The Hero Returns

Drip, drip, drip—

With a small wooden house as the epicenter, corpses were strewn about in every direction.

Calvin's expression as he stared at the chopped-up and burnt bodies was one of pure stupefaction. Without even realizing it, he had sunk down to his knees.

He couldn't tell how long it had been, either.

<<None of it worked on him for real.>>

Su-hyeun did say this — that he was the natural enemy of the magicians.

When Calvin first heard that, he couldn't quite grasp the concept. He simply figured that the attacker was confident of his defense against magic, and that was about it.

But that man, he was telling the truth.

Magic didn't work on Su-hyeun. He ignored the spells that didn't possess any physical form and continued to cut down the dark magicians.

Unsurprisingly, the gathered dark magicians all ran away from there in an instant. Su-hyeun didn't chase after them, however. And that's why Calvin thought about escaping as well, but couldn't actually do it.

If he did, then he might really get killed off.

"Shall we start our conversation again?" Su-hyeun asked.

Creaaak—

He sat down on the sole remaining rocking chair found inside the completely destroyed house. It was also the same chair that he sat on when he first came here, too.

Calvin found it quite remarkable that a lone chair managed to escape unharmed from what had transpired just now, and at the same time, it gave him the creeps. He wondered whether Su-hyeun had deliberately left it alone or not.

"First, tell me everything you know about him," said Su-hyeun.

"W-when you say him, you mean Malcolm..."

"It's 'Sir' Malcolm."

"Y-yes, yes."

Half-out of his mind now, Calvin turned towards Su-hyeun while still on his knees. He racked his brain, trying to figure just where he should start and eventually opened his mouth. "Malcolm... Sir Malcolm, he's more like a scholar rather than a true dark magician."

"A scholar?"

"Y-yes. Rather than learning and mastering magic spells, he researches them. In reality, although he is a magician, you can't really call him one."

"Well, yeah. He did look that way."

The amount of magical energy that could be sensed coming from Malcolm was indeed quite insignificant. So, that assertion wasn't entirely wrong.

"However, Sir Malcolm as a scholar is someone more than worthy enough to be recorded in the history books. That's why he was admitted to this city in the first place, too."

"Okay, so?"

"As far as I know, the reason why Sir Malcolm came to this city was to perform research on the divine beasts."

"Divine beasts?"

"Yes, divine beasts. Demonic beasts as well. To perform research related to them."

Su-hyeun had been wondering why there were so many divine beast-related books in the basement study, but that seemed to be the reason.

"Was it really Sir Malcolm who summoned Ouroboros?" Su-hyeun asked another question.

"N-no, it's not. He doesn't have the ability to do so."

"Then who did it?"

"Sir Malcolm only told us of the method. It was the dark magicians of this city that summoned the demonic beast, Ouroboros."

"That was my mistake."

***

Su-hyeun thought he could hear Malcolm's voice — the voice filled with powerful self-torturing regret and guilt. The reason for that was precisely this.

"What's the reason for sacrificing people to Ouroboros?"

"E-excuse me?" Calvin sounded flustered by Su-hyeun's question. It seemed that he had no idea the latter knew about that fact. "C-could it be that… You have heard about it already?"

"Of course. How could I not when you lot have been yapping on so loudly about it?"

Earlier on, he heard what Calvin and the other dark magicians were noisily going on about through the slightly ajar door of the house: people being served up as sacrifices to Ouroboros, and the dark magicians using that as their source of entertainment and cackling away.

Su-hyeun barely managed to suppress the sick feeling welling up inside of him back then.

"Hurry up and speak. What's the reason for sacrificing people to Ouroboros? If you take your time with your answers, from now on I will..."

"It-it's to appease Ouroboros!"

"Appease? Appease what exactly?"

"Its appetite...."

Su-hyeun deeply furrowed his brows at Calvin's reply. Something didn't feel quite right with that answer. "Are you telling me that the appetite of such a humongous creature can be satisfied by feeding it just a few people?"

"Specifically, not its appetite but its sense of satisfaction. Satisfaction that it...had eaten humans."

"You should've said that from the start. Trying to confuse me and all."

"M-my apologies."

"Okay, so? Why did Sir Malcolm teach your group the method to summon Ouroboros? And why did you go ahead and summon that bastard?"

"That is...."

Calvin ended up hesitating with his reply.

Wu-du-duk—!

"Kkeuh-aaaaaaahk!"

Su-hyeun's foot stomped on Calvin's knee. Now subjected to the pain of his kneecap being crushed to bits, the latter struggled in vain to remove the former's foot while screaming out loudly.

"I-I'll-I'll answer you! Please!"

Su-hyeun took his foot away at Calvin's seizure-like screaming. The smart thing to do when handing out a troublesome question was to not give the opponent time to formulate an answer.

"Kkeuh-euh...."

"You have three seconds. Three, two...."

"It-it was to protect the city!"

Su-hyeun stared straight at Calvin after hearing that reply. He needed a bit more explanation than that.

"Be more specific."

"An empire across the sea was aiming for Moros. It was the worst crisis to fall upon Moros in its entire history."

"Oh, so the reason for Ouroboros's summoning was to protect Moros from the invasion of this empire?"

In order to reach Moros, an island nation, you had no choice but to cross the vast ocean. The empire failed to get past the giant snake of the oceans, Ouroboros, and eventually gave up on the invasion of Moros.

That was the end of Calvin's explanation.

"Is that really everything?" Su-hyeun asked.

"T-that is..."

Calvin displayed yet another hint of hesitation at Su-hyeun's pointed question.

Right then, Su-hyeun's foot was raised up, prompting Calvin to urgently open his mouth. "That-that was the reason for Sir Malcolm's decision to summon Ouroboros."

"You said it 'was', which means....?"

"It-it was all a lie."

Calvin replied and squeezed his eyes shut.

Su-hyeun would've learned about it eventually if Malcolm decided to open up, anyway. So, Calvin decided to come clean about everything. "What you heard just now...was a lie to coax the method to summon Ouroboros out from Sir Malcolm."

"So, the real purpose of summoning Ouroboros is?"

"It was in order for us to survive in this city."

"Did someone try to kill you all?"

At Su-hyeun's question, Calvin's head dropped and he began clenching his teeth. "We, the dark magicians, had been discriminated against for the past several centuries."

"Discriminated?"

"Yes! Discrimination! People pointed their fingers at us, saying we're dirty, that we're the followers of an evil discipline, and they always despised us. People who exalted you with sparkling eyes if you were a magician were now hating you for being a dark magician!"

"...So what?"

"Excuse me?"

"Okay, so. Who makes up the sacrifices served up to Ouroboros? The dark magicians or the regular magicians who discriminated and despised you lot?"

Calvin shut his mouth immediately.

The answer was too obvious. Su-hyeun simply tutted at Calvin's silence. "I can understand why you lot were discriminated against and despised now. All of you are like a stinking pile of mold."

Su-hyeun lowered himself and extended his hand towards Calvin's chest.

"W-what are you trying to...!"

Pow—!

"Keo-eok!"

Su-hyeun's palm accurately slammed into Calvin's chest. The latter's jaw dropped and his waist bent in half from the impact force reverberating throughout his entire body.

Wuduk, wududuk—

Calvin's body then began to contort in an abnormal manner. He writhed in sheer, unbridled pain and eventually, screamed out. "Keuh, keuh-aaaaaah!"

"The magical circuits of you dark magicians can easily go out of whack even from the smallest impact," said Su-hyeun.

"Ah-ahck, aaaahk!"

"You probably won't be able to use magical energy for the rest of your life. Obviously, you should kiss goodbye to this shell of a magician, too. Since you answered my questions, I won't kill you. However..." Su-hyeun disapprovingly stared at Calvin before turning around. "You don't have the qualifications to wield that power."

He then walked over to the corner of the collapsed house. Miru, sitting there waiting for him, unfurled its wings and flew up to perch comfortably on Su-hyeun's head once more.

Calvin stared at the distancing back of Su-hyeun, his head shooting up high. This pain tearing through his entire body just didn't want to let him go.

"Euh, euh…. Euh, euh, euh...."

Within this intense pain, Calvin tried to rouse his magical energy.

However, he couldn't sense a single lick of magical energy that used to fill up his body. The crippling sense of loss as if he had lost a portion of his limb, no, as if he had lost his identity itself, took over.

He had been living his entire life as a dark magician.

"Heuh-euh...."

Calvin planted his head on the ground.

A magician who lost his ability to wield magic couldn't live in this city anymore.

* * *

Su-hyeun headed back to Malcolm's residence.

Before he reached the house, though, he took a look at the state of his body. Thankfully, blood didn't splatter onto his clothes.

Knock, knock—

"Sir, I've returned."

He knocked on the gate leading to the residence's front garden, and a short while later, it opened.

Malcolm was tending to the garden, his bent back lowered even further.

"You're back?" Malcolm discovered Su-hyeun and with quick steps, walked closer and scanned the latter from top to bottom. "Are you injured anywhere? Those people didn't try to harm you?"

"No, I'm fine, sir."

Gya-ong—!

Miru energetically replied as if to say "No need to worry!"

Malcolm breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that their subjects of worry were not in sync, but Su-hyeun didn't try to correct the older man.

"What a relief it is. Truly."

"Sir."

Su-hyeun held Malcolm's aged, wrinkled hand and asked. "Sir, why do you treat me so well?"

"What are you talking about out of the blue? That's obviously..."

"Is it because you feel sorry?"

At Su-hyeun's next question, Malcolm chose to swallow back his words and turned his head away. He didn't seem to be panicking. He probably was thinking that Su-hyeun must've heard many stories from the dark magicians by now.

"Why don't we go for a short walk?" Malcolm suggested.

"Alright."

Su-hyeun matched Malcolm's walking speed and strode alongside him.

The latter, walking on in silence for a while, finally spoke up in a small voice. "Once every month, Moros sacrifices ten people to Ouroboros."

"Yes, I'm aware of that."

"And when an outsider enters the city, that person will be prioritized as the sacrifice. It's to protect one more magician of the city." Malcolm lowered his head. "To outsiders, this city is like an antlion pit. And...it is I who turned this city into what it is now."

"Is that why you're being so nice to me?"

"I'm truly sorry. I really am. I'd have urged you to escape from here if you can, but..." Malcolm shifted his gaze over to the tall distant ramparts. "But, if you do that, you'd lose the freedom of this one month, instead."

"Those walls, they..."

"They weren't built to keep people out." Malcolm shook his head. "No, they are meant to keep you in."

And here was the reason why Su-hyeun was allowed in so easily without his identity being confirmed.

Malcolm must've felt guilty about it because he couldn't face Su-hyeun's eyes anymore. He seemed to be feeling guilty about not being truthful from the beginning, and also for causing the current state of Moros, as well.

<<So this entire city is sort of a trap, then.>>

It felt like he was now seeing the true nature of this city called Moros.

It was like quicksand in a desert, where you could never escape once you stepped inside and continuously got sucked in even deeper till you died.

What an amusing place this was. He needed quite a while to figure out the theme and the background of the trial this time.

It was a trial where the clear goal or the specific objective wasn't even set in stone. Most likely, the achievement rate and whether he passed or failed the trial would be judged on what he did in the city and what resulted from his actions.

In that case, uncovering the background of the trial was not only the basic thing to do, but it was also the most important objective.

But this…

<<What the hell?>>

Su-hyeun smirked after confirming the outline of the trial slowly revealing itself.

<<It's not as bad as I thought.>>