Chapter 77 - Best Condition (5)

In the occult world, there were conditions that separated first-rate wizards from the rest.

Magic was never meant for combat in the first place, so these weren't official criteria.

They were standards for combat wizards as conceived by the mercenary industry, which had one foot in the wizarding world.

It was a measure born of ignorant laypeople's perspective, one that orthodox wizards actually despised, but...

If you could produce greater firepower than a modern small firearm using magic,

or if you could block gunfire, you were a first-rate wizard.

An automatic defensive spell made possible by summoning rain with magic and flooding the surrounding area with water imbued with Alphons's mana.

Bubble, bubble...

A wall of water rose up and caught the hail of bullets, stopping them in their tracks.

Watching the bullets trapped in their watery prison, Alphons's face twisted with rage.

"You... vermin...!"

Magic was a special power that only the chosen could wield.

And yet he glared at the baseless wizard who dared to draw a lowly commoner's firearm in a battle between mages.

"You pull out something that crude!"

I didn't answer his outburst.

".........."

I simply pulled the trigger again.

Bang!

If your opponent was getting angry mid-fight, that meant you were doing something right.

Keeping an eye on his attacks, the blades of water, I moved and pulled the trigger.

Bang! Ba-bang!

Every bullet I fired was blocked by his magic.

Though even without the water barrier...

I'd never expected to actually hit him with a pistol while moving, given that I'd never received professional firearms training.

...What mattered was that I was keeping him in check while staying mobile.

Splash, splash!

Shaaaa...

I ran through puddles, aiming and firing the gun in the rain.

Ba-bang!

A gunfight in the rain beneath streetlights.

It wasn't the kind of thought I should be having in a life-or-death situation, but...

It felt like a scene straight out of a noir film, so absurd it almost made me laugh.

Was I really in Seoul right now? What a crazy world.

Of course, my opponent took it a step further, his genre being fantasy and all.

Blades of water came flying along the arc of Alphons's swinging magic sword.

Fwish!

Water cutters. I had no idea why I didn't have cool fantasy attack spells like that.

'Damn it...!'

I gritted my teeth and pushed off hard with my legs, leaping wide.

Splash!

Dodging gracefully like a noir movie protagonist was out of the question. I moved in big, sweeping strides, forward and back.

Splash! Splash!

The water blades passed by, just barely missing me.

Fwish!

A streetlight behind me was sliced by a water blade and toppled at an angle.

Craash! Shatter!

The lamp shattered and glass shards scattered everywhere.

".........!"

One slight miscalculation of distance and I'd be split in two. Dead.

On top of my stamina already running low,

"Haah...!"

Moving like this in the rain drained energy beyond imagination.

I was gasping for breath, and every step felt heavy.

The one saving grace was that the masses of water the bastard was raising from below were all being used to hold back Grizzly alongside the spearman.

Otherwise I'd have been done for long ago.

And then, apparently fed up with this standoff, he twisted his body and swung his sword in a wide arc.

Instead of the small water blades that had been flying at me, a massive horizontal blade of water came hurtling my way.

"...!"

I hurled myself to the ground, rolling to dodge it.

Crash-thud! Splat!

I didn't care how it looked.

I immediately scrambled up on all fours to keep him in check with the next shot, aiming the pistol at him.

But unlike everything he'd thrown at me so far,

the line of water that followed his swinging blade whipped around like a lash,

slicing past my aimed gun before curving once more.

Shlash!

My body was cut, a shallow wound. I barely managed to stumble backward fast enough.

"Gkh...!"

It was a shallow cut, but still...

The pain spreading through my body, the sensation of flesh parting open and blood flowing, it made me stagger.

But I forced my body to move. Kept backing up.

...Just a little further back.

This wasn't some grit-your-teeth-and-push-through motivational nonsense.

"...The king who rode the doe."

It was because I'd arrived at my destination.

Alphons stopped running and glared at me, bleeding and standing there, with a look of contempt.

"Ha."

He must have finally realized he couldn't win.

In the end, I was just a baseless wizard who thought he was somebody thanks to the old knowledge of a grimoire.

The moment he raised his magic sword to finish things,

".........?"

Alphons furrowed his brow. Something began to reach his ears through the downpour.

"Boy, huntress... cow, doe, domestic duck."

It was a verse of an incantation spilling from my lips.

"...Spirit of the Moon."

A flicker of confusion passed across Alphons's face for just an instant.

He was a textbook ritual wizard. He couldn't cast proper magic just by chanting without a magic circle.

So why? Was this some desperate prayer, a last-ditch gamble?

After all, I'd been chased and on the run the entire time, with no chance to draw a magic circle, and drawing anything on ground this soaked with rain was impossible...

"...!?"

...And the moment he checked the ground beneath my feet,

Alphons's eyes went wide.

Mixed with the blood that had dripped from my body,

a magic circle carved into the concrete, hidden by the rainwater until now, became visible.

'What the...!'

Only then did he realize what he'd missed while focusing solely on me this whole time.

"Th-the Gnomes have been spotted!"

"Hieek!"

In his line of sight, Gnomes that had been peeking out from the alley behind, watching the situation, scrambled away in a panic.

'Earth Elementals! Gnomes!'

A chill shot straight up Alphons's spine.

Elementals that could move through and dig through the earth at will.

I had deliberately pretended to be desperate, kept running, and had the Gnomes dig into the ground at the necessary spots to carve the magic circles.

'This cheap trick...!'

Alphons gritted his teeth and swung his sword, launching a water blade.

Fwish!

But the spell was already prepared.

Shaaaa...

My voice rang out through the rain.

"Answer my call."

The dates for planetary magic changed based on sunrise, the moment the sun came up.

Even if it was Tuesday by the calendar, if the sun hadn't risen yet, it wasn't the day of Mars but the day of the Moon. Mars magic couldn't be used.

My dark eyes shone with calm focus.

And so, conversely, even if the date said Tuesday, if the sun hadn't risen, it was still Monday.

Lunar magic was available.

Instead of the severed pistol, I gripped a Pentacle made of silver and thrust it forward.

The incoming water blade's form collapsed and crumbled away.

It wasn't that the Pentacle had blocked it.

Shaaaaaaaa!

It had simply been torn apart by the pouring rain.

".........!"

Alphons's pupils shook violently as he looked up at the sky.

An increasingly fierce downpour came crashing down.

Just as water flows from high to low,

Shaaaaaaaaaaaa!

The torrential rain devoured Alphons's magic.

The water infused with Alphons's mana was swept away.

The rain was no longer on Alphons's side.

[Sixth Pentacle of the Moon]

'A spell that brings down heavy rain.'

If the opponent creates an environment favorable for their magic, you seize control of the environment itself.

Myself and Alphons.

Shaaaaaa!

In the midst of rain so heavy it obscured all sight, the two wizards faced off once more.

He glared at me, his face contorted with fury, the skin around his eyes trembling, and

I stared right back at him with calm eyes.

Only now had we finally reached equal footing. And if that was the case, there was only one thing left to do.

I shoved the Pentacle carelessly into my coat pocket.

Splash.

I took a step forward.

The ring was the rain-soaked asphalt road. No referee.

I charged toward him.

Splash, splash!

No rules. No stoppages.

He raised his sword high too. But mana no longer dwelled in that blade. It was just a wet sword.

A wretched brawl between wizards with no magic left to use.

A real street fight was about to begin.

I reached out toward the sword swinging down at my head and summoned my grimoire, <De Vermis Mysteriis>.

Vwoom!

A grimoire was, by nature, an item that wasn't easily destroyed.

Its black metal cover glinted in the rain.

<De Vermis Mysteriis> was, even among grimoires, the undisputed champion of physical durability.

Claaang!!

I swung the arm holding the grimoire like a hammer, smashing against the flat of his blade.

"...!"

The sword was knocked aside and Alphons lost his balance, staggering.

I didn't let the opening slip.

Gritting my teeth, I stepped in and drove my grimoire-gripping fist forward.

Thwack! Crack!

The steel grimoire smashed square into the elite pedigreed wizard's jaw.

"Gkagh!?"

Thud!

The impact sent Alphons crashing to the ground, and the blow to his jaw rattled his brain, making him drop the sword from his hand.

Clang.

"...!"

By no stretch of the imagination was it an impressive fight.

Ugly and desperate.

With my stamina spent, staggering, we grappled and clawed at each other, each trying to grab the sword before the other.

And the one who seized the upper hand was me.

Shwaaaaaa...

Standing in the pouring rain, I aimed the sword at his heart and thrust.

He grabbed the blade with his bare hand to keep from dying, not caring that it cut into his flesh.

"Urgh...!"

Face a battered mess, he looked straight up at me.

I didn't look away from his eyes.

To survive, I crushed his will to live and drove the sword into his heart.

"Haa... haa..."

I stood up in the rain. Looked down at the corpse of the unknown long-haired wizard.

".........."

Come to think of it, this was the first time I'd killed someone with my own hands.

...But then again, Grizzly was my ability.

So everyone Grizzly had killed was technically killed by me.

It wasn't really a first kill, and it wasn't something worth getting sentimental over.

In any case, the first phase of the plan was a success.

I turned my gaze to the old spearman desperately dodging Grizzly's attacks.

Then looked back at the long-haired wizard's corpse.

Now it was time to prepare the staging I needed to set the mood.

I cut off the dead long-haired wizard's head with the sword.

...The neck bones snagged and I thought about stopping, but I'd already started, so I committed to it.

And then,

Lee Mun-ryong was puzzled when the Invisible Vampire suddenly stopped attacking.

He turned around, confused,

and upon seeing me, and Alphons's head in my hand, he let out a sigh.

"I see. The water masses vanished suddenly, so I expected as much, but he actually went down."

Lee Mun-ryong looked at my tattered state and spoke.

"The rain changed partway through. Why didn't you use that earlier, when you were running? It would have given you the advantage."

"Because he would've noticed and run. Can't have that."

I swept back the wet hair hanging over my face. Calm, dark eyes were revealed.

"I needed to kill him."

A drop of blood fell from Alphons's severed neck.

Hadn't I resolved as much when I first started running?

That next time, I'd kill him for certain, even if it meant taking risks.

No second mistakes.

"Now it's my turn to ask questions. Your name, and... what's your relationship with this guy? Colleagues? Or business?"

With no chance of winning if they fought as things stood, Lee Mun-ryong answered honestly.

"Name's Lee Mun-ryong. We weren't close. He was simply a client."

"I see. Then from now on, I'm hiring you."

"...What?"

Completely blindsided, Lee Mun-ryong blinked, then his eyes sharpened.

"Ha! You're telling me to switch clients..."

I cut him off.

"That's not it."

I tossed the long-haired wizard's head, letting it roll across the ground.

"Your incompetent self failed the job, so kind and generous me is re-employing you."

At my signal after saying that,

the Gnomes who had been standing by brought over a document case.

"Master! Gnomes brought it from the Workshop!"

Coming near the Workshop was partly for this very purpose.

"Your commission."

I nudged the document case over to Lee Mun-ryong with my foot.

Lee Mun-ryong opened the case that had slid to his feet, saying,

"If you thought you could buy me with money..."

He spoke with the grave, dignified expression befitting a martial arts master,

then his eyes went wide at the sight of the gold coins packed inside.

"I didn't expect this much...!?"

The impact of gold.

These were coins I'd obtained when contracting with the Gnomes.

Buying over a useful enemy with gold coins.

This, I thought, was the proper use of Gnome Elemental magic, an upgraded version of financial sorcery.

Lee Mun-ryong nodded and tucked the case away.

"Mm-hmm~ Well~ well~ It's not about the money, you see. It's about the sincerity."

With the resolute, upright face of a master straight out of a martial arts novel, he declared firmly,

"I can see how highly you regard me! I accept the commission!"

Ta-da~ Lee Mun-ryong has become a bodyguard!

Lee Mun-ryong glanced at Alphons's severed head and shrugged.

"I never even shared a drink with that guy anyway."

"...A drink?"

"When I take a commission, I always have a drink with my client. A sort of pledge before the real work begins."

"...Well, when you put it that way, I can't exactly refuse. One drink will do?"

At my words, Lee Mun-ryong raised one eyebrow.

"A minute ago you were talking like you'd kill me, and now you're using polite speech."

I replied casually.

"A minute ago you were the enemy. Now it's business, so I should show proper respect."

"Good. In that case, before that..."

Lee Mun-ryong rummaged through Alphons's body and

"There's one left."

found a potion containing red liquid.

"It's called a potion. Drink it."

I narrowed my eyes and gave Lee Mun-ryong a look.

"Ha!"

Lee Mun-ryong laughed and drank about half the potion first.

I could see the minor wounds on his body healing, and I drank what remained.

I felt the slash wound from earlier mending, and energy returned to my body.

"Haah..."

The existence of such an incredible restorative made me desperately want to study it, but I was too exhausted, so I decided to think about it later.

Lee Mun-ryong folded his spear, stowed it in his fishing bag, and spoke.

"So, which bar are we heading to? Standing around getting rained on isn't exactly ideal, is it?"

I checked the time. It was before four in the morning.

Even at this hour, I could probably find a bar still open if I looked, but...

I was honestly too tired to bother.

First, I salvaged what I could from the corpse of the long-haired wizard, Alphons, whose name I'd learned from Lee Mun-ryong, then fed the remains to Grizzly to dispose of them.

We passed through the alley and came out onto the main road.

In the dark street with all the lights off, the glowing sign of a convenience store immediately caught my eye.

"...A drink. Is beer okay?"

"Whaaaat~ Beer! Are you buying?"

"Of course."

"Then we're good."

Lee Mun-ryong and I walked into the convenience store.

"...?"

The convenience store clerk cautiously panicked at the sight of a man in a white coat, completely soaked from the predawn rain, paired with a well-built old man, wondering what kind of villains these two were.

I grabbed two cans of beer, picked out a bag of snacks for the side, paid, and came out.

I spread out a package of squid peanut balls on the table in front of the convenience store,

and sat down on the rain-soaked plastic chair.

I didn't bother clinking cans with Lee Mun-ryong sitting across from me.

Watching the rain pour down, I cracked open the beer can.

Psshh.

And immediately chugged it.

The carbonation stung my throat, but I didn't stop, my throat bobbing as I drank without pause.

I kept the can pressed to my lips, tipping my head back, drinking to the last drop.

The can was empty, and I set it down.

"Pwah."

I wasn't much of a drinker, and I felt a bit off thinking this way right after killing someone, but...

Drinking after killing a man was...

No, let me rephrase. Drinking after surviving, after winning, was absolutely incredible.

Listening to the rain drumming against the awning, I leaned back in the plastic chair and let out a languid breath.

"Haaaaah..."

And Lee Mun-ryong, sipping his beer, said,

"So when's this rain going to stop?"

"I have no idea either."

"What a mess of a guy you are."

Thankfully, the rain stopped when the morning sun rose.

Anyway.

Once again, one way or another, another job was done.