Chapter 6
A street in the rainy dawn.
Three people in suits sprinted forward at full speed, each carrying a different firearm.
“Huff, huff, huff……!”
Of the three, the youngest-looking man wheezed and flailed his arms and legs weakly. Seeing that, the woman kicked him in the back and shouted.
“You fucking idiot! Keep running! What if a civilian gets hurt because of this!”
“Huff, th, huff, b-but, I can’t breathe……!”
“Shut up and run! Do you want to get memory-wiped and taken out?!”
The woman said that and gritted her teeth, pistol in hand. Blood streamed down from the tear in her thigh. Her ID badge swung against her chest as she ran.
[Kim Iseo]
[Mystic Management Bureau Response Team 3]
Mystic Management Bureau.
A secret state agency that responds to all kinds of supernatural incidents, and one that boasts enormous pay, but an equally absurdly brutal work environment. It’s no wonder the death rate is higher than the injury rate.
With an ordinary mental state, surviving at all was impossible. However, one of the basic requirements for joining the Bureau was to have encountered a supernatural being at least once, so the agents there usually had strong mental fortitude.
And excellent physical abilities.
Response Division 3 was no different. It wasn’t a team made up of people with special abilities, and yet its operation success rate was fairly high.
For them, chasing down and killing an Eight-Foot Ghost like today was as routine as anything else.
A crude, mindless aberration that wasn’t hard to deal with and didn’t require much mental fortitude. A being born from an urban legend; just put a few bullet holes in it with special rounds and it disappears on its own.
It was the ideal target for a rookie’s initiation run. So the Team 3 leader had mixed one reasonably skilled pair with one rookie and sent them out to hunt the Eight-Foot Ghost.
And this was the result. The Eight-Foot Ghost escaped using its long legs and arms, and Team 3 was injured. It was a tragedy caused by the rookie failing to pull the trigger at the crucial moment.
Fuck.
Kim Iseo spat out a curse and forced her throbbing leg to move.
The wound had been inflicted while protecting the man. If she hadn’t shoved the rookie away, his head would have been skewered and rolling across the floor.
She should have just let it happen. Then she could have definitely dealt with the aberration.
What the hell was that rookie good for, anyway?
Kim Iseo glanced at the man lagging behind, then spoke to her teammate running alongside her.
“I’m going on ahead. You take care of that maggot.”
“You sure? Your leg’s hurt.”
“I can manage. Lend me a gun too. Mine’s a pistol, so it doesn’t have the firepower.”
“Ah, yeah.”
The woman with the employee badge reading Park Jia handed Kim Iseo the shotgun she’d been holding. Iseo deftly checked the talisman-wrapped rounds and bit down on a gray pill.
At that moment, her physical abilities were amplified beyond their limits. Through a special breathing technique, she temporarily pushed her already enhanced body one step further.
If she used it, she’d be stuck with muscle tears for days, but there was no helping it now. She had to track down the aberration as quickly as possible so that no civilians got hurt.
“I’m going. Follow me with the tracker.”
Kim Iseo said. Jia skillfully pulled out the terminal and nodded.
Whoosh!
Kim Iseo sprinted. Running faster than a track athlete, she put on the mask hanging from her waist.
A mask that tracked the aberration’s scent.
With Park Jia, who was acting as the tracker, not by her side, she had to find the aberration on her own. It had originally been made to keep you away from aberrations when you were alone, but there was no need to stick to its intended use.
“Huff!”
She turned her head toward the source of the stench. The scent, trailing like a path, passed through an alley, stopped at a convenience store, then moved back into a narrow street.
‘A convenience store?’
A convenience store, of all things?
The instant she turned her head in surprise, the figure of a man standing inside the convenience store came into view.
Fortunately, he didn’t seem to be hurt. The store was a mess, but there wasn’t a single drop of blood on him.
Still, it was obvious he had encountered the aberration.
Once an ordinary person encountered one, there were only two options: have their memory erased, or join the Bureau.
Once this was over, she’d have to go over and talk to him.
Thinking that, Kim Iseo turned her head. At the same time, she spotted a trail of blood starting from the convenience store.
‘……Blood?’
She didn’t need to check whose blood it was. Just from the stench, it was clearly the aberration’s.
The fact that there was blood wasn’t strange in itself. After all, Kim Iseo herself had put a bullet into the Eight-Foot Ghost’s thigh. If the blood had flowed from there, it wasn’t hard to understand.
But the amount of blood was far too much to be called simple bleeding.
It looked as if…… one of its limbs had been cut off somewhere.
‘……Did that man do this?’
She didn’t know. But it was certain the blood trail started from the convenience store. He must have gone inside and, for some reason, suffered a major wound.
“……”
She couldn’t even guess the cause. Her instincts were screaming at her to investigate immediately.
But she suppressed them with reason.
She couldn’t get the priorities wrong. For now, dealing with the aberration came first.
The moment civilian casualties occurred, the incident became far more complicated. Unnecessary deaths had to be prevented.
Kim Iseo immediately turned her head and, shotgun in hand, followed the blood trail.
Thanks to the device that blocked outside view, she didn’t need to worry about civilians spotting her.
However.
“……Why is that woman carrying a shotgun?”
It wasn’t enough to fool a magician’s eyes.
***
[Title: I Met the Eight-Foot Ghost Today.]
[User]
I work part-time at a convenience store, and it suddenly barged in and attacked me, so I tore one of its arms off.
I was wondering how to get my hands on aberration flesh for alchemy, so I got lucky.
I’m gonna have to make other stuff with this too lol
[Upvotes 3][Downvotes 0]
[Comments]
-(That’s really wonderful, Magician con)
-If it was the Eight-Foot Ghost, you hit the jackpot. You’re that newbie magician from yesterday’s post, right?
ㄴㅇㅇ: Yep.
ㄴlol, from now on you’ll be seriously dealing with the supernatural, so be prepared.
ㄴㅇㅇ: I was already thinking I might run into one soon after seeing a post from a gallery member who wrote that when he was a newbie. But I was a little startled when it showed up right after that.
-Neogui-beolle: For someone who says they were startled, you ripped it apart right away. You really do have the perfect talent for a magician.
ㄴㅇㅇ: No, if I don’t kill it, it kills me. Then I have to kill it.
ㄴNeogui-beolle: Before killing it, didn’t you feel anything? Like that moment’s hesitation ordinary people have when they kill an animal?
ㄴㅇㅇ: I didn’t feel anything like that.
ㄴNeogui-beolle: This is the average magician, lol
Ian sent a fitting emoji in reply to Neogui-beolle’s comment and gobbled down a triangular kimbap.
Morning came after he finished his part-time job.
Thanks to the Re-Creation spell, he was a little tired, but not enough that he couldn’t keep going, so Ian was browsing the community one last time before going to bed.
[Title: Let’s Learn About the Eight-Foot Ghost Our Horny Newbie Took Down]
[TamingMaster]
(Illustration of the Eight-Foot Ghost)
Now then, this is the Eight-Foot Ghost. Isn’t it sexy-looking?
The Eight-Foot Ghost is an aberration that emerged from a Japanese urban legend, and its defining traits are its long arms and legs and considerable grip strength. It can even pop our frail little maggots’ heads like slime.
When it attacks, it either bites with its teeth, tears with its claws, or lashes out with its arms like whips.
If even one of those hits you, it’ll hurt like hell, so unless you want a tearful melodrama about saying goodbye to your limbs, dodge every last attack.
But even the Eight-Foot Ghost is basically nothing more than a giant target dummy if it can’t land a hit. It’s the perfect target for testing the firepower of the magic you’ve learned.
On top of that, it goes aaagh and squeals, so it’s pretty satisfying to hit too. Its durability isn’t that great, so it’s also a good girl who obediently takes every hit you give her.
It usually attacks when you make eye contact, so if you don’t ask questions and just strike first, it’s easy to win. If it gets hit, it runs away, so aim for the legs as much as possible.
If you’re a magician who learned puppetry or domination, torment it a bit and tame it. For the record, that’s what the author is doing.
(Photo of the trembling Eight-Foot Ghost lying on a bed)
Look. It’s cute, like a big dog, isn’t it?
I’ve pulled out all the dangerous teeth and claws, and cut off part of its limbs too, so it isn’t dangerous.
Its body temperature is fairly cool, so if you need a summer body pillow, go hunt one down and keep it ready.
(Magician thumbs-up con)
[Upvotes 13][Downvotes 51]
[Comments]
-Wow, fuck lol what the hell is this mutilated pet doll bullshit lol
-Killing them is easy enough. I’ve run into a few and beat them all up.
-The way it looks is seriously awful, but…… it’s a little hot.
ㄴ(Magician question mark con)
-SweetGrandpa: That little thing,,,,,,,, looks. So. Tasty.
ㄴFish: Grandpa…… if you actually stick it into something like that, you’re really going to die…….
ㄴSweetGrandpa: You. Insolent. Thing! You. Still. Don’t. Know. The. Taste. Of. Aberrations!
ㄴFish: And don’t literally tear it apart and eat it either…….
-StrawberryYogurtSmoothie: What the fuck is this insane sex-crazed bastard even babbling about again? That poor Eight-Foot Ghost you caught.
ㄴTamingMaster: Denial phase, huh. Looks like there’s not much time left. Want me to recommend a handsome aberration too?
ㄴStrawberryYogurtSmoothie: Your fucking mom.
ㄴ★GreatMother: Excessive profanity. Comment ban for 3 days.
ㄴStrawberryYogurtSmoothie: Ah, fuck!
A post no different from one written by a madman. At first Ian let out a dry laugh because he was dumbfounded, but then he left a comment after a sudden thought occurred to him.
-ㅇㅇ: But are there multiple Eight-Foot Ghosts? Why does everyone already know about them?
ㄴTamingMaster: Beings derived from urban legends or ghost stories multiply endlessly as long as supernatural phenomena exist in this world. They are born where those ghost stories are known.
ㄴㅇㅇ: Ah, so the Bureau kills them to reduce the population, then?
ㄴTamingMaster: That too. Magicians also hunt them to tame them, or to use them as magical materials.
ㄴTamingMaster: Wait, hold on, you already know about the Bureau? As a newbie?
ㄴㅇㅇ: I don’t know exactly, but I saw someone who seemed like they were from there.
Ian recalled the woman in a suit, wearing a mask and running around with a shotgun.
No matter how you looked at it, she looked like an agent dispatched to hunt an Eight-Foot Ghost.
In fiction, that kind of agent usually belonged to the Bureau, so I had guessed as much and written my comment. Apparently that had been the right answer.
ㄴTamingMaster: Don’t get tangled up with the Bureau for now. Even though magicians are also beings who deal with the supernatural, the Bureau is quite wary of them. It’s not dangerous if you’re found out, but it becomes a hassle.
ㄴㅇㅇ: Okay, thanks for the advice.
ㄴTamingMaster: If you’re grateful, get yourself an Eight-Foot doll too.
Ian didn’t bother replying and put his phone down.
‘There’s no way I can rule out the possibility that the Bureau will come looking for me.’
The woman running through the rain. If she had good instincts and sharp powers of observation, she’d surely have noticed where the large amount of blood left by the Eight-Foot Ghost had started.
She probably wouldn’t know that Ian was a magician, but even so, there was no doubt he’d done something eye-catching.
He didn’t know when they’d come, or whether they really would come, but it seemed best to be prepared.
Thinking that, Ian pulled the blanket over himself and went to bed.
When he woke up in the late afternoon, he took a quick shower, then went outside for a bit and bought an exorcism talisman from a nearby shaman’s place. If the Bureau sent someone, he could say he’d exorcised it with a talisman.
It was flimsy, but there was no other way.
From the start, when an ordinary person dealt with an aberration, there weren’t any options besides a talisman. It wasn’t like you could just get a gun or a knife.
He didn’t know whether the Bureau would believe him, but as long as there was no physical evidence, he should be able to get away with it.
‘The important thing is not getting found out as a magician.’
He’d only just become a magician. He had no intention of getting tangled up in troublesome things.
Ian placed the talisman he’d bought on the table, ordered delivery food, sat down on a chair, and opened his grimoire.
The orb he’d carefully stored away glittered red.
Though unintentional, a good material had fallen into his hands, so it was time to test it.
He skimmed the alchemy section to see whether there was anything reasonably good.