Retire 517
by Cristae517 To Remain a Magician (1)
“I was sure he’d be over here.”
What had happened at Mont-Saint-Michel, all the worries about Noah Michelle’s unstable magic, her memories, her mind—these were all pushed aside by a single remark from Han Tae-kyung.
More than anything, it was because Han Tae-kyung spoke with such certainty that Kim Chae-min would be with them.
“Right. I thought he’d be here too…?”
Even Hope said the same.
“I haven’t seen Mr. Kim. I’ve been with Miss Michelle this whole time.”
“Please don’t call that ‘playing.’”
The provocation my father made, peering between the dolls, was madness. I know he did it because he trusted his own abilities… but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t reckless.
He’d kept insisting on talking the whole time, but honestly, aside from provoking Michelle, what else had he done? Was he relying on the identification tags? This is why people stop thinking when they have something to fall back on.
“Hmm. I was playing with her, I suppose.”
My father corrected himself, utterly unbothered.
Not that it made things any better.
“Really?”
Hope tilted his head. Even Han Tae-kyung, usually so composed, looked a bit confused but just shrugged.
Han Tae-kyung looked at Hope and said in his usual light tone,
“Looks like we just took the wrong path!”
The wrong path…
I sighed.
Han Tae-kyung’s certainty was unsettling, but considering Kim Chae-min’s abilities, not just him but any of our guild members wouldn’t be taken down by a single magician.
No matter how great an archmage, there are limits. Kim Chae-min might seem all-powerful, but he isn’t truly omnipotent. The chronic weakness of his magic is its offensive power. It’s not that he has no way to attack, but even with his unique magic layered on, there’s only so much one can do with vines.
And though Kim Chae-min would never admit it aloud, there’s also the matter of aptitude. He prefers analyzing data in the lab to running around dungeons like this. He’s always dropping by Gamble’s lab, even though it isn’t his domain. Honestly, I think the only reason he hasn’t moved his territory to the lab is because the environment there isn’t suitable for growing plants.
At any rate, just as Kim Chae-min has his limits, so does Noah Michelle. She’s the opposite. Kim Chae-min can do many things with magic, but lacks firepower; Noah Michelle, on the other hand, can do little but attack with her attribute magic, and it isn’t useful for anything else. Maybe that’s an aptitude issue too. In the future, Michelle would solve that problem with her puppeteer magic and runes.
But that’s a method the current Michelle hasn’t yet perfected. Add to that her unstable mental state and obsession with “books”…
Still, I can’t imagine Kim Chae-min being taken down by Michelle.
And my father? Not even worth mentioning.
That… library, or whatever you’d call it, with the level of magic Michelle showed in that space, I could more or less imitate what my father did.
Han Tae-kyung and Hope might not be able to subdue Michelle, but they’re more than capable of keeping themselves safe. Hope goes without saying, and Han Tae-kyung is always spouting nonsense, which makes people underestimate his skills. The way he slips out of trouble so easily—it might all be calculated.
“Mr. Kim…”
I decided to stop thinking about how strangely skilled everyone in this guild was.
I shook my head lightly.
“What do you mean, took the wrong path? Are you saying we can get to Mr. Kim, too?”
“By myself, it’s impossible, but…”
“I couldn’t do it alone either.”
“…You two seem to work well together? I’ll pair you up from now on—when we get back to Korea, I’ve got a few dungeons lined up. The two of you should be enough.”
“What a dreadful thing to say, Master!”
Han Tae-kyung recoiled in horror.
“With him? No way!!”
Hope was just as adamant.
Surprising. I thought they got along well…
But I remembered. When they first met, those two couldn’t stand each other.
“You get along fine.”
My father laughed heartily.
“Of all of us, Mr. Kim probably understands this dungeon best.”
And with that, he neatly shut down any further rebellion from the guild members.
“Two people. Especially Alex. What was it like when you moved at the stairs?”
“Huh? Uh…”
Hope blinked, then stammered his explanation.
“Noah’s domain… I mean, I saw a place that looked like the space she blew up in her apartment.”
“With curtains, stacks of books… a green blanket on the sofa and a table in the center?”
“That’s right…”
Hope nodded, looking reluctant at my father’s precise confirmation.
“I didn’t see it for long. I got kicked out right away. But she was reading a book she’d brought from the library. She even had the dolls check the books.”
What Hope saw was similar to what I saw. I’d seen a child secretly pulling a book from the shelves, but Hope had apparently seen a doll that closely resembled Noah Michelle herself.
He said he’d considered breaking the magic, but after sensing Han Tae-kyung’s mana, he joined up with him and came to find us.
“What about you, Han Tae-kyung?”
“Me? Well, pretty much the same.”
Han Tae-kyung shrugged.
His experience wasn’t much different. Unlike my father or Hope, who saw a partial recreation of Michelle’s domain, Han Tae-kyung’s was more like mine. A pitch-black space, a doll shining gold.
“It was so bright I couldn’t see anything!”
While I could barely see the faint light if I focused, he complained it was too bright.
Maybe the magic he saw really was brighter, or maybe it just seemed that way to him.
In any case, since the magic didn’t seem particularly dangerous, Han Tae-kyung tried to follow it to the source, and there met Hope, who had torn through the air.
“Han Tae-kyung, what was the doll you saw like?”
“The kid was running around.”
“Alone?”
“At first, a doll that looked like a guardian was carrying her… but after that, she was alone.”
Han Tae-kyung spoke with a sour expression, as if he’d bitten into something bitter.
By now, everyone must have realized, whether they wanted to or not.
A subtle silence settled over us. Maybe everyone was piecing together the story in their own minds, or maybe they were reflecting on the haphazardly stacked memories, or maybe they were feeling the bitterness of everything those memories implied.
But it wasn’t good to stay still for long in a dungeon like this. Whether we were going to find Kim Chae-min or Michelle, we needed to move.
“Ah! We can’t just stand around!!”
Hope must have had the same thought, because he suddenly jumped up.
“This is urgent!! Why are you all distracting me with other talk?”
Hope glared at my father. As guild master and raid leader, my father had been doing what he should—checking on the guild members’ injuries and monitoring changes in the dungeon—but now he looked genuinely flustered at the unexpected accusation.
“You too, senior! This isn’t the time to be chatting so calmly!”
“What did I do…?”
Han Tae-kyung was suddenly scolded as well.
He looked completely lost as to why.
Hope stared at Han Tae-kyung in exasperation, then sighed. It was obvious he was only letting it go this time out of necessity.
Even though it wasn’t directed at me, I felt oddly slighted. Judging by Han Tae-kyung’s face, he felt the same.
Hope pressed on, undeterred.
“Whatever Noah is doing, that’s… important, but! More than that, this dungeon!”
“What about the dungeon…?”
“This dungeon can’t last much longer! We need to find our magician and the gate and get out!!”
“You didn’t tell me that!”
Han Tae-kyung shouted, looking wronged.
“The dungeon is collapsing.”
Hope said it firmly.
It wasn’t that I didn’t know this guy could be serious sometimes. But hearing it from him, with that tired look on his face, hit differently.
Especially when he literally tore open space with his hand as he spoke.
Did “tearing space” just mean… teleporting? Was he really ripping it open physically?
I looked reflexively at Han Tae-kyung. He pursed his lips and shook his head, as if to say he couldn’t do that.
Hope had said earlier that he’d come to Han Tae-kyung’s location…
Hope slipped through the tear.
“Mana’s gathering. No need for us to get caught in the overload.”
“Overload?”
My father followed Hope through the gap. Reluctantly, I shoved Han Tae-kyung through and went after them.
“I think our magician is partly to blame. He’s probably been poking at the dungeon…”
Beyond the tear was darkness. Darkness filled with drifting motes of light. Han Tae-kyung quickly shielded his eyes.
Hope sniffed the air, then turned and tore open another space.
“When I was moving through earlier, I smelled flowers.”
“Roses?”
“That’s what I was following. I thought the magician would appear, not you guys.”
So that’s what he meant by taking the wrong path.
“This dungeon was never stable to begin with.”
“Of course not, the core was destroyed.”
“Right. You’ve seen what happens to a dungeon when it runs out of power, haven’t you?”
I frowned.
That dungeon Sam Bloom forced open…
“There was a dying fairy there, wasn’t there?”
Tati.
“That place is barely hanging on, too. At least there’s a fairy connected to the core, so it’s dying peacefully.”
Peacefully?
Literally… dying of thirst?
“But not here. There are no monsters conserving power. There were, but Noah drove them out.”
Hope kept moving through space, pausing only to sniff the air.
“This dungeon didn’t start out short on power… but someone deliberately broke the core, removed the limiters, and is burning through energy. Even the energy that keeps the dungeon stable.”
Hope’s hand, which had been moving without hesitation, paused for a moment. He pointed at a crack similar to the one I’d seen when watching my father.
“That’s why these are forming.”
Beyond the crack was a space other than darkness. The bookshelves of Mont-Saint-Michel, which we’d seen more than enough of in this dungeon.
A faint scent of roses brushed my nose.
“The dungeon is breaking apart.”
Hope reached through the gap. The space split without resistance.
“It won’t last much longer.”
“…The dungeon?”
“Yeah. I was wrong. I thought when the power ran out, it would just naturally disappear like other dungeons.”
If he’s saying this, it means that’s not the case.
“It could, but there’s no need to take the risk.”
“What kind of risk…?”
Hope, about to step through the newly torn crack, pursed his lips and looked at my father.
“It could explode.”
“…The dungeon?”
“If that happens, there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to get out safely like we usually do.”
Hope muttered, clearly displeased.