novelraw Chapter 32 : Chapter 32
Chapter 32 : Chapter 32
Chapter 32. Turmoil (1)
Ding-dong-
Ji Byeong-seo's apartment.
With the clear sound of the doorbell, Ji Byeong-seo opened his eyes in bed.
“What is it……?”
It wasn't easy to hear the doorbell so early in the morning.
Muttering that, Ji Byeong-seo picked up the intercom.
“Yes, who is… huh? Mr. Leman?”
Ji Byeong-seo opened the door.
Outside the door stood Riman, a complete wreck, holding Saya and a money bag.
And he was in his pajamas, to top it all off.
In a flustered voice at the bewildering sight, Ji Byeong-seo asked.
“Wh-what happened?!”
“Can I come in for a moment?”
“Yes? Oh, of course!”
As soon as he entered, Riman placed Saya on the workbench and said.
“Can you fix this for me?”
“…I'm not very familiar with mechanical engineering or magic tools.”
“Don't worry. It's not a golem.”
“Yes?”
“This thing is a dragon. A dragon's egg, to be precise.”
Ji Byeong-seo's eyes widened, and he looked at Saya once more.
“Then this blue liquid on it is……”
“Blood. Dragon's blood.”
“My gosh.”
Ji Byeong-seo brought a few clean towels from the cupboard.
“First, let me wipe off the blood and check its condition.”
Ji Byeong-seo wiped the blood from Saya's body.
Then, the cracks all over Saya's body were revealed.
“Hmm……”
Ji Byeong-seo used all his five senses to examine Saya's condition.
Even to the point of tasting the blood.
After finishing his diagnosis, Ji Byeong-seo brought out several medicinal herbs from the cupboard.
He went through a series of processes of pounding, grinding, brewing, and mixing them.
What was surprising was that this process of making medicine was almost improvised.
Because Ji Byeong-seo had never learned pharmacology or medicine.
So he grasped the patient's condition solely by intuition, and the medicine-making was also carried out improvisationally and by instinct.
But the efficacy of the medicine made in that way was truly remarkable.
It was a feat on the level of someone who had never learned to bake baking the finest loaf of bread without a recipe.
Trickle-
Ji Byeong-seo poured the medicine he had made into a deep basin.
And he carefully placed Saya in it.
As the medicine began to be absorbed, Saya soon regained its stability.
Riman, who was still sharing his senses with Saya, could also feel Saya's condition stabilizing.
Ji Byeong-seo said.
“Whew, that takes care of the immediate fire.”
“It's not… fully healed, is it?”
“No. In the first place, I don't even know how to treat a dragon.”
The two of them looked down at Saya, who was taking a medicinal bath, in silence for a moment.
“But Mr. Leman.”
“Yes?”
“This friend… is it really a dragon? A Summoned Beast?”
“Yes, that's right.”
“But Mr. Leman, you can use summoning magic too?”
“I didn't summon it.”
“Huh, can another person use a Summoned Beast summoned by another summoner?”
“Of course not.”
“Then this friend is……”
“The summoner who summoned it died. He got caught in an explosion he caused during the summoning process.”
“Uh……”
Ji Byeong-seo scratched his head with a puzzled expression and asked.
“Then something is strange.”
“What is?”
“Then this friend was also caught in that explosion?”
“Right?”
“How could a kid who was fine even in that explosion be broken like this……?”
“Ah……?”
Ji Byeong-seo had pointed out something Riman hadn't thought of.
‘Come to think of it, that's right. It's a dragon's egg, but it broke just from being shot a few times?’
Could the durability of the eggshell have decreased more than he thought?
‘Has this happened before……?’
Riman quickly skimmed through the sourcebook in his mind.
Summoning, advanced summoning, the ecology and management of Summoned Beasts, and so on.
Just as he was skimming and skimming through all sorts of related information.
‘Ah.’
Riman's eyes widened.
‘Ah……!’
A piece of information that wasn't very important for gameplay, so he had just glanced at it and moved on.
That was what suddenly came to mind.
“There is, a way……!”
Ji Byeong-seo, who had heard Riman's mutter, was also surprised.
“What way? Did you think of a way to treat it?”
“No.”
“Yes?”
“There is no way to treat Saya.”
Riman's mouth, as he said that, was somehow smiling faintly.
“…But there is a way to save it.”
“Yes?! What does that mean?!”
“First, there's someone I need to call right now.”
Riman said as he took out his phone.
“It's okay to call Mr. Bart here, right?”
“Ah, yes, of course. But……”
“……?”
“Um… I wanted to say this since earlier… isn't your left arm broken by any chance?”
Only then did Riman realize that his left arm was hanging limp and dangling.
The left arm that had been broken by a single blow from Jade.
The moment he realized the fracture, the pain suddenly began to rush in.
“Kuaaaaargh……!”
“…Let me give you some painkillers first.”
* * *
Ding-dong-
Bart Sinel arrived a short while later.
A current broker and a close friend of Ji Byeong-seo.
And the one who had brought the Ork Corporation Demonic Beast escape case to Riman.
“Aigo, Mr. Leman, I was just about to contact you. Have you been well!”
His face as he entered the door was all smiles.
And for good reason, because among the brokers involved in the recent Demonic Beast escape case, Bart was the only one who had properly profited.
And not just a profit, but a significant high-profit.
The fact that he had made a high profit despite the commission rate he was supposed to receive from Riman being significantly lower than that of other hunters meant that Riman had made an extraordinary amount of profit.
And Bart had made a connection with such a person.
With the situation being like this, he couldn't help but be all smiles.
But the atmosphere of the house he had entered so cheerfully was……
“What's with the atmosphere here?”
Somehow not good.
Riman was a wreck with a splint on his left arm, and Ji Byeong-seo had a face full of worries.
On top of that, there was a black, round something in a basin.
Bart asked Leman.
“Uh… was I being too loud?”
“You were, but it's okay. Sit down first.”
Riman, Ji Byeong-seo, and Bart.
The three of them sat around a small table.
On the table was Saya in the medicinal liquid and a box of cookies Bart had bought as a gift.
After a brief silence.
Riman opened his mouth.
“…First, I'll tell you what happened.”
Riman told them everything from what had happened in Heosan Village to the night raid that had occurred this morning.
And what kind of scheme was lurking behind it all.
As Bart listened to the story, his face turned pale.
He was the broker who had connected Riman to this case.
In other words, he had become responsible for sending Riman to his death.
Though it was completely unintentional.
After Riman's story was over, Bart immediately bowed his head to Riman.
“I'm sorry! I really, really didn't know it would be like that……!”
“It's okay, so sit down. I know it wasn't intentional.”
In the first place, it couldn't have been intentional.
It was impossible for a mere broker to predict that the Demonic Beast escape accident was actually a self-staged act by a company employee for the sake of slum demolition, and that escaped convicts were even involved.
And above all, Bart was thorough and honest about the work he was in charge of.
He was a person who would betray Ji Byeong-seo in the future, but at least he was a person who was faithful to his professional ethics.
“Um, but Mr. Leman.”
Ji Byeong-seo, who had been quietly listening to the story until now, opened his mouth.
“Yes?”
“I have a question. How many people attacked you, Mr. Leman?”
“There were four regular soldiers and one Enhanced Human. Oh, and I don't know the number, but there were snipers too. But why……?”
“It's strange. Isn't that too few?”
“Too few?”
“Mr. Leman, you're a magician. The Ork side would have known that too. But isn't it strange that they only sent that many troops to catch a magician……?”
“Ah……?”
Come to think of it, that was right.
In this worldview, magicians were treated almost like walking strategic weapons.
No matter how much of a surprise attack it was, that was a bit lacking to catch a magician.
Of course, considering the rank of the person who led this, there might have been a limit to the mobilization of troops, but……
“…I think I can explain the reason for that.”
Bart suddenly raised his hand and said.
“Well… they don't know that Mr. Leman is a magician.”
“……?”
Question marks appeared on both Riman's and Ji Byeong-seo's faces at the same time.
“What does that mean? Don't they know my basic personal information?”
“I wrote that Mr. Leman is an Enhanced Human there.”
“Yes?”
A slight bewilderment appeared on Riman's face.
He wasn't particularly angry.
It wasn't a problem whether he was known as an Enhanced Human or a magician.
The 'reason' why he specifically wrote Enhanced Human was the problem.
Seeing Riman's face slightly stiffen, Bart hurriedly continued.
“…If you write magician in the personal information, things get complicated. So first, Mr. Leman, you didn't graduate from a Magic Tower, right?”
“I didn't.”
“But these days, only those who have graduated from a Magic Tower can use the title 'magician'. If any Magic Tower finds out that Mr. Leman is calling himself a magician and starts to make a fuss, things will get endlessly complicated. You know, right? How vicious those old farts from the Magic Tower are.”
“…I know.”
The Magic Tower, a group tightly wrapped in isolationism, secrecy, and exclusivism.
It was certain that getting involved with them would not be a good thing.
“So, for this reason, I can't write magician in the personal information. Now, for the second reason, why didn't I write Superhuman? What is a Superhuman?”
“Those who can use mana from birth.”
“That's right. And Superhumans usually only have one ability. Just like how a magician can only use one system of magic.”
Of course, magicians had a group of magic called 'support magic' that they could use in addition, regardless of their possessed system.
But as the name suggested, this was really at a support level, and in the end, they could only use one system as their main.
“On the other hand, as far as I know, Mr. Leman uses at least two systems. Fire and electricity.”
“…That's true.”
Not only fire and electricity, but he could also use most of the natural element systems such as ice, water, earth, and wind.
Oh, of course, the 'light' system was an exception.
And he couldn't use the summoning system and the healing system either.
But just using multiple natural element systems was a cheat-level spec, so he had no complaints.
“Alright then, let's summarize. You didn't graduate from a Magic Tower, but you can use mana, and you have more than two types of abilities. The only one who fits this description is……”
“An Enhanced Human, is that it?”
“That's right.”
Enhanced Humans.
A general term for humans who have enhanced their bodies through procedures or transplants.
Therefore, they were the most numerous among the three types of mana users, and also the weakest on average.
But the biggest characteristic of an Enhanced Human.
Was the fact that they could cram multiple abilities into one body.
Indeed, the Enhanced Humans Riman had faced so far were like that.
First, Alex Boyman.
His main skill was 'Void Emission' activated with his enhanced vocal cords, but his leg strength was also enhanced with artificial muscles implanted in his legs.
Next was Jade Tutlock, whom he had fought recently.
He also had 'monstrous strength' in addition to his 'Carapace' ability.
“…For these reasons, I had no choice but to list Mr. Leman as an Enhanced Human.”
“Aha……”
“Still, thanks to that, only that many troops came in the morning, right? If they had known Mr. Leman was a magician, they would have sent four or five times more troops.”
“True……”
Riman was convinced.
“Anyway, so… what did you call me for, Mr. Leman?”
“There's a Demonic Beast byproduct I want to get, can you look into it for me? Don't worry about the price.”
“Of course. Just tell me. What are you looking for?”
“A Demonic Beast's egg sac.”
“An egg sac……?”
“When insect-type Demonic Beasts lay eggs, they wrap the eggs in an egg sac to protect them. Please find out if I can get that egg sac.”
A Demonic Beast's egg sac.
Right now, that was the only way to save Saya.