Although the Korean magical community is notoriously closed off.
A Harmony Tier magician could easily earn a hundred million won per year.
Someone on the level of Male Shaman Choi Janggun, whom big spenders reserved appointments to see, made more than twice that.
That was how he’d managed to receive a request from Kim Manchun, a CEO famous in the restaurant industry.
The compensation for this job was a whopping four large bills.
For Choi Janggun, who was strapped for cash trying to acquire a building, it was an opportunity he couldn’t have asked for.
‘The problem is that I’m stuck working with them.’
Yu Gain and Jo Sena.
Choi Janggun tensed up at the appearance of those two, each skilled in their own right.
The compensation for resolving this case was generous, sure, but it might not be enough to split three ways.
But.
Choi Janggun quickly changed his mind.
‘Yu Gain, that snot-nosed brat doesn’t seem like he’s here for the money.’
According to Choi Janggun’s information network, Yu Gain was the type who wouldn’t be interested in this job’s compensation.
In fact, he’d already stated he was participating because of his connection to CEO Kim Manchun, not the money.
Meaning he could readily turn down his share of the reward.
So what about Jo Sena?
He could tell just by looking at her that she was someone who ran her own business.
Someone like that coveting money was as natural as a magpie eyeing grain scattered in front of a mill.
‘Do I have to split this with that cunning wench?’
Swooooosh.
Choi Janggun walked through the cold underground cold storage, his mind racing.
Then he reached a conclusion.
‘No, that minx doesn’t seem to be here just for the money. Women don’t bust their asses running around to earn cash.’
Since ancient times, the magical community had treated and valued women more highly.
Because of the unique physical characteristics of female magicians.
That’s why female magicians tended to be haughty, arrogant, and prickly.
Someone on Jo Sena’s level would be even more so.
Would a female magician with that much money and skill, running her own business, with no apparent connection to CEO Kim Manchun, really lower herself to peddle her skills just for money?
There was only one answer.
‘That Jo Sena bitch must have heard somewhere that Young Master Yu Gain was coming on this job! She’s here to build a connection with him!’
Choi Janggun snapped his fingers in triumph.
For Jo Sena, who’d come to forge ties with a Myeongga, the money from this job was something she could take or leave.
That meant the odds were high that Choi Janggun could claim most of the compensation or take a major share.
But a problem arose.
The entrance of the transfer student, wearing cooking foil underneath his tracksuit.
A total bum.
He looked like he’d sink his slobbering teeth into the chunk of meat Choi Janggun was eyeing and shake it violently.
“Tsk. Kim Manchun, I get that his daughter’s matter has him blind, but this is too much. Bringing in some mongrel with no roots and seating him at the same table as us.”
Choi Janggun clicked his tongue and pursed his lips into a round shape.
When he let out a whistle—hwiiii—the footprints visible beyond his sunglasses grew slightly darker.
‘I’ll just finish this quickly, so that mongrel won’t even dare to demand a share of the reward.’
He was confident.
Choi Janggun was a Male Shaman.
He’d resolved countless possession cases across Korea.
“Alright, where are you? Hwiiiii—.”
Find the spirit possessing CEO Kim’s daughter, converse and persuade it, and untangle its grudges and resentments—.
For Choi Janggun, it was an absurdly easy task.
“Hwiiii—.”
As he kept whistling, into his path.
Between the pigs hanging on hooks, growing cold.
A woman with long hair appeared.
Choi Janggun pulled a bell from his pants pocket, held it forward, and shook it.
“If you’re human, speak. If you’re a ghost, stay right there!”
The bell was one that made no sound, lacking its internal clapper.
But it was a kind of charm that rang in special situations.
Ting-a-ling.
This time, it rang.
Excellent.
This one’s a spirit.
CEO Kim’s daughter, Kim Yeonseo, and the ghost that’s taken over her body!
Choi Janggun’s choice to follow those footprints had been correct.
He thought his luck was in, and raised his voice in stern rebuke.
“Who are you!”
“I am—.”
The woman, so eerie that her face was completely hidden by her long hair, making even her expression unreadable, opened her mouth.
And the next moment—.
“—some—thing.”
An unintelligible voice came out.
Choi Janggun let out a sigh.
If the entity dwelling in her was a ‘foreign spirit,’ the situation changed entirely.
Korean spirits, who wandered the world due to Han (resentment), could usually be dealt with easily if you listened to their story and resolved the cause.
But foreign ones were often filled with nothing but malice, and in such cases, many people ended up hurt or dead.
“Kim Manchun did well to keep her contained. If he’d let her loose like this, several people would’ve been hurt.”
Choi Janggun put the bell away.
Then he took a talisman from the pouch at his waist and held it forward.
“Let’s finish this quickly and go home.”
It was a talisman written with ink ground from dew gathered on peach branches every dawn from 1 AM to 5 AM.
A Suppression Talisman that could exorcise even a Twilight-Tier mystic without any special rituals or ceremonies.
That would be more than enough.
“AAAH! AAAAH!”
Indeed, the lesser spirit writhed before the Yellow Locust Paper Talisman like a burning person.
And finally collapsed onto the floor with a thud.
“We can get out of here before sunset.”
Choi Janggun’s lips curled up at the thought of a quick return home.
But something strange happened.
Ting-a-ling.
The bell that couldn’t ring began to ring again.
Ting-a-ling-ting-a-ling-ting-a-ling—.
Its violent shaking was unusually intense.
“…What the hell?”
Choi Janggun frowned at the bizarre situation.
Before him, ta-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da—.
Countless footprints began to imprint across the floor.
And from the mouth of the woman who’d just collapsed—.
“AAAAH! I’m so huuuungry!”
“Grrrrrrr.“
“Meoooow.“
“¡Comámonos a ese tipo!”
The voices of animals and multiple languages burst out simultaneously.
The footprints even filled the entire floor around Choi Janggun, then spread up the walls and onto the ceiling.
“Th-this… th-this… th-this…”
Choi Janggun could no longer speak coherently.
Because even he had never seen anything like this in his life.
The one thing he knew for certain was that this was never a Twilight-Tier job.
With that thought as his last, he screamed.
“GAAAAH! D-don’t come inside meee!”
#
“Did you just hear a scream somewhere?”
I asked about the sharp noise that had grazed my ear.
Jo Sena tore her gaze away from the strange mechanical device and glared at me.
“Didn’t I say don’t talk to me while I’m measuring the entropy?”
“Oh, entropy. I know all about that. So what is it?”
“…Ugh. Entropy is the degree of order. Places where psychic phenomena or Anomalies appear have entropy levels that spike and become chaotic.”
Entropy.
It was a word I’d never heard in my life, but I roughly understood the principle.
Whatever it was, she was using that Geiger-counter-looking device to detect ghosts, right?
“But it’s not measuring well, like it’s broken. Is it because it’s too cold in here? Or maybe the entity here is too minor to measure.”
A broken Entropy Measuring Device.
Maybe it was because Boribori was loitering around us.
Boribori was an invisible Demon, after all.
‘Wait, but if there’s a Demon around, shouldn’t the entropy levels be skyrocketing…’
If that device wasn’t broken, then Boribori was a being that didn’t even affect that strange entropy meter.
So it wasn’t just invisible.
It was completely undetectable.
Jo Sena tapped the device a few times, then, seeming to lose her temper, shoved it into her handbag.
“Ah, damn! Going down the middle path was the problem after all! Because you spouted nonsense about there being footprints in the center, I had to come along with you!”
The footprints stretched to the left and right, and also down the center.
Of course, it seemed like I was the only one who could see the ones going down the center.
“Then why didn’t you just go right like you wanted to?”
“Gain said he’d take the right side, so he told me to go with you down the center and keep an eye on you. Truth is, I wanted to go with Gain.”
So Jo Sena wanted to be with that handsome Yu Gain after all.
Was she into him?
No, more than that, it felt like she was after some scraps.
I could tell at a glance because she was making the same greasy face my head sommelier, Team Leader Jeong from the Michelin restaurant I used to work at, made when he was attending to the VIP guests who came by occasionally.
“He listens to that guy, and if we finish the job well with me assisting, you’re basically making a small connection with him, so it’s not really a loss for you either, right?”
I asked casually.
Jo Sena’s mouth fell open in a dumbfounded circle.
“You’re younger than me, but you’re already using casual speech with me? You probably don’t know this, but don’t ever use casual speech with female magicians.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, ho.”
“Huh?”
“God, honestly. Male magicians are worth jack in the marriage market. Even if a man has a child, there’s a low chance that kid will inherit the line as a magician. But a female magician gives birth to a magician, no matter what.”
Really? A female magician gives birth to a magician, no matter what—.
Even though I was a novice and a transfer student, I wasn’t stupid enough not to understand what that meant.
I looked at Jo Sena with a slightly shocked expression.
A woman who could give birth to a magician, guaranteed, as long as she had a child.
Amazing!
Whether she was a bit smug from my gaze, Jo Sena kept talking without me even asking.
“When magicians keep giving birth to magicians and building up achievements and accomplishments over generations, that family becomes a magician lineage, and they’re called a ‘Myeongga.'”
“And Yu Gain is from that kind of Myeongga?”
“Right! Do you know how long that family’s lineage has been going on? Originally, people like you and me, and that Male Shaman Choi Janggun, wouldn’t have even been allowed to make eye contact with him, let alone speak!”
“Wow, that guy’s really something impressive.”
“‘That guy’? Watch your mouth. Don’t go acting all chummy and trying to mooch off him.”
“While you’re the one trying to pick up the scraps.”
“Oh ho, you little—.”
Jo Sena scrunched up her face in irritation.
But I stopped talking because I felt something strange.
“Hey, noona, isn’t this basement too wide?”
“Noona? Look at this shameless one. But yeah, it is wide. Weirdly so. I think this basement itself has become some kind of bizarre space.”
“Like the Dori Building Basement?”
“Dori… you know that place? Well, if you know it, I don’t need to explain further.”
In that moment, I learned a bit more about who Jo Sena was.
She grumbled and acted fussy, but she answered everything I asked, and in the end, she never left my side, even though I was a novice in this field.
Of course, it might just be because she wanted to look good to Yu Gain, who’d asked her to accompany me.
She didn’t seem like a bad person.
So I’d better cooperate with her too.
“Noona.”
“What.”
“From now on, just listen to what I say.”
“What are you on about?”
“Don’t ever look up, keep your eyes on the floor. The footprints I saw are climbing up the wall and onto the ceiling.”
Jo Sena’s face slowly stiffened.
Her head and gaze naturally dropped to the floor.
“When I yell three, leap as hard as you can toward my back. One—.”
Jo Sena swallowed hard.
“Three!”
“Yikes, you son of a—!”
Jo Sena threw herself toward me.
As she crashed down, I pulled out the water bottle I’d brought from my waist.
