Chapter 406. Daily Life (2)
For reference, it was midnight. Receiving a call at such a late hour—no matter if it only lasted a single second—was enough to unsettle him.
"What is it?"
However, no matter how long Kim Giryeo waited, he couldn't discern the true nature of this call. Normally, in such cases, Ahn Yoonseung's response fell into two categories.
First option: he would call back and explain himself. Second option: he would send a ssage along the lines of—(Oh no, Hyung-nim (paid sticker) I accidentally held down the button that instantly dials you! I can't believe I bothered you so late at night!! If the notification woke you up, I'm truly sorry, Hyung-nim!! ㅠㅠㅠㅠ)
Kim Giryeo briefly imagined those scenarios, but his plain black phone never rang again. Ahn Yoonseung had sent no response at all.
"-_-"
Then, should the recipient be the one to return the call at this point? Soon, a certain option surfaced in the mind of the alien being: to reach out first and ask, "Why did you just call?" It was, after all, the most ordinary approach possible.
However, instead of following through with the straightforward action that had just co to mind, Kim Giryeo suddenly began expending magic power.
"A call that connects for barely a second in the middle of the night."
Normally, it would have been sothing he could easily overlook. However, the soul of the great mage confined in this young body sensed sothing strange. As a long-lived being, he felt an instinctive premonition. Thus, he imdiately went so far as to mimic the [Searcher] spell to determine Ahn Yoonseung's exact location. After discovering the caller's whereabouts, Kim Giryeo, without the slightest hesitation, also began preparing to go out.
In the middle of the night. And yet, to suddenly go out because of what was obviously just a mistaken one-second call. But Kim Giryeo didn't think of it as a waste. It was fine. After all, he was already soone who had quit his job. For the sake of his first acquaintance on Earth, he could show the kind of initiative typical of an unemployed man as much as he wanted.
***
And then, as the alien by the seaside began to move, so ti passed.
"-_-"
Now, this is what happened.
iii
A beige blanket that revealed the room owner's simple taste. Just as he barely managed to close his eyes, his phone suddenly began ringing nonstop right by his bedside. He had splurged for once, thinking that now he was a working adult earning money, and even subscribed to a ringtone service with the latest songs.
"Ugh..."
She never imagined the day would co when she'd regret spending a re 990 won. The young woman in her twenties, buried under the blanket, groaned as she sat up. Then she picked up the phone lying near the bed.
"Ah, why does it have to ring just when I was about to finally fall asleep after tossing and turning--"
She had suddenly woken up from a very sleepy state, enough to make even a Buddha-like being angry.
Seonwoo Yeon, the resident of this ordinary space, managed to read the text on the phone screen with difficulty.
[Hunter Kim Giryeo]
But who was the person who woke her from her deep sleep?
Seonwoo Yeon showed no sign of surprise even after checking the caller ID on the screen. After all, there was nothing unusual about that na.
"Unlike what you'd expect from an S-rank Hunter, he was always soone who called often..."
The problem wasn't the na—it was here.
[Current ti]
[00:56]
It was nearing 1 a.m. Rather than dwell on it too much, Seonwoo Yeon decided to answer the incoming call first.
"Hello?"
But instead of any ordinary response, what ca back was sothing bizarre.
"I'm sorry.
Soon, the familiar voice ca through the speaker—raspy from smoking, yet unmistakably the vocal cords of the alien creature who, above all else, spoke flawless Korean.
"I'm really sorry for calling you at this hour, but could you co to the address I'm about to share with you right now?
In the middle of the night, all of a sudden? Perhaps it was just because she wasn't fully awake that such a trivial doubt crossed her mind.
I... I can't use my skills right now. Not the big one. That's why I'm asking—you'll have to co to where I am, since I can't move to where you are.
Now, although they had shared the truth with each other, the other person still refrained from carelessly bringing up the word "magic."
"If you look closely, that person shows caution even in the smallest expressions..."
Seonwoo Yeon continued her thoughts, running her fingers through her tousled hair.
It had already been a month since Kim Giryeo retired. His absence still didn't feel very real, yet suddenly, around midnight, a call ca to reconnect. And on top of that, the content of the call was a demand to go out—sothing that hadn't been on the schedule at all.
"Anyway, I need your help. Please co and assist .
An alien... She had never imagined that such a thing could exist. Yet the migrant from a distant world she now faced was, ironically, quite gentlemanly in nature.
"Of course, he did say strange things often, but basically, he's not soone who harms others without reason."
Moreover, Kim Giryeo had the peculiar trait of fully understanding the "hard work of office workers." Yet, this worker-friendly mage had suddenly called a civil servant in the middle of the night—what a thing to do.
"I don't know what's going on, but let's go quickly."
Fortunately, traffic in Seoul at this hour wasn't heavy.
So Seonwoo Yeon quickly reached the location that Kim Giryeo had shared.
"What the...? I didn't even need to drive. It was just the mountain near the apartnt, wasn't it?"
For reference, the destination in question was a small mountain. Thanks to her awakening, she was no longer bitten by mosquitoes, but as a B-rank hunter whose night vision was not particularly sharp, she began her nightti hike relying on her phone's flashlight.
"Hunter Kim Giryeo?"
Moreover, just a few minutes after starting the hike, she ca face to face with the person who had called.
"Are you here?"
Kim Giryeo. And his outfit was entirely black—so much so that, at a glance, only his head seed to float in the darkness.
"What the...? This is just like usual..."
Up to this point, there would have been nothing surprising—but the silhouette that followed left Seonwoo Yeon utterly shocked. Upon closer inspection, soone was lying at Kim Giryeo's feet.
"Gasp!"
A human! And seeing that bare, gray-looking shaved head, she could even start guessing the person's na.
"Isn't this Ahn Yoonseung-ssi?"
Srk, srk.
Seonwoo Yeon pushed through the bushes and approached them.
"What on earth is going on here?"
"You can't touch it."
But the hand that tried to lift the fallen Ahn Yoonseung was imdiately stopped.
"He's dead."
Her dazed, half-asleep mind from just monts ago suddenly fell pulled sharply into reality.
"He was already in a corpse-like state when I arrived. So don't co any closer."
"-_-"
"The strange thing is, Ahn Yoonseung definitely called , but no matter how much I've looked since earlier, I can't find his phone anywhere..."
Perhaps from shock, words wouldn't co out. Until now, she had been thinking a lot about how cold it was during the nightti hike, but now, propelled by the shock, she barely felt the temperature at all.
"Yes?"
What on earth was this nonsense? Seonwoo Yeon carefully observed her acquaintance's condition. The mont she confird that the alien's words were true, she erupted in panic. Most strikingly, his face had gone completely pale—so much so that she no longer even needed the phone's light. Even though she had assisted detectives and witnessed countless cases before, she could hardly accept a situation where soone close to her had died.
"This, No! No, seriously, what the--"
But honestly, just struggling alone isn't going to solve the problem naturally.
"But why did you call first? Th, this situation is so serious. We need to call the police imdiately!"
Still, her past experience proved helpful. Seonwoo Yeon summoned her unyielding ntal strength and first addressed the questions that had arisen.
"Police..."
Then ca the answers of an alien nad Kim Giryeo.
"How can I trust the police on Earth and call them first?"
"What?"
"Of course, I also called the police frequently early on after my reincarnation. In fact, when I was kidnapped by a human trafficking ring, it was only thanks to their early arrival that I barely survived..."
"What are you trying to say?"
"But you, who were there at the scene, must rember. When I first reported it to the police station, they turned it around on and accused of being the criminal instead."
In such a shocking situation, how can that alien stay so calm? The other person continued answering with a composure that would make anyone wonder.
"This is a magical murder—no fingerprints, no blood traces left behind."
A statent of certainty about homicide soon followed.
"From my own investigation, it seems there used to be a gate at this location."
"Murder."
"It seems that when it was breached, any evidence useful to the police was lost. Ah, and now that I think of it, that might an Ahn Yoonseung's phone could also be in the gate..."
"This is murder?"
"Of course, there's no way a young man in his twenties in Korea would have died naturally on a mountain at this hour."
The man who had introduced himself as an archmage shrugged.
"Anyway, as I said earlier, the culprit is currently unknown."
"-_-"
"But I ca to find Ahn Yoonseung by a thod that's awkward to disclose, so if the police ask why I was here at this hour, things will get complicated."
"Even so..."
"First of all, I wanted you—as a human—to help so that I wouldn't be misunderstood.
I'm sorry."
His reason for not calling the police was soon explained. But even so, only half of the real questions had been resolved.
"But what exactly is going on?"
Even the archmage, who had assud he could easily uncover the truth with that magic, eventually let out a voice of sheer disbelief.
"To be honest, I ca here knowing nothing. So right now, I have no idea about the circumstances at all."
"Even Kim Giryeo-ssi?"
"I'll call the police like you said, at least for now..."
Kim Giryeo briefly looked down at the Earthling lying on the ground.
"Hunter Seonwoo Yeon. By the way, I have a question for you."
But without any further reaction, he turned his head once again toward another resident of the area.
"Is it illegal on this planet to read the mories of the deceased without their consent?"
Seonwoo Yeon answered.
"Not at all."
Having naturally morized the procedures for handling unattended deaths while assisting governnt agencies, she never expected to put that knowledge to use in a situation like this.
"In fact, people on Earth act the sa way. If any criminal evidence is found on a corpse, they imdiately consider a pplying for an autopsy warrant."
As Seonwoo Yeon spoke, a certain mage nodded. So it seed confird that there would be no major issues with the actions to follow...
"Understood. Then please make sure to explain things clearly to the forensic team when they arrive."
"Yes?"
"The blood splattered behind this tree belongs to Hunter Kim Giryeo, so you can ignore it."
"Wait a minute... what's that about?"
"Anyway, it was good that I saved my mana."
Later, Kim Giryeo used a spell to read mories. As a result of using high-level magic, he coughed up blood and collapsed a short distance away. This was why Seonwoo Yeon ended up picking up the phone in his place.
***
After an ergency report by a B-rank civil servant, about two hours had passed.
"Are you awake?"
"Losing consciousness repeatedly is kind of unsettling. I'll fix this sohow when I have the ti."
For the sake of a smooth investigation, this case has not yet been made public. Even after successfully calling the police, the situation continued to be a whirlwind of confusion.
"Hunter Kim Giryeo, by the way, what were you doing earlier? Surely you weren't reading Ahn Yoonseung's mories...?
"What you're thinking is correct."
"So then, have you found out who did this?"
"Unfortunately, no. There are a few... several issues."
[Reading the mories of the dead, a technique unavailable to humans. Even in a civilization with such advanced science, at best they could only identify storage locations; analyzing the mories hidden within synapses was a magic that had consud considerable energy. Perhaps because of this, the archmage struggled a little to grasp the truth of the case.
"In the range of mories I could access imdiately, the face of the perpetrator didn't appear."
The first reason quickly erged.
"On top of that, all of things, Ahn Yoonseung suffered a subdural hematoma..."
"Ugh."
"It seems there was so kind of fight. The corpse has damage in various places, which caused gaps to appear in the mories as well."
The second reason. For reference, Kim Giryeo had said he didn't want to go to the hospital, so he was currently transported to Seonwoo Yeon's place after giving a brief statent.
"I haven't even invited a friend from Earth over to my place yet."
A one-second phone call. Seonwoo Yeon's true [Searcher] skill.
The police's question about why she went to et Ahn Yoonseung was plausibly resolved using this material.
"-_-"
The scent of green tea lingering everywhere. Old wallpaper whose trend had long passed. A desk lamp bought on a whim after a particularly stressful day dealing with complaints. Amid this ordinary ho, the two continued their conversation.
"What should we do now?"
Seonwoo Yeon was the first to bring up the topic. No matter how consistently strong their character usually appeared, even this person couldn't help but feel unsettled in such an extraordinary situation.
"What should we do, and how?"
Earlier it had been a powerful shock, and now really felt so distant that all her senses seed dull. Seonwoo Yeon stared, quite flustered, at the man lying on the bed, when the lung-injured magician, still catching his breath, spoke.
"There's a way."
The mory-reading ability couldn't be used for the ti being. Moreover, since the investigation had now been handed over to the police, he could no longer freely approach the victim.
"I found soone in his mories who might know about this situation."
"Who?"
"Choi Jin... I need to go see Choi Jin."
All that remained was silence.
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