Chapter 9
“They’re assassins sent to kill me.”
“….”
Assassins.
It had been a long time since he’d heard such a menacing word.
No, actually, in the underground levels, it might be more accurate to say assassins had an elegant image. The people here lived by the belief that if they didn’t like someone, one of the two would end up dead, cleanly and decisively.
Compared to them, calling an assassin lofty would be accurate.
Kael looked at Lin for a moment.
The granddaughter of a high-ranking Seraph Industries executive, being pursued by assassins disguised as bodyguards.
And the man in the black suit who had appeared in front of the stall a little while ago had drawn attention in a strange way.
‘He had definitely gotten tangled up in a troublesome situation.’
But at the same time, another possibility was taking shape in Kael’s mind.
The original plan he had made with Harun was to use a recovered-goods transport route. People couldn’t go up, but these lumps of scrap metal could pass through, so the plan was to exploit that narrow opening and slip into the flow of recovered goods leading to the upper levels.
Even thinking about it now, it wasn’t a bad plan.
Well… it was dangerous, unstable, and impossible to know where he would end up falling. But at least it had been possible.
However, the situation had changed.
The girl before him was connected to the inner workings of the upper levels. By her own account, she was the granddaughter of a high-ranking executive at Seraph Industries. He couldn’t rule out the possibility that it was false information, but judging by how noisily the people on the other side were digging into the matter, that probably wasn’t the case.
If so….
Tap, tap.
Kael tapped the circuit board on the workbench with his fingertip.
“Hierarchy.”
Lin blinked.
“H-huh?”
“Do you know the hierarchy of your bodyguards?”
Kael looked at her with one hand propping up his chin.
“As their employer, you must know at least something.”
“….”
Lin gripped the edge of her mask with a trembling hand, as though frightened.
“…The man who threatened you was Pale, the chief of security.”
“Pale.”
“Yeah. The chief of security at Seraph Industries. He’s sixth-tier, which is rare even in this city.”
“Sixth-tier.”
“Yeah. And the rest of his subordinates are probably mostly fourth-tier. Anyone in the security office would have to be at least that strong. Some of them might be fifth-tier.”
“Hmm.”
So that was sixth-tier.
That was the extent of Kael’s impression.
He recalled Pale, whom he had faced outside the stall a little while ago. It was the first time Kael had encountered a mage from this world in person, so he had provoked him to extract as much information as possible.
He had handled plenty of magitech devices in Harun’s shop.
He had also seen crude auxiliary devices used by lower-level laborers and illegally modified circuits. But this was the first time he had seen a mage properly operating an ACU—especially a sixth-tier user considered one of the best in the city—right before his eyes.
In conclusion, he had realized that the magic of this world resembled the laws of magic he had used, yet had a different character.
Mana was maintained at a constant pressure. In his case, it had been refined so it wouldn’t leak outside, and it hadn’t become excessively disordered within the circuits.
It was a structure in which refined mana was received, the ACU organized the spell, and the user’s nerves and equipment output the result beyond the body.
In Kael’s world, mages drew mana into their bodies and circulated it. Just as one naturally learned to breathe without anyone teaching them how to inhale and exhale, learning to handle mana felt that innate to a mage.
But here, the ACU was taking over that role.
‘Artificial.’
Even though he knew everything in Magitera had been artificially made, the artificial mana he had encountered for the first time was a fairly fresh shock.
Kael pushed the broken circuit board on the workbench with his fingertip.
“That’s useful information.”
Lin looked up at him, seemingly flustered.
“Useful… information?”
“Yes.”
Without bothering to turn his head, Kael spoke calmly.
“Now I know that level is sixth-tier.”
It was a useful target for gauging the strength of the powerful in this world—and an opponent he would soon have to settle things with.
At least, that was how Kael saw it.
Lin stared at him for a long while before cautiously asking,
“By the way… can I ask you something?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you throw outside earlier?”
Lin’s face as she looked at Kael showed that she genuinely didn’t know.
Just before Pale entered the stall, Kael had hurled a small metal fragment from the workbench out the window. Lin had seen it, but apparently hadn’t understood why he had done it.
Kael replied nonchalantly.
“A piece of metal that absorbed your mana.”
“…?”
Lin’s eyes went blank.
“My mana?”
“More precisely, the residual signature leaking from the circuits inside your body.”
Kael picked up one of the broken circuit boards on the workbench.
“Your mana fluctuated a little when you got scared earlier. It was extremely faint, but that much could have been picked up by their equipment.”
Lin’s face went pale at his words.
“Th-then….”
“Right. I’m saying there was a chance they could have detected you even while you were hiding.”
When Lin swallowed and finally managed to calm herself, Kael set down the circuit board and continued.
“So I threw out the piece of metal that best retained your residual signature.”
“Why would you…?”
“A lure.”
Kael pointed outside the stall with his finger.
“They’re probably looking not for your body itself, but for the unique wavelength emitted by your circuits. But when a piece of metal carrying only residual traces gets mixed in with a heap of scrap, the detector gets confused, mistaking it for either a person or an object.”
Lin slowly opened her mouth.
“Something like that… is possible?”
“It is.”
“How?”
“Your mana was attached to the metal.”
“When did I ever do that…?”
He pointed at her mask.
“The mask strap you touched.”
Even as Lin momentarily froze and fidgeted with the mask, Kael explained calmly.
“I replaced the fastener inside your mask this morning. Maybe because your circuits are unstable, but the fastener absorbed the residual signature well. You tugged on it several times, so of course some mana got on it.”
Lin touched the mask strap without realizing it.
“…You knew I had an ACU implanted?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since you first came to the room.”
Lin stared at him as though she had lost her words, but Kael merely shrugged as if it were nothing unusual.
She couldn’t say anything for a long time at his attitude.
“Why would you go that far…?”
Kael looked at her indifferently, as if it were nothing important, and opened his mouth.
“We made a deal.”
“….”
“I protect you. And you give me knowledge.”
He said it in an utterly matter-of-fact tone.
“A moment ago, I was simply fulfilling my end of the contract. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“….”
Kael picked up the circuit board on the workbench again and fell into thought for a moment.
The value of this deal was greater than he had initially expected.
At first, he had planned to hide Lin and obtain a little knowledge of the upper levels. How people lived above, transit procedures, citizenship management, and corporate structure. He had thought that much would be enough, but….
If he used her well, he might be able to turn the plan in a favorable direction. Lin was undoubtedly more than someone who possessed knowledge of the upper levels.
She could be called a key to Seraph Industries’ inner workings… or at least to reaching the upper levels.
He still thought the recovered-goods transport route he had planned with Harun was useful.
That route was high-risk, high-reward. Even if he made it up, he had no idea where it would lead, and one mistake at an inspection could send him straight into a waste compactor.
Lin, on the other hand, was different. There were people pursuing her, people who wanted her dead.
In other words, her existence was significant enough to threaten someone.
‘She’s a target worth that much.’
For now, that was enough.
The problem was what came next.
Kael rolled the metal fragment on the workbench beneath his fingertip as he thought.
How to cook those bastards.
Pale, sixth-tier, chief of security at Seraph Industries.
Combining the information Lin had given him with the presence he had sensed firsthand a little while ago, he had a rough outline. But Kael had never liked acting on guesswork alone.
Experience had taught him that, more often than not, the ones who lost their lives were the ones who believed themselves clever. It didn’t matter whether they were human or demonkin.
“Lin.”
“Yeah?”
“Try using a basic spell.”
Lin asked Kael in return with an expression that said she hadn’t expected that.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
As Lin looked around in confusion, Harun immediately frowned and scolded him.
“Hey. After all that just happened, you’re going to have her use magic here?”
“Quietly.”
“Quietly, my ass….”
“It’s a necessary procedure.”
Harun closed his mouth as though swallowing a curse.
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
“I… I’m not good at it.”
“You don’t need to be good.”
Kael pushed the empty metal cup on the workbench with his finger.
“Just move this cup.”
Lin hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
She slowly raised her right hand.
Her fingertips trembled slightly, and a tiny blue light gathered at them. At the same time, the metal cup on the workbench rattled.
Then, after pushing it about half a foot to the side, Lin let out a deep breath.
“I-is this enough?”
Kael didn’t answer her question. He stared at Lin for a long while, then…
This time, Kael reached a hand toward her.
Lin flinched and looked flustered, but—
“Don’t move.”
After that single word, his fingertips traveled along Lin’s arm toward the back of her neck.
Lin’s body went rigid.
“Wh-what are you trying to….”
“Confirming.”
Kael brought his hand near the skin below the back of her neck, hidden by her collar.
Very close. Close enough to almost touch her skin.
At that moment.
“….”
His eyes narrowed.
At the same time, the corner of his mouth began to lift.
‘The mana circuits reacted.’
After they had withered from the backlash of the explosive spell he had unleashed at the Demon King’s castle, the circuits that had barely reacted for more than a year….