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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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‘…No, that’s not it either.’
If that had been the case, I could have understood them canceling the schedule while not telling the students the real reason in order to prevent panic, but I couldn’t understand why some schools were returning earlier than planned.
In the case of a terrorist attack, it was common to move to a shelter under the escort of Awakeners.
But the fact that there was no sign of them being moved to a shelter meant that….
‘Has the situation already ended?’
I could only think of it that way.
Something had definitely gone wrong for the terrorists, and the whole situation must have ended during the night.
“Geon-woo, let’s play a game in our room!”
As I was thinking that, the boys called me.
They must have meant to play the mobile game that was popular in our class these days.
And the reason they were calling me was….
‘Because I’m the worst at it.’
No, rather than being bad at it, it was because my game character was weak.
Because unlike the other children who were serious about the game, I only turned it on when I occasionally thought of it.
In the first place, I had no intention of playing the game seriously against children.
So I had always played games with the other boys and let them win.
“You guys! Don’t bully Geon-woo!”
“That’s right!”
“Geon-woo! Don’t play with them, play with us instead!”
But from the girls’ perspective, our actions must have looked like the other kids were bullying me, who was bad at the game.
And so the girls stood up as if to protect me and confronted the boys, and seeing the children like that, the teacher and I let out a sigh.
“Haaa… I can’t forcibly subdue the children either….”
The teacher didn’t look well, so I decided to solve it instead.
“I’ll go to the side with the person who is the best at this game.”
At those words, the children’s eyes lit up.
They all took out their smartphones at once and began to turn on the mobile game in question.
“My combat power is the highest, you know?”
“What good is it if only your combat power is high? You’ll lose if you fight me!”
“Really? Want to test it?”
And so, the children naturally began to play the game as a group.
“…You’re better at handling kids than I am.”
The teacher who saw that said that to me, told us to play among ourselves, and then went somewhere.
I thought he had probably gone to talk with the teachers from other schools or the staff of this hotel.
As I was watching the children, who were engrossed in their game….
“Woof!”
“Huh? Ah….”
Sarang approached me, then jumped and landed in my arms.
“…Don’t tell me that you only just got back now?”
“Woof!”
I had thought that it had returned long ago and had already gone into Lee Ha-eun’s subspace, but it seemed that wasn’t the case.
I petted Sarang and looked at Lee Ha-eun.
Since Lee Ha-eun was also engrossed in the game, it was a bit tricky to put Sarang into her subspace now.
It couldn’t be helped…
I had no choice but to hold it for now.
‘…Wait…?’
Come to think of it, the teacher had said that…
That a giant wolf might go ‘roooar!’ and eat us.
I had thought that it was a joke earlier, but maybe….
“……”
“Kyiing?”
When I quietly looked at Sarang, Sarang looked at me as if to ask what was wrong.
Don’t tell me the reason the school trip was temporarily suspended was because of this thing?
…Considering the order I had given it, the possibility was high.
I didn’t know who the person Sarang had gone and bitten was, but if a giant wolf had suddenly appeared and bitten a person, it would be hard for them to just dismiss it.
I thought that the police and the Awakeners were probably searching to find this wolf.
“…It can’t be helped.”
If things went wrong, the police and the Awakeners could follow Sarang’s trail and come here, so I would have to erase its trail.
Fwoosh….
Having finished my thought, I created a Samadhi True Fire and burned all of Sarang’s traces.
Although when I said traces, it wasn’t that something like footprints had been left, since Sarang was an existence made of Lee Ha-eun’s aura and my internal energy.
‘But Sarang’s trace would have been left in the mana in the air.’
The traces created from wandering around after receiving my order last evening until it returned to me a moment ago would have been left in the mana.
So I had to burn it.
“…You went quite far.”
From where I was standing, I sent my internal energy to the hotel where Sarang seemed to have gone to and erased all the traces it had left.
…For some reason, I felt something like the traces of a battle from that hotel, but I didn’t particularly mind.
And although I felt that the police and the Awakeners were gathering at that hotel and investigating, it didn’t particularly affect me.
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“What… what the!?”
The psychometry ability user who had been checking the scene of the previous day’s tragedy shouted in horror.
Naturally, the other police officers and the Awakeners who were investigating the scene or moving the corpses nearby focused their attention on him.
“What, what’s wrong?”
“Hey, are you okay?”
Since the psychometry ability user was breaking out in a cold sweat, the others asked that while wondering if he had seen some terrible scene.
Then, the psychometry ability user slowly began to talk about what he had seen.
“Fire….”
“Fire?”
“Yes, it was fire….”
Fire.
It was true that the mercenaries had fought in this hotel using various abilities, but there was no one among them who had used flame magic.
They had only used other abilities so that the sprinklers on the hotel ceiling wouldn’t be activated.
They had also received a testimony from the miko, who was a witness, that no flame magic had been used… but now fire all of a sudden?
“I don’t know… but while I was trying to extract information about the wolf from the remaining memories of the mana…. it suddenly burst into flames. Not just the traces contained in the mana, but even the memory of the wolf I had seen with my ability…. it burned everything.”
“…What? The fire… erased your memory… is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Yes…! I definitely saw the wolf in question with psychometry, though faintly! But…! That memory was cleanly burned away…!”
At those words, the expressions of the other people around him hardened.
They would have to check his memory to be sure, but was it really possible to erase someone’s specific memory…?
What if the opponent had intended to erase not only the memory of the wolf but all of the psychometry ability user’s memories?
“…An absurd ability.”
An Awakener who had been investigating the place said that.
And a police officer said.
“Let’s withdraw.”
Because it was a reckless act to investigate further while risking such danger.
“But….”
“If you think about it, that wolf is a familiar that came to save the captured miko. The one who erased his memory must be the familiar’s master. It’s a little surprising that I’ve never heard of a mage of that level before, but….”
The officer sighed, then continued.
“What we should focus on is the mercenaries who were trying to cause a terror attack and their mastermind. Since we’ve obtained enough information about them… for now, let’s not stir things up unnecessarily and go back. Because a mage of this level would be beyond what we can handle.”
“……”
“……”
At those words, all the police and Awakeners present agreed.
Because they were also humans who felt fear.
Because they also didn’t want to die by stirring things up unnecessarily.
The Artist and his companions, who were active in the metropolitan area of Korea…
The Artist was presumed to be a psionicist who used telekinesis, and his companions were known to be two Aura Masters.
And they also knew that those two Aura Masters were stronger than most Aura Masters.
Besides them, there was even the youngest Aura Master like Yeon Mi-rae and the girl who had changed the paradigm of Manifestation psionic power.
Due to their existence, many people had come to Korea with the thought that it might be a good environment for particularly outstanding Awakeners to appear, but they would go back after not feeling anything special in its education process itself.
“What? They say that a person presumed to be an Archmage appeared in Gyeongju?”
“Shh…! This is, for now, something only the police and the Awakeners who participated in the investigation of the incident at that time know. It’s confidential.”
“Ah, right.”
A rumor began to spread.
A rumor that there was a mage in Gyeongju who kept a wolf on par with an Aura Master as a familiar.
A rumor about an Archmage in Gyeongju who had erased only a specific memory of a psychometry ability user.
The people who heard that stopped their feet, which had been about to turn back.
To think that a mage of that level had been hiding his identity and living in seclusion until now….
And they were convinced.
That there was definitely something in Korea.
That perhaps there were many hidden masters in Korea.
“That’s what they say.”
“……”
At the words Yeon Mi-rae had relayed, my mind went blank.
‘Well, it’s not like there are no hidden masters in Korea at all….’
Since the evil deeds committed by the higher-ups had been quite severe, there were strong people who had hidden their skills to avoid their eyes.
Though that was a similar situation in other countries too, not just Korea.
And besides, even among such hidden masters, those who were at the level of an Aura Master or an Archmage were extremely rare.
Though there were quite a few who had reached the level right before that.
Anyway…
“That Archmage in Gyeongju… As expected….”
“Yes. I think they’re probably talking about you, Master. The rumor must be circulating because of the fact that Sarang appeared and that you burned everything with Samadhi True Fire to erase Sarang’s traces afterwards.”
“……”
I was silent.
I had just sent Sarang with the thought of taking out my anger on the guy who had annoyed me by casting a spell on me, but why were things turning out like this…?
“Ah, apart from that, the Awakener Association is noisy these days.”
“Really? What about?”
At my question, Yeon Mi-rae took out her smartphone and spoke.
“First, there’s the fact that they’re in a cold war because of the incident where Japanese mercenaries, at the request of people in the Japanese political world, tried to carry out a terror attack in Korea. And….”
She found a photo on her smartphone and showed it to me.
“Because of the statistic that the occurrence of dungeons has decreased a lot in recent years.”
A graph was drawn in the photo she showed me, and in that graph, I could see that the trend, which had maintained a consistent level until a few years ago, had suddenly dropped at a certain point.
Aah… so that was it.
“The fact that the dungeons have decreased is, in a way, good news, but we can’t rule out the possibility that the guilds or the criminals are hiding the dungeons for profit or crime….”
“That’s simply because the Black Fog overexerted itself.”
I asserted that at Yeon Mi-rae’s worried words.
She, who had blinked her eyes at my words, looked at me, and I slowly explained the reason why the dungeons had decreased.
“Remember? The incident where I first appeared under the name of the Artist.”
“Are you talking about the incident in Yeouido?”
“Yeah. There, monsters that originally shouldn’t have been in the dungeon appeared all at once, right? That was the surprise attack and experiment that the Black Fog had prepared.
The Black Fog also overexerted itself at that time, so the number of dungeons that have been appearing since that day has decreased. It’s stated that the occurrence of dungeons decreased around that day, right?”
“…That’s right.”
After hearing my words, Yeon Mi-rae looked at the graph and nodded her head.
Of course, the experts wouldn’t be unaware of this.
Though they would just think at this point that it was just one of many hypotheses.
Yeon Mi-rae should have also heard about it.
However….
“Since you’re the one saying it, Master, then it must be right.”
It seemed that she believed me not because the evidence was certain, but because it was me who was saying it.
She had said that not out of sarcasm, but because she purely trusted me.
She spoke as if my words were the truth and asked me.
“Then will the Black Fog continue to create dungeons in this state in the future? Or will it recover someday?”
“It will recover in 10 years. Ah, not 10 years from now, but 10 years from the Yeouido incident.”
“There aren’t many years left then.”
Yes.
There weren’t many years left.
But for those few remaining years, the lives of the Awakeners would get a little tougher.
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T/N – Well, now the MC should make another doll for the ‘Archmage of Gyeongju’. Though I guess it’s a bit too far from his house.
Also, the MC’s fire really can burn anything. To think it even burns specific memories of a person. The poor psychometry ability user got traumatized.
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
