Lair Under the Bridge (6)
The path Serpina walked with the guards was steeped in silence. Yoo Cheol had always been a man of few words, and the rest of the security team still regarded her as a potential threat.
Serpina herself had zero interest in making the first move toward people who looked at her with something close to hostility. Instead, she turned to Ayoung, who was trailing behind them.
“So. What’s actually good about registering with the Association? Give me the details.”
“Yes! The best part is you can take requests! Even Rank 5 jobs usually pay around three hundred thousand won each. Work steadily and you’ll earn more than most office workers without killing yourself!”
“Requests—like the one where you showed up to kidnap Heemang?”
“Huh? Well… requests to hunt magic beasts are pretty common. I did think it was odd today that the job was capture instead of extermination, but… I never imagined it wasn’t even a real request.”
“Magic beast? What the hell is that. I heard the word earlier. Some kind of monster?”
“Exactly. I hear they call them monsters overseas too. Animals that contain and can use mana are called magic beasts.”
“Heemang is a magic beast?”
“Yes. Weren’t you raising him because you knew?”
“I had no idea. I keep telling you he’s not even my cat.”
Serpina listened to Ayoung’s explanation and gave a small inner nod.
She had suspected something was off. The way the kitten acted like it understood human speech, or how it regulated its own food intake even when she just dumped kibble in a pile.
There was no way a tiny little kitten would behave that intelligently without some special trait.
“But I’m not that attached to money. Anything else?”
“Huh? How can someone not care about…”
Ayoung started to protest, then remembered the cardboard house Serpina lived under and closed her mouth. She wasn’t living there because she was broke? To Ayoung, who was diligently saving up for the latest magic-powered electric kickboard, it was an almost alien mindset.
“Ahem. Other benefits include the services the Association provides. The most popular is the evidence-erasure service that wipes away traces of magic. After that…”
“We’ve arrived.”
Yoo Cheol, walking ahead, cut into their conversation.
“This is…”
“The mana testing room! It’s where they measure your mana capacity. Just put your arm in the machine, circulate your mana, and the result pops right up!”
“…It’s exactly as Ms. Ayoung described. I’ve already taken care of the paperwork, so have a seat when a station opens and take the test.”
People were already being tested inside. The process was simple: sit down, slide your arm into the cylindrical device, wait a moment, and a number would appear on the attached screen. Honestly, Serpina thought it looked exactly like a blood-pressure monitor.
“Forty-five points! That’s three points higher than last time!”
“Twenty-seven? Me? No way—this thing’s broken, right?”
“If you’re done, hurry up and get out!”
Voices rose and fell throughout the room as people reacted to their results with joy or disappointment.
“Just so you know, I scored twenty-eight. In terms of mana capacity, I’m not far behind a Rank 4 mage!”
“That’s true. A typical Rank 5 mage usually sits in the low teens, so your mana capacity is excellent for your rank, Ms. Ayoung.”
“…That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
Serpina didn’t fully understand the ranking system of Rank 4 and Rank 5 that the other two kept mentioning, but she grasped one thing clearly.
“Rank 5 is the lowest tier. Assuming there isn’t a Rank 6.”
“Senior?!”
A station had opened up. Serpina sat down exactly as she’d seen the others do and slid her arm into the device.
While Ayoung and Yoo Cheol watched with bated breath, the machine hummed to life.
The number that appeared on the screen was…
“What? That’s impossible!”
“Hmm…”
Ayoung rushed over to the machine, staring at the screen in disbelief. Yoo Cheol let out a low groan.
Both of them had seen at least a glimpse of Serpina’s power. Ayoung had experienced it personally, and Yoo Cheol had witnessed the aftermath of her actions.
Ayoung knew she was weak as a mage. That was precisely why she also understood how much potential even an ordinary person could possess. After all, a well-trained civilian could still defeat her.
Measured against that standard, Serpina’s abilities clearly exceeded anything a normal person was capable of. More than that, Serpina had seen straight through the magic Ayoung used. No ordinary person could do that.
And Yoo Cheol had watched Serpina swing a grown man like a bat and shatter the tiles in the Association building lobby.
Those tiles were not cheap. Without mana, even a construction sledgehammer would struggle to leave a mark.
Serpina possessed mana. That fact was undeniable.
“You’re loud. Shut up for a second.”
Serpina shoved Ayoung’s clinging face away with her palm.
“But senior! This thing is clearly broken!”
“I said be quiet. I already get the idea.”
She had analyzed how the device measured mana capacity just by watching the others. She also understood why the result had come back zero. Simply put, it was a compatibility issue. The machine didn’t recognize the otherworldly mana inside her as mana.
The solution, then, was simple. She just had to change its nature.
Serpina closed her eyes. For the first time since returning to this world, she turned her focus inward.
Thump… Thump…
A faint vibration echoed. A sound only she could hear.
A space wrapped in cold darkness. Once, overexertion had nearly caused this very space to collapse. Since arriving on Earth she had left it dormant, thinking she would have no use for it.
She lit a fire there.
Her will became a tiny spark that illuminated the darkness for a single instant. One moment was enough.
Thump… Thump… Thump…
The light born from a single flame grew with every pulse. Bigger. Clearer. More numerous. Soon the growth outpaced the rhythm of the thumps entirely.
Thump… Thump… Thump…
In mere seconds the entire space blazed with light. The candle-flame had become an inferno capable of devouring everything, stretching out endlessly. The body that had only held the bare minimum of mana was suddenly flooded with boundless power.
The flame that burns forever. The core that never dies. The source of infinite mana.
“Senior? Senior… Hiek!”
Ayoung, who had been peering at Serpina’s closed eyes, suddenly scrambled backward and fell hard on her backside with a loud thud. The pain in her tailbone didn’t even register.
Until now Ayoung had never sensed mana from Serpina. That was why she had mistaken her for an ordinary homeless person the first time and swung her selfie stick. That fact hadn’t changed.
But now it was different. Something she could only describe as something poured out of Serpina and overwhelmed everything around her.
“……”
Yoo Cheol’s face hardened as he quietly rested a hand on his staff. The other guards couldn’t move a single finger.
An aura so heavy that even trained mage guards froze instead of reaching for their weapons. The only one who managed to maintain even a defensive posture was Captain Yoo Cheol.
Paying no attention to the room’s reaction, Serpina gathered the overflowing mana and altered the nature of a portion of it.
“…Huh?”
Someone’s confused murmur perfectly captured what everyone in the testing room was feeling.
What they witnessed was this: mana suddenly appeared where there had been none, then began to surge explosively.
“Hmm. So that’s the limit. The measurement range isn’t very wide.”
Changing the nature of her mana was extremely inefficient. The converted mana wasn’t particularly effective, either. It was like buying a train ticket just to visit the convenience store. Serpina decided she would have no reason to bother converting her mana in the future.
“S-senior. That…?”
Serpina turned toward the trembling voice. Ayoung was still sitting on the floor, pointing at her with a shaking finger.
For a split second Serpina thought, Did this kid just lose her mind and start pointing at people? Then she realized the finger was aimed slightly above her head.
A familiar weight settled over her scalp—one she had forgotten about lately.
Serpina reached up. Just as expected, her fingers met something hard and sharp.
It was the dragon horn she had concealed with magic after it kept poking holes in the cardboard she used as a bed during her early days under the bridge.
It seemed awakening the Dragon Heart had triggered it to emerge. Since it was an organ tied to a dragon’s very identity, it tended to appear easily once the right condition was met.
Did the tail come out too?
Serpina quickly glanced behind her. Fortunately, no tail had appeared. If that thick dragon tail had emerged, it would have shredded the pants she was wearing. That would have been a disaster.
Yoo Cheol asked, his wariness now several levels higher.
“You weren’t human?”
“Correct.”
Serpina answered honestly.
“I’m a dragon.”