The Grace of the Bug
The man who had received the bug's grace was growing happier by the day. At work, everyone treated him with a new warmth. Women looked at him and saw a charming man. The rice he ate every day tasted better than ever. As if his luck had finally turned, money kept rolling in from every direction. This astonishing happiness only grew stronger the more often he visited the weirdo to receive his sorcery. Everything was unfolding perfectly. But… something felt wrong.
The man couldn't shake the feeling. A strange sensation. As though his instincts were quietly whispering that something had gone terribly awry. That peculiar unease. Yet what could possibly be the problem? When everything was going so well, what exactly was the issue?
Whether to dispel that discomfort or to drown out the constant whispers of fear rising from some dark corner of his mind, he began telling everyone around him about meeting the sorcerer. How he'd stepped out for a cigarette and encountered the strange figure, who had cast a spell to turn his luck around. How, thanks to that, every aspect of his life had been flowing smoothly ever since.
Everyone who heard the story gave the same reactions: that he was lucky, or that such things didn't exist in real life. But one of his friends said something different.
"Hey. Isn't that a scam?"
It was a question born from worry. His friend still remembered the man's school days, when he'd been gullible and easily fooled.
The man felt a flash of anger at his friend for calling the sorcerer a con artist, but he quickly realized the concern was genuine. He thought about it seriously.
"No. The sorcery that person cast on me was real."
"That's exactly what I'm saying. What if it's some half-baked trick designed to fool you?"
Korea was a country overflowing with scammers. The fraud rate was overwhelmingly higher than in other nations. And among those countless con artists were many who approached their victims pretending to possess spiritual powers.
They'd claim to be priests serving some obscure deity, demanding offerings in exchange for divine blessings. Or shamans who said they'd formed contracts with spirits and would write powerful talismans for a generous consultation fee. That sort of thing.
People impersonating sorcerers appeared from time to time as well. This was because the public image of a sorcerer was that of an eccentric—someone whose vague explanations people tended to believe anyway.
"They show up all the time in old stories, right? The passing sorcerer who casts a spell to protect someone or lend them a hand."
In those old tales, many plots revolved around a "passing sorcerer" solving problems. A sorcerer taking pity on a scholar tormented by evil spirits and exorcising them. A captive given a talisman by a sorcerer to help them escape from a monster. Stories like that.
Perhaps because sorcerers felt so familiar, scammers occasionally approached people while disguised as one. Their efforts to swindle money were truly impressive, making it almost impossible for those who only knew sorcerers from television or books not to fall for their tricks.
Besides, low-level sorcery was easy to imitate and use. Unless the victim was a powerful ability user, there was almost no risk of conflict with ordinary people or weaker practitioners, so it was simple to deceive them with a convincing display. Rituals were even easier—just announce, "I will now perform a grand sorcery ceremony," and perform something that looked impressive enough. People swallowed it whole.
In the modern era, with flawless stage magic techniques and magitech devices, deception had become simpler than ever.
"Scammers these days aren't amateurs. Some of them even fool government agencies. Just think about it, man."
The man's naturally gullible nature made him pause. What if what he'd seen had been nothing more than illusion magic or an elaborate scam?
But he soon let out a small laugh.
No way there are still people pulling that crap these days.
Scammers who impersonated sorcerers certainly existed. But scammers who kept impersonating sorcerers did not. Real sorcerers never tolerated those who committed crimes while wearing their name.
Sorcerers carried an image that was eccentric, folksy, approachable to the common man, or that of a wise ascetic who had endured rigorous training. At first glance they might seem like harmless pushovers. And indeed, many sorcerers were exactly that—people who lived by helping others, or harmless recluses who shut themselves away in remote mountains to cultivate.
But there were also sorcerers who looked like they belonged in horror films or thrillers. In South America, a mad sorcerer who performed human sacrifices had been shot dead. In Europe, there had been a sorcerer who ruled like a king while leading a pack of wolves.
Of course, those were extreme examples. Most sorcerers were neither particularly good nor evil. Countless numbers simply minded their own business, uninterested in worldly affairs. Many were too absorbed in their training to care about anything else.
That was why scammers thought:
This seems like easy money. Just go around claiming to be a sorcerer.
They knew there were violent sorcerers from time to time. But if you thought about it that way, the same could be said of any crime. Among a thousand people, there would always be a few assailants and murderers. Yet most people lived decent lives, didn't they? If you didn't get caught, that was that. If you did, you were simply unlucky.
So the scammers impersonated sorcerers without fear. And they always met ruin. Not ordinary ruin, but horrific ruin.
"Who the hell impersonates a sorcerer these days? It's social suicide."
With the advance of science, the treatment of ability users had changed. Mages, once treasured by kings and nobles, had become elites in engineering, the military, and special professions. Warriors, the core defenders of nations, had entered roles as soldiers, bodyguards, and mercenaries. Contractors, who once caused historical upheavals with every appearance, were now seen as slightly stronger, promising ability users. Witches, once persecuted, had moved into entertainment and beauty, becoming objects of envy. Even summoners, who used to be executed on sight for calling forth demons or monsters, now appeared on television daily to show off their summons. Cute animals were a guaranteed ratings cheat, after all.
But sorcerers had not changed much from ancient times. In the past, they had possessed power and honor because they could divine the future and wield magic-like forces. Kings and nobles consulted them before major decisions. When famine struck or war loomed, they performed blessing rituals. The wealthy and powerful would carry riches to a sorcerer's door until the threshold wore thin, all in hopes of gaining fortune.
Yet sorcerers were not exclusive to the powerful. Their abilities were far too versatile. In eras before systematic medicine, they served as doctors. They acted as counselors who listened to hardships and offered solutions. They became godfathers who prayed for a child's good fortune. They were experts in feng shui, selecting auspicious sites based on topography and terrain. They would even intervene when they saw someone in trouble, becoming staple characters in countless old stories.
Sorcerers were ability users who had walked alongside humanity since antiquity—familiar, yet objects of reverence. That aspect had carried into the modern age. Kings and nobles were gone. Capitalism had taken root. But as long as society existed, wealth and power would always remain. The ruling class had simply taken new names. Kings became presidents. Nobles became congressmen and billionaires.
The powers reborn in this new order craved the same things as their predecessors: to divine their futures and draw fortune toward themselves. Skilled sorcerers therefore often had connections to the powerful. Those connections were used to mercilessly eliminate anyone foolish enough to impersonate them. The powerful, eager to build favor with real sorcerers, showed not a shred of mercy. Through every medium available, they loudly broadcast the fates of such scammers, as if shouting, "This is what happens when you impersonate a sorcerer."
After it happened enough times, a simple formula was born: impersonating a sorcerer equaled social death.
One punishment to warn a hundred. It was the sorcerers' way of making an example so no one would dare touch them again.
Even so, fearless idiots still appeared from time to time. The ones who planned to swindle a fortune from the rich and then disappear into hiding were exactly that sort.
"Besides, would those crazy bastards bother targeting a nobody like me? They'd go after the rich people in Gangnam."
The man brushed off his friend's warning. Yet the unease he'd been feeling lately, combined with those words, made his heart waver whether he wanted it to or not. So when he met the weirdo again, he spoke impulsively. Instinctively.
"Um… Sorcerer. Besides that luck spell… could you cast something else for me?"
The weirdo smiled.
"Of course."
As if he had been waiting for those very words.