I’ll Retire After Saving the World

TL: SHW

Sometimes, there were Dungeons that were downright vicious.

Since this was Sem Bloom's doing, it wouldn't be a perfect comparison. But watching him use half-baked Illusion Magic that didn't even match his attribute, there were certain parallels.

Those kinds of Dungeons never had anything special in the way of monsters. Their scale was B-rank at best. It wasn't that A-rank ones didn't exist, but they could be counted on one hand.

And yet, those unremarkable Dungeons produced more casualties than far higher-ranked ones.

Why?

Because those Dungeons showed Hunters their most hated memories.

Once you entered a Dungeon, all connections to the outside were severed. The only way in or out was the Gate, and while moving through the vast interior for a raid, it wasn't uncommon to be stuck inside for months.

Dozens of people, isolated in extreme conditions?

All sorts of things happened. A significant number of Hunters retired not from injuries caused by monsters, but from incidents within the Raid Party itself. The Management Agency mediated disputes arising from such incidents, so I couldn't help but know about them well.

Well, it wasn't limited to things that happened inside Dungeons, either. There had been a period when Dungeon Breaks occurred constantly, so plenty of people carried unpleasant memories from those times too.

And the Dungeons I mentioned earlier dredged up those memories to torment Hunters. Trapped in memories they never wanted to revisit, the Hunters couldn't put up any resistance and were devoured just like that.

Personally, I never understood it. If they were going to crumble over some pathetic memories and Illusion Magic, they should have retired long ago. They were the ones who'd crawled into Dungeons knowing full well what awaited them, weren't they? If not that, then at least acknowledge one's own weakness and be careful. After Father and Yoo Ji-eun nearly died in one of those Dungeons, they entered every subsequent one with extreme caution.

Well, I supposed it was only natural that Hunters far weaker than those two would get chewed up and spat out.

Even if I couldn't understand it.

Let me think about this objectively. It wasn't as though I'd had a particularly happy childhood, either. I had no desire to do it, but if someone started bragging about how miserable their life was, I could raise my voice and hold my own just fine.

But I had never fallen for that kind of magic. Why the hell not? If I'd been buried in childhood memories, I wouldn't have gotten under the Lab Director's skin. I would have quietly done as I was told, just as No. 3 had advised.

In fact, I'd welcomed Dungeons that used Memory Magic and Illusion Magic. The unhappy memories those two types of magic identified were always set in the Research Lab, with my birth parents or that irritating Lab Director bearing down on me.

Being able to cut down those infuriating faces was actually enjoya, ahem. It was a rare opportunity, so I didn't mind it.

"...That's definitely how it was."

But there are things a person can only understand when it happens to them.

Only now did I understand why people hated Memory Magic and Illusion Magic. Not after facing a dark Research Lab, but after being confronted with the sunlit Management Agency and the lively people who filled it.

Had Father and Yoo Ji-eun also seen people they could no longer meet? People so dearly missed that they stood transfixed for a moment, even knowing it was an illusion?

Perhaps they wanted to see them precisely because they could never go back.

I didn't want to see them precisely because I could never go back.

I gripped Yoo Ji-eun's sword and stirred my Mana.

The sword, capable of producing fire from Mana, allowed me to interfere with Mana effortlessly despite not being a Mage.

The feather-studded eye watching me through the window, that had to be Sem Bloom's Mana. Being outside meant it hadn't entered my memories. It seemed to be merely checking whether I was properly trapped in the illusion. As if I hadn't read countless magic dissertations and couldn't recognize something like that.

He was probably focused on guarding against Hong Seok-young. Maintaining the illusion to keep Hong Seok-young immobilized, or something like that. That would explain why my illusion was so sloppy.

Well, I'd been a D-rank Hunter until just a few weeks ago, so I could understand him disregarding me to focus on Hong Seok-young.

Stupid bastard.

He really shouldn't have underestimated Hong Seok-young's son.

Still, maybe it was a stroke of luck. That the fact I came from the future, and the fact that I was Hong Seok-young's son, wouldn't be discovered by a deranged Mage who'd fused with a monster.

This is why they say you should never let your guard down.

Whoosh.

Fire.

Blue fire that devoured every last bit of crude magic.

The fire burned down the Management Agency that no longer existed. People vanished. The old security guard who had spoken to me. The Hunters passing by. Even the visitors.

I closed my eyes.

*

Silence.

The very bottom of the Dungeon. The cavern was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

"......"

I stood in that silence and scoffed.

The smell of a dying animal still lingered. If anything, it was worse than before.

The source of the smell was obvious. The pool of blood where Sem Bloom stood. Where that mass of feathers had been.

Sem Bloom still had both arms spread wide. Whether to call those arms or wings, I wasn't sure. The wings, far too large for his torso, were closer to a monster's form than a human's.

And that Sem Bloom stood perfectly still, not a single movement. His wide, bulging eyes were detestable.

I glanced at Hong Seok-young, who was frozen stiff, and opened my mouth.

"Hey."

There was no answer from Sem Bloom.

But the tips of his feathers trembled faintly.

"You can hear me, right?"

I smiled, amused.

Just as I'd expected, this bastard really had lost track of me because he was too busy holding down Hong Seok-young.

"What a joke."

The fool had been caught in his own trap.

Tying Hong Seok-young down and locking me in magic too, that was fine. I didn't know what he'd been aiming for, but as a stalling tactic, it wasn't a bad call. If you don't have the strength to win by force, you've got to resort to tricks like magic.

But I had woken up.

Sem Bloom, occupied with suppressing Hong Seok-young, had no capacity left to stop me. And if he diverted attention to deal with me, scattering the magic focused on Hong Seok-young, then Hong Seok-young would rise. Knowing the Hong Seok-young I knew, he'd have realized it was magic by now and would be tearing everything apart trying to break free.

I could simply wait calmly for Hong Seok-young to get up, or....

"You can't move right now, can you?"

I walked slowly toward Sem Bloom.

I deliberately dragged the tip of the blade along the ground. Yoo Ji-eun would have a fit, saying I was ruining the edge, but it was my sword now. If a Dungeon item gets damaged from a little scraping on the floor, then that's all it was ever worth.

"Didn't anyone ever teach you not to go around casting magic on people?"

"......"

"Oh. No master? That can happen, I suppose. Not every Mage is lucky enough... or skilled enough to have one."

I drawled on.

If Hong Seok-young had been in danger, I would have forcefully severed the magic, but there was no sign of that. If anything, it was Sem Bloom who'd gotten his feet tied down by Hong Seok-young.

Sem Bloom clenched his teeth. I could see his jaw trembling.

...Kim Chae-min had said he followed Noah Michel around everywhere.

"That's probably why Noah Michel never took you on as a disciple. If I were her, I wouldn't want a dim-witted disciple either. Don't you think? You'd only drag her name through the mud."

I was worried whether he could even understand me speaking Korean. Seeing as he went wild and glared at me the moment Noah Michel was mentioned, he seemed to understand well enough, but....

Why could he understand? Had Korean somehow become the required language for lunatics in the past twenty years without my knowing? Alex Hope had rattled off Korean fluently too, hadn't he?

"Well, don't be too discouraged. There's still a chance. Maybe not, but I'm not cruel enough to crush a kid's dream. How old were you again? Over twenty?"

I dragged the sword along as I circled around Sem Bloom. The blade scraped against the stone floor with an unpleasant sound.

Now then, if I weaken the Mana connection here like this....

"A Mage with no master who's past twenty is a lost cause. You know that, right? Oh, is that why you're here doing this? And here I thought you were just some reckless idiot who got eaten by a monster without putting up a fight. But half-assed Mages who think they're something special and get their heads lopped off, they're a dime a dozen."

If I completely severed Sem Bloom's Mana running through the floor, there was a chance he could flee.

Honestly, there didn't seem to be anywhere to run, but you never know. He had wings instead of arms, and if he took off and flew away, that would be a pain.

No. On second thought, maybe just killing him was the better call.

Hong Seok-young had said so too. Kill him.

"...What, did you wish upon a monster to give you wings or something? Fat lot of good it does when you're still a mons..."

"Don't call that person a monster!"

"What."

The guy who'd only been clenching his teeth even when I brought up Noah Michel, why was he suddenly losing it?

I looked at Sem Bloom, face flushed crimson, screaming at me.

"Your Korean's pretty good?"

...If Yoo Ji-eun had heard that, she'd have been dumbfounded. She'd say, of all things to be impressed by right now.

Sem Bloom, still furious, shot back.

"The barrier of language is a flaw that only humans possess!"

"You're not human?"

"Do I look human to you?"

"Oh. Not human?"

I nodded. So my impression that he looked like a monster had been right after all.

"Then even better. Killing a monster doesn't require any justification."

He himself said he wasn't human, and his appearance was a stretch to call human at best.

If anything... it was plausible to think a Dungeon monster had devoured Sem Bloom and was mimicking him.

I shrugged.

If I took his head off, he wouldn't be able to beg for forgiveness. But, well. You don't negotiate with monsters.

I swung the sword.

Slow compared to my usual speed. Adequate against an opponent who couldn't even fight back. If I moved any faster, I was worried the already-light sword might slip from my hand.

Sem Bloom reacted too late.

"Too slow, you little shit."

I'd expected him to dodge the sword.

What I was aiming for was the simple fact that Sem Bloom moved. The Mana, its link already weakened, naturally severed the moment its caster moved.

"Wha!"

"Poor focus."

I kicked him in the jaw. Even if I considered Sem Bloom a humanoid monster, it was a valid attack. When the head gets rattled, you can't do a thing.

"Ghhk!"

White wings flailed.

I followed through and drove the sword into the base of his wing.

"GAAAAH!"

"Sorry if it hurts that much."

As if I'd done anything impressive.

I stepped on his opposite shoulder to keep Sem Bloom from getting up. I heard rustling behind me. Without Sem Bloom's interference, Hong Seok-young had gotten up quickly.

"Are you alright?"

The illusion Hong Seok-young had seen was obvious. His dead wife and son. The comrades he'd had to leave behind in the Dungeon.

Had Hong Seok-young truly been unable to break free of the magic? Or had he chosen not to?

"Ahem."

Hong Seok-young cleared his throat several times.

"What an annoying spell. If he'd at least attacked me while I couldn't move, I would've snapped out of it faster...."

"Looks like keeping you pinned down was the goal."

"Well, I am pretty scary. And you? You alright?"

"Me? Sure."

I shrugged.

"What should we do with this one? He says he's not human, by his own account."

"Yeah? If it's a monster, we kill it on the spot."

Hong Seok-young dragged his spear along the ground as he walked toward me.

"Intelligent monsters are a pain."

"That's true."

"......!"

Hong Seok-young flinched in surprise and stepped aside, leveling his spear.

Alex Hope, who had been crouched with his body curled into a ball, dusted off his knees and stood up.

***

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