63 Proposal

Ian checked a few more points before signing the contract. The two agents answered every question he asked kindly.

Fortunately, there was nothing in it that would put him at a disadvantage or irritate him. Ian nodded, added a few clauses in the blank spaces, and signed.

The clauses he added were nothing major.

When going out on missions, his own safety would come first. And they would only select trustworthy personnel and send them out with him as a team. That was all.

It was a selfish clause, but there was no need to force himself to be altruistic.

Ian didn’t think of himself as the sort of hero you’d only see in movies. He might have become a mage, but no matter the situation, his own safety always came first.

He wasn’t some lunatic who would treat other people’s sacrifice or death as nothing, but if he couldn’t save them, he wouldn’t become depressed or grieve over it. He had no such heroism or altruism. In a mysterious world where life could be discarded like straw, selfishness was a necessity for survival.

So he felt no guilt about drawing up those clauses.

Clack.

Ian finished signing and set the pen down. Kim Yiseo checked what he had written and nodded.

“That much, we can certainly accommodate. However, apart from the agents taking care of you, they won’t sacrifice themselves. We have our own policies, after all……”

“I’m not asking for sacrifice. Just protecting me when it matters is enough.”

“Then there should be no problem.”

Leaving the nodding Kim Yiseo behind, Ian took the pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

He wasn’t planning to smoke. He wanted to, but for now he had to hold out until the two of them left. He had no intention whatsoever of smoking inside his home.

“Then is that the end of the discussion?”

“For now, yes. We’ll take this contract back to the Bureau for a final review, and once the result is in, we’ll send you a message.”

“Is there a chance the contract won’t go through?”

“No.”

It was an immediate answer. Ian let out a small laugh and took out a cigarette.

Then, on a sudden thought, he moved his lips while watching Kim Yiseo hand the documents to Park Mina.

“If I’d refused to cooperate and sent you back, what would have happened? Would I have been marked as a processing target?”

“……I’ll be honest. If a mage rejects the Bureau’s proposal, that mage is registered as a person deeply connected to the supernatural. They become a target of the Bureau’s remote surveillance.”

It was a reply that could be called gentle or brutal, depending on how you looked at it. Ian rolled the cigarette between his fingers and listened carefully to her words.

“In any case, mages are beings that draw in the supernatural. The supernatural phenomena that arise from them can kill civilians, so surveillance is carried out as a precaution. As for assassinations…… those are carried out against mages who target ordinary people or mages whose danger level is extremely high.”

“…….”

“Still, killing a mage isn’t easy, so we also go through a great deal of preparation.”

“Is it really okay to tell a mage something like this?”

“I think of it as part of building trust.”

Kim Yiseo said that with a composed expression. Ian quietly stared at her pink hair and dull black eyes before letting out a long breath.

“Fine, I get it. So basically, you won’t assassinate mages as long as they don’t mess with ordinary people.”

“That’s right.”

“Can you tell me how many mages have been assassinated so far?”

“There aren’t any in Korea.”

“……Really?”

It was impossible to tell whether that was a lie. But it wasn’t such an important matter, so he didn’t pay much attention to it.

After that, Ian had a short conversation with the two of them and sent them off. Kim Yiseo and Park Mina left after thanking Ian for cooperating.

The house had emptied out in an instant. Ian stood blankly against the wall for a moment, looking down at the table, then put a cigarette in his mouth and went up to the rooftop.

The weather, having just entered February, was still chilly. Spring would come in another month or two, but for now it was still winter. The blowing wind felt like it was stabbing at his bones.

That sensation helped his thoughts turn. Ian lit the end of the cigarette and watched the snow that had begun to fall softly.

‘So the troublesome thing that comes with getting involved with the Bureau is surveillance.’

Whether he accepted the Bureau’s proposal or not, surveillance would follow him either way. Mages with strong egos would never accept such a practically shackling arrangement.

They’d rather fight than live forever under the Bureau’s gaze; obviously, not a single person would choose otherwise.

……No, come to think of it, there was one.

One of the mages cooperating with the Bureau. There was exactly one person living under their surveillance.

‘What kind of person just accepts surveillance like that?’

He didn’t really understand it, but there was no need to. Why bother wondering what was going on in the head of someone who was practically a freak? It was best to just brush it off and move on.

Anyway.

He had figured out why most mages didn’t want to get involved with the Bureau. That alone was a worthwhile gain.

Needless to say, he had no intention of handing over information about the mages he’d met in the community—people like Lee Seo-ah, Han Yu-na, and Dae-mo—to the Bureau. No matter how little loyalty there might be in mage society, there are still unwritten rules. If he didn’t want to become every mage’s enemy overnight, he absolutely couldn’t do something like that.

“Huu…….”

Ian exhaled smoke into the air and checked whether there were any CCTV cameras nearby.

Fortunately, this was a blind spot.

He brushed off the cigarette ash and extended his hand, summoning the Hand of Re-Creation.

[Humm.]

The pure white grimoire vibrated softly as soon as it was caught in his grasp. It looked almost as if it were pouting at him, asking why he’d only called it now, and Ian chuckled before brushing the dust off its cover.

The Bureau probably thought that the only grimoire Ian possessed was Deep Sea Chronicle.

Since Deep Sea Chronicle was the only one he had openly taken out in front of them, they probably didn’t even realize whose hands the Hand of Re-Creation was in, or whether it even existed.

He had used a grimoire at the theme park, but back then his face had been thoroughly covered.

Thanks to that, even the Bureau apparently hadn’t realized that the “mage” they encountered at the theme park and the “mage” who cooperated at the hospital were the same person.

That was only natural. The magic used had been completely different, so predicting they were the same person was effectively impossible.

If that had been possible, the Bureau would have figured out the identities of all mages long ago.

Whether intentional or not, the imbalance of information was advantageous for Ian. It was better to hide one away than to go around showing off that he had two grimoires.

The odds were extremely low, but the Bureau could still suddenly lose its mind and betray him, couldn’t it? There was nothing wrong with keeping one unexpected dagger in reserve.

‘When handling cartel requests, I’ll use both, but at least when cooperating with the Bureau, I should use only the Chronicle.’

Deep Sea Chronicle had excellent firepower, but its versatility and stability were far inferior to the Hand of Re-Creation.

However, Deep Sea Chronicle wasn’t limited to summoning magic alone. Even if it couldn’t instantly kill an opponent like Re-Creation magic could, it still contained a variety of offensive spells.

He could handle any mission well enough with just those. He simply didn’t like the feeling of wearing shackles.

Still, summoning a Messenger or something comparable when needed didn’t seem very risky, so he thought it would be fine to summon one while gauging the situation.

“……Huu.”

After sorting out his thoughts, Ian exhaled smoke toward the clouds and stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray.

Even if he prepared like this now, once he got into actual action there would be too many variables, and things would probably not go according to plan.

Still, it was better than having no plan at all.

Ian put the cigarette butt in the ashtray and closed the lid.

Now it was time to rest a little.

*

Kim Yiseo and Park Mina did not exchange a single word until they were far from Ian’s home.

Then, once his house was no longer visible, Park Mina cautiously opened her mouth.

“……Where on earth did a mage like that come from?”

She took off the suit jacket she had been wearing and leaned back against the seat.

Cold sweat had unpleasantly dampened her shirt and underwear.

“Judging by how he looks, he’s definitely Korean…… Did he pick up a grimoire when he was young? Or is he from a mage family?”

“What mage families are there in Korea?”

Kim Yiseo answered, tapping the steering wheel.

Most of the mage families commonly called purebloods are in Europe. England has the most, followed by France and Germany.

There are some in other countries too, but there aren’t any in Asia, at least.

It was a region where shamanic traditions were more developed than magic, so even when the Age of Discovery was in full swing, mages never even spared Asia a glance. Korea was no exception.

“He probably picked up a grimoire at least ten years ago. That still doesn’t explain it. There’s no way a mage of that level just suddenly appeared.”

“Right? Phew…… how did he manage to stay hidden and live for ten years?”

“I don’t know. There’s so little known about the mage ecosystem. They’re the kind of people who don’t even share information well among themselves……”

“Creepy.”

Mina muttered that and stared out the window.

The sun, half-hidden beyond the horizon, was scattering sunset light in all directions.

She gazed at the moon rising on the opposite side and moved her lips.

“What was that grimoire, anyway?”

“I don’t know. But it’s definitely on a very high level.”

It was an immediate answer.

“At minimum, it’s on par with Lemegeton, if not higher.”

“……Could it be a grimoire related to the Cthulhu Mythos?”

“Probably not.”

Grimoires that appear in the Cthulhu Mythos.

Books such as the Nameless Ritual Book, the Book of Eibon, and the Song of Yste. When fictional grimoires from simple stories are realized in reality, they aren’t treated as grimoires but as a kind of anomaly, because the story itself has gained power.

But that didn’t mean they didn’t teach magic at all. Since they were books written by fictional sorcerers and mages, they were quite dangerous, but the knowledge they contained was also extraordinary, so many mages went looking for them.

However, these fabricated grimoires had one fatal flaw.

“All the grimoires in the Cthulhu Mythos put their owners on a deadline. Unless it’s a grimoire that studies immortality, they all die within five years.”

“……Ah, I think I saw something like that.”

“There haven’t been many cases, so it’s not well known. I found that out separately.”

Kim Yiseo brushed her hair back, looking slightly irritated at the traffic that was starting to clog up again.

“If it were a real grimoire like the Necronomicon, that’d be one thing, but the rest will kill you before you can last ten years. So the grimoire that man had couldn’t have been something related to the Cthulhu Mythos.”

“Then what was it?”

“Let’s not worry about it.”

Kim Yiseo answered.

“I’m satisfied if that person is useful to the Bureau and to my own goals. And...... there are plenty of things better left unknown in this world.”

“......”

“Let’s just do our jobs.”

“......Yeah.”

Park Mina answered with her eyes closed.

The two of them headed straight back to the Bureau without exchanging another word.