The Third Class (4)
It was an utterly absurd piece of news.
So ridiculous, in fact, that I almost laughed out loud. Before I’d even sorted out my thoughts, the face of the person who’d put a spell on me rose naturally to mind.
Judging by her personality and everything she’d done so far, the culprit was obvious.
Jung Hayan.
Without a doubt, it was Jung Hayan.
Several guilds and clans came to mind as well, but they wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble for a nobody like me.
The only remotely plausible suspects were the three women obsessed with me, but even among them, Cha Heera—whose position was admittedly a little ambiguous—was out of the running.
It was hard to imagine Cha Heera hiring another mage to track my location, and no matter how I looked at it, she had no reason to do something like this in the first place.
Lee Jihye, another possible suspect, was the same.
Besides, she didn’t have the time or the ability to cast a spell on me.
No, more than that—if someone had truly cast magic on me, I would have noticed.
Put simply, that meant the culprit had to be someone capable of casting a spell without my realizing it.
Which meant they must have slipped into my room while I was resting or asleep and done it then.
And of course, the only person who could have done that was Jung Hayan.
Just picturing her standing over me and whispering an incantation while I slept sent a chill down my spine.
What the hell….
Before I came into the guild house, Hayan had actually come here at night and taken care of all kinds of things, but now that I thought about it, I hadn’t woken up once since moving into the guild house.
Since when was that?
Now that I thought about it, it really was true.
I could have brushed it off as nothing if I wanted to, but once I considered that it might have something to do with Jung Hayan, the whole thing felt oddly unsettling.
If I had never once woken up in the middle of the night after moving into the guild house, was that really a coincidence?
No way it was.
The more I thought about the possibility that she’d come into my room, cast a sleep spell on me, and done who-knows-what, the more absurd it became. I was close to letting out an incredulous cough.
Of course, it was only a theory, but if it all turned out to be true, then ever since coming here she’d effectively been giving me indirect sex education.
Hah….
After I managed to hide my panic and lifted my head a little, I saw a face gone the color of dirt, as if she knew she’d made a huge mistake.
If I were that woman, I’d have had the same reaction.
To put it in modern terms, it was as if I’d just told someone that a jealous wife had hired a private detective to keep tabs on her husband.
I couldn’t tell exactly how innocent my relationship with Jung Hayan might have looked to others, but her expression suggested she was nervously reading my face.
Steeling my rattled nerves, I opened my mouth again.
I needed to know more about this problem.
“Could you explain it a little more carefully?”
“Huh? Y-yes?”
Figuring out the exact circumstances was the most important thing. That way I could be more careful too.
“So, um… that is….”
“I’d appreciate the details.”
“That….”
Her hesitation only made me more uneasy.
I was worried there might be some hidden function I didn’t know about. Of course, I’d never heard of anything like wiretapping on this continent, but if it was Jung Hayan, then I wouldn’t have put it past her to develop an entirely new kind of magic.
“It’s a little ha-harder to say exactly, but… would that be all right?”
“It’s fine. I was surprised, but… I want to know. I’d actually guessed something like this might be the case… and it doesn’t bother me all that much.”
“If you put it that way, then I really should tell you. I-it really did surprise me.”
“Yes. Hayan is a little too jealous, and… I think that’s probably why she cast the spell.”
“Oh my. Well, there have been rumors about you and the Mercenary Queen, haven’t there? I can definitely u-understand that.”
“…….”
“I did wonder why she’d hidden it so tightly….”
“Pardon?”
“Ordinary people probably wouldn’t have noticed. Especially anyone like an inspector—they wouldn’t even realize a spell had been cast on you. Mages are the same. Unless they’re the sort of person who’s sensitive to mana like I am, or… well, unless they’re a fairly exceptional mage, it would be hard to detect. The spell was laid so systematically and intricately that it’s nearly impossible to notice. If your mana level isn’t above eighty, you’d probably have just passed right over it. The mana itself is incredibly faint, and above all, it’s been designed to blend into the unique mana wavelength you already possess.”
“Ah….”
“Honestly, even I find it interesting. I never thought magic could be used this way, but the rumors about her being a genius weren’t lies after all. She’s in a slightly different field from me, so it wouldn’t be easy to imitate. It makes sense that you didn’t notice, too… especially if you’re an alchemist.”
“Yes….”
“Still, I can tell you what kind of magic was cast. The spell itself borrowed from basic formulas, after all.”
“Yes, yes.”
“First, as I mentioned, there’s a location-tracking spell. Just as the name suggests, it’s designed to identify the other person’s rough position. That part isn’t really all that remarkable, but the second spell is rather interesting, even to me.”
“What is it?”
“It’s similar to the kind of magic used to create a safe zone inside a dungeon. Think of it as a spell that rings an alarm when a living being enters a certain radius. I’d say the range is about fifty centimeters… to put it simply, if someone approaches you within a certain area, it sends a signal. Of course, it doesn’t tell you what actually happened….”
“I see.”
“Usually, a spell like this requires some kind of catalyst—part of the target’s body, blood, something like that. You didn’t give her anything like that, did you?”
“What happens if there’s no catalyst?”
“Using this kind of spell without one is impossible. The reason this spell is so hard to detect is precisely because it’s been altered into a form similar to your own mana wavelength. Especially with the location-tracking spell, a catalyst is absolutely essential. Without it… the spell can’t even activate….”
“I do remember something….”
“I knew it….”
“Would hair count? For example, fingernails?”
“No. A single strand of hair wouldn’t be enough. She’d need a clump, at least.”
I certainly didn’t remember handing over a clump of hair.
Still, there was something else that came to mind.
Once, in a dungeon, I’d seen Jung Hayan picking up one of my teeth.
Thinking about that made the whole thing feel even more absurd.
At the time, I hadn’t thought anything of it, but I’d never imagined it would lead to this kind of result.
Come to think of it, whenever I was with Lee Jihye, it also felt as if a spell had been on me.
It wasn’t that I’d noticed any strange tension between us—it was that I’d realized Lee Jihye had entered the range Jung Hayan had set.
So that’s what it was.
Jung Hayan had glared at Lee Jihye as if she wanted to kill her because she’d stepped into the boundary.
“Oh my. That seems a little excessive for jealousy… I… I don’t know what to say.”
For someone who sounded worried, she looked rather interested.
The best comparison I could think of was the face of a mother watching a makjang drama.
“Ahem… just to be sure, there isn’t any kind of spell that lets her hear what’s being said here or monitor the situation, is there?”
“No. There are only the two spells I mentioned. It’s really quite ingenious. Even I’m amazed… I can’t believe a rookie who’d only just arrived here managed to complete magic like this. Of course, it was possible because the mana cost for maintaining it is so low… but this is practically worthy of a scholarly paper.”
The title of that paper would be How to Stalk Your Boyfriend.
“Mm….”
“I think I could dispel it if you wanted me to… what would you like me to do?”
“No, that’s fine for now.”
“Oh dear. You must be the type who likes being restrained. It’s a little odd, but somehow romantic.”
Romantic, my ass.
That was the reality of it.
It was an extremely shocking piece of news, but it was so ridiculous that I’d somehow grown calm instead. I already knew she was obsessed with me to some extent. Maybe something was wrong with my personality, but if this was the price for being able to control Jung Hayan perfectly, then it really wasn’t that bad.
Of course, that didn’t mean I wasn’t creeped out. There was a hard-to-explain sense of revulsion, but… I could pretend not to notice this much.
In any case, learning that a spell like this had been placed on me was a blessing in disguise.
Now I was curious whether there might be other devices in my room.
“If it’s all right with you, would you come up to my room with me?”
“Huh?”
She seemed to be giving me a wary look, and that only made me more bewildered.
“Th-that is, I mean, thank you for the suggestion, but that’s a little sudden, and… honestly, it’s kind of shocking. That doesn’t mean you aren’t attractive or anything, but… you already have so many women around you… and, well, if I’m being honest, there’s a certain romance to joining in on something like this, I guess, but my type is a little more on the big, warm side….”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Ah.”
“I was hoping you could tell me whether any magic has been cast on my room.”
“A-ahh… right. Of course.”
Once again, I was reminded that Park Deokgu’s scent had somehow attached itself to a strange woman.
“Then let’s go up together! I’d wanted to see the workshop that apparently cost a fortune anyway. Today’s my lucky day.”
“Yes. Mine as well.”
If not for her, I still wouldn’t have known I was under this kind of magic.
When I rose from my seat, I caught sight of Hwang Jeongyeon following me with unmistakably excited eyes.
For me, this was a serious matter, but the woman in front of me looked as if she were watching a drama shoot.
As we climbed to the second floor, my steps grew heavier for reasons I couldn’t quite name, but it was better to settle everything properly in one go.
“So this is the lodging used by the Seventh Party. It’s very nice, just as I heard.”
“I’ve never actually seen the other members’ quarters, so it’s hard for me to compare.”
After peering around the place for a while, the woman stopped in front of Park Deokgu’s room.
Thinking she might have noticed something, I glanced at her face, only to find her smiling faintly at me.
No, that can’t be….
I could only pray the worst image in my head wouldn’t come true.
Either way, my target wasn’t Park Deokgu’s room. It was mine.
Keeping my face deliberately neutral, I opened the door, and the familiar sight of my room came into view.
Books of all kinds were scattered across the desk, with a pile of equipment stacked up beside them. It was obvious I hadn’t been keeping it clean, and that somehow made me feel awkward, but cleaning it now would only make me look even stranger.
“It’s a really neat room.”
“Yes….”
“My, you seem to have more books than I do….”
“I gave up on reading about half of them.”
“Still, studying is a good thing. Ah, my mind’s gone blank. You wanted me to check whether a similar spell had been cast, right?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Just a moment.”
She filled her eyes with mana and looked around the room again and again.
I hadn’t expected her to search this carefully. She must have been consciously wary of Jung Hayan’s magical talent.
After a little while, Hwang Jeongyeon’s expression began to shift in a very peculiar way.
It looked as though she was trying to suppress a laugh, and also as if she found the whole thing fascinating.
At times, there was even a look of surprise there, which only made my unease worse.
In the end, after surveying the room, she carefully opened her mouth toward me.
“There is something.”
“What?”
“I can see it on the walls and the bed.”
“…….”