Dragon and Taoist
"Hmm. Just as I thought. So that was it."
I glanced up at the ginkgo tree, which had swollen so vast that its crown had vanished from sight, and opened my mouth.
The tree that had stood so elegantly in the exact center of the hanok now felt like a colossal mass of mana, radiating something mystical and alive. This place was clearly a space the two of them had created with the mana of that ginkgo. Fashioning something like this by pure human effort would have demanded unimaginable labor, yet they seemed to have used the enormous, ancient tree itself as the catalyst. Because they had woven the space out of something that already belonged to nature, there would naturally have been limits to what the mana sensors in my lair could detect.
Or maybe I simply had never encountered anything like this in my life, so I just didn't know.
"Hmm. You must be quite sensitive to mana to have felt that power in the space of a single breath. As expected, our granddaughter brought us a fine guest."
Grandfather, who until now had not spoken a single word in front of us, revealed himself midair, walking on empty space. His clothes were the same dignified suit as before, yet the mana rolling off him was equal to Ha-yan's, or perhaps a shade higher. Grandmother stood demurely before the ginkgo as if she had been waiting all along; she was the same.
I walked up to them and pouted.
"Even if no one else, Ha-yan and the other three exchange students are all mages. Was there really a need to drag only me out here like this?"
The colossal ginkgo and the unidentifiable fog that filled this place were not reality. I could not tell exactly what magic they had used, but as a dragon my guess was that we had slipped into a private space reserved for the two of them alone—something that used a gap in space and was unbound by outside time.
Grandfather floated gently down to the ground, smiled faintly, and spoke in a calm voice.
"Hoho. My wife and I completely severed ties with those people long ago. We had no desire to poke a sleeping hornet's nest."
"And me?"
"Weren't you the sort who already disliked those people about as much as we do?"
"..."
I answered Grandmother by saying nothing at all.
"Let's sit and talk for a while. This side is completely cut off from the other, so we have all the time we could want."
When Grandmother flicked the long, flowing sleeves of her hanbok through the air, a table and a spread of tea and snacks appeared in front of me in an instant. Since things had already come this far, I decided I might as well dig for information. I sat down and wet my lips with the tea.
Honestly, it had been strange from the beginning. A plot of land this size should never have been able to contain a hanok of this scale. And rich people who owned such a massive traditional house? Plus servants who only ever worked inside? No—strictly speaking, they were not human. Though they looked a little different, they were similar to Rhea. On top of that there was the mana I could sense in the air, faint to the point of vanishing. At first I had assumed the kids behind me were simply leaking mana because they were excited about their first trip, but the moment I took Grandmother's hand I knew.
"Yes. To start with, we are mages, as those people would put it. But we do not call ourselves that."
Grandfather also took a sip of tea and spoke to me. I raised a questioning brow and asked back.
"Then what do you call yourselves?"
"Doesn't it appear in all the old novels? 'Taoist.' There's no difference in the fact that we use mana, but the magic we practice runs on a slightly different track from the people in other countries."
"Aha. I see."
But why aren't you panicking at all?
Well… these were the first other mages—no, Taoists—of the Republic of Korea that I had ever met, yet it was not enough to make me jump out of my skin. It was not as if I were seeing someone I should not. And I had a dragon's dignity to maintain. Still, the two of them clearly believed I was nothing more than an ordinary human. Having no particular desire to correct that impression, I steered the conversation to the point.
There were several questions, but first things first.
"Why do you deliberately live in hiding? Are all the other mages—no, Taoists—doing the same?"
Why on earth were there no mages publicly active in the Republic of Korea besides Ha-yan and her mother? Either they refrained from using magic so completely that my lair's sensors never caught them, or, like this case, they created an entirely separate dimension so the magic would never register.
At my question the two of them smiled, and Grandfather answered with a question of his own.
"In living your life right now, is there any situation in which you absolutely must use magic?"
"..."
That single remark made everything clear. When I stayed silent, Grandfather simply smiled with quiet dignity, as if to say that was the whole of it.
Then the next question.
"Why did you deliberately reveal yourselves to me?"
"Hoho. We thought we might be able to help a little with the information you're looking for. Partly because you get along so well with our granddaughter, and it was nice seeing you walking around with that young lady named Lee Ha-yan."
"All of a sudden?"
"We've been watching you for quite a long time—longer than you think. You've been with our granddaughter since elementary school; did you really believe we wouldn't know? We've lived long enough that we can sense even the speck of another person's mana that came in with her. And no matter how skilled you are with magic, we have our own trump cards. One of them was the mana of another person—your mana—that our granddaughter brought in, just a trace of it. You couldn't do it, but we could. Isn't that right?"
"..."
My dragon pride took a small hit. I couldn't do anything like that. If I had known how, I would already have catalogued every mage still left in the Republic of Korea. As I sat there looking sullen, Grandfather spoke again.
"That strange-feeling mana stone that appeared at the school our granddaughter attends. You're researching it right now, aren't you?"
"…You felt that as well?"
"Hoho. Didn't I just tell you? That's our specialty."
"Honestly, even we don't know how that thing was made. One thing is certain: a mana stone like that can never form easily in a natural state. If it could, those other mage bastards would never have sat still. You agree, don't you?"
"…Yes."
Of course. If they could manufacture those so easily, the ones underground in Antarctica would already be up to every kind of mischief, scouring the entire world for mana stones.
"In that case there aren't many other possibilities left. Artificial, yet extremely difficult—and that mana stone sitting dead-center in the athletic field of the high school attended by the Republic of Korea's only publicly known mage."
"I've already been thinking along those lines."
"Looks like you know more than I expected. Then we don't have all that much to tell you. Just… as you well know, those mage types keep a great deal hidden inside. Plenty of mad ones among them, too."
"What do you mean by that?"
Grandfather erased the smile from his lips and spoke in a low voice.
"Think about what the mages of other countries did after the mages of the Republic of Korea almost completely vanished. The answer should come to you roughly, shouldn't it? Who is targeting the two of you right now. The ones capable of planting a foul mana stone like that right in the middle of a school athletic field without a high-level person like you ever noticing."
"..."
With Grandfather's final words I was able to pin down a definite answer among several possibilities. I knew it. Those bastards…?
As I ground my teeth a little, Grandmother spoke this time.
"Hoho. Don't take it too seriously, though. With your abilities you could handle people of that level while chewing gum. And to begin with, how many mages in this world would even dare pick a fight with you?"
I asked the two of them various other questions after that, yet nothing strayed far beyond what I already knew. They themselves had made a great deal of money through magic in various ways, and they said they no longer had any intention of returning to the secular world.
"Is there anything you want?"
"Something we want? Hoho. There's nothing like that."
I wanted to offer some kind of repayment to the two who had given me such a clear realization when my thoughts had been tangled, but they simply shook their heads.
"Want something? What would an old man who already retreated into the mountains and lives quietly without even using much magic possibly want?"
"Hoho. We just want you to keep having fun at school with our granddaughter. When you drop by and surprise us like this every now and then, it keeps us from getting bored—so it's good for us."
"…Thank you."
I simply bowed my head a little to the two other mages and offered my thanks. They wanted nothing, and they already had money—not as much as our company, but enough—so handing them a gift would have felt strange.
At my greeting the two of them wore gentle, kind smiles.
"Shall we head back now? Oof. Using magic after so long is tiring. Still, it's fortunate we have this ginkgo. Long-lived trees sometimes generate mana on their own, you see."
Grandfather answered the question mark that had appeared on my face. Oh. Another useful piece of information. A natural vessel, was it?
"Then when we return we'll simply chat as usual, so you hang around casually as well and then head home."
"Yes, yes. Thank you."
It had been a sudden meeting, yet I had learned good information. In an instant I returned to reality, and before time that had not moved at all I was able to greet Ha-yan, who was smiling brightly. She grabbed my hand and pulled me along as she spoke.
"Photos! We have to take photos! That ginkgo tree is a natural monument! Ji-yeon said she brought a really high-performance camera, so we can take a picture that fits the whole tree!"
"Okay. If that's the case, we absolutely have to take them!"
I grinned and walked with Ha-yan toward the base of the ginkgo where the other kids were clustered together. Toward us gathered under it, Grandfather—who had somehow already approached holding a camera—called out in a booming voice.
"Alright!! Everyone's here!! Strike your poses… I'm taking it!!"
"Kimchi~~~!!!"
It was a little sudden, but still.
The full-fledged start of a fun summer vacation had begun.