Chapter 41
The road leading to the back mountain on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province. The taxi Ian was riding in sped along the clear-open road.
In the middle of that, the taxi driver casually struck up a conversation.
“Your clothes look really sharp. Are you going to meet your girlfriend or something?”
“Huh? Ah, no, that’s not it. Just a little solo outing? Something like that.”
At the sudden question, Ian answered gently. The taxi driver laughed heartily and tapped the steering wheel with his hand.
“Nice. Wow, when I was young, I really loved going all over the place. Back in my prime, huh? I used to drive cars and motorcycles all over the country, and I mean I was just cr…….”
“...Ah, I see. Haha.”
“I’m telling you. When I was young, I had a face as handsome as yours too. Heh-heh…… Women were lining up, lining up.”
“Really?”
Ian casually responded to the taxi driver’s chatter and waited until they arrived.
After talking for quite a long time, they reached the destination.
The back mountain had a hiking course set up for hikers. Since it was a weekday afternoon, there weren’t many people around. Only a few middle-aged men sitting in makgeolli joints were visible.
Fortunately, it didn’t seem like he’d need to keep avoiding other people’s gazes. Ian nodded and, as the car came to a stop, held out his card to pay the fare.
But the taxi driver laughed heartily and pushed the card back.
“I won’t be taking your money. It’s my thanks for listening so well.”
“Huh? No, but even so…….”
“It’s really fine. Come on, hurry up and get out. I’ve got the next customer waiting.”
The taxi driver patted Ian on the shoulder twice. After a moment’s thought, Ian bowed his head and opened the taxi door.
“Thank you. If we meet again, I’ll pay you double.”
“Heh-heh, what a polite young man.”
Vroom.
The taxi drove off down the road the moment the door closed. Ian adjusted the wrinkled coat and let out a long breath.
'The world is still worth living in, I guess.'
Even in a world like this, there were still people like that. He was a little talkative, yes, but he really was a good person. Ian silently wished him good luck and went on his way.
“…….”
A clear hiking trail. He walked a path with no one climbing up and only people heading down. Since what he was wearing wasn’t really suited for hiking, he could feel people’s gazes on him. No one spoke to him, but he could clearly tell they were looking at him oddly.
As long as they didn’t suspect him of being a mage, it didn’t matter. Ian lightly dipped his head in greeting to those he made eye contact with and climbed farther up the trail, following the map on the Cartel app.
By the time his breathing had become a little rough, he spotted a side path leading to a cave.
Since it was a place people rarely went, it was left unmanaged. Ian carefully made his way down the path, bracing himself on the tree growing at the side and pushing through the grass.
'There are no witnesses.'
Fortunately, there was no one watching from behind him. He didn’t feel any gaze either.
Ian felt a little reassured and cocked the hammer of his revolver in advance. The cylinder, always full of bullets, was cold, but it was so well maintained it could spit out rounds at any moment. It was thoroughly oiled.
Click, click.
He idly spun the cylinder a full turn as he moved toward the cave. He could barely sense any wild animals, and only a faint smell of blood drifted from the cave.
A clear blood scent strong enough for a human nose to catch. Ian gripped the revolver and turned his toes toward the smell.
“…….”
After walking for quite some time, the cave came into view.
A pitch-dark cave interior. Inside it, three creatures with gray skin could be seen.
A hunched-back frame bent forward, a swollen belly, and a chest where only bones were visible. Long, muscular arms and legs, sharp claws, and teeth.
They weren’t wearing clothes. Only torn scraps of fabric were scattered across the ground.
The ghoul that had once been female had breasts that jutted out slightly, but the shape was absolutely nothing like a human’s. If anything, it was more like a dog’s. It was disgusting.
The ghouls weren’t really moving. All of them were sitting or lying in the cave’s dark interior, staring blankly into space. Like zombies, it was proof they moved only on instinct, without reason.
Zombies and ghouls had plenty of differences, but to a layman they were pretty much the same thing. The biggest difference was that zombies only craved humans, while ghouls devoured any living thing without discrimination.
'So the smell of blood was coming from the corpse of a beast that lived in the cave. And judging by the variety of clothes, they must’ve eaten some humans too.'
Perhaps because they had just finished eating, the ghouls didn’t react even though the smell of a human was in the air. Ian boldly approached right up to the cave where the things were lying and looked down at them.
“……Grrk?”
“Grrk. Grrrr…….”
Two ghouls that had smelled him from right nearby opened their eyes. But even after turning their heads toward Ian, they still couldn’t look directly at him and only tilted their heads in confusion.
That was proof the magic was working properly.
Ian nodded and summoned a grimoire in the hand that wasn’t holding the revolver. Then two grimoires were held side by side in his hands.
'No, you’re the one who needs to sit this out.'
Ian immediately stuffed the Hand of Re-Creation into his bag and only took out the Deep-Sea Chronicle to open it. He could feel the grimoire in his bag vibrating, but he ignored it for now. What he was testing today wasn’t re-creation magic.
He flipped past the introduction in the Deep-Sea Chronicle and checked the summoning section. From there, he drew the first creature’s summoning circle on the ground. Of course, he kept some distance from the cave.
There was no need to use a pen. He drew a magic circle in the dirt with a twig and placed about two pieces of mystic flesh on top of it.
It was the body of a staff member he’d taken during his escape from the theme park—though he hadn’t managed to bring much of it. He couldn’t use the ghost’s spirit body he’d obtained from the officetel, so he had no choice but to use this instead.
He made a small cut on his finger and sprinkled blood over the flesh. The ghouls reacted to the smell of blood, but since he’d already put some distance between them, he had plenty of room.
He ran a finger over the blood-soaked flesh and quietly closed his eyes. Holding the grimoire in one hand and the revolver in the other, he chanted the spell.
“O creation of the great one. Child of God. Son and daughter, slave and sacred one. As I, His representative, command you, reveal yourself here.”
Crack……!
The moment the incantation ended, red blood began streaming out of the grimoire, and light filled the summoning circle.
Following the glowing summoning circle, the aberrant flesh and blood melted into one another. Soon, as the light faded, a bloody mist spread thickly and a grotesquely shaped creature appeared above the summoning circle.
[Kikigik…….]
A dark red-black body. Its appearance was somewhat like a flower, and somewhat like a jellyfish. It had no eyes, nose, or ears, and only a mouth at the center of its body, opening and closing.
The four sharp tentacles attached to its torso functioned like legs, bracing itself as it raised its body.
Commonly called a Messenger.
The tiny creature, only about the size of a human head, turned toward Ian and waved its tentacles upward as if delighted.
[Kiiik……!]
The creature’s will wasn’t transmitted to Ian, but he could roughly tell from instinct what it was saying. Confirming that the summoning had gone smoothly, he nodded and pointed at the ghouls with a finger.
“Eat.”
[Kikigik!!]
Following Ian’s will, the Outer Sea creature spun its tentacles rapidly. Rolling across the ground like a wheel, it raced forward and latched onto a ghoul’s face, wrenching its maw wide open.
The ghoul’s upper body slipped neatly into the maw that had been opened several times wider than its own body.
And then.
Craaaack!!
With a horrific sound, the ghoul’s upper body was dragged into the creature’s belly. A tremendous amount of blood splattered everywhere, and the organs that hadn’t been swallowed and the clearly exposed bones rolled across the floor. The lower body, stripped of its upper half, staggered for a moment before collapsing.
[Kikik!]
The Messenger didn’t stop there and went after the other two ghouls as well. As before, it rushed in swiftly, clamped onto one ghoul’s face, and drove its tentacles into both shoulders.
“Graaaahh!!”
[Kikik!]
As if mocking the ghoul’s agonized scream, the Messenger shook with delight and tore the ghoul’s body apart to either side. The body, split down the spine, toppled onto the floor, and the remaining ghoul charged at the predator.
But the Messenger did not allow it to come any closer. It shoved all four tentacles into its head, twisted them, and ground the ghoul’s skull to pulp.
Sploosh!
Like something ground in a grinder, brain matter, flesh, and chunks splattered everywhere. The Messenger trembled as if laughing, then went over to the ghouls’ scattered corpses and ravenously devoured them.
Ian, watching from a distance, let out a dry laugh.
'It’s stronger than I thought.'
He had expected it to handle the ghouls easily since it was a creature directly created by an Outer God, but he hadn’t expected it to kill them this quickly. It was ridiculous that this was the weakest creature.
[Kikik.]
As soon as he thought that, the predator turned its head toward Ian.
The atmosphere was different from before. The gratitude for having been summoned was nowhere to be seen, and only the predator that had tasted blood and flesh stood there.
“...So that means it’s still hungry.”
The price of answering a summoning came to mind. If it wasn’t full enough, it would turn on the summoner instead. Ian pointed at the corpse of one of the beasts in the cave and parted his lips.
“There’s another corpse over there, so eat that too. That should be enough, right?”
[Kiiik!]
At Ian’s words, the Messenger bobbed its tentacles. Rolling along the floor, it approached the corpse in the cave, then immediately buried its head and started devouring the flesh and organs ravenously.
'So even the weakest aberration can’t get full on just three ghouls. At this rate, I can’t even guess how much the others will eat.'
Its build was impressive, but at this rate, you couldn’t exactly call it fuel-efficient.
Still, it was excellent as an attack method. Even if it couldn’t be used quickly on the fly like Re-Creation magic, if you had enough time, there was no better magic than this.
Ian nodded in satisfaction, closed the grimoire, and collected some ghoul blood to put in his bag.
It was time to go home.
*
Fortunately, the Messenger turned into bloody mist and returned to where it had originally come from as soon as it had filled itself up. Apparently, satisfying its hunger was the condition for reverse summoning.
If I leave it hungry, I don’t know what it’ll do, but I’m guessing it’ll just keep devouring the living things around it. And the first target would probably be the owner of the grimoire.
It really was an ungrateful bastard, but it was only natural that the stronger the magic, the greater the price. Re-creation magic was unusual, so using it too often would probably be difficult.
'It’s the classic strong-against-the-strong, weak-against-the-weak type of magic. If the target doesn’t have much flesh or a huge number of bodies, summoning it is actually a loss.'
If he hadn’t tested it in advance, he never would have known. It was good to know.
After returning home, Ian took a quick shower and washed the bloodstained clothes. Since they were black, it didn’t show much, but the fishy smell was everywhere, so he still had to wash them.
Once the laundry was done, he hung the clothes out on the balcony and sat on the bed, eating the dinner he’d bought on the way.
The menu was chicken. Thankfully, the trusty chicken didn’t betray him.
After the meal, he placed both grimoires on the table. Now that he’d confirmed each one contained magic of a different temperament, it was time to study again.
'Let’s start with the familiar one first.'
The amount of alchemy and magic written in the Hand of Re-Creation was enormous. Even though he kept reading whenever he had a free moment, new things kept popping up. Unlike the Deep-Sea Chronicle, which focused purely on destructive power, this one could be used in many different ways, so it was absolutely worth continuing to study.
“Hmm.”
Ian downed an energy drink as if determined to pull an all-nighter, then picked up the Hand of Re-Creation and opened the cover.
“Huh.”
He tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. Ian, flustered, tapped the cover with his finger.
“Why are you acting up all of a sudden?”
[Humm!]
The grimoire vibrated once in Ian’s arms. It looked as if it were annoyed, like it was asking, “You really have to ask?” and Ian let out a dry laugh.
“No, what is it? Open the cover. Let me read the book.”
[Humm! Hummmm!!]
“What, you’re saying no?”
[Humm!]
The grimoire trembled as if in agreement, flung the cover open wide, and then snapped shut on one of Ian’s fingers.
“Gah.”
As Ian dropped the grimoire at the throbbing pain, the Hand of Re-Creation that had fallen to the floor pitifully crawled to a corner and hid itself there.
Ian frowned at the sight.
“...No.”
It was a truly absurd situation, but.
It seemed the grimoire was pouting.
All he could do was let out a hollow laugh.