Special Response Division, Team 3 Office.
A black-haired woman with a calm demeanor.
Shin Sion, the Team Leader of Team 3, stood in the office with her team members and Team Leader Park, who had come by out of interest.
She displayed a photograph of a certain person on a presentation screen and began explaining.
A black-haired man with a calm demeanor.
It was Yohan’s photograph.
“Kim Yohan, a 21-year-old single man who grew up in an orphanage.
According to evaluations from his college and the comic café he recently quit, he’s diligent and good at handling his assigned tasks.
However, he never participates in drinking sessions or gatherings, and he doesn’t seem to have any meaningful friendships.
…People say he responds well when spoken to, but never takes the initiative himself.
Since nobody has ever had a deep conversation with him, they don’t really know much about him.”
Sion’s calm voice echoed through the room.
“This is the basic information I’ve gathered on Kim Yohan, the suspect in the college murder case, based on my current assessment.”
Team Leader Park looked at Yohan’s photograph and asked,
“You’d lost interest in this case because you were busy with other incidents.
Did you investigate it separately on your own?”
Sion nodded.
“Yes.
It kept bothering me.”
“Do you have any evidence?”
“No evidence.
Other than the fact that, given the circumstances, this man is the most likely culprit among the students who were in the lecture hall when the professor died.”
“…So, just a hunch?”
Team Leader Park nodded.
“Come to think of it, you’re the kind of person who sees something suspicious when Team Leader Kim from the next team, who eats pork cutlets for lunch every day, occasionally has spaghetti instead.”
Glare— Team Leader Park furrowed his brow and imitated Sion.
“Why is he eating spaghetti when he always eats pork cutlets…?
Suspicious.”
The rookie female agent failed to suppress her laughter at Team Leader Park’s teasing.
“Pfft— S-sorry!”
Sion’s eyes narrowed involuntarily.
“……”
She spoke in a slightly sulky voice.
“…I believe this situation is certainly suspicious enough to warrant attention.”
“Anyway, this involves a Supernatural Phenomenon.
If there’s no solid evidence, a hunch is still a reason to investigate.
Even so—”
Team Leader Park continued.
“You’re going to investigate another case soon, aren’t you?
Don’t push yourself too hard.”
“…That’s true.
Understood.”
As Sion tidied up the office, she addressed her team members.
“This is just something I investigated personally.
Please don’t concern yourselves with it, and focus on the cases assigned to each of you.”
The team members breathed a sigh of relief.
She had only explained the matter to share information.
Fortunately, it didn’t mean they would have to work overtime.
Sion wasn’t the kind of boss who ground her team members into the dirt to get results.
If anything, she managed their workloads appropriately.
Still, there had been far too much work piling up lately.
Sion organized the files on the college murder case and then examined the documents for the new case she had been assigned.
Something about it felt unsettling, which was why the police had passed the case on to them.
[Weekend Farm — Experience Livestock Farming!]
At first glance, it was an ordinary livestock experience farm that attracted little attention.
However…
Several people who had visited the farm had gone missing.
The police had visited and investigated, but they had found no clear evidence.
Sion narrowed her eyes.
A livestock farm was the perfect place to obtain animal blood, flesh, and hides without arousing the slightest suspicion.
…Or it could be an organ-trafficking criminal organization.
Either possibility was the worst-case scenario.
.
.
.
Sion’s suspicions were justified.
Both possibilities were correct.
The weekend farm was a wizard’s workshop, and it was also involved in organ trafficking.
To go even further, they sold human flesh as well.
An operating room in the basement of the weekend farm’s villa.
A beautiful woman with neatly maintained nails and a slender, celebrity-like face raised one eye as she spoke.
“So, you searched high and low~ and still couldn’t find the Grimoire?
My, my.
You must have worked so hard.”
At the words of Kim Miryeo, one of the Kim Chairman’s lapdogs, a man who looked like an intellectual gangster, Manager Kim, bowed his head deeply.
“I’m sorry, miss.
It seems that people like us, ordinary folks, simply aren’t capable of finding it…”
“Are you telling me to go running around and look for it myself?”
“No!
I’m sorry!”
Manager Kim bowed even lower.
Then, cautiously, he glanced at the copy of the Grimoire Kim Miryeo was holding…
Cultes des Goules
The original title meant The Faith of the Ghouls.
A Grimoire that explored the pursuit of immortality and longevity through cannibalism.
‘That damned bitch.’
…He cursed her silently.
While he was at it, he also cursed all the other lapdogs of the Kim household, who treated people just as abusively as the Chairman himself.
‘A bunch of bastards pretending to be wizards with a copy of a Grimoire they got from the Chairman…’
They acted as though they were genuinely powerful wizards.
Kim Miryeo looked down at the foolish ordinary man bowing before her, clicked her tongue, and issued an order.
“Tsk.
Fine.
Father said he was going to use them for the party, so just take the meat here.”
She gestured with her chin toward the corpses on the operating tables, their skulls split open and their brains removed.
Manager Kim cautiously straightened up.
“…Understood.”
He had no business judging people when he himself worked for these bastards in exchange for money, but they always managed to do something utterly revolting.
After ordering Manager Kim to clear away the corpses from the operating room, which also served as a workshop, Miryeo took the pineal glands from the extracted brain tissue.
Following the instructions written in the Grimoire, she mixed them with various ingredients and human flesh to create an elixir.
Then, parting her red lips, she followed the instructions written in the copy of The Faith of the Ghouls.
She swallowed the elixir to open her third eye and heighten her mystic power.
The drugs mixed into the elixir made Miryeo’s body tremble violently, and she briefly experienced hallucinations.
“……..”
…But it wasn’t enough.
To kill her so-called brothers, who were brothers in name only, and her father, who had lived far too long…
She needed the genuine article, not this fake Grimoire.
According to information from the Special Response Division, the Grimoire had definitely appeared in South Korea.
And yet…
‘Why won’t it appear before me…?!’
She had never gone through life without getting what she wanted.
Frustration welled up inside her, and she ground her teeth.
***
Yohan was currently in the mountains.
He hadn’t come to hike.
He was there to train Grizzly to control its strength.
He followed a hiking trail before turning onto a side path.
Walking carefully, he searched for a secluded spot where nobody was likely to pass by.
Then I took the Grimoire out of my bag and called Grizzly.
“Grizzly, come out.”
“Gyaaa~.”
Although the trees provided patches of shade, I watched Grizzly standing motionless in the sunlight.
According to The Mysteries of the Worm, Grizzly was an Invisible Vampire.
I watched Grizzly yawn.
“Gyahaa~.”
It seemed to prefer nighttime to morning, but it could still move around during the day.
‘…Is it because of its transparent body?’
I hadn’t read about this in any specialized book.
I’d only come across the idea in a comic book.
We can see the colors of objects because light reflects off them.
The higher an object’s transmittance, the less light it reflects and the more light passes straight through it.
As a result, we can’t see the object itself.
That’s why a transparent glass wall appears transparent.
Of course, even glass doesn’t have one hundred percent transmittance.
If Grizzly’s body had one hundred percent transmittance, then it would make sense that it was invisible…
“…No, forget it.
Let’s stop here.”
I abandoned the thought because it wasn’t going anywhere.
Trying to explain a magical life-form through science was ridiculous.
Besides, the very reason something was magic was that science couldn’t explain it.
“…….”
I quietly gazed at Grizzly.
Although some time had passed, I remembered the words Boogieman had uttered just before dying at Smith’s mansion.
The one who turns stones into bread.
The one who wears Solomon’s crown.
I figured those two statements were simply Boogieman flattering me as a wizard.
However, the final thing it had said still bothered me a little.
“…The master of the beast that came from the stars.”
“Gya?”
Grizzly tilted its head, sensing my gaze.
“Haah.
Never mind.”
I chuckled softly at the sight.
After gently stroking and scratching Grizzly’s head…
“Gororong~.”
…I decided to get on with what I had originally come to do.
I found a reasonably thick tree and mimed tapping it with my fist.
“Okay, Grizzly.
Try hitting this as hard as you can, like this.”
I already knew that Grizzly was strong enough to lift an adult man with ease and fling him away.
But I had no idea exactly how powerful it was.
So, before training it to control its strength, I decided to find out just how much power Grizzly possessed.
And the moment I stepped away from the tree—
BANG—!!
The tree trunk exploded.
It hadn’t broken.
The part that Grizzly struck had literally burst apart with a boom.
The tree that took Grizzly’s punch exploded on the spot, and the severed trunk toppled sideways.
THUD—CRACK!
KABOOM!
The broken tree crashed into other trees, sending a tremendous noise echoing through the mountains.
I was so shocked that I shouted,
“Holy fucking shit!
Run!”
“Gyaa!”
Cursing up a storm and calling out to a mother I didn’t even have, I grabbed Grizzly and hurried down the mountain.
.
.
.
After descending the mountain…
I caught my breath and checked my phone.
A message had arrived confirming my reservation for a livestock-farming experience at the farm I had found while searching for the parchment.
[Weekend Farm — Experience Livestock Farming!]