Chapter 423

For reference, the man who had tried and failed to get close to Seo Esther was, by nature, single-minded. True to the word, he paid little attention to anything outside his own interests, so he was rather slow when it came to keeping up with the news.

'If the news isn't sensational enough, he'd probably even forget about the presidential election.'

Fortunately, the compatriot they ran into in the hallway was his complete opposite. In other words, he was practically an information hub. That was why he could vividly recount all the things he had heard.

'Kim Giryeo didn't use his abilities at a crucial moment...'

Moreover, humanity's superhumans were far from perfect. In a sense, their evolution had not been achieved entirely through their own power. There was no guarantee that these newly manifested abilities would last forever. After all, not even the phenomenon of the Gates had been properly explained, so it seemed entirely possible that these modern-day miracles might disappear in the wake of some extraordinary event.

“I see. When I saw him earlier in the restroom, he didn't exactly look like he was in good shape.”

“Really?”

“To be honest, he did seem a little frail. I didn't expect him to look like that in person.”

But if that blond superhuman really had suffered a decline in his abilities, another question naturally arose. Kim Giryeo, now in a completely ordinary state, without overwhelming power or an impressive background, was still on friendly terms with the head of [Korea Magic Tower].

'Why is that guy the only one who's special?'

Someone else had recently suffered a tremendous humiliation just because he had made one misguided marriage proposal. Yet this Kim Giryeo, for some reason, seemed to have formed an excessively close bond with her merely because they shared the same nationality.

'No matter how I look at him, there's nothing impressive about him, and honestly, those clothes don't suit him nearly as well as they'd suit me...'

At that moment, the foreigner in the white dress shirt suddenly felt a surge of indignation.

'Why does Seo Esther hang around that awakener? If he were at least some world-class handsome guy, I wouldn't find it so ridiculous.'

But he did not recklessly reveal those feelings. Even if rumors said that Kim Giryeo had suffered a devastating blow as a hunter, and even if the Korean man he had seen in person seemed rather unimpressive, the young man himself had never actually done him any harm. In the end, the only person he truly had any reason to resent was the woman who had cast the [curse].

“Hmm.”

The round-faced man, repeatedly referred to as Leo, finally fell silent. He had nothing more to say about South Korea's fourth S-class hunter.

But the moment he closed his mouth, the acquaintance standing across from him immediately carried the conversation forward.

“Oho! So you ran into KIM in the restroom earlier, and he even looked gaunt?”

The superhuman, always quick to pick up rumors and even quicker to spread them far and wide, opened with that remark.

***

How did things get this complicated?

I'm back in this filthy otherworldly life again!

Forty-five minutes before the conversation outside the restroom, an incident had occurred—even before the bespectacled foreigner arrived at the event hall.

At that very moment, Kim Giryeo and Seo Esther had just entered the specially designated area reserved for VIP guests.

No matter how thoroughly he searched, there were no items suitable for use as golem materials, and by evening, the world auction where the [Hydra] would be sold was scheduled to begin.

'In the end, I couldn't find anything like that.'

Up to this point, Kim Giryeo was still relatively at peace.

'Things like mana-absorbing artifacts... Earthlings don't recognize their value and sell them for next to nothing...'

But just as he was about to head toward the restaurant prepared by the organizers...

– Flash!

A strange incident unfolded before the South Korean hunters.

“Kyaaaaak!”

This was a space meticulously prepared to accommodate the highest-ranking S-class hunters from every country.

And yet, right in the middle of the building, an unexpected burst of dazzling light suddenly erupted.

“What is this?”

“Who used an item indoors...?”

“I'm sorry!”

The “beams” they encountered were, in several respects, a serious phenomenon. Since they were made of light, they moved at tremendous speed—far too quickly for anyone to anticipate them and close their eyes in time.

On top of that, these visible rays kept appearing from various parts of the hotel-like lobby, and their intensity was powerful enough to temporarily blind even hunters.

“That startled me!”

The flash was so dazzling that it was enough to make someone nearly faint from shock.

“What's with all this commotion...? No, more importantly, aren't those Japanese S-class hunters over there?”

But once they calmed down and took a closer look at the situation, the source of the chaos quickly became clear...

“That's right.”

“I'm truly sorry! Everyone!”

After taking a few steps closer, Kim Giryeo reached a distance where the translation device could function properly.

'That's the blue-haired Japanese person I saw earlier.'

This was the incident that caused the rumors surrounding Kim Giryeo to explode.

'And that's the legendary-grade weapon he was carrying on his back.'

He had felt uneasy about it for some time, and now the otherworldly greatsword had finally revealed its true nature.

'What in the world is that? How did a human manage to operate it alone?'

The soul from Alphauri—the planet where that legendary greatsword had originally been created—had precisely that thought.

'Hmm, as a proper mage, let me offer my professional opinion...'

After giving it some thought, he concluded that the lights had probably been caused by resonance between items.

After all, a phenomenon like this would have been impossible unless some kind of magically vibrating stone or similar object had appeared nearby.

'Or maybe it was activated by some kind of Earth-style vibration I don't understand. I can't be sure yet.'

Since this building was a world auction house packed with strange artifacts, the culprit was most likely another item.

Besides, annoying malfunctions like this were not unique to Alphauri. Even the AI assistants built into many Earth devices, such as Siri, would sometimes react unexpectedly to a phrase like, “My tooth hurts today.”

'Looks like the hardships people face here aren't all that different from the ones back on my home planet.'

At this point, it was worth emphasizing once again that the legendary weapon before him was, without question, a complete failure.

'Alphauri once had a dream...'

A magic wand that could be operated effortlessly with a single command, without the inconvenience of memorizing complex spell formulas.

That had undoubtedly been the original intention behind its creation.

'Mediocre mages would be able to work more easily, while those dictator bastards could use it to keep their people ignorant and profit from it. Come to think of it, wasn't that a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of business?'

And, as anyone could see, the result had turned out like that.

Originally, the goal had been to create an intelligence capable of freely conversing with humans.

'Somehow...'

But that damned ego weapon was an accident-prone piece of junk that constantly malfunctioned.

'Something about it is off.'

Golems, for reference, were normally forces carefully programmed in advance to perform specific actions under specific circumstances.

That thing, on the other hand, had been designed around “real-time response,” so the technical challenges involved in creating it were different in many respects.

'To put it bluntly, it's just stupid.'

At the very least, the efforts of Alphauri's mages had not been enough to complete a genuinely high-performance artificial intelligence.

Perhaps because they could simply enslave their neighbors through magic, the development of related technologies had remained painfully stagnant.

'And they called that a civilization?'

The more he thought about it, the clearer it became.

That planet had met an incredibly satisfying end.

'Anyway, good riddance, Alphauri.'

But enough idle reminiscing.

Snapping out of his brief recollection, Kim Giryeo calmly surveyed his surroundings.

“Whaaa! Why won't it stop!”

The Ego Sword was quite literally going berserk.

'Thankfully, it doesn't seem like any lethal functions have been activated.'

And beside it, an Asian man was desperately struggling—almost in tears—to somehow bring it under control.

'Well, voice-recognition errors happen all the time, so most creators would've designed it to require double authorization before activating anything meant for combat, right?'

Around this time, Esther had suggested, “Should we just run away?”

It was, indeed, an exceptionally sensible and relatable suggestion.

Unfortunately, the person standing beside her happened to belong to the top 1% of Alphauri's intellectual elite.

'I still despise you for trying to kill me before, but if someone as innocent as Hunter Iori gets hurt because of this, that'll be a real headache.'

Given Kim Giryeo's personality, completely forgiving him was impossible.

Still, he figured he should at least explain the precautions necessary when using a [Legendary] weapon.

Having reached that conclusion, Kim Giryeo stepped forward.

“G, Giryeo-ssi?”

The Guild Master of the Korean Magic Tower stared at him in shock.

An unknown item anomaly was unfolding right before their eyes, yet he was heading straight toward the center of it without the slightest hesitation!

Though, to be fair, the situation was nowhere near as frightening or dangerous as it appeared.

“Sir. Please step away from the sword for a moment. I'll figure something out.”

“Mr. Kim...!”

“Ugh, this is the problem with translation devices.”

All he had to do was walk over and handle it himself.

That was it.

“Hmm.”

First, he cleared his throat to make sure his voice came out clearly.

Then, without any of the Earthlings noticing, he cast a minor spell on his ears that sharpened his hearing.

“Ahem!”

Kim Giryeo then began negotiating with a particular inanimate object.

[...Replaying celebratory illumination for the congratulatory party]

[Additional commands can be used to adjust the brightness and color of the light.]

By the way, what exactly was all that random light supposed to be?

Was it merely the result of some kind of decorative magic?

[Hey!]

[There will be eight more decorative bursts to follow.]

[Hey, you brat!]

Swoosh.

Kim Giryeo carefully knelt down and placed his hand on the fallen blade.

To the others, it might have looked as though he were attempting to commune with the weapon.

In reality, he was simply trying to transmit sound more effectively without having to speak aloud.

[Stop counting! Shut up! Zip it and turn off all the magic! Enough!]

The blond alien spat out every phrase he could think of that might function as a stop command.

[Huh? And who might you be?]

But the vibration that came back said otherwise.

[What?]

[You're not even my master, so please don't talk to me...]

[Damn it! Don't tell me this model even requires identity verification!]

[I literally just told you not to talk to me, didn't I?]

That last sentence, for reference, was practically a warning—an indication that “repeated command attempts will trigger an automatic attack.”

[You little...! Your “master recognition” is ridiculously lenient anyway, so why are you suddenly pretending to be a loyal servant?! If your recognition system were actually strict, this whole mess wouldn't have happened in the first place!]

A brief burst of frustration slipped out, directed toward the weapon's creator.

However, since the mysterious white light continued to flare even at that very moment, Giryeo wasted no more time and quickly moved to bring the situation under control.

[Ugh, anyway... Let's see. What was the dedicated spell for an emergency shutdown again? Ah, the model name is written around here.]

Naturally, an experimental magical tool like this had an OFF function.

After all, it would be absurd if a valuable mage ended up dying because of a mere experimental device.

So he simply used it.

Shhk.

[Stopping the magic.]

The situation was resolved in an instant.

“Uh...”

However, that simple action unexpectedly caused quite a stir.

“Oooohhh!”

“It stopped!”

“That item was going completely berserk!”

The Earthlings, unaware that the magic scholar had done nothing more than speak to the weapon, were utterly amazed.

From their perspective, the scene looked perfectly convincing.

A blond man strode forward, placed his hand on the fallen sword, and within seconds, the weapon that had been rampaging like an enraged bull suddenly fell silent, meek as a lamb...

In short, that was exactly how the moment appeared to them.

“Th, thank you, Ranker! Truly, thank you so much!”

'Even if he's not a ranked hunter anymore... Ah, but since he's planning to return soon, I guess the title doesn't really matter.'

Up to this point, everything had gone perfectly well.

In fact, it might even have been the moment when a new legend was written in a distant foreign land.

Fwoosh.

But what was that burning smell that had been drifting into his nose for a while now?

'Huh?'

There wasn't even a food-tasting corner in this building...

Just as everyone nearby turned their heads in the same direction, they finally noticed it.

'Fire.'

That was what they saw.

'The carpet over there is on fire.'

The Ego Sword had merely activated celebratory light magic, but the energy it contained was so immense that it had produced an unfortunate side effect.

'Or maybe some stray sparks flew out when the magic activated... Either way, it's a completely insignificant fire.'

What was even stranger was that, despite the fire breaking out, no one moved.

'Huh? No way.'

Swish.

Kim Giryeo felt an inexplicable sense of foreboding and slowly turned his head.

What met his eyes were several pairs of gazes fixed on him, all of them carrying noticeably relieved expressions.

After all, there was an S-class hunter standing right there who was widely regarded as a master of the Water element.

“Giryeo-ssi?”

Even the female Earthling who had accompanied him to the event joined in.

Put simply, everyone was silently telling Kim Giryeo:

“Please put out the fire.”

'So you're leaving the cold water to me?'

But, as one might expect, there was a problem.

He had boldly announced his retirement and surrendered his hunter status, yet Earth was a world where unregistered, reclusive mages caused trouble practically every day.

'From what I've gathered, even South Korea, which is particularly sensitive about unregistered awakeners, seems to permit the emergency use of abilities for rescue purposes.'

This was why early retirement had to be considered carefully.

Back then, blinded by the comfort of a leisurely life, he had casually thought, 'If anything happens, I'll just claim it was an emergency use of my ability.'

But now that the moment had actually arrived for him to use magic without proper authorization, his thoughts were in complete disarray.

Did a tiny fire on the carpet really count as an emergency?

Or not?

'What if I splash some water on it without thinking and end up getting into legal trouble?'

In particular, a certain water-element SS-rank inevitably ran into structural difficulties at critical moments like this.

After all, he was a being from another world.

The blond man was fundamentally incapable of understanding humanity's unwritten rules.

Which also meant he had little hope of grasping the subtle boundaries of laws that even the people of Earth themselves barely understood.