Chapter 143 – #31_City Life (3)
#141
1.
I don’t know who coined the term “tropical night,” but I think they were a genius with language.
Tropical + night, doesn’t the image just pop into your head?
At 2 AM, Siwoo, idly twiddling his thumbs, went out to buy cigarettes as usual.
It wasn’t for any particular reason. Just a walk.
During his slave days, he couldn’t because he was too exhausted, but Siwoo often went out for a night stroll to clear his head or change the atmosphere.
As long as Siwoo was wearing his eye patch, it was impossible to tell if he had a brand just by looking, and there were only a few people within Gehenna who knew he could use magic, so as long as he didn’t cause a ruckus outside, he wouldn’t have any problems even if he happened to run into an exile.
Since nothing had happened during his leisurely days, he walked along the street with a more relaxed attitude compared to when he first returned.
The downtown area where Siwoo’s officetel was located was filled with cicadas chirping in the bright lights, but the secluded one-room village just a bit away from the downtown area was quiet.
Old-fashioned utility poles, power lines, and yellowish sodium lamps illuminated his feet, something hard to find in new cities these days.
“It’s still hot.”
Siwoo grumbled softly, flapping his shirt collar as he looked for a vending machine under a streetlight.
To make his walks less boring, a routine was important.
As everyone knows, land in Seoul is expensive.
To make the most of the small, expensive land, they carved out one-room villages on the mountainsides. Climbing those steep hills, there was a public park at the top of the mountain.
The shabby vending machine at the park entrance was Siwoo’s routine point.
He would come up here, drink a beverage, smoke a cigarette, and think about which way to take his walk today.
“Coke.”
Siwoo pulled out a can of coke without hesitation and lit a cigarette.
The sweet and refreshing carbonation spread through his slightly parched body, allowing him to catch his breath.
“Ugh, this is so annoying.”
He had sweated so much climbing the hill that the area where the eye patch touched his skin was damp.
“Ugh, damn it, I wish it was on my balls instead. Witches have it on their wombs, why am I the only one…”
Having to live with one eye covered was quite inconvenient.
As an ethereal being, his eyesight wouldn’t deteriorate even if he insisted on using only one eye, but it did cause problems with his sense of distance.
But if he took off the eye patch, his radiant golden eyes with the magic sigil would attract too much attention.
It didn’t matter if ordinary people saw it, but if an exile with bad intentions saw it… it was obvious what would happen.
As Siwoo gulped down his coke, he noticed something.
If he had looked far away as soon as he took off the eye patch, would he have noticed it sooner?
The air currents around him were tangled.
Like threads floating in water, or rather, like denser cotton.
To be more precise, the magic around him was stagnant.
Magic is originally an unknown ‘flow’ without physical substance.
However, it is not completely unaffected by external influences, so magic floating in the air in a normal environment drifts along like a flowing river.
But not now.
It was staying within a certain radius, like liquids of different temperatures convecting in a cup.
“………”
Siwoo put the eye patch in his pocket and immediately stood up, flicking away his cigarette butt.
It might already be too late, but he maximized the range and intensity of the music box.
His heart was pounding.
Siwoo had experienced this phenomenon before.
The water bottle created by Ea Sadalmelik, the ‘Otherworld Barrier.’
It was a type of barrier that cut out one world and overlaid another world on top of it.
In Gehenna, which had already been separated by Duke Keter, it only served to reduce the signs of magic, but it was different in the mortal realm.
The space separated by the Otherworld Barrier became another world, and everything that happened inside the barrier was isolated from the mortal realm.
Simply put, a space A divided by the Otherworld Barrier was replaced by a copied space B.
There was no need to think about anything more complicated than that.
What was important now was to deal with the unexpected situation.
“Bloom.”
Siwoo quietly chanted the incantation.
The magic power, pushed to its limit, was immediately converted into black shadows.
The magic that Siwoo was most confident in and certain of, the Law of Shadows ver. 2, which had recently been redefined.
He used the shadows he created to make armor and wrapped it around his body.
The shape of a sleek plate armor.
It didn’t look like it had much defensive power, but its performance was probably better than any protective suit in the world.
Siwoo finished his full armor, except for the helmet that would obstruct his vision.
“Hoo… hoo….”
Was it because of the adrenaline rush from facing a crisis?
His heart, which had been quieted by the repetitive routine of his boring life, was now pumping blood hotly to the ends of his limbs.
When he faced the smugglers at the inn, when he faced the homunculus at the Latifundium, when he faced Ea Sadalmelik.
It was all the same as now.
As far as Siwoo knew, there were two reasons for the sudden appearance of an ‘Otherworld Barrier’ in the mortal realm.
“Is it an exile?”
One was, of course, a witch.
The Otherworld Barrier was originally a magic that Duke Keter had researched by capturing homunculi and widely distributed before Gehenna was created.
Even back then, the power of witches was comparable to natural disasters, and when witches clashed, the aftermath was devastating.
For example, the Black Death, which swept across Europe in the 14th century and killed one-third of the population, was said to have been caused by the curse of the ‘Plague Witch’ spreading during several clashes with Keter.
It was an old document, so it was hard to say if it was true, but anyway, when witches in the mortal realm hunted or fought, they always declared an Otherworld Barrier before using their powers.
“A homunculus?”
The other was a homunculus.
As you can tell from the fact that Duke Keter researched and created homunculi, the ‘core’ of a homunculus has a magic sigil that constantly declares an Otherworld Barrier.
That’s why they can roam freely in the mortal realm without humans knowing about their existence, and why witches have trouble hunting them.
While carefully scanning his surroundings, he looked over the side of the barrier, which was shaped like a large hemisphere.
Judging by eye, the diameter was about 100 meters.
It included not only the public park but also part of the one-room village.
Looking at the texture of the boundary, it wasn’t as elaborate as Ea’s water bottle.
It didn’t seem like there was a terrible magic sigil that melted prey trying to escape from the inside.
If so, the best thing to do was to carefully get out of the barrier.
“No.”
Siwoo shook his head. That wouldn’t be the best option.
This wasn’t Gehenna.
In the mortal realm, no one could directly help Siwoo, so he had to shake off the sparks that fell on his clothes himself.
In that situation, would he just run away without checking the existence of a potentially dangerous element?
He might be safe for now.
But the lack of information could turn into a crisis without giving him a chance to prevent it.
Siwoo checked the music box, which was stretched to its limit, and then climbed the stairs of the public park.
The effect of the music box was excellent.
It not only blocked magic waves, signs of people, and sounds, but also made him blend into the scenery.
It was a kind of ghillie suit.
Siwoo, ready to flee or engage in combat at any time, carefully took one step at a time.
To be honest, the facilities weren’t great since they were old.
The exercise equipment installed along the hillside was so rusty that it was impossible to tell when it was last used, and the wooden stairs made for easy climbing were rotten in places.
As he climbed further along the hiking trail, he heard a rustling sound.
No, the expression ‘sound of people’ wasn’t quite right.
Because it wasn’t a sound made by a person.
Orange sodium lamps.
An observation deck overlooking the famous street area, the university hospital across the main road, and the campus at the same time.
A beast was crouching above it.
About the size of a large dog.
If it stretched out its crouching body and raised its legs, it could easily step on Siwoo’s crown with its front paw.
“……….”
It wasn’t a rural or mountainous area, there was no way a wild animal of that size would be roaming around the mountains of Sinchon.
Moreover, the Otherworld Barrier spread around this area added to Siwoo’s certainty.
That it was a homunculus.
He lowered his body further and observed it closely.
What covered the homunculus’s skin wasn’t fur.
Instead, it was shiny like tar melted on thick rubber, and a single red eye was embedded between its brows.
It was so black that it lacked three-dimensionality.
“……..”
Siwoo held his breath.
Hunting homunculi was only recommended for witches above the 15th rank, that is, those with activated autonomous defense.
Siwoo, who didn’t have a formal brand, didn’t have autonomous defense, and he didn’t have a way to accurately measure his rank.
However, based on the knowledge he had heard and seen and comparisons with his surroundings, Siwoo’s level was roughly 14-15.
He was at a level where he could barely catch a homunculus, or conversely, be defeated by a homunculus.
It hadn’t noticed his presence yet.
If he quietly slipped away, he could return without any problems.
He had hunted a homunculus at the Latifundium before, but that was only because he was lucky.
First of all, he had the help of the twins to cover his eyes and buy him time, there was a clear weakness that the Law of Shadows used by the homunculus was weak against high-pressure magic, and there was also a magic spring nearby to replenish the necessary magic power.
What about now?
It was just Siwoo’s body.
Even if his magic level had increased to an incomparable degree compared to then, the combat power of homunculi varied from individual to individual.
There was a high possibility that Siwoo would be counterattacked if he recklessly charged in.
Let’s leave it and run.
That was Siwoo’s conclusion.
Until he saw what the ominous monster was doing in the orange light.
-Crunch, crunch, crack, crack
Siwoo’s brow furrowed.
He hadn’t even confirmed it yet, but the sound, which was strangely loud under his ear, was like a grinding sound.
It sounded like it was tearing through a lump of meat, or like it was biting into a hard object.
Siwoo couldn’t help but turn around due to his instinctive disgust and discomfort.
-Crack, crack, crack
That’s when he noticed.
That the trees around the monster were glowing a dark red.
That what he thought were ropes scattered around were actually intestines forcibly pulled out from a stomach.
It was certain.
It was eating ‘humans.’
His mind went blank.
He had experienced being a half-corpse, but this was the first time he had seen a corpse.
When he came to his senses, Siwoo was already standing up.
Then he could see it even more clearly.
It was probably an old man who had come out for a night jog.
His cheap hiking clothes were torn to shreds.
Behind him, his almost empty stomach skin was spread out like a curtain, tattered and torn.
The emotion that had made Siwoo stand up, the emotion that he hadn’t been aware of in his bewilderment, sparked like flint striking steel.
The sight of a fellow human being torn apart by a homunculus, no different from a mere beast, evoked nausea and anger rather than fear or terror.
“You… you bastard…”
“Grrr….”
The homunculus, which had been enjoying its meal, turned its head.
A range of motion of the joints that no living creature could achieve.
The growl of the monster, turning its head 180 degrees to look at Siwoo, contained two emotions.
One was the displeasure of being disturbed during its meal.
The other was the joy of a new prey appearing.
“Bloom.”
Siwoo gripped his spear.
