Chapter 34
[There are a few conditions a mage's workshop has to meet.]
[First, it must be completely separate from living quarters.]
[Second, it must be used solely for magic.]
[Third, arrange magical items inside so the room is filled with aether. This process requires at least one week.]
[Fourth, the last and most important condition: never make a window that allows the inside to be seen. If there is already a window, cover it completely.]
“Hmm.”
Ian sat in a chair in the officetel and went over the grimoire’s contents.
“So getting a room wasn’t enough.”
The conditions were stricter than he expected. He already knew it had to be separate from living space, but there were all sorts of extra requirements piled on top of that. It looked like he wouldn’t be able to use the workshop for the time being.
More importantly, magical items.
Ian let out a low sigh and took the alchemy materials and finished products out of his bag, laying them on the table.
The cube-shaped materials he had gathered from the monkey dream were almost gone now. He had obtained a few spirit bodies from the ghosts roaming the officetel, but not that many. If he kept alternating between magic and alchemy, he’d run out in no time.
But buying materials from the cartel was absurdly expensive. He only had a little over 3,000 won in his bank account right now. Buying materials that cost several hundred won apiece in bulk was, frankly, a burden.
‘I wish some sort of anomaly cluster would show up nearby.’
He knew it was best not to run into something like that, but he couldn’t help hoping for it in his heart.
It seemed his brain had already become a mage’s.
Ian gave a bitter smile and neatly stacked the finished items in the officetel’s storage cabinet.
He hung the enchanted coat on a hanger and neatly lined up Reverse Aim and Sound-Devouring Flame. He also put a few of the primate-killing knives he had remade nearby, just in case.
‘But isn’t the very name “primate-killing knife” already really weird? I mean, if you stab a primate with a knife, it dies anyway.’
While thinking such pointless thoughts, he closed the grimoire and placed it on the table. Sitting on the sofa, he took out his phone and wrote a post on the community forum.
[Title: In the Middle of Getting a Room and Turning It into a Workshop]
[Yeah]
I got an officetel and am remodeling it into a workshop.
If anyone already has a workshop, please give me some tips.
Before long, comments came flooding in.
[Comments]
-TamingMaster: ? You already found a room? Are you a silver-spoon kid?
ㄴSevereMagicAddict: It looks like he solved a lot of requests. He definitely wasn’t a silver-spoon kid.
ㄴAnon: Bro.
-DeepSeaAngler: To make the workshop in the optimal form for you, first you need to shape the environment to suit your magic’s nature. For example, if you use puppetry, it’s good to put a lot of dolls in the room.
ㄴ(TL;DR please)
ㄴDeepSeaAngler: I wasn’t talking to you.
“An environment tailored to the magic’s nature, huh…….”
Ian finally understood why Lee Seo-a’s workshop had so many necromancy-related items.
It seemed that not only magical items, but also things deeply tied to the occult, helped shape the environment.
Unlike necromancy, which had such a clear identity, alchemy didn’t really have any occult items. If anything, there was the Philosopher’s Stone, but there was no way to get one. Since this was a foreign god’s alchemy, bringing in brewing equipment or flasks and beakers probably wouldn’t help.
“Can’t be helped.”
The conclusion he reached after thinking it over was to leave it alone. Since he didn’t have a suitable method, it seemed better to leave it as is for now and shape the environment later.
Item creation in Lee Seo-a’s workshop was going smoothly too. There was no need to rush and force an environmental setup.
Ian thought that and looked at the clock.
It had just turned midnight. The world outside the window was dark, and the moon hung at the highest point in the sky.
It was about time to head to the convenience store for his shift. It felt pretty strange, like he was living a double life.
‘I should quit soon.’
He couldn’t stay tied to the convenience store forever. For steady income and a stable life, he needed to focus more on the extraordinary than on the everyday. At least until his life settled down, that was the right thing to do. It was about time he transitioned to freelance work.
Ian drew all the curtains in the officetel, threw on his puffer jacket, and stepped outside. A security ghost walking down the hall spotted him and bowed its head.
When he headed for the elevator, a ghost already waiting there pressed the first-floor button and vanished. Ian went down to the first floor, hailed a taxi, and set off for the convenience store.
Before long, he arrived at the convenience store. When he went inside, he saw the manager on duty. Ian immediately bowed his head to her.
“Long time no see, Manager.”
“Ah, Ian?”
The young convenience store manager wiped the sweat from her forehead as she looked at Ian. The items on the shelves were neatly arranged, as if she had just been organizing inventory.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen your face. You’ve been doing well, right?”
“I’ve been doing fine. But why are you working my shift, Manager? What happened to the part-timer?”
“He quit. Said he suddenly didn’t feel like working anymore.”
She let out a deep sigh and handed Ian the convenience store vest she was wearing. Ian took the vest and took off his puffer jacket.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He just left saying he was going on a journey to find himself. So I’m going to cover the shift for now.”
“Hmm... Then could you maybe find a new part-timer for my shift too?”
At Ian’s question, the manager’s body froze stiff. She turned her stiff neck to stare at him.
“...Why?”
“I got a job, you see. So I don’t think I’ll be able to keep working part-time.”
It wasn’t really a lie. He had switched from an ordinary person to a mage, so it was basically the same as getting a job.
“...Really? Congratulations.”
The manager smiled awkwardly and patted Ian on the shoulder. Then she let out a long sigh.
“Still, you can keep working until I find a new part-timer, right? It shouldn’t take long.”
“Yes. For now, I should be fine until the end of this year.”
“Then that’s fine. Haa... Once I get home, I’ll have to write up a job ad right away. Anyway, congratulations on getting a job. I hope everything goes well for you.”
“Thank you.”
Ian bowed his head, and after the manager bought a bottle of soju, she left the convenience store.
The convenience store in the early morning was quiet as always. Outside the window, pale moonlight was falling, and late-night pedestrians wandered beneath the streetlights. Ian stared outside for a moment, then started work.
*
Whether that was fortunate or unfortunate, Ian didn’t run into any strange phenomena for over a week while working part-time at the convenience store. It wasn’t just at the store; he encountered nothing mysterious on the way home or in daily life either.
Of course, that was the normal case. If people could encounter the mysterious that easily, the population of this world would have been cut in half long ago. There’d be no way a proper society could’ve been built.
But Ian wasn’t an ordinary person; he was a mage. He was more likely than others to get entangled with the mysterious, and that had been true until now... but lately, things had been unusually quiet.
He had even thought Santa might show up for Christmas, but the childlike wonder he’d felt for the first time in ages had been cleanly betrayed. It seemed even Santa avoided mages.
Anyway, with that, Ian’s long part-time job had finally come to an end. On the very day a new person was found for his shift, he quit immediately and had a meal with the convenience store manager. It was a kind of farewell dinner.
After finishing the meal, the two of them chatted idly at a nearby café before parting ways. Ian smoked in a nearby smoking booth and looked up at the clear sky.
“...Hoo.”
With this, he was no longer tied down by part-time work or anything else. It felt a little strange since it was a place he had worked for quite a long time, but he soon brushed the feeling off cleanly.
He would have had to quit anyway once he got a real job. He might as well think of it as happening a little sooner.
Ian put the finished cigarette into the ashtray, stepped outside, and walked down the street.
It had already been two days since the New Year arrived. He had already sent New Year’s greetings to the people he knew, and workshop work was also nearing completion. In another day or two, the workshop would be complete.
Then the short vacation he had enjoyed after finishing the theme park request would also be over.
It was about time to return to work.
He had already decided what request to take on. The moment he got home, Ian launched the cartel app and checked the request he had previously looked at again.
[Exploration of an Abandoned Library]
[We have no information from the cartel’s side. All we know is that ordinary people are strictly forbidden from entering, and only mages and psychics are allowed inside. Therefore, instead of spending the cartel’s valuable manpower on mages or psychics, we wish to investigate the place with money.]
[Objective: Record the library’s safety rules and information.]
[Reward: Base 100 million won. Additional reward of 10 million won per rule or piece of information.]
A request with a reward in the hundred-millions. On top of that, it came with a hefty additional reward.
It was less that the job was that difficult and more that the labor costs of mages and psychics were extremely high.
The tendency he had observed from meeting them so far was that they were driven more by profit and money than by morality. So even if a place was extremely difficult, if ordinary people could also enter, they didn’t seem to value the reward that highly. The theme park was a prime example.
By contrast, ordinary people couldn’t enter the library through official channels at all, and nothing about its interior had been revealed.
They had to send in valuable personnel like mages or psychics to get the rules. There was no choice but to set a reward tempting enough for them. Otherwise, no one would go.
Honestly, it was all the same to Ian. If they paid more, he’d welcome it; there was no reason to refuse.
And no matter how he looked at it, this was a much easier request than the theme park. He figured he probably wouldn’t get dragged into anything harder for a while.
Of course, that didn’t mean he was letting his guard down. The mysterious wasn’t something to be underestimated.
That was also why he wanted to finish the workshop before taking requests. It was far better to make whatever could help keep him safe before heading out.
Just because his confidence was up didn’t mean he planned to charge in headfirst like a moth to a flame. If he died doing that, it would be no different from dying of natural causes.
For anything at all, it was right to move only after making the minimum necessary preparations.
That stance would never change in the future either.
*
After studying Korean for a week in the Vatican, Cecilia finally set foot on the unfamiliar land of Asia. Her body felt refreshed from sleeping soundly during the long flight, but she still needed more time to adjust to the time difference.
“……”
She dragged a carry-on stuffed with all kinds of firearms, weapons, holy water, knives, and clothes out of the airport. Since it had been specially treated, the misfortune of getting stopped at the airport didn’t happen.
“...Brr, it’s cold.”
Korean winter was as cold and biting as its reputation. Cecilia half-covered her face with a scarf and pouted as she checked the note written in Italian.
‘Go to the cathedral closest to the airport... I guess I just need to head for a place with a cross.’
Thinking that, she gripped the cross necklace in her hand and quietly began searching for holy energy.
In that way, she searched for churches, including the cathedral near the airport.
And the moment she realized just how overwhelmingly many there were, bewilderment spread across her face.
‘W-why are there so many churches and cathedrals...?’
South Korea, where there were far more churches than convenience stores, had become a maze-like place for her, someone who had spent her whole life in the Vatican.
“...Waaah.”
Cecilia felt like crying.