Retire 512
by Cristae512 The Magician’s Child (2)
Noah Michel was young.
Alex had always insisted on describing Noah Michel that way: capricious, prone to tantrums, fond of fairy tales, and so on and so forth. To be honest, most of this information was hardly appropriate for understanding a magician like Noah Michel.
Hong Seok-young never told Alex, but he suspected that most of those judgments came from the fact that “Alex Hope’s” view of Noah Michel was colored by seeing himself in her. The Noah Michel that boy described was, to a surprising degree, much like Alex himself. Even if Alex hadn’t realized it, that was the assessment of someone with the eyes of a true adult.
If Alex ever heard he resembled Michel, he would probably hate it.
But isn’t it always those who are most alike who dislike each other most? Hong Seok-young understood that feeling well. It was probably why he had chosen not to let his future self travel back to the past.
Instead of relying on Alex’s personal, emotion-laden account of Noah Michel, Hong Seok-young sought to learn more about the public side of her.
Noah Michel was not a reclusive archmage, but a young magician who was actively engaged in the world. He left the academic evaluations to Kim Chae-min. Instead, Hong Seok-young pored over Michel’s interviews.
At least in those interviews, Michel appeared quite adult—very different from Alex’s assessment.
‘What is Michel like, you ask?’
The next opinion he consulted was that of his son, Woo Hee-jae.
His son, who had met Noah Michel in Marseille, surprisingly agreed with Alex.
‘I can’t speak for the rest, but… yes, she was definitely young. Especially considering Noah Michel’s age.’
Woo Hee-jae said that even if he hadn’t known about the Ark, he would have come to the same conclusion. He added that, in that case, he would have thought of her as a naïve and idealistic magician, ignorant of the ways of the world.
If that had been true, it would have been better in many ways—including for Noah Michel’s own life.
And finally, after hearing secondhand about the childlike Noah Michel, and after seeing the mature, public mask she wore in interviews, Hong Seok-young was able to see the real Noah Michel for himself.
‘She really is a child.’
It was a fact he could have known even without meeting her.
No true adult, having come of age, would dream of ending the world simply because they hated people.
Such grandiose delusions are the stuff of children’s dreams.
“Are you afraid to talk to me?”
The library scene wavered. Hong Seok-young suppressed a smile. Still, he couldn’t let his guard down. That, more than anyone, he understood.
Noah Michel emerged from between the bookshelves, looking just as she had before: golden hair flowing in waves, soft white clothes. But Hong Seok-young recognized the anxiety flickering across her stiff face.
He saw the way she bit down hard on her lower lip to hide her pallor, the way she clenched her trembling fingers behind her back as if controlling invisible eyes, grasping at empty air.
A hunter who had spent as much time in dungeons as the young magician had spent alive could see it all.
“Why should I be afraid of you?”
“If not, then let’s just talk for a bit. After that, you can do whatever you want.”
Hong Seok-young shrugged.
The fact that such a simple provocation had worked, that Michel had agreed to talk, was further proof that she was an inexperienced young magician.
If Hong Seok-young had been in Michel’s place, he wouldn’t have let things drag on like this. Even if her goal was to buy time, for an archmage, her actions were hardly threatening.
Honestly, the mind magic of that magician he’d met in some nameless dungeon in the American desert—he could barely remember the name now—had been more dangerous. That one had even made him add another mark to his dog tag for escaping a dungeon alive.
Hmm.
Well, given his opponent, it was only natural that Hong Seok-young decided to try talking.
No matter what, it felt wrong to deal with a child without at least attempting a conversation.
And, to be honest, he was curious about her reasons.
“Does it matter?”
“It matters a great deal.”
At Hong Seok-young’s certainty, Michel’s shoulders tensed, almost imperceptibly, then relaxed.
“Why?”
“See? You’re asking why, too. Knowing the reason matters.”
At that moment, Hong Seok-young sensed a faint crack in the space around them. Michel seemed completely unaware.
He didn’t know which guild member it was, but someone had found a way to bypass Michel’s perception.
“Now?”
Hong Seok-young continued the conversation, hiding his satisfaction.
“If not now, when would be good? As long as both people are willing, a conversation can happen anytime, anywhere.”
“…You’re not exactly known for being a good talker.”
His son would have openly laughed at that.
“That’s just prejudice.”
Hong Seok-young replied gruffly, silently hoping the one causing the crack wasn’t his son.
“And you’re not exactly known for being such a violent magician, are you?”
“……”
Michel stared at Hong Seok-young.
When Alex got riled up, he wondered how anyone could be so easily provoked, but now, looking at her, he could sense a magician’s cold composure.
Maybe she just didn’t like Alex. Hong Seok-young looked back at Michel in the same way. There was no dust trailing after her, no strange, toppled dolls.
No ancient dust, no grotesquely fallen dolls.
There were no windows, no lights, yet the library was filled with a gentle glow. The atmosphere was much like the small, peaceful room he had glimpsed earlier.
Warm light. A mild breeze from somewhere. A faint, sweet scent lingering at the tip of his nose. The pleasant smell of paper wrapping around him.
Perhaps that room had been an imitation of this library. Of a library in another world, quiet before it was stained with blood, before people died.
“…There’s no need for reasons anymore.”
“Why not?”
In that stillness, Michel spoke softly. In contrast, Hong Seok-young replied in a loud, clear voice.
“If we want to make sure this never happens again, we have to know the reason.”
That was what Hong Seok-young had always done to survive.
Taking responsibility.
“If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to.”
Of course, Hong Seok-young didn’t expect Michel’s lips to open as if by magic.
Naturally, it would be nice if things could be resolved by talking. What is the advantage of civilized humanity, if not that not everything must be solved by violence?
But he harbored no illusions that a conversation could resolve things with a child who possessed overwhelming power—a magician who hated humans, who dreamed of killing them all, and who actually had the means to do it.
Still, what he said to the magician was sincere.
Alex’s assessment of Noah Michel needed to be taken with a grain of salt, but there was one thing he believed to be true.
Noah Michel hated people.
What Hong Seok-young wanted to know most was the reason for that.
Why did she come to hate humanity? Was it something that happened in the Mont-Saint-Michel library? Or was it her childhood under the care of a European magician family?
Alex had said that Michel survived Mont-Saint-Michel by sacrificing others. That was something Michel herself had admitted, and the master of Mont-Saint-Michel had not denied it.
Even if not for the dolls collapsed in the library, Hong Seok-young could guess what must have happened in the dungeon. It was not uncommon for civilians to be caught up in a newly formed dungeon.
Usually, it ended in tragedy.
There were far too many ways a child like Michel could have come to hate people in the process.
“You might think it’s none of my business what you’ve been through or what conclusion you’ve come to. Even if I say I want to prevent this from happening again, you have no reason to believe me. Maybe you don’t even want that.”
Michel remained silent, unmoving.
“But Alex said you hated people, didn’t he?”
“………I do.”
“Yeah. There are times I hate people, too. Honestly, I’ve met plenty who make me wonder if world peace wouldn’t be better off if I just knocked their heads off.”
“……”
“In fact, I’ve met them often.”
Michel tried not to show it, but it was hard to miss her eyes widening.
She probably thought it was too harsh a thing for a so-called “savior of humanity” to say. Hong Seok-young shrugged. She wasn’t the only one surprised. Somewhere in the library, the crack in the space slipped a little wider.
“That’s why I’m asking, you see? Who knows? Maybe I’ll decide I don’t care about humanity’s future either.”
“……”
Michel narrowed her eyes. Hmm. Maybe that was a bit much.
“Or maybe not.”
Michel’s eyes narrowed even further.
“It’s true I want to make sure this never happens again. I’m not going to say all life is precious. I don’t believe that. But I do know there are innocent people. I promised my son I’d protect them as best I could.”
“……”
“That’s how I learned about the organization called the Ark. I suppose the first one I was after wasn’t you, but… that German. Henry Lehmann, was it? That guy. Honestly, I’m still surprised how it all ended up leading to you. The world’s a strange place.”
“…What are you trying to say?”
“I keep telling you. I want to know your reasons. Why you’re standing here. Because you hate people? Then why did you come to hate them? You want to kill humans? Why? Do you want monsters to rule the world? Why?”
“……”
“When you were young. Because of what happened at Mont-Saint-Michel? I don’t know exactly what happened. I know what you said. You went up, got blocked on the first floor, came back down, and died, or something like that. Is that all true? Was there nothing else?”
There was something Hong Seok-young wanted to ask Michel. For that, he kept his tone as light as possible.
He gripped his weapon, ready to react to anything. If it came to it, he would give up on the dog tag and tear the dungeon apart. If the archmage could change the dungeon’s terrain without limit, this was too advantageous a place for her to go on a rampage. At least outside, she wouldn’t be able to manipulate the landscape so freely.
“Yeah… It’s hard to remember things from childhood. If it was something painful, it might be hard to talk about even if you remember. In that case, let me ask something else. Just answer yes or no. Did you hate the people who were in Mont-Saint-Michel?”
“……”
“Or the magicians who hid your parents’ will?”
Michel still didn’t move. Hong Seok-young looked at her eyes, as stiff as a fish’s, as rigid as the magician herself.
“If you won’t answer, I’ll assume it’s the former. Why did you hate those people? Alex said you killed them all.”
“……”
“Were they people who deserved to die? To you, those people…”
Hong Seok-young filtered a few words swirling in his mouth. He had to tread carefully here.
But before he could utter the words he had so carefully chosen, Michel ground her teeth and muttered,
“…I will.”
“Hmm?”
“I will have revenge.”
Her breath trembled. The composure she had maintained despite her tension finally broke. Harsh breathing, eyes wide and dilated. Her clothes fluttered as magical power gathered.
And in the corridor between the bookshelves, a half-shattered doll appeared, flickering in and out of sight. The doll limped across the hallway. One arm was broken, and its fingers were incomplete. Like a faulty lightbulb, it kept vanishing and reappearing as it walked. The broken arm desperately tried to grasp something—something much smaller than itself, barely reaching its thigh. Somehow, it managed to clutch the object to its chest and curl its body around it.
Hong Seok-young recognized that posture.
He had done it tens, hundreds, thousands of times to hold his own son in his arms.