Spatial Mage Yang Jia (1)
“A-are you okay?”
Lee Ga-eun, coming back to her senses, asked me that. Her face was a total mess too, smeared with tears and snot, but apparently my condition looked serious enough to worry her.
“It's nothing.”
I gathered myself and slowly stood up. My head was still throbbing like hell, making it hard to think straight, but this wasn't the first or second time something like this had happened anyway.
Tap tap.
The first thing I checked once I snapped out of it was the broadcast screen. The stream had cut off. Looked like my phone couldn't handle the aftermath of the spatial magic and dropped the connection for a sec.
The chat exploded into chaos in seconds. The two temp managers were directing traffic like pros, but it was way too much for them. With my shaky fingers, I hammered out a message.
Once I stepped in personally, the heat started dying down a little. I muted the chat for a moment and turned to Lee Ga-eun.
She was still trembling, but her eyes were steady. Her spirit Helia was right by her side, guarding faithfully.
Step—
After checking on both of them, I slowly walked forward. Baek Seol-yeon's words suddenly popped into my head.
'We judged this one to have a bit of difficulty.'
A bit? This was a bit? Bullshit. If it weren't for me, that monster would've eaten every hunter in here alive.
Even the raid team bragging about their weapons got wiped out pathetically. The weird vibe in the air, this Gate felt off somehow.
No way.
“Fuck…”
I muttered curses under my breath as I ran through the possibilities that could explain my current situation. Lee Ga-eun might've been startled by the sudden swearing, but she didn't care and just followed me.
There were only two scenarios that fit what was happening right now.
One: A so-called “anomalous phenomenon” had triggered inside the Gate, and that spawned freaks like that monster roaming around.
Two: Baek Seol-yeon had lied to me.
I didn't particularly like Baek Seol-yeon, but I didn't hate her either, so I really didn't want to go with option two.
Step—
I kept racking my brain as Lee Ga-eun and I walked down the road. This time, Helia took the lead, scouting ahead.
Shhh—
The fog was slowly lifting. I could feel the area clearing up. Unlike before when I couldn't see shit, visibility was now over 50 meters.
Still frustrating as hell on an open highway like this, though.
“…Gonna restart the stream now.”
Once I'd calmed down enough, I fired up the broadcast again. A low hum started, followed by my phone vibrating.
CheonJiAh has started broadcasting!
The chat ignited the second the stream went live. Even the managers seemed relieved I was back.
I tossed a quick word of praise to the managers for holding down the fort with their epic battle in my absence, then stopped in place.
Helia, who'd gone ahead to scout, was coming back.
“Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Good job, Helia.”
While Helia and Lee Ga-eun shared some kind of unspoken bond I couldn't follow, I kept my guard up.
Soon, having gotten the full report from Helia, she spoke up.
“…There's a tollgate up ahead.”
“A tollgate?”
“Yeah.”
Tollgate. No clue what that building meant here. Best to ditch the obvious assumption that it was just a normal tollbooth because this was a highway.
“…Let's check it out.”
But heading there was our only option. Turn back now? No way.
I tightened the protective barrier even more, tuning it to detect inanimate objects too. I could feel even the pebbles rolling in the wind without any mana.
My head was starting to ache dully, but better this than running into another one of those things.
Step—
We walked for a while and stopped in unison, as if on cue. The fog had cleared enough for the tollgate to come into view.
No regional signs or Hi-Pass booths like you'd expect—just three old-school ticket booths where humans would take cash.
Rust everywhere screamed neglect. Gave off serious creepy vibes.
“Um… we gotta go in there, right?”
Lee Ga-eun was sending major “hell no” signals. But no other path.
“…Barrier's not picking up anything.”
We crept forward at a snail's pace, only as far as the barrier allowed. Super slow, but no one in chat complained. Everyone was holding their breath, watching. Viewer count was high, but chats were sparse.
HT15's chat took up like 30% of the few messages. Dude seemed like he'd been through this before.
Wanted to ask for advice, but no time. Maintaining the high-density barrier and scanning for objects was my limit.
“Hoo…”
I caught my breath and glanced at Lee Ga-eun. She looked anxious and on edge, but her eyes and the set of her mouth showed resolve. With effort, I asked her,
“…Lee Ga-eun. Helia. What's Helia's ability? Might need the spirit's help if things go south.”
Spirits each have unique powers—so many kinds, no standard to pin down. The spirit user knows best.
“…Mimicry. Mimicry. She can turn into anything that exists in the world. Even copy some of the target's abilities to a degree. Depends on the target, though—the results vary wildly.”
That's how she changed her ears earlier, huh. Mimicry could be super useful. With the spirit's power confirmed, we reached the abandoned tollbooth ticket office. Inside, we took a breather.
“Hoo.”
Nothing had tripped the barrier so far. The 50-meter radius it covered was safe. Fog was mostly gone, visibility good—and nothing dangerous back the way we'd come.
Hummm—
I slowly dropped the barrier. Deep breath in, and the throbbing in my head started to clear.
“What the hell was that thing earlier?”
Leaning against the rundown booth, I asked the stream. Answers came quick, but not what I hoped.
Most were calling that monster an anomaly. To me, anomalies were the instability of spatial mana made manifest. Organic things that couldn't withstand the ever-shifting flows of space, or spawned from the space itself. That was my take on them.
Back when I researched spatial magic, I'd seen plenty. Never tried understanding or analyzing them. They were side effects of magic forbidden to mortals. Made sense I couldn't comprehend them.
But these were more powerful and bizarre than the ones in the Misty Forest. With two dimensions overlapping, the instability was worse—only natural they'd mutate harder.
I closed the chat after HT15's final tip. We headed down to the underground space below the booth. Dusty, moldy stench hit us, but whatever.
“Helia.”
Lee Ga-eun called the spirit's name in the dark. Helia instantly turned into a glowing orb, flooding the area with bright light. Up close, it wasn't just any orb—it was the standard magitech streetlamp from Yggdrasil.
“Let's go.”
Lee Ga-eun said, holding the lamp like a basketball. We pressed on into the dim underground, relying on Helia's light.
Step—
Our footsteps echoed off the long underground walls. The corridor wasn't too lengthy. At the end sat a mana stone emitting blinding purple light.
Wrapped in filthy cloth, but even that couldn't block the glow. Shaped like a traffic sign, but definitely a mana stone.
From chat's reaction, selling this thing would fetch hundreds—no, thousands.
But I had intel from the last Gate clear: Monsters are drawn to mana instinctively. Especially strong spatial mana—they obsess over it.
That car monster showing up before? Probably my faint spatial mana leakage.
“J-Jia. The fog's color…”
Lee Ga-eun tapped my shoulder anxiously while I stared at the mana stone. The fog pooling at our feet was changing hue. Purple. The fog was purple now.
Hoo— hoo—
I took deep breaths in the thick purple mist. The mana it carried flooded my lungs, spreading through my body.
A rush of euphoria, clarity, liberation—it hammered one part of my brain like crazy.
“Haaah.”
The sensation I'd forgotten since coming to modern Earth was creeping back.
“…Ga-eun.”
I called her name softly. Looked her in the eye and said,
“Stay here for a bit. Don't come out, no matter what.”
Lee Ga-eun couldn't speak. Just nodded. The lantern in her hand—Helia—shook violently.
“…Hoo.”
I bent and straightened repeatedly, then stepped out of the booth. No sound of her following. Outside, heading our way from the path we'd come—six of those monsters from before.
Right now, I felt no fear at all.