Chapter 21
Chapter 21
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 021
Chapter Title: Ghostbuster (5)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Response Special Task Force, Team 3 office.
A woman with a calm demeanor and black hair.
Team Leader Shin Sion of Team 3 projected a photo of a certain individual onto the presentation screen in the office and explained it to her team members and to Park Team Leader, who had stopped by out of curiosity.
A man with a calm demeanor and black hair. It was Yohan's photo.
"Kim Yohan, orphanage background, 21 years old, single. Evaluations from his university and the manga cafe he recently quit describe him as diligent and reliable in his duties. However, he never joins drinking parties or social gatherings and has no notable friendships. ...People say he responds politely if spoken to first but never initiates, and they've never had deep conversations, so they don't really know him."
Sion's calm voice filled the room.
"This is the basic profile on Kim Yohan, who I currently suspect in the university murder case."
Park Team Leader gazed at Yohan's photo and asked,
"You mentioned losing interest in this case due to other priorities. Did you look into it on your own?"
Sion nodded.
"Yes. It just kept nagging at me."
"Any evidence?"
"No hard evidence. Circumstantially, he's the student in that classroom when the professor died who fits the perpetrator profile best."
"...A hunch, then?"
Park Team Leader nodded.
"Well, you're the type who'd get suspicious if Kim Team Leader next door—who always has pork cutlet for lunch—suddenly switches to spaghetti."
He scrunched his brow, mimicking Sion.
"Why go from pork cutlet to spaghetti all the time... Suspicious."
The rookie female agent failed to stifle her laugh at Park Team Leader's teasing.
"Pfft— S-Sorry!"
Sion's eyes narrowed on their own.
"············."
She spoke in a slightly pouty tone.
"...I think it's a situation worth looking into."
"Fair enough. With anomalies involved, a solid hunch is reason to dig—even without evidence. Still..."
Park Team Leader continued,
"You're off to another case soon. Don't push yourself too hard."
"...You're right. Got it."
Sion tidied up the office and addressed her team.
"This was just my personal side project, so don't worry about it. Focus on your assigned cases."
The team members let out sighs of relief.
It was only shared for informational purposes. No extra overtime, thankfully.
Sion wasn't the type to grind her team into the dust for results; she balanced workloads thoughtfully.
Still, the recent influx of cases was overwhelming.
Sion organized the university murder files and reviewed the materials for her next assignment.
A dubious case handed over from the police.
It appeared to be an unremarkable livestock experience farm on the surface, but...
Several visitors had gone missing after visiting.
The police had investigated, but nothing concrete turned up.
Sion's eyes narrowed.
A livestock farm—the perfect place to obtain animal blood, flesh, and hides without raising suspicion.
It might be a wizard's workshop disguised as a farm.
...Or an organ trafficking ring.
Either way, it spelled disaster.
Sion's unease was well-founded. Both were true.
Weekend Farm served as a wizard's workshop—and they trafficked organs too.
To top it off, they even sold human flesh.
In the basement surgery room of the Weekend Farm villa.
A woman with impeccably manicured nails and a slender, celebrity-like beauty cocked one eye upward.
"So you~ searched~ high and low but still couldn't find the grimoire? My, you tried so hard."
Kim Mireh—one of Chairman Kim's mangy mutts—spoke.
The intellectual-gangster type, Kim Bureau Chief, bowed deeply and replied,
"My apologies, miss. It's just that ordinary folks like us were the ones doing the looking..."
"Are you saying I should go scampering around after it myself?"
"No! I'm sorry!"
Kim Bureau Chief bowed even lower.
And he glanced cautiously at the grimoire copy clutched in Kim Mireh's hand...
The original text was Cultes des Goules—Faith of the Ghouls.
A grimoire delving into immortality through cannibalism.
'Damn bitch.'
...He cursed inwardly.
While at it, he mentally lumped in all of Chairman Kim's bastard spawn who aped their old man's domineering ways.
'Pretending to be wizards with a photocopy of the chairman's grimoire...'
Acting like they were the real deal.
Kim Mireh looked down at the groveling, dimwitted civilian Kim Bureau Chief, clicked her tongue, and commanded,
"Tch, fine. Father wants it for the party, so take these cuts of meat."
She jerked her chin toward the corpses on the surgery tables—heads split open, brains scooped out.
Kim Bureau Chief straightened up gingerly.
"...Understood."
He had no intention of dwelling on the vile crap these people made him do for a paycheck, but they never failed to turn his stomach.
After ordering Kim Bureau Chief to clear the bodies from the surgery-cum-workshop room,
Mireh extracted the pineal glands from the brains.
She mixed them with various ingredients and human flesh as prescribed in the grimoire to brew an elixir.
Then she parted her crimson lips.
As written in the Cultes des Goules copy.
To awaken the third eye and amplify her occult essence, she swallowed the elixir.
The drugs blended into it made her body shudder violently, visions flickering briefly before her eyes.
"············."
...But it wasn't enough.
To slay her so-called brothers and the father who'd outlived his welcome.
She needed the real grimoire—not this knockoff.
Task Force intel confirmed the grimoire had surfaced in Korea.
Yet...
'Why won't it show up for me...!'
She'd never once failed to claim what she desired.
Irritation boiled up. Her teeth ground together.
Yohan was currently up in the mountains.
Not for a hike—for Grizzly's power control training.
He followed a trail before veering onto a side path, treading carefully until he found a secluded spot devoid of people.
He pulled the grimoire from his bag and summoned Grizzly.
"Grizzly, come out."
"Gyaah~."
Trees cast pockets of shade, but...
He gazed at Grizzly basking in the sunlight.
According to Mysteries of Insects, Grizzly was a Transparent Vampire.
Unlike the legends of vampires incinerated by the sun,
he watched the yawning Grizzly.
"Gyaha~."
It seemed to prefer nights over mornings, yet daytime activity was no issue.
'...Because of its transparent body?'
Not from some scholarly tome—from a comic book, but.
Objects appear colored because light reflects off them.
The higher the transmittance, the more light passes straight through without reflection. That's why we can't see it.
The reason transparent glass walls look invisible. Though glass transmittance isn't perfect.
If Grizzly's body achieved 100% transmittance, invisibility made sense...
"...Nah, never mind."
The line of thought proved pointless, so he dropped it.
Explaining a magical creature with science was laughable to begin with—and precisely because science couldn't explain it, it was magic.
"·········."
He simply stared at Grizzly.
An old memory resurfaced: words spilled by the Boogeyman at Smith's mansion right before it died.
The one who turns stones to bread, the one who dons Solomon's crown.
Those struck him as mere flattery, acknowledging him as a wizard.
But the creature's final words lingered.
"...Master of the beast from the stars."
"Gya?"
Sensing his gaze, Grizzly cocked its head.
"Ha— whatever."
He chuckled softly at the sight and stroked Grizzly's head, giving it a good scratch.
"Gororong~."
Time to proceed with the original plan.
He found a suitably thick tree and lightly tapped it with his fist by way of example.
"Alright, Grizzly. Give this a solid whack like so."
He knew Grizzly possessed strength to effortlessly hoist and hurl an adult man.
But its exact power level? A mystery.
So first, gauge that power before training control.
The instant he stepped back from the tree—
Pang-!!
The trunk exploded outright. It didn't snap.
The struck section simply burst.
Grizzly's punch pulverized the tree, sending the severed trunk toppling sideways.
Thud— Crack! Boom!
The falling tree crashed into others, the racket echoing through the mountains.
Stunned,
"Mom— shit! Let's bolt!"
"Gya!"
he invoked a mother who didn't exist and fled down the mountain with Grizzly.
Back down the mountain,
catching his breath, he checked his phone.
A message confirmed his reservation at the livestock farm he'd sought for parchment.