The Weight of His Mana
Gwicin’s face was bright as he looked at me.
He looked as though he’d just been reunited with a distant relative after years apart.
He had joked last night that maybe we’d been related through some ancient ancestor at some point, but…
Statistically, that was about as close to impossible as you could get, so it had been the sort of joke you made only because the alternative was silence.
“……”
His face was so gaunt it looked as if the flesh had been drawn tight over bone.
His body was just as lean, all skin and sharp edges.
And yet there was something solemn about him, something that clung to him like a second shadow.
His appearance, his atmosphere—
There wasn’t a single thing we shared that I could find, no matter how hard I looked.
It would have been much faster to find differences.
“Hm….”
“Your face is full of worry and concern.”
“That’s because of you.”
“Because of me?”
Gwicin tilted his head, as if he couldn’t understand why I’d be troubled on his account.
All I could feel from him was a strange, inexplicable delight.
“……”
The dungeon had been restored to its original state.
That was a serious enough matter to make an S-class hunter move.
All the S-class hunters had gathered because of political and diplomatic issues involving three countries, yes, but even setting that aside, it didn’t change the fact that this was the kind of event that could stir an S-class hunter into action.
It had been enough to pique Aladin Miller’s curiosity and send her all the way here.
And the person responsible for that huge incident had been exposed to Edidat Gwicin—me.
It was only natural that he’d look worried.
Hoo.
What was I supposed to do about this?
“I’m trying to decide what the best course of action is.”
“I see.”
As he answered, Gwicin folded his arms.
His whole attitude said he’d wait for me to finish thinking.
Looking at him like that, I sank deeper into my own thoughts.
The first thing that came to mind was, naturally, asking and dealing.
The problem was that asking him would be useless.
Gwicin and I had only spent forty minutes sitting together.
If I asked him to keep something this serious secret, he had no reason—no loyalty—to agree.
As for bargaining… there was no way to make the scales balance.
What exactly could I offer an S-class hunter that would satisfy him?
No matter what I promised him, it probably wouldn’t be enough to satisfy Gwicin’s heart.
If only Seo Ji-hyeok had found out instead, maybe I could have cut a deal.
Russia, unlike the United States, had a lot of land that had been poorly managed and turned into dungeons.
If I’d offered to turn those dungeons back into forests, Russia would have welcomed me with both arms wide open.
Unfortunately, the United States managed its land better than just about any other country, so there weren’t many places that had turned into dungeons and become a problem.
Honestly… what was I supposed to do?
I couldn’t ask him, couldn’t bargain with him.
Threatening him was even more absurd.
“Hoo….”
All I could do was sigh.
Looks like there was no helping it.
I’d have to push straight through.
“No matter how long I think about it, I’m not getting an answer.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. So I’ll have to ask you directly. What do I need to do for you to keep this a secret?”
At my question, Gwicin smiled faintly.
The smile already resting at the corner of his mouth deepened by a fraction.
In a gentle voice, he said, “Nothing.”
“Pardon?”
“You need do nothing at all. I meant to keep it a secret from the start.”
“You meant to keep it a secret? Is that… really true?”
“It is.”
“For no price at all?”
“For no price at all.”
Gwicin answered with such simple honesty that it was almost like I’d asked him, “Are you going to have lunch?”
But I couldn’t just believe that answer.
He’d learned that someone could restore a dungeon to its original state, and he was going to keep it secret without wanting a thing in return?
That didn’t make sense.
At the very least, it would have been more natural to ask me to restore a few dungeons somewhere in American territory.
Even if there weren’t any problematic lands the way Russia had because of poor management, that didn’t mean there were no lands at all that had turned into dungeons.
One reason other countries, including ours, tried so hard to stay on America’s good side was to learn from that know-how.
“I won’t say a word to anyone else… I have my own reasons, so I can’t say otherwise.”
That much was understandable.
Even if the topic never came up to begin with, if some high-ranking government official asked him, he’d have to answer.
When it came to the dimension of “the nation,” he too was nothing more than a single gear in a much larger machine.
The fact that S-class hunters had gathered in Korea at the request of their respective governments was proof enough of that.
“But I can promise I won’t go around talking about it casually.”
“…Thank you.”
“Truly, there’s no need to worry, Do-woon. To begin with, I spend more time with animals than with people.”
Come to think of it…
Even just now, he had been sitting with small animals.
The sight of all those different creatures gathered around him in little clusters, resting so peacefully, was like something out of an illustrated fairy tale.
Even now, if I tried to picture it in my head, that image came much more naturally than Gwicin standing beside people.
Still…
I hadn’t expected him to agree to keep it secret without asking for a favor or a deal.
The fact that I’d been agonizing over what to do just a moment ago felt downright foolish.
“……”
“……”
Realizing how foolish I’d been, I looked at Gwicin again.
He was still smiling.
He’d been smiling from the moment I first saw him until now.
“There’s something I’d like to ask you, Gwicin.”
“What is it?”
“Why… are you not asking about this place?”
Gwicin had discovered that someone had returned a dungeon to its original state.
It should have been obvious to ask how it had been done.
And yet he hadn’t asked.
He had simply watched me with that same quiet smile all along.
Dungeon erasure.
It was something the whole world had studied together and still failed to accomplish.
Even if you used a mana generator—the greatest product of modern science—for a full year to suppress a dungeon, it was still useless.
Was it about twenty years ago? A Tibetan monk had even performed three thousand bows, and the dungeon still hadn’t disappeared.
“Aren’t you curious… how I did it?”
“Ah.”
Gwicin nodded as though he understood what I was getting at.
Then he spoke slowly.
“Human beings are always astonished when they see someone accomplish what they themselves cannot.”
“…Yes?”
“But when it comes to things they themselves are capable of, they do not envy others even if someone else has already done them.”
“……”
“Do-woon, don’t you think so?”
“Well, yes, I suppose I do….”
Just as he said, people admired others who could do what they themselves could not.
They wanted to know how it had been done, kept asking questions, kept trying to peek behind the curtain.
On the other hand, if others did something they were capable of themselves, they didn’t envy it.
That was only natural.
No one envied what they could already do.
But… why was he saying this?
“I am the same.”
“The same…?”
“Yes.”
What on earth was he talking about?
I frowned before I could stop myself, as if I were having a Zen koan with a monk.
He said he was the same…?
“…Ah?”
Suddenly, I understood what he was trying to say.
People admired those who could do what they themselves could not.
They did not envy those who did what they themselves could already do.
He was the same.
Which meant…
“Don’t tell me…!”
“That’s right. I can change dungeons too.”
“Wha—!”
I was so dumbfounded I could barely get the words out.
I had never once heard that Gwicin could alter dungeons.
No, of course I hadn’t.
It was only natural that I hadn’t heard it.
He must have hidden the fact that he could do it, just as I had.
So that was it….
The reason America had lands that had turned into dungeons, yet no lands that had become a serious problem.
It was because he had been controlling them all along.
There wasn’t even anything you could call know-how.
“You can erase dungeons too…?”
The World Tree Sapling is wondering how such a thing is possible.
The sapling feels intense curiosity toward the human standing before it.
So you’re curious too, Saessak?
Yeah, me too.
“Ah….”
Gwicin tilted his head.
What?
Did I say something wrong?
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Pardon?”
“I didn’t explain it properly. To be precise, what I do and what Do-woon does are a little different.”
“Different…?”
The sapling feels confused.
Gwicin reached out an arm like a dry branch.
Following the line of that arm, I looked out across the forest.
Green trees and thick undergrowth stretched out before us.
“Do-woon completely erased the dungeon.”
“Right.”
In its place, the forest grew so lush it was as if something had been painted there.
The dungeon vanished, and the original terrain beneath it was restored.
Though after it came back, some bastards had fought and torn the place half to pieces anyway….
“I can’t completely erase a dungeon.”
“You can’t erase it completely?”
“What I do is shrink it.”
“Shrink it…? You mean make it smaller?”
“Exactly.”
“I see….”
“The damaged terrain from a break doesn’t come back, but the polluted land does return to Mother Earth.”
It was different, just as he said.
Unless the shrinking continued until the dungeon was fully erased…
If it didn’t continue all the way…
Then erasure and shrinking were clearly not the same.
The fact that the original terrain didn’t come back was a difference too.
“I realized I had this ability… forty years ago already.”
“Ah….”
A small sound slipped from my lips.
At that moment, this whole atmosphere felt incredibly familiar.
When I’d been trailing those demolition guys around and learning the trade a year and a half ago, I’d experienced this exact thing dozens of times.
After downing four glasses of soju one after another, one of the uncles would always start telling his life story.
He’d open with something like, “Back in my day…!”
“At the time, I was a little boy not yet ten years old.”
Of course…
Gwicin was about to tell me his past.
No, don’t do this.
I don’t want to hear your life story!
And especially not without soju to go with it!
“I was just a child, one who didn’t even know how dangerous dungeons could be.”
But Gwicin had already vanished into his own world.
With a wistful look in his eyes, he began speaking of the past.
I said I wasn’t curious….
The sapling says it is curious.
Fine. If Saessak’s curious, I guess I have to listen.
＊＊＊
“…And that’s how I ended up here today.”
Gwicin finished speaking, then smiled.
“Hoo….”
I let out a breath.
Relieved, I added, “I see.”
Fortunately, he was different from the demolition uncles.
Meaning he hadn’t gone on and on about his entire life story.
He had only talked about the moment he first realized his ability.
To put it simply, he had been a nine-year-old boy who wandered into a dungeon by mistake, found himself on the brink of death at the hands of a monster he’d never seen before, and awakened the power to shrink dungeons just before he died.
Once he realized that shrinking a dungeon brought back the polluted land underneath, he wandered across the United States, finding dangerous dungeons and shrinking them wherever he could.
He didn’t shrink every dungeon.
The first reason was that he might expose his identity.
The second was that there were people in this world living off byproducts from dungeons.
I could agree with that line of thinking and those actions.
I needed the ant-nest dungeon to get fertilizer for Saessak, after all.
Living that kind of life had eventually led Gwicin to meet me last night and again today.
“So that’s how it was….”
Now that I’d heard the story, I understood why he’d been so happy to see me.
From his point of view, it must have looked like this.
Someone like himself, who could shrink dungeons.
A Korean man whose energy felt oddly familiar.
And that Korean man could do something similar to him…?
I’d be happy too.
“Gwicin.”
“Yes.”
“Would you mind if I felt your mana directly?”
“Of course.”
That was why I asked him.
He nodded at once.
It seemed he wanted to as well.
Saessak did too.
The sapling feels curiosity like a caretaker.
I walked up to him and reached out my hand.
I wanted to take his hand and feel his mana.
But….
“Gwicin?”
He froze with his hand still outstretched toward me.
Even when I called his name, he just stood there, perfectly still.
What was going on?
As the question surfaced in my mind,
The sapling sensed mana that was pure, complete, and fierce.
Saessak sent me a message.
Pure, complete, and fierce mana….
When I read that message, Li Lianzhe’s face flashed through my mind, staring at me without blinking.
So far, he was the only one Saessak had ever described as “pure and complete.”
Had Li Lianzhe done something?
The moment that thought crossed my mind, Gwicin turned his body the other way and extended his hand.
At the same instant,
“…Hhk!”
I felt a pressure that seemed to crush my whole body.
It was as if gravity had suddenly multiplied several times over.
I had felt this pain before.
Not even that long ago.
Just a month ago, on the day Jeon Myeong-hwan had come to kill me, I’d felt it then too.
That was right.
What was bearing down on my body was mana pressure.