Chapter 157

No Yeon-hwa was still confined to the Busan nursing hospital.

Except for the caregivers, everyone around her was an elderly person over seventy.

She had passed a few days in the blink of an eye, just eating the sweet red bean jelly they gave her.

By now, mages from all over the world would be gathered at Busan Port to perform a summoning ritual to defeat the Archduke of Darkness.

She wanted to participate in the battle with all her heart, but it was impossible.

The reason was that the Bureau had not authorized her to fight.

—Ha Yeri: Your mission is only to attend the gathering as a representative of a government agency. Unless there is an official request for support from the Magic Tower, there is no room for the Special Unit to observe this incident.

—Division 1 No Yeon-hwa: I told you, the reason Seona sent me is because of that guy, right? That bastard… my sister…

—Ha Yeri: It has nothing to do with personal grudges. Whatever the Commander-in-Chief intended, I, who was also there, did not hear her say it herself.

Therefore, battle was not permitted.

Given Ha Yeri’s disposition, if support were needed, it was highly likely she would send other agents.

I thought about just ignoring it and leaving, but that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

Not only was Seo Chae-rin’s surveillance tight, but breaking through the ward’s security system was trickier than I had imagined.

The statues of Mayor Park Mak-rye standing throughout the ward strictly controlled the access of intruders or unauthorized personnel.

If they detected even the slightest trace of mana, they would fire destructive rays from their eyes, which could easily end up hitting helpless elderly people if one were careless.

So, in the end, all she had been able to do after coming down to Busan for a few days was research the treaty.

“Oh my, you said your name was Yeon-hwa? You’re lovely, so lovely.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“What a shame, with such a nice personality. If my grandson were still here, I would have at least made you two get married.”

“Where is your grandson?”

“He had his throat slit by those Seoul bastards during the evacuation.”

“Yep, he died near the Nakdong River while trying to save Grandpa Chun-bok.”

“…”

Since there was almost no elderly population in Seoul, conversations with them were extremely uncomfortable from No Yeon-hwa’s perspective.

She had only come at night to study the treaty until now, so this was her first time facing the elderly for so long.

Perhaps because they had nothing to do in their twilight years, they kept trying to arrange a marriage for No Yeon-hwa, bringing up every man in Busan, even those related by distant marriage.

According to Hayan, who sometimes came to the ward to act cute and get snacks like dried persimmons, they had said nothing but “How lovely” when he asked them to introduce him to a nurse.

She couldn’t understand why their answers kept changing depending on who was asking.

“Come to think of it, I heard those Japanese bastards came in again this time?”

“Oh, Grandma Sun-ja. It’s not ‘Japanese,’ it’s foreigners.”

“Japanese or foreigners, it’s the same thing—they come into a quiet neighborhood and cause a ruckus. Did they paint the city with honey or something?”

“Mayor Park Mak-rye will handle it well. If you have nothing to do, let’s play Korean chess.”

Taking advantage of the moment their interest waned, she quickly left the spot.

If she stayed there any longer, it was clear that every piece of information, from her family relations to her educational background, would be squeezed out of her.

The place she arrived at, after evading even the eyes of the caregivers, was a supply warehouse in the basement of the hospital.

A strange chill hovered within the small room piled high with patient linens.

“Haa…”

It was a remote place where even the security guards on patrol at dawn forgot to check, but this was the best place for her to concentrate.

That was because she could access the treaty that the Dragon Immortal had placed on Busan in the past.

As the treaty was the symbol and identity of Busan, access was only possible by breaking through the Union’s difficult security, but she faced no restraints in the basement of this small hospital.

She could guess that it was because the elderly people who would trigger the Mutual Annihilation Treaty were gathered here, but… she herself did not yet know the details.

“To wish for the creation of a creature with the greatest beauty.”

As No Yeon-hwa, who had taken a deep breath, opened her mouth, the treaty revealed its true form.

It was a red liquid that surged from the darkness like a fountain.

Each stream contained countless incantations, merging and separating, creating difficult and profound sentences.

It was an aggregate of mana that the Dragon Immortal, known as the greatest Word-Spirit user, had laid down on the ley lines of Busan by drawing out their own blood.

If one could perfectly decipher this, it would be possible to reach a much higher realm than the current one.

She had visited Busan several times in the past to tinker with the treaty.

But back then, as it was now, it was difficult to even maintain consciousness in front of that fountain of blood.

“Annoying.”

The technique of storing Word-Spirit using matter as a medium was a spirit only the Dragon Immortal had shown.

She knew very well that it was not just difficult to imitate, but impossible to even attempt a similar imitation.

Above all, she felt even more pathetic for being unable to go out and fight to avenge her enemies and instead being stuck here like this.

“Sister…”

“Oh my, what a pretty fountain.”

The moment she muttered that, squatting in the basement, a gentle voice came from behind her.

“I heard they refurbished the irrigation canal in the farmland in front of the hospital a while ago—is it because of that? I’ve never seen water this red in all my years, but thanks to that child, I’m getting to see something nice.”

“Who are you?”

The person who entered the basement was an old, white-haired person in a wheelchair.

Although they felt somewhat dignified, they were an ordinary person without the slightest hint of mana.

She handed a blanket she seemed to have knitted herself to No Yeon-hwa and introduced herself.

The identity was truly astonishing.

“My name is Park Mak-rye.”

“Pardon? Mayor…?”

“We’ve met a few times before, haven’t we, Yeon-hwa?”

Since it was customary to greet the mayor when entering Busan, the Special Unit always visited the Union’s stronghold.

However, she had only ever seen the silhouette behind the curtain and had never spoken to her directly.

Although her statues were erected everywhere in the city, she hadn’t recognized her at a glance.

It was because she was so different from what she had heard and seen of Mayor Park Mak-rye until now.

“Are you really the Mayor?”

“Regrettably, everyone calls me that.”

“But your mouth isn’t split into six branches, and no light shines from your eyes?”

“Ah, that was also something that child made up on their own.”

That child?

In an instant, a man flashed through her mind.

“I allowed him to take out a trademark(?) because he said he wanted to make a statue, but somewhere along the line, a strange image started to form, you see.”

“Are you perhaps talking about Hayan?”

“Yes, that child. He stayed at my house from the moment he first came to Busan.”

If it was when Hayan came to Busan, it was when she had been away.

It had been to solve the Union’s murder case alongside Commander Cheon So-baek.

After Lee Do-hwan, the culprit at the time, was caught, the Union’s structure was reorganized, and in that process, Mayor Park Mak-rye, who had succeeded in a coup, seized power, giving birth to the city as it is now.

To think that all of that happened because Hayan had helped from behind the scenes.

It was something he couldn’t believe even after hearing it directly.

“Still, I am grateful to that child. I didn’t do anything, but thanks to him, the city became safe.”

Iron-blooded monarch, judge of sinners. There were so many titles expressing Mayor Park Mak-rye’s majesty and fear that they were even made into booklets.

That was all because Hayan had intentionally built her entire image.

Because there is nothing harder to occupy than a city ruled by a strong dictator.

He had arranged it so that people who would exploit the loopholes of the treaty like Lee Do-hwan would never appear again.

“He told me to try going here once, too. He said he had hidden a treasure and that we should play treasure hunt.”

“Is that true?”

“Of course, it was quite a plight for an old woman who can’t even walk to go up and down places without stairs. And do you know what? He even installed traps! I had to roll these wheels until my hands wore out because the tentacles disguised as walls kept attacking me to grab me.”

“Th-that, I apologize…”

No Yeon-hwa ended up apologizing on Hayan’s behalf without realizing it, due to his rude behavior.

However, Grandma Park Mak-rye shook her head with a benevolent smile.

“It’s alright, thanks to that, I found the treasure.”

“Do you mean this?”

“No, Yeon-hwa. I mean you.”

“Pardon?”

“You are the only one that child, who never considers other people’s perspectives, left behind at the hospital while calling you a treasure.”

Wrapping a blanket around No Yeon-hwa, Grandma Park Mak-rye pointed to the open exit.

“He had intended to sneak you out from the start.”

“Ah…”

“Would you like to go out?”

“But the security system is…”

“That will be fine.”

A statue that fired destructive rays was no threat at all.

Naturally, it was because it had been made to protect one person from the start.

“Because I am the mayor of this city.”

She smiled faintly and straightened her shoulders.

As if she were shy even after saying it herself.

At the same time.

Busan Port was in an uproar.

After Fran—the advisory chair of the Alpine branch of the Magic Tower, who was the host of the gathering, and the founder of the Demon Extermination Agency—approached Hayan and had a conversation, the situation changed rapidly.

As the magic circle began to stain with blood, a massive object that had soared upward pulled a gigantic structure down from the sky.

As the huge pillar touched the ground, the seawater evaporated, and the pier was shattered to pieces.

“It appeared. It was really summoned.”

“Ugh, my god…”

“What on earth is that?”

“Could it be… a tower?”

A rusted and corroded exterior, as if it had been sleeping under the sea for a long time.

A sickening smell of rotting corpses wafted from the countless pieces of flesh stuck in the gaps of the black stone.

As Robert cleared away the fog made of seawater he had evaporated with magic, Hayan and Fran were nowhere to be seen.

It seemed they had been bounced away by the impact of the fall just a moment ago, or buried underneath.

The tentacles that had wrapped around the tower had also disappeared in an instant.

Instead, there was only a heavy air that filled the harbor.

While everyone held their breath and watched.

A door at the bottom opened slowly, and one person revealed themselves.

A face with the lower jaw rotted and fallen off.

A black robe.

An ominous-looking grimoire in one hand and a staff in the other.

And above all, the breathtaking mana of Black Magic, as if it would lead all living things to death at any moment, swallowed the entire city.

『Turning the place where abundance was laid into a famine.』

Looking at the tentacle corpses approaching him bit by bit from the parched earth, he addressed all the mages present through the ‘Channel’.

『You have wasted everything, intoxicated with mere life.』

There was not a single person present who could not feel the fierce hatred dwelling within those words.