novelraw Chapter 42 : Chapter 42
Chapter 42 : Chapter 42
Chapter 42. Turmoil (11)
The Red King.
Other than that, he was a figure whose real name, abilities, and past were completely unknown.
Among the many rumors about him, only three things were certain.
First, that his gender was male.
Second, that he used powers of unknown origin and principle.
And finally, he was the leader of ‘Eclipse Hall’.
Such a person had called Jo Hyeong-seo once again.
Of course, contact from the highest authority figure is always difficult for a subordinate.
But if the situation is even at its worst, the subordinate’s burden skyrockets without knowing the limits.
Jo Hyeong-seo’s heart was like that right now.
“Whew…….”
Jo Hyeong-seo barely calmed his rough breathing, then carefully pressed the call button.
“…This is Jo Hyeong-seo.”
“How did it happen?”
A gentle and soft voice.
But that sentence was terrifying beyond measure.
It wasn’t, ‘How are things going.’
It was, ‘How did it happen?’
Meaning the Red King roughly knew how things were turning out here right now.
It was a question that didn’t even give room for excuses.
“…I will finish it properly.”
“How?”
“The output is just magic stones instead of coal, but this place is no different from a coal mine. So if I recruit experts related to coal mines and introduce their mining process, somehow…….”
“Then what will you gain?”
From Jo Hyeong-seo’s perspective, it was such an obvious question that he was momentarily speechless.
“Naturally… I will gain magic stones.”
“Really?”
“Yes?”
“Would magic stones still remain inside there?”
Cold sweat began to flow down Jo Hyeong-seo’s back.
“I don’t… I don’t quite understand what you mean.”
“Why did the spider den collapse?”
“That requires investigation…….”
“That is not the answer I wanted.”
Jo Hyeong-seo swallowed dry saliva and answered.
“Perhaps the explosives brought in for internal blasting work exploded…….”
“It’s magic stones.”
As if he had no time to waste on refutations, the Red King cut him off immediately.
“The entire cave collapsed. Meaning the explosive force spread throughout the cave. You can’t create such an effect with just explosives. But with magic stones, it’s possible. Since magic stones are concentrated energy sources themselves, spread throughout the cave, and connected to each other by mineral veins, they can explode in a chain reaction.”
“Then as expected, it happened by accident…….”
“It’s artificial intervention.”
Idiot.
Jo Hyeong-seo suddenly flinched as if he heard that word.
“Magic stones don’t explode on their own. Someone injected mana. If such a thing is possible, it must be a person with considerable mana control ability.”
“I will look for him.”
“No, there’s no need. Above all, wouldn’t a mana user with that level of skill have left no traces?”
At that moment.
“I’d like to see his face at least, that guy.”
The Red King’s voice changed.
Suddenly, the voice became terrifyingly clear.
This was a clear sound quality felt only when heard in person, not through a receiver.
Jo Hyeong-seo slowly turned his head sideways with trembling eyes.
There, a young man with red hair stood smiling.
* * *
“Why isn’t this bastard Hyeong-seo picking up the phone?”
The uncle kept calling Jo Hyeong-seo.
“The bastard called the person in charge doesn’t even examine the site… hm?”
At that time, the uncle felt a ringtone coming from inside the bushes.
“Don’t tell me…….”
The uncle entered the bushes following the ringtone.
Jo Hyeong-seo was there.
But his appearance was completely different from usual.
First of all, his two feet weren’t touching the ground.
The uncle’s face turned pale.
“…What the.”
Jo Hyeong-seo was hanging from a tree branch with a rope around his neck.
His two eyes were on the verge of popping out, and his tongue hung long out of his mouth.
In a word, he was dead.
“This is crazy… Hey! Hey over there! Someone come here! Quickly!!”
Soon the employees who were nearby flocked here.
Soon numerous people came to see.
The corpse of a young man hanging dead by a strangely red rope.
People fell into chaos, and murmurs gradually spread.
Meanwhile, the Red King was walking along a secluded path after leaving the scene.
He was looking at his phone while walking.
What was on the phone screen was a list of wanted criminals.
The wanted criminals who escaped from Mugan.
“Choi Yeong-go, Alex Boyman, Seol U-seok, Jade Tutlock…….”
He muttered the names of the four wanted criminals killed recently in Korea.
Four in less than a month.
Strangely fast, and many wanted criminals died in this country.
‘Who on earth is it?’
But it was difficult to find out which Headhunter killed them.
Because for the safety of Headhunters, bounty payments were remitted complicatedly through various routes.
At that moment, an absurd thought crossed his mind.
The one who collapsed the spider den, and the one who killed the wanted criminals.
Somehow, an intuition that they were the same person, or at least somehow related.
But……
‘It can’t be.’
The Red King shook his head.
It was an excessive leap.
There was no connection between the two.
Of course, he could make one if he wanted to, but from there on, it’s the realm of creation, not deduction.
And creation isn’t much help in predicting facts.
‘For now, I withdraw today.’
A slight setback occurred in the plan because the spider den collapsed, but it was still within the permissible range.
And……
‘Mother’s picture is big. This level of setback can be sufficiently covered.’
A leaf fell onto the Red King’s head.
Just before the leaf touched the top of his head.
He disappeared.
Leaving only faint red smoke.
* * *
Ji Byeong-seo’s apartment.
He spoke to Saya, who was submerged in the medicinal solution.
“Are you okay?”
“Bwubwub….”
Bubbles rose to the surface of the solution.
At least it meant she was breathing.
Saya was still alive.
Though she was in a severely weak state.
Ji Byeong-seo said to Saya.
“Where did your master go that he is this late.”
The moment he said that.
Roll—
Saya’s body moved very slightly.
“Hm? What’s wrong?”
Ding-dong—
The doorbell rang then.
Ji Byeong-seo asked.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Leman.”
Ji Byeong-seo looked at Saya.
Because only then did he seem to know why she moved suddenly.
“You knew Mr. Leman came.”
Ji Byeong-seo opened the door.
Outside the door stood Riman.
In a state that was truly unspeakable.
“M-Mr., uh, what happened?!”
“I just went into a Demonic Beast’s stomach for a moment and came out, that’s all.”
“What? No, uh, please come in first.”
Riman immediately approached Saya.
Riman looked at Saya and said.
“You’ve been well.”
But there was no time to exchange greetings leisurely.
Riman took Saya out of the basin, wiped the solution off, and said to Ji Byeong-seo.
“Thank you for taking care of Saya.”
“Not at all, it wasn’t difficult.”
Riman wrapped the wiped Saya in a dry towel and carefully placed her on one side of the desk.
Then he took something out of his bag.
A translucent pink stone about the size of a fist.
It was a magic stone mined from the spawning room.
When escaping from that spawning room, Riman didn’t just bring the egg sacs.
He brought everything he could bring from there, and this magic stone was one of them.
Riman held out this magic stone toward Ji Byeong-seo and said.
“Here.”
“This is… why?”
“It’s the payment for taking care of Saya and medicine costs, things like that all combined.”
“What?!”
“It’s quite high-purity magic stone, so if you sell it, it will fetch a good price. Find a sales route through Mr. Bart. Then see you next time!”
“M-Mr. Leman!!”
Leaving behind Ji Byeong-seo shouting,
“Thank you!”
Riman left the apartment.
And he went into the nearest random hotel and booked a room.
Because the hotel room he used to stay in was completely smashed due to the Ork Corporation’s raid.
The hotel room he entered was a mess.
The bedding was damp, a moldy smell rose from the floor, and the wallpaper smelled of cigarettes.
But now wasn’t the time to care about such things.
Riman put Saya down on the floor and opened his bag.
A bag full of spider Demonic Beast egg sacs.
With this, preparations were completely finished.
Preparations to save Saya.
Riman carefully unfolded the towel wrapped around Saya.
A winged pitch-black sphere, finely trembling with cracks.
Saya was slowly dying like that.
No, ‘dying’ was strictly speaking not a very appropriate expression for a dragon.
Because dragons are born again even if they die.
Precisely, even if they die, they return to an egg state.
In that process, the previous personality remains only as memories, and a new personality grows.
No, since it’s a dragon, should I call it a dragonality?
It was because of this that the escaped convict Seol U-seok went crazy after reading Saya’s memories the other day.
Seol U-seok’s ability was the ability to read and control the minds of Demonic Beasts.
The moment he read Saya’s memories, the immense amount of dragon memories accumulated over countless ages plugged directly into his brain.
An amount far transcending the memory capacity the brain could accommodate.
It was natural for the brain to break down.
Anyway, one might think, in that case, wouldn’t it be okay to just let Saya die?
It would be okay.
But it takes at least 10 years for wings to sprout again after returning to an egg.
In other words, if she dies in this state and returns to a complete egg, she becomes a useless sphere for the next 10 years.
And Riman had no intention of carrying such a thing around for 10 years.
So he had to fix Saya somehow.
Rip—
Riman tore off the spider Demonic Beast’s egg sacs and began wrapping Saya with them.
Like wrapping an object with clay.
After wrapping Saya thickly without gaps with the egg sacs like that.
“Done.”
With this, the treatment was finished.
From here on, he had no choice but to leave it to the efficacy of the egg sacs.
Riman had one thing to do.
Wait.
And even if it wasn’t for Saya, he intended to rest for a while anyway.
Because his body’s fatigue was slowly reaching its limit.
And the fracture in his left arm wasn’t fully healed yet either.
Thus, the curtain of leaves rose.
Days of idling and rolling around began.
A repetition of days of sleeping lazily, watching TV, and sleeping again.
He didn’t even go outside.
It was partly because it was bothersome, but the reason that he couldn’t leave Saya alone was also big.
Because of that, all food was resolved by delivery.
The delivery fee was a bit steep, but it didn’t matter.
He had plenty of money anyway.
The amount of magic stones brought from the Queen Spider’s spawning room was surprisingly large.
Among them was even a magic stone extracted from the Queen Spider’s body.
Magic stones from a Demonic Beast’s body were more expensive than those mined from the ground, and those from a high-rank Demonic Beast were even more expensive.
That meant……
‘If I sell all these magic stones, I’ll get at least over a hundred million in hand.’
He would have earned more than this if the Jeoksong guys hadn’t backstabbed him, but even this much was a fortune.
Enough to make a smile rise on his lips just by lying still and thinking about it.
Like that, nine days passed.
First of all, the accumulated fatigue was definitely relieved.
The fracture also recovered to some extent.
But he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that his body was getting steeped in the room’s dampness and moldy smell.
“What kind of room doesn’t change no matter how much I ventilate and run dehumidification…….”
The next day after falling asleep muttering like that.
The morning of the tenth day at this hotel.
Riman opened his eyes with a completely different feeling from usual.
“Hm……?”
The air in the room was strangely dry and fresh.
The moldy smell and cigarette smell, as well as the dampness of the blanket, completely disappeared.
Moreover, even the slightly hot room temperature had cooled down to a perfectly good level.
If he hadn’t opened his eyes, he would have thought he woke up in a different room.
“What is this……?”
At that moment when he rubbed his eyes and raised his body from the bed.
Riman’s sleepy eyes widened.
“You……!”
“Sahyaaaaa!”
A baby dragon was poking its head out from the foot of the bed.