The Gift of Balance
“That’s impossible!”
Choi Ki-jeong shouted in shock.
There was the stunned disbelief of someone who had just seen the impossible in his voice. Even his lips, the only part of his face not hidden beneath the hood, trembled faintly.
When he spoke again, his words came out haltingly.
“Just now, that trash was! How on earth did you…?”
“Choi Ki-jeong?”
Seo Ji-hyeok turned to look at the subordinate who had stopped speaking like an idiot.
But the man didn’t even seem to hear his leader calling his name, and kept staring at me. Awe spilled from his mouth.
“Incredible… incredible magic…!”
“Incredible? That?”
“Yes! That magic is the kind that will change the flow of the world!”
“What?”
Seo Ji-hyeok frowned as if he had no idea what he was talking about. Still, he didn’t seem like the sort to dismiss his subordinates outright. He stared at me, falling into deep thought, probably trying to make sense of the phrase change the flow of the world.
Then Choi Ki-jeong, standing beside him, began to explain slowly.
“From the place where the trash was buried… mana came gushing out. Which means the trash can be turned into mana… no, no. Not ordinary mana. It was pure mana I’d never seen in my life…. In other words, Baek Do-woon can turn trash into extremely clean mana….”
He kept stopping himself as he spoke. He did eventually continue, but at a very slow pace, as if he were organizing the thoughts that kept bubbling up in his head while he talked.
“Turning trash into mana…. Impressive, sure, but is it really something worth being that shocked over?”
“He changed the nature of an object. It’s absurd. But… that wasn’t all.”
“Hm…?”
“Don’t you remember? Where did the mana produced that way go?”
“That….”
At his subordinate’s words, Seo Ji-hyeok closed his mouth.
He looked at me again.
He had remembered where the mana created that way had gone.
Right.
The purified mana had come to me.
More precisely, it had gone into the smartphone tucked into my pants pocket.
To get to Saessak, who was connected to me.
Unaware of that fact, Choi Ki-jeong had misread it slightly.
“It went to Baek Do-woon. It entered his body.”
“So then, that means…?”
“It means that bastard can increase his mana using trash!”
Altera-Shonem wasn’t an act of increasing my mana, but of growing Saessak.
Well... in the long run, that wasn’t exactly wrong either.
Once Saessak grew that way, the grown-up Saessak would grow me in return.
“Think about it. How much trash is there in this world…! And how much more trash will there be in the future!”
“Ah.”
“In other words, Baek Do-woon can obtain mana that’s practically infinite!”
I had… honestly admired it just like Choi Ki-jeong not so long ago, about an hour earlier.
The sight of trash turning into clean mana and flying toward me was nothing short of miraculous. Even the trash disappearing when I dug back up the ground was fascinating.
Thanks to that, I had used Altera-Shonem without even realizing how much time had passed.
And then…
[B-rank Former World Tree Quest: Path of the Manager (Beginner)]
[Use Altera-Shonem 1,000 times (896/1,000)]
I had managed to rack up a lot of uses.
Of course, as the quest window showed, I hadn’t fully reached 1,000 uses yet. Unfortunately. Regrettably.
Only after using Altera-Shonem on the trash in the management office’s bin had the total finally reached 896.
I still needed to use it 104 more times.
Tch.
“And there’s more.”
I was smacking my lips in disappointment when Choi Ki-jeong continued.
He still had more to say?
“And? There’s more?”
Yeah, apparently.
“Just imagine if Lee Tae-cheon and Baek Do-hee could use that magic.”
“Oh….”
For the first time, Seo Ji-hyeok’s eyes widened.
He hadn’t so much as blinked when I said I could obtain nearly infinite mana. But the moment he heard that Do-hee and Tae-cheon might be able to do the same, his expression changed.
And it wasn’t just those two who must have come to mind. He must have pictured people like Han Jin-hwan or Choi Hee-seok using Altera-Shonem, too.
Han Jin-hwan with infinite mana….
Even imagining that sent a faint shiver up my spine.
Still, I had no intention of teaching that old bastard.
If I were to teach it to anyone in this situation… it would be Do-hee, probably.
Tae-cheon didn’t need that much mana, after all.
The World Tree sapling warns that this is impossible.
Huh, impossible? Why?
The sapling says its nature and mana have to match in quality and wavelength.
It says only the Manager and the elves currently meet that condition.
If it was only me and the elves…
Then only beings with the World Tree’s mana would be able to do it.
I possessed the World Tree’s mana as the Manager of the World Tree, and the elves possessed it as children of the World Tree.
Then I couldn’t teach it to Do-hee after all….
What a shame.
“A magic that changes the flow of the world….”
Seo Ji-hyeok nodded, agreeing with Choi Ki-jeong’s words.
Because he didn’t know the fact I’d just learned.
“Indeed. That sounds right.”
“So—”
“Enough.”
Seo Ji-hyeok cut him off.
Choi Ki-jeong shut his mouth at once when he saw the hand lifted toward him, but I could guess what he had been about to say.
Then it would be best to kill Baek Do-woon here and now.
He had almost certainly been about to say something like that.
I could feel the sharp, displeased look coming from the man staring at me.
And more than that,
The World Tree sapling sensed killing intent from the person in front of you.
Not only I did, but Saessak had felt it too.
Sure enough, if even Saessak called it killing intent, then he really must have been about to say he wanted to kill me.
From the Balance Guild’s point of view, I was practically an enemy, so that made sense.
But Seo Ji-hyeok and I couldn’t do that. We were contractual parties who had made a fair agreement not to lay a hand on each other.
No matter how annoyed I was, I couldn’t attack first.
“……”
For that reason, an awkward silence simply hung between Seo Ji-hyeok and me.
We only stared at each other with blank faces.
Had about a minute passed?
“…Right. Why did you come all this way?”
I broke the silence by asking a question.
Just standing there and staring at each other felt more awkward than anything else.
We weren’t close enough to just stand around looking at one another for fun. Better to do what we had to and part ways.
We couldn’t break the agreement and start fighting.
And I was curious why they had come looking for me in the first place.
There was no way they’d shown up for no reason.
“To give you a gift.”
Seo Ji-hyeok answered at once.
He must have been thinking the same thing I was.
“A gift? From you to me?”
“That’s right.”
“...Man, that’s absurdly out of nowhere.”
“Out of nowhere, hm….”
Snap.
Seo Ji-hyeok muttered under his breath and snapped his fingers together.
At that, Choi Ki-jeong drove his staff into the ground.
It was magic… but not an attack spell.
It was teleportation.
Choi Ki-jeong vanished in an instant, then reappeared just as quickly.
It happened, quite literally, in the blink of an eye.
And when he returned, he was gripping something by the back of the neck in his left hand.
It was half snake and half human.
The face looked familiar.
“That’s….”
The World Tree sapling sensed a disgusting aura.
Saessak sent a message right away.
A disgusting aura.
Then there was no need to think any further about what that thing was.
“A follower of the Demon Race, right?”
“You recognized it immediately. Yes. Crowd.”
“Why would you… ah.”
A gift, he had said….
Apparently he remembered the request I’d made before.
The one where I said, “Try not to kill them if you can,” and “If you really have to kill one, bring it to me.”
Seo Ji-hyeok gave a small shrug.
“Do you remember now?”
“No, I didn’t think you’d actually bring one.”
“I thought I’d said I’d be as lenient as possible.”
“Yeah, I’m really grateful….”
“Choi Ki-jeong.”
“Yes.”
Choi Ki-jeong walked toward me while I let out a sigh that was half gratitude and half disbelief.
He dragged the snake-human thing along by the neck he held in his left hand and dropped it at my feet.
Lying sprawled on the ground, it looked almost dead.
If not for the way its body faintly swelled and shrank in a slow rhythm, I would have thought it was dead for real.
“Do you like the gift?”
I didn’t know how to answer that.
My feelings were complicated, ambiguous.
Back then, I’d asked him to bring one because I thought the energy needed for fruiting could only be obtained from the followers of the Demon Race.
Now I knew I didn’t need to steal from those bastards anymore.
Still, I figured I shouldn’t refuse it. Waste not, want not.
I changed just my pinky finger into tree roots and bound the snake-human’s body.
“Oh.”
“……!”
I released the skill and returned my hand to normal.
The tree roots binding the snake-human remained exactly as they were.
Seo Ji-hyeok, who had been watching with the amused look of someone seeing something interesting, tilted his head.
“Hm? You’re not going to kill it?”
“I am.”
“Then—”
“Just not here.”
I hadn’t meant to show it off, but I had ended up revealing my use of Altera-Shonem.
That alone had already made Choi Ki-jeong want to kill me, so I couldn’t exactly show him the part where I drained power with the World Tree Root as well.
He might start thinking something different than Seo Ji-hyeok did.
Subordinates who want to impress their superiors are often the first to do stupid things.
“Where I kill it is my business.”
“…That’s true enough.”
Seo Ji-hyeok reluctantly agreed, looking vaguely dissatisfied.
After dropping the snake-human and returning to stand behind Seo Ji-hyeok, Choi Ki-jeong bit his lip.
He seemed very displeased with my attitude, or—wait.
No, that wasn’t it.
Looking closer, Choi Ki-jeong’s chin was aimed not at me, but at Seo Ji-hyeok.
The one he didn’t like wasn’t me.
“Now then, I’ve even delivered a gift to you. Do you feel a bit more like forming an alliance?”
“……”
Oh?
Choi Ki-jeong’s lips twisted.
It was the kind of expression you often saw on people who were trying to hold back something they wanted to say.
So Choi Ki-jeong was probably dying to question Seo Ji-hyeok.
Maybe he wanted to say, Just why are you going this far for Baek Do-woon?
The problem was that even I, the person involved, didn’t know the answer.
Why was he treating me so well?
According to Yu Jae-i, Seo Ji-hyeok had defeated three A-rank hunters at once.
That meant he was a fighter among the upper tier of A-rank hunters.
He could have killed me in an instant back when we met at Namsan Gate and gone home without a scratch.
In fact, there was a good chance I wouldn’t have even realized I’d been taken out.
And yet… Seo Ji-hyeok hadn’t killed me.
Instead—
“Not enough? That’s a pity. It took quite a bit of trouble to catch it alive.”
—he kept coming at me with his head down, asking to form an alliance.
Why?
Because I was Baek Do-hee’s older brother and Lee Tae-cheon’s friend?
Well. Was that really enough of a reason?
He had Choi Ki-jeong as a subordinate, and Choi Ki-jeong was exceptional at teleportation magic.
With proper preparation, Seo Ji-hyeok could probably even run from Han Jin-hwan.
“……”
Someone like that wanted to get on my good side….
Hm. I thought about it, but I still didn’t understand why.
But one thing was certain.
He wanted to curry favor with me.
In that case… I might as well use him.
“I’ve got a favor to ask.”
“A favor? What is it?”
He asked right away what the favor was.
He was ready to hear me out.
“……”
Choi Ki-jeong clearly didn’t like the sight of it.
“That subordinate of yours. He’s good at teleportation, isn’t he?”
“I’d say he’s the best in Korea.”
At that, the twist in Choi Ki-jeong’s lips loosened a little.
The praise for being the best in Korea seemed to ease his annoyance.
“Move me to Seoul.”
“Seoul?”
“Preferably somewhere with a lot of foot traffic. Or somewhere with a lot of trash.”
“Somewhere with a lot of trash….”
Seo Ji-hyeok muttered with a blank face.
Of course, that expression disappeared quickly enough.
He realized what I meant by somewhere with a lot of trash.
He had just seen me use Altera-Shonem.
“…I do know a place that should work.”
“Oh. Really?”
“Ki-jeong. Send Baek Do-woon there.”
“There, sir?”
“The place in Cheongdam.”
“Ah.”
Cheongdam?
It did have a lot of foot traffic… but did it also have a lot of trash?
While I was tilting my head in confusion, Choi Ki-jeong struck the ground with his staff.
A teleportation magic circle rose beneath my feet at once.
“Then see you again next time, Baek Do-woon.”
“Well, I doubt I’ll be seeing you much—”
Tap.
As if cutting off my words, the staff struck the ground again.
And then,
“Huh?”
The scenery changed just like when I’d taken a warp gate.
The ant nest dungeon vanished without a trace, and a single building came into view.
It was a familiar building.
I didn’t even need to go far to recognize it, because I’d seen it at lunchtime today.
That’s right.
The place they had sent me was a paid parking lot near the Hunter Association.
“……”
Hm.
That wasn’t the kind of trash I meant….