Chapter 9
Damn it.
‘...What is this?’
Fwoooosh―!
The flames that burst outward in all directions were raging wildly in the middle of the open lot.
I thought it would just spit out some mediocre flame for a second and be done with it.
This was practically an explosion you'd only see in a movie.
The scorching heat even washed over my face from way over there.
‘Was that what a talisman was supposed to be like?’
I turned to look beside me, bewildered.
“I... h-how in the world...”
Seo Ji-an stood there with her mouth hanging open, staring blankly.
Judging by her ashen face, that didn't seem to be it.
“A-amulets aren't supposed to be made like that...”
Seo Ji-an turned her head toward me.
Then she muttered something in a voice that was barely audible.
“Without a brush or cinnabar... with just your finger... How did you...?”
‘...Huh.’
Only then did something begin to dawn on me.
Come to think of it, the talismans spread out on the market stall earlier had all just been a few Chinese characters scrawled in red paint on yellowed paper.
Even the more expensive-looking ones only had neater writing; in the end, they were just similar Chinese characters or a few patterns layered on top.
By comparison, what I had done was—
I had transferred the circuit structure I saw in the Karmic Fire Sword onto the paper, carving out the path for mana to flow line by line.
Exactly the same method as engraving a circuit onto a weapon.
Only then did I realize.
That what I'd done was far outside the common sense of this world.
‘Could it be that talismans here are just made by roughly writing some red characters and calling it a day?’
Seeing Seo Ji-an standing there like her soul had left her body, it seemed that was exactly the case.
Still muttering as if dazed, she suddenly seemed to come to her senses and sprang to her feet.
“That's not the important thing right now... Let's run for now!”
Huh?
“Hurry!”
Seo Ji-an grabbed my arm in a panic and started running.
*
I didn't know how long we ran.
Seo Ji-an finally came to a stop only after pulling me into the inside of a deserted shopping arcade that happened to be nearby.
A dim hallway, layered thick with dust.
Between the old shops with half-lowered shutters, she bent over with both hands on her knees, gasping for breath.
“Haa... haa...”
Come to think of it, she had run that distance in heels.
“Are you all right?”
“J-just a moment. Just a moment...”
Seo Ji-an raised a hand and tried to catch her breath.
Soon, as if she'd calmed down a little, she lifted her head and stared at me.
“Mr. Dohyun, could you do something about the mana? I think we might get tracked.”
“...?”
“If that much mana bursts out at once, its residual trace gets left behind really strongly. If they decide to chase it, they could catch up in no time.”
‘...Ah.’
Only then did I think I understood what she meant.
It seemed mana also leaves traces when it's used strongly.
It looked like my mana had leaked out pretty badly along with the explosion earlier.
‘But...’
How do you hide the flow of mana? How are you supposed to do that?
When I just stared blankly without answering, Seo Ji-an seemed to realize something and urgently held out a hand.
“...F-first, where's that suppression talisman from earlier?”
“Ah, here.”
I took out the black silk pouch I'd put inside my clothes and handed it over.
Seo Ji-an examined the pouch she received for a moment, then suddenly stepped closer to me.
“Excuse me for a second.”
With a light apology, she rose onto her tiptoes.
She looped the two cords attached to the pouch over the back of my neck, then reached around and carefully began tying the knot in back.
A faint scent I couldn't tell was perfume or soap, along with the body scent she'd worked up from all the running, brushed past my nose for a moment.
Beyond that, between the disheveled blouse collar rising and falling with her ragged breathing...
‘Ahem.’
I coughed awkwardly and forced my gaze up toward the ceiling.
“There.”
After tying the knot, Seo Ji-an placed her index and middle fingers neatly on the chest area where the pouch rested.
Then she quietly closed her eyes.
Sss―
The next moment, a strange change rose deep inside my body.
It felt like someone had suddenly shut off a faucet that had been gushing full blast, the energy that had been stretching outward settling down calmly.
“...There. It should be fine now.”
Seo Ji-an let out a long breath as she took her hand off my chest.
I looked back down at the pouch hanging around my neck and asked.
“...What exactly is this?”
“It's called a suppression talisman. Literally, it's a talisman that suppresses mana emission.”
Seo Ji-an continued her explanation, seeming to regain some of her composure.
She said sorcerers instinctively sense one another's mana, and that to hide it you had to consciously suppress your energy like holding your breath twenty-four hours a day.
Apparently, it was an absurdly annoying and exhausting task.
So they used this suppression talisman instead.
“What happens if you don't suppress it?”
“You can end up attracting weird stray spirits, or becoming a target for crazy sorcerers who like picking fights. And it can also subtly affect ordinary people nearby.”
According to her, suppression talismans were basically consumables that wore out quickly, so people usually used cheap ones.
But the stronger the mana, the more indispensable a high-quality suppression talisman became, and they were so expensive and rare they might as well have been priceless.
“But... this seems pretty pricey, doesn't it? I've never seen a suppression talisman that lets you control the mana output to release only as much as you want.”
Hm. The envelope with the money I got earlier had seemed pretty thick, too.
Was this also that expensive?
‘Do they normally go this far to take care of people?’
Well, they had almost burned down an entire branch that was apparently built not long ago, so I supposed compensation like this was only right.
I mean, they were supposedly the number one in the industry.
“Anyway, shall we move a little farther this way for now? I think the residual trace is still lingering around here.”
***
Following Seo Ji-an's lead, I walked deeper into a back alley that saw little foot traffic.
A gloomy alley lined with buildings that didn't even have signs stretched on endlessly.
“...Um. Ji-an?”
“Hehe, please call me Ji-an.”
“Ah, sure. Anyway, about what you said in the car. The thing about my clan affiliation. Why did you ask about that?”
It suddenly piqued my curiosity.
A clan.
Now that I'd realized all this was real, I was suddenly curious.
What is this, some Japanese ninja manga?
An affiliated clan.
Could bloodline power be important here too, maybe?
At my question, Seo Ji-an, who had been walking ahead, slowed down and looked back.
The playfulness vanished from her face.
“That... is a bit of a long story, so I'll explain it slowly once we get there.”
Are we still not there yet?
Thinking that, I silently followed behind her.
Then, at the end of the alley.
A huge iron gate appeared, hung with several talismans and massive padlocks.
Seo Ji-an rested her palm against the gate for a moment and muttered some unintelligible incantation.
Then faint light flowed from the talismans attached to the iron gate.
It looked like the barrier had been lifted.
Next, she took a large, crude key from inside her clothes and turned the locks open.
Creeeak─.
With a heavy grinding sound, the tightly shut iron gate opened.
“Look forward to it. Drumroll―.”
She turned around and gave me a mischievous smile.
“So, are you ready? Ta-da!”
I couldn't help but be surprised when I looked at the space beyond the wide-open iron gate.
It was an enormous underground workshop packed with top-of-the-line equipment.
“Feel free to look around as much as you like.”
A state-of-the-art fully automated furnace with perfect temperature control, a special-alloy anvil, and top-grade tools lining the walls from end to end.
Every blacksmith's dream was crammed into that place.
“As long as you sign a contract with me first, you can use this workshop right away! I set everything up in advance just in case I found a good place! Hehe...”
I was spellbound, looking over the special-alloy anvil and tools on the workbench,
“Ahem.”
I snapped out of it at Seo Ji-an's little cough.
When I turned my head, Seo Ji-an was already standing beside the reception table set up against one wall. Her hand rested lightly on the back of a chair, as if inviting me to sit.
‘Ah.’
I had been too absorbed.
Feeling sheepish, I sat down in the chair. Seo Ji-an, who had been smiling brightly, soon put on a serious air with a light cough.
“Hm... Mr. Dohyun.”
“Yes.”
“To be honest, if it's not me, you won't easily find a broker who can help someone like Mr. Dohyun.”
As if someone might be listening, she clasped both hands together on the table and leaned slightly forward.
“I mentioned it a little at the café earlier, but right now the sorcery world is completely controlled by the four great clans. In particular, artisans like Mr. Dohyun who can engrave formulas are thoroughly monopolized.”
“...Monopolized?”
“Yes. If you're not affiliated with a clan but put something as enormous as earlier on the market? You'll become an immediate target of the four great clans.”
“...And if I become a target, what happens?”
Seo Ji-an's expression hardened.
“They won't care what means they use. At first they'll come with bags of money and try to sweet-talk you. If that doesn't work... they'll try to break you by staging an accident or whatever else it takes.”
“...”
“Especially if your skill is as overwhelming as Mr. Dohyun's, they'll be frantic to cut you down before another clan can snatch you up.”
She didn't sound like she was joking.
“...If it's that dangerous, wouldn't it be better just to join a clan? Any of the four great clans.”
Seo Ji-an shook her head firmly.
“If you join a clan, someone like Mr. Dohyun will genuinely never be able to leave for the rest of his life. Since you wouldn't be from the main family, everything you make would be taken under the clan's name, and they'd slash the price however they please. In other words, you'd become a slave artisan bound to the clan.”
‘A slave artisan on contract, huh...’
For a moment, I thought of the nasty bastards in games who controlled and practically imprisoned crafters by guild.
Reality wasn't much different.
“But with your skill, it's too good to waste away in a place like that, isn't it? That's why I'm telling you this.”
Seo Ji-an raised one finger with confidence.
“I'll get you a foreign identity.”
“...A foreign identity?”
***
Meanwhile, at the vacant lot on the outskirts of the goblin market where Dohyun had caused the explosion.
There, a Taoist from the Sorcery Administration Bureau's Investigation Division 1, Kang Mujin, was squatting.
“...”
Kang Mujin ran a finger over the dirt, which had melted smooth like glass from the heat.
He had originally been escorting a suspect who had tried to carry out a terror attack at Cheonhwa Hall to the Administration Bureau.
But he had come to investigate after detecting an unauthorized explosion of tremendous force.
He had hurriedly followed the lingering mana trail, but it had broken off halfway, so he'd returned to the scene of the incident.
Behind Kang Mujin stood Cheonghyeon, the chief manager of Cheonhwa Hall, who had been caught up in the earlier explosion incident.
He had originally been accompanying them to the Bureau to write up the incident report.
But Mujin had just been transferred here and wasn't familiar with the layout of the inner section of the goblin market, and since they happened to be near Cheonhwa Hall, Cheonghyeon, who knew the way well, had volunteered to guide him, so they came here together.
Mujin cleared his thoughts and focused again on the scene before him.
He lightly touched the black dirt on his fingertip with the tip of his tongue.
The intense fire energy made his tongue tingle.
‘At this level of destructive power... at minimum, a grade-2 fire sorcerer?’
A grade-2 sorcerer was a top-tier powerhouse even in the Korean sorcery world.
Someone of that caliber would normally be a core asset of a major clan, or at the very least under the Administration Bureau's tight surveillance.
‘And yet they unleashed that kind of firepower in this cramped market without prior authorization? What kind of lunatic was it?’
Just then, a subordinate who was searching the scene hurried over.
“Daoist!”
“Yeah, what is it? Did you find out?”
“The Administration Bureau has no report of mana use from any of the major clans, or from any other clan or faction either. The mana extracted from the residue is also unidentified mana not registered in the Bureau database, so we can't even look it up.”
“Then what in the world is it? You're telling me an unregistered grade-2 sorcerer is running wild out there?”
“And... this doesn't seem to be Korean sorcery.”
The subordinate held out a transparent zip bag picked up with tweezers.
Inside the zip bag was a charred fragment of yellow talisman paper.
What was written on it wasn't red ink.
It was a strange, tiny, densely packed pattern drawn in black.
A method not used in Korea.
And this overwhelming firepower... could it be?
“...There's a strong chance they're Baehwagyo bastards.”
“Baehwagyo? You mean those guys from Persia?”
“Right. Pull the entry list for everyone who came in from Iran and Dubai within the last month. Separate out the religious-visa applicants and cross-check those too.”
“Yes! Understood!”
The subordinate hurried off after radioing in.
Kang Mujin stood there for a long while, silently staring at the center of the blackened open lot.
‘...And yet.’
Even if you set aside the fact that those Baehwagyo bastards used Eastern yellow talisman paper.
Judging from the traces of lingering mana, there were no signs of any battle here at all.
There were no traces of a fight with someone, nor any defensive traces left by another sorcerer.
“...What on earth did they do here?”
While Mujin was racking his brains, Cheonghyeon, standing behind him, was also looking down at the ground.
‘Baehwagyo, huh...’
Then a slightly singed scrap of paper snagged on the toe of Cheonghyeon's shoe.
It was another fragment of a talisman, hidden by the sand so Mujin's subordinate hadn't noticed it.
‘...What is this?’
The moment Cheonghyeon saw the tiny black circuit engraved on the fragment, his pupils trembled slightly.
Taking advantage of the moment when Mujin's gaze was elsewhere, Cheonghyeon casually stepped on the scrap of paper with his shoe, then naturally bent down and tucked it into his sleeve.
‘...I need to report this to the Hall Master immediately.’