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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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[Around 8 PM yesterday, those known as criminals had turned themselves in en masse.]
[It has been revealed that many of these criminals up until now had been forced to commit crimes or were framed because their families were taken hostage….]
[The police have stated that from now on, they will thoroughly investigate to determine the truth as well as who were the real culprits….]
[Those who had turned themselves in have revealed that they will atone for their sins by fighting on the front lines in the future….]
The morning after the day we went to the amusement park, and the day after I sent my doll to run a little wild…
Yeon Mi-rae, my mother, and I were eating breakfast in our living room while watching the news.
While we were watching, Yeon Mi-rae quietly asked me.
“That… Was that perhaps yesterday?”
At her question of whether the news was related to me sending my doll out after we returned home from the amusement park yesterday, I quietly nodded my head.
However, as if she had heard Yeon Mi-rae’s voice, my mother asked us.
“Hm? Yesterday?”
“Ah, well. On our way back from the amusement park, there was a checkpoint because of a serial killer.”
Yeon Mi-rae made that excuse to my mother.
Meanwhile, the news continued to spit out new information.
[It has been revealed that the Artist, who appeared during the Yeouido incident and the large supermarket hostage crisis, is deeply involved in this case….]
[It is said that the person who directly rescued the hostages and informed the framed victims of that fact had been the Artist. To our correspondent at the scene….]
At the mention that the Artist had appeared, my mother also turned her head again and began to focus on the news.
And for good reason. My mother was also a victim of the large supermarket hostage crisis and was a person who had received the Artist’s help at that time.
Thanks to that, although my mother wasn’t a fan of the Artist, she held a favorable view of him.
‘…How would she react if she learned that I’m that Artist…?’
Though I had no intention of revealing it.
As I was thinking that, some interesting content began to flow from the news.
[The prosecution and the police have revealed that although it is true that the Artist had saved people, they have put him on the wanted list while stating that private justice is a strictly illegal act in a country under the rule of law.]
Hearing that, the expressions of my mother and Yeon Mi-rae hardened.
Put on the wanted list…
This was, in effect, a declaration that the Artist was a criminal.
‘How interesting humans are…’
The thoughts of the higher-ups were probably this:
We can turn you into a criminal overnight.
So if you don’t want to remain a criminal, come under us.
And in this case, the ones who would be blamed for turning a hero into a criminal would not be the higher-ups who pushed for it, but the ordinary prosecution and the police.
‘This is why the higher-ups are annoying.’
Because they trouble others in a way that no harm comes to themselves….
Even just from what I remembered, many strong people who found their pressure annoying would often immigrate.
On the surface, it led to a weakening of national power, but in fact, from the perspective of the higher-ups, it was as good as driving out the strong people who didn’t follow their lead, so it probably wasn’t a great loss for them either way…
And they even went so far as to turn the people who had immigrated to escape their pressure into traitors….
‘If I had shown my true face while acting as the Artist, it would have been troublesome in many ways.’
Although my doll had shown its face during the Yeouido incident, after that, it had always worn the mask artifact.
So it was difficult for other people to recognize my doll even if it walked down the street.
In the first place, since it was a doll, it wasn’t difficult for me to change its face.
Some people might treat my doll as a criminal when I acted as the Artist again, but that was all.
If they were to insult my main body directly, it might be different, but I wouldn’t feel anything if they merely insulted my doll.
‘In conclusion, this doesn’t have much of an impact on me.’
However, it seemed like my mother and Yeon Mi-rae’s thoughts were different.
“Mi-rae, do you know how to access that national petition thing?”
“Just a moment. I’ll let you know right away.”
The two of them took out their respective smartphones and tried to use the National Assembly’s national petition system.
The purpose, of course, would be something like the withdrawal of the Artist’s wanted status.
Though I didn’t think that there would be enough people who would agree to that petition.
Still, the two of them seemed to think that this would be effective.
Yeon Mi-rae even went so far as to write a post defending the Artist on her SNS, perhaps having seen the ripple effect of her SNS before.
‘More than anything, even if they do that, I don’t think the wanted status will be easily lifted.’
I thought that while I quietly watched my mother and Yeon Mi-rae.
…It would be a bit much for me to rain on their parade when they’re so absorbed in something, right?
“I’ve eaten well.”
While the two of them were pouring all their attention into that, I, who had finished my meal, put my bowl in the sink and then quietly went into my room.
Because unlike the two of them, I had something I needed to do right now.
…Though I said it grandly, it wasn’t anything special… I just had to write a diary.
Believe it or not, I was still an elementary school student, so I had to write a diary as a vacation homework assignment.
And a diary with the condition that certain words like ‘Today’ or ‘I’… and besides that, words like ‘it was fun’ couldn’t be used.
‘…It’s really a hassle to make up words.’
It was to the point where I respected Cao Zhi, who had composed the “Seven-Step Poem” in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
After thinking about that, I wrote a diary about going to the amusement park yesterday.
‘I wish time would pass a little faster….’
It wasn’t easy to act like an ordinary elementary school student.
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One day, after some time had passed.
Yeon Mi-rae and I brought Lee Ha-eun with us and climbed the mountain where we usually trained.
“Wow… Geon-woo and Mi-rae unni, you always played here?”
“We didn’t play, we trained.”
“Not fair!”
Yeon Mi-rae and I made troubled smiles while looking at Lee Ha-eun, who didn’t listen to our words and just repeated that it wasn’t fair.
Today, the academy Lee Ha-eun attended was on a break, so she had decided to spend it with us.
Though it was a vacation, it was at most about 3 days.
“Ha-eun, how much magic have you learned?”
In any case, since I couldn’t just let Lee Ha-eun keep whining, I changed the topic of conversation.
“Huh? Ah, I’ve only learned 4 kinds of magic….”
Lee Ha-eun said that while looking dejected.
Well, that would be right.
‘It’s a fact that for children who are mages, when they attend elementary and middle school, the curriculum is designed to teach only extremely limited magic.’
It was natural.
There was no way that they would teach an elementary or middle school student magic that could be used for attack.
For that reason, Lee Ha-eun would have learned only support or daily life magic.
“What are those 4 kinds?”
“Um… Light, Water, Heal, and Shield.”
Yeon Mi-rae was impressed by Lee Ha-eun’s words.
Light and Water were daily life magic, so they were on the easy side.
To the point where even lower-grade elementary school children could learn them without difficulty.
But Heal and Shield weren’t magic that could be learned at the level of a lower-grade elementary school student, although they were close to the basics of support magic.
‘Usually, they’re learned after becoming an upperclassman or a middle school student.’
But Lee Ha-eun was the first multiple-ability user, who would be given the title Serenity in the future.
She had become famous for being a multiple-ability user, but the reason for her fame and the reason she was given the title Serenity were completely different.
‘A genius of support class magic.’
It wasn’t that she couldn’t use other types of magic, but the support magic that the future Lee Ha-eun used was on a different level from ordinary support magic.
Thanks to that, there were almost no cases of casualties among those who entered a dungeon with her.
‘For the most part, a monster’s attack couldn’t break through the support magic Lee Ha-eun cast, and even if it was broken by some chance, it recovered quickly.’
For that reason, she was given the title Serenity, which meant peace.
It was to the point where I wondered if she would have been given the title of Saint if there hadn’t been an Awakener in a foreign country who already had that epithet.
Considering her talent, I thought that learning only 4 magics was on the small side.
Anyway…
“You’ve learned a lot.”
“…Well… It’s surprising, but compared to Geon-woo, well….”
When I spoke calmly, Yeon Mi-rae looked at me and nodded her head.
Yeon Mi-rae, who had been surprised while thinking that Lee Ha-eun wasn’t at the level of a lower-grade elementary school student, had regained her composure upon remembering me, who was the same age as Lee Ha-eun but was even more extreme.
‘…Actually, my talent is nothing compared to the talents of you two.’
Anyway…
Lee Ha-eun demonstrated the magic she had learned.
When we clapped and praised her for doing well, she got excited and even overused her Light and Heal magic.
Lee Ha-eun, no matter how much of a genius she was, was still young, so the amount of mana in her body was still small.
“Ueh….”
It was a natural thing for such a Lee Ha-eun, who got excited and overused her magic, to fall into a state of mana exhaustion.
I caught her as she was about to fall while complaining of dizziness, and then poured my internal energy into her body.
I wasn’t just pouring it in haphazardly this time like when I rummaged through a criminal’s brain before. Rather, I finely controlled it so as not to harm Lee Ha-eun as much as possible, just as I usually did with Yeon Mi-rae.
The internal energy that entered Lee Ha-eun’s body like that reached her Middle Dantian… that is, her heart.
‘…As expected, it’s growing well.’
The mana in Lee Ha-eun’s heart had been completely consumed by her overuse of magic just before.
But her aura was different.
Lee Ha-eun was a multiple-ability user who had awakened both aura and magic abilities.
Because of the suggestion I was periodically putting on Lee Ha-eun, she hadn’t noticed the existence of her aura just yet, but it was steadily growing along with her mana.
In the first place, since Lee Ha-eun also had no talent for fighting directly with her body, it would be more beneficial for her to be unaware of the existence of her aura and not use it her entire life, but….
‘Still, it’s a waste, isn’t it? As her mana increases, her aura will also increase at a similar rate.’
As such, I intended to create a means for Lee Ha-eun to consume her aura.
A means called a ‘familiar.’
Of course, it would be awkward for me to teach her here, so I planned to let her know through Yeon Mi-rae.
“Ahem…!”
“…Ah, right.”
At my feigned cough, Yeon Mi-rae, who had remembered what she had to do, asked Lee Ha-eun.
“Ha-eun, do you perhaps want an animal friend?”
“An animal…? But Mom said that we can’t raise a dog or a cat….”
“I already talked to Ha-eun’s mom.”
At Yeon Mi-rae’s words, Lee Ha-eun’s eyes widened.
Yeon Mi-rae’s words were true.
Yeon Mi-rae had talked to Lee Ha-eun’s mother about her daughter contracting a familiar and had received her permission.
The reason that Lee Ha-eun’s mother didn’t raise a pet was simply because it required a lot of care, and she had only given her permission for Lee Ha-eun to contract with a familiar on the grounds that a familiar was close to a spirit and, for the most part, didn’t require much care.
‘There’s also the fact that many mages have familiars of their own.’
Of course, most of such mages were overflowing with mana, but Lee Ha-eun’s mother, who was a civilian, had roughly given her permission because she didn’t know such a fact.
Anyway…
“Unni, I want to raise a dog!”
Lee Ha-eun, who had heard Yeon Mi-rae’s words, grabbed the latter and said that.
At those words, Yeon Mi-rae flinched a little.
And for good reason….
‘Because the familiar one generally contracts with is random.’
It meant that no one knew if Lee Ha-eun would end up contracting a dog.
Of course….
‘…That’s the story if you use the… common familiar contract magic circle that’s been released to the public.’
Naturally, I had no intention of letting Lee Ha-eun make an ordinary familiar contract.
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T/N – Oh, so little Ha-eun is getting a pet! Judging by the MC’s last thought here, she’s en route to getting an OP pet. Any guesses?
Also, really, are Korea’s higher-ups that stupid? They would willingly chase away talent just to maintain their control? In a fucking apocalypse with the Black Fog basically knocking at their door? Are they not worried that the MC might retaliate? I mean, the MC isn’t like other Awakeners. He can solo a country if he really wanted to.
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
