Chapter 8

Chapter 8. The Civil Servant's Proposal

***

Morning sunlight forced its way through the gap in the curtains.

The light illuminated even a single speck of dust with sharp clarity.

The discharge procedures were finished.

It was too short to call a long rest, but it had been enough time to sort out my thoughts.

'Now it's time to move again.'

I sat up.

My joints moved lightly. The aftereffects of the mana backflow were gone, and the mana flowing through my blood vessels had grown much thicker and steadier than before.

"Airi. Briefing."

[Successor, current Level: 10. Available Skill Points: 15P.]

A concise graph appeared in the air.

Level 10.

For a result earned from a single Gate raid, it was extraordinary.

Before the regression, this was a realm I would have had to grind for a year to reach.

Monopolizing a Gate alone was not common.

On top of that, the reward for solo-killing an elite monster, and a named individual at that, was sweet.

[Conditions met. Promotion to 2nd Circle available.]

[Proceed with promotion?]

The system's temptation.

If I became a 2nd Circle mage, my total amount of mana would increase, and I would be able to use a wider variety of elemental magic.

For an ordinary mage, it was an offer they would welcome with both arms raised.

"No. Put it on hold."

I pressed the refusal button without hesitation.

[Requesting reason. This is an opportunity to increase combat power.]

"A Circle is nothing more than the size of the vessel."

I knew because I had stood at the peak of the 9th Circle.

Simply expanding the mana pool was something only amateurs did.

Filling a large vessel with water was important, but how much pressure you used to shoot that water out mattered more.

What I needed now was not flashy wide-area magic.

It was the 'compression ratio' and 'precision' to cram high-density mana into the narrow passage called a blade without making it burst.

If you raised the floors when the foundation work was shoddy, it would eventually collapse.

The last mana backflow was proof of that.

"Right now, I focus on fuel efficiency and optimization. I'll increase the density and make the mana as hard as steel."

I scanned the skill tree branching out like the boughs of the 'Tree of Sephiroth.'

My eyes stopped in one place.

[Synchronization].

The heart of a magic swordsman, and the most unstable skill.

I had to raise this one's level to balance the output of mana and aura.

"Invest all 14 points in [Synchronization]."

[Confirmed. It is a high-risk investment, but... executing.]

[How will you allocate the remaining 1 point?]

"There's nothing to think about. Put it into [Blink]."

A survival skill, and the core of creating variables.

With this, the basic setup was complete.

I changed clothes and packed my bag.

Just as I was about to open the hospital room door.

Knock, knock.

The door opened with the sound of knocking.

It was an unfamiliar man.

Early forties. A half-loosened necktie and a rumpled black suit.

He looked like the typical image of an office worker suffering from chronic overwork, but his eyes alone were alive.

And there was a subtle sense of incongruity coming from him.

'His mana wavelength... He isn't an ordinary person. But it's too faint for him to be an active Hunter.'

Either a retired Hunter or a special-type Awakened.

The man came in with a genial smile.

"Are you Mr. Kim Do-jin?"

A face I felt I had seen somewhere.

I searched through the library of my memories, but no clear name surfaced.

Still, I nodded without lowering my guard.

"Who are you?"

"Ah, excuse me. I am Kim Dae-han, team leader of the Supernatural Ability Management Team in G City, Gyeonggi Province."

Kim Dae-han.

The moment I heard that name, a faint afterimage brushed through my mind.

It felt like a name I had seen in a corner of the news before the regression, or perhaps one that had passed by in an Association report.

"What business does a City Hall civil servant have with me?"

"I heard you were being discharged, so I stopped by for a moment. How is your body? I heard your mana backflow was severe when you were found."

His tone was kind, but there was a barb inside it.

It was not a simple greeting. It was a probe.

A gaze checking my condition and gauging my capabilities.

It had the sticky feel of a predator's eyes sliding over the vital points of its prey.

I straightened my clothes and answered evenly.

"Thanks to you, I survived. Thank you for your concern."

An answer that offered no opening.

Kim Dae-han stared at me for a moment, then smiled and got to the point.

"I will ask you directly. The Donggureung Gate."

His eyes turned sharp.

The eyes of a hunter wearing the mask of a civil servant.

"How did you know about it and enter?"

He came straight in.

'So he knew after all.'

The Donggureung Gate had been hidden by a concealment barrier.

It was not a place an ordinary person could discover while taking a walk.

But I did not panic.

Instead, I sat leisurely on the edge of the bed.

"It is the mountain behind my house. A walking trail."

"You breached a hidden barrier by chance while taking a walk? As a newly Awakened Hunter hopeful?"

"I Awakened on Christmas. I got a little excited and handled my mana roughly, then stumbled onto it."

A brazen lie.

But the more blatant a lie was, the more confidently it had to be told to sound like the truth.

When my eyes did not waver, Kim Dae-han's brow narrowed.

"One more question. The tremendous mana explosion detected inside the Gate. Was that also part of your walk?"

"It was my first time using magic, so I could not control it. I fired desperately to survive, and that is what happened. Is that illegal?"

I asked him back.

Instead, I pressed him.

Entering the Gate might have been illegal trespassing, but killing the monsters was self-defense and a public service.

It was an unspoken pressure that told him he had no grounds to interrogate me.

A brief silence passed.

A taut battle of nerves.

Kim Dae-han was the first to draw back his gaze.

"Haha, well, this is awkward. I asked too much like an interrogation. Please do not misunderstand. I did not come to question you."

He raised his hand and took one step back.

But I could tell.

He had not retreated. He was about to take out another card.

"Then state your business."

"I came to make you an offer, Mr. Do-jin. Before that... would you hear my story?"

***

The story Kim Dae-han brought out was predictable and horrible.

Ten years ago, on the day the Gates first opened.

He had gone to the supermarket to buy ingredients for tteokbokki.

Because his daughter had been begging for it.

Only thirty minutes.

In that short span, the world turned upside down.

The alleyway back home reeked of blood.

A broken front gate. Shattered windows.

And bloodstains splashed across the living room floor.

"There were no traces of people. They had all been dragged away or eaten."

Kim Dae-han's voice was dry.

He did not wring out tears or seek sympathy.

It was simply a tone that seemed to recite a factual report. That made it all the more raw.

"What I found later was one finger. My daughter's pinky."

He fiddled with his own left pinky.

It seemed to be a habit.

In that one gesture, I could read ten years of pain and obsession.

"Since then, I have shuddered at anything to do with Gates. That is my driving force."

He lifted his head and looked at me.

The emotions dwelling in those eyes.

Hatred, and obsession.

They were the same kind of eyes as mine.

They overlapped with the image of me sobbing before my family's corpses before the regression.

'He's sincere.'

At least when it came to his enmity toward Gates, it was not a lie.

I crossed my arms and stared at him.

"So? What does that have to do with me?"

I cut him off coldly. I had no intention of being swayed by a sob story.

Emotions were emotions, and business was business.

Kim Dae-han gave a faint smile, as if he liked my reaction.

"The Donggureung Gate you entered. It did not occur naturally."

Now this was interesting.

A mere civil servant had taken an interest in an incubation-type Gate.

When I remained silent, he took a document envelope from his coat and held it out.

"This is the barrier pattern I analyzed. I am not a combat type, but I am fairly confident when it comes to barrier analysis."

I skimmed through the documents.

Complex magic circles and waveform graphs.

To an ordinary person, they would have looked like scribbles they could not understand, but to my eyes, I could see it.

"This is..."

The wavelength of a naturally occurring Gate was irregular.

But the pattern printed on the documents was precise.

A geometric pattern as though measured with a ruler.

An artificial arrangement reminiscent of an arabesque design.

I decided to throw something out there.

To see how much he knew.

"Are you saying someone installed it deliberately?"

"Yes. And very precisely."

"Are you saying humans can create Gates?"

"I do not know that. But..."

Kim Dae-han spoke with certainty.

"Someone is hiding Gates and raising them. Like a fish farm."

"A fish farm..."

It was an apt comparison.

Were they artificially managing incubation-type Gates, then bursting them to gain benefits?

Or causing greater chaos?

Whoever they were, they clearly saw this city, no, this country, as a game board.

"I hear the West has recently been studying such things under the term 'Easter eggs.' But here at home, no one pays any attention."

"What about the Bureau? Why did you not try poking them before coming to me?"

At my question, Kim Dae-han's expression twisted.

Pure contempt crossed his face.

"Those bastards? What good is submitting reports when they feed them into the shredder?"

He clicked his tongue.

"They are either incompetent, or they are in on it. One of the two."

Another puzzle piece clicked into place.

The collusion between the Gate Cult and the Bureau that my sister had mentioned.

And the 'artificial Gates' Kim Dae-han was talking about.

Everything was connecting into a single point.

'He has value.'

I closed the documents and returned them to him.

But Kim Dae-han did not take them.

"Mr. Do-jin, you broke through Donggureung's barrier. Very cleanly, too."

"I believe I told you I was lucky."

"Luck dispels a high-grade concealment barrier? Without leaving a trace?"

He stepped closer.

"I have no power. I can see barriers, but I do not have the power to break them, or the power to kill the monsters inside. That is the limit of a civil servant Hunter."

The man was desperate.

But he was not servile.

"But you have power, Mr. Do-jin. The force that devastated that Gate."

"So?"

"I am making you an offer. Join us as a Hunter affiliated with City Hall."

I let out a quiet laugh.

"Are you telling me to become a civil servant Hunter? A position with low pay, overtime, and nothing but responsibility?"

"I will give you information."

Kim Dae-han took out a card.

A card I could not refuse.

"The coordinates of unusual Gates within G City's jurisdiction that I have investigated. And access privileges to the nonpublic database those Bureau bastards are hiding. I may not look it, but my rank is fairly high."

"······."

"Your eyes say you are chasing something too, Mr. Do-jin. They are not the eyes of someone who merely goes on walks."

He looked me straight in the eyes.

"Is this not a win-win? I need a problem solver, and you must need hunting grounds and information."

It was a perfect transaction.

He had seen through the fact that I was not moving out of simple justice.

I also knew that he was not a righteous civil servant.

He was an avenger.

A man who could throw away something like a civil servant's ID at any time for the sake of revenge.

It was a rational offer.

The coordinates of unusual Gates within G City's jurisdiction.

The Bureau's nonpublic database.

These were weapons I desperately needed right now.

It was a shortcut a hundred times more efficient than headbutting bare ground.

With my arms crossed, I silently looked down at the hand he held out.

Before the regression, I had experienced countless alliances and betrayals before reaching the peak of the 9th Circle.

Each time, one lesson had been carved painfully into my bones.

'Do not take another person's desperation as collateral.'

Something my brother said from time to time.

A human burning with revenge was like a sharp blade.

Used well, it cut down enemies, but with one wrong move, it could cut the wielder too.

Besides, I did not know this man.

I did not know whether he was mad with grief after losing his daughter, or a cunning human being who could even act out that grief.

He had not been verified yet.

Most importantly, the tag of 'City Hall affiliated' would become a shackle that restricted my actions.

I had no intention of becoming a chess piece that followed someone else's orders.

I would set the board.

A 9th Circle mage did not pour mana into an unverified formula.

No matter how sweet an output it promised.

"It is a reasonable offer. So reasonable that it almost seems there is no reason to refuse."

The corners of Kim Dae-han's mouth rose slightly.

"However, I refuse."

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