised as a shell company.
“Thanks, Sehan. Thank you, brother.”
Standing beside the two men who were staring at the building was Go Wonjin.
With a sword resting on his shoulder, he grinned and patted them roughly. The two had contacted him, and he had rushed over immediately.
When they said they had found the Ghost Temple’s headquarters, he had dropped everything and come running, asking them to wait just a little.
“Hehe. These bastards kept poking at me annoyingly but never got caught, so I was pissed. But if it’s their main base, they won’t be able to run anymore.”
“The problem is this barrier… It really does look like their headquarters.”
Lee Sehan’s eyes had transformed into those of a werewolf as he stared at the building.
An invisible, translucent magic formation densely covered the entire structure.
Ordinary civilians could probably pass through the spell without issue, but anyone with a certain level of power would definitely trigger the trap.
“This won’t break with just a few swings of sword energy.”
Even Go Wonjin looked troubled as he examined the difficult barrier.
Walking straight into a trap laid by a sorcerer was basically suicide.
But trying to break it would be too loud and take far too long.
“Let me try.”
While the two were pondering, Lim Dojun stepped forward.
“Oh! If it’s a mage from the Blue Magic Tower, maybe he can do something special!”
Lee Sehan watched with anticipation. Lim Dojun focused his nerves into his eyes and stared at the sorcerous barrier.
The current dragon transformation ratio in his body was about two percent.
Normally it spread throughout his entire body to strengthen it overall, but this time he deliberately concentrated it into his eyes.
Lim Dojun’s black pupils turned a vivid blue and elongated vertically like those of a reptile.
At the same time, the information within the spell formation became completely visible to him.
He didn’t understand it since he knew nothing about sorcery, but that didn’t matter.
He could clearly see which parts were strong, which were weak, what would reinforce it if touched, and what would cause it to collapse.
Whether it was magic or sorcery, both seemed to fundamentally manipulate mana to create their effects.
Other forces like soul power could be involved, but the core remained the same.
Lim Dojun placed his hand on the barrier.
The mana arrangement of the constantly shifting spell formation changed endlessly, sometimes growing stronger, sometimes weaker.
He waited for the exact moment and inserted his own mana into the gap.
The barrier’s weakness changed constantly, but pinpointing the precise instant was incredibly easy for Lim Dojun.
-Crash!
When he withdrew his hand, an inaudible sound rang out as the formation collapsed.
To the naked eye the building looked exactly the same, but to the returnees it was as if the iron fortress surrounding it had crumbled, leaving only a bare mountain behind.
“It’s done.”
“......”
“......?”
Lee Sehan and Go Wonjin stared at the relaxed-looking Lim Dojun with utterly dumbfounded expressions.