Chapter 193: Home Visit (2)

TL: SHW

October 30.

10:31 p.m.

Like most vacation homes belonging to chaebol families, Lee Mi-seon's villa stood in a sparsely populated area.

It wasn't far from the beach. Along the winding road, there were only scattered structures that might have been houses, warehouses, or perhaps even abandoned buildings. With so little around, streetlights were scarce on the road leading to the villa, leaving it dark and desolate after sunset.

A black car drove down that dark, desolate road.

Nothing could be seen through its pitch-black windows. Even so, the car continued slowly down the road before gliding into the only enormous mansion in the area with its lights on. A long wall of roses blooming out of season stretched around the estate.

Despite its imposing appearance from the outside, everything within the walls was a mess. Not a patch of healthy grass remained in what must once have been a well-tended garden, and the ornamental trees had been brutally snapped and left where they fell. The flowers decorating the beds were no different. At least the paths people walked on had been cleared. Though that amounted to little more than removing broken stones and loose twigs.

As for the building towering beyond the devastated garden, it was in even worse shape. The exterior walls, which must once have had a modern design tailored to the owner's tastes, were covered, like the surrounding wall, in vines with an almost unnerving vitality. The gleaming leaves were so plainly steeped in Mana that anyone could tell. It was such vivid, violent Mana that no Awakened in their right mind would want to go near it.

On top of that, parts of the building bore black scorch marks as though something had exploded inside. The shattered windows gaped bleakly like open mouths. It stood in stark contrast to the rest of the building, which glittered beneath lavish lighting. The jarring imbalance made the atmosphere even stranger.

The black car stopped, trampling over the already ruined lawn.

A moment later, the door opened, and a sneaker-clad foot poked out.

“Wow.”

The boy who stepped out of the pitch-black car looked around and voiced his admiration with exaggerated enthusiasm.

“Sandra would've loved this. She's into stuff like this.”

His red-dyed hair fluttered wildly in the chilly wind. A smile as pretty as a picture spread across his pale face. If not for the sharp voice that cracked at the ends whenever he laughed, he could easily have been mistaken for a girl.

Alex Hope laughed even more cheerfully.

“Was it called the apocalypse? I thought it was fascinating. Going out of the way to imagine the end of the world. That's why I remember it.”

Hope strode forward without waiting to be shown the way. His childhood friend had told him that when visiting someone else's home, he was supposed to wait for the owner to guide him inside, but…. They weren't exactly on terms that required that much courtesy, were they?

…Or were they? Had she said the less he knew someone, the more polite he should be?

Hope tilted his head.

He could just ask Sandra again. She should be inside anyway.

Following the Mana was easy. It wasn't quite on the level of a Domain, but the mage had put considerable effort into plastering her presence all over the place. If anything, he would have been more cautious if it had actually been a Domain.

Hope sniffed the air. The Mana drifting through it carried a dense scent of roses. It was obviously the work of the mage who had captured him before. She hadn't been strong enough to keep him restrained, but she was a skilled mage. He had barely managed to escape back then, and if she came at him this prepared in the future, getting away might become difficult.

‘Noah had always been hopeless at that sort of thing.’

She probably always would be. He couldn't say about other humans, but Hope knew Noah Michel's magic well.

‘Not that her magic isn't annoying in its own way….’

Sniff.

Hope kept sniffling as the scent of roses grew strong enough to sting his nose.

‘At this rate, my senses could go numb.’

Would that be a problem?

It didn't seem likely that anyone would suddenly attack him under the current circumstances, but he couldn't afford to show weakness. Hope wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Human bodies were far too weak. A Mana concentration this low was enough to make them tired.

It had probably grown more aggressive because the mage who was the source of the magic was away. As a test, Hope lightly kicked at the ground a few times.

Rustle….

The rooted vines moved nimbly beneath the soil.

‘Nope.’

Hope shook his head. He could probably force his way through if he used a little more strength, but these were people he would be seeing often from now on. Following his childhood friend's advice, he intended to behave himself. Better not mess around for no reason. Even he had enough sense for that much.

He let the Mana pooled beneath his feet dissipate. The vines that had been bristling, watching for an opening, settled down as well. They were still circling him, but he'd shown that he had no intention of attacking, so they would calm down soon enough.

Hope lightly brushed the soil with the sole of his shoe, then started walking again.

The scent of roses was strong, but not enough to drown out other Mana. As he headed toward the place where he sensed the greatest concentration, the Hunters who had come to pick him up at the airport followed close behind.

Only belatedly did it occur to him that he probably should have let them guide him after all.

Too late now. Hope didn't dwell on things that had already happened. The Prophets did enough looking back at the past for everyone.

The scent of roses was even stronger inside the building. He briefly considered cloaking himself in Mana, then decided against it. There was someone here who could see it.

“Ah. You're here.”

“Hi!”

Hope waved brightly with a smile.

Perhaps the humans had grown used to him after seeing him a few times now, because they merely frowned a little instead of reacting strongly.

He considered that decent progress, since they weren't attacking him on sight or even glaring at him as though they wanted him dead. Their first impressions of each other might have been bad, but they could gradually become friends like this.

Hope looked at Gamble, who was sitting on a sofa. When their eyes met, his childhood friend smiled shyly and waved. Fortunately, she seemed to be doing well. Then again, if these humans had really been that bad, she wouldn't have considered joining forces with them in the first place.

Hope waved back at Gamble in the same way. Only then did the other humans catch his attention.

“You must've had a tiring trip, coming all this way by plane.”

It was Hong Seok-young. Unkempt hair. Patchy stubble. His face looked somewhat stupid with that crooked grin on it, but Hope couldn't let his guard down.

Among the humans currently alive, Hong Seok-young was strong enough to rank among the top handful. He was also the person who played the largest role in Sandra's plan.

Even apart from that….

‘That's not something I need to worry about right now!’

Behind Hong Seok-young stood a woman with her hair tied up carelessly, arms crossed over her chest. Hope usually wasn't good at remembering human faces, but his childhood friend had made such a fuss this time that he'd made a point of remembering hers.

Her name was… a little fuzzy, though.

Still, if she was connected to the Association, it was best to be careful. After living as a human for more than twenty years, there were some things one inevitably learned.

Getting on the Association's bad side meant trouble. Then Mom and Dad would have a hard time. Sandra too.

For Alex Hope, there was no stronger motivation than that.

Hope's gaze shifted away from the woman and toward the young man staring at him with an unimpressed expression.

‘I don't think there was anyone like him at that Research Lab.’

It was unfortunate that the data had been scattered when they'd evacuated the Research Lab in a hurry. Thanks to that, Hope had no way to check immediately either. The man himself had claimed he was from the Research Lab, so all Hope could do was believe him. He did know the face of the boy the man called his younger brother. The kid had been on the list of people who needed to be dealt with.

‘Uh… ah, then technically he wasn't from there, was he? Going by his age… right. He must've been made at the place they had before they joined Ark. So that place wasn't a complete failure either.’

And then came the thought.

‘Good thing Noah doesn't know.’

It was a certainty.

For no particular reason, that put Hope in a better mood, and he gave the man a sweet smile. Most humans were pleased when he smiled at them like this, so surely this human would be no different. That was the simplistic line of thought behind it.

Of course, as for the person who had to take that smile head-on?

‘Why the fuck is that bastard grinning at me?’

Woo Hwijae's already foul mood plunged even further.

***

“So I thought about what I should do.”

Hope paused for a moment, then corrected himself.

“Sandra thought about it.”

Honest… was he?

Then again, maybe that was better than not knowing his own limits.

I glanced at Gamble, but she was only smiling sheepishly. Was that woman really letting Hope talk again after being so flustered by his loose mouth before? Well, that was probably why she'd signed the employment contract I'd handed her without making any revisions.

“It seems like your side has been going pretty far out of its way to accommodate us.”

Well, that was true.

Instead of rambling vaguely, Hope went straight to the point. Gamble had probably told him to do that too.

As if to make it clear that she wasn't planning to dump everything on Hope and wash her hands of it, Gamble did step in.

Was I supposed to count it as a good thing that Gamble understood we were making concessions? Someone moral enough to volunteer to serve as another person's humanity wasn't the type to forget a favor she'd received.

This… relationship, which I still couldn't even be sure was an alliance, depended on a single human being's conscience.

It was so very human, and I still couldn't believe it.

“So?”

“We can't tell you directly, but we can't stop your side from finding out on your own either.”

“Here. This.”

Hope pulled a crumpled, folded piece of paper from his pocket and held it out. Hong Seok-young took it.

“These are… places it'd be good to check? Or should I say places where you might find something?”

I moved closer to Hong Seok-young and looked at what was written on the paper. Forceful handwriting that couldn't have been called good even out of politeness was scattered across the page.

The word written at the very top.

Myeongdong.

Myeong-dong.

I frowned.

“I started by narrowing it down to the Dungeons in Korea, okay? Some of them might've already closed. It's hard for us to check even that in real time…. Local Hunters can confirm that faster anyway.”

Beside Myeong-dong was a drawing of a horned cow. I quickly scanned the place names written on the page.

Even amid the chaotic handwriting, the drawing of a centipede with a ridiculous number of legs was absurdly easy to spot.

Bangi-dong.

“…….”

Annoying.

Hong Seok-young took a picture of the Dungeon list Hope had given him with his phone camera, then passed it to Lee Mi-seon. Lee Mi-seon looked over the list as well, and her expression hardened.

“Hmm, what else was I supposed to say?”

“Is that all already?”

“No, there was something else….”

Hope scratched vigorously at his head. Just as Gamble was about to say something, Hong Seok-young spoke first.

“Then may we ask you a question as well?”

“Huh?”

“I've heard an interesting rumor about you.”

“Me?”

“That you're the boss of Ark.”

“Uh….”

Discomfort flashed across Hope's face.

“I'd like you to tell us about that in a little more detail.”

***

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