Gabyul, I'll Definitely Save You·····! (2)
How was he supposed to save Kim Gabyul from that despicable black mage?
After turning the problem over carefully at home, he managed to come up with several approaches.
The first was to use force. Black mages were generally weak in close combat, so the idea was to close the distance and subdue him in a single stroke. Fortunately, he had confidence in his own combat ability, which made this option relatively easy to pursue.
The second was to report him to the police. That, however, would require evidence.
The third was to leverage his connections. He was surrounded by holy magic users — he himself was the president of the Holy Magic Club, for one. Plenty of holy practitioners ground their teeth at the mere mention of black magic; if he so much as dropped a hint, any number of them would foam at the mouth and come running.
The problem was that every one of those people was an outsider to the Academy. Going after Baek Sejin while he remained under Academy protection would not be simple. And if they did, noise would inevitably follow — reporters would smell a story and swarm. In the end, his vow to save Kim Gabyul would only be half fulfilled. He might extract her from Baek Sejin's grasp, but he would not be able to protect her reputation.
Kim Gabyul, the holy magic user who suffered this and that at the hands of a black mage — that disgraceful, humiliating label would cling to her forever.
He would never allow that.
Gabyul was still young. He did not want her to be hurt any further.
In the end, if he was going to free Kim Gabyul from that man, he would have to approach him himself.
Daydreaming about useless nonsense again? Wouldn't swinging your sword even once be more useful than that?
"U-useless nonsense? Gabyul is in danger right now!"
Well, Gabriel hasn't said anything particular about it.
Transcendent Beings were not meant to be viewed through a human lens. What barely registered as a problem to a Transcendent Being could be a catastrophe to a human being.
How could he free Gabyul from that man and still handle everything quietly?
He ended up staying awake the entire night, piecing together a plan.
First priority: get close to him. Gathering information on the man was the most urgent task.
Was there anyone among the first-year recruits of the Holy Magic Club who knew him? If so, things would become much easier — he could start with a solid foundation of information already in hand.
The problem was that people involved enough with holy magic to join the Holy Magic Club were extremely unlikely to be acquainted with a black mage. Black mages and holy practitioners were like oil and water; under ordinary circumstances, neither side sought the other out.
He would ask around first. If no one knew anything, he would simply have to act on his own.
When he questioned the members, it turned out that most of the first-years already knew who Baek Sejin was. The man was rather famous among the first-year class. Someone had even witnessed him casting black magic on a massive scale during the recent career-experience outing the first-years had attended. From what he heard, the entire space had been swallowed in darkness.
A black mage of that caliber — no wonder Gabyul had fallen prey. She simply did not have the experience he did yet. And that only made Baek Sejin all the more despicable. For a black mage that skilled to toy with a holy practitioner who had not yet fully matured… it was nothing short of a provocation against every holy magic user alive.
To approach Baek Sejin, he decided he would have to start from a distance and close in slowly. So he waited until dismissal.
He intended to follow Baek Sejin and learn what the man did with his ordinary days.
The moment the final homeroom ended, he climbed up to the rooftop and fixed his gaze on the Academy's main gate. The Academy had only one entrance; anyone leaving for the day had no choice but to pass through it.
Wouldn't it be better to just overpower him with force from the start? Settling things in combat is simpler.
"Be quiet for a second, Camael."
Camael had offered yet another useless piece of advice. Indiscriminate violence on Academy grounds was grounds for disciplinary action. If a second-year laid hands on a first-year — or a third-year on a first- or second-year — the severity of the punishment could spiral out of control. What would have ended as campus community service between students of the same year could escalate all the way to suspension.
Camael really did love combat far too much. That was the problem.
He waited, and eventually a man emerged from the Academy main building alongside Kim Gabyul. Her distinctive white hair was easy to spot even from the rooftop. By contrast, the man walking out with her had black hair — a sharp counterpoint to her white. That black-haired man had to be Baek Sejin.
How dare he lay a hand on Gabyul — who was practically family…?
Once past the main gate, the two of them exchanged a few words and then parted ways.
That was enough for today. He came down from the rooftop.
He could not close the distance all at once. He had to approach carefully — carefully enough that the man would never even think to react. He had to move like a cat stalking its prey. That was how he would raise his odds of saving Gabyul.
Of course, he could not afford to give the black mage too much time — but exposing his own information was even more dangerous. In that sense, the text he had sent Gabyul yesterday had been a risky move. He had always kept in contact with her, so he did not think the man would find anything particularly strange about it… but from the perspective of someone who had to treat every single action with caution, it had been considerably dangerous.
Yesterday's misjudgment still ached. He had acted far too rashly.
For the past few days, he had felt as though something was watching him.
It was not a particularly unusual sensation. He had always drawn attention from those around him — for better or for worse. In other words, there had always been people watching him. The sense that those gazes had grown a little more numerous — perhaps considerably more — he simply chalked up to his condition being a bit sensitive lately.
It made sense. He had been living quite quietly of late; there was no real reason for the stares to increase. These days, even around Seong Hyeon, no incidents or accidents had cropped up. He was spending his days in genuine peace.
Lunchtime arrived once again, and he paid a visit to the library.
He had been coming here often recently. For gathering information about this world, nothing beat a library. Warna Academy's library held material on summoning arts, alchemy, holy magic, ordinary magic — even the world's shamanic practices and a modest amount on black magic. For someone trying to familiarize himself with a wide range of supernatural abilities, there was nothing better.
The relative scarcity of information on black magic was a mild disappointment, but he could always learn from Marbas, so it hardly mattered.
He ran his fingers along the spines of the books on the shelves, scanning for anything that caught his interest.
"Hmm…"
Then something rather intriguing entered his field of view.
The Duality of the Grim Reaper
A Grim Reaper… was that the being commonly known to the public as a demon — the one said to harvest death?
A Grim Reaper, is it? Even among our kind, that one is rather peculiar.
If Marbas was saying that much, just what kind of secrets was a Grim Reaper hiding?
A tremendous wave of curiosity washed over him. He pulled the book free, found a suitable seat, and opened it.
The author of this volume, Thomas Nolan, is one of America's most distinguished holy magic practitioners…
The first page introduced the author. Apparently a famous holy magic user — Baek Sejin was fairly certain he had seen the name in some other book before. If even he, who had only recently been transmigrated into this world, recognized it, the man had to be quite well-known.
The Grim Reaper — also known in Korean as the psychopomp or death messenger — is frequently depicted as a skeletal figure bearing a massive scythe. This imagery originates from…
It seemed the Grim Reaper of this world did not differ greatly from the one of the world he had come from.
Hm?
He felt a gaze from the person seated nearby. A blonde woman kept glancing at him while pretending to read her book.
Well, his face did have a way of drawing the eye.
In this way, the true nature of the Grim Reaper is not that of a death-dealing demon as popularly imagined, but merely an angel who reaps life. Yet owing to that very duality, the Grim Reaper exhibits one distinguishing characteristic…
"Oh…?"
That characteristic is this: though the Grim Reaper is unmistakably an angel, it simultaneously employs black mana…
Of course, I wish to make clear that this is merely my own conjecture — that of Thomas Nolan. Historically, contractors of the Grim Reaper have been quite rare, though not entirely nonexistent. According to the records, every contractor of the Grim Reaper wielded holy power. Yet it is also true that, on occasion, records exist of some among them employing black mana. I interpret this as the result of the Grim Reaper being an angel who governs the concept of death, while simultaneously being influenced by the popular image of the Grim Reaper as a "demon"…
"Holy power and black mana at the same time? How interesting."
At his murmured words, the blonde woman gave a violent start.
…?
Wondering what was going on, he glanced over — only to find the blonde woman had buried her face in her book and was slumped over the desk, apparently asleep. She must have been quite exhausted.