The Power of Magic
The days since we started living at the resort numbered twenty. Humans are creatures of adaptation, and my family and I had long since fallen into the rhythm of resort life as if it had always been ours.
There was one major difference, though. Thanks to President Cheonsa of Out Focus Security, who could accompany me instead of my parents, Mom and Dad had finally carved out a few hours of their own date time. I, meanwhile, had been given an even wider range of activities.
Today, I was holding my mother’s hand as we walked to the room where Cheonsa lived. We knocked and stepped inside. What greeted us was the blood-stained floor and Cheonsa herself, frantically pressing a hand over her own bleeding mouth.
I startled so hard I yanked on Mom’s hand, stamping my feet as if to demand that she help. Mom simply sighed with a tired expression, ruffled my hair, and covered my eyes with one hand while she told me everything was fine.
“Kyahahaha!! Pwuk! Jeong-ah, your son looks like he’s really scared, huh? Kyah! Wek!!”
“Haa… you should have told me the day before that happened.”
“Kyahaha! Weeeek!! What’s wrong? Your son is old enough to know everything, you know.”
“That’s not it!!”
And that was Cheonsa—someone who knew far too much about me. Mom had clearly wanted to keep things quiet, but Cheonsa had handed her a sealed document containing my information when she was sent to the hospital. Of course she had read it herself, and she still reviewed every report Mom sent her on a regular basis. Apparently, Cheonsa was the only person in the company above Mom’s rank.
She knew I was a guy who had traveled to another world and was the only one who actually believed me when I told her. I asked her cautiously why she believed me.
Cheonsa flashed her sharp teeth in a grin and said that the reason humans fear the unknown is simply because humans are weak at their core. She added that since she was strong, she could accept the unknown as it was without fear.
Those words, which might sound arrogant to someone else, felt incredibly kind to me. I had never openly cried in front of my parents, but in front of Cheonsa I let out a small sob.
I had regained my composure by then. It was incredibly touching that someone who had not believed me for over two years, and who had met me only a week earlier, now accepted my story as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
After that, I met with Cheonsa and Mom, my eyes still red from crying. Mom assumed Cheonsa had caused my tears and wrapped her entire body in invisible threads made of Sisa. Cheonsa, whose mouth was still bleeding, was humming a cheerful tune as if she found the situation amusing. Mom’s eyes were covered, so she could see nothing, but the wet, dripping sounds of whatever fell continued without pause.
I listened to Mom’s constant sighs, the sloshing sound of the bloody mess, and the small objects hitting the floor. Only after a long while did Mom finally remove her hand. The room looked completely different—clean and spotless.
Mom told Cheonsa not to do such things in front of me, patted my back a few times, entrusted me into Cheonsa’s care, and left.
Mom was enjoying a resort date with Dad. Seolhwa was freely sparring with Seolhui-unni and Ryu-yeong, getting in a few hits herself here and there. Since I had nowhere else to go, I was stuck with Cheonsa.
When I asked her about the earlier situation, Cheonsa grinned and opened her mouth wide, revealing the inside. The two sharp teeth that had already been trimmed twice before now sat prominently.
I tilted my head, still confused. Cheonsa laughed her signature “Kyahahaha!” and pulled a handful of sharp teeth from her coat pocket.
“I make lenses from teeth, so they’re soft, you see. Kyahaha!! That’s why they fall out periodically and new ones have to grow back.”
“Doesn’t it hurt? Your mouth was bleeding so much a little while ago…”
Concerned, I asked. Cheonsa patted my head with her palm, grinned, and answered.
“You’re worried about me? Kyahaha! It’s been ages!! Here I am, receiving worry from someone. Are you all right? Kyahahaha!! Of course it doesn’t hurt!”
“Is this some kind of after-effect of superpowers? Like muscle soreness…”
“Kyahahaha!!! No! If anything, it’s a side effect of my power evolving! Kyahaha!!”
Cheonsa continued her explanation. She had the super ability classified as Shark. Mutation super abilities were those that absorbed the nature and properties of the original power they came from.
Cheonsa possessed shark-like physical strength, rough skin, several rows of teeth, and rapid regeneration of those teeth. Because mutation super abilities fundamentally belonged to the body-manipulation classification, applying them was difficult.
That was why she had started using her ever-growing teeth to fight—biting them off or smashing them to create sharp fragments. Once they became soft instead of hard, she began molding them into whatever shape she wanted—square or spiky—attaching them to gloves, flattening them, and finally shaping them into lenses.
I frowned and tilted my head again, wondering if it was really possible. Cheonsa laughed “Kyahahaha!” and told me.
“You said it yourself—magic is the power that turns concepts into reality. I simply implemented my teeth as lenses. Kyahahaha! Magic and superpowers seem different, but…”
“That’s… right. I guess my thinking was too narrow. The most important thing in magic is imagination and belief. I never thought to connect them because I saw superpowers as entirely different.”
“Magic is the power that turns concepts into reality”—the absolute foundation of one-circle magic taught in the other world, always emphasized as the most basic principle. The counselor at the hospital had once mentioned it, and Cheonsa had remembered.
Thinking about it that way, I finally understood why body-manipulation powers grew more slowly than manifestation powers. Manifestation powers let you shape concepts freely, just like magic, so transformation and application were limitless. Body-manipulation powers, on the other hand, were limited by common sense and human physiology; anything you tried to do without logical reason felt impossible, so people often gave up.
I should probably look at Ryu-yeong’s super ability in a wider light. Not just physical strength and various body-manipulation techniques, but ways to maximize the unique traits of her Imugi power.
I was quietly pondering when a plastic cup with a straw suddenly appeared in front of my eyes. I looked up, startled. Cheonsa had already slit open the top of the drink pouch and was sipping from the straw.
I accepted the cup she offered, put the straw in my mouth, and started drinking. Watching her, I noticed Cheonsa was drinking straight from the pouch, tilting her head all the way back.
When she finished and I asked why she hadn’t used the straw—if her teeth were falling out easily—I saw her eyes widen in surprise, then she grinned and answered that it was exactly why.
I had learned that superpowers didn’t always bring advantages in every aspect after evolving or mutating. I asked her whether Ryu-yeong was also a mutation user and if she knew about the unique traits of Imugi powers.
“Huh? Ah… maybe. Basically, anyone who doesn’t look human on the surface gets called a mutation user, kind of like discrimination. Kyahahaha! There are even places that don’t hire self-proclaimed mutation users?”
“That’s… too harsh.”
“You’ve seen various races in the other world, but here we only have humans. We can’t call three-armed humans human either—everyone’s too weak for that. Belief in the unknown and freedom from fear of the unknown come from strength. Like me! Kyahahaha!”
There had been many races in the other world—elves, dwarves, orcs that looked almost human, and then clearly different ones like werewolves, sahalins, and dragons. We all called them “people.”
But in our original world there was only humanity, and only humanity was called “people.” If someone was different, they simply weren’t people. I couldn’t deny what Cheonsa had said: that was how the weak survived.
“Imugi powers… well, you can’t just go to an aquarium like sharks, and I don’t even know if they actually exist. You’d have to think with the logic of the other world, right?”
“I think they do exist… but I only heard about it, not seen it for myself…”
“Kyahaha! Who cares. Even just hearing stories can give hints! I don’t have shark teeth because I pulled them out either! Of course I did it later! Kyahahaha!”
The features of Imugi I had heard from the inspector from the East were only a few: living in lakes or rivers with big waterfalls, turning into a dragon after swallowing a dragon’s gem and flying into the sky, failing to become a dragon after being discovered by humans and instead becoming an Imugi, and the legend that they turn back into dragons after ten thousand sincere apologies. That was all I knew.
The only useful information I could get from that was the part about the dragon’s gem. I asked Cheonsa if she knew anything about it, but she shook her head.
“Gems… people who use superpowers do use weapons and tools a lot, but I can’t picture anything that would be called a dragon’s gem… Oh! I could make this tooth into a bead for you! Shark gems, how about them! Kyahahaha!!”
“Yes… please, I’d appreciate it.”
“Really?! I can’t even joke around with you! Kyahahaha!!”
I accepted her proposal with a sigh—better to have something than nothing. Cheonsa pulled one of her teeth with wide eyes, then laughed and turned it into a small bead.
The sharp white tooth softened under her hands and quickly turned into a translucent black bead. I carefully accepted the gift. Cheonsa grinned and said:
“By the way, I can roughly sense the sounds and feelings coming from anywhere my lenses are. If I give this to Han Ryu-yeong, I’ll be able to monitor her constantly! Kyaha!”
I threw the bead with all my strength out the window. Cheonsa watched it fly away and laughed “Kyahahahaha!”
Cheonsa was smart and believed in me, but after long conversations her head started to hurt.