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“Ughhh…… They’re just too damn cute!”
“Those eyes that make you want to renounce the world! Just looking at them drains all your energy and leaves you feeling utterly listless! This patheticness! It’s so precious!”
Hazel and Stella, the witches who’d realized Rebecca had summoned them, were hugging the frog-billed nightjars and puffins I’d given them as joining gifts, rubbing their faces against them in pure bliss.
There’s magic that makes genders look swapped? That’s intriguing.
Unlike how they’d appeared as a couple, both Hazel and Stella were witches. Hazel had clumsily used transformation magic to just change her hair color, while Stella, more skilled in magic, had altered her appearance to male.
Normal people wouldn’t give a damn about such pathetically ugly birds anyway.
Feeling that same sense of futility and lethargy just from looking at them, I approached the pair.
“As I mentioned, I’ll remove your witch marks now. For hygiene reasons, you can’t bring the birds into the treatment room, so please put them back outside.”
“No way! What if someone steals our babies while they’re out there?!”
“The most despicable thing in the world is giving something and then taking it back!”
I strongly disagreed. No one in their right mind would want birds that looked half-formed like that.
“But it’s interesting. If you can change your appearance, couldn’t you alter the shape of the moles called witch marks too?”
“Transforming moles or scars doesn’t work. Plus, appearance-altering magic consumes a massive amount of mana.”
“Hazel’s right.”
Hazel pouted as Walter took the birdcage containing the frog-billed nightjars and puffins from her, while Stella shrugged and continued.
“I went around looking fully like a guy. My mana pool’s bigger than Hazel’s, but neither of us could maintain appearance transformation magic for more than half a day. Unless you’re a monster like Rebecca.”
Rebecca, a monster?
“What do you mean? Why call Rebecca a monster?”
“That girl’s got an insanely huge mana pool by default. That crazy bitch even got caught by the heresy inquisitors out of pure curiosity.”
Stella snickered, scratching the back of her neck at my surprised question.
“She was curious how labor reeducation sentences worked. Wonder why she’s so damn curious about everything. Turns out, she didn’t even do the labor herself—she sent a golem clone in her place. That says it all about her mana pool.”
“Rebecca’s more impressive than I thought.”
I hadn’t realized how remarkable she was, since she was the first witch I’d met. At my astonished question, Rebecca shrugged with her pale face.
“Now you know? But the real impressive one is you, Director. For us witches, the areas with moles or scars called heresy marks or devil marks can’t be affected by appearance transformation magic. Though we can make fake scars or moles appear where there aren’t any.”
“That’s unique.”
“Magic isn’t really about creating phenomena impossible in reality—it’s more like a systematic field of analysis and research.”
We headed to the 11th floor, where I performed surgery to remove the moles on the inner arms and sides of Hazel and Stella.
Hazel and Stella wouldn’t realize it. The stigma that had bound them was gone, but behind the generous benefits, pay, and kindness lurked a transparent leash now around their necks.
* * *
“Comier, please enter the consultation room.”
“Miochichi, Aldo, you’re next, so please move to the front seats.”
Time at the Beauty Tower flew by. With Hazel and Stella joining, things were starting to systematize.
Hazel took on reception duties, Stella as head nurse. Despite being called geniuses or heretics, the witches adapted to the medical system astonishingly fast.
Busy as ever today.
The blood pack and Jo family’s total beauty care shop went without saying, but my procedures had clearly spread by word of mouth. Customers weren’t just from the Frederik Dungeon Zone anymore—visitors from other regions were increasing.
The street stall’s tidied up nicely now. Looks clean.
I’d halved the cafe tables and chairs, using the rest to display products like a Coconut Young setup. With the Beauty Tower’s reputation already sky-high, people now entered on their own to shop.
Smooth sailing…… too smooth. That’s what makes me uneasy.
In this bustling chaos, the idiom “blessing in disguise” came to mind, making me feel like I had anxiety disorder. And rightly so—after the witches joined, the potion co-op and magic towers had been eerily quiet, beyond expectations.
“Director, something wrong?”
“Yeah, you’ve seemed off all day.”
It was 1 p.m. now—lunch break from 1 to 2. Hazel and Stella approached me, stretching with hands clasped behind their heads, palms up.
“No, nothing much…… just too smooth?”
At my blunt admission, Stella crossed her arms and snorted derisively.
“What’re you talking about? Don’t you have a ton of debt, Director? You’re shelling out 150 gold to the territory office every month—how’s that smooth?”
“Right, you’ve got 30 more years of payments, and you’re acting all chill. Don’t you know to row when the tide comes in?”
“……”
I’d answered honestly when they asked what was bothering me, only for the witches to unload a barrage. No wonder they’re witches.
“To be precise, it’s 149 gold, 8 silver, 1 copper. Not quite 150.”
“Same difference.”
As Stella muttered indifferently with a mocking smirk, my brow twitched—just then, Hazel smacked her fist into her palm as if remembering something.
“Oh, it’s Wednesday! Director, go check out the central plaza.”
“The central plaza?”
“There’s a street market every Wednesday.”
“A market?”
I tilted my head at Hazel’s words, and Stella clicked her tongue softly.
“Wow…… They said you hole up in the hospital except for territory office days, and it’s true.”
“Lots of traveling merchants from other areas, street food too—perfect for a mood changer. Lunch break’s still got time.”
A mood changer. I didn’t particularly need one, but with my mind so cluttered, cooling off might not hurt.
“Alright, let’s go. I’ll grab something edible on the way back.”
“Sweet! Gotta take Panggyu!”
“Me too, with Maengmaengi!”
These people…… They weren’t worried about me—they just wanted to walk their birds?
Hazel with Panggyu, Stella with Maengmaengi—and for some reason, me with Res perched on my head—as we headed to the plaza.
“Kyaha~ So cuuute.”
“This outfit would look great on Maengmaengi too, right?”
They’d named the frog-billed nightjar Panggyu and the puffin Maengmaengi—who knows why. I didn’t want to know.
I’d come for a mood boost, but instead of clearing my head, it was getting messier.
“Maiiiiner! Why no clothes for me?!”
“Listen up, Res. Panggyu and Maengmaengi are Hazel and Stella’s pets. But you’re an employee earning money fair and square—don’t forget that.”
“What’s earning money for? I use it all for my magic anyway. Nothing left over?”
The fuzzy hatchling, not long out of the egg, was already getting cheeky. Kids’ accounts are usually parent-managed for a reason.
“Sigh…… If you want something, just say. I’ll buy it.”
“Yesss! Awesome!”
I hugged Res, who was flapping her short wings and yanking my nape wildly, to calm her—then spotted a strange sight.
“……Huh? What’s that?”
“Dunnooo, let’s see what they’re selling!”
Hazel and Stella, who’d come to the plaza with me, had vanished somewhere already. Naturally, Res knew nothing.
“Let’s go! I’m curious!”
“Fine, but stop pulling my hair. You’ll go bald.”
We squeezed through the murmuring crowd to find a massive rectangular structure draped in cloth.
A box? No, that shape…… iron bars?
From the cloth’s wrinkles, it looked like an iron cage with bars.
“Ladies, gentlemen, adventurers, mages alike! Today, I present the item you’ve all been waiting for! Let’s get right to it!”
A man with upturned arching mustache snapped his fingers, and his assistants pulled ropes tied to the cloth’s edges.
Swish—
“Whoa!”
“Some decent-looking ones there.”
“A few halfway pretty. Wonder the price?”
The dark curtain-like cloth fell away, revealing a towering iron prison.
“Ma, Maiiner……”
“……Looks like a slave trader.”
Trapped inside the iron cage were none other than humans. While I grimaced, the onlookers mostly scanned the cage with the eyes of people browsing dogs or cats at a pet shop.
“We’ll start with this lovely flower. The fugitive princess of a fallen kingdom! Bidding starts at 100 gold!”
“Princess, my ass—they always spout that crap.”
“Heh, yeah. Looks like some chick sold off for unpaid debts. How many ‘princesses’ is this now?”
“110 gold! Yes! Now 130 gold! Fugitive princess of a fallen kingdom! You won’t find this anywhere on the continent! 150 gold! 150 gold bid! For this noble princess—day work or night work, she’ll do anything! No one over 150 gold?!”
It was like a fish market auction for wholesale prices—my stomach churned. To modern me, it was nauseating enough to make me retch, yet despite myself, I couldn’t look away from the vile spectacle. Res, huddled in my clothes and trembling, kept staring too.
“200 gold. I’ll buy her.”
A woman strode forward boldly.
“Maiiner, that’s……”
“Yeah, the Adventurer Guild Master.”
200 gold—20 million won. The Guild Master took the female slave for 200 gold and promptly left the street.
“Hahaha! As always, our benevolent Guild Master takes the female slave! Now, onto the heavy-duty merchandise! Descendants of the legendary knight who can cleave a torso in one sword stroke……”
A little listening revealed the slave trader’s lies. But the crowd seemed to just enjoy the spiel.
Can’t watch anymore. I knew there was a slave system, but seeing it…… even sicker.
“Long time no see, Doctor.”
“……?”
I was about to leave, unable to stomach it longer, when a robed man called out to me.