[Time Stop] spell’s effect ended.
Nothing happened?
Mun Gyeongnam thought that for the briefest moment, and then had to revise it. No—too many things had happened.
Armed trucks pouring down from the sky?
Why are those falling from up there?
His subordinates bouncing into the air in every direction?
Why are they flying?
And an explosion that "suddenly appeared" before Mun Gyeongnam.
KABOOOOOOOOOM!!
"Graaaagh!"
Mun Gyeongnam went tumbling, mind blank.
"W-what the—!?"
Flat on the ground, he spat out his confusion.
Until just now the situation had certainly favored him.
Then why am I the one on the ground!?
What happened? Magic? Did the enemy use an ability? Impossible. What is this?
"Who is it! Who the hell—!?"
Mun Gyeongnam hastily spread his detection.
He flung his sensing in every direction—to himself and across the entire construction site—to interpret these bizarre events.
Viiiiiiiiiin—
Information surged from all sides. His brain raced to parse it.
rrrrrrr—
A vibration rising from the ground.
"An earthquake?!"
"W-what the hell all of a sudden!?"
Yes, an earthquake.
An earthquake was happening.
Having failed to perceive [Time Stop], Mun Gyeongnam concluded it was simply a sudden, surreal earthquake.
No, not just an earthquake. The explosion he’d just experienced wasn’t a mistake or an illusion.
KABOOOOOM! KABOOOOOM!
Ghastly blasts geysered up from beneath the earth. Dust plumed everywhere.
"What are these explosions! Who is it! Who’s doing this!"
rrrrrrrrrrrumble—
If the quakes had begun across overlapping spans of time, more people could have responded. But these had begun while time was stopped.
Most people didn’t even register the earthquake until after realizing they’d fallen.
rrrrrrrrrrrumble—
"Uwaaah!?"
"Aaagh!"
Screams spread, belated.
Even those barely holding on were knocked down by successive blasts and chain quakes. The moment they managed to haul themselves up—another explosion.
"Aaaarrrgh!"
Some were shoved by the shock and went down again; some were outright blown away.
And through the dust came Kim Sinhwa’s voice.
"Hey, Mun Gyeongnam, didn’t I tell you not to come here? Why don’t you listen when people ask nicely? Kim Sinhwa, this is not the time for that! Wait, hold on! Why crawl all the way here to be a nuisance? You—Kim Sinhwa, Kim Sinhwa! Behind you! Behind! Aaaagh!"
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
"Mage!"
And this was the voice of the woman Mun Gyeongnam hated most—Mun Seunghee.
"Ah, Chief Mun Seunghee. Please wait just a moment! I’ll save you soon! As soon as I solve my thing, I’ll save you right away! Yes, if I absolutely can’t, I’ll outsource it and have you rescued!"
Kim Sinhwa’s reply. Barely regaining his senses, Mun Gyeongnam pinned down Kim Sinhwa’s location.
Kim Sinhwa, wearing a robe as beautiful as if it were woven from the Milky Way of the night sky.
"Aaagh! Stop following me!"
Mun Gyeongnam had thought Kim Sinhwa appeared to interfere with him, but Kim Sinhwa babbled and flew off in a random direction.
No—more precisely, he fled from some outlandish phenomenon that defied description—
[Time Stop]
I’m being chased by water.
"No! Kim Sinhwa! The opponent is a monster that lives at the edges of time! You can’t dodge it with Time Stop! Then what am I supposed to do! Aaaagh!"
A Hound of Tindalos.
A hyper-dimensional monster that tracks time travelers was pursuing Kim Sinhwa.
A Hound of Tindalos shares nothing with dogs as animals, and yet Kim Sinhwa’s unconscious seemed to accept it as a dog.
Thanks to that subtle gap, the madness didn’t fully manifest, but Kim Sinhwa was wracked by a compulsive urge to run.
And that wasn’t the only problem.
rrrrrrrrrrrrrumble!!
More quakes.
This time it didn’t stop at earthquakes.
The ground split, and the pitch-black entrance to the underground ruin expanded without end.
More quakes. Confusion. Thunderous noise.
People who had flailed, unable to do this or that, now set a clear course of action.
"Aaaarrrgh!"
"Take cover!!"
"Run!"
If you want to live, run. Take cover! Run!
And from below surged a massive amorphous mass of flesh. A horrific monster like an abnormally enlarged amoeba.
KRRRRRRRUMBLE!!!
"Tekeli-li!!"
A shoggoth revealed itself with its signature uncanny cry.
"A monster! It’s a monster!"
It was a scene so dreadful that even veteran fixers, hardened by every trial, were mostly stunned, panicked, or rolling on the ground flailing.
One person, however, kept her cool in the midst of it—and moved to achieve a single objective.
"Stay down just like that!"
Her name was Curtain Call. She would likely become one of the people Mun Gyeongnam remembered in nightmares.
"I’ll split your skull!"
"No, don’t!"
Still prone, Mun Gyeongnam stretched a hand to the ground and assembled a spell. The formula blooming from his fingertips ran along the ground and branched at incredible speed.
[Stone Wall]
Magic learned by a route different from Kim Sinhwa’s. Consequently, the activation words used by the [Old Voice] to which Mun Gyeongnam belonged were in English.
KRRRRRRRRRK!!
Not that it produced a markedly different effect. A stony rampart heaved up at terrifying speed.
"Move!"
KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-BOOM!
Curtain Call had been charging while taking even stray bolts with her body. A slapdash stone wall only delayed her advance for a few seconds.
KABOOM!
An impact sounded a little earlier than expected.
"They say Vasiliisa’s witch keeps a few monsters—and you must be one of them."
A physique grotesquely huge, muscles hypergrown past human limits, rough, rock-hard gray skin that could forcibly contain those muscles.
He’d parried Curtain Call’s halberd—a brute with a war pick so massive it might as well be a battering ram. "What are you? Get lost."
Curtain Call’s halberd moved without parley.
She leapt, whirled her whole body—and slashed for the muscleman’s head...
KRAKOOM!
Blocked again.
"More to the point—you. Aren’t you a fixer hired by Yeonam Construction?"
"So what?"
"Then you shouldn’t be stopping us. That idiot rolling on the ground there is a director of Yeonam Construction."
Contrary to what his appearance suggested, the man spoke sensibly.
"Aha?"
Curtain Call scowled and called to Mun Gyeongnam:
"You—what’s your name?"
"Mun Gyeongnam! Director Mun Gyeongnam! A director of Yeonam Construction and in the Yeonam Group succession—"
Curtain Call cut him off with a shout.
"Your name isn’t on the protection list I was given. Die!"
"That’s be—"
Usually you don’t bother writing the name because even idiots know it!
Mun Gyeongnam was about to say that, then abruptly shut his mouth.
Wait, what is that?
Something odd struck his detection. If his reading was right, that was...
KABOOM!
Curtain Call’s halberd and the brute’s war pick collided with a tremendous report.
The brute who’d again stopped her attack finished the sentence Mun Gyeongnam should have said, as if on his behalf.
"Low intelligence, is it!"
KRAK-KRAK-KRAKOOM!
Curtain Call didn’t know the name of the man blocking her, but Baukalak did.
"Ugh, that’s Rhino? Why bring something like that?"
A gangland criminal from the Waste Alley, moonlighting as a fixer.
He was called a fixer, but unlike the usual sort, he mainly took cult-friendly work—a freebooter.
If Mun Gyeongnam hadn’t hired him, he’d likely have answered the Mannse Ilwon Church’s call and gone down to Buyeo.
THUD! KABOOM! KRAK-BOOM!
A grim exchange of shockwaves so fierce no one else dared step in.
Baukalak, hidden behind the container Curtain Call had thrown, moved toward Mun Gyeongnam’s position—or more precisely, toward where Mun Seunghee was being detained by Mun Gyeongnam’s private troops—and spoke to the person on the other end of his smartphone.
"Please, do something about this! Kim Sinhwa summoned a monster, and our team lead is trying to kill the client!"
— Hahaha, what an insane situation. Whatever else, about the client it’s Yeonam Construction’s fault for not writing the contract properly, so don’t worry.
"A contract? Seriously?"
They were a conglomerate.
No way they’d handle this sloppily, right?
— It was written broadly, in fact... Don’t worry. Whether Mun Gyeongnam lives or dies, no one’s going to sue us.
Baukalak had heard in passing the apocalyptic rumors about the Mun family—the dregs of humanity.
If someone killed Mun Gyeongnam, his siblings would likely send a hefty gift and a wink.
Provided, of course, you had the proper connections. Baukalak did not.
"Don’t tell me this is a double contract? A scam? Does Collie know?"
— Collie kind of knows. Whether she understands is another matter.
Baukalak glanced back at Curtain Call.
"Heaaad!!"
Curtain Call bounded and struck from every angle.
KRAK-KRAK-KRAKOOM!
"Kh... you little runt!"
Rhino was being pushed back by degrees. If it stayed a one-on-one, Curtain Call’s victory seemed certain.
"Take this!"
Kim Sinhwa’s voice from the sky.
KRUMBLE! RRRRUMBLE! KABOOOOOOM!!
Lightning of overwhelming scale poured from thunderheads that massed in an instant.
Baukalak briefly thought Kim Sinhwa had used magic to support Curtain Call—but the bolts didn’t strike that way.
"Kruririririk!"
What the hell is that?
Baukalak felt the urge to rub his eyes. A grotesque quadruped so hard to describe vanished—somewhere off to his left, beyond his perception—and then showed itself at a sharp corner of the heavy equipment behind Kim Sinhwa.
"Kruririririk!"
"Ah, damn it! Curtain Call, I don’t have time to help you—finish that fatso fast!"
"Shut up! If you get in my way, I’ll kill you too!"
KABOOOM!
Sighing, Baukalak lifted his phone again.
"Tudor, I’m pretty sure Collie doesn’t understand the contract. Who’s backing that lunatic Kim Sinhwa to pull this? And why didn’t you tell me in advance?"
— Couldn’t be helped. It was a plan cobbled together at dawn. And the one who proposed it...
Tudor explained; Baukalak agonized.
How much of this absurd story should he believe?
"Why is that masked lunatic Kim Sinhwa meddling in a conglomerate’s line of succession?"
— If you’re curious, rescue Mun Seunghee first. Again: Collie agreed.
"Mm..."
The call ended, and Baukalak sighed. This was all planned just to dunk Mun Gyeongnam?
Being used like this was unpleasant, but the reward Tudor promised was enough to wash away his displeasure.
"So that masked maniac has that much money, huh?"
For that kind of sum, he could tolerate being used like this.
Amid the dreadful chaos, both Kim Sinhwa and Curtain Call were absorbed elsewhere. In that window, Mun Gyeongnam turned his eyes to something else.
"That container... What did this bastard illegitimate stash in there?"
He’d felt strong mana and assumed Kim Sinhwa was hiding there, but Kim Sinhwa had appeared from the wrong place in a ridiculous way. So what’s in there?
[Enchanted Vision]
Mun Gyeongnam invoked a new spell, and soon his left eye showed the container’s interior.
"Ah. I see. I see it now. [Great Source]. You prepared this for your apostle!"
With certainty came fierce rapture.
"Yes—[Great Source] sees all! Not only did he grant me new power, he prepared a tool to smite my foe!"
A mana-stone barrier installed inside the container. And within it, Lee Seonbin in a restraint suit.
As Kim Sinhwa had already confirmed, Lee Seonbin was currently under the influence of the Abyssal being—[Great Source]—whom Mun Gyeongnam served.
