014 – I Am an Army # 3
014 - I Am an Army # 3
There is a scary illustration!
Although the Korean magic world was exceptionally closed off.
Once someone became a Tiger Hazard Grade magician, making around 100 million won a year was child's play.
For someone of the level of male shaman Choi Janggun, whom VIP big shots made reservations to visit, his income was more than double that.
It was thanks to this reputation that he was able to take on the request of President Kim Manchun, a famous figure in the restaurant industry.
The reward for this job was a whopping four big ones.
For Janggun Choi, who was in desperate need of cash after acquiring a building, it was an opportunity like no other.
'The problem is that I have to share the table.'
Yu Gain and Cho Sena.
At the appearance of these two, who were fairly skilled in their own right, Janggun Choi grew nervous.
Even though the reward for solving this case was generous, it might be insufficient if split three ways.
However.
Janggun Choi quickly changed his mind.
'Yu Gain, that snot-nosed brat doesn't look like he came here out of greed for money.'
According to Janggun Choi's intelligence network, Yu Gain was a guy who wouldn't be interested in the reward for this job.
In fact, he had stated that he joined not for the money, but because of his connection with President Kim Manchun.
Which meant he might readily decline his share of the resolution reward.
Then what about Cho Sena?
Anyone could tell just from her appearance that she was someone who ran a business.
For such a person to target money was as natural as a magpie coveting grain fallen in front of a mill.
'Do I have to split it with that cunning bitch?'
Suaaaaa-.
Janggun Choi quickly turned the gears in his head as he walked through the cold underground refrigerated storage facility.
And he reached a certain conclusion.
'No, that vixen doesn't look like she came here simply targeting money either. Bitches like her don't do hard manual labor to earn money.'
Since ancient times, the magic world treated and valued women more highly.
It was due to the physical characteristics unique to female magicians.
That was why female magicians were often noble, haughty, and prickly.
Someone of Cho Sena's status would be even more so.
A female magician who was rich and skilled enough to run her own business, who didn't even seem close with President Kim Manchun—would she really lower her dignity and put in manual labor just for money?
There was only one answer.
'Cho Sena, this wench! She must have overheard somewhere that young master Yu Gain was coming to this request! She came here to build a connection with Yu Gain!'
Janggun Choi snapped his fingers, convinced he was right.
For Cho Sena, who came to form a relationship with a Prominent Family, whether she received the money from this request or not wouldn't matter much.
That meant the chances of Janggun Choi taking most or a large share of the reward were high.
However, a problem arose.
The emergence of the Transfer Student wearing Cooking Foil Armor lined inside his tracksuit.
Squalor itself.
He looked like he would sink his spit-covered teeth into the lump of meat Janggun Choi was eyeing and shake it violently.
"Tsk. That bastard Kim Manchun, no matter how blind he is with rage over his daughter, how could he invite a stray dog with no roots to sit at the table with us?"
Tsking, Janggun Choi rounded his lips.
And when he blew a whistle—Hwiii-—the footprints visible beyond his sunglasses grew slightly darker.
'I just need to resolve this quickly so that stray dog bastard can't even dare to demand a share of the reward.'
He was confident.
Janggun Choi was a male shaman.
He had resolved countless possession cases occurring in Korea.
"Now, where are you? Hwiiiiii-."
Find the spirit possessing President Kim's daughter, talk to convince it, and relieve its soul and resentment—.
For Janggun Choi, it was easier than pie.
"Hwiiiiii-."
In front of Janggun Choi, who was whistling like that.
Between the pigs hanging on hooks and growing cold.
A woman with long hair appeared.
Janggun Choi pulled out a bell from his trousers pocket, held it forward, and shook it.
"If you are human, speak, and if you are a ghost, stay right there!"
The bell was one without a clapper inside, so it normally made no sound.
However, it was a ritual artifact that produced sound under special circumstances.
Ttal-lang-ttal-lang-.
This time, a sound rang out.
Aha.
So this one is a spiritual entity.
It must be President Kim's daughter, Kim Yeonseo, and the ghost taking over her body!
It seemed the direction of the footprints Janggun Choi had chosen to follow was correct.
Thinking he was hit with extraordinary good luck, he raised his voice as if sternly reprimanding her.
"Who are you!"
"I am..."
The sinister woman, whose face was completely hidden by long hair so that even her expression could not be discerned, opened her mouth.
And in the next instant—.
"━─am."
An incomprehensible voice came out.
Janggun Choi let out a sigh.
Because if what possessed her was a 'foreign spirit', circumstances would be different.
Korean spirits wandering the world due to han often ended things smoothly if one listened to their reasons and solved the cause.
Foreign ones were often filled with nothing but malice, and in such cases, many people ended up injured or dead.
"Kim Manchun locked her up well. If she were let loose like this, several people would have been hurt."
Janggun Choi drew back the bell.
And he pulled out a talisman from the pouch at his waist and held it forward.
"Let's finish this quickly and go home."
It was a talisman written every day between the hour of the Ox and the hour of the Rabbit using ink ground with dew gathered on peach tree branches.
If it was a Twilight Grade mystery, it was a subjugation talisman that could exorcise spirits without any special devotion or shamanic ritual.
That would be more than enough.
"Aaaah! Aaaaaah!"
Indeed, the lesser ghost writhed in pain in front of the yellow-dyed paper talisman like a person set ablaze.
And finally collapsed onto the floor with a thud.
"Looks like I can leave before the sun sets."
At the thought of returning home early, the corners of Janggun Choi's mouth curled up into a grin.
However, something strange happened.
Ttal-lang-ttal-lang-.
The bell that shouldn't ring began ringing again.
Ttal-lang-ttal-lang-ttal-lang-ttal-lang-.
The intensity of its violent shaking was exceptionally extraordinary.
"...What the?"
Janggun Choi frowned at this bizarre situation.
In front of him, Ta-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-.
An infinite number of footprints began to stamp down.
And from the mouth of the woman who had just collapsed—.
"Aaaaaah! So hungry, it hurts, aaaaaah!"
"Grrrrrr."
"Meowwww."
"¡Comámonos a ese tipo!"
Voices of animals and various languages burst out simultaneously.
The footprints even completely filled the floor around Janggun Choi, filling up the walls and ceiling as well.
"Th-Th-Th-..."
Janggun Choi could no longer speak coherently.
Because even he had never seen anything like this in his entire life.
The only thing certain was that this was by no means a mere Twilight Grade request.
Janggun Choi screamed with that as his final thought.
"Guaaaah... D-Don't come inside meeeeee!"
# # #
"Didn't you just hear something like a scream somewhere?"
I asked about the sharp noise that grazed my ears.
Then Cho Sena looked away from the strange mechanical device and glared at me.
"I'm measuring entropy right now, so would you stop talking to me?"
"Oh, I know entropy very well. So what is it?"
"...Ha. Entropy is the degree of order. In places where psychic phenomena or anomalies appear, entropy levels surge and cause disorder."
Entropy.
It was a word I was hearing for the first time in my life, but I roughly understood the principle.
Whatever it was, it meant detecting ghosts with that radiation detector-like device, right?
"Though maybe it's broken, since the count measurement isn't working well. Is it because it's too cold here? Or maybe the entities here are such low-grade spirits that it can't measure them."
The malfunction of the entropy meter.
I wondered if it was because Boribori was lingering around us.
Since Boribori was an invisible demon.
'Wait, but if there's a demon, shouldn't the entropy level be soaring...?'
Unless that detector was broken, Boribori seemed to be an existence that didn't even affect that weird entropy meter.
He wasn't just transparent.
Tapping and slapping the device, Cho Sena shoved it into her handbag, seemingly annoyed.
"Ah, damn it! Coming through the middle path was the problem after all! Because you spouted nonsense about footprints being in the middle too, I had to come along with you!"
Footprints stretched to the left and right, and also stretched toward the center.
Of course, it seemed I was the only one who could see the ones stretching toward the center.
"Then why didn't you just go to the right like you wanted?"
"Gain-ssi was going to the right, so he asked me to go to the center with you and look after you a bit. Truth is, I wanted to go with Gain-ssi."
Apparently, Cho Sena wanted to be with that handsome Yu Gain from earlier.
Does she like him?
No, rather than that, it felt like she was hoping for some leftover benefits.
I knew it the moment I saw it, because she had that slick expression on her face just like Team Leader Jeong, the head sommelier at the Michelin restaurant where I worked, whenever he served VIP guests who visited occasionally.
"If you listen to him, assist me, and finish the job well, you'll be forming at least a tiny connection with him, so isn't it actually not much of a loss for Cho Sena-ssi either?"
I asked slyly.
At that, Cho Sena opened her mouth into an 'O' shape with a dumbfounded expression.
"You look younger than me, so where do you get off casually dropping formal speech with me? You don't seem to know this, but don't just speak informally to female magicians recklessly, got it?"
"Why?"
"Look at this guy."
"...-yo?"
"Ha, unbelievable. Male magicians are dirt cheap in the marriage market. Even if men have children, the chances of their kids carrying on the line as magicians are low. But female magicians unconditionally give birth to magicians."
Really? Female magicians unconditionally give birth to magicians—.
Although I was a novice and a Transfer Student, I wasn't so much of a fool as to not know what those words implied.
With a slightly surprised heart, I looked at Cho Sena-ssi.
A woman who could unconditionally give birth to a magician as long as she gave birth.
Incredible!
Whether she felt slightly flattered by my gaze, Cho Sena babbled on about things I hadn't even asked.
"When magicians keep giving birth to magicians over a long period, carrying on the family line and building achievements and accomplishments, it becomes a magical lineage, and is called a 'Prominent Family'."
"And that Yu Gain is from such a Prominent Family?"
"Yeah! Do you know how long that family's lineage has been passed down? Normally, people like you, me, and that male shaman Choi Janggun wouldn't even be able to lock eyes with him, let alone speak to him!"
"Wow, that guy was an insanely incredible person."
"'That guy'? Watch your mouth. Don't go acting all friendly trying to pick up leftover scraps."
"While you're the one trying to pick up leftovers yourself."
"Look at you, yooooou?"
Cho Sena crumpled her face in annoyance.
However, the reason I couldn't continue speaking was because I felt a strange inkling.
"By the way, noona, isn't the basement too wide?"
"Noona? Look at this brazen brat. But it definitely is wide. Bizarrely so. It seems this basement itself has turned into a strange space."
"Like the basement of the Dori Building?"
"Dori... You know that place? Well, if you know that place, I guess there's no need to explain further."
At this moment, I came to know a bit more about this person named Cho Sena.
Although she grumbled and acted picky, she answered everything I asked and ultimately didn't leave the side of a beginner in this field like me.
Even if it might be out of a desire to look good to Yu Gain, who had asked her to accompany me.
She doesn't seem like a very bad person.
So it'd probably be good for me to cooperate with this woman too.
"Noona."
"What."
"From now on, listen only to my words."
"What are you talking about?"
"Never look up, look at the floor. The footprints I saw are running up the walls and leading onto the ceiling."
Cho Sena's face slowly stiffened.
Her head and gaze naturally turned toward the floor.
"When I yell three, dive behind me with all your strength. One—."
Cho Sena swallowed hard.
"Three!"
"Hey, you son of a━─!"
Cho Sena dived toward me with all her strength.
As she tumbled with a thud—Kwadang-—I pulled out the water bottle I had brought from my waist.