Retire 498

498 Pursuit (2)

Sometimes, watching how things spiral into the worst possible outcome, I can’t help but marvel at it.

It’s not as if you have to do something wrong—or even do anything at all. Life can unfold with astonishing ease, but on the other hand, it can also become a complete disaster in ways you never imagined.

Life is strange.

I have no memories of having any fun during my business trip to America. When I first arrived? I barely had time to unpack before I was poring over dungeon reports.

If I’d just slacked off, I wouldn’t feel so resentful. I’d have simply looked up at the sky and quietly accepted the situation, thinking this was the price I had to pay.

But I swear, I never wasted my time enough to deserve this. I reviewed dungeon reports, checked whatever strategies the US military or intelligence agencies had cobbled together, shored up the weak points, and went into the dungeon the very next day.

Even without Gamble’s magic detector, you can tell with the naked eye when a core becomes unstable. We were supposed to enter the dungeon two days later, but with an unstable core, none of us could rest easy.

All I did was work. Truly.

Sometimes, I took a break between raids, but that’s only natural. Hunters aren’t invincible. We need rest. Even guild meetings for Mimi were squeezed into those rare breaks. In fact, until the Cactus Mirage incident, nothing much had happened….

“Why do you look like that?”

“I was taking a moment to reflect on my life.”

Kim Chaemin stared at my face.

“You don’t really look like you’re reflecting.”

“I said I was taking time to reflect, not that I actually did.”

Kim Chaemin’s expression changed. I didn’t really have anything to feel guilty about, but for some reason, I felt compelled to explain myself quickly.

“I’ve lived my life as best I could. It’s just that the world isn’t helping me out.”

“Hmm… If you say so, I can’t really argue. Hang in there.”

“Don’t agree so easily.”

“Why not? It’s not like you’ve been slacking off. Honestly, I’ve never been as busy as I have this past year!”

Whether she was truly enjoying herself or not, Kim Chaemin smiled with a face that looked, at any rate, cheerful.

“So, what’s going on?”

“Sorry?”

“Why the self-reflection?”

“You’re asking about that?”

I looked around.

“In this situation?”

A cluster of soldiers, carrying suspicious-looking equipment, circled the area. Each was paired with a mage as an assistant, and here and there, I could see Las Vegas hunters dispatched from the city.

What did they all have in common?

Every one of them wore a grim expression.

“…It’s not really our fault, is it?”

Kim Chaemin’s face grew serious as well, and with that same seriousness, she declared, “If you think about it, we’re not the only ones who forgot about the parasites. Everyone forgot. Honestly, if you want to talk about responsibility, it’s more on them than us, isn’t it?”

She gestured toward the Las Vegas hunters.

I crossed my arms too.

“They have Moby as an excuse. The soldiers here can hardly get away unscathed, either.”

“That’s why everyone’s searching like their lives depend on it—no one wants to take the blame. If there’s no damage, there’s no responsibility! What a marvelous logic.”

The equipment the US military had brought was an old model mana density detector. Not the kind Gamble made to measure dungeon stability, just a simple device for checking ambient mana in the air. It was the latest version, for now.

Monster blood contains a certain concentration of mana. In a sense, it’s similar to a mage. If you remember that some monsters, like fairies, use runes and abilities that look like magic, it’s not so far-fetched.

The blood Moby shed in the desert had evaporated under the hot sun. Aside from the faint glimmer you could only see up close and the hatched parasites, there was no other way to find it, but the mana dissolved in the evaporated blood remained.

We’d found one pool of blood, so by heading toward Las Vegas from there, we could probably find the others. If we went the other way, we’d find the gate.

“Well… as long as there’s no damage, that’s good. We can’t purify them the way we did in Las Vegas, but at least we’ve confirmed that the parasites’ vitality drops.”

“They’re resistant to fire, and water is obviously useless. For now, the only way to kill them is to cut them in half or crush them one by one. It’s not as complicated as it could be, except for that.”

“For now.”

“Yes, for now.”

We still didn’t know everything about these parasites.

But with all the local firepower focused on this, as long as nothing else went wrong, we should be able to handle it.

I watched the people working hard. If only we could burn them, it would be over much faster….

“Did you know?”

Kim Chaemin, who had also been people-watching, suddenly spoke up.

“What those people are doing.”

She pointed to those checking mana density with their equipment.

“I could do it for them.”

“…?”

“This is inland, you know.”

“…Yes.”

“Sand isn’t soil, but still. If this were the Sahara, even I couldn’t do it. But look—plants are growing here. It’d be hard, but not impossible. It’d be much faster and more accurate than doing it all manually like that.”

Kim Chaemin cupped her hands and opened them slightly. A single red rose appeared.

Kim Chaemin’s magic.

Not the coast, but inland.

Sand. Soil.

If it’s Kim Chaemin, she could finish in an instant what would take days.

“Then why….”

“But, Dr. Woo.”

She cut me off before I could ask why she wasn’t helping.

“If I help, I won’t be able to enter the gate.”

I didn’t need her to specify which gate.

“No matter how fast I am, searching this whole area isn’t something I can do sitting comfortably. Even if I could do it quickly, it wouldn’t be done in a day.”

“……”

“Would you be okay without me?”

It was a question only a mage like Kim Chaemin could ask so confidently.

…In truth, even if it weren’t Kim Chaemin, every single person counted right now. Why did Father insist on a one-man guild? He should have brought up more people from the start.

“And if we finish this quickly… what do you think those people will do next?”

“……”

“They’ll want to check the gate, won’t they? Actually, they won’t even have to wait for this to be over. If I find it for them, the rest could be managed by the Las Vegas hunters and mages. Then, of course, the soldiers will go into the gate… and they’ll try to drive Moby into the gate, just as we originally proposed.”

Kim Chaemin, still watching the people, asked me in a calm voice,

“But as long as everyone’s this busy, if we offer to check the gate for them, no one will think it’s strange.”

“…Do we really have to go that far?”

“Of course we do.”

Only then did Kim Chaemin relax her face and smile as usual. No, it was an even more mischievous smile than usual.

They say guild members always follow the master. Somehow, she looked just like Father when he was up to something. Maybe it was Han Taekyung’s or Hope’s influence. Whoever it was, Kim Chaemin’s personality… Well, she’s an adult; she’ll manage.

“We’re not done just by taking care of those things, you know.”

“…We’re not?”

“After we stop all this chaos, then what?”

“Yes?”

“We have to go home.”

“……”

“If we act out of line here, people will say Hong Seok-young’s guild does whatever it wants. They’re crazy. Don’t ever call them again. Even that would be a headache.”

“Well… I suppose so. No matter how skilled someone is, I wouldn’t want to work with a hunter who just does whatever they want.”

“That’s why we have to do things by the book, so no one can find fault. Maybe you don’t get it because you’re a civil servant, but hunters are basically at the bottom of the ladder.”

“My master isn’t like that.”

“That’s because he’s the master! That man is an exception. Normally, you only get dungeon jobs if the government gives them out. Korea’s been weird all this time… managing dungeons in such a strange way.”

Kim Chaemin’s complaints veered off in another direction.

I waved my hand to cut her off.

“I get what you mean.”

“So what are you going to do?”

I nodded at Kim Chaemin. She widened her eyes.

“Let’s ask the master.”

I took my phone from my pocket.

---

Surprisingly, or perhaps not at all, Han Taekyung had a certain reputation even among American officials, including those in Las Vegas. More precisely, among those working in dungeon-related departments.

Of course, this reputation was not a positive one.

“I’m really being treated unfairly!”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You don’t have to! I can tell!”

“Don’t use your intuition like that. You’re usually so good at pretending not to notice.”

“I, Han Taekyung, cannot tolerate a stain on my honor.”

“It’s not exactly a stain, is it?”

Han Taekyung frowned at my words, but soon grinned slyly.

“It was fun, though. Where else would I get to make such a fuss? I’m a man who loves peace, after all.”

As usual, I ignored him.

Han Taekyung’s notoriety had come from blocking people from entering the dungeon at the Cactus Mirage office.

From his perspective, he’d only stepped in to prevent casualties, but since he couldn’t clear up the misunderstanding, it was understandable he’d feel wronged. I get that, but there’s no need to go out of your way to find the people who avoid you and give them that sly smile….

His younger sister, Han Eun-young, was a bit aloof but a good kid. What went wrong with Han Taekyung? Maybe it’s just a difference in temperament.

“Anyway, look. What do you think? According to Moby, there’s water in the dungeon, right?”

“Well, it would die without water, wouldn’t it?”

When I didn’t respond, Han Taekyung slumped his shoulders and took off his sunglasses.

“…Is it hard to see with those on?”

“Not exactly. They just block out the shine in my eyes.”

He leaned forward, revealing his sparkling golden eyes.

“But since they’re colored lenses, there’s bound to be some distortion. If I want to see properly, it’s better without them, even for me.”

“So? What’s it like inside?”

Father got out of the driver’s seat. Kim Chaemin and Hope followed.

Daniel wasn’t with us today. With healers in such short supply, it would have been a waste to bring him along for a simple dungeon investigation.

Our official mission was simple.

To check the “house” in order to remove the fish above Las Vegas—Moby. The location of the dungeon core, whether the dungeon was unstable, whether there were any monsters, and so on.

The same individual hadn’t been found in the desert, but there could still be monsters left inside the dungeon.

Of course, according to Hope, there had only been one Moby in that dungeon, but we couldn’t exactly say that.

And even if there were no monsters, there could be other living beings.

For example… a certain magician missing from France, with hair that shone like the sun.