Chapter 71 - The Net Closes In (5)

The vampires’ hideout.

Ioannis looked down at Chairman Kim, who was breathing heavily, and spoke in a teasing voice.

“I leave you alone for a little while... and you become a female—an ‘arm-cut.’”

“What?”

Chairman Kim frowned for a moment at the nonsensical remark.

“... You crazy bastard—!”

Then he understood. His face contorted as he clutched his severed left arm.

“Hahaha.”

Laughing, Ioannis handed him the severed arm he had recovered, along with a blood bag.

“You’re alive. Isn’t that what matters? Here’s some blood. Drink while you listen.”

Chairman Kim’s face remained twisted.

“...”

Still, he obediently took his severed arm, held it against the stump, and drank the blood.

SLURP, SLURP.

Ioannis spoke to get a clearer picture of the situation.

“First, I know something unusual happened at your building. What exactly happened?”

Chairman Kim drained the blood bag and answered with a bewildered expression.

“... I don’t know either.”

“So the entire building suddenly came under a massive magical attack you couldn’t make sense of.”

Ioannis nodded, thought for a moment, then spoke.

“Hmm... Was it the master of <Mysteries of the Worm>?”

“What—?!”

Chairman Kim started in alarm. Ioannis shrugged.

“Process of elimination. Right now, the master of <Mysteries of the Worm> is about the only magician in Korea capable of something like this.”

To be honest, even beyond Korea, in Europe with its large population of magicians, someone capable of such a feat would be hard to find.

‘... No, but how did they actually do it?’

Apart from Chairman Kim, who had escaped early, no one had gotten out.

Everyone in the building had been massacred in a brief span of time. Not a trace remained, not even a drop of blood.

Judging by the tremendous magical power he had sensed... it seemed something had been summoned...

If <Mysteries of the Worm> had been used, it would have left a messier scene, with corpses or other traces.

Could its master possess some other means besides <Mysteries of the Worm>? Or was there an unexpected third party?

In any case, Ioannis kept turning it over in his mind.

Perhaps this incident could provide an opportunity to uncover information about the master of <Mysteries of the Worm>, who had kept their identity hidden.

Even if it wasn’t them, he would gain information about another dangerous magician. That would help him formulate his future plans.

“They might simply have stumbled upon your disgusting dinner party and slaughtered everyone, but...”

Ioannis’s blue eyes fixed on Chairman Kim.

“Even the smallest detail will do. Was anything different from your usual dinner parties that day?”

Through his confusion, Chairman Kim recalled his final conversation with his secretary.

“The only difference... was that I had a girl named Namgung Sua brought in, Namgung Su’s daughter, to threaten him...”

“Good. There’s our first lead already.”

Ioannis ordered a subordinate vampire to investigate Namgung Su’s side of things, including whether Sua was alive or dead.

“If everyone who attended the dinner died, but that girl Sua alone survived, then there really must be some connection.”

Then his secretary Mia approached and reported to Ioannis.

“Master, as you ordered, I’ve raised the bounty on the master of <Mysteries of the Worm> to ten billion won.”

Chairman Kim’s eyes widened in shock.

“...!!”

Ioannis spoke calmly to the astonished Chairman Kim.

There was no objection. Ioannis’s vampire clan was now the largest magical faction in Korea.

“Troublesome, dangerous types who sensed something unusual will come flocking here anyway.”

In the dimly lit room, he continued.

“Since that’s how things stand, let’s put even more pressure on the master of <Mysteries of the Worm>.”

The eyes of the vampires who had arrived from America gleamed.

* * *

The infirmary of the Bureau of Anomalous Phenomena Countermeasures.

A gentle-looking woman with a neat bob and glasses, Min Minhwa, master of the grimoire <Donguibogam>, hurried about with the medical team, treating the Special Response Section’s wounded.

Thanks to her, no more of the wounded died.

Lee Hyeeun, a female operative from Team Three, came out of the infirmary and approached Sion, who was resting on a chair in the hallway.

“... We’re really lucky to have Minhwa here.”

“Yes. We truly are.”

Though her face was calm and expressionless, Sion nodded sincerely.

Recalling the <Donguibogam> in Minhwa’s hands, Hyeeun asked,

“With that and the director’s <Muyedobotongji>, what exactly qualifies a book as a grimoire? ... Couldn’t we arm our whole team with grimoires if we searched through a museum?”

“...”

Hmm... That would pose problems of its own...

“According to the research, a book must have some connection to the occult,” Sion explained calmly. “Unofficial histories say that Baek Dong-su, the author of <Muyedobotongji>, was a disciple of Kim Gwang-taek, the Sword Immortal.”

“... The Sword Immortal?”

“They say his swordsmanship reached the level of an immortal. I don’t know whether it’s true, but supposedly, even in old age, his skin was pale and unwrinkled, making him look like a child.”

“That sounds like returning to youth in a martial arts novel.”

As they rested and chatted like this,

BUZZ! BUZZ!

Sion’s phone rang. She checked the caller.

... It was Yohan.

“Please excuse me for a moment.”

Sion rose and answered the call in a deserted corner of the hallway.

“Hello, Sion speaking.”

* * *

Yohan’s small studio apartment.

First, I checked for signs that someone had broken into my home.

Paimon had erased the evidence, but couldn’t someone still suspect, based on a hunch, that I was responsible for the building incident and install a surveillance camera or something while I was away?

Still, I was only checking because I’d spent a night away. I didn’t really expect to find anything.

Fortunately, there really were no signs of a break-in or any surveillance cameras.

Well, I wasn’t a professional detective, so if I’d failed to find something, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

With that quick check out of the way, I filled a bowl with milk and meat and served Grizzly his meal.

“You did well waiting. Eat all you want.”

“Gyaaa.”

I’d never expected to find myself thinking this, but...

For a while, I watched blankly as Grizzly wolfed down his food with relish, finding it soothing.

Then I sat down in a chair and turned to the complicated thoughts I’d been putting off.

My eyes narrowed.

“...”

The first thing I needed to establish was whether Chairman Kim was alive or dead.

I’d summoned an army of demons and swept the building clean, but I hadn’t even seen Chairman Kim’s face.

If he’d been caught up in it and died, good... If not, I had to find him and kill him for certain.

I looked at Sion’s number in my phone contacts.

... There was an easy way to check.

With an incident like that, the Special Response Section would have gotten involved.

I could ask Sion.

Before that, though... I switched on my computer and went to [Mephisto Market].

I had no idea why the hell he stuffed himself with human flesh, but Chairman Kim was a magician with a large building and some social standing. He might be a [Mephisto Market] user.

If he was alive, he might have posted something about the building incident. Even if he hadn’t, there might be some information there.

And then, as I looked at the flood of new posts about Korea on the site,

“Fuck...”

I discovered the scale of what I’d done.

There were other posts, but almost all of them were discussing what had happened in Korea.

‘... Did they detect waves of magical power, like an earthquake?’

If word had spread to all the magicians, there was no need for me to be overly cautious either.

I called Sion right away.

BRR, BRR.

After a few rings, Sion’s calm voice came through.

“Hello, Sion speaking.”

“Sorry to call so late. It’s just, well...”

It felt awkward saying this when I was the one who’d done it, but I spoke anyway.

“It seems something unusual has happened. And there’s something I wanted to consult you about.”

“...”

I heard her draw a breath over the phone, then Sion spoke.

“... Of course. A magician of your caliber would have sensed something, Yohan. But we’re still investigating, so I can’t give you any details yet. If we formally request your cooperation later, I’ll explain then. What did you want to consult me about?”

Honestly, I wasn’t keen on it, but to get information, I had to reveal some of my own.

Keeping the finer details to myself, I told her that Chairman Kim’s men had attacked me while I was taking Sua home, the girl I’d met during the campground incident.

Sion reacted with surprise to the name “Chairman Kim.” After considering for a moment, she told me what had happened.

“You’re a civilian collaborator, Yohan... and you are involved in this case, in a sense.”

As I’d suspected before, Chairman Kim was the father of Kim Miryeo, the cannibal magician who’d run the front disguised as a livestock farm. Apparently, he had organized dinner parties where people were abducted, murdered, and eaten.

I already knew that part, so I only half listened.

The important part was that Chairman Kim had fled during the unusual incident—my demon summoning. The Special Response Section had pursued him, but an outside faction allied with him had appeared and taken him away.

Hearing that Chairman Kim was alive, I said,

“Thanks for telling me. If it’s all right, could you keep me updated on the Chairman Kim case?”

My eyes narrowed calmly of their own accord.

“I’ll cooperate too. There was the Weekend Farm incident, and even if I wasn’t the target this time, I was still attacked.”

I hadn’t become a civilian collaborator for the Special Response Section by choice, but...

“As you said, I’m a civilian collaborator, and I am involved, in a sense.”

Since I already was one, I’d use everything available to me.

Now that I knew Chairman Kim was alive and had allies, I would use the Special Response Section to corner them.

A quiet fire burned in my black eyes.

I stroked Grizzly’s head as he approached silently after finishing his meal.

This time, I would kill him for certain.