Chapter 41 - Just a Vacation (1)

A corridor in the Bureau of Anomalous Phenomena Countermeasures.

Shin Sion, a composed-looking woman with black hair and the leader of Team Three in the Special Response Section, walked wearily toward her team's office after the meeting on the campground zombie incident... which had essentially been a discussion of the cleanup.

The culprit behind this mass zombie incident was clearly Edward Coffin, a wanted magician who had slipped into Korea. They had found his temporary hideout and workshop by the reservoir near the campground. But...

Sion's eyes narrowed. Edward himself had not been found. His whereabouts remained unknown.

When she questioned Yohan separately, he said that a suspicious man had indeed appeared at the hall leading a group of zombies, but had disappeared after being struck by the pentacle magic he had cast through his grimoire. Zombies had swarmed the hall again afterward, but soon reverted to corpses and fell apart like puppets with their strings cut.

Sion loosely curled her hand and brought it to her lips.

Had Edward panicked at the unexpected attack and fled, leaving the zombies as a diversion? Had the zombies stopped moving because his magic was no longer being sustained? She wasn't sure.

... There was, however, one hypothesis that could explain the situation. Yohan had lied. When the zombies attacked the hall again, he had killed Edward in a battle between magicians.

Why hide that fact? Because it would be a problem if the magic or method he had used to kill Edward came to light? Then the way he had disposed of the body was... the Unseen Monster she had seen in the farm basement.

["GAAAAH—!"]

He had fed it to the Invisible Vampire.

'No, no, no.'

Sion took her hand away from her lips and stopped indulging her imagination. She was reasoning as though it were already certain that Yohan really was the master of <Mysteries of the Worm>. That was dangerous. It wasn't good. She was deciding on an answer first, then forcing the steps to fit it.

Of course, there were things that bothered her... but hadn't Yohan disclosed his secret himself and shown that he wasn't the master of <Mysteries of the Worm>?

Yes, a top-class grimoire she had never expected: <The Lesser Key of Solomon>. More commonly known as <Lemegeton>, it was one of the most famous grimoires in the world.

Generally, there were three ways to become a magician. First: enter Miskatonic University or the British Council of Magicians and study magic.

Magicians affiliated with these institutions cooperated reasonably well with the government. ... That didn't mean none of them committed crimes. Edward Coffin, who had caused this latest incident, had come from the British Council of Magicians himself.

Second: become a magician's apprentice, or join a family or school of magicians. Third: be chosen by a grimoire imbued with mystical power.

Magicians valued the third path most highly. That was why, when an ordinary person became a grimoire's master, they would find and kill them before they could grow stronger. ... That wasn't quite accurate. It wasn't just ordinary people. Even if another magician obtained a grimoire, they would try to kill them and take it if they were weak or didn't belong to an established school, family, or organization.

Of course, lacking a grimoire didn't prevent someone from becoming a magician, and a magician without one wasn't necessarily weaker than one who possessed one. Still, to a magician, a grimoire was a treasure they couldn't help coveting. In any case, magicians with grimoires were valuable talent.

There were currently two grimoire users affiliated with the Bureau of Anomalous Phenomena Countermeasures. One specialized in support from the rear, owing to both their personality and the nature of their grimoire. The other's position made it difficult to take to the field. In the first place, that one was classified as a grimoire because it fell under the category of books, but she wasn't even sure it should be called a grimoire.

That made it undoubtedly good news that a magician like Yohan—a grimoire's master who could work directly in the field—was willing to cooperate.

"..."

Yohan's calm eyes came to mind. ... Though she couldn't help wondering if she had invited a tiger in.

As Sion was thinking this, Lee Hyeeun, a new female operative on Team Three, spoke beside her with a worried expression.

"Team Leader Sion, are you all right?"

"Oh... yes. I just have a lot to think about."

"Our meeting's over. Let's go get some coffee."

Sion smiled faintly and nodded.

"Let's do that. ... Though we'll have to work while we drink it."

At that, a gentle-looking woman with glasses and a neat bob, approaching from the other end of the corridor, spoke up.

"I know you can't help it when you're busy, but drinking coffee too often isn't good for you."

It was Min Minhwa of the Bureau's Medical Section, the master of one of the two grimoires mentioned earlier that the Bureau possessed—or, more precisely, that Korea possessed: <Donguibogam>.

One might wonder why a famous medical text was a grimoire, but alongside legitimate medical knowledge, Donguibogam contained folk remedies that made no sense from the perspective of modern medicine: ways to counteract curses, sorcery, and gu poison; remedies for harm inflicted by ghosts; treatments for frequent nightmares; and methods of combining herbs into medicinal pills with unknown effects. Those passages constituted its occult knowledge as a grimoire.

Hyeeun greeted Minhwa warmly.

"Oh! Min-Min!"

"Please stop calling me Min-Min. It's Minhwa."

With a mild grumble, Minhwa handed Sion the documents she was carrying.

"I was just on my way to see you. Good timing. Here are the materials you asked for last time."

"Thank you."

"Oh, and... did everything work out for the person who got caught up in the Monkey Train urban legend?"

The Monkey Train urban legend—a type of uncanny phenomenon in which a nightmare continued when the victim went back to sleep, even after waking up. Also called the Monkey Dream, it caused those caught in it to see something like an amusement-park train with a monkey as its driver. If they boarded as though entranced, an unsettling announcement would sound at each station: "This stop is Gouging~ Gouging~." The passengers in the carriage would then die in order, in whatever manner the announcement described. Even if someone woke from the nightmare just before their turn came, the dream would continue when they went back to sleep.

"I was meaning to tell you, actually. I was called out, so my report was delayed."

Sion answered Minhwa's worried question in a calm voice.

"They slept on a pillow containing tiger bones, just as you prescribed. Apparently, a tiger appeared in the dream and bit all the monkeys to death. We monitored them afterward just to be safe, and they say they haven't had the same dream since."

Minhwa looked taken aback, but breathed a sigh of relief.

"A t-tiger? Well, I'm glad it's been resolved."

Sion regarded her quietly. Minhwa was a grimoire's master, but she was clearly different from the magicians Sion had encountered through her cases. Perhaps it was because <Donguibogam> was so strongly rooted in its nature as a medical text that it preferred to choose a master who wanted to save people's lives.

Sion and Minhwa exchanged a few more words, then parted ways.

* * *

After the campground zombie incident, the Special Response Section had planned to bring the survivors into the Bureau's lounge. But when they said we would be fine as long as we didn't wander around outside, Namgung Sua suddenly took out her phone, called someone, and told the church camp group:

"If we're going to rest anyway, let's do it somewhere nice."

And so we found ourselves looking up at a luxurious hotel that anyone could tell was nice—the kind that looked as though it catered to wealthy foreign tourists.

"Someone my dad knows runs this place. Let's go in."

Sua said it as casually as if we were walking into a neighborhood restaurant. The children looked up at her, whispering among themselves.

"... This is weird. I'm starting to like her."

"Don't start liking me over something like this, you little beggars. Have some self-respect."

At Sua's response, the children muttered:

"... Maybe I don't like her again."

Ellie hesitated at how expensive the hotel was, but after seeing Sua's exhausted face, she led the children inside. I followed them in.

It was my first time staying at such a luxurious hotel. Yeah, to be honest, I was looking forward to it a little. It was evening now. Time for the hotel's dinner buffet.

* * *

The bathroom in Sua's hotel room.

Alone at last, Sua lowered her eyes, her body trembling faintly.

"..."

Even standing in the shower stall and washing herself with warm water, she couldn't stop shaking.

The fear she had deliberately kept from showing spread through her body. ... She had made it somewhere safe. No, perhaps it was precisely because she was safe and her tension had eased? She couldn't calm down. She had no appetite and no energy.

She changed her clothes, lay down on the bed, and closed her eyes to try to sleep, but—

'Aaah...!'

"Hah... hah...!"

The zombies roaming the campground came back to her.

It couldn't happen. This was a safe place. It was all over. Yet she was afraid the hotel lobby might be full of zombies.

Sua stared blankly at her smartphone screen. "Namgung Su." ... Her dad hadn't contacted her. His secretary had merely called briefly to say things like, ["I'm glad you're safe. The chairman was worried too, but he's busy with work, so I'm calling on his behalf."]

Right. She was resting in a luxury hotel like this. Asking him to show his concern himself would be asking too much.

Hating the silence in the room, Sua stepped outside. Not that she actually had anywhere to go.

She considered going to Ellie... but she would be busy comforting the little ones and putting them to bed. Sua didn't want to show up and be treated like a bothersome child. Knowing Ellie's personality, she wouldn't think that of her, but Sua would end up thinking it of herself.

Since she was already out, she walked down the corridor to check whether zombies really had appeared in the lobby. On the way, she ran into Yohan, whose hair was still slightly damp, as though he had just washed up.

"... Mister? Where are you going?"

"To eat. I noticed the hotel has a dinner buffet. Want to come?"

"Huh?"

Sua blinked at him.