Retire 340

340 Roses in the Sea (1)

“……!”

Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, Kim Chaemin recognized the face of that monster—at least, the face in the form of a human man—who was grinning at him, baring his teeth.

But recognizing the face had nothing to do with the murderous aura radiating from him. Kim Chaemin immediately launched an attack.

“Ah, aaah. Th-this… thi-i-i-i…”

The man smiled coldly.

He grabbed Kim Chaemin’s vine with his bare hand. Of course, Kim Chaemin hadn’t expected to restrain him with a vine. How many years had he been an archmage—he wouldn’t make such a naive mistake.

Yet the reason his next response was delayed wasn’t because of that. The man smiled as he pulled the vine toward himself. Kim Chaemin simply let go, not bothering to hold on.

‘That hand just now!’

Between the fingers was a webbing of thin membrane. An item? No, he could see the veins. Magic? Not impossible.

“Ah… aaah. Hm, ah, aaah? Ah.”

The man tilted his head and made sounds, as if testing a broken microphone.

Kim Chaemin gritted his teeth as he saw the man refusing to leave the sea. If only he would come out onto the sand—even the beach would be better, there’d be more he could try.

…Was he staying in the water on purpose, knowing that?

Yes, that was likely. He’d had the nerve to set a trap for even Hong Seokyeong. Surely, he’d investigated those around him as well. Compared to Woo Heejae, whose public record was unremarkable, an archmage was far easier to track, and it was much simpler to study their weaknesses and countermeasures.

A family that had produced archmages for three generations—naturally, much of their magic would be widely known.

If one took even a little interest, if one was acquainted with mages registered at the academy—

Information about Archmage Kim Chaemin would be surprisingly easy to obtain. After all, Kim Chaemin was still a member of the British Magic Society.

Right. Even if he’d been expelled, he’d once been a promising mage, and if someone had hired him as an assassin, he’d surely have connections to other mages as well. Even the corridor concealing this dungeon’s gate had traces of magic.

“Ah… There, done. Adjusting this is always such a hassle.”

Kim Chaemin openly scowled.

The man’s Korean was fluent, the pronunciation crisp in his ears. Unlike Sandra Gamble’s awkward accent, it was as natural as Hope’s. He’d never met Sam Bloom in person, but he’d heard that Sam, too, spoke Korean fluently.

Well, if you got close to Noah Michel, could you learn any language without restriction?

‘That’s a convenient ability!’

“Anyway, hello!”

The man waved nonchalantly, greeting him with a hand that had just gripped a vine bristling with thorns—yet his palm was annoyingly unscathed.

But when he spread his hand wide, the webbing between his fingers was even more obvious. So were the sharp, serrated nails.

His overall appearance was pale, almost colorless. His thick hair was a light gray. On top of his pallid skin, he wore nothing but white trousers and a white shirt. Unlike his dry hair, his clothes were soaked through. The shirt, stained red, clung to his body.

Even from a distance, his height and muscular build radiated a sense of intimidation.

Kim Chaemin had only ever seen him in photos and videos.

A gray-haired man walking down the street with a paper cup of coffee.

A man in a black suit mingling with a crowd that looked unsavory at a glance.

Even the youthful face in his high school graduation album.

Henry Lehmann.

A member of the Ark. Boss of Atlas.

“Noah smells pretty good, but you do too. Is that just how archmages are? Ah, what a shame.”

The man stroked his neck. On either side of his prominent Adam’s apple were deep scars. Scars? Tattoos?

No, that wasn’t it. Watch how Henry Lehmann’s throat worked as he breathed. Like a fish’s gills…

“The one I’m really curious about is Alex. I wonder what he’d smell like… Do you know?”

Webbed fingers. Gills. And he’d risen from the sea inside the dungeon.

Kim Chaemin started with the most fundamental question.

Was this man human?

He couldn’t say that he looked human.

Kim Chaemin thought of Alex Hope.

Yes. Hope had called himself human, had insisted his body was human. Yet there was still something in his manner that could not conceal the fact that he was not.

There were monsters in European dungeons that looked almost identical to humans. Even the fairy in the Jirisan dungeon, Tati, resembled a human—though in that case, the monster’s nature was much more obvious.

In any case, Kim Chaemin had enough experience not to be fooled by appearances. Among living archmages, he was the youngest to manifest unique magic—except for Noah Michel. Unlike Noah, he’d had many adults around him to guide him.

Kim Chaemin did not let his guard down.

“Sometimes I miss Alex.”

Henry Lehmann continued talking, as if it didn’t matter whether Kim Chaemin responded or not.

“I still don’t believe Alex is dead… It’s just too empty. Noah seems convinced he’s dead, but what do you think? Have you met Noah? The mage community is so complicated.”

“……”

“I think Noah doesn’t really believe Alex is dead—he just wishes he were. Honestly, I don’t know why Noah hates Alex so much.”

Lehmann heaved exaggerated sighs.

His manner was somehow reminiscent of Alex Hope. Childlike, playful, speaking whatever came to mind.

Kim Chaemin had seen Sam Bloom’s corpse.

He had been human. If you could call him that. At his core, he was human—his blood, his organs, all of that.

But could you call a being with wings instead of arms human? Those gold-glinting eyes were not human. Nor were the feathered arms, the wings. They didn’t contain human DNA.

And recently, there was Han Taekyung.

Likewise, if asked whether Han Taekyung’s eyes were human, Kim Chaemin could not answer. Han Taekyung probably didn’t know himself.

But Alex Hope and Han Taekyung differed from Sam Bloom in one thing.

They consistently insisted they were human.

‘Mr. Han is closer to someone who can’t even imagine not being human.’

Then what about Henry Lehmann?

“If I were Noah, I’d have coddled Alex and made him do all sorts of things for me. No matter how smart Alex’s humans are, Alex himself isn’t that complicated.”

Henry Lehmann suddenly burst into giggles.

“I mean, sure, Alex is scary. If you think about what happens if you get caught… I got a pep talk too, you know? ‘If you don’t want to die, try killing me first’?”

“……”

“So I killed him.”

The laughter stopped abruptly. The air grew heavy. Henry Lehmann’s eyes flashed gold.

The reports had said Lehmann’s eyes were black.

The feathered monster that had appeared over Boston. Han Taekyung’s stories. The testimony about Sam Bloom.

Henry Lehmann smiled gently again. Despite his size, he looked like someone who would fit right in as a librarian in some grand library.

“I think something must have happened between Noah and Alex in the past. Noah’s tougher than he looks.”

Kim Chaemin let Lehmann ramble. The truth of his words didn’t matter. Either way, it helped him understand Henry Lehmann.

At least Noah Michel was someone Kim Chaemin had met at the academy, and there were plenty of rumors about him. He couldn’t believe them all, of course, but they were still useful references.

But Henry Lehmann was shrouded in mystery everywhere. Alex Hope’s testimony alone wasn’t enough, so it was good to confirm things like this. Not bad at all.

“Still, people have instincts—Noah wouldn’t hate Alex for no reason. Sure, Alex is the type Noah dislikes, but also the type he can’t help but love.”

Kim Chaemin frowned.

He had heard about Henry Lehmann from Alex Hope. Even though Gamble had never met him in person, she’d done her best to explain everything she’d learned.

No matter how out of his mind Hope was, if Henry Lehmann had webbed fingers and gills, he wouldn’t have left that out.

And more than anything, hadn’t he just risen out of the dungeon? Even if he’d been hiding here all along, that was a problem; if it was teleportation, it was an even bigger problem. If Hope knew about this and hadn’t said anything…

‘I’ll kill him myself!’

He’d have to think about that later.

At any rate, more than half of what he’d assumed about Henry Lehmann was now useless.

Once again: Kim Chaemin did not let his guard down.

It was clear that this situation was disadvantageous to him. Roses could not bloom in the sea. As long as the man stood with his feet in salt water, more than half of Kim Chaemin’s magic was rendered useless.

But fortunately, Kim Chaemin was not alone in this dungeon.

He praised himself for not fully withdrawing his magic. He didn’t know if Henry Lehmann had eyes that could sense the flow of magic like Hope or Han Taekyung. But even if he did, right now Kim Chaemin’s magic was spread like mist all around. Even if the magic moved, he’d think it was just an attack—not suspect anything else.

Kim Chaemin gritted his teeth.

‘Grandfather, I’m sorry for whining about how hard magic practice was! You were right, I need it all!’

He tried to reconnect with the rose vines spread throughout the dungeon. He knew what he needed now, so there was no need to send them out blindly as before.

“But am I the only one talking? You should say something too. Aren’t you curious about me? I’m speaking Korean properly, right?”

“……”

Just one thing. Only one.

“You’d have to have a reason to use Korean! I already speak English and Spanish, so it’s no use.”

“You.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you been here the whole time?”

“Oh, this?”

Lehmann splashed his bare feet in the water.

“No way. I’m not that bored.”

Connection established.

-…Sir? The roses are blooming again. It’s strange.

-Hmm?

-I think Mr. Kim is sending some kind of signal. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be making the flowers bloom and wither on purpose. Do you know what it is?

-…It’s Morse code.

-Morse code?

“I had to make a lot of sacrifices to do this! I wasn’t planning to go this far, but Alex really messed with me. In Boston too… See, I told you he’s not really dead. He’s probably hiding somewhere, scattered in pieces.”

Lehmann spoke casually. But his gentle voice was growing sharper.

“If he’s not crawling out right now, he must be badly hurt. I’d be glad if he died, just like Noah hopes. Haha, Alex scares me too.”

-…It sounds like a name.

Just a little more.

“Shall we get down to business before anything else interferes?”

-Leh… man.

“You don’t like the sea, do you?”

-Henry Lehmann.