Retire 499

499 Pursuit (3)

Let’s turn back time a little.

This happened when Woo Heejae and Kim Chaemin briefly returned to Korea to check on the runes.

To be precise, after confirming the achievements of two apprentice mages and experimenting with the runes. They were supposed to head straight back to America, but it wasn’t as if there was no time at all to stop by home. Who knew how long they’d be in the US this time? Kim Chaemin herself had been living independently for ages, and her other family members were all adults who understood if she said she was busy, but in Woo Heejae’s case, aside from Hong Seok-young in America, weren’t the rest of his family still just kids?

No matter how many adults there were to look after them, that was that and this was this. If you could see your family, you should. It wasn’t even far from school to home.

‘Yes… Well, then, I’ll, uh, go.’

Though Woo Heejae hesitated, he didn’t refuse Kim Chaemin’s suggestion. Even if he kept saying they should hurry back to America, he must have been thinking about it too.

After watching Woo Heejae leave the school, Kim Chaemin turned her attention back to her own tasks.

She checked the school greenhouse and her territory. She knew that no one at this school was crazy enough to invade her cabin just because its owner was away. And even if someone tried, there was no way Park Seohyun and Choi Jinwoo—who were starting to show the marks of true mages—would have let it slide. Kim Chaemin glanced at the shadow of the school building. Its edge flickered faintly.

After her grandfather’s care, it was only natural that a young mage, who had grown up with nowhere to belong, would grow attached to a school with teachers and friends her own age. It wasn’t quite a territory like the cabin, but her determination to protect this place was clear.

“Let’s see…”

Kim Chaemin entered the greenhouse. The magic on the cabin was still in place. There was no rush to check the greenhouse first.

She looked for the mana grass before anything else. The mana grass she’d carefully raised in the mini-greenhouse by the cabin had stopped growing for a while, but after moving it to the greenhouse, it had shot up. It was growing so well that she’d had to move it several times so the kids and the hunters from Dasun who came and went wouldn’t recognize it as the same mana grass. She’d even moved it back to the cabin, so unless someone was very sharp-eyed, they wouldn’t notice. Even Woo Heejae had pointed at a different mana grass each time, asking if that was the one.

“This side is fine. That’s been harvested as planned…”

Kim Chaemin ran her hand through the soil filling the empty flower bed. It was soil that had nourished plants feeding on mana. Normally, the mana in the soil would have been depleted, but this was different. It wasn’t enough to grow something new just yet, but it wasn’t devoid of mana either. In another week, the mana would recover.

As expected, diverse mana was the answer.

The greenhouse was rich in mana. There was her own mana, and most of the mana that had gone wild when Hope recovered from her injury remained here as well. Add to that the mana of the kids and hunters who helped out. The runes carved into the greenhouse pillars captured that mana and converted it into nourishment.

A dungeon was not a place to be considered for this. If a dungeon break occurred and fighting broke out in the city, mana would overflow as it did in the greenhouse. But basically, mana wants to flow, whether inside or outside a dungeon. Unless there’s some force holding it in place, mana disperses. And no one had tried to capture and use that mana.

‘Not that there’s a way to hold it in place, anyway.’

Dungeon mana and Earth’s mana are different in composition. That’s probably why monsters and other dungeon creatures can’t adapt outside.

Kim Chaemin had enlisted Lee Miseon’s help to build similar greenhouses elsewhere. There was the advantage of keeping dungeon plants like mana grass fresh, but she couldn’t keep them alive and growing indefinitely as she could in the school greenhouse.

What was the difference?

It was obvious.

‘Alex’s mana…’

There must have been a similar one among the group that first invaded Kim Chaemin’s territory. It must have met the rune she used from her grandfather.

This part needed more research. Once things settled down, maybe this time she could try bringing out a small monster from a dungeon.

Of course, not here, not at the school. Somewhere else.

Why had she continued her research with only plants? For the children’s safety, obviously. If she experimented with a monster and it escaped, it would be a disaster.

“See! I told you Ms. Chaemin would be here!”

Kim Chaemin looked up. She saw children, covered in dirt, who had apparently just finished another round of roughhousing on the playground.

“We took good care of the greenhouse! We harvested yesterday. Did you see?”

“Teacher, Lee Seung-yeon stepped on the mana grass and ruined it.”

“Sunsun-jin! Ah, teacher, don’t listen to her.”

“You didn’t step on it?”

“…I did, but it was just a little bit of the root!”

“The root’s the most important part!”

The kids chattered noisily.

In the past, she wouldn’t have liked such a noisy scene. Or was it just that she didn’t like it? She would have quickly slipped away.

She hadn’t planned to stay at this school so long. She’d turned down Hong Seok-young’s offer several times. But in the end, because of the runes, she’d accepted. The request to at least teach the basics to the young mages.

“Kids!”

Kim Chaemin smiled brightly.

Even when they were chattering amongst themselves, the kids quickly fell silent. Seeing their bright, shining eyes, she felt a strange flutter in her chest. Was this why everyone took on students?

Kim Chaemin shook her head. She felt guilty even comparing herself. Especially to the children.

“I brought some new seeds from America. Want to help me plant them?”

“Yes!”

The kids beamed and rolled up their sleeves, scattering into the greenhouse to fetch their tools as if they’d done it a hundred times.

---

It was well after sunset when Kim Chaemin finally left the greenhouse.

“Aren’t you going home?”

“This is home, isn’t it?”

“Wow. That’s the classic answer of a workaholic bachelor.”

Gamble shuddered as he pointed it out. Kim Chaemin shrugged and pulled up a chair to sit.

“Don’t act like you’re any different.”

“I know I am, and that’s exactly why I hate it.”

“You’re the biggest workaholic here.”

“Ah… I’m annoyed because I can’t deny it.”

Gamble yawned and sipped his cold coffee. He handed a cup to Kim Chaemin as well. Kim Chaemin only smiled at the liquid, which looked more like black poison than coffee.

“If you need anything, just call.”

“Busy?”

“Someone keeps dumping work on me.”

Gamble glared at his monitor.

“I have the list, so I’m looking for photos of the fairies.”

“Photos?”

“The descriptions in the reports aren’t clear enough. If a monster escaped during a dungeon break, surprisingly, there are a lot of photos left. People really have no sense of self-preservation….”

Gamble muttered, sounding both appalled and impressed.

“The list Yoo Ji-eun compiled doesn’t have many photos. There must have been limits for an active hunter—both in terms of access to information and time.”

After a moment’s thought, Gamble added,

“Considering the time frame, a lot of records must have disappeared, too.”

“…So you’re filling in the blanks?”

“The runes. I don’t know exactly how to use them, but with those, they must have gathered information from outside the dungeon somehow. Since they knew time would be reset, they would have found a way to pass on memories, too. They wouldn’t have used just a single rune.”

“…You know it’s partly your fault that Ms. Woo keeps giving work to Sandra, right?”

“You can’t pin that on me!”

“But Sandra really is… the best.”

“I know I’m good. And I know how important this is. That’s why I’m doing it.”

“Not just because of the research funds our master’s bank account provides?”

“…That too.”

Gamble grinned mischievously, like an old friend. Kim Chaemin laughed along.

Soon the lab was filled with a peaceful silence. With Gamble’s keyboard as background music, Kim Chaemin pulled out her phone and browsed the mage online community.

After Noah Michel disappeared, that community had been in an uproar. Mages were no different from anyone else when it came to conspiracy theories. Woo Heejae sometimes lamented that if only people would put that energy into something more useful than typing on keyboards….

And there really was a lot of useless chatter.

Not just about Michel, but also about the multi-dungeon collapse in San Francisco.

Kim Chaemin scrolled through the posts with a bored expression. Nothing worth noting today, either. There was an interesting post about mages being investigated in Las Vegas. It was probably written by one of the mages who’d been questioned, warning others not to work with the Americans. In the comments, American and European mages were fighting. It was the usual.

Ding.

But the news that caught Kim Chaemin’s attention didn’t come from the mage community.

It was a message from the other side of the world.

Kim Chaemin’s bored face changed. If Gamble had been paying attention, he wouldn’t have been able to resist asking what was going on.

But Gamble was currently pounding his keyboard in a rage. To Kim Chaemin, even that noise sounded like a sweet melody as she replied to the message.

A response came back quickly. Things were getting more interesting. Kim Chaemin licked her dry lips. Her mouth was dry with excitement. Absentmindedly, she sipped the coffee Gamble had given her and shuddered. Still, her eyes never left the phone screen.

“Sandra.”

Much later.

Kim Chaemin set down her empty mug and called out to Gamble.

Gamble, who had been dozing with his head on the desk in front of the monitor, jerked upright in surprise.

Kim Chaemin spoke without missing a beat.

“I’ve heard something interesting.”

“…Yes?”

“I’ll look into it myself, but I have to go to America tomorrow, right?”

“…You’re giving me more work?”

“No, but this is really… Sandra, you won’t be able to sit still when you hear this.”

“What is it?”

Gamble blinked, shaking off his drowsiness.

“I made friends with a mage when I was in Marseille.”

“A mage.”

“One of the better ones, actually.”

“There were only two decent mages there, weren’t there? The older one or the younger one?”

“The younger one.”

Kim Chaemin waved her phone slightly.

“She’s right in the center of Europe, in the perfect position to hear all sorts of secret mage rumors.”

“She studied under the president of the European Mage Society, after all.”

“She seemed to like me, so I thought if I kept up the friendship, I might hear some interesting things…”

“She took the bait?”

“Completely.”

Now Gamble was fully awake. He quietly moved to sit across from Kim Chaemin, pouting at her for drawing it out.

“What is it? Tell me already. Did Noah Michel die?”

“Unfortunately, it’s not that big.”

Kim Chaemin cleared her throat and spoke slowly.

“Among French mages, there’s talk that Noah Michel’s disappearance wasn’t a hoax.”

“…Really?”

“Yes.”

Gamble almost said, “Isn’t that mage lying?” but stopped himself. Given Noah Michel’s stature, it was hard to believe, but if Kim Chaemin was saying it, there must be some reason to trust it.

Gamble swallowed.

“…Why?”

Kim Chaemin frowned slightly, displeased with what she was about to say.

“They found a will.”

“A will…?”

“Yes. A will left by Michel’s parents.”