Chapter 4
“Let me ask you something. Who did you learn that from?”
The rules and settings of every world were slightly different. Magic was no exception; the way it manifested and the sensations it carried varied meaningfully.
But here, in this place, the magic the author had written about felt familiar.
No, “familiar” wasn’t the right word. This was the same energy as the magic I use.
Her hand, tightly gripping the cloth, pointed forward.
“I’ll ask again. The magic you just used—who taught you?”
Immediately, a sword flew toward her neck.
It was a clear enough response. I didn’t expect anything else.
As her eyes cooled and sank, a yellow light flickered.
The magic embedded in the cloth clung to the sword, slowing its speed. The only visible part of her masked face, her eyes, twitched.
While she hesitated, the girl threw herself backward again to create distance, keeping her gaze fixed as if gauging me.
“Your head can’t keep up with your body,” she said.
The voice was strange—somewhere between the hoarse rasp of an old woman and the rough timbre of a middle-aged man.
I twisted my mouth at her words.
Not out of amusement, but because she’d hit the mark.
“I may look like this, but I’ve been a hunter for quite a while.”
With a body barely able to manage a sprint, she was going into combat.
But it didn’t matter. Magic existed beyond the limits of physical talent.
The problem was…
My feet stepped back. The sword that had been at her neck surged forward. I couldn’t avoid it, and a trickle of blood ran near my jaw.
Grabbing the cloth long enough to graze the sword, my internal energy wavered briefly, allowing her magic to seep in and occupy its space.
As I lowered my body under the sword to close the distance, my creaking joints forced me to grit my teeth and swing my arm.
Magic exploded outward, covering everything around me.
The man in black witnessed it. The flow of water seemed to freeze midstream, leaves hovered in the air, and bodies halted.
My face twisted in pain. The inside of my mouth, bitten and chewed, began to bleed.
Damn this headache!
Time hadn’t even stopped.
Honestly, I wanted the fight to drag on a bit more. I wanted to push her to the limit, forcing her to use magic.
But that only worked if you had the advantage and some leeway.
As soon as I touched her time, ringing filled my ears and my vision blurred. A heavy, muffled sensation, as if I’d submerged my entire body underwater, overtook me.
Ignoring all of that, I wound magic around my body and surged into her with a single motion.
With time pulled toward me, everything happened in an instant.
Though the backlash from using magic left a mix of blood scents near my neck and nose.
A mage’s mind was resilient. Using magic constantly trained the pathways of the mind, whether consciously or unconsciously.
So contact was possible. No matter how strong, gaps always existed, and finding them was my specialty.
No need for eyes or ears. My finely honed senses would guide me.
Yellow magic surged in. No, it was just about to surge in.
Ding! A sound rang in my ear, and a new presence appeared beyond it.
The hand holding the cloth struck the black-clad man in the chest while propelling her own body. A crack appeared on her cheek as blood trickled down.
“Haa… my body’s not in shape.”
In the meantime, the man in black, where I’d successfully planted a seed, collapsed.
Frowning and bracing himself, he lowered his body and caught his breath.
A silver streak flew from somewhere. Thud! It hit something and shattered, followed by a high-pitched vibration.
From those sounds, I understood the situation. Someone had thrown a sword, and whoever it hit was dead.
“So you’re still alive.”
It was Kyuhong’s voice.
Then, the one who threw the sword…
I tilted my head slightly.
A warrior is a warrior, indeed.
By the way, a thought came to me at an inopportune time.
Because his face looked gentle, I couldn’t help but form a bias. But it wasn’t entirely my fault—I argued silently.
Magic settled. The cloth in my hand dispersed, glowing faintly with magical energy.
At that moment, I felt someone sit right in front of me.
“Are you hurt?”
“My lips split from biting down, and the rest just grazed me.”
“This must be it, then.”
Kyuhong picked up the fallen sword, slipped it onto his fingers, and lightly shook it.
“There might be poison, so I’ll hold onto it for now.”
Soo responded with a slight nod and applied ointment to the child’s cheek from her pouch.
The child didn’t resist.
Healing magic couldn’t be used here—the backlash from magic had even blurred her vision.
When mental and physical states misalign in a magical sense, strange phenomena occur.
Soo exhaled as if trying to say something but didn’t.
“Feeling dizzy or anything?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“Good. That’s a relief.”
Soo stood, retrieved her sword, wiped the blood, and slid it back into its sheath.
Her ringing ears had mostly recovered, so her vision seemed likely to return soon.
Perhaps out of consideration for my exhaustion, the two martial artists exchanged words right there.
I checked the magic I had stored. Whether it was good or bad, it seemed it would disappear after a while.
I stretched my neck like waking from a nap and relaxed my strength.
A blessing in disguise.
Normally, it would have covered even my soul, but this way, there’d likely be an interrogation later.
If a perfectly fine person suddenly became oblivious, suspicion would naturally follow.
By the time the adults finished their conversation, my vision had returned. I blinked several times, dazzled by the light, shielding my eyes and rising to meet those approaching me.
“Wait… how? I can’t sense their energy, yet they reached here so quickly.”
“It’s a secret.”
Kyuhong shrugged, pretending not to expect it. I realized then that this was normal.
Ah… now I understood Soo’s earlier reaction.
I didn’t think it was strange. I didn’t expect it to be natural. Magic was meant to be widespread, after all.
“There should be a child over there.”
“Where? Ah.”
I located the person I had saved and checked the source of the alarm that had sounded earlier.
My foot stopped.
The alarm was a GPS—attached to the verification item, the beloved staff.
It was gone.
Yesterday—or at least this morning—the blinking light in Sansi City had been there!
“Why?”
A hollow voice escaped me.
When the child stopped, naturally, the two adults who had been matching their pace with her stopped as well.
Kyuhong opened his mouth to speak, but Soo shook her head to stop him. She gestured lightly for him to go first; he scratched his head and nodded.
After confirming they moved away, Soo lowered her body.
But I couldn’t even notice what was happening right in front of me.
I was in total panic, having never experienced this before.
Intervention from the afterlife? No. Absolutely not.
The afterlife cannot interfere with the living. This applies everywhere—whether it’s a system-managed world or a created world.
If it were possible, I would’ve already shouted at Haro to move me for being in the wrong seat.
I clenched my lips.
The aura I felt earlier, combined with this situation, led to a very simple conclusion:
There was another possessor—someone who knew the afterlife’s system better than I did and knew how to intervene.
And likely someone who knew the magic of the first iteration.
I checked the GPS records again. A blue dot moved, then disappeared as if deliberately revealing its path.
“Done thinking?”
I flinched and raised my head. A gentle-faced man appeared.
Hwang Soo-oh.
He was staring at me, expressionless, his face sunken.
“Seems you’re done. I’ll say this first: whatever you learned, you should have spoken first.”
“……”
“Whether strong or weak, you are young—”
“I said it would be better if I did.”
I met his gaze directly. My bright brown eyes, cold and calm, held deep doubt and distrust.
“Would you have believed me?”
“……”
“Whether you believe it or not, you should speak first. That’s right. I’m young, after all.”
I softened my gaze.
“I sensed a presence here, something seems to have happened, so shouldn’t I go check? I’m saying something you didn’t know. I haven’t studied martial arts at all.”
