Chapter 40
Outdoor 3rd Training Ground, 1 AM.
Even though it was the middle of spring, the cold here was still present.
No, perhaps I was shivering from An Hwigom’s aura.
“To return on your own two feet, you are truly a remarkable fellow.”
An Hwigom’s sharp voice.
He was of an age where he should have long retired from active duty, but such prejudices did not apply to this old man.
A straight back that could be compared to the cadets in their physical prime.
Sharp eyes that could chase away a goblin without lifting a finger.
And the spirit of a hero who had survived the hellish Great Fissure.
He was a remarkable person in many ways, but in my eyes, he looked like nothing more than a butcher targeting me.
“Ahaha, well… I got caught up in an unavoidable incident. I wasn’t trying to run away. Isn’t life such that you can’t see an inch ahead?”
“Hmph, an unavoidable incident… What was it? If it was truly an incident you could not have avoided, as you say, I will take it into consideration.”
Huh?
He has this kind of flexibility?
I would be glad if he showed me consideration, but…
The problem was that I could not speak of the incident I had experienced over the weekend.
“Ah… I-I have to maintain secrecy for personal reasons…”
SHIING.
Before I could finish my sentence, An Hwigom’s black sword reached the tip of my chin.
“!”
It was literally in the blink of an eye.
The cold temperature of the blade was transmitted without filter.
“What was that…?”
Then I felt his killing intent.
The same killing intent I had felt the day An Hwigom first informed me about the training.
In the past, I would have thought of it as a disciplinary threat, but perhaps because I now knew that An Hwigom was a member of Manyeong, the pressure that my head might actually be severed was added.
I maintained my composure as much as possible.
“I’d have nothing to say even if you were to draw an arc and cut me down right now. But… wouldn’t it be a bit of a shame?”
“…What would be?”
“I broke the bell.”
“…”
At my words, An Hwigom’s brow furrowed.
An expression of facing an unbelievable question.
I naturally took a step back and assimilated the mana in my body with the environmental mana.
I was not used to it yet, but I could clearly feel my drab mana being overlaid with something.
This ability, like Stealth, would be dispelled without fail if I released mana above a certain level.
That level was roughly based on the concentration of the surrounding environmental mana.
Nevertheless, the fact that it was useful did not change.
“Broke the bell, you say…”
As I hid my mana, An Hwigom let out a loud, hollow laugh.
As if he were flabbergasted.
He could not directly distinguish mana like Cha Yeri and the hunter Bruno, but he had detected the change at the moment of assimilation.
An Hwigom poured out a hollow laugh, making one wonder if he had gone senile, before belatedly asking a question.
“I knew you were a strange fellow in many ways, but to this extent… With that achievement, I could forgive you for skipping a few days of training. …But before that, what did you see in that chaos?”
Chaos.
He was talking about the threshold of mana depletion.
What I saw there…
I racked my brain to understand his intention.
Wondering if there was an answer needed from Manyeong’s perspective.
But that was also brief, and unable to come up with a clear answer, I answered according to my own thoughts.
“Nothing. I didn’t have a moment to see, hear, or feel anything. I just struggled because I wanted to live. If I had to say, it would be… desire.”
After saying that, I observed his reaction.
An Hwigom maintained his characteristic displeased expression.
He clicked his tongue softly.
“Tsk, the worst possible answer. …But well, it’s just like you.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Shut up, you brat! That’s enough chatter. Hurry up and grab a wooden sword from the corner.”
“What?”
It was a change in this hellish training.
It was training where it would not have been strange to start counting at any moment, but he was suddenly telling me to grab a wooden sword.
I quickly went to the rack and picked up a wooden sword.
If I did not move diligently, it was obvious I would be kicked all the way to the rack.
“Are you finally going to teach me swordsmanship?”
“No, what I intend to teach you is experience.”
“?”
“The worst kind of experience, one that blooms from instinct in extreme situations.”
With those words, An Hwigom’s figure disappeared.
Perception impairment ability and mana assimilation ability.
“From today, we will spar. The goal of the training is until I am satisfied.”
‘Until I am satisfied’ meant that I would be beaten to a pulp.
“Haah…”
In preparation for An Hwigom’s attack, I took my own stance.
Should I hide my presence too?
He did not announce any restrictions, so it should be fine.
But where on earth was he going to charge from?
The left? Behind? Or from above my head…?
Putting other things aside, what am I supposed to achieve in this training?
Swordsmanship? Or a durability-related ability?
The training ground was filled with killing intent.
Making my momentary conflict meaningless, I was hit in the abdomen with the back of his sword and sent flying several meters.
“…Keuk!”
I fell helplessly, but I could not just lie there, clutching the pain.
Given An Hwigom’s personality, he would swing his sword whether I was down or not.
I hurriedly got up and scanned my surroundings.
Sure enough, his cold voice closed in sharply.
“…This time, it will be the blade.”
***
Seoul’s outskirts, an alley with a sign that read ‘Leather and Bloodbath.’
Heavy spring rain was falling in the already eerie alley.
Rainwater pooled darkly on the haphazardly hardened cement of the ground, and the head of a streetlamp that had been fine a few days ago had vanished without a trace, as if it had been shot.
A level of visibility that would make it difficult to identify someone even if they pulled the trigger.
The residents of the outskirts called the time and situation where a crime could occur without it being strange, ‘Outroad.’
So, like now, a night when it just so happened to be raining.
An alley that just so happened to have no streetlights.
A time when the nearby shops had also closed early.
It might just be a coincidence.
One could think it was just a poor environment.
But in retrospect, it was a word created from decades of testimony that inexplicable bloodstains were often left in such places.
“You’re late.”
In such an Outroad, the Superpowered Detective Im Seonjae greeted the person he had been waiting for.
“I had a lot of work. My apologies.”
It was the hunter Bruno.
A Psychic Mafia member who could be considered the protagonist of Outroad.
“The shop… seems to be closed.”
“Well, as you can see. The only customers are senile former hunters, and there’s no way those people would be wandering around now.”
Bruno headed under the sign where Im Seonjae was.
He was carrying a large umbrella, but there was no sign of it having been used; he just took off the fedora he was wearing and shook off the rainwater a few times.
“On my way here, I saw a few heavily drunk men and women wandering about.”
“So what did you do? Did you kindly guide them to a Dispel branch? Or… did you appropriately ‘use’ them for the sake of humanity’s ideals?”
“Stop with the pointless ridicule. We’re in a position where we have to be careful right now.”
“Ah, I heard. That the Bureau of Superpowers will conduct a large-scale cleanup of the Psychic Mafia as soon as the Labyrinth conquest team returns.”
“Hmph, it’s just the same old repertoire they spout every time. More importantly, get to the point.”
Im Seonjae took out a photograph from his coat.
“Hmm, this is…”
It was a picture of the Hero Prep cadets who had been active in the exhibition incident that day.
“The elite cadets who pushed you to the brink. Do you remember them?”
“…Of course, that’s why I can’t even retaliate. The heir of Hyeonseong…”
Hyeonseong Group.
A leading conglomerate that enjoyed the overwhelming trust of the public both inside and outside Seoul.
They were clearly an opponent on a different level for the Psychic Mafia to handle.
“But why are you showing me this?”
“Because of the MA13, of course.”
“D-did you find it?”
“No, not a single clue. As I said last time, I’m having a hard time because you’re being too tight-lipped. Your request is a case that’s shaking my career to its core.”
“…”
“Well, don’t be disappointed. It’s not like I’ve completely lost my way. It’s just that I think I’ll have to use a more classic method.”
“…You want me to find a person, from this picture.”
“That’s right, to be precise…”
Im Seonjae pointed to one of the figures in the photo with his finger.
“The guy on the left in this picture.”
Bruno narrowed his eyes and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve already finished investigating these kids. There are some suspicious parts, but circumstantial evidence suggests the possibility that they took my item is slim.”
“…Can you be sure?”
“What?”
“In this line of work, there’s nothing more foolish than predicting the future.”
Im Seonjae snatched the photo he had handed to Bruno.
Then he folded the photo in half and held it out so that only the person on the left was visible.
“The only thing I can be sure of in this request is that the MA13 has disappeared. Everything else is just a flimsy guess. So the question is, how did it disappear? …Since there were no traces found at the scene at the time, it must mean someone took it. For example, the unknown opponent you put a bullet in.”
“…”
“After our last meeting, I thought about why you don’t mention that unknown person. The answer was simple. You don’t know who that person is either.”
This time, Im Seonjae folded the head of the person in the photo backward.
“But quite coincidentally, my client has an extraordinary sense of smell.”
“Wait, there’s nothing special to verify about this guy’s mana. There are many conditions that are insufficient for him to be the person I fought.”
“That’s exactly it. That’s the reason why we’re stuck in the labyrinth of this case. No matter how low the possibility, let’s not make rash predictions. The ‘superpowers’ that satisfy human desires have always existed.”
A talent for cornering an opponent not with combat ability, but simply with judgment and reasoning.
Bruno looked at Im Seonjae and, for a rare moment, his Adam’s apple bobbed.
“…Alright. But if what you say is true, then the heir of Hyeonseong is a suspect just the same.”
“Yeah, in fact, the probability is higher than that disagreeable guy on the right. Actually, since I was young, I’ve had times when I thought Cha Jaehee might be the Phantom Thief. Well, there’s no way to prove that now.”
“The founder of Hyeonseong and the first Director-General of the Bureau of Superpowers being the Phantom Thief… You had a very creative childhood.”
Bruno took the photo from Im Seonjae’s hand and put it in his coat.
“But there’s one problem. I can’t enter the 4th Scholastic District.”
“Ah, I suppose it’s rare for an Awakener’s face to be as well-known as the second-in-command of the Psychic Mafia’s Catalina. Then, as a last resort, why don’t you create a fake identity and wear a human skin mask?”
“Are you serious?”
“Why?”
“It’s not a matter that ends with entering the 4th Scholastic District. They are Hero Prep cadets. Forging an identity can only be done once or twice. As I said before, we’re being careful right now.”
“Hmm, so you need a time when the cadets are definitely outside of Hero Prep.”
Im Seonjae took out another piece of paper from his coat.
This time, it was a colorfully printed flyer.
“The Spring Scholastic War, held every year in the 4th Scholastic District. It’s a month away, but they’re already advertising it. It’s a sports day where all the schools in the 4th Scholastic District come out and get tangled up together, so there won’t be a more certain time than this.”
“A period where non-Awakeners can enter… In that case, the restrictions on forging an identity are less severe.”
“Right, you might even be able to enter Hero Prep.”
“Not bad. But being a detective is quite a troublesome job. Collecting flyers and all.”
It was a trivial, joking remark.
But Im Seonjae’s reply came a beat late.
“…Well, it’s just a nasty hobby of mine.”
He continued with an unfittingly bitter expression.
“I’ll be taking my leave now. I’m a bit reluctant to be with a mafia member in Outroad for long.”
“Hmph, I have no interest in a detective who drags around VIPs. In fact, I’m the one who wants to run away.”
“Glad to hear it.”