Chapter 41
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 041
Chapter Title: Just a Vacation (1)
Hallway of the Anomaly Countermeasures Agency.
A black-haired woman with a calm demeanor.
Team leader of Special Task Force Team 3.
Shin Sion walked toward the Team 3 office with a weary expression after the camp zombie incident meeting... which was essentially a postmortem discussion.
The culprit behind this mass zombie outbreak was clearly Edward Coffin, the wanted anomaly magician who had infiltrated Korea.
They had discovered evidence of Edward's temporary hideout workshop near the reservoir by the campsite. However...
Sion's eyes narrowed slightly.
Edward himself had yet to be found. He was still missing.
She had asked Yohan separately.
A suspicious figure had indeed shown up at the auditorium leading the zombies.
But after getting hit by the pentacle magic summoned through the grimoire, he vanished.
Zombies had swarmed back into the auditorium afterward, but they soon collapsed like puppets with their strings cut, reduced to lifeless corpses.
Sion lightly brought her hand to her lips.
Had Edward panicked from the unexpected attack and fled, leaving the zombies as bait?
Or had the zombies stopped moving once the magic sustaining them ran out? It was hard to say.
...Still, there was one hypothesis that could explain everything.
Yohan had lied.
When the zombies charged back into the auditorium,
a mage-on-mage battle had ensued, and he killed Edward.
Why hide it? Because the magic he used to kill Edward, or the method, would cause problems if exposed?
And the method of disposing the body...
That invisible monster she'd seen in the ranch basement.
'Gaaaaah-!'
Fed it to the Transparent Vampire.
'No, no, that's not right.'
Sion pulled her hand away from her lips. She stopped her wild speculation.
She was jumping to conclusions by assuming Yohan was the true grimoire owner and building her deductions around that.
This was dangerous. Not good.
She was forcing the evidence to fit a preconceived answer.
Of course, there were still things that nagged at her...
But Yohan had openly revealed his secret. He wasn't hiding that he was the owner of a grimoire.
Right. A top-tier grimoire, completely unexpected.
One of the world's most famous grimoires, better known by its common name, the Lesser Key of Solomon.
There were generally three ways for someone to become a mage.
First, enroll in a place like Miskatonihak University or the British Mage Council and learn magic.
Mages affiliated with such institutions tended to cooperate with governments to some extent.
...That didn't mean there were no criminal mages among them.
Edward Coffin, the one behind this incident, had come from the British Mage Council, after all.
Second, become an apprentice to a mage or join a mage family or school.
Third, be chosen by a grimoire imbued with mysteries.
Mages valued the third path the most.
That's why, if a regular person became a grimoire's owner, they'd hunt them down and kill them before they could grow strong. ...Well, phrasing it that way wasn't quite accurate.
It wasn't just civilians. Even if another mage acquired a grimoire, if they were weak or unaffiliated with a proper school, family, or organization, others would kill them to steal it.
Of course, lacking a grimoire didn't prevent someone from becoming a mage.
And it wasn't guaranteed that a mage without one was weaker than one with.
But to mages, grimoires were irresistible treasures.
In any case, a mage wielding a grimoire was a rare talent.
The Anomaly Countermeasures Agency currently had two grimoire users on staff.
But one was specialized in rear support due to their personality and grimoire traits.
The other couldn't easily deploy to the field because of their position.
It was classified as a grimoire since it was a book, but whether it truly counted as one was debatable.
That's why having an owner like Yohan, who could actively operate in the field,
and who was willing to cooperate with mages, was undoubtedly a good thing.
"........."
Yohan's calm eyes floated into her mind.
...Though it felt a bit like inviting a tiger into the house.
As Sion mulled this over,
Lee Hye-eun, the new recruit on Team 3, spoke up from beside her with a worried look.
"Team Leader Sion? Are you okay?"
"Ah... Yeah. Just have a lot on my mind."
"Our meeting's over, so how about some coffee?"
Sion nodded with a faint smile.
"Sure. ...Though I'll probably have to work while drinking it."
At those words, a neat bob-cut woman with glasses and a gentle face, walking from the opposite end of the hall, called out.
"I know you're busy, but drinking coffee too often isn't good for you."
She was from the agency's Medical Division and the owner of one of the two grimoires the agency possessed.
To be precise, one of Korea's national grimoires. Min Hwa.
Why was a famous medical text considered a grimoire? The Donguibogam contained not only standard medical knowledge,
but also curses, solitary ritual antidotes, remedies for harm from ghosts, treatments for frequent nightmares, and ways to mash herbs into mysterious elixirs of unknown effect.
From a modern medical perspective, they were absurd folk remedies.
And those elements formed its occult knowledge as a grimoire.
Hye-eun greeted Min Hwa happily upon seeing her.
"Ah! Minmin!"
"Don't call me Minmin, please. It's Min Hwa."
Min Hwa grumbled lightly and handed Sion the documents she was carrying.
"I was heading that way anyway. Perfect timing. Here's the data you asked for last time."
"Yes, thank you."
"Oh, and... did that person from the Monkey Train ghost story incident get resolved okay?"
Monkey Train ghost story—a type of anomaly where nightmares continued even after waking, looping endlessly.
Also called Monkey Dream. Victims would see an amusement park train with a monkey as the engineer in their dreams.
Hypnotized, they'd board, and with each station arrival came the eerie announcement: "Next stop, Evisceration~ Evisceration~."
Passengers in the cars died one by one in the order announced.
Even narrowly waking before their turn, falling asleep again would resume the dream.
"I was meaning to tell you. The report got delayed because we were out on a call."
Sion answered Min Hwa's concerned question in her steady voice.
"They slept on a pillow stuffed with tiger bones, just as you prescribed. A tiger appeared in the dream and tore all the monkeys apart."
"We've been monitoring, just in case, and they haven't had the dream since."
Min Hwa let out a relieved breath amid her surprise.
"A t-tiger? Well, glad it's resolved."
Sion gazed steadily at Min Hwa.
Min Hwa was a grimoire owner, but she was definitely different from the mages Sion had encountered through past incidents.
Probably because of the Donguibogam's nature as a healing text.
Its taste in owners might favor those who wanted to save lives.
Sion and Min Hwa soon exchanged a few brief words and parted ways.
After the camp zombie crisis,
the Special Task Force had planned to house the survivors in the agency lounge.
But when told they were free as long as they didn't wander outside,
Namgoong Sua suddenly pulled out her phone, made a call somewhere, and announced to the church camp group.
"If we're resting anyway, let's do it somewhere nice."
And we all looked up at what was clearly a luxury hotel, the kind wealthy foreign tourists would use.
"It's run by someone my dad knows. Let's go in."
Sua said it like she was entering the corner diner.
The kids whispered as they glanced up at her.
"...Weird. I'm starting to like this sister."
"Don't fall for this, you beggars. Keep your pride."
In response to Sua, the kids muttered,
"...Might hate her again soon."
Ellie hesitated at the hotel's extravagance,
but seeing Sua's exhausted face, she led the kids inside.
I followed along.
It was my first time staying at a place this upscale.
Honestly, I was a little excited.
It was evening now. Time for the hotel's dinner buffet.
Sua's hotel room, bathroom.
Alone at last, Sua lowered her eyes and trembled faintly.
"........."
Even standing in the shower booth, washing her body with warm water, the shaking wouldn't stop.
The fear she'd deliberately hidden from others spread through her.
...They'd made it safely to a secure place.
No, maybe arriving somewhere safe had loosened her tension? She couldn't calm down.
No appetite, no energy.
She changed into fresh clothes, lay on the bed, closed her eyes to sleep—but
'Aaaah...!'
"Haa— Haa—!"
Zombies prowling the camp flooded her mind.
It couldn't happen. This was safe. It was all over.
She feared the hotel lobby might be crawling with zombies.
Sua stared blankly at her smartphone screen.
'Namgoong Soo.' ...No contact from Dad.
Just a brief call from his secretary:
'Glad you're safe~ The chairman was worried too. He's busy, so I called instead.'
Right, resting in a place like this luxury hotel. Expecting him to worry personally was greedy.
The quiet room felt stifling, so Sua stepped out.
Not that she had anywhere to go.
She considered Ellie's room, but... they'd be busy soothing and bedding down the kids.
She didn't want to intrude and be seen as a nuisance.
Ellie wouldn't think that way, but Sua would feel like it anyway.
As she wandered the halls to check if zombies had really appeared in the lobby,
Sua ran into Yohan, his hair still slightly damp from a shower.
"...Uncle? Where are you going?"
"To eat. Saw they have a dinner buffet. Wanna come?"
"Huh?"
Sua blinked as she looked at Yohan.