Cathy was a shopping addict.
She enjoyed buying all sorts of things through all sorts of channels whether she was happy, sad, or just plain bored. Lately, however, her impulse purchases had grown far more frequent out of sheer depression. Her employer had been so halfhearted about his Immigration Office work that she worried he was genuinely considering retirement. This was Minjun—a man who constantly grumbled about hating work, only to turn into a near-workaholic the moment he actually took a job.
If he retired, their employment relationship would likely end as well, and the connection between them would weaken. Depressed by this possibility, Cathy had been spending significantly more money on shopping lately. As if venting her frustration, she bought plenty of seemingly useless items. She was currently restraining herself, however, having scared herself half to death recently after buying a live alpaca while blackout drunk, only to find the beast delivered to her front door the next morning.
Now, that same woman was in Hong Kong, the mecca of shopping.
"Cars can't go past this point."
Cathy handed a bill to the taxi driver and stepped out to walk.
She was more motivated than she had been in a long time. After all, few things were as fun as shopping with someone else's money. The item she was going to buy in Hong Kong wasn't for herself; Cathy had been scouring every corner of the city for days to purchase something Minjun had instructed her to get.
She walked down a narrow alley.
Just a few steps away from the glamorous luxury streets of Tsim Sha Tsui, the atmosphere changed drastically. An orc, his wrists heavy with fake Rolexes, approached to pitch his wares in clumsy English. This was obviously not what she was here to buy. Ignoring him, she marched straight ahead. She passed a spot where live-in Balien maids—kicked out of their employers' houses for the weekend—sat together on flattened cardboard boxes. The atmosphere shifted once more as she entered an alley where the streetlights dwindled.
The eyes of the street vendors grew more menacing, and their wares shifted from fake aphrodisiacs and dubious erectile dysfunction pills to much more dangerous-looking white powders. Instead of setting up stalls, they approached stealthily and pulled the merchandise from their coats.
Cathy ignored them as well and kept moving. She pushed through a labyrinth of alleys. Even in the complex, spiderweb-like streets, her steps were unhesitating.
"Hey, what are you looking for?"
Just as she turned a corner in the stench-filled alley, someone blocked her path. This meant she had reached a zone where the police wouldn't investigate even if someone was hauled off as a corpse. Cathy realized she was almost at her destination. She spoke in a cold voice.
"Move. I'm busy."
They were young humans with desire gleaming in their eyes. At a glance, they were nothing more than small-time punks.
The real power players of the syndicates controlling these streets didn't recklessly mess with someone like Cathy. A woman walking alone in such a dangerous place meant one of two things: she was either suicidal with nothing left to lose, or she had a hidden card up her sleeve. In either case, she wasn't a profitable target.
In other words, these guys were idiots lacking the brains to discern even that much.
"I've got plenty of time."
One of the thugs smirked. He pulled a knife from his coat and pointed it at her. Hilariously, he thought this was a sufficient threat.
They blocked her retreat and surrounded her.
"Didn't anyone teach you not to wander around places like this alone at this hour?"
"When you're stupid, your body pays the price. Or are you the type who enjoys this kind of suffering?"
"Now, hand over everything you've got..."
He continued, snickering.
"Then we can take our time discussing what to do next, yeah?"
They were nastier pieces of work than she had expected from thugs with no real backing. Cathy could easily spot the hallmarks of drug addiction on their faces. From the start, they had no intention of letting her go just because she tossed them her wallet.
Not that she had any intention of doing so anyway.
Cathy decided not to waste any more time. What she had just said wasn't a lie. She really was busy.
"...!"
Her lips parted, muttering something. No matter how stupid they were, everyone understood what that action meant.
Minjun evaluated Cathy's Magic as insignificant, but that was strictly by his standards. It fell short for beating up aliens, but it was more than enough to protect herself in a place like this.
"A m-mage!"
"Fuck! Stab her...!"
At that moment.
Fwoosh!
"Aaaagh! My eyes! My eyeeees!"
Exactly as Minjun had taught her, she set fire to their eyes first.
‘If a bunch of guys bother you, burn their eyeballs first. That's the quickest fix.’ Her employer's teachings were always right. The thugs shrieked and flailed wildly, swinging their knives at random. Then they lost their balance, collapsed, and writhed on the ground.
They didn't realize that while the flames covering their eyeballs looked real, the temperature was absurdly low. Since the eyes were the most delicate part of the body and had never touched anything hotter than a warm towel, they perceived the heat as far more intense than its actual temperature. Panic completely scrambled their senses.
Leaving the men behind, Cathy leisurely walked out of the alley. She was certain that anyone hiding and observing her had seen the scene clearly. She had proven she was no pushover.
Perhaps thanks to that, when she finally reached her destination, there were no bouncers blocking her path to ‘verify’ her.
"You made quite a noisy entrance."
A middle-aged man welcomed her inside a dimly lit office. Cathy knew he was a mid-level executive in the syndicate controlling Hong Kong's back alleys. She had been wandering around meeting people like him for days. Strictly for business.
"I have something I want to buy."
Some items could only be acquired by scouring rock bottom like this—down in the pitch-black shadows where the Dragons who dominated politics and business didn't bother looking.
Adequately disguised so her original face was unrecognizable, Cathy named the shopping item she had been eagerly searching for these past few days.
The man's face twisted oddly.
"You came to the right place."
Cathy cheered inwardly. ‘Finally!’
She didn't let it show on her face, however, as she asked her next question.
"I was wondering who scooped it up. So it was your syndicate?"
"The contractor hired to clean up the ICC Building ruins was one of ours."
The man's eyes shifted.
"We're taking a risk selling this, too. We could only slip it out because it's a scrap the Dragons didn't pay much attention to, but if they find out, it's a different story. If they don't know, fine, but the moment they do, fireballs will rain down. And I mean they might roast everyone involved literally, not figuratively."
The man was laying the groundwork before mentioning the product's price.
"So, the goods?"
The man turned on a tablet computer, fiddled with it, and held it out to her. On the screen was a photo of what looked like a piece of broken concrete debris.
Cathy focused on the red stain clinging to its edge.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Yeah, we already confirmed it with Magic. That's not human blood."
The man's eyes gleamed as he spoke in a low voice.
"...It's a Dragon's bloodstain!"
When clearing the ruins of the ICC Building where Rod died, the Dragons had delegated the non-magical labor to other species. After all, there was no need for Dragons to dirty their own hands with trivial tasks like garbage cleanup.
Before handing the site over, Rod's body and every piece of his ‘legacy’ had been thoroughly collected, but a few things slipped past the Dragons' gaze. Minuscule bloodstains spattered on debris were one such example. If it were dragon blood that still retained its vitality, they would have relentlessly hoarded it, as even a single drop held astronomical value. But dried bloodstains had absolutely zero value as a magical catalyst. The Dragons weren't obsessive enough to manage something like that.
Minjun had suspected there would be hyena-like scavengers exploiting that exact gap. Cathy was now verifying with her own eyes that his prediction was correct.
"The rich folks in Hong Kong are desperately searching for this. You won't find a better Talisman."
Ever since the wall between reality and fantasy crumbled in 1945, the boundaries of superstition had always been ambiguous. Wealthy old people wishing to emulate a Dragon's wisdom, strength, and lifespan were willing to pay a king's ransom for a rock stained with an Ancient Dragon's blood. It didn't matter if mages denied its effectiveness. People who didn't even trust doctors or scientists were hardly going to believe a mage. They always believed what they wanted to believe.
Cathy was acting like someone hired by one of those rich people.
"So, how much?"
The man quoted an absurdly massive sum.
Cathy clicked her tongue inwardly.
‘Asking the price of several apartments for a bloodstain with absolutely no magical value... These thieves.’
Why did Minjun want such a useless object in the first place?
She buried the question deep in her mind for now. Regardless, she was just doing what she was told.
"Deal."
The transaction was complete.
*
"That's right. Thankfully, both of them crawled in on their own two feet. They are already inside the mansion, so I will give you the results by the end of the day. As soon as this conversation ends, I will propose a deal to them."
=...=
"No, I cannot agree to that. One of them is a Dragon, and as the son of the deceased, he currently holds everyone's attention. The other is the private property of the Committee. If I kill them, how would I handle the fallout? We must coax them with the best possible terms. If that doesn't work, we simply move on to more forceful measures. Harming them under any circumstances, however, is strictly forbidden!"
=...=
"Do you still not trust me? It wasn't there. Just how many more times must I say it? I am also an Ancient Dragon, and I attended the drafting of Rod's legacy inventory as a witness. But it was nowhere to be found! Hundreds of Dragons watched with burning eyes as Rod's body was recovered, and hundreds of Dragons cast search spells simultaneously on the spot where he died and the surrounding debris. The greedy heirs and guardians double- and triple-checked to ensure no legacy would be lost. Yet, that item alone vanished like an illusion!"
=...=
"We've already finished cross-verifying. The Lair has also been thoroughly searched. There is only one place left we haven't checked."
=...=
"It has to be. He told me that day. He said he would gift that artifact to his newly born child. And he cast Magic on it right in front of me. It was a complex formula, but it couldn't evade my senses. It was a spell that reacted to dragon blood. Specifically, to a particular bloodline."
=...=
"Once an Endelion artifact is imprinted on a user, it is permanently bound to them. He cast the Magic to prevent it from imprinting on some other random Dragon before his unhatched child could get their hands on it. The mother, who didn't look favorably upon the item, might
Cathy was a shopping addict.
She enjoyed buying all kinds of things through every possible channel whether she was happy, sad, or just bored. Lately, however, her impulse purchases had spiked out of sheer melancholy. Her employer had been phoning in his Immigration Office duties so much that she worried he was genuinely considering retirement. This was Minjun—a man who constantly grumbled about not wanting to work, but turned into a near-workaholic once he actually started a job.
If he retired, there was a high chance their employment contract would end too. The link connecting them would severely weaken. Depressed by the prospect, Cathy had been spending far more money on shopping lately. As if venting her frustration, she had bought plenty of seemingly useless things. Right now, however, she was forcing herself to hold back. Recently, she had bought a live alpaca while blackout drunk, only to terrify herself when the beast was delivered to her front door the next morning.
Now, that very same woman was in Hong Kong, the mecca of shopping.
"Cars can't go past this point."
Cathy handed a bill to the taxi driver who told her this, then got out and walked.
She was more motivated than she had been in a long time. After all, few things were as fun as shopping with someone else's money. The item Cathy was in Hong Kong to buy wasn't for herself. She had been scouring every corner of the city for days to purchase something Minjun had instructed her to get.
She walked down a narrow alley.
Just a few steps away from the glamorous luxury streets of Tsim Sha Tsui, the atmosphere changed drastically. An Orc, his wrists heavy with fake Rolexes, approached and pitched his wares in clumsy English. This was obviously not what she was here to buy. Ignoring him, she marched straight ahead. She passed a spot where live-in Balien maids—kicked out of their employers' houses for the weekend—sat huddled on flattened cardboard boxes. As she entered an alley where the streetlights abruptly thinned out, the atmosphere shifted once more.
The noise faded, and the gloomy aura deepened. The drunks and beggars who had been passed out along the roadside were no longer visible. It meant she had entered a street that such people couldn't endure.
The eyes of the street vendors grew more menacing, and their wares shifted from fake aphrodisiacs and dubious erectile dysfunction pills to much more dangerous-looking white powders. Instead of setting up stalls, they approached stealthily and pulled the items from their coats.
Cathy ignored them as well and kept moving. She pushed through alleys that resembled a labyrinth. Even in the complex, spiderweb-like streets, her steps were unhesitating.
"Hey, what are you looking for?"
Just as she turned a corner in the stench-filled alley, someone blocked her path. This meant she had reached a zone where the police wouldn't investigate even if someone met a grisly end and was hauled off as a corpse. Cathy realized she was almost at her destination. She spoke in a cold voice.
"Move. I'm busy."
Young humans with desire gleaming in their eyes. At a glance, they were nothing more than small-time punks.
The real power players of the syndicates that controlled these streets didn't recklessly mess with someone like Cathy. A woman walking alone in such a dangerous place meant one of two things: she was either suicidal with nothing left to lose, or she had a hidden card up her sleeve. In either case, she wasn't a profitable target.
In other words, these guys were idiots lacking the brains to discern even that much.
"I've got plenty of time."
One of the thugs smirked. He then pulled a knife from his coat and pointed it at her. Hilariously, he thought this was a sufficient threat.
They blocked her retreat and surrounded her.
"Didn't anyone teach you not to wander around places like this alone at this hour?"
"When you're dumb, your body pays the price. Or do you prefer this kind of suffering?"
"Now, hand over everything you have first..."
He continued, snickering.
"Then we can take our time discussing what to do next."
They were nastier pieces of work than she had thought, despite having no real backing. Cathy could easily spot the hallmarks of drug addiction on their faces. From the start, they had no intention of letting her go just because she tossed them her wallet.
Not that she had any intention of doing so anyway.
Cathy decided not to waste any more time. What she had just said wasn't a lie. She really was busy.
"...!"
Her lips parted, muttering something. No matter how stupid they were, everyone understood the meaning of that action.
Minjun evaluated Cathy's Magic as insignificant, but that was strictly by his standards. It fell short for beating up aliens, but it was more than enough to protect herself in a place like this.
"A m-mage!"
"Fuck! Stab her...!"
At that moment.
Fwoosh!
"Aaaagh! My eyes! My eyeeees!"
Exactly as Minjun had taught her, she set fire to their eyes first.
'If a bunch of guys bother you, burn their eyeballs first. That's the quickest fix.' Her employer's teachings were always right. The thugs shrieked and flailed wildly, swinging their knives at random. Then they lost their balance, collapsed, and writhed on the ground.
They didn't realize that while the flames covering their eyeballs looked real, the temperature was absurdly low. Since the eyes were the most delicate part of the body and had never touched anything hotter than a warm towel, they perceived the heat as far more intense than its actual temperature. Panic scrambled their senses completely.
Leaving the men behind, Cathy leisurely walked out of the alley. She was certain that those hiding and observing her from the shadows had seen this scene clearly. She had proven that she was no pushover.
Perhaps thanks to that, when she finally reached her destination, there were no bouncers blocking her path to 'verify' her.
"You made quite a noisy entrance."
A middle-aged man welcomed her inside a dimly lit office. Cathy knew he was a mid-level executive of the syndicate controlling Hong Kong's back alleys. She had been wandering around meeting people like him for days. Strictly for business.
"I have something I want to buy."
Some items could only be acquired by scouring rock bottom like this—down in the pitch-black shadows where the Dragons who dominated politics and business didn't bother looking.
Cathy, adequately disguised to the point that her original face was unrecognizable, named the item she had been eagerly searching for these past few days.
The man's face twisted oddly.
"You came to the right place."
Cathy cheered inwardly. 'Finally!'
However, she didn't let it show on her face as she replied.
"I was wondering who scooped it up. So it was your syndicate?"
"The contractor hired to clean up the ICC Building ruins was one of ours."
The man's eyes shifted.
"We're taking a risk selling this too. We could only slip it out because it's a scrap the Dragons didn't pay much attention to, but if they find out, it's a different story. If they don't know, fine, but the moment they do, fireballs will rain down. I mean they might roast everyone involved—literally, not figuratively."
The man was laying the groundwork before mentioning the product's price.
"So, the goods?"
The man turned on a tablet, fiddled with it, and held it out to her. On the screen was a photo of what looked like a piece of broken concrete debris.
Cathy focused on the red stain clinging to its edge.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Yeah, we already confirmed it with Magic. That's not human blood."
The man's eyes gleamed as he spoke in a low voice.
"...It's a Dragon's bloodstain!"
When clearing the ruins of the ICC Building where Rod died, the Dragons had delegated the non-magical labor to other species. After all, there was no need for Dragons to dirty their own hands with trivial tasks like garbage cleanup.
Before handing the site over, Rod's body and every piece of his 'legacy' had been thoroughly collected, but a few things slipped past the Dragons' gaze. Minuscule bloodstains spattered on debris were one such example. If it were dragon blood that still retained its vitality, they would have relentlessly hoarded it, as even a single drop held astronomical value. But dried bloodstains had absolutely zero value as a magical catalyst. The Dragons weren't obsessive enough to manage something like that.
Minjun had suspected there would be hyena-like scavengers exploiting that exact gap. Cathy was now verifying with her own eyes that his prediction was correct.
"The rich folks in Hong Kong are desperately searching for this. You won't find a better talisman."
Ever since the wall between reality and fantasy crumbled in 1945, the boundaries of superstition had always been ambiguous. Wealthy old people wishing to emulate a Dragon's wisdom, strength, and lifespan were willing to pay a king's ransom for a rock stained with an Ancient Dragon's blood. It didn't matter if mages denied its effectiveness. People who didn't even trust doctors or scientists were hardly going to believe a mage. They always believed what they wanted to believe.
Cathy was acting like someone hired by one of those rich people.
"So, how much?"
The man quoted an absurdly massive sum.
Cathy clicked her tongue inwardly.
'Asking for the price of several apartments for a bloodstain with absolutely no magical value... These thieves.'
Why did Minjun want such a useless object in the first place?
She buried the question deep in her mind for now. Regardless, she was just doing what she was told.
"Deal."
The transaction was complete.
*
"That's right. Thankfully, both of them crawled in on their own two feet. They are already inside the mansion, so I will give you the results by the end of the day. As soon as this conversation ends, I will propose a deal to them."
=...=
"No, I cannot agree to that. One of them is a Dragon, and the son of the deceased who has everyone's attention. The other is the private property of the Committee. If I kill them, how would I handle the fallout? We must coax them with the best possible terms. If that doesn't work, we simply move on to more forceful measures. However, harming them under any circumstances is strictly forbidden!"
=...=
"Do you still not trust me? It wasn't there. Just how many more times must I say it? I am also an Ancient Dragon, and I attended the drafting of Rod's legacy inventory as a witness. But it was nowhere to be found! Hundreds of Dragons watched with burning eyes as Rod's body was recovered. Hundreds of Dragons cast search spells simultaneously on the spot where he died and the surrounding debris. The greedy heirs and guardians double- and triple-checked to ensure no legacy would be lost. Yet, that item alone vanished like an illusion!"
=...=
"We've already finished cross-verifying. The Lair has also been thoroughly searched. There is only one place left we haven't checked."
=...=
"It has to be. He told me that day. He said he would gift that artifact to his newly born child. And he cast Magic on it right in front of me. It was a complex formula, but it couldn't evade my senses. It was a spell that reacted to dragon blood. Specifically, to a particular bloodline."
=...=
"Once an Endelion artifact is imprinted on a user, it is permanently bound to them. He cast the Magic to prevent it from imprinting on some other random Dragon before his unhatched child could get their hands on it. The mother, who didn't look favorably upon the item, might have disposed of it through other channels, you see. He rigged it so that only his child could become the master of the artifact."
=...=
"Correct. Since he couldn't cast a spell that reacts to the blood of a Dragon that hasn't even hatched yet, he slightly altered the conditions. Only a 'child' who inherited his blood could react to the spell and receive the permanent imprint of the artifact. The most important part here... is that he even included a function to search the surroundings for such a child. Do you understand what I'm saying now?"
=...=
"Yes, which is why we must get our hands on it, no matter what it takes."
=...=
"Wait. You will hear good news by the end of the day."
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