ALL NOVEL Chapter 141
To: Yoo Jin-hyun, 1st Year Student of Magic at Cradle
(Through) Cradle Administration Office
Subject: Request for Cooperation Based on Special Measure for Talent Development of Important Purpose
1. May your magical talent expand infinitely.
2. According to Article 1, Section 8 of the measure, I am sending this official request, and I would appreciate your smooth cooperation.
Attachment: Detailed incident outline. End.
Director of Special Crime Investigation Bureau, Masada Regional Administration
—
Time flows on its own, whether I’m mired in worries or not.
Wednesday has officially arrived, and the external request period starts again.
I quickly tidied myself up and headed to the corridor. I set aside thoughts I couldn’t resolve immediately to focus on what I had to do.
I thought I set out quite early, but the place was already packed with students ready to exit Cradle for assignments.
They were clustered together in groups or standing alone, waiting for the entry inspection at the main gate.
Those leaving for distant requests shared brief farewells, creating a lively atmosphere.
For the next two weeks, aside from some students needing extra classes, the rest would be accumulating results and field experience outside instead of attending lectures. They would face various risks during this process, but that’s precisely what Cradle intends. They’ve changed the curriculum to emphasize that in today’s world, experience outweighs mere knowledge.
Yet, apart from a few timid individuals, most students seemed to wear smiles. The ratio of those who were increasingly unfazed by monsters or criminals was steadily rising.
Perhaps the joy of freely engaging in outside activities outweighed their fear of enemies.
I found myself empathizing with that sentiment to some extent.
But speaking of timid individuals…
“…Yena?”
“Ha!”
Sneak sneak. I called her name as I heard familiar footsteps approaching quietly.
A small sigh was audible a short distance away.
As I turned around, I saw a female student standing tall with her hands behind her back in the corridor illuminated by the morning sun.
Her shiny, brown, medium-length hair. Brown eyes that matched. A few tiny freckles sprinkled around her nose.
She exuded the clear impression of a kind-hearted, optimistic girl — a typical innocent countryside girl. Her small, delicate form stirred a protective urge.
Yena widened her eyes as she looked at me.
“How did you know?”
“I could hear everything.”
“…Hmm. I wanted to surprise you…”
Yena pouted slightly, not hiding her disappointment.
Then she naturally walked over and matched my pace.
I had just been thinking of her. Among the people I know, Yena was certainly the most timid. I wondered if she had overcome her fear of monsters.
During the Sky Basin practice and the monster-slaying drills in the Monster Studies class, I remembered her going pale every single time.
“Were you heading out for a request?”
Yena was dressed in plain clothes instead of her white school uniform.
“Yeah. If we’re doing this, it’s better to start early. The sooner I finish, the more I can do other things.”
Other things? What else could there be? Unlike me, always on the edge, Yena was excellent with her grades, so she didn’t seem to have any remedial classes.
“Where are you going?”
“Shh. That’s obviously a secret.”
Yena pretended to put a finger to her mouth and peeked at me from the corner of her eye.
“Didn’t the professor say not to reveal things carelessly in case it interferes with the request?”
Suddenly, she blocked my path.
“Still… if it’s you, Hyun, I feel like you could tell me. Since you’re my ‘favorite friend.’ How about it? Want to share…?”
“…”
Between her slightly disheveled bangs, a pair of brown eyes stared intently at me.
Today, the fresh gaze felt a bit suffocating.
…What’s this?
Unlike others who took quite some time, I had become close with Yena from the very first day of admission.
We had similar backgrounds and shared a unique calmness that made people comfortable, unlike others.
I felt a strange familiarity, as if I were meeting an old hometown friend, something unique to Yena.
But today, Yena felt different somehow.
Her way of speaking, gestures, gaze.
I couldn’t quite confirm it, but there was an undeniable feeling of something foreign…
Now that I mention it, she didn’t joke around like before. Usually, if I greeted her, she would only respond afterward, right?
Is she trying to change her shy personality? But I felt more comfortable with her old self.
It was honestly a bit burdensome that she suddenly seemed like a different person.
“…It’s okay. I can ask later after it’s all done.”
“Tch…”
Yena pouted in disappointment and stepped back. She still wore a gentle smile.
After that, we walked in silence.
Yena only waved at me after we reached the main gate of Cradle.
“Hyun! I’m going this way. See you later?”
“…Sure.”
In the crowd lined up at the gate, Yena quickly vanished from sight.
I glanced at the spot she left for a moment before heading toward another gate.
A strange sense of unease lingered in the place where Yena had just been.
—
Not long ago.
A dead man’s body was discovered in the middle of a pig-farming area, causing quite a stir.
The reason this seemingly ordinary lower-class death became sensational gossip was simple.
The body was found naked, and the cause of death was ruled as intestinal rupture.
Soon enough, a newspaper dedicated several pages to expose the investigation findings, and people hurriedly added their own wild imaginations about the deceased’s sexual preferences.
Even I, who generally pays little attention to social affairs, was well aware of this incident.
Sera, bringing a curled-up newspaper, had a mischievous expression, reveling in the gossip.
“This! Look at this! Can you believe something like this happened?”
“Why…? What happened…?”
“So… hehehe…”
“Uh, I don’t want to hear it anymore!”
“Stop hearing? This is just the beginning! What comes next is the real story! So…”
I still remember Yena blushing bright red after she asked, instead of me, and ended up in an embarrassing situation.
However… I never imagined my request would be related to that incident.
“Ugh… that can’t be true… I had a physical examination recently, and there was nothing wrong…”
In the capital’s outskirts slum.
Unlike the center that never sleeps, filled with light, this place was packed with dilapidated shanties. Electricity and water barely reached here.
It was an area where the emergence of wicked warlocks or insane mutants committing cannibalism and kidnappings was considered the norm.
In the midst of it all, in a run-down little house that looked on the verge of collapsing, I faced a widow clad in black.
“I only traveled around the capital… where would I have been exposed to such high-density particles… ugh…”
The widow, nearly fainting upon seeing my mask, changed her attitude upon realizing I was a student from Cradle and passionately appealed for help.
I recalled the analysis results I’d received about the deceased.
The body of the man who died naked after breaking into a pig farm recorded abnormally high particle sensitivity levels. Yet, he lacked any enhancements and was a completely ordinary person.
The special investigation bureau’s conclusion was simple. The widow’s late husband had been exposed to a high-density particle environment and, as a result, developed a spontaneous psychological mutation. After engaging in bizarre behavior, he died from intestinal rupture and excessive bleeding.
However, the widow vehemently denied those findings.
“He would never do such a thing… there’s more to this…”
The special investigation bureau didn’t consider this case particularly special. There were plenty of places where particle density was high due to terrain and atmospheric conditions throughout the Republic.
The first place that had been practiced was The Sky Basin, which was one of those locations.
Moreover, it was common for those unresponsive to particles to suffer mental and physical mutations unexpectedly upon exposure to them.
Magicians create wells to control particles stably, even gaining vitality. But the meeting of the insensitive and particles is likely to cause unexpected mutations.
I knew this as common knowledge by now. Given the shortage of personnel to face my terrible criminals, they had no resources to invest in uncovering the cause of a perverse act’s demise. The cause of death of a lower-class man was trivial.
However, the widow refused to accept that judgment. She constantly filed complaints as a citizen, and there was no need to mention her ruckus in the press.
Additionally, the area she inhabited was scheduled for redevelopment, closely tied to the current administration’s achievements.
But if this uproar persisted, it could affect upcoming redevelopment reviews.
Such an unremarkable death for common folks became increasingly significant, prompting them to convey their request to Cradle.
And what they desired from me was simple. A pretense.
They merely wanted me to pretend to reassess the case and eventually return to the initial conclusions to persuade the widow to relent.
By relying on the authority of Cradle and the magicians.
“…”
My position was quite troubling.
I couldn’t judge the insincerity of the request’s motive, but there weren’t any glaring holes in their logic.
Unless they forged evidence of death, they had done what they were supposed to. The widow simply couldn’t accept it.
Still, if I proceeded with their request, I felt considerable concern as though I carried a burden on the widow’s emotional state.
Giving up the request… of course, was out of the question. What about the scores on the line?
“Please… please help me… he would never do such a thing…”
While still undecided, I listened to her plead.
Suddenly, something sparkled on the widow’s wrist as she knelt begging.
Without realizing it, I turned my gaze toward it.
It was a silver bracelet, made of thin metallic strands, with a decorative piece attached in the middle.
A cross surrounded by a circle. It appeared to be something with religious significance. Unlike an ordinary cross, its upper part appeared oddly elongated.
It seemed like it was flipped over at first glance.
However, I couldn’t exactly say it looked particularly valuable; it might even feel ordinary.
“…”
But at that moment.
A sudden sense of déjà vu encompassed my body.
A faint, yet distinct feeling of unease washed over me.
I quickly recalled the reason.
I had seen an object exactly like it before.
It belonged to Yeon Minha’s father, now regarded as one of the Republic’s worst criminals.
From the neck of Yeon Jeong-mun.