Chapter 46
Meanwhile, at that moment, in Washington, D.C., USA.
The door to the Black Tower opened.
Thousands of camera flashes burst at once, lighting up the area.
From the heart of that light, a man strode out grandly.
A cape emblazoned with the American flag, a blue costume clinging to his entire body, and a confident smile.
The world’s No. 1 S-rank hunter, Demigod.
[67th Floor Cleared! Humanity’s Guardian, Demigod!]
[A new record! Just how far can his limits go!]
A TV helicopter circled overhead.
Reporters jostled and shoved for a better spot.
Demigod savored every bit of that applause and spotlight.
He raised one arm high and bellowed, striking his signature pose.
"Hoo—!"
"Waaah!"
The crowd answered with cheers.
Then came a barrage of reporters’ questions.
"Demigod! How was this floor!"
"How does it feel to fight on humanity’s behalf!"
Demigod flashed a satisfied smile at the reporters fawning over him.
"Easy, like always!"
But then it happened.
In one corner, a young reporter muttered under his breath while fiddling with his in-ear monitor.
"Huh? Breaking news? Double O just cleared the 20th Floor...."
Murmurs spread.
Hearing that, a few reporters nearby started whispering to one another.
That tiny whisper was buried under the crowd’s roar, and most people never heard it.
But Demigod was a superhuman among superhumans.
His monstrous hearing did not miss it.
The smile vanished from his face in an instant.
The corners of his mouth still wore a perfect smile, but his eyes were not smiling at all.
'Damn it....'
If he could, he wanted to grab that clueless reporter right then and there, throw him into the middle of the Pacific, and give him swimming lessons.
But this was in front of a huge crowd and countless cameras.
Demigod knew better than anyone what image he needed to project in public.
Foolish, quick to get excited.
That was definitely his true nature.
But people found that side of him approachable.
Demigod knew that well.
And he also knew that the public didn’t want its hero to cross the line.
In public, he was supposed to be a hero who was a little dumb and quick to get excited, but who would never resort to direct violence.
He had to be a goofy but reliable, older-brother-next-door kind of hero.
Maybe elsewhere, away from cameras, he could let loose, but not here.
He had enough common sense to know that much.
He raised one arm again to draw everyone’s attention back to him and shouted.
"Hoo—!"
Then he kicked off the ground and shot up into the sky.
He circled the Black Tower at high speed, as if showing off.
"Waaah!"
The crowd erupted again, thrilled by the sudden performance.
But Demigod could no longer feel the same thrill as before.
'That bastard really made it all the way to the 20th Floor....'
All the tracking magic had been destroyed, and the containment operation had failed.
How was he supposed to find that bastard now?
Even if they found him after he’d become an A-rank already, practically a national asset, then what were they supposed to do next?
Demigod’s head started to hurt.
'A solo clear of the 68th Floor? No, impossible.... Or maybe a gate-sealing operation? But we still don’t even know how to close a gate!'
He needed a way.
A way to shift the attention headed for that guy onto himself.
***
The next morning, I left the house early.
I left the huge staff at home because it would stand out too much.
Today was finally the day I was meeting Kim Suho, the Beetle.
The meeting place was Seoul.
From Daejeon to Seoul.
Even by car, it was a solid two-hour trip.
And I didn’t have a car.
But I had my own method.
I grinned and quietly quoted a line from a movie.
"What is a mage? A mage commands the wind, folds the earth, and runs…."
I stamped my foot once.
The ground beneath my feet turned to sand. I lightly stepped onto it.
Keeping my own body still, I sent only the sand beneath my feet surging forward.
Swish—!
My body shot out like a bullet.
The surrounding scenery turned into blurry afterimages and flashed past behind me at great speed.
It felt like riding an endlessly stretching conveyor belt.
I used reverse weathering on the path behind me, instantly turning it back into ordinary soil.
I turned on the navigation on my phone.
"At this rate, I’ll be there in an hour."
Even while moving at that insane speed, I casually fiddled with my phone.
I’d gotten so used to this trick that I could move semi-automatically now.
Using a phone while driving is banned, but I wasn’t driving, so it didn’t matter.
I reread the reactions to the post I’d screenshotted last time and smiled with satisfaction.
"This never gets old…."
Just as I was grinning and scrolling, it happened.
Crash-!
"Eek!"
With a sudden impact, my body pitched forward and I tumbled.
When I looked up, a huge pine tree was standing right in the middle of the road.
I’d been so distracted by my phone that I hadn’t managed to avoid it in time.
Fortunately, I wasn’t hurt.
Just before the collision, an automatic sand barrier had popped out like an airbag and absorbed all the impact.
But it couldn’t do anything about the force of the sudden stop.
I muttered irritably as I got back up from the ground.
"Geez, that startled me…."
A beat later, I checked the phone in my hand.
A sharp line ran cleanly across the middle of the screen.
I’d fallen and cracked the screen.
"No, my phone!"
My scream echoed across the empty road.
It would have been less painful if my body had been hurt instead.
***
After all that, I finally arrived in Seoul.
A huge city I had almost never been to in my life.
I gasped at Seoul’s scenery, which was on a completely different level from backwater Daejeon.
The sight of the distant skyscrapers and crowds on the streets made me instinctively shrink back.
"From here on, there are a lot of people, so I shouldn’t use magic carelessly."
I stopped using movement magic and started walking slowly.
"It’d be nice to have some kind of stealth spell…."
Then I could move around comfortably without all this annoying hassle.
I walked for a while and slowly headed to the café where we were supposed to meet.
And then I gaped at the scene before me.
A radius of 3 kilometers centered on the café was completely covered by a massive translucent barrier.
The purple-tinted wind barrier distorted the scenery inside like a mirage, making it impossible to peek in from outside.
"Tch, a barrier, huh…."
An S-rank barrier. Its scale and oppressive presence were beyond imagination.
I walked toward the barrier in admiration.
How was I supposed to get through this?
"Would a sand wall be able to get through?"
I controlled my power and formed a barrier that stopped at two meters.
The wall rose up, squeezing itself through the gap in the barrier.
When I touched the wall, it opened like a door.
***
Inside the café, Kim Suho sat by the window with his eyes closed, passing the time.
Right then, he slightly furrowed his brow.
He sensed a tiny change in the wind barrier he had set up.
Someone was coming in.
The barrier hadn’t been broken.
'...A newbie, huh.'
Kim Suho muttered to himself.
What kind of person could it be?
Just from their behavior in the gallery, they seemed impossible to read.
With a vague sense of tension, he swallowed dryly.
Ding-a-ling-
Just then, the café door opened and a clear chime rang out.
***
After passing through the barrier, all the noise in the world vanished like a lie.
I slowly walked down the completely empty street.
It was a strange feeling.
Huge forests of buildings and flashy signs.
A bizarre sight that should have been filled with people, yet there was no one at all.
So this is what S-rank power is like.
To think you could borrow the entire heart of a city.
In the distance, I could see the café Hamham Cheese, our meeting place.
I could see a man through the glass window.
A jet-black short-sleeve polo shirt. Short sports-cut hair and sharp eyes.
That had to be Kim Suho, the Beetle.
He looked ordinary at a glance, but somehow there was an unusual air about him.
'I wonder what an S-rank mage feels like….'
I tried to sharpen my eyesight and observe the flow of his mana, but quickly stopped.
Kim Suho also had a similar skill, and I thought it would be rude.
"Phew…."
I’m a little nervous.
I took a deep breath once and walked toward the café door.
Ding-a-ling-
When I opened the door with a clear chime, Kim Suho, who had been sitting by the window, turned his gaze toward me.
Our eyes met in the air.
For a moment, embarrassment flickered across his face.
He clearly hadn’t expected the mage newbie to look like this.
Well, that made sense.
After all, anyone looking would see that my current appearance was only that of a little girl around thirteen years old.
Kim Suho stood up from his seat and walked over to me.
His face wore a mixture of trouble and concern.
"Oh, how did you get in here? Was there someone who couldn’t get out in time when I set up the barrier…?"
He asked kindly, though he looked troubled.
I let out a deep sigh.
Another one of these routines.
Brokers and police officers alike all reacted like this when they saw me.
It was exhausting.
Without saying a word, I walked up to him and extended my finger.
A handful of sand flowed out from the tip of my finger.
The sand gathered on the table by itself, and soon it had formed a tiny version of me, no bigger than a palm.
The sand-made mini clone bowed politely to Kim Suho.
"……."
Kim Suho stood there blankly for a moment, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
His eyes wavered.
Sand, a mage, and this little girl.
One conclusion flashed through his mind.
Ignoring him, I confidently walked over and sat in the empty seat.
I needed to show him I wasn’t just some ordinary kid.
I crossed my legs and said.
"Here, one black coffee, please."
At my order, Kim Suho stood there blankly for a moment, then quickly came to his senses and looked around.
But there was no way a café inside a barrier would have any staff.
"Ah, coffee... We don’t have any employees right now... Wait a moment."
Kim Suho hesitated briefly, then walked awkwardly behind the counter.
The S-rank hunter and South Korea’s strongest mage started floundering in front of a coffee machine he seemed to have never touched before in his life.
He still seemed mentally scrambled because of me.
Watching him, I muttered to myself.
'Oh, I wasn’t trying to make him run out for coffee?'
Well, still, if he was willing to do it, I might as well be grateful.
Where else would I get to drink coffee made by an S-rank?
"Hmm…."
In front of the unfamiliar buttons and levers, Kim Suho’s fingers flailed in the air.
Deep wrinkles formed between his brows.
Watching him, I clicked my tongue in unease.
'Is that thing going to be okay...?'
As if he had made up his mind, he pressed what looked like the most plausible button.
A warning beep rang out from the machine.
"Uh…."
That was the moment he flailed his hands in panic.
Wind swept through the café interior.
Crash!
Cups on the shelf fell to the floor and shattered into pieces.
The café became a scene of chaos in an instant.
Kim Suho stood rigidly, staring at the ruined café as if he couldn’t believe what he had just done.
"Hmm…."
I rested my chin on my hand and quietly watched it all unfold.