The Foreigner on the Periphery

When the ego frying pan heard other people’s words, it could recognize and interpret it without touching it, but it had to be in close contact to understand what he was saying.  

He had a reason for crying out for a touch every time. The frying pan proved to be quite chatty. On the other hand, even after the story that the magic tool was entrusted with the interpretation of the princess, Deong-cheol held it with both hands and was trembling. He took her a few steps closer to her and gave her a hand, but then her body hardened.  

Minjun, who had guessed the reason, held out his hand. “Give it here, I’ll give it to you…”  

"Hey, here it is!" Before Minjun finished speaking, Dong-cheol took a step forward. He grasped the round edges of the frying pan and slid his handle toward the princess.  

It was a gesture that could be understood even in different cultures. The princess, who was screaming like she was picking a pig’s throat made of steel, shut her mouth and looked at Deong-cheol.  

The goblin’s desperate eyes could be reflected in her eyes. This was a creature that fit within two fingers as a dwarf among the tribes that migrated collectively to Earth, and a gigantic crocodile over 2 meters tall faced each other.

There was a message that could be conveyed, even if the language itself could not be spoken.  

"Are you okay?" She held out her hand. Deong-cheol shrugged, but did not drop what he was holding in his hand.  

At this, a gigantic body full of scales approached, and only her two fingers stretched out and lightly grabbed the handle.  

" · · · · · · ·Whew!" The sweaty goblin took a deep breath.  

Meanwhile, the princess hardened her body as soon as she came into contact with the frying pan. Then, she narrowed her eyes again.  

The two seemed to be having a conversation. Minjun then spoke to the frying pan. "Just ask me to answer my question. When the princess speaks, translate it."  

Soon, the princess was excited again. It seems that she was immersed in the incident by recalling her past memories.  

"=Princess, calm down a little.="  

At this, Minjun frowned. It was not quite cooperating. He approached and grabbed the part of the frying pan handle that the princess’ fingers had not reached. The flesh of the two became very close.  

Then the princess stopped her welding sound and bit her teeth. She then lowered her eyes slightly.

‘Hey, don’t be shy,’ she asked the frying pan as her grunt kept inside her.  

"What did the princess say now?" She wished it was nutritious content. However, her return did not live up to expectations.  

= Ah… Ah? Yes. Ah, sorry. I’m a little confused right now.=  

What kind of bullshit was this?  

‘I left an interpreter for you, so why are you suddenly out of business?'  

= This older sister is really hot. ha. Does it catch fire in a matter of minutes? =  

" · · · ·The point only."  

= Oh, what did you say now? You were cursing someone in a very harsh way. I don’t know who it is, but once caught, the skin will be peeled off, the flesh will be chewed, blanched in salt water, and eaten, the genitals will be removed, the mouth will be blocked, the fingers will pierce the nasal passages, and the rest of the body will be cut and killed with a rusty saw… =  

Hearing more, it seemed that there had been no useful words. The sensitive woman who used to describe the atmosphere of her hometown in the seat next to Minjun seemed to have taken a break for a while.  

It looked like her female warrior was on the back, chewing her foes by making her baton touch with her instead of her. This was a wild Stan tribe who poured curses on the culprit of the attack.  

‘You have a needlessly complex personality.'

The frying pan murmured as if in ecstasy.  

= This noona gets along very well with me… If you had said something like this to me too…=  

The chef’s pessimistic disposition, whose personality was copied, didn’t seem to only respond to physical pain. Some felt sexually euphoric from being verbally insulted and threatened with harsh language.  

In short, the world of ideal sexual desire was wide and deep. Minjun declared to the frying pan, leaking the details of an area that he did not want to know. "Give me three minutes. Take responsibility and answer my questions. Otherwise · · ·"  

It was unclear as to what he could threaten it with. Throw the frying pan body roughly? Hit it with a hammer? Welding without permission?  

Everyone was sure to like it. Minjun found the answer in a hurry. " · · · ·I know how to leave you alone for the rest of my life after work is done!"  

Hearing the frying pan hurriedly pouring out mental waves and begging for the princess, after the fire had gone out, Minjun released his hand.  

With that, he checked the cell phone that I couldn’t check because I was reinforcing the barrier. Meanwhile, the elf looked at the swarm of undead insects that repeatedly collided beyond the golden barrier as if nervously, and the goblins were also guarding it.

‘Hmm?'  

In that brief time, there were 73 missed calls from Kathy.  

‘Looks like it was reported in the press.'  

When he was on his mission, he didn't make contact with me, but now the situation was far different. He must have been worried because swarms of tens of thousands of insects were flocking to him, and even the highest-quality barriers that were not normally deployed were in operation.  

Some magic persists even when the magician dies or is seriously injured.  

‘I sent a lot of texts. I’ll have to make a brief report on survival after a while.’  

As he went back in time through the texts he had received, his eyes stopped at a few long messages. These had been sent before the swarm attack had begun.  

Concentrating on security, he now saw what he hadn’t been able to confirm while moving together. The procedure was a bit cumbersome to check MMS on Minjun’s 2G phone, which still used a phone number that started with 011.  

Minjun’s expression, who read the first one, hardened.  

– Korean Precision Pension, is it because of the debt problem? However, government support will not be easy. This company… I was strongly hated by my superiors.  

The next text explained why.  

– He pays quite a lot of fines every year. I continued to receive corrective measures for the same problem, but I said, ‘You bark. It’s like the military, saying, ‘We’ll go on our way’. Because of that attitude, you got ugly hair.  

What was the behavior that deserved to be notified of corrective action every year and to be fined…  

– Do you know about the ‘ethnic-friendly employment quota system?'

Among the seven races that migrated to Earth in the form of collective immigration, the four races that the government decided do not need to be considered for "various reasons" were excluded from the application of this Act.  

After that, the remaining three races were dwarves, orcs, and trolls. The biggest reasons for each were that they had been discriminated against, simply because they were short in height, were discriminated against because they reproduced too quickly, and were discriminated against because they were too big.  

Companies over a certain size must employ these three races at a fixed rate, and the quota varied depending on the industry.  

– I looked at the information disclosed by this company… Among the employees, 97.2% are humans and 2.8% are elves. There is no ‘other’. Do you know what I mean? Because there are only humans and elves working in this company! How many companies still exist in the world these days?  

The word racist was often used synonymously with the word supremacist. However, if one were to consider the original meaning of the word, it also included the meaning that non-human races also judged superiority, compared and ranked each other.  

For example, something like this could be classified as either helpful and non-helpful ones.  

There were races that harmed humans and races that didn't. This was why the following sentence was included in a representative racial discrimination statement, ‘Elves are not human, but they are kind and useful!'

This was the moment when Minjun’s eyes became cold.  

Whoa! Whoa!  

At this, the frying pan vibrated violently. Minjun approached and grabbed his handle.  

= You have answered! You haven’t touched anything strange while you’ve left the hotel today and toured three companies! At best, things like chairs and papers are things that have been thoroughly inspected in advance…!=  

Artificial intelligence hastily poured out telepathy.  

=But it seems that you have had contact with other ‘humans!' Typically, the owner contacted me many times today… =

Up to this point, there had been no further need to hear it. However.  

= In addition to this, there was just one more person! There was a human who had contact with the princess! =  

"Who is it? No way.”  

The frying pan said one person’s name, the name of the person Minjun already had in mind.  

=The presidents of other companies showed their respect for royalty, but they knelt down and didn’t even hold hands! However, only one person… Princess took his hand and kissed the back of his hand to show respect! =

The moment ‘he' entered the conference room was after examining the magical traces left inside. Of course, there was no chemical reaction test by spraying reagents all over his body, which had appeared late.  

‘Wait, if that’s true…why would a lawyer like that hire a troll?’  

This was a scene that he had seen himself, so he could not have imagined that such a tendency would exist.

‘But there was a reason why a man who kept his twisted beliefs even after paying the government fines and getting his hair nailed down was holding hands and kissing Stans, whom the presidents of other companies were reluctant to even touch.’  

It was evident that there was a clear motive to do so, even with the suppression of emotional reluctance. For example, making a substance seep into the princess’s skin through that contact!  

“ · · · ·Damn it!”  

Minjun immediately called.  

***  

After Minjun took the princess and evacuated, Bradley and the twelve people who were left at the scene ended up being torn into two groups.  

The psychic that Minjun urgently sent to Bradley was that he would ensure the princess’s safety, so they had to hide somewhere and track down who was observing the scene.  

"We’ve been attacking in ways we didn’t expect, but that doesn’t mean there’s no way to track them down, right? Especially if you show your abilities!"  

A few led the Stanian entourage back to their hotel in confusion, while Bradley and the rest set out to trace back the person who had been trying to assassinate them. This was because the moment they received the promise of four times their pay, more than security had been added to their mission.  

Bradley thought all these while raising his strength.  

‘Unconditionally track and catch!'  

Bradley’s eyes, seated in the front seat of a vehicle driven by another bodyguard, saw what others couldn’t. It was a complex ability that combined both Clairvoyance and Psychometry, which could only be unfolded by multiple abilities.  

There was a non-contact response.  

"Turn right over there!"  

What he saw was not a magical trace affecting the spirit world, but a physical path through which tens of thousands of insects flew. Follow the traces left in the air and check them.  

There was no way that a swarm of undead worms would have flown away with magic that erased even residual thoughts, and his superpowers easily traced its path. The thoughts of insects returning from death were simple and rough, but as such, they were far easier to understand.

‘Certainly, the idea of ​​making a Manova worm into an undead and charging it was fresh. He must have thought he had no choice but to succeed. I thought it was safe because a member of the Human Rights Solidarity didn’t feel the need to show up in person.’  

In fact, if Minjun wasn’t there, the princess would have died.  

‘But… it was an arrogant idea at the same time!’  

"That building!"

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't help but get excited.  

‘If this job is successful, I will be able to receive about 5,000 talents including bonuses!'  

The severance pay left for him was about 10,000 talents. About half of that amount would drop all at once.  

Freedom was close enough to reach. He was weaker than his fellow prisoners like Minjun and Dell, but as the case of Telesia showed, his fighting power didn’t necessarily determine everything.  

Bradley, too, had been using his natural abilities and persistently playing his part, performing his duties, and gathering talents like crazy. He had never lost a huge amount of talent to something unexpected like his colleague, step by step!  

As a result, it was not really far now.

‘I will never be like Telesia!'  

The promise that Minjun had made, Bradley had the same engraved on his chest. Like other prisoners, it was not known what crimes he had committed before his memory was erased, but given the relatively low amount of 70,000 talents, it was unlikely that he would have killed himself.  

Bradley thought he might be close to being an economic mastermind. This was because his abilities were optimized for finding hidden treasures and cracking passwords rather than attacking and killing someone.  

Because of this, getting his memories back wouldn't cause him to panic so much that he would want to kill himself.  

‘Somehow, I have a very good feeling!’  

He led the talented people to the underground parking lot of a building in pursuit of remaining thoughts, and…  

"!"  

The security guard in the driver’s seat shouted harshly, "Oh, what is that bastard doing!"  

Good profit! The car pulled over roughly. With that, the door opened and the crew rushed out.  

Someone was standing there as if waiting.

“No?" There was a face covered by a shadow in the dark darkness.  

Bradley couldn’t understand. Obviously, the chase didn’t take more than a few minutes. It was only natural that he would have had to release bugs nearby.  

However, the person responsible for not escaping and waiting patiently here? A warning signal had long since been echoed in his head.  

‘I hope it's not an arrogant mistake to get rid of bugs…!'  

What if it was a tactic to lure them here?  

"!"  

In the darkness, a being standing watching them began to slowly walk towards them. At the moment when everyone was preparing to subdue the opponent with their own abilities…

“ · · · ·You?!” Under the dim lighting, the opponent’s face had eventually been revealed.  

Bradley froze for a moment. Soon his hardened mouth opened and a voice filled with astonishment flowed out.  

"Yes, why are you here…?"  

The atmosphere had suddenly been reversed.

His trembling pupils had been fixed anteriorly. Fear and astonishment alternately flashed across his face.  

In addition to this, he shouted to his comrades as if he had already prepared for something.  

"Hey, run away! Power retreat! Right now · · ·!”  

Before he could even finish the sentence…

Kwajik!  

As the sound of something breaking erupted, Bradley’s world split in two.