Chapter 109
After spending time at the PC cafe with Cecilia, Ian personally saw her off.
“Thanks for helping out today. Get home safe.”
“Yeah.”
Vroooom.
On the dark road before dawn, Cecilia answered and started the car at the same time. It was a luxury SUV that did not suit her tiny frame. It was even a foreign car. Though to her, it was probably domestic.
Ian tilted his head, watching Cecilia adjust the seat position with practiced ease.
“I’ve been wondering for a while, but where did you get that car? Rented?”
“The Association provided it. It’s legal, so you don’t need to worry.”
“The law, huh…… More importantly, can your foot even reach the brake?”
“……Rude.”
Cecilia frowned and shifted gears. Ian let out a small chuckle and waved.
“I’ll contact you when the request starts. It shouldn’t take too long.”
“……Yeah. See you next time.”
“Sure.”
Cecilia smiled softly and lifted her foot off the brake. Soon the vehicle rolled forward, merged onto the road, and sped away. Ian watched until her car disappeared around the corner, then turned and walked to the bike parked on the shoulder.
Thunk…….
As he pulled on the helmet he had hung on the handlebar, a voice came out of the Bluetooth device linked to the bike.
[Mr. Shin Ian, welcome. Where shall I take you today?]
“Let’s go to the workshop.”
Ian lowered the visor and mounted the bike.
“I’ll drive myself.”
*
As soon as Ian arrived at the workshop, he took Eddie’s head out of the refrigerator. With its skull crushed and brain torn out, the head hung limply in Ian’s hand, unable to move at all.
Fortunately, decomposition had not yet begun. There was no rotten smell, and no part had blackened. Its freshness was still perfectly preserved. That was possible because it was a magician’s corpse.
But corpses eventually rot. If blood doesn’t circulate and air doesn’t flow through the body, the flesh turns into garbage and only a shabby skeleton remains. By then, even a magician’s corpse loses its magical value. There would be no reason to keep it.
So he needed to attempt as much alchemy as possible before that happened. That was the only reason he had rushed to the workshop despite it being dawn.
Coincidentally, today was Thursday. Thursday was Jupiter’s day, and also the day of wood. And Jupiter was a fluid planet made entirely of gas.
The role of stellar power in magic is enormous. Four-Element Magic can exert greater power on the day corresponding to each element, and astrology can only be used by following the flow of the stars. Magic that uses pentagrams can only be created to correspond to each planet’s day.
Of course, the magic of the foreign god didn’t care about stars and the like. Planetary day? Jupiter? Venus? None of it mattered.
Even so, atmosphere mattered. So in honor of Jupiter’s day, Ian decided to try alchemy using ears.
If you asked what ears had to do with Jupiter, he’d say that Jupiter is made of gas, and ears can hear voices carried through gas.
‘Well, it’s just a forced connection.’
Ian snorted to himself and cut off both of Eddie’s ears.
Shhk.
The neatly sliced ears fell onto the table. Blood flowed, and the earless head slumped sideways like a doll. Ian picked up the fallen ears, wiped them clean, and sat in his chair to riffle through the grimoire. The Hand of Re-Creation in his grasp vibrated as if pleased.
“Dying Hearing, Dying Hearing…… Ah, here it is.”
After confirming the part he wanted, he tapped the cover with his finger.
[Dying Hearing]
[If you whisper the target’s name into the ear and tear it, the target’s ear will burst and its hearing will be lost. Because the eardrum and even the auditory cortex suffer permanent damage, recovery is impossible.]
[Materials: a pair of human ears preserved in salt, pepper, a dead insect, 50 ml of the magician’s blood, a small amount of hair, and a knife.]
The materials were simple yet complicated. Still, they were all things he could obtain right away. There was no problem with casting it.
Ian immediately got to work. He arranged the materials neatly on the table, stepped out of the workshop for a moment, and gave an order to the guard ghost.
“Catch a few insects in the officetel and bring them here.”
The guard ghost did a joyful somersault at the long-awaited command and started running around the officetel. Leaving it behind, Ian filled a bowl with salt and placed Eddie’s ears inside.
“That should do it…….”
Bulky things, for example hands, arms, or legs, required a full week of curing in salt. But a part as small as an ear would be done in half a day. Even if he started waiting now, it wouldn’t carry over past Thursday.
In any case, he had nothing better to do than wait. Ian lay down on the sofa he had set up for resting and browsed the community.
“It’s still a madhouse.”
The traitor-purging incident from about a week ago. The Godmother had dumped the incident onto the community notice board without any filter, and the fact that a magician had been selling off her information all this time had the magicians in the community ripping into Park Seok-hyeon together.
[I knew that bastard would do that.]
[EarBug]
(platypus photo)
I’d had a bad feeling ever since he started going on about pure humans and the like. Good thing they handled him quickly; otherwise there would’ve been even more victims, seriously.
[Comments]
-I knew you’d say that.
ㄴEarBug: I knew you’d say I knew you’d say that.
ㄴI already expected you’d say you’d know I’d say I knew you’d say that.
ㄴEarBug: I knew you’d be able to predict that I’d know you’d say I knew you’d say that.
ㄴHave these morons suddenly lost their minds? Bankai or something?
[Honestly, Dolores? I’m not worried. That crazy bitch is famous enough. But the newbie?]
[Rose]
Is our newbie really okay? Should this mom go check on them?
[Comments]
-Newbie/3 months in/Eddie murder
ㄴRose: What are you talking about? Eddie was killed? By the newbie?
ㄴHave you been off the community for days? This bait’s been around forever;;
ㄴRose: Is this for real?
[Honestly, it’s nice seeing the Godmother’s old personality come out after so long……. ]
[Taming Master]
Back when the community was a total nonhuman hellscape, there were even proof posts every day showing she’d beaten someone to a pulp. I miss those days……
[Comments]
-★Godmother: Why would you miss that? Thinking about it now just annoys me.
ㄴTaming Master: I liked it. No, I mean, the materials came rolling in all by themselves.
ㄴ★Godmother: I don’t use humans for magic.
ㄴTamingMaster: (Mage? Not my problem emote)
ㄴ★Godmother: (Mage blocking emote)
ㄴTamingMaster: Don’t, for fuck’s sake!
-Strawberry Yogurt Smoothie: You old fossils, lol. All that “back in the day” talk really reeks of ginseng candy. You should all be abandoned to die.
ㄴTaming Master: I’m still in my twenties, you bastard.
ㄴStrawberry Yogurt Smoothie: Don’t lie so blatantly lol.
[Ohohohoho! This young lady is fine! I killed all the Mexican bastards who suddenly showed up!]
[Dolores]
(a selfie of just her lower face, taken while beaming in front of a pile of corpses)
The young lady is the strongest!
[Comments]
-You crazy gorilla bitch.
ㄴDolores: You rude bastard! My butler will come and kill you!
-Ugh.
ㄴDolores: Why is it “ugh”? Please explain! Ugh, ugh!
-★Godmother: Dolores, your cleavage is showing in the photo.
ㄴDolores: Ah!
ㄴDolores: I fixed it! Thank you!
ㄴFrom today on, I’ll consider the Godmother my enemy. Son of a bitch, piece of shit, filthy magician.
ㄴ★Godmother: (Mage thumbs-up emote)
With Dolores’s post as the last one, Ian put his phone on his stomach and closed his eyes.
It was a relief that the atmosphere wasn’t as serious as he’d thought. The long-delayed bait had stirred up plenty of noise, and there were also quite a few posts openly trashing Park Seok-hyeon, but in the end no truly serious mood had taken hold.
‘So they’re all confident, even if their information gets sold off?’
Then again, what kind of magician doesn’t have a strong sense of self?
Thinking that, Ian half-opened his eyes and checked the clock.
3:30 a.m.
It was too late to sleep, but too early to stay up all night. So Ian decided to just sleep while the ears soaked in salt.
Anyway, tomorrow he had no schedule to speak of. He didn’t plan to take any more requests until the Deep-Sea Travelogue had fully recovered, so he had time to spare. Sleeping in for a day wouldn’t cause any trouble.
“Mm.”
Ian immediately closed his eyes again and let his body go slack. A little later, his breathing grew steady.
*
Ian woke up around lunchtime, ate a simple meal, then gathered up the insect corpses left in front of the door and returned to the workshop. He waited there until 3 o’clock, and when the time came, he took out the ears and set up the table.
He inscribed a magic circle on paper and stacked the materials neatly on top of it. He poured pepper and blood over the ear in the center, then scattered the insect corpses into the corners. The hair and knife were placed at the top and bottom, respectively.
Ian nodded and spread out the Hand of Re-Creation, then recited the incantation.
“Because God did not allow His voice to reach you, you apostate. Rot away alone in eternal silence, and recite the penance of your lifetime.”
At the spell’s end, the magic circle flared to life. All the materials except the ear turned to ash and burned, and the ash slowly worked its way into the ear canal.
Before long, when every last grain of ash had disappeared, the magic circle vanished and only the apricot-colored ear remained. Ian lifted it up to check its condition.
‘It doesn’t look any different.’
Just like the Dying Eyeball, the ear’s appearance hadn’t changed either. But the alchemy itself had been successfully applied.
“…….”
Ian thought about giving it a test, then stopped himself. The materials used were too precious to waste on a mere experiment. It seemed better to use it in the upcoming vampire hunt.
‘The tongue and nose…… don’t seem like they’d be much help in combat. Better make them next time.’
Ian thought that as he wrapped the ear in cloth, put it into an eyeglass case, and stowed it in his bag.
That finished everything he needed to do at the workshop for today. He gathered what he needed and set out on his bike for the house he’d moved into.
Then a vivid moon hanging in the sky caught his eye. A bright, large moon like a full moon. Earth’s satellite, which looked slightly blue rather than pale, was moving alongside the sun and lighting up the sky.
“…….”
Seeing the moon in the afternoon rather than at night wasn’t strange. It wasn’t a common phenomenon, but he could sometimes see the moon floating in the blue sky.
But a moon that large, and that bright like a full moon, was something Ian had never seen in his life.
If it had been night, he wouldn’t have paid much attention. But it was daytime now, and there was still far too much time left before sunset.
“……This is unsettling.”
Feeling an inexplicable unease, Ian twisted the throttle hard.
Then, a faint singing voice rose from the car driving alongside him.
[Twinkle, twinkle, little star-]
[How beautifully it shines-]