Chapter 238: Aftermath (5)

“Shall we move somewhere else first?”

As he said that and snapped his fingers, shadows instantly swallowed the two of them—

Only Myeong’s form vanished from the spot.

“……”

As Lennok gazed idly at the remnants of the shadow, Myeong reappeared with a whoosh and grumbled.

“Damn it… can’t you just come willingly? Your pointless mana resistance makes you utterly disobedient.”

Just now, Myeong had attempted to envelop Lennok with some sort of spell, and naturally, Lennok refused.

An ordinary sorcerer wouldn’t even be able to defy Myeong’s will, but Lennok’s strangely high spell target resistance instantly nullified it.

“I’m a bit clumsy with this spell, so if you act difficult, it’s hard for me to use. We’re just going to a suitable place for a conversation.”

“……Alright.”

Lennok hesitated, then nodded.

If he truly intended to kill or suppress him, he wouldn’t have chosen this particular moment.

The Cartel’s executive general meeting. The very act of appearing at such a crucial moment to overturn the situation was proof that Myeong still held strong interest in Lennok.

Above all, considering the spell he used then, there was ample reason to hear him out.

As soon as Lennok dropped his resistance, the shadows swallowed him once more.

When the curtain lifted, what appeared before Lennok’s eyes was a spacious lounge offering a panoramic view of the city.

“……”

An unnamed restaurant in a dizzyingly tall skyscraper.

Myeong, who had naturally pulled out a window-side seat and sat down, gestured towards Lennok.

“Sit. We can talk over a meal.”

“This is……”

The table was already laden with all sorts of dishes.

As Lennok sat opposite him, Myeong immediately began eating.

He roughly cut a steak, put it in his mouth, and mumbled.

“This is a place I often frequent to entertain important guests. It’s a restaurant run by an acquaintance, and the view is quite nice. It seems even the most volatile person calms down quite a bit when they come here.”

“Is that directed at me?”

“You’re certainly a difficult one.”

Instead of touching the meal before him, Lennok gazed idly at Myeong.

Their third encounter. But this was the first time he had looked at the man so closely, right in front of him.

Even now, his scruffy appearance gave off no particular aura, but Lennok vividly remembered how powerful and profound the spell etched into his body was.

Beyond simply being a high-dimensional wizard, he was a formidable individual capable of engaging in discourse on par with Olivera Ron Maize.

Lennok decided to ask what he was immediately curious about.

The question he could never move past without asking.

“Do you possess spacetime-related spells?”

“Why are you curious about that?”

“Because I saw you… vaguely touching upon those concepts.”

At his words, Myeong stopped chewing his meat and grinned widely.

“Come to think of it, you did request that type of magic as compensation. I thought you just made an absurd demand because you didn’t want to take on freelance work, but it seems you genuinely have quite an interest.”

“……”

“Unfortunately, you’re mistaken.”

Clack!

He set down the knife in his hand, picked up a fork with his other hand, and began slurping up pasta.

He seemed to have quite an appetite, more than expected.

“What I showed you was merely the result of bending my spells to their absolute limit. As a result, I do touch upon time and space a little, but it’s not at a level where I can fundamentally say I manipulate them.”

Saying that, he plunged the fork in his hand towards the shadow cast inside the bowl.

“In the system of black magic I’ve mastered, there are combination methods that involve connecting shadows to increase the power of a spell or linking two different spells.

I refined that concept to its extreme, applying it even to objects and living beings. Just like… this.”

Whoosh—

The tip of the fork that entered the bowl emerged from the shadow of the salt shaker placed in the center of the table.

So, by designating the shadow positions in two spaces and temporarily linking them through black magic, he creates a result akin to spatial transfer?

“It would be difficult without delicately adjusting the mana based on the shadow’s position and size… And it would also be heavily influenced by the time of day.”

Myeong smiled and nodded at Lennok’s murmured words.

“Exactly. After all, a shadow’s size and area constantly change depending on the sunlight or light source, so it’s practically difficult to use unless you’re inside a building where sunlight doesn’t directly hit.”

Myeong mumbled it nonchalantly, but Lennok remembered that Myeong had used this magic on a bustling street.

For a wizard of his caliber, calculating the amount of mana to invest in real-time changing shadows would pose no problem at all.

“However, despite these demanding conditions, in terms of utility, my magic doesn’t differ significantly from spatial magic.”

Myeong said that, then stared idly at Lennok.

“What do you think is the reason?”

“Is it because spacetime magic is actually very inefficient?”

“Precisely.”

Myeong gave a sinister chuckle.

“This is why I like talking to fellow wizards. We understand each other well.”

“……”

Lennok had more or less surmised as much.

Even after traveling around for two years, handling all sorts of matters, all he had acquired were a few spatial artifacts.

But by handling such artifacts, he had come to understand something.

Considering artifacts like the Charm of Earth’s Embrace, a binding magical tool that consumed vast amounts of mana along with significant warm-up time, one could understand the characteristics of spatial magic.

“Spatial magic consumes enormous amounts of mana as the manipulated space increases. They say it’s like setting fire to an ocean of oil. This is because you directly manipulate space to bend rules, rather than handling space by bending rules. It’s on a completely different level from merely touching space as part of black magic.”

“So, in exchange for immediate spatial manipulation, it consumes mana like water?”

“Not only that, but learning even low-tier spells requires a spatial comprehension comparable to that of a Commander Wizard. Even if one gets a chance to learn rare magic, their own talent can easily hold them back.”

“……”

“What about time-related magic, for which proper information doesn’t even circulate?”

Lennok remained silent.

Myeong watched Lennok with an amused expression, continuously picking at the food on the table.

“That’s why academic circles and antiquated wizards gave up on spacetime magic a long time ago. Eventually, if they reach a state where they refine their mastered spells to the extreme and redefine concepts, they will, as a result, be able to interfere with those two great intervals.”

So that’s why other high-ranking sorcerers weren’t particularly active in seeking spacetime magic.

“Of course, if one could truly master those two branches of magic freely, even contemplating the inefficiency of the process would feel like a luxury… But these are practical problems. Abandoning the path one was on to seek magic that cannot be acquired or mastered would be akin to heresy for sorcerers.”

“I see. But……”

This was irrelevant to Lennok, who was not bound by the shackles of a magical system.

Even more so for him, who had gone beyond merely being unbound, directly creating a system and establishing its laws himself.

However, instead of uttering such words, Lennok swallowed them.

Though Myeong was strangely benevolent towards Lennok, he was ultimately a member of Pandemonium.

In terms of trustworthiness, this meeting itself was on par with something absurd.

“Alright, that’s enough lecturing for my junior. Let me get to my main point.”

As he swept the empty dishes aside, a waiter appeared from somewhere and quickly cleared the tableware.

In an instant, two cups of coffee appeared on the empty table, and Myeong leisurely sipped his coffee while looking down at the city.

“Join Pandemonium.”

“……”

Silence fell.

Even after dropping such a shocking proposal, he was casually looking out the window.

Instead of answering, Lennok slowly turned his head to look down at the city’s scenery.

It was completely different from the desolate landscape he had encountered during his battle with Parden McQueen.

The heart of civilization, bustling with people.

A chaotic and complex, yet vibrantly explicit scene of a bustling downtown, making one feel the reality of being alive almost excessively.

“If you killed that foolish apostate monk, your qualifications should be sufficient, and with my recommendation, one or two simple tests should suffice. It won’t be difficult to pass. The important thing is how much you truly know.”

Myeong turned his gaze to Lennok.

“If you’ve already decided on an answer, then this discourse will become meaningless.”

“That’s rather unexpected.”

Lennok replied.

“Are you saying it wouldn’t matter if I refused your offer here?”

“Hahaha!! Of course. Did you think I would forcefully threaten you here?”

Myeong burst into laughter.

“I generally know what you’ve been doing in this city. It’s unlikely someone as meticulous as you would follow me willingly without any preparations.”

“……”

“I also have no intention of clinging miserably to some dark junior. Nor do I need someone without conviction who moves by another’s will. Besides that, we… have too much to do.”

At those words, Lennok couldn’t help but hesitate in his reply.

It was true that the numerous discussions Lennok had with countless individuals over time had, to some extent, helped him understand this world.

However, this man, calmly sipping coffee while sitting before him, was an entity moving in a completely different direction from anyone he had met so far.

Would it truly be wise to engage in a conversation with him on this topic?

Though he had seen and experienced much on his path, Lennok never overestimated himself.

He was neither a sage who had comprehended the world’s truths nor a prophet who foresaw and perceived everything.

He was just a human, like anyone else, living the reality before his eyes.

The belief that he could continue a discourse on equal terms with this man, who seemed to transcend humanity, was likely an illusion.

If Lennok were to sympathize with Pandemonium’s ideology through his conversation with Myeong.

And if that were not the right answer.

Lennok honestly admitted his own fear.

“I’m afraid that what I desire might not be the correct answer.”

“……”

“I don’t even know if a correct answer truly exists for this problem. I’m not sure if I’m even qualified to answer this discourse.”

Myeong listened to Lennok’s words, his eyes quietly closed.

“The true extent of what it means to ‘open the heavens’ is unknowable. Perhaps you all might be seeing reality more clearly.”

Ascension and Revelation.

Which is closer to the idea of a snake biting its own tail, the cyclical nature of order?

Lennok now felt he could vaguely grasp its meaning.

But that wasn’t because he had finally attained true qualifications and reached the pinnacle to provide an answer, but because he was an outsider who had come from a completely different world.

Whether all of this had been orchestrated from the beginning.

How far the three sentences he heard just before opening his eyes in this world were connected.

Still, no clear answer was visible.

Therefore, Lennok decided not to overexert himself.

“I have no intention of cooperating with you right now. That’s all I can say.”

“……Alright.”

Myeong smiled faintly and slowly stood up.

“At least it’s clear you’re not completely ignorant. That’s enough.”

The spacious lounge, where only the two of them were visible.

Myeong, who was walking towards the elevator at the far end, turned his head towards Lennok.

“But the others won’t be as friendly as I am.”

“……”

“Someday, if the head of Pandemonium needs you, will you truly be able to refuse that offer?”

Lennok did not answer. He merely endured the gaze in silence.

Myeong chuckled, turned away, and pressed the elevator button.

He mumbled, watching the numbers on the display steadily rising.

“The more you carry, the more entangled you are, the harder it will be to escape. No matter how firm your resolve, such things don’t always go as planned. Otherwise, like me…”

You have no choice but to sever everything.

“……”

Leaving an unforgettable remark in Lennok’s mind, their conversation ended.

Did Myeong truly want Lennok to join Pandemonium? Or did he simply want to have a conversation with him?

Lennok couldn’t know until the very end what true intention lay behind the strange kindness mixed into his actions.

The monster, whose true intentions were hard to guess, vanished into the elevator.

Only Lennok remained in the spacious lounge, looking up at the darkening sky.