Retire 478

478 Doll (4)

“Leave her. Don’t kill her or anything.”

Kim Chaemin’s voice was firm, his expression brooking no argument.

You shouldn’t mess with a mage wearing that look—especially not when it’s Kim Chaemin.

It seemed everyone else had the same thought, because no one objected. Instead, we all eased our stances, giving Kim Chaemin space to examine Lawton.

What had he noticed about her?

I studied Lawton more closely.

Her staggering, as if she might collapse at any moment, hadn’t changed. Kim Chaemin kept casting spells, his eyes suspicious. Anyone unfamiliar with his magic might not have noticed, but I’d seen it countless times. Those vines, which might look fierce to outsiders, were now limp and weak—it was obvious to me.

What exactly was he trying to do?

I moved in sync with Kim Chaemin’s magic. The others did the same. None of us knew what he was planning, but we trusted he wouldn’t do anything reckless.

If Daniel had been here, he might have said something. But he was busy running between police officers, trying to control the situation. I didn’t know much about the current American administrative system, but Daniel’s credentials apparently held weight with the police. Under his direction, officers were evacuating civilians from the hotel plaza.

“……”

Kim Chaemin continued casting spells in silence. His vines targeted Lawton’s ankles. Lawton, swaying as if she might fall, somehow managed to evade them—either pulling away or lunging forward, swinging her remaining arm menacingly. She was holding a knife, probably stolen during her escape.

Was she still unable to use magic? Or was she too far gone to even think of it?

“Grrrk…”

Lawton bared her teeth and growled. Saliva and blood dripped from her chin. She wheezed, as if her lungs were injured, but she didn’t seem to have trouble breathing. Her chest heaved, and her pupils were unnaturally dilated.

She looked like a beast whose territory had been invaded.

Anyone could see Haley Lawton was not in her right mind. When Daniel first told us, I’d thought she was just running away.

But when she came straight for us, I realized escape wasn’t her goal—maybe she was aiming for a final attack.

But even that required some presence of mind, and right now, Haley Lawton was clearly…

Something was wrong. She was acting like an animal, all reason gone, ruled by instinct.

“…Krrrk.”

Her staggering movements grew faster. Kim Chaemin’s magic sped up to match, but he still wasn’t using his full strength.

What if Lawton managed to slip away somewhere else?

Of course, neither Kim Chaemin nor the rest of us would let that happen. Even as we attacked through the gaps in his magic, we stayed on guard.

Suddenly, Kim Chaemin jerked his head up in surprise.

“Al—!”

He cut himself off. At the edge of the plaza stood Alex Hope, who had only managed to throw on a mask in his haste.

Kim Chaemin ground his teeth, then spoke.

“Shanshan.”

It was the nickname Gamble used for her childhood friend, and the name Hope’s Taiwanese mother, Chen Yijun, had called him. Since Hope had faked his death, even Gamble rarely used it anymore. It had been a long time since I’d heard it.

Hope’s eyes went wide.

“Get out of here.”

“Huh?”

“As far as you can—whatever happens, don’t let yourself be seen.”

“What…?”

“Hurry! Go, now!!!”

Kim Chaemin, unusually, raised his voice. Hope glanced at me and Hong Seok-young, then vanished without hesitation. His mana flickered in and out at a distance, then disappeared entirely—so far away I could no longer sense it.

Before I could even process my confusion, Kim Chaemin cast another spell. This time, it wasn’t vines. Crimson rose petals swirled around him.

The petals swept across the plaza, their vivid color visible even from afar. Some of the evacuating citizens paused to look back.

But Kim Chaemin’s petals churned the surrounding mana like a storm, tearing apart and scattering anything that was gathered together.

Almost as if he was erasing Hope’s mana presence.

Amidst it all, vines seized Lawton—vines blooming with open roses. For a moment, Kim Chaemin’s mana grew so thick it obscured my vision.

The vines wrapped around Lawton, climbing from her ankles in an instant. Lawton’s nails—no, by now, her claws—were so sharp they looked more like talons. She slashed at the vines, but it was useless. The moment one was torn, more took its place, binding her tighter.

Eventually, even Lawton’s head disappeared inside the vines.

“……”

For someone who had been prodding Lawton so persistently, Kim Chaemin subdued her in an instant.

Yet he remained on high alert. We, too, kept our eyes fixed on Lawton.

No change. The vines writhed violently, as if she might have lost consciousness, but Kim Chaemin didn’t let go. Thinking the threat was over, some of the still-evacuating citizens slowed their steps. I saw Daniel making his way toward us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Han Taekyung signaling Daniel not to approach.

Crack!

The first sign of something wrong was the sound.

It was the snap of a dry branch. So faint, I might have missed it if I hadn’t been so on edge.

Crack!

It came again, still quiet, from inside the vines.

Was Lawton gnawing through them?

But the sound was strangely ominous.

“Uh…”

Han Taekyung’s confused voice only made the feeling worse.

Mana gathered around Kim Chaemin. Grass sprouted from the bare ground. He was using his grandfather’s and father’s signature magic.

What the hell was in there?

Every sense in my body was on high alert. My skin tingled. The hairs on my arms stood up.

“Haha.”

A low laugh came from inside the vines.

It was definitely not Lawton’s voice. I hadn’t spoken with her much, but there was no way I could mistake that deep, masculine voice for hers.

“Quite the enthusiastic welcome.”

With the voice, the vines binding Lawton shattered.

They didn’t just break—they disintegrated. Kim Chaemin’s magic, the magic of an archmage, was smashed to pieces.

“Hello, little mage.”

What was inside the vines was a completely different being.

Haley Lawton was a brown-haired woman. When we met her at the Cactus Mirage office, nothing about her stood out, but you could tell she was a hunter—her wiry frame, the muscles beneath her clothes, her steady gait.

But now, this was not Haley Lawton.

The first thing that caught my eye was the color. Her tangled brown hair was streaked with white—brown, gray, white. It looked like premature graying, or like a garment that had been badly bleached. Her eyes, which had been an ordinary brown, were now a sinister, gleaming gold.

Nothing else about her could be called normal, either. Lawton’s muscles writhed as if something was crawling beneath her skin, swelling and subsiding as if ready to burst through. Bones snapped and creaked with an eerie sound. Despite the agony it should have caused, Lawton walked out as if nothing was wrong.

No. Was this even Haley Lawton?

With the sound of bones twisting, her face and body were changing. Growing, shrinking, but overall, getting larger. Muscles bulged, her height increased. Lawton—or whatever it was—smiled, baring sharp, beastlike teeth.

Her hair, now mostly white with a few brown streaks, her muscular body, her sharp talons and savage grin, her golden eyes.

I’d seen this before.

How had Kim Chaemin realized it?

The being before us was not Haley Lawton, but Henry Lehmann.

“Still using that pretty, violent magic, I see?”

Henry Lehmann stretched languidly.

Lawton’s previous attacks had been inhuman, but not this threatening.

From Henry Lehmann, I felt the pressure of a starving predator sizing up its prey before the hunt.

The last time I’d met Henry Lehmann, in a dungeon hidden in a warehouse in Busan, he’d used Noah Michel’s magic to animate a doll. Whether Lehmann had become a doll, or possessed one, it was Michel’s magic.

But weren’t those two fighting now? Had they found some dramatic compromise?

No, that wasn’t a doll—this was a person, wasn’t it?

“I can’t believe I missed your arrival, even in my state. I really wasn’t myself. I only checked that annoying man had come, didn’t see who was with him. Usually you come alone, right?”

“……”

“No wonder Luise’s disguise was so easily seen through!”

Luise?

Luise Kruger?

“And why is Luise’s arm like this? Of all things, it had to be this hand that was cut off—what a pain to connect.”

Henry Lehmann waved Lawton’s severed arm. It was whole again, but compared to Lehmann’s body, it looked comically thin and small.

No, that wasn’t Haley Lawton’s arm… it was Luise Kruger’s. At least, that woman had an arm like that.

Was Haley Lawton actually Luise Kruger? But their faces were different. How? Magic? If so, Kim Chaemin would have noticed immediately. He’d realized Lawton was a mage for another reason. But why would Luise Kruger be working as a hunter here? She had ties to both the Ark and Atlas. It wouldn’t be surprising for her to appear on either side, but as a mage and based on Kang Taewoo’s testimony, I’d thought she worked for Noah Michel rather than Henry Lehmann.

I mulled over Lehmann’s words. He hadn’t bothered to hide that the whole guild had moved together. He hadn’t shouted it from the rooftops, but if anyone could figure it out, it would be Henry Lehmann. That’s why he brought Hope…

If he hadn’t known we were here, he wouldn’t have known Hope was here either. If Kim Chaemin was the first to realize it was Lehmann, then sending Hope away made sense. Who knows if Lehmann knew about Hope, but nothing had happened to Hope’s parents in Australia. Even if we’d used Hope as bait, I didn’t want to dangle proof right in front of Lehmann.

“Ah…”

Lehmann looked regretfully at the thin arm, so different from his other, muscular one.

“I can’t change how it grows in this state. It’s inconvenient. See? Isn’t it weird?”

He waved both hands as if greeting us. A man’s hand and a woman’s hand on the same body—it was deeply uncanny. There was no mistaking that the being before us was not human.

“Well, anyway.”

Lehmann shattered Kim Chaemin’s magic as it tried to grab his feet.

“I only stopped by to say hello—I can’t stay long because of Noah. Anything you want to say? Anything you want to ask? Right now, I’ll sell you information about Noah for cheap.”