Hermit Wizard

Wizard’s Name (3)

“Then let’s wrap it up here today.”

That was a statement from the government representative of the negotiation team. The place where they gathered was a detached house located near the border between Seoul and Seongnam. There was a line of black glossy sedans parked in the building’s basement, which looked like a typical private house from the outside.

The people who came with those official vehicles were sitting in the living room. The interior, which blocked the outside’s eyes with curtains, was transformed into a plausible conference room. Government officials sat around a long table. The room was burning hot due to the body temperature.

Sweat flowed down from Kim Kyung-hwan’s forehead. It was because of the temperature inside the house and also because of the tension he felt.

He opened his mouth with everyone’s eyes focused on him, and he just repeated what the Vice Minister had just said. The sight was like a parrot imitating words. However, what was important was not the act of speaking out loud but a piece of thought that was embodied in Kim Kyung-hwan’s mind when speaking.

The person who read the thought responded.

=I agree.=

The alien entity was sitting on the seat of honor in the living room that turned into a conference room. To be precise, the expression of ‘seat of honor’ didn’t fit. At the end of the long table, it wasn’t a chair but a soft single bed that fitted its size.

Although only the brain and a few tissues were removed from the main body, it was still several times the human size. The alien was on the mattress shaped like a round purple jelly mass, whose organs such as the brain could be seen. Kim Kyung-hwan took his gaze away from its translucent body. He then translated its words to the government negotiators.

“It’s saying yes.”

Drops of sweat flowed down.

The negotiation team exchanged glances. Carraderina rolled its body and came down under the mattress. It then moved slowly and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Wherever the alien’s bodies move, traces of transparent mucus remained as if mopping with water.

Around the corner leading upstairs, it returned to the resting area. The negotiators, who were watching quietly, only sighed after Carraderina had completely disappeared.

“Phew, it ended well today.”

“Thank you all for your hard work.”

The officials looked at each other and chatted to see if the tension had been relieved. Some people leaned on their backs for the first time after entering that house and rested, while others took out handkerchiefs and wiped the sweat off the back of their necks.

“Thank you very much, Wizard.”

The first person to stand up and approach Kim Kyung-hwan was the First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the negotiation team’s head.

He was an experienced person in charge of negotiations with the Kaifu. He also negotiated with a different ethnic group rather than a diplomat from another country due to the rapid change of times.

The First Vice Minister reached out to Kim Kyung-hwan. He got up from his seat without a different expression on his face and received his handshake.

“Our performance is quite significant today.”

“… Yes.”

“The information that Carraderina gives is truly amazing. In particular, it was the first time to hear that there is a ‘Seed’ of the Channel. Besides that, the information about the wizard, the Reclusive Soul, is probably unknown to any country except Korea. It must be useful.”

Kim Kyung-hwan nodded.

Carraderina said that it was an ‘ascetic’ who served the Truth-Seeker. Kim Kyung-hwan knew the meaning of those words now. What surprised him specifically was that the officials in the negotiations seemed to have known the meaning of the Truth-Seeker in advance. It was probably information that had been thoroughly controlled by the public so far.

It seemed that the subject of the control included Hun-neung’s trainees. However, Kim Kyung-hwan was an exception. The government could no longer reject him from such information.

The reason was simple. If Kim Kyung-hwan didn’t interpret the negotiation to exchange information with the alien, the negotiation itself couldn’t proceed.

Kim Kyung-hwan raised his right hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The Vice Minister, who looked at it carefully, said.

“You seem to be very tired. Well, it takes a lot of concentration to translate a foreign language. Still, you’re interpreting telepathy just now, so it must be hard and difficult for ordinary people like us to imagine.”

“Ah… well… that’s right…”

Kim Kyung-hwan didn’t deny it.

In reality, the reason he felt exhausted wasn’t due to the act of interpreting itself. To communicate with Carraderina, it was necessary to control his mind and reveal only the part he should. Kim Kyung-hwan had no choice but to pay keen attention to prevent his deep consciousness from being leaked out.

Officials who couldn’t even know the detailed principle thought telepathy wasn’t easy magic even for a wizard like Kim Kyung-hwan.

The government, which relied on Kim Kyung-hwan’s interpretation, took great care of him. He was assisted by several attendants to maintain his condition. It was a protocol in which attendants even raised a glass of water for him to add a little exaggeration.

The First Vice Minister raised a meaningful smile in his mouth.

“Thank you, all the time. I don’t know what would have happened to us without you, Mr. Wizard. Nowadays, just thinking like that makes me dizzy. Even after contacting the aliens, the communication couldn’t be possible, so all this valuable information would’ve been sent out. Mr. Wizard, you are really a treasure of Korea.”

“… Ah, well.”

Looking at him answering, Vice Minister thought that Kim Kyung-hwan’s expression was unusually stiff that day, but he didn’t take it seriously. He considered it to be a big consumption of mental power.

Kim Kyung-hwan asked in a dry voice.

“Is the government also looking for the wizard called the Reclusive Soul?”

“Yeah, but it’s hard to find a clue.”

‘As expected.’ Kim Kyung-hwan muttered inside.

Words he couldn’t say there echoed in his mind one after another. Though in the first place, he wasn’t the person you could find just because you were looking for him. He was a monster that tore and destroyed even space-time to achieve his purpose.

He asked just in case, but it was as he expected. It seemed that they didn’t intend to wait until the alien who had completed the information exchange went on its own exploration. Kim Kyung-hwan swallowed his words toward the Korean government. Those people shouldn’t touch his temper, or the country could fall under Eraser’s might.

The First Vice Minister said, looking at his stern expression in thought.

“You don’t look very well. Hurry up and go out. Here, here! Please take a look at the wizard.”

“Ah, I don’t need any help.”

Kim Kyung-hwan refused the hand of his attendant. He then slowly got up from his seat.

He forcibly suppressed the urge to look behind him while walking away. As soon as Carraderina moved to the second floor, Kim Kyung-hwan moved his hand under the table to attach something small to the furniture’s legs. No one seemed to notice the movement.

Was that going to be a success? Was that the right thing to do?

Drops of sweat dripped again due to the rising tension. The attendant who saw his appearance was restless and handed out a handkerchief to Kim Kyung-hwan. Other officials had also vanished. There was no one left in the living room.

***

Silence settled on the first floor, where everyone disappeared. Carraderina was sleeping on the second floor, and there were no people in the house under its wishes. Everyone was watching inside with surveillance cameras placed indoors while keeping tight security outside the house.

-Flinch!

The change began in that quiet space near the table leg where Kim Kyung-hwan sat. The tiny object he put there was the egg of a certain creature. Oval granules turned white. It was about the size of a grain of rice. The surface bulged without anyone noticing.

It was the egg of a creature called ‘Shockmeem.’ The embryo in the eggshell was stunned by Yoon Min-joon’s magic just before breaking the egg. According to its instinct, it resumed the movement to tore the eggshell and came out.

-Boooook!

It tore the mucous membrane of the shell with a sharp claw-like mouth. It wriggled and crawled out, clinging to the legs of the desk. The newborn Shockmeem spread its wings, dried them for a while, and then transparently melted into the atmosphere. It began to act according to the behavioral instructions contained in the gene.

The Shockmeem, which was small enough to be noticed, had a claw-shaped mouth and three pairs of wings when viewed in a close-up view. However, surveillance cameras were unable to capture the image of this tiny creature in the video. As soon as it came out of the egg, it cast invisibility according to its instinct.

-Bwoooong!

The baby Shockmeem flew away, driven by hunger. It stuck to the floor. It began to gnaw the dry slime left behind by Carraderina when it was crawling the floor. It absorbed the concentrated Mana contained in it.

-Bzzzzzz

It was a dense Mana that was hard to see in the world’s ecosystem where the Shockmeem originated. Nutrients were quickly stocked in the body. A Shockmeem that replenished its energy activated a sensitive sense of smell.

The baby creature who just broke the egg was always female. Later, when certain environmental conditions were met, they transform into males. The Shockmeem hatched at the temporary residence of Carraderina quickly grasped the surroundings.

Were there any males around there? Not at all.

Was it an environment that allowed me to transform myself into a male? I didn’t think so.

Was the environment favorable for survival, such as temperature and humidity? It was average.

Was the energy stored in the body enough? Yes.

Was there enough food around? Very much so.

-Bzzzz… Bzzzzzzzzzzz!

After checking so far, the Shockmeem judged according to the algorithm entered into the gene.

In that situation, I would lay eggs without a male.

The Shockmeem started ovulation using the nutrients accumulated in the body and laid three eggs. The embryos, which recognized that there was food around them, immediately broke the egg and hatched.

-Wiggle!

Three transparent baby insects were crawling on the floor. Soon they spread their wings, moved from place to place, ate the dried mucus, and quickly grew to the size of their mother. It was the speed of reproduction and growth that couldn’t be found in Earth’s ecosystem.

Currently, the three females with the eggs were born without mating, and they were just a copy of the mother’s genes. Rather than a true meaning of reproduction, it was a simple act of cloning that had little potential for evolution.

-Bzzz!… Bzzzzzzzzzzz!

Nevertheless, the mother, Shockmeem chose the option of asexual reproduction. That was due to increasing the number, even if it was an utterly identical individual.

In other words, it had increased the possibility of transferring its genes to the next generation by mixing them with other individual genes. Since food was secured around them, they continued to reproduce even if it was just self-replicating in this way.

In such a way, the babies laid eggs again, and the babies born laid eggs again, and they quickly became thousands. There was no more dry mucus or food left on the floor.

-Bwoooong!

The group of Shockmeems increased to a number that was incomparable to the first. It consisted of all females who flew up to the second floor following the delicious smell.

-Bwooong! Bwoooooong!

It made a very small sound when it was one, but it made enough noise when that amount was gathered. It wasn’t heard by the agents’ ears watching over the monitor, but it was loud enough for Carraderina to hear.

Eventually, Carraderina woke up. It faced the swarm of flying bugs, which its own eyes couldn’t be deceived although they cast invisibility, covered its room, and approached it.

It then screamed in its mind.

-Kyaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!

Frightened, Carraderina spat out curses inside.

What the hell were those disgusting bugs?

The creatures didn’t exist in Carraderina’s world. It was a bug that swarmed around in that size and used invisibility!

Astonished, Carraderina unconsciously tried to sway the swarm of bugs with one of its own eighteen legs. It then suddenly realized that it had no legs on its body at that moment.

However, because the brain and the half-ring tube controlled its magic have been brought so far, it instantly combined magic. When it completed the spell and tried to explode all those bugs, the Shockmeem group felt the air changed. Instinct-stimulating substances impulsed thousands of females.

‘… What. What’s wrong?’

Thousands of transparent insects that were moving together in one place suddenly showed strange movements. It was a phenomenon only visible to Carraderina’s eyes.

What the countless individuals felt at once was the hormone released by the male. The female Shockmeems began to dance courtship when they feel the male hormones. The dance wasn’t completely random but rather a high-level movement that moved agilely according to the induction of hormones emitted by males.

At that moment, each Shockmeem entity began to make complex movements in the air, attracted by the stimulating hormone, and…

Carraderina spread keen consciousness.

=… What is it! Who is it?!=

It pulled herself together and started exploring by creating a net of Mana.

What the hell was that about? It asked itself out of alert. Transparent bugs moving in the air were drawing characters used in the civilization of Carraderina, which couldn’t have been passed on to that world where the Channel was just opened!

It desperately continued its detection, but it was vain. There wasn’t even a handful of Mana that could be felt nearby.

… It wasn’t manipulated through magic?

‘What the hell is it?!’

It desperately radiated its magic, but, after all, nothing was detected.

If the opponent moved those insects with magic, sent a message by magic, or somehow sent the will, Carraderina was confident of tracing it back to find out where the other person was.

However, it couldn’t really feel anything around here nor what kind of method was used. It had never imagined that that was the induction of movement through hormones of unknown creatures.

Carraderina created a shield around to defend against an unexpected attack. It then read the text once again. The bugs in front of its eyes were dancing in the air.

It wasn’t an illusion. It was almost impossible to create such a sophisticated string by chance.

The sentences drawn by the dance of the bugs had that meaning.

-Why are you looking for the Reclusive Soul?