The Talking Crow Tit
The moment we heard the monster’s cry, we moved.
We put as much distance as we could between ourselves and the sound, heading in the opposite direction.
“I-Is this far enough……?”
“Yeah. We’ve come far enough. We should be fine.”
“Phew… they won’t follow us, right?”
“They shouldn’t. They never even saw us earlier.”
Gaeun glanced around, scanning the darkness. Fortunately, no monster presence lingered nearby.
“Haa… so we’re good now?”
“For the moment, yeah. Crisis averted.”
“I nearly had a heart attack. This kind of stuff is seriously bad for you.”
“Tell me about it. The rescue team better get here soon.”
There were two main ways for people caught inside a Gate to be rescued.
The first was the straightforward one: being pulled out by other people.
Whether it was a rescue team or hunters clearing the Gate itself didn’t matter. You just needed to meet someone who could lead you outside.
And the second method—
“Just clear the Gate entirely.”
“Huh? Us?”
“Doesn’t have to be us. Anyone clearing it works.”
Once a Gate was cleared, the space inside collapsed and sealed shut. Anyone still trapped within was forcibly ejected to the outside world.
Most survivors were rescued that second way.
“Either way, the best thing we can do is stay quiet and wait.”
“Mm, okay.”
“It shouldn’t take too long, though.”
“Really? Why?”
“A Gate opened right in the middle of Seoul, so the raid will move fast. And that monster earlier didn’t look all that strong.”
Gaeun recalled the creature they had glimpsed.
She was right. It wasn’t the kind of monster that appeared in high-rank Gates.
Judging by the mana it gave off and the complete lack of intelligence, it was nothing more than a trash mob.
If things went well, Gaeun might even be able to take one down herself.
Even a summoner without any summons could manage a fight with the mana she had.
Of course, I still wouldn’t recommend actually fighting. The second a real brawl started, every other monster in earshot would come running.
We were killing time the same way as before when it happened again.
“Grrrrk…….”
The hungry growl of a monster reached us once more.
“G-Gaeun.”
“Get up. We’re going the other way.”
“Same as last time?”
“Yeah. Move as quietly as you can.”
Gaeun and Mina slipped away, muffling every footstep as they put distance between themselves and the creature.
“Haa… we’re safe now, right?”
“Probably. Doesn’t seem like it’s chasing us.”
Mina’s face relaxed with relief at Gaeun’s words.
“Heheh. Those monster things are pretty dumb, huh?”
“It’s a low-rank Gate, so yeah.”
“At this rate, even if a whole pack showed up it wouldn’t be a probl—”
“Quiet. Now.”
“Mmph—!”
Gaeun clamped a hand over Mina’s mouth.
That was when they heard it.
“Grrrrk…….”
“Grrk…….”
The sounds of an entire pack. Judging by the noise alone, there were at least ten of them—probably more.
Mina’s face went deathly pale with terror.
Gaeun’s expression remained blank, yet a faint edge of tension clung to her.
“W-What do we do? G-Gaeun?”
“Keep it together and put as much distance as we can between us. Same as when it was just one.”
“R-Right. Yeah. You’re right.”
“If you’ve got your head on straight, move.”
They hurried to put space between themselves and the pack.
But then—
“Th-There are monsters on the other side too……!”
“Bad luck. This way.”
Gaeun spun and chose a different path. The cave’s maze of branching tunnels worked in their favor—for a little while.
They were still trying to lose the monsters when the growls came again.
“Grrrk…….”
“Eek—!”
“Then the other way—!”
Gaeun whipped her head around to check the opposite tunnel.
Monsters blocked that path as well.
Monsters ahead. Monsters behind. Nowhere left to run—a single narrow bridge with death on both ends.
“Grrrrk…….”
In the gloom of the cave, the shapes of the approaching monsters slowly resolved.
Green skin. Short stature. Goblins.
They carried crude wooden clubs and looked thoroughly unimpressive.
In truth, they were the weakest of the weak. Hunter lectures called them the lowest-tier monsters for a reason.
What made goblins dangerous was that they never hunted alone.
“Grrrrrrk…….”
“Grrrk…….”
The moment one appeared, dozens more poured into view behind it.
“Tch.”
Gaeun thrust her arm toward the advancing horde.
She gathered mana at her fingertips exactly the way she had been taught.
Magic Missile
It was the only spell Gaeun could currently use—something she had picked up on the side the day she first received her hunter license.
Magic Missile was the lowest-grade spell imaginable; anyone who could handle mana at all could cast it.
Calling it a real spell was almost generous. All it did was gather the mana inside your body and fire it.
“Kyaaaak!”
Even so, a spell was a spell.
The goblin struck by Gaeun’s attack crumpled instantly, blood pouring from its shattered skull.
Watching one of their own drop so suddenly seemed to give the rest pause. The goblins pressing in on the two girls hesitated for a beat.
“G-Gaeun, what now?”
“Hmm. Good question.”
Gaeun gathered mana at her fingertips once more. White mana—the same pure white as her hair—coalesced at the tips of her fingers.
“Two more shots, maybe.”
“Two more of what?”
“What I just did. Magic Missile—basic spell.”
“Th-Then……”
—Fwoosh.
A sound like a bowstring snapping echoed through the cave—the sound of magic leaving Gaeun’s hand.
The mana bullet that streaked out this time was far more powerful. It cleanly punched through the heads of three goblins at once.
“Chirp? (Oh?)”
The power had clearly gone up.
Perched quietly on Gaeun’s shoulder, I let out a soft note of admiration.
There were countless ways to increase a spell’s power.
The simplest was just dumping more mana into it. You could also layer enhancement magic over the shot. Or you could raise your mastery of the spell itself.
“Chirp-chirp. (Hmm. Her comprehension speed is ridiculous.)”
That last method—deepening your understanding of the magic—was the purest path.
You could raise it through theory in books or through pure physical experience. Either worked.
But growing a spell that way normally took years. You had to cast it over and over until the understanding finally sank in.
Except for a rare few mages.
“Chirp, chirp-chirp. (Huh. Does she have talent?)”
Those gifted mages beloved by mana itself could scribble a few practice casts and achieve results that ordinary mages spent years chasing.
We called people like that archmages.
“Chirp chirp chirp-chirp. (I was planning to save them anyway.)”
The seed of an archmage, huh?
Among the great men of the past, Mencius once said: To obtain the talented of the world and educate them—one of the three great joys of life.
How joyful must it have been for him to put it that way?
Well, hearing it put like that made me a little curious myself. And I still had a faint regret about never taking a disciple back in the other world.
Personally, I was more than willing to take on a student.
And look at that—a promising little sprout of an archmage had just rolled right into my lap.
“Chirp chirp-chirp. (I can’t just let this slide.)”
A sly smile tugged at my beak as I spread my pure white wings wide.
They were barely ten centimeters across—adorably tiny—but they were enough.
I beat my wings and lifted off from Gaeun’s shoulder.
“Hah… hah… That’s all I’ve got.”
“Sob… Gaeun……”
Gaeun was gasping, every last drop of mana spent. Exhaustion and thick despair painted her face—the expression of someone staring death in the eye.
I wasn’t particularly fond of bleak, tragic stories.
If I left her like this any longer, she was going to turn into one.
Magic Missile
Multi-Casting
White mana—the same pure white as a crow tit’s wings—began to gather and swirl in midair.
What I drew in the empty space was the magic circle for Magic Missile.
The white mana obeyed my will, etching geometric lines with perfect precision.
In less than a single second—
the chaotic flow of mana ordered itself, and seven complete circles blossomed brilliantly in the air.
Those finished arrays then—
“Kyaaaaaak!!”
“Guaaaaargh!!”
“Gueeeek!!”
—unleashed white bullets that punched clean through every goblin’s skull with pinpoint accuracy.
“W-What just happened……?”
“Yeah……? Did a rescue team show up or something?”
“Chirp chirp-chirp. (Rescue team, my foot.)”
I fluttered my tiny wings and hovered right in front of Gaeun’s face.
“Crow tit?”
Her eyes went wide with shock. Looking straight into that startled expression, I cast one more spell.
A spell that allows pure thought to become speech.
With this, even a crow tit like me could talk to people—more or less.
And now the moment had finally come to fulfill a long-held romantic fantasy of mine.
A fantasy that had been buried for lack of the right opportunity.
At last the perfect stage had arrived.
I locked eyes with Gaeun and spoke.
“Huh? Y-Yes? Yes…….”
Still wearing a thoroughly bewildered expression, Gaeun nodded up and down.