The Magician and the Wheel Are All in How You Use Them (1)
To get straight to the conclusion: the scheme Silhouette had set in motion was surprisingly modest.
A dampening of Lee Jun's perception, and a few hallucinations planted on Seo Yoon.
It was even less than he'd expected, which honestly left him a little taken aback.
"See? I told you I barely did anything."
Seo Yoon looked somehow unsatisfied at the sight of her appearing so serenely unbothered.
"This thing is… some kind of spirit?"
"'This thing'? You call me Lady Silhouette."
"……."
Seo Yoon found herself struck speechless by Silhouette's breezy retort.
She probably couldn't fathom why someone she'd fought to the death was acting like this now. To be fair, that part didn't quite make sense to Lee Jun either—but still. The woman had sworn a mana oath. That had to count for something.
"About that mana oath, sir. Is it really binding? What if…"
"It's a vow I staked my life on. Don't go trivializing it. It's insulting."
Insulting, my ass.
Pok—
Lee Jun flicked the palm-sized miniature Silhouette square on the forehead. The tiny head wobbled wildly side to side from the single flick.
"Hey!"
"Well, either way, this whole affair did confirm you're still good for something."
"Hmph. Keep that up, and one day you'll be beating the ground in regret."
"Yeah, right."
That first part, though, was no joke.
Hallucinations. For Lee Jun, residing as she was in his heart, it was easy enough. But not for Seo Yoon.
The fact that Silhouette could plant hallucinations on someone standing a fair distance away meant the ability had applications for all sorts of future situations.
Blinding an opponent's eyes mid-battle, for one.
She'd even fooled Yelena and Evrah with it—so the performance was beyond question.
"Hohoho, so you finally recognize my usefulness?"
"You'd damn well better be useful. You're the hidden piece of the Gate."
"…Do you really have to treat me like that?"
It wasn't overdoing it. It was simply the truth.
She had nearly gotten him killed, after all.
And ever since then, she'd kept rattling around in his skull. It would be stranger not to be wary.
"Well, I get why you're anxious. I did cut off your wrist back in the day, Assistant."
"You deliberately steered things that way, but… yes, it did get cut."
"Ugh, take better care of your body, would you?"
"You're the one who nagged me into trying that severance magic."
"…Right. That was magic, wasn't it."
Yelena's eyes slid discreetly away. There were moments when that girl seemed like the craziest one of them all.
"A-anyway! You said you were curious whether the mana oath was real or not, right? That much I can verify for you, so don't worry!"
"Stop changing the subject."
"What are you talking about! That's what our conversation was about from the start!"
With that declaration, she snatched the floating Silhouette right out of the air.
The tiny third-rate spirit-shaped Silhouette had no choice but to be clamped tight in Yelena's hand.
"Wh-what are you doing!"
"Hold still. I'll make it painless~"
"Urk! Hey!"
Yelena wore what could only be described as a somewhat… perverted expression as she traced her hand over Silhouette's body. A magic circle bloomed in the empty air.
"What I just cast is a hand seal. The lowest tier of the three methods of magic."
As Yelena said, there were three ways to invoke magic.
Hand seals, incantations, and circle-casting.
Circle-casting—drawing a magic array in advance to trigger large-scale spells—could be set aside. Of the remaining two, hand seals were easier than incantation.
And the highest form of invocation, of course, was using neither at all: the silent cast.
However… linking hand seals into a fully drawn array, the way Yelena just had, was a difficulty on an entirely different axis. It meant coloring raw mana through the hand seal, then weaving and fitting it together into a law-circle on the spot.
Gazing up at the magic circle hovering above her, Silhouette muttered.
"She uses things like that like it's nothing."
"Mm, might as well use what you can? It's for show, sure, but it's not really hard for me."
"…A genuinely repulsive magician."
That wasn't wrong either.
She pulled off effortlessly what others could barely attempt after years of grinding. Someone like that might be a fool not to show off.
And she was, unquestionably, a genius.
Hunters could invoke spells simply, as system-granted skills—but Yelena preferred to cast them herself. Naturally, that made her slower than skills and her process far more convoluted.
Yet Yelena reigned supreme as the strongest magical-class hunter despite all of it.
"If the speed and the power are the same anyway, learning to cast directly means you can use far more varieties, doesn't it?"
A hunter's skills were limited in number. That was why magical classes learned magic directly, and martial classes trained their arts by hand—to fill the gaps when their skills were on cooldown.
But Yelena had learned and cast magic entirely on her own from the moment she became a hunter.
A genius blessed beyond all reason, truly.
The self-proclaimed ultra-genius-whatever-she-called-herself was repulsive—but she was telling the truth.
"You know, the gods really are fair sometimes."
"Hm? How so?"
"They gave her everything, then left out the sanity."
"Assistant, that's too far."
Anyway. What was the effect of this magic circle the ultra-genius had just produced?
"Mm, it's a simple lie detector."
"A lie detector?"
"You inscribe this, tell a lie, and—boom! It goes off."
"…How powerful is the blast?"
"Oh, enough to level a mountain village?"
Hey.
What exactly were you planning to do in my house?
"Rejected."
"Aww."
"Evrah. Get rid of this thing."
"Okay, leave it to me."
Tang—
A clear chime rang out from the revolver Evrah had produced in a flash. But no bullet flew from the barrel.
His unique ability: Russian Roulette. Fire one of the six chambers while it was empty, and you won a predetermined 'stake.' The other five, meanwhile…
"What'd you set for it just now?"
"If something goes wrong, the gun explodes."
"……."
Why did these people love explosions so much?
Lee Jun looked at his former comrades, their screws still as loose as ever. When had it been, that he'd wasted hours like this with them—nonsense and mischief in equal measure?
He could call it nostalgia, if he wanted to.
"Look at him, old man. Assistant's got that faraway look again."
"He does. Thinking about the old days, probably."
"Honestly, we're right here now. How about focusing on this side of things?"
Squeeze—
Yelena pressed both of Lee Jun's cheeks between her hands. In the direction she'd fixed his face, all he could see was her own.
"…You're the one being sentimental."
"Huhuh."
She knew that Lee Jun suffered whenever he thought of his old comrades. That was exactly why she did things like this—forcing his thoughts back to the present.
Evrah knew it too, which was why, this once, he didn't stop her.
"There? Can you see this side a little better now?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
"Oh, you don't need to thank me. A magician looking after her assistant's wellbeing is only natural."
"Sure it is."
Still…
How long was she planning to hold on?
Swhoop—
Lee Jun caught Yelena's wrist and quietly guided both her hands down. Seo Yoon was watching, after all, and it felt a little—no, quite—unseemly.
He had no intention of showing his affiliated hunter such an untrustworthy display.
"Right, on to the next thing."
"Yes, let's move on! Now let go of me!"
Silhouette, still clamped in Yelena's grip, roared. Ah, right, she was still being held…
Huh?
"What is that hand?"
"Oh, this? New magic I just made. It lets you use multiple hands, you see!"
And indeed, a single arm had grown out from Yelena's left shoulder. Silhouette, clutched in that third hand, was being slowly spun in circles.
Setting aside that bizarre tableau, though—
Body-partitioning extra limbs from mana, this magic was…
"…Looks genuinely useless, honestly."
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to create magic? This is just the beginning. Soon I'll be producing some truly tremendous grand spells."
And in truth, she would go on to create astonishing magic.
In the previous timeline, the spells Yelena had produced had each unleashed devastating power, one after another.
But he hadn't been able to watch those magnificent spells for long.
Because she…
"…Let's stop here for today."
"Huh? What about after this?"
"It's fine. There's no lie in it anyway."
"I know, but… hmm."
Yelena stopped swinging Silhouette around and put on a puzzled look. But soon enough, she nodded as if she understood.
Lee Jun sinking into quiet gloom while thinking of old comrades—that was an everyday occurrence by now.
Yes. He hoped she'd just take it as that.
Because that was… better.
Lee Jun looked at Yelena without a word. She bore that gaze for a moment, then opened her mouth.
"The old man and I can't stay here long."
"I know."
"So let's take the matter I mentioned slowly. Got it, Assistant?"
Lee Jun nodded. Keeping in touch would be easy enough—the communications device the Technical Bureau Chief had built specially for them. It was completely secure against eavesdropping, too.
"Don't miss me too terribly after I'm gone."
"……."
"Oh? No answer? Huhuh. What's wrong, don't you want to miss me?"
How was he supposed to answer that?
In an instant, the memories of the previous timeline flooded his mind and overlaid themselves on the present.
"Assistant—becoming a star in the sky, for a magician… it's a glorious thing. So… please, don't cry too much."
"……."
"Oh? No answer… again? Hu… huh… what's wrong, are you going to… keep crying like that… forever?"
And so the magician who said those words became a star.
When had that been? Under what circumstances? What were we doing, that day?
Why… why did it end like that?
"Um… Assistant…?"
Yelena sensed something off at his unnaturally grave reaction. The focus drained from Lee Jun's eyes, and he gripped her wrist—the one he still held—tight. Very tight. As if he would never send it anywhere.
He held on.
"……."
Yelena raised her other hand and gently stroked his cheek. The warmth traveling through that touch brought back a measure of calm.
Life returned to Lee Jun's eyes. Focus came back, and the world sharpened into clarity.
And what greeted him was—
"There? Feeling a little more at ease?"
—shining green eyes.
Yelena was smiling, warm and bright.
"…Thank you."
"Huhuh, then I'll need an answer. Well? Are you going to keep missing me?"
She flashed a playful grin. She surely had an answer in mind. And the reply Lee Jun gave, matched against it—
"Of course."
Though he couldn't be certain, he rather doubted she'd expected this one.
"I'll keep on. Missing you."
Her.
Everyone.
Always, constantly… I longed for you all.
He'd wanted to say it. Had wanted to keep saying it, over and over.
After his comrades had all died, it became words that could never be delivered, and nothing but regret piled up on top of them.
But now, he could say it.
He couldn't state it outright, not in plain words—but a piece of that truth could be passed on.
"Um… uh… wha—?"
Flustered by the utterly unexpected answer, Yelena yanked her hand back from his cheek. Her own face, if anything, had gone faintly pink.
Lee Jun's was burning just the same. Saying things like this between comrades really was embarrassing.
But he didn't regret it much. Because he'd learned something.
Chances to give warm words to the people you treasured didn't come around often.
"Ahem. Should I, uh, give you two some space?"
Evrah, apparently uncomfortable, said something entirely unnecessary.
He was a precious comrade too, of course.
Lee Jun looked at him and said, "Same goes for you, Evrah."
"Ahem. Jun, I have a wife and a daughter, you see. Sorry, but I'll pass."
At that, Lee Jun turned his gaze back to Yelena standing before him.
Her cheeks had gone considerably—very—red.
"Hold on, you know that's not what I meant. And Evrah, cut the crap."
"Phew. Getting steamy in here? A-ra would throw a fit if she saw."
"Hey!"
"A-Assistant… I was, um, sworn to celibacy and all, but, um… well… still…"
"God damn it…!"
Pah—
Lee Jun hastily dropped Yelena's hand and put distance between them. And she, as if she'd never been embarrassed at all, was giggling away.
Her reaction from moments ago had been an act, apparently.
"You people… I was being serious!"
"We know, Jun. What comrade isn't precious?"
"I like you too, Assistant. And that was no act."
But grins neither of them could hide were tugging at the corners of both their mouths.
"If you get it, then get out!"
"Got it~ You'll answer when I call, right?"
"We'll be going, Jun. See you again soon."
Lee Jun hurriedly chased the two of them out.
While vowing, yet again and again, that he really would never let himself drown in sentiment like this again.