Magic Monopoly: Reborn as the Sole Magic Tower Master-Chapter 261: Episode
She recoiled in horror and smacked my forearm over and over. Her reaction was so funny I couldn’t help myself.
“You’re the worst! Who teases a woman about her age like that?”
“Sorry. I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of age-based power trips lately. Guess it built up.”
“From who?”
“Oh!”
I slapped my knee.
“I almost forgot to tell you. I found a new Child of Mana.”
Her eyes went wide. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞
“There’s another Child of Mana besides you, Sunbae?”
“Yeah. While I’m investigating, I’m planning to raise this kid properly, too.”
“That sounds great!”
I stretched my legs out.
“By the way, what happened with Ea? I haven’t heard a peep.”
“Ah, Ms. Ea is in hibernation right now.”
“Huh?”
According to Jin Bora, after I lost consciousness, Ea had remained active for about a year before being forced into hibernation due to the Tower Master’s suspension.
I had been worried something terrible had happened, but that was a relief. If she was just dormant, I could wake her once I returned to the Tower.
Her phone had been vibrating for a while now, and she grimaced.
“Ugh, seriously. Of all times, when I’m seeing you again after five years...”
“You should go. Isn’t it an important meeting?”
“I don’t want to!”
She clutched my hand.
“I’m never letting you go again!”
“...I’m not going anywhere. Just get me a phone line, and we’ll talk again tonight.”
“R-really? Don’t you dare forget you said that!”
She jumped up and flashed a radiant smile.
“Ugh, I’m so, so happy! The Tower can go back to the way it was, right?”
I nodded firmly.
“Of course. I’ll make sure of it.”
* * *
Korean Academy of Integrated Magic, KAIM.
When classes ended and it was time to go home, students poured out of the school, laughing and chattering.
“That’s her, right?”
“Yeah. The cursed girl from Class 3.”
“They say the monster that showed up at the Kim Yusin Museum was her fault, too.”
“Ugh, gross. Let’s give her a wide berth.”
Ha Yerin walked alone, her eyes fixed on her phone.
She could hear people whispering about her from all sides, but she did her best to ignore them.
’It’s not like I asked to be born this way!’
On the verge of tears, she was heading home when a leg suddenly slid out in front of her.
“Eek!”
She went sprawling.
Snickers erupted around her. Burning with embarrassment, she scrambled to her feet.
“Hey, Ha Yerin. You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, you know that?”
A boy with his arm in a cast grinned at her. Yerin recognized him immediately.
Oh Jung-ho, from her class. She’d been on edge all day, hearing him mutter her name in class.
“Come with me.”
Jung-ho grabbed her wrist and dragged her into a secluded alley.
Three of his friends were already there, slouched against the wall and smoking.
“Uh, Jung-ho. Your arm... what happened?”
“What the hell do you think? I got hurt when debris fell on me at the museum.”
“...Oh.”
The suffocating guilt that had become a full-blown trauma washed over her.
“So what are you going to do about it?”
Tilting his head, Oh Jung-ho locked eyes with her.
“A hunter’s body is their livelihood. What if I screw up my practical exam because of you?”
“...I...”
“Wow, damn.”
He let out a nasty little laugh and glanced back at his friends.
“Still won’t apologize, even after all this.”
“Some personality she’s got.”
“Told you, didn’t I? She’s a demonkin.”
“They say you get a provisional hunter license on the spot for hunting a demonkin. Maybe we should cash in on that?”
Squeezing her eyes shut, she shouted, “I—I’m not a demonkin!”
She fell silent.
After a brief silence, Jung-ho and his friends burst into roaring laughter.
“You hear that? I’m not a demonkin!”
“Pffft—ha ha ha!”
“It’s not like there’s just one rumor about you, you know.”
“Demons can control monsters, right? It’s a dead giveaway, isn’t it?”
“Ugh, this sucks. Do I seriously have to keep taking classes in the same room as a demonkin bitch?”
“Enough.”
Oh Jung-ho pulled a camcorder out of his bag.
“Actually, I just started a new YouTube channel.”
She looked at him in confusion.
“And I came up with some fun content. Want to be in it?”
The bright, easy way he smiled at her filled her with a nameless dread.
“It’s not a bad deal for you. We’re just going to test whether you really can summon monsters.”
“A... a test?”
“Yeah. After class, at night, you sneak into a quiet restricted zone all by yourself. Then you last for two hours. We’ll see if monsters show up. An experiment, you could say. What do you think? Sounds like a viral hit, right?”
Her face went white as she shook her head frantically.
“N-no, I don’t want to!”
“Wow. That’s Ha Yerin for you.”
Snickering, Jung-ho glanced at his friends, then turned back to her with a cold stare.
“My practical exam is about to go down the drain because of you, and you think you can just walk away like nothing happened?”
“He’s right. Let’s be real, if you don’t summon any monsters, then nothing happens, right? What, you scared?”
They closed in, surrounding her. Yerin tried to back away, but her back hit the wall.
“How about this for a title? ‘Live Monster Mukbang: High School Girl Edition!’”
“Let’s just slap an 18+ rating on it and start shooting. If we tie her up, the views will go insane.”
“Ha ha ha! Oh man, that psycho Kim Seok-gyu! He’d nuke the video in a heartbeat if we did that!”
“There are plenty of other sites besides YouTube.”
’They’re all insane.’ As Yerin turned to bolt—
“Freeze.”
A crackling spear of electricity slammed into the ground right at her feet. Sparks danced at the tip of Oh Jung-ho’s index finger.
It was first-tier lightning magic.
“If you keep being uncooperative, the content is just going to get more extreme.”
“Come on, do your part for a future creative genius.”
“Why are we even asking for her cooperation? Let’s just drag her off and start filming.”
They advanced on her. Yerin was so terrified her body locked up. She hadn’t wanted to cry, but tears spilled down her cheeks.
’Why?’
’Why was I the only one born like this...?’
BOOM!
Just then, Oh Jung-ho’s head snapped to the side as if struck. He staggered and dropped to one knee.
“Guh...! Shit! Which one of you hit me?!”
“W-we didn’t!”
BOOM!
This time, the impact slammed into his gut. Eyes bulging, he gagged.
BOOM!
The second boy’s knees gave out.
CRACK!
The third boy’s head snapped forward as if his neck had been wrenched.
And the last boy standing took a blow to the face that sent his features rippling as he flew to the ground. Before anyone realized what was happening, all four of them, including Oh Jung-ho, were rolling on the pavement.
“How about this for content instead?”
The camcorder flew out of Jung-ho’s hand and landed neatly in a man’s grip. Filming the four boys writhing on the ground, he spoke in a calm voice.
“Scumbag Punks Getting What They Deserve.”
“Wh-what the fuck! Who the hell are you?!”
Yerin jumped in shock.
Jeans and a hoodie. It was the very same man who had eaten dinner at her house the night before.
’Ahjussi...!’
Yusin slowly crouched down and smiled.
“Or maybe this? The Animal Kingdom: Earthworms Squirming in the Blazing Sun.”
“You crazy son of a bitch! Who the hell do you think you are?!”
A massive impact slammed into the back of the yelling boy, knocking the wind out of him with a strangled grunt.
“Work with me here. Earthworms don’t have mouths, so they can’t talk. Yeah, that’s it. The more you squirm, the more realistic it looks.”
Every time they tried to fight back or scream, Yusin cheerfully worked them over with magic. Each blow wrung another agonized scream from their throats.
“AAAAAGH! It snapped! I swear it snapped!”
“This fucking psycho! Help! He’s really trying to kill us!”
No matter how much they screamed, the sound didn’t travel. Yusin had already laid down a soundproofing magic circle. A chilling smile spread across his face.
“Or how about this for content? Forced Retirement Ceremony for Wannabe hunters. Maybe I should break something so you’ll never use it again.”
Seeing him beam as he said it, they all had the exact same thought.
’This guy is a complete lunatic.’
Once they finally grasped the situation, the other boys were sobbing and begging for their lives. Only one of them, Oh Jung-ho, was different.
“You’re a hunter, aren’t you? You fucking hunter?”
Eyes blazing, he shouted at Yusin.
“How dare you lay a hand on civilians? You’re dead! You know who my dad is? He’s already buried a few people in Dunge—”
SMACK!
Sagittarius activated, and his mouth snapped shut as if clamped in a vise.
’Kids these days really aren’t scared of adults at all, huh.’
Crouching again, Yusin pulled out his phone.
The phone was wrapped in a Water Veil, and on the screen was his ID. Their eyes all went wide at once.
“Th-the Enforcement Bureau...”
They were the hunters who hunted other hunters—monsters with transcendent authority, permitted to kill in any hunter-related crime.
“I came to investigate violence among Awakened students on campus, and what do you know, I reeled in a big one right away.”
Yusin smirked.
“So, who’s your dad? Come on, say his name. Who’d he bury in a Dungeon?”
Oh Jung-ho’s face trembled uncontrollably.
“Bullshit! There’s no way you’re Enforcement!”
“Do I look like I’m lying to you right now?”
Yusin’s mana, which had been quietly seeping out, suddenly surged into Jung-ho’s body. The boy’s expression darkened in an instant, and he began to shake as if he had just seen a ghost.
’Looks like he finally gets it.’ Rising to his feet, Yusin spoke.
“Kneel. You cancerous little shits.”
They scrambled up and dropped to their knees, all of them bawling, snot and tears streaming down their faces.
“This is your last chance.”
With a flick of his finger, the ground in front of their foreheads bulged upward, and a sharp Earth Claymore erupted from the dirt.
“If I hear your names even once more in my vicinity...”
“W-wait, what—?”
Fourth-order Aiolos activated, and their bodies floated into the air.
As they rose dozens of yards, they kicked their legs in terror, faces drained of color. They screamed for mercy, begged him to stop, but Yusin calmly lowered his arm.
WHOOSH!
They plummeted.
And then—
“Guh—!”
“Haah!”
They stopped just inches from the Earth Claymore’s edge.
“There won’t be a second warning.”
For the finale, Yusin flung them into the wall, then straightened up.
All four of them were sobbing, having literally pissed and shit themselves.
With one last casual wave of his fingers, he shattered the camcorder, memory card and all, then turned to Yerin.
“Let’s go.”
“...Y-yes!”
* * *
After giving the punks a proper education, I walked away with her at my side.
Sneaking glances at me, Ha Yerin finally spoke up in a small voice.
“Thank you for saving me. B-but... wasn’t that a bit much?”
“Too much, huh.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and let out a sigh.
“Think about what they were planning to do to you. If I’d gone easy on them, you would have been the one to suffer for it.”
She remained silent.
“And trash like that, rotten to the core, doesn’t change no matter what you do. You have to hit them with a life-altering shock before they feel anything at all.”
“...Okay.”
She lowered her head.
“Oh, and by the way, aside from the Earth Claymore earlier, every spell I used on those punks was wind magic.”
“Huh? Really?”
She blinked rapidly.
“You’ll be able to use them yourself before long.”
We took the subway toward Achasan Mountain.
From the base of the mountain, I could already see the demonkin trees growing thick and vigorous. It had been a long time since I’d been here.
The sudden hike seemed to throw her off, but she followed without complaining.
“This mountain is an essential part of my life story.”
“Why?”
Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she looked a lot more relaxed now that we were somewhere fresh and open.
“Before I became a hunter, I used to run around here to raise my stats.”
She tilted her head.
“You didn’t go to Field Dungeons or hunting grounds?”
“Back in the day, because of the Non-Combatant policy, you couldn’t just go around hunting even rank-one monsters.”
“Oh, I think I’ve heard of that!”
“Mana forest bathing was a big fad back then too.”
She brought her hands together politely and covered her mouth.
“Mana forest bathing...! I don’t even remember the last time I heard that phrase. You really are an ahjussi!”
“...You and I aren’t that far apart in age.”
Chatting about this and that, we climbed to about the halfway point.
Leaving the main trail, we followed a small side path until the trees suddenly fell away, revealing a wide, unobstructed view.
Below us, the entire city of Seoul spread out in a single sweeping panorama.
“Wow...”
Eyes shining, she stared at the scenery, then hurriedly pulled out her phone to start taking pictures.
“Good. We’ll train here.”
I set my bag down as I spoke.
“What kind of training are we doing? New wind magic? Third-circle?”
“Wrong on all counts.”
I gave her a slightly sinister smile.
“Basics.”
