The Best Partner (2)

Tonight, her bed felt more uncomfortable than usual. After tossing and turning more times than she cared to count, Ji Yeon-ha finally sat up. A poor night's sleep was bad for her work efficiency and her complexion alike — and yet, right now, sleep was the last thing on her mind.

"What is with that man, anyway..."

Sitting on the bed with her knees drawn up, she replayed the day's events in her head.

'What a shame. This could have been such a good deal for the both of us...'

'Goodbye, Tower Master Ji Yeon-ha.'

Lee Tae-hyun — a man who had dared to propose a deal to her, yet had finished the conversation just as quickly and let her go without a shred of attachment. It would have been easy to write it off as a scoundrel's ugly little prank, except that right now, the one billion won he'd handed over sat undisturbed beside her bed.

'Just flexing his money, then?' The thought died as soon as it formed. Even a chaebol family didn't burn a billion won on a few minutes of conversation, and there had been not a whisper of playfulness in Tae-hyun's manner.

Above all—

"Otherdimensional magic."

He knew what she was researching. He knew of the very concept of Otherdimensional Magic — a field so obscure that, herself included, only a handful of people in the entire world were even aware of its existence. That alone had been enough to transform the way she looked at him.

'What if every word of it was true?' What if he really did hold something to push her research forward — and a brilliant business venture to bankroll it?

"Gulp...!"

Then Lee Tae-hyun wouldn't be a rotten rope she'd be a fool to clutch. He'd be a rope spun of pure gold.

One of the public's favorite misconceptions was that a Tower Master was rich. Of course, it wasn't entirely wrong — appearances aside, she was an S-Rank hunter, and even a handful of gate dives earned her sums ordinary people couldn't conceive of. The problem was that she spent as fast as she earned, and every last coin of it funneled into research funding. She couldn't simply live inside gates, either; a Tower Master's schedule stacked up like a mountain range.

In other words, the terms Tae-hyun had put on the table were achingly sweet.

"Aaargh, seriously!"

Eyes squeezed shut, she raked her hands through her hair. On nights this full of restless thoughts, that time always came back to her. The night she had first awakened, at fifteen. The moment a wave of overwhelming mana seized hold of her mind—

'Wh-what... what is all this...!'

A vast, vertiginous landscape had unfolded before her eyes. Miserable worlds beyond counting, as if every apocalypse ever witnessed had been gathered into a single heap. And then—

A colossal predator, devouring those 'dimensions' whole.

Whenever 'it' opened its maw, an entire dimension crumbled and vanished. It warped space and time, cleaved them into fragments, and swallowed the pieces down a gullet like a bottomless abyss.

Watching it devour dimension after dimension, Ji Yeon-ha had felt—

—Ahh...!

...that it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. That principle which overturned the very order of the world. That wellspring of all dissolution and ruin.

Regrettably, she had never once been able to see that vision again after the moment of her first awakening.

'Someday, I will wield that magic with my own two hands.'

It would be no exaggeration to say she had sprinted this far through life chasing that single goal — though, sadly, she had yet to reach it.

"..."

Resolve seeped from the fist clenched around her blanket.

I don't know how Ji Yeon-ha died in her past life. In truth, no one ever would — because she hadn't died. She had simply been written off as missing.

At that point in time, Ji Yeon-ha's nickname had been Magic Flame.

'A relic of a bygone era, now that Flame Soul belongs to me.'

Even after gaining Flame Soul, she had pressed on with her research without pause — to the point of handing the Tower Master's seat over to Ah Seo-ah. And then one day, she vanished without a trace. "Evaporated" was probably the more accurate word for it.

All manner of outlandish rumors had circulated, but rumors were only ever rumors; not one of them came close to the truth. By the time the apocalypse closed in, she had been reduced to a footnote — there was once a woman named Ji Yeon-ha.

'What is this place? A laboratory?'

Wandering through the ruins of fallen Korea, I had found her lab. And reading through the materials she'd left behind at my leisure, I came to understand a great deal.

'Ji Yeon-ha's goal was to manifest the magic of other dimensions in reality.' And the key to it all was otherdimensional matter. She had stepped down from the Tower Master's seat and operated as the S-Rank hunter Magic Flame — and in the end, she had obtained that substance.

And then, after years of research—

She vanished.

Forever.

'So she never made it back after all.' And even if she had somehow returned, she would certainly have died — the Iron Blood Monarch, who had claimed the Earth, would never have left her in peace.

'There was more than one interesting thing in those notes.' Back then, my only concern had been how the great archmage had met her end. Now, everything else about it demanded my attention.

'Otherdimensional matter. A passage to another world. And a predator that devours dimensions...'

Ever since I learned that the Monarch was a being transcending multiple dimensions, a thought had taken root: what Ji Yeon-ha witnessed that day might have been none other than the Monarchs reigning over other dimensions.

If my hypothesis was right, then Ji Yeon-ha's research had to keep advancing — if for no other reason than to drive the Monarchs, the Iron Blood Monarch included, off the face of the Earth.

'And while she's at it, she can cover my request and the business, too.'

By any measure, Ji Yeon-ha made an ideal ally. She was capable, she didn't pry into my private affairs, and she respected boundaries. Better yet, she was oddly naive in just the right places, which made her delightfully easy to rope in.

'The perfect partner.' This iteration, I had to get her firmly into the palm of my hand — no matter what.

"Which means she should be showing up right about now."

A quiet café. I was idly poking at the ice in my americano with my straw when a brush of lavender drifted past the tip of my nose.

"Why is there no one in this café?"

"I rented the whole place out. I had a feeling you'd be coming today."

Right on cue. Just as I'd expected, Ji Yeon-ha had come looking for me. Thank goodness I'd deliberately left the mana residue she'd buried untouched.

"Well, then — I suppose I won't be needing this anymore." The moment I released my mana and dispersed the residue, she flinched, her shoulders jolting.

"...You knew I was here?"

"Your scent is that thick. Only a fool could have missed it."

"It's a high-grade magic skill in its own right, I'll have you know..." Peeved at having her play read, Ji Yeon-ha pursed her lips and dropped into the seat across from me.

"So. Have you given the matter due consideration?"

"Consideration? It happened to cross my mind for all of a moment in the middle of my workday. That's the whole of it."

"And you didn't, of course, spend the entire night agonizing over it?"

"..."

Hit square on the mark, the skin beneath her eye gave a tiny twitch.

"Which means you've come all the way back here because you're prepared to hear me out. Am I right?"

"Ahem. You seemed desperate enough, I suppose, so in the boundless generosity of my heart—"

"Nope. Not doing this."

I dusted off my hands and stood, and Ji Yeon-ha shot out of her seat in a panic.

"Wh-where are you going?!"

"If that's the attitude you're bringing to the table, there's nothing left to discuss, is there?"

There was one thing I intended to make absolutely certain of before sealing this deal.

"In everything we're about to do together, I am the absolute Party ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠A — and you, Ms. Ji Yeon-ha, are the absolute Party B. If you can't agree to that, I have nothing further to say."

"Ghhk...!"

She shook her head hard, visibly seething. Ordinarily I would have been more accommodating — gracious about status, flexible about comfort. But this project, setting myself aside, amounted to a joint venture between Cheonseong and Ji Yeon-ha herself. All the more ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reason to make the hierarchy unmistakable.

"Do we... do we really have to go this far?"

"We do. Being Party B does not mean I intend to treat you unfairly. It is merely a shackle to keep the contract honest."

"Haaah... Fine! I'm Party B! Happy now? Should I throw in some honorifics while I'm at it?"

"If I ask you to, will you?"

"As if I would?!"

Then why did you even bring it up?

"In any case — good. Now we're finally speaking the same language."

At long last, the groundwork for the real discussion was laid.

"First, as Party A, I'll be exercising my inaugural right."

"If you order me to do anything creepy, I'm burning you where you stand!"

Like you could?!

"From this point on, whatever I say — no digging, no questions. You simply believe it."

What I was about to tell her concerned the future from before my regression. If she asked how I'd come by the information, anything I answered was bound to invite suspicion — so it was simpler to wall off the question from the very start.

"It's more than a little shady, I'll admit... but fine. I'll go along with it."

"To begin with, I made you two promises, didn't I, Ms. Ji Yeon-ha?"

One regarding her research. And one business venture to fund it.

"For the business, just think of it as forming a collaboration with Cheonseong. The main event is the other one."

"You mean the part about my research?"

"Yes. You're searching for otherdimensional matter right now, aren't you?"

"How on earth do you—"

"Tsk."

"...Right. I am."

The power of Party A, truly. If I'd had to talk my way around that question as well, my head would have exploded.

"As it happens, I'm in possession of something that fits the profile of otherdimensional matter. I'll lend it to you for a while — and in exchange, you grant me one personal favor."

According to her original research journal from before my regression, otherdimensional matter could be summed up in a single line:

'A substance with impossible rules, capable of overturning the natural order itself.'

Where the world insisted that one plus one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠equaled two, otherdimensional matter could make the answer three. Or five.

"Otherdimensional matter? Pfft!" Ji Yeon-ha scoffed outright. "Do you have any idea how hard that stuff is to come by? Even I've spent years hunting for it with my eyes bleeding, and I still haven't found so much as a speck. I don't know what delusion you're laboring under, but—"

Since her lecture showed every sign of running long, I simply pulled it out of my subspace. This — which, by my own criteria, matched otherdimensional matter one hundred percent.

"This... is otherdimensional matter?"

"Hold it first. Then judge."

"Hah... fine."

Ji Yeon-ha turned the thing over with intense scrutiny. Three minutes passed. Then five.

"Hnn... hnnnngh..."

Beads of sweat had begun to gather on her forehead.

"Where... where on earth did you—"

"No questions. Have you forgotten already?"

Her eyes shimmered. She looked drenched in gratitude — or perhaps they were tears of joy trembling on her lashes.

"I rented out this entire café. There are no staff here, either."

"...!"

"Go ahead. Let it all out."

Ji Yeon-ha surged up from her seat and began hopping in place like a child.

"KYAAAAAAAH! Finally! I finally foooound iiiit!"

Clutched snugly in the arms of the bouncing woman was a box:

A cheat-grade item handed down to me by the existence beyond the System — and a perfect, exact match for the criteria of otherdimensional matter.

"And this level of stability, on top of everything! It's practically made for research!"

With this, Ji Yeon-ha's research would go on — into the other dimensions, and in time, into the Monarchs themselves.

'And if I can't protect everything perfectly—' then once I had grown strong enough, I would be the one to come looking for them. And I would kill them myself.

"Thaaank yooou!"

Wham!

While I was busy turning my resolve over in my mind, Ji Yeon-ha threw her arms around me and crushed me against her.

"C-can't... breathe..."

"Thank you! Truly! You are my savior!"

"How are you this strong..."

And so I found myself locked in an involuntary embrace while she bounced up and down on the spot. Resistance was clearly hopeless.

'Haaah.' All I could do was give up and wait for the storm of her excitement to pass. I let my body go slack and hung limp in her arms.

A chill shot down my spine.

"?!"

What the hell was that? Just now — something genuinely murderous had swept past outside the window.