Back to the Shovel
“Suji. Let’s go get something good to eat and clear our heads.”
She had already broken up with Colt, while her friend was still carrying on that relationship.
When you’re feeling low, meat comes first...
It was a change of pace for Ho-jung herself, not for the friend who was hurting.
“…Yeah.”
Ho-jung noticed something odd at the restaurant she reached with Suji. The problem was what Suji had in her hand.
“Huh? You...”
“Why?”
The two of them pulled out money to pay, and Suji took out a $100 bill, which she didn’t usually use.
“……”
Ho-jung remembered that whenever Colt pulled out money, it was always the same denomination. And she also remembered that every bill she had seen in his jacket had been $100 bills.
“Did your allowance from home go up? No, even if it did, isn’t that a little much?”
No matter how much allowance Suji received, she would never casually pull out a $100 bill. This was America, not Korea. Taking out a $100 bill was the same as announcing you were ready to meet a robber with a handgun.
“Ah... my brother gave it to me to use.”
“…James gave it to you?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“……”
Suji hesitated, finding it hard to say.
“He gave you allowance too?”
“I told him I was fine, but he said how could a student have any money and...”
“Whoa.”
“Isn’t that a little strange?”
“A little? You call this a little strange?”
“…I’ll just meet him later and give it back.”
“How much did he give you? Spit it out.”
“…Ten thousand dollars.”
“Hey!”
“……”
Suji apologized for no reason at all, even though she had done nothing wrong.
“Sorry...”
“Haa. You’re dating because you like each other, so why the hell is he giving you money?”
“He just handed it over like it was nothing...”
“Tch.”
Ho-jung was scolding Suji, but she couldn’t help thinking to herself.
So why doesn’t Colt give me allowance...
“Ahem. If he gave it to you already, you might as well spend it well.”
“Huh?”
“Honestly, you two met way too late. If we’d met earlier, how much richer and happier would our study-abroad life have been?”
“Then I shouldn’t return it?”
“But you’re buying lunch today.”
“Deal.”
“Don’t say ‘deal’ like that! It makes me think of Colt.”
“…Hiiing, sorry. ...James will be fine, right?”
When Suji thought of Colt, James naturally came to mind too.
“And you stop thinking about James too!”
“…Khh. Okay.”
Ho-jung was down as well, thinking of Colt, but she forced herself to say something harsh to shake the feeling off.
“Two good-looking guys went off to England, so how free could they possibly be? They’re definitely doing something on the side...”
“Do you really think so?”
“……”
Ho-jung couldn’t make Suji worry more than she already was about her boyfriend.
“Colt would absolutely do that, but James is trustworthy, yeah.”
“Right? James wouldn’t do that, would he?”
...Still, don’t ever trust men, Suji.
Ho-jung kept that thought to herself.
“There’s always someone you can trust.”
“My brother is kind. He’d never do something like that.”
“……”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The James Suji trusted without the slightest doubt was holding a card in his hand in a spacious first-class seat.
“Wow. That’s amazing. How did you do that? The card just disappeared from your hand too...”
“I can’t give away a magician’s secret.”
He was showing off the card tricks Suji had told him not to do, putting on a show for the stewardess.
“Uh... could it be...”
She was able to recall her memory through the passenger’s name and the card trick.
“James... James Kane? James Kane of Las Vegas?”
“Have you seen my show?”
“Not the show yet... just videos. The magician with telekinesis! It’s really nice to meet you.”
“Haha. Thank you.”
“……”
Colt was watching James with an irritated look.
“Have a pleasant journey.”
The lovely stewardess went off to another place, then passed by again with a greeting before leaving them alone, but Colt’s sharp eyes caught something else.
“What’s that?”
“What?”
She had quietly handed him something before moving on to another passenger.
“You just got a note.”
“…Tsk.”
“Contact info?”
James unfolded the note, read it, and said,
“…It says to contact her when we get to England.”
“Ha! Suji crying as she saw us off at the airport is still fresh in my mind...”
“Come on. Who said I was going to do anything? It was just good customer care.”
“That’s hilarious.”
“I’m not an easy man like Colt.”
“Who says I’m easy?”
Colt bristled, but James was not an easy opponent.
“How many years have I lived with Colt by now? I know everything from the start of how he picks women to the moment he dumps them.”
“……”
“This time too, if another flight attendant gives Colt her number, he won’t even look back before breaking up with me in England.”
“…That’s true. I can’t deny it.”
After that, Colt started chatting up another flight attendant in a friendly way, got her contact info, and in England he really did split off with nothing more than a brief greeting. A spoken word had become a seed.
“Call me when you’re done with your business. I’ll head back with you when it’s time to go to Korea.”
“……”
And just like that, Colt vanished at the English airport.
“…I was an idiot for thinking we’d go together.”
After that, James had to go to Stonehenge alone. Now that he had a lover, he had no interest in wasting time in England. He planned to solve this quickly and then find a flight back to Korea.
“Honestly, this is a little lighter on me too...”
Visiting Stonehenge required a reservation in advance, so James booked the earliest slot he could and headed to the center that managed the site.
This shouldn’t take long.
Stonehenge’s history began long before the Common Era, but the records left by his teacher, Mercia Lynchberg, were from the Common Era. There was a gap of more than three thousand years between the two.
Which means any magical element that might still remain in Stonehenge was added later.
The enormous structure, built by raising stones and stacking more stones on top, had not escaped the passage of time; part of it had collapsed.
“Hmm...”
While the other tourists marveled at Stonehenge’s sheer scale, James was busy searching for mana.
Trace the mana. Action.
The only clue left in his master’s books was a drawing of Stonehenge, so finding the inheritance was James’s job alone.
...Why is this so complicated?
Following the lines of mana invisible to everyone else, James had to keep circling Stonehenge in search of the pattern.
“Huh?”
Something clicked in his mind, and James took out paper and began recording the mana he had found so far.
Stonehenge is the center. If the path of mana wraps around the structure in a circle and the complicated lines continue along each pillar...
“?!“
A magic circle took shape. But this circle had not been drawn to activate magic; it was merely a means of marking a location. The method for interpreting it was also written in his master’s books, so James had no trouble pinpointing the place.
Master, honestly... you could have just given it to me instead of making me go around in circles.
James turned his head toward where the magic circle pointed. It was not Stonehenge, but a hill on the Salisbury Plain some distance away.
If that’s what you want, I’ll do it. What else can I do?
The place was only five miles away in a straight line, so he arrived before long.
James could see a dense patch of woods and a small hill, a place so unremarkable that no tourist would ever bother visiting it, and indeed there wasn’t a single ant in sight. It was a perfect fit.
“It’s nice that no one’s around, but...”
As James slowly headed toward the hill, he thought again of the many tourists who visited Stonehenge and the countless Stone Age relics already unearthed.
If my master had left his inheritance in some ancient ruin without thinking, someone would definitely have gotten their hands on it by now.
Right now, he alone could sense mana and use magic, but long ago there might have been many more magicians in existence. If another magician had visited Stonehenge before him and searched for mana, there was a high chance his master’s inheritance would have ended up in the wrong hands.
Even if there had been no magician, modern technology would have finished the search long before James got there, and the inheritance would have been lost. No matter how carefully you hid something inside a stone, one X-ray would expose the whole thing.
“Your mind really is something else...”
James reached the center of a small wooded grove and spread out his palm.
“Let’s finish this.”
He began searching for traces of mana again, and before long he found a tiny residue.
Depth: six feet.
He glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then opened his portable storage.
The object James pulled from the black void was the shovel that now felt like an extension of his own hand.
“Looks like I’m digging again.”
Thunk. Shhk.
The shovel, wrapped in a thin layer of mana, drove deep into the earth. It had been a while since he’d done manual digging, but the mana-coated shovel tore through the ground without resistance, and before long it gave him a peculiar sensation.
Tick.
“Huh?”
James’s shovel, charged with mana, could cut through even solid stone, but something had just stopped it.
What exactly did my master hide...
James began digging out a wider area, and soon he could see the true shape of the inheritance. The object had been wrapped in mana, which was why it had left only a faint trace on the outside. For the same reason, it could not be destroyed by a mana-coated shovel.
“……”
Carefully poking his face out of the hole to check outside again, James quickly lifted the object he had found and set it on the ground.
Thud.
“Ugh. That’s incredibly heavy.”
What James had pulled out was a large, antique-looking box. Whatever was inside, it was heavy indeed, and once it emerged, it clearly revealed its mana. It looked like a treasure chest straight out of a fairy tale, which stirred a flicker of anticipation in him, but he shut that down almost immediately.
Just the weight of the box alone is substantial. What’s inside might not amount to much...
After filling the hole with the dirt he had dug out, James quickly opened his magic storage and hid the box away.
Checking it here would be insane.
No matter how empty the place seemed, he couldn’t inspect his master’s inheritance in a spot like this.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Back at the hotel he had booked, James took a taxi, showered, changed clothes, and downed a cold beer.
Click.
“Khh.”
It was time to check the box. James’s hand drew the magic circle that opened the portable storage, and soon the large box appeared in the world once more.
Thud.
James was about to use magic to wipe away all the dirt on the box when he suddenly stopped.
“Did it push away the mana from the shovel just now?”
The box had been surrounded and protected by mana. Rather than waste power on magic, it seemed better to open it the natural way.
“Ugh. I just showered...”
He began brushing the dirt away by hand, and then he found another object that was sealing the box shut.
“Aw, come on!”
Rattle.
The box was locked tight, oblivious to the passage of time. The metal lock, in particular, even began to gleam once he cleared the dirt from it.
“Haa... just give it to me already, Master. Hm?”
James examined the lock from every angle to try to open it, but there wasn’t even a hole for a key to go into.
“This is maddening. It didn’t say I needed a key...”
He didn’t have the right key in the first place, but that was beside the point. Without a keyhole, there was nothing even to try.
James refused to give up. He touched the lock again, and soon discovered tiny letters engraved on its surface.
“...If there is no bond, it will not open. And if it is forcibly broken, nothing can be obtained.”
The inscription used the same kind of language recorded in his master’s books. It was a language only those walking between life and death could read. And with a warning that forced destruction would yield nothing, it was clear that, just as he had first thought, the inheritance could only be obtained by opening it the right way.
“So it really is mine.”
James wondered how he was supposed to prove his bond with Mercia Lynchberg.
“It has to open through mana and magic, right...”
But the box was protected by mana, and so was the lock, which repelled mana in turn. It was a contradiction: the box was guarded by mana, yet it had to be opened by magic that also used mana.
If I were my master...
James could think of one way to use mana-based magic without actually casting magic himself.
“Open sesame?”
“……”
He tried the answer from the fairy tale on a whim, but it didn’t seem to be a voice-activated lock.
“Come on! At least leave me a hint! Master Mercia!”
Then he got a small reaction.
Flash.
A tiny light flashed from the lock, and James could feel the flow of mana stirring within it. He began searching his own words for the one that had caused the response.
“Hint?”
It was a completely unrelated word.
“Master?”
That wasn’t it either.
“Mercia?”
Flash.
“!”
The lock reacted to the word Mercia, and James understood the answer. It was the word that proved his bond with his master.
“Mercia Lynchberg!”
Whoosh!
When James shouted his master’s name, bright light burst from the lock.
Clack.
The lock that had been held fast opened on its own in a wash of light. At the same time, the mana protecting the box began to be absorbed into it and disappear.
Swish.
“!!”
So it really was a voice-activated lock? Master Mercia’s name was the key...
“Honestly, Master, you really are roundabout...”
After removing the lock and setting it aside, James cleaned up the dirt-covered area around him first.
“Mana of purification... Clean.”
A wind rose, sweeping over the box and the surrounding ground, and before long only the clean box remained on the floor.
“Heh heh heh.”
It was time to open the box.
“What kind of gift did Master prepare for his disciple, I wonder?”
He already knew there was advanced magic inside. What James was curious about was whether there was anything else besides the spellbook.
“You didn’t just leave a magic book in there, did you?”
Creak.
A bright light spilled out from the opening box and lit James’s face.
“!!”