Retire 363

363 Cleaning (1)

“…Ugh.”

A groan slipped out between tightly clenched lips.

Beads of sweat formed on her brow and trickled down her face. One droplet clung to her long lashes before seeping into her eye. For a moment, her vision blurred, but she couldn’t look away. She couldn’t even blink, so focused was she. Every muscle in her body ached from the tension.

But that alone wasn’t enough to make her stop. Her hair stood on end. Goosebumps prickled her skin. This moment might be the clue she had searched for so long. No, even if it wasn’t a “clue,” this was a tremendous discovery. For mages, for human history, for all time and space.

“…!”

The tangled mess of veins and flesh was grotesque. Touch it, and bright red blood would stain your hand. The lump of flesh, as big as a child, might have been mistaken for a monster if you didn’t know better. Only a monster could have such a massive “organ.”

She held her breath. The sweat in her eye stung. Her mouth was dry. But still, she couldn’t stop.

The crimson mass began to split open.

“Ah…”

A gasp—almost a cheer—escaped her lips.

With careful fingers, she peeled away the clotted veins. The sticky flesh fell to the white floor with a wet slap. Dark red blood splattered around it.

But the fallen flesh didn’t matter.

Her eyes were alight with rapture.

As the veins peeled away, more chunks of flesh dropped to the floor. Her hands remained careful, but there was no hesitation. She knew exactly what she was doing.

Just then, bright sunlight poured in through the open window. Where the sunlight touched, the bloody mass began to glimmer.

More precisely, the inside of the mass, the cracks splitting it, glittered. Like a jewel in the light, like sunlight breaking on waves.

Her hands grew even more delicate as she dug through the flesh.

Thud, splat, thud. As the chunks falling to the floor grew fewer—

At last, something shining appeared.

If spider silk could be woven into real cloth, it would look like this: an incredibly thin, transparent fabric.

No. Could you even call it fabric?

Afraid it might tear, she barely dared to touch it with her fingertips. She hardly dared to breathe, worried even the faintest breeze from the open window might rip it. But as she lifted it and held it to the sunlight—

“……”

A beauty so breathtaking it brought tears to her eyes was revealed.

Patterns as intricate as spiderwebs or leaf veins. Each line sparkled as if dusted with gold. Transparent, yet not transparent. Containing all the light in the world, just like that…

“It won’t tear, it won’t tear.”

A brash voice broke the quiet wonder of the discovery.

A boy with jet-black hair tied back walked over and snatched the transparent fabric.

“Ah!”

“Do you know how much magic this thing absorbed? It’s still overflowing. Even if it tears a bit, it’ll fix itself. Don’t worry.”

“……”

“Really, you can relax. Why get shy now? You had no problem draining my blood whenever you wanted.”

Alex Hope looked at her as if he truly couldn’t understand.

I sighed. At Yangseong High, the only things I seemed to gain were sighs and coffee.

“So what are you going to do with it? It’s kind of… well, it’s just a shed skin. Not really something that should interest a mage like you.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Eh. But it came from my body.”

“Alex Hope.”

“Uh, uh-huh?”

Suddenly called by name, Hope jumped and glanced at Kim Chaemin’s face.

It’s a kind of talent, to be so consistently uneducated. I shook my head.

“I decide what’s important! What did I tell you? When I’m working?”

“…Don’t interfere?”

“So what are you doing now?”

“…I’m not interfering.”

“Out.”

“But, wait—”

“Out.”

Kim Chaemin pointed to the infirmary door.

Hope’s face was plastered with dissatisfaction. But when Kim Chaemin raised an eyebrow, he turned and left without another word.

Ever since spending more time in the lab, Kim Chaemin had started to resemble Gamble. The difference was in how they handled Hope.

When Hope came by, Gamble would just smile and give up a corner of the lab. Kim Chaemin, on the other hand, would kick him out without hesitation.

As he headed for the door, Hope tried to sneak a look back.

“But, I mean, seriously—”

“Out!”

“You’ll just come looking for me later when you can’t figure it out!”

“What are you talking about!”

Kim Chaemin shouted toward the door, holding the transparent something in her hand.

“There is no later! Explain it to me right now!!”

“Then why are you kicking me out!”

“Because you’re cheeky!”

That’s a serious issue. Fair enough.

---

When it comes to Hope’s wings in the infirmary, you can’t avoid talking about mages.

I think I’ve often spoken about what kind of creatures mages are. They have their own territory, dislike non-mages, and are obsessed with bloodlines—stuffy types.

But for all their insularity, they fit into society surprisingly well. You’d think they’d ignore dungeons and act like mages, but that’s not always the case. Many mages actually value dungeon raids highly, as shown by their attendance at forums.

Among Hunters, there was a lot of talk about this.

Why do mages enter dungeons?

Hunters have all sorts of reasons, but they usually boil down to the same things: money, fame, sometimes revenge. Some just thrill at risking their lives.

But most mages never mention the reasons Hunters do.

Mages spend their lives trying to awaken the potential in their blood—their innate magic. Even among the few mages who can use or aren’t interested in their own magic, many are obsessed with researching magic itself.

‘…Why do I, uh, research magic?’

When I asked the witch Park Seohyun, her answer was simple.

‘Because I can.’

Kim Chaemin gave a more understandable answer.

“It’s because they’re always conscious of it.”

“Conscious?”

“Aren’t you asking why mages are so obsessed with magic?”

“…I was asking why they go into dungeons.”

“Same thing. A dungeon is the only place you can observe the flow of magic and use magic freely.”

After Han Taekyung and Hope, it was Kim Chaemin’s turn to ambush me.

At least she didn’t torment me with counseling as an excuse. She just dragged me out, asking to borrow my eyes and hands.

Kim Chaemin checked the rune drawn on the infirmary floor. It hadn’t been there before I left the school. She must have drawn it while I was gone… Hmm.

“It’s to keep magic from pooling. With this much magic gathered, it kept getting stuck.”

She explained lightly and went inside.

“You can’t just throw around large-scale magic outside a dungeon, after all.”

“True.”

“That’s why mages keep going into dungeons. Not all of them, but a lot.”

“Just because they want to use magic?”

“There are more complicated reasons, but… I said they’re always conscious of it, right?”

Inside the infirmary, where Hope had stayed.

The mass of magic that had separated from Hope was still huge. Some magic was leaking away, but at this rate, it would take a long time to fully break down.

Still, the magic in the air had thinned. Hope’s red magic had almost completely dissipated. If only we could get rid of that mass…

“You know how if someone asks you how you’re breathing, you suddenly become aware of it? Normally, you breathe or blink without thinking, but…”

Kim Chaemin handed me a pair of gloves. She wore the same kind—made from monster byproducts to block magic.

“What are we doing?”

She tied her hair back tightly.

“I’m going to take out what’s inside.”

“…Inside?”

“I tried when you weren’t here, but the magic inside is too tangled. If I tried to dismantle it carelessly, I thought it might tear.”

Standing before the mass of magic, she gestured for me to come closer. As I put on the gloves and looked where she indicated, I realized what she meant.

There was a deliberate cut at the top of the mass. Kim Chaemin must have made it. She carefully pried it open so we could see inside.

The clotted flesh looked much like it had when I cut it from Hope’s body. But something about it bothered me. I narrowed my eyes. It sparkled, as if sprinkled with glitter. Kim Chaemin rubbed the glitter with her fingertip.

“…A membrane?”

“Hope says that’s his wing.”

“He said he gathered magic to repair his torn wing… So we’re taking it out?”

“Should we just leave it, then?”

Kim Chaemin looked at me as if to say, how could you even suggest that?

So I helped her remove the magic tangled around the wing.

“Hold it here… yes.”

“Told you, good eyesight is important.”

Kim Chaemin smiled slightly, then focused again. Sweat beaded on her brow.

“For a mage, magic is as natural as breathing or blinking.”

After a long silence, she suddenly spoke. It took me a moment to realize she was continuing our earlier conversation.

“But a mage’s magic is never the same as another’s. The only reason I could use my grandfather’s or my father’s magic was because we shared the same attribute and I learned from them. Even then, I could never use it exactly the same way.”

“…So that’s why you use magic in dungeons?”

“Finding your own answer is the real goal, but using magic is the most basic step to get there.”

Despite all I’d learned about magic, mages remained a mystery.

Park Seohyun was especially closed-off, even among mages, and Kim Chaemin was an exception herself. She glanced at me and smiled softly.

“You don’t have to think so hard about it… Mages are people too, so there are all kinds. Just like Hunters. Some want to show off their magic, others want to explore themselves.”

“Why do you research magic, Ms. Kim?”

“Me?”

She shrugged.

“Both, I guess?”

“Both?”

“I want to show off, and I want to know myself.”

“…You seem to know yourself pretty well already.”

“Even with all that praise, nothing really comes of it.”

Despite her light, laughing voice, Kim Chaemin removed the magic from the wing with great care.

“But, hmm. Basically, it’s this.”

I waited quietly for her to continue.

“If I know I can do something, how could I just ignore it?”

I watched her quietly. Kim Chaemin spoke in a bright, almost singing voice.

“There are so many amazing, fun things in the world.”

“……”

“To me, magic is one of those things. When I see a fascinating toy, I just want to play with it.”

In the end, mages really were impossible to understand.