Retire 313

313 Method (3)

Han Taekyung’s face, with those shining, golden eyes, radiated an unmistakable sense of otherness.

His features were otherwise ordinary. He didn’t look like some monster with a grotesque form—he simply had human eyes. And as for the color… well, aren’t there Westerners with light-colored eyes? Yellow eyes aren’t unheard of, either.

But Han Taekyung’s eyes behind those sunglasses—how should I put it?—didn’t give off that sort of impression. I thought that if you took a black-and-white photograph, maybe this strange feeling would vanish. That’s how ordinary they were.

If only they didn’t glimmer gold.

Let’s recall Han Taekyung, who had so easily found his way through Park Seohyun’s magic. His sunglasses had gleamed. That was when I’d thought, Ah, so those sunglasses must be some kind of item.

“Ah!”

Just then, Kim Chaemin, who had been at a loss for words like me, suddenly sprang to his feet.

“That’s it, isn’t it?!”

“Yes?”

“The magic lamp!!”

“……”

“You said you’d get a new one!”

I quickly glanced at Han Taekyung. Far away, in the deserts of the Middle East, there were said to be rare monsters in dungeons that granted wishes.

A highly intelligent monster with huge wings—if you paid a sufficient price, it was said, even severed limbs would grow back.

‘Even if your eyeball rolls out of its socket, if you say the right words, they’ll give you a new one.’

I’d always thought the example was oddly specific.

No way.

“Yes.”

Han Taekyung gave a bitter smile.

“I hurt my eyes while raiding. There was nothing that could be done. Then a friend of mine said he knew a way and took me.”

“That friend from Qatar…?”

“He said, since he’d gotten hurt saving me, he’d take responsibility.”

Han Taekyung spoke with a face that still felt unfamiliar.

“He gave me new eyes—by offering up his own.”

“……”

“The one who put in these eyes told me, ‘You’ll be able to see things you couldn’t before.’”

Han Taekyung blinked slowly. As his eyelids covered his eyeballs, the shimmering golden light vanished.

But when he opened his eyes again…

“In any case, that’s why it’s not possible.”

Han Taekyung put his sunglasses back on and spoke in a bright voice. Just by putting on those sunglasses, the sense of strangeness disappeared. It was the Han Taekyung I knew.

“Sunglasses, sure, but I can’t exactly give you my eyes, can I?”

“……”

“Can I…?”

“……”

“Could you please say you can’t, sunbae-nim?”

Han Taekyung moved away from Gamble.

“Sunglasses or eyeballs, it doesn’t matter.”

“No, of course it matters! How could it not?!”

“Look, Teacher Woo, you don’t really have much to do at the school, do you? You’re always just playing with the kids.”

“Playing? I’m training them!”

“If you need a substitute, just use me.”

“Sunbae-nim!!!”

Gamble looked at Han Taekyung with a face devoid of any trace of a smile. As if the earlier squabble, with all its ridiculous demands, had been nothing but a joke.

“Let’s be clear about what it means to ‘see what couldn’t be seen before.’ You can see inside the gate, right?”

“…Well, only when someone’s passing through the gate! It’s not like I can always see.”

“Yes, yes, I get it. Let’s go a little further with this. What changes when you pass through the gate that lets you see inside?”

Han Taekyung sent a pleading look to me and Kim Chaemin, but both of us ignored him.

I was doing it half on purpose, but Kim Chaemin looked deeply lost in thought.

Gamble pressed Han Taekyung again for an answer.

“So? What’s changed that lets you see?”

“I, uh, I’m not sure if there’s a specific term for it…”

“There isn’t! There won’t be!”

“…For convenience, I just call it a shadow.”

“A shadow!”

“A shadow… or maybe an afterimage? When it’s stimulated, it wavers.”

Han Taekyung fumbled for words as he tried to explain the world he saw.

Oddly enough, I could picture exactly how Han Taekyung must be feeling. He reminded me of myself as a child, trying to explain the magic I could see to my father.

When I’d first heard about Han Taekyung’s magic lamp, I’d been curious.

The newly grown arms, legs, and eyes—whose were they, really?

I recalled Han Taekyung’s golden eyes, which felt so out of place, and Sem Bloom’s new arm, which was more like a wing than an arm.

Somehow, I felt I already knew the answer.

Next, I thought of the research being conducted at the lab where I’d lived. The children who had been cut off from the outside world for the sake of that research. And my own eyes, which could see magic.

‘Noah never changed his eyes.’

The things Alex Hoff had said about Noah Michel.

I felt I could vaguely guess what Noah Michel wanted.

And I realized, even if time were to turn back, I would never, in my whole life, truly understand Noah Michel.

“Teacher Woo.”

“…Yes?”

“For the time being, I’m going to leave Seohyun and Jinwoo with you.”

Kim Chaemin tapped my shoulder as he spoke, snapping me out of my reverie.

He didn’t care that my reply came a beat late. His eyes were fixed on Han Taekyung.

“…What are you planning? For the record, live dissection is not allowed.”

“Would it be all right if I kept him breathing?”

“……”

“I’m joking. Archmage joke.”

Kim Chaemin said something terrifying in a completely humorless voice.

“Sandra’s an engineer, right? She’ll need a mage’s assistance, won’t she?”

“Isn’t it you who needs the engineer’s help?”

“Either way.”

Even if I said no, it wasn’t a face that would listen.

I had plenty I wanted to ask Han Taekyung myself… but it wasn’t as if he was about to run off, and even if I dug into him, Noah Michel wasn’t going to just pop out.

For now, I’d leave Han Taekyung to these two. At the very least, they knew better than I did what they should be looking for.

Still, I felt I should give Kim Chaemin a heads-up, so I whispered in a low voice.

“Mr. Kim. You remember Sem Bloom? That wing. I think…”

Kim Chaemin glanced away from Han Taekyung to look at me. His eyes glimmered with understanding.

“…Ah. So it connects that way, too. All right. I’ll keep that in mind and check it out.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

When Kim Chaemin joined Gamble, Han Taekyung looked even more troubled.

But perhaps sensing that there was no escape from this fate, a hint of resignation began to settle over him, as if he’d only just realized I wasn’t going to save him.

“Look, that’s all well and good… Actually, it’s not good, but—anyway, that offer from earlier still stands, right?”

“What offer?”

“Chase…”

“Oh, that.”

Gamble beamed.

“That was for borrowing the sunglasses, but it wasn’t the sunglasses, was it? So, that’s off the table!”

“How can you say that!!”

“Right here.”

“You’re a swindler!”

“No, I’m not.”

“Sunbae-nim!! She’s bullying me!!!”

“Good luck, Mr. Han.”

As Han Taekyung’s cries rang out, I began organizing the documents on the table.

…How am I supposed to divide these kids into teams for the dungeon?

After a brief moment of deliberation, I picked up the thick report Hong Seokyoung had left behind before departing.

What is that guy doing in the dungeon that he still hasn’t contacted us? He was so confident he’d be back in no time.

---

“Erve Schneider, you said?”

Three hours. He had slept for three hours.

Hong Seokyoung checked his watch and sighed. Normally, he wouldn’t have felt this tired, but the aftereffects of shattering the dungeon core lingered. His body still felt heavy, as if stuffed with wet cotton.

He made no effort to hide his fatigue as he looked at the CIA agent across from him.

“You can tell just by looking, can’t you?”

Pretending not to know when you already do—it was a professional habit of people on this side. For Hong Seokyoung, it was just a nuisance.

“No, but… why did that bastard show up here?!”

“I have no idea.”

“Really?”

“Well, actually, I have a hunch.”

A third of the strike team that had entered the dungeon with Hong Seokyoung was dead. Of those who survived, half were seriously injured, and the rest, though physically intact, were still out of their minds.

Of course, the exhausted Hong Seokyoung felt little emotion. Well, it was unfortunate about the dead, but…

‘It’s been three hours, three hours. You should give the ones who passed out at least half a day to wake up.’

They all act so refined, but they’re so impatient…

Hong Seokyoung kept rubbing his dry hands over his face. The fatigue was making him irritable. He had to keep his wits about him if he didn’t want to take it out on innocent people.

In other circumstances, he would have just blamed it all on the monsters and brushed it off. Like, say, a monster from the future had come back to the past and attacked them.

But this wasn’t that kind of situation, and the Americans had suffered heavy losses, too. At times like this, it was better to just tell the truth. It helped his conscience. And if the Americans took the lead, all the better.

‘But wasn’t that guy being chased by the Americans anyway?’

Everything was tangled up, one way or another…

“There’s someone I don’t get along with—maybe you know him?”

“Who?”

“You know, the guy I’ve been working with since the year before last. The black market thing.”

“…Henry Lehmann?”

The name came out immediately.

“Yeah, that one. I’ve been working with the Ability Association lately, too, and I’ve been needling him a bit.”

“……”

The agent’s expression changed.

“You guys took down one of his organizations back then, didn’t you? I did a few jobs for the Association at their request. Didn’t realize it at the time, but later I found out it was one of his workshops.”

It wasn’t a lie, it wasn’t.

So there was nothing to trouble his conscience.

“I didn’t think he’d just let it go, but things were strangely quiet, so I was on guard… I didn’t expect this. It’s a shame about the dead.”

“…No, Mr. Hong, you can’t be blamed for this. Didn’t you say Erve Schneider was waiting in the dungeon?”

“Mm.”

“If anything, it’s our side’s fault for failing to manage the dungeon…”

He had a bitter taste in his mouth.

Hong Seokyoung didn’t know whether those who’d died in the dungeon had been killed by monsters or by Erve Schneider. Maybe both.

“So what are you going to do about Schneider? Have you contacted the family of Archmage Deneve? I remember there was a hefty bounty on Schneider’s head.”

“Well…”

The agent trailed off. It didn’t look like the family would be contacted.

“We need to check how he’s connected to Lehmann. We’ve been suffering losses, too. Not long ago, we raided his base, but the whole building just blew up.”

“Really?”

“Fortunately, there were no casualties.”

“That’s a relief.”

“…Are you going to keep pursuing Lehmann?”

“Probably.”

“Because of that incident?”

“Mm.”

Hong Seokyoung gave a bitter smile. Mimi’s younger brother’s body still hadn’t been found. It probably never would be.

The only thing Hong Seokyoung could do was catch the culprits so that nothing like this would ever happen again.

‘That makes me sound too righteous. Honestly, it’s just personal revenge.’

“I’ll keep you updated.”

“Please do.”

“No, I think we’ll need your help at some point. We’re the ones who should be asking.”

The agent stood up.

“Sorry for disturbing your rest.”

He was so tired that he couldn’t even muster a polite reply.

But even after the agent left, Hong Seokyoung didn’t rest. Instead, he blinked at his phone and pulled it out.

“Having family to call is a blessing.”

He found the number with practiced ease and pressed the call button. He wanted to let them know he’d made it out of the dungeon safely.