Chapter 149
Chapter 149
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 149
Chapter Title: The First Contract
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Yu-na passed through the mirror and immediately opened her eyes in the collapsed café. Tables and chairs lay scattered about, and corpses were stuffed into the walls and floors like decorations. She gripped her staff tightly. The wooden staff, carved by hand, responded to her will, scattering a faint light around her.
Bwoooong.
The light gradually expanded its reach until it brightly illuminated the entire café. The revealed interior looked long abandoned, with nothing intact.
Every step crunched over obstacles, and horribly mutilated corpses hung everywhere like ornaments. Yu-na examined one closely and let out a groan.
"...Could this be Grandmother? With time flowing differently, maybe she's already dead?"
"Unfortunately, she's still alive."
"Eek!"
Yu-na screamed at the voice that shouldn't have been there.
Regardless, Eun-ha, who had been resting behind the half-destroyed counter, poked her head out and met Yu-na's gaze.
"You made it safely. Good thing. I heard some weird noise midway and thought you crash-landed."
"W-Weird noise...?"
"Hmm... Like glass breaking, roughly speaking. But since there was no reaction, it wasn't a big deal."
Eun-ha replied as she tore open an instant coffee packet rolling in the corner. She had already taken off her gas mask.
"You can take off the gas mask. I checked with magic earlier—no radiation or anything."
"R-Really...? What about food, then...?"
"Yeah. Safe to eat."
Pour.
Eun-ha poured coffee powder into a paper cup and added hot water. She stirred with a teaspoon she'd found somewhere. Sugar, coffee, and water mixed into cheap instant coffee in seconds. She took a sip and nodded in satisfaction.
"Tastes good. I prefer Americano, but this isn't bad once in a while."
"W-What about mine...?"
"None left. This was the last one."
"Th-Then let's share. I like c-coffee too... "
"Too little to share. Better find another. There's a department store nearby—probably some there. Want me to help look?"
"...Haa..."
Yu-na sighed deeply and removed her gas mask. The air, which had felt suffocatingly hot, turned cool again, and the stuffiness vanished.
No sudden choking or coughing up blood. Grandmother hadn't lied, thankfully.
"W-Where's Ian...?"
Yu-na asked, sitting on a nearby chair. Eun-ha tilted her head.
"Ian hasn't arrived yet. Weren't you the second one in?"
"H-Huh? No? I was last. Ian went in five seconds before me."
"Pardon?"
"Huh?"
Their gazes clashed in the air. A chill silence fell between them. Cold sweat trickled down their spines.
Clatter!
Before either could speak, Yu-na and Eun-ha shot to their feet. The paper cup they'd set down tipped over, spilling coffee, but Eun-ha ignored it.
"How many seconds apart?"
"Five seconds. Yeah, five after you went in, then Ian."
"And you five seconds after that."
"Y-Yeah."
"I arrived about an hour ago. So, 30 minutes here equals 5 seconds there."
"Th-Then Ian entered here and..."
"It's been 30 minutes."
30 minutes.
Not long, but not short either—and far from enough to guarantee safety exposed to anomalies. Their faces crumpled.
"...Ian's not that weak, but if Reptilians swarm relying on numbers, even he couldn't repel them easily."
"H-He won't be dead or hurt."
"I think so too. But he could be in danger."
Eun-ha muttered gravely. Lemegeton, hanging quietly at her waist, chimed in.
To be precise, three—but Lemegeton hadn't noticed the stealth-specialized Blue Shackles or the Book of Contracts. Even so, it knew the two he already had were more than enough to break through this situation.
"Still, you never know."
"H-Huh? What?"
Yu-na tilted her head, thinking it was directed at her. Eun-ha waved it off.
"Not to you."
"Even so, he's been a mage less than a year. Judgment might falter."
"Solomon."
Eun-ha exhaled slowly and glanced at the grimoire at her waist.
"I don't care about that. I'm just purely worried about him. No conditions."
"So help find him without the extras. Got enough Ether?"
Unlike other grimoires, Lemegeton had built-in magic to store Ether.
Solomon's own creation—a ritual spell uniquely centered on intent among its ritual magics.
It stored Ether and enabled instant ritual casting.
"Our Father in heaven. As your faithful servant, believer, and daughter, I beseech you. Grant me the power and wisdom to judge the wicked horde."
⟨ Eye of Divine Light ⟩
A sincere prayer to God. Radiant light flowed from Lemegeton, gathering before Eun-ha like an orb. She grasped it without hesitation and closed her eyes. Yu-na tactfully stood guard.
Tzzzzzt.
A Catholic ritual normally requiring bread, wine, fine soil, salt, and holy water—but she skipped straight to the result. The orb's light shrank, her pupils turning gold.
Her contracted archdemon, Belial, screamed at the divine energy invading her eyes.
She ignored it. Her vision blurred momentarily, then refocused on somewhere distant. She concentrated fully.
"..."
She saw it.
A ruined city. Crumbled asphalt roads. A massive ash-gray and blood-red beast racing across them at high speed.
"Ugh!"
Just staring sent dizzying pain through her head. Her insight-enhanced eyes reacted sharply. But Eun-ha kept her eyes open wider, glaring piercingly at the beast.
'Just Reptilians, she said. But monsters like that exist in the city too?'
The thought flashed, but a moment's reflection showed it was nonsense.
She'd scouted via lesser demons, who relayed what they'd seen, heard, felt.
Demons lied and mocked by nature, but those contracted under Solomon and the Lord couldn't lie to her.
Seventy-two pillars might be iffy, but lesser ones couldn't touch her.
Such beings suddenly able to lie upon entering? Impossible. No such space existed, and neither she nor Lemegeton would miss changed demons.
So this was something not meant to be in the mirror world. Then where did it—
"...?"
As she thought, her vision sharpened on the beast—and atop it, a figure.
Bored expression. Blank yet languid. Half-lidded eyes hard to read, but beautiful obsidian irises. Fluttering coat. Three grimoires splayed on his chest.
Slightly different from last sight, but Eun-ha recognized him instantly.
"...Ian?"
The murmur escaped. In response, Ian on the beast's back met her gaze, gave a faint smile, and waved.
His languid wave and decadent eyes made Eun-ha's heart skip.
*
Twenty minutes into lazing on the Circulator's back to avoid walking. Ian sensed familiar magic from Eun-ha and waved.
"Grandmother, I'm here. Where are you? Can you hear me? Hello? Uh, Dong-hoon. Eun-ha, whatcha doing? Sleeping? Outside...? Yeah, outside."
Words spilling from his thoughts. The grimoires clustered on his hand like magnets, as if saying don't look at other women.
The Circulator roared.
Circulators were super freakin' strong—the strongest among them.
Beat Reptilians or cultists no problem. Even hordes.
Anyway, it roared.