Hearing that Choi Seona had woken up during the night, Minjun headed to the hospital early. He left Jeongpal behind today, bringing only Yuntus to remain hidden in case of an emergency.
Assemblyman Choi Panseok, who had reportedly stayed until dawn, was absent, likely away on legislative business. He had, however, readily agreed to let the agent interview Choi Seona again. Minjun was his daughter's savior, after all.
The Frying Pan spoke to Minjun.
=Agent, as I mentioned, it is best to make physical contact with the target if you want to read deeper than their vocalized surface thoughts.=
It had extracted information from Cathy's head the exact same way—while she was holding it to cook.
‘Don't tell me I have to shove you down her throat again.’
=As long as she isn't overflowing with useless thoughts like that guy last time, just having her hold me is enough.=
Waking up in a hospital bed only to have an agent hold out a frying pan and ask her to grab it left Choi Seona thoroughly bewildered. But considering he was the man who had saved her from being kidnapped, she didn't exactly have an excuse to refuse. Hesitantly, she took hold of the handle.
Minjun asked his questions while she held it. They weren't much different from what he had asked before, and her answers were largely the same. This time, however, his goal went beyond simple replies; he intended to read the exact imagery forming in her mind as she spoke.
Hum! Hummm!
The Frying Pan vibrated to signal that it was finished, startling Choi Seona. Until now, it hadn't shown a single sign of being sentient or spoken a word to her.
Minjun took it back and asked.
‘How was it?’
=Well, first of all, she didn't lie about anything you asked her.=
Minjun felt a wave of disappointment.
‘Are you saying all her memories were really deleted?’
=There are obvious signs of outside interference. It's too clean. They scooped it all out—specifically the sensitive parts you wanted to know about.=
The most crucial detail—how she had acquired the Ego Sword—was completely gone. She had no memory of murdering Kwak Do-chul and his mistress, and her whereabouts during her prior disappearance remained a total mystery.
The Frying Pan suddenly trailed off.
=But...=
‘Hmm?’
=Aside from your interrogation, she was actually hiding one thing.=
‘What is it?’
The answer he received was completely unexpected.
=This woman is a Supernatural Ability User, you know.=
‘...?!’
Minjun clearly remembered Jeongpal's briefing. Choi Seona had definitely never registered a Supernatural Ability with the government.
Which meant...
‘An unregistered Supernatural Ability User?!’
=That's mandatory in this world, right? Anyway, she has never revealed it publicly. It's a secret known only to a very small handful of people, including her adoptive father.=
‘What kind of ability?’
=It's precognition. And a highly exceptional one, even by inter-dimensional standards.=
Precognitives were highly coveted talents everywhere, but unfortunately, there was no known way to completely control their abilities. On Earth, the only practical application was predicting the weather. It was limited to forecasting conditions that everyone in the world would find out a day later anyway.
The more exclusive the future information was—unlike weather, which functioned like a public good—the harder it became to foresee. Furthermore, the act of making a prophecy could alter the future, effectively killing the prophecy's accuracy. That was why weather prediction had the highest success rate. Incoming rain wouldn't suddenly stop just because someone foresaw it.
Despite these limitations, the Committee had never lost interest in them. To give an idea of just how immense that interest was...
-46. Discovering a method to completely control the abilities of a precognitive and providing a turn-key solution to the commercialization stage: 530,000 Talents
Minjun fell deep into thought.
‘Did Choi Panseok know this before he adopted her?’
Why would an orc choose to adopt a human—and not a young child, but a teenager already somewhat grown by the standards of the time?
He had faced criticism from both orcs and humans, braving even death threats to make that choice.
Perhaps he had known about her ability all along?
‘That could also explain his meteoric rise to power.’
He recalled the assemblyman's profound relief when his daughter woke up, and his devastation when she lost consciousness again.
What if that wasn't pure affection for a daughter? What if his love wasn't an end in itself, but a means to an end?
What if he treasured her not because she was his child, but because he was obsessed with her utility?
‘Could the reason Blade showed interest in Choi Seona be...’
Minjun's thoughts grew deeper.
*
He had uncovered Choi Seona's secret, but the sword's whereabouts were still unknown. Instead of reporting her to the police as an unregistered Supernatural Ability User, Minjun decided to keep the information to himself for now.
‘It's questionable whether Blade knew about this in advance, and if he did, how he found out. Hardly anyone besides Choi Panseok seems to know.’
Wrestling with these theories, Minjun returned to his office and found two massive packages sitting in front of his door. Judging by the magic power left on them like a fingerprint, he immediately knew the sender.
‘It's Dell.’
His ex-partner, who had dropped by just last evening, had sent him something less than twenty-four hours later.
Minjun carefully undid the seals. A powerful magic spell had been cast on them, ensuring that if anyone other than him tried to touch them, the packages could neither be opened nor moved.
After a long moment of hesitation, Minjun brought them inside. Only after inspecting them multiple times with the grim focus of a bomb disposal expert did he finally tear off the wrapping. He opened the larger one first.
“...”
Minjun's brow furrowed.
‘What the hell is this?’
The box was as large as a thirty-inch suitcase, but the contents inside were a severe case of over-packaging.
No, not a case of it—it was the very definition of over-packaging.
The interior was stuffed full of bright red rose petals. And resting right in the center was a brilliantly shining, silver... frying pan.
Yes, a frying pan.
‘Why would she send this?’
Only then did he remember what Dell had said the day before. Looking at the Frying Pan he was holding, she had told him:
“Can't you carry something else around? The vibe is just weird. Do you want me to make you one? Is it fine as long as it's shaped like a frying pan?”
‘I thought she was just talking nonsense...’
Minjun picked up the postcard resting on the pan. It was heavily steeped in the rich scent of the perfume she used to wear back in Ashtal.
The message was brief.
This will be much better as a blunt weapon. -Dell-
Minjun tossed the postcard aside and picked up the pan, only to be surprised once more. The silver frying pan gleamed brilliantly under the office lights.
‘This is Orichalcum, isn't it?’
Not only that, it was an ultra-high-strength metal specially polished in the Endelion style. It was a material that could neither be found nor traded on Earth.
‘Seriously, how am I supposed to use this...’
This was an item far more suited for a Weapon Master than a practitioner of Dark Magic. The moment aura was coated over its surface, it would undoubtedly display jaw-dropping performance. That was, of course, assuming there was a Supernatural Ability User out there who had mastered fighting with a frying pan instead of a sword.
Minjun tried to picture himself wielding it. He projected a hypothetical image in his mind: an Immigration Office agent glaring at an enemy, holding a silver Orichalcum frying pan in one hand and a pitch-black Darklight Iron frying pan in the other.
It was a profoundly embarrassing image no matter how he looked at it.
‘Where can I sell this off?’
Minjun's decision was quick. He was going to dispose of it.
He glanced at the handle, which was tied with a passionate red ribbon. Fortunately, there were no special engravings on it.
He pondered for a moment. Who on Earth had a taste bizarre enough to actually pay money for something like this, while also having cash to burn?
One name quickly sprang to mind.
‘Rod. I can just sell it to him.’
The dragon, who would soon return to work after finishing his maternity leave, had a specific hobby: collecting expensive, pretty, but completely useless things. Considering their relationship, he would surely pay a fair price for it.
Having made up his mind, Minjun tossed the frying pan and the postcard into a corner and opened the next box. This one was about the size of a photo album. It was packed full of documents. The contents were...
‘She already investigated this far?’
Minjun clicked his tongue in amazement.
It was Dell's research on Blade. A comprehensive list of his murders, compiled without regard for national borders, lay inside.
Minjun's expression turned grave as he flipped through the pages. Photos of dead victims were lined up one after another. Corpses sprawled across blood-soaked scenes.
‘He's butchered an insane number of people.’
He couldn't say for certain that Blade was the culprit behind every single one of them. Out of countless cases, these were simply the ones he was most likely responsible for.
‘Every single one of them had their heads lopped off. Cleanly, too.’
Although the suspect descriptions varied wildly and no murder weapons were ever found at the scenes, the victims all shared one common trait: a razor-sharp cross-section. It was obvious they had been killed in a single strike.
‘A very firm preference.’
There was never a single cut on their chests or abdomens.
Incredible stubbornness.
His modus operandi was just as sharp as the traces left by his blade. He had never failed. No one who suffered his attack ever survived. He was a thorough, meticulous hitman who, once he drew his sword, ended his target's life without exception...
‘...!’
At that moment, a bright spark flashed in Minjun's mind.
‘Wait, no exceptions?’
No, there was one.
It wasn't in the files Dell had handed him, but Minjun knew of an exception.
Minjun was about to call Jeongpal but changed his mind. He checked the business card he had received recently. Pulling out his phone, he dialed the number.
The other party answered right away.
“Yes, sir! Hello.”
“Kim, let me ask you something.”
Contacting the magician, Kim Cheol-su, he briefly reverted to his old way of speaking.
He had something he needed to verify directly with the high-ranking official of the police's Magic Investigation Squad.
“About the scene where Choi Seona murdered Kwak Do-chul.”
“I didn't go out there myself, but I received the report. Please hold on a moment... Ah, yes. Found it. Go ahead, sir.”
“Then let's see if my understanding is correct. From what I've heard, the sequence of events goes like this. Choi Seona suddenly appeared holding the half-elf's severed head, and then proceeded to chop off Kwak Do-chul's head. After that, she collapsed, every bone in her body shattered.”
He could hear the sound of flipping papers over the phone.
“Yes, everything you said is correct.”
“After that, the sword was left completely abandoned on the floor for a while. A magical forensic inspection was required, after all. And then, a police magician arrived.”
“Ah, sir. To be exact, he wasn't officially a police officer like me, but a contracted agent working for the National Police Agency.”
Which meant he was an exclusive contractor, just like Minjun.
He had suffered a penetrating wound, but because it missed his major organs, his life wasn't in danger, and he had been discharged from the hospital very quickly.
“That magician confirmed it. He said there wasn't a single curse on that sword, and no soul resided within it either. He claimed it was nothing more than a cheap Ego Sword.”
Kim Cheol-su affirmed this.
What happened immediately after that was...
“Believing those words, a forensics team member picked up the sword, had his mind instantly controlled, and stabbed that very magician.”
“Yes, that's right. He was pierced through the abdomen.”
“Yes, right there. He stabbed him. Instead of cutting off his head.”
“...?”
“Why do you think he did that?”
Over the receiver, Kim Cheol-su hesitated before answering.
“The forensics officer who grabbed the sword was just an ordinary human. He didn't have a trained physique. To escape in that situation, wouldn't he have judged that he needed to neutralize the magician first? The cursed sword must have manipulated him into...”
“Then wouldn't chopping off his head be a more foolproof way to kill him? Isn't that the iron rule when a Weapon Master faces a magician? Even if your stomach is pierced, you can still chant spells if you have the will. Shoving a blade down their throat or slitting their vocal cords is always the priority. So why did he stab him in the gut?”
Minjun had a hunch about the true identity of the hunter known as Blade.
The hunter wearing a thousand masks. The one whose true identity and appearance were known by almost no one, even within the hitman syndicate.
Why did he go out of his way in Korea to manipulate someone else into killing the assemblyman, and then Kwak Do-chul? Instead of stepping forward to do it himself?
The reason was simple: Blade wasn't a person.
He was the very Ego Sword Minjun was chasing.
It wasn't a killer using a sword; the sword itself was the killer.
After explaining this theory, Minjun also brought up Blade's methods. The clean execution of swinging the blade just once to sever a head.
“The half-elf celebrity died the same way. Kwak Do-chul did too, and so did the assemblyman found dead in his home. All of them had their heads cut off. Naturally, there are no survivors.”
Except for exactly one person.
Only one person had allowed that sword to taste his flesh and blood, yet managed to survive.
“Why didn't the Ego Sword kill that magician? Probably because it needed him.”
The act of the sword swapping hosts on its own came with inherent risks. If the host became incapacitated and the sword was left lying on the ground, it was useless unless someone else picked it up. The risk was far too immense.
But what if it had a helper?
“How did the troll obtain the sword? And how did that sword vanish?”
No sword was ever found at the scene where the assemblyman's killer, the troll, had died.
Someone must have taken it and moved, but the CCTVs caught absolutely nothing. It was the same story even after they scoured the entire vicinity.
“An orc holding a sword appeared in the troll's memory. The opponent he fought in a blade-to-blade duel. Yet, no DNA matching such an orc was detected near the tobacco shop. Why would someone go to such great lengths to scrub away the traces of an unidentified orc?”
What if it hadn't been scrubbed perfectly clean, but rather, that orc had never existed in the first place?
What if even the ghost's memory had been fabricated?
“Sir, what exactly are you getting at...”
“Until now, we've been stuck on the fixed idea that one has to grip the Ego Sword's handle to be mind-controlled. But its abilities might not end there.”
He thought about the Frying Pan. Both Cathy and Ha Eunseong had displayed pure, unadulterated trust in it even without touching it.
Perhaps the sword possessed a similar capability.
What if it didn't strictly require physical contact—what if, by inflicting a wound with it... it could exert a slightly weakened form of mind control afterward?
It might be impossible to force someone into a sword dance that pushed past their physical limits or have them run away at top speed, but what if they simply moved according to the sword's will for a while?
And just like that, the sword's accomplice was born.
A suitable vessel who could recover the sword whenever Blade desired, and deliver it near the next host. A worker who wouldn't be moving aggressively, and thus had no risk of breaking bones and becoming incapacitated.
And when it came to moving around undetected by CCTV, no one was a better fit than a magician.
‘He hid the sword somewhere before regaining his senses. Then, the discharged magician visited that spot later to recover it—that would completely conceal their point of contact.’
Minjun asked.
“Where is that magician right now?”
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