Hat, mask, jacket, and so on. After placing Kim Jinwoo’s clothes into the subspace, I stepped outside in the form of Kim Sunwoo.
“Whew.”
My body felt heavy and sluggish due to mana exhaustion.
I slowly looked around.
Despite the late hour, many people were outside. Every single one of them was staring blankly up at the sky.
To be precise, they weren’t looking at the sky—but at the airship, Jaun’s means of escape.
“Wow…”
A gasp escaped my lips the moment I saw it.
It looked even more impressive in person.
Its outward appearance resembled an ordinary airship, but its exterior was wrapped in a special golden metallic material.
It seemed to be a magical tool designed to protect it from external impact. It looked a bit like a jet and was quite fascinating.
Wooooooong─!
Jaun’s airship spewed out mana and quickly disappeared from view.
“……”
I stood there, blankly staring at the now-empty dawn sky.
In the end, Jaun had succeeded in achieving their objective and escaping.
From one perspective, it could be considered a complete defeat.
Well, at least we managed to save Elin, who nearly died. So it wasn’t a total loss.
Just then, a commotion could be heard from somewhere. Dozens of people climbed aboard the ship. They looked up at the sky with dazed expressions before opening their mouths.
“……We’re a step too late.”
“Send out a plane and find out where they escaped to. The rest of you check for injuries and stabilize the scene.”
“Yes, sir!”
They were special agents from the Association. The emblem on their chests, depicting a sail and a sword, symbolized the Marine Special Task Force.
They hurried to tend to the wounded and take control of the situation.
As I blankly watched them, someone suddenly popped into my mind.
Lee Seo-jun.
Where is that guy?
With Elin’s crisis taking all my focus, I hadn’t even thought to check on Lee Seo-jun.
I walked slowly across the ship, looking for him. He’s the type who loves standing out, so he had to be out here somewhere.
As I continued walking, I noticed damaged stuff on the deck.
Signs of intense combat.
They were likely the aftermath of the clash between the suppression squad and Jaun.
After all, their battle didn’t only happen underground.
“Gah! Hey, hey! Go easy with that!”
“Don’t be such a baby… But yeah, they were insanely strong, just like the rumors said. Honestly, I didn’t think we’d win. But I thought we could at least stall them until the Association arrived.”
“Right? Now I understand what people meant when they said the younger generation that didn’t experience Jaun ten years ago underestimated them.”
Nearby, Elin’s teammates—Alex, Jung Kyungwon, and others—were having their wounds treated, wearing grim expressions.
They were probably furious at having let Jaun slip away right in front of them.
They were injured, but thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any deaths.
Leaving them behind, I continued my search for Lee Seo-jun.
That’s when I spotted a large group of students gathered together.
Familiar faces. A closer look revealed that all the Special Class students were here.
“Kim Sunwoo?”
From within the group, Lee Seo-jun called out to me.
At the same time, everyone turned to look at me. The teachers standing in front of them did as well.
“Hey! Where’ve you been all this time?”
“…Huh?”
“There was an emergency evacuation order sent through the student notebook. Didn’t you know?”
I hadn’t known. I’d turned my smart student notebook off.
“Uh, no. I didn’t.”
“How could you not know? After the new update, a blaring alarm went off wildly.”
“Oh.”
Now that he mentioned it, I had heard they added a bunch of features to deal with the recent increase in terrorist activity.
So that’s why everyone gathered here.
With the timeline of events starting to shift, it’s getting harder to predict what comes next.
“I had it turned off. I always turn off everything when I sleep.”
“……”
Seo-jun had nothing to say and just nodded. Then he looked me up and down.
“But why do you look so down? You seem completely drained.”
The worn-out look was because of mana exhaustion, but I smiled easily to avoid suspicion.
“It was so noisy, I couldn’t sleep properly.”
“Sleep?”
Seo-jun stared at me with a puzzled look and seemed like he was about to say something.
That’s when Park Jungwan who’d been quietly watching, spoke to me.
“Student Kim Sunwoo. Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No, as you can see, I’m perfectly fine.”
After hearing my answer, Park Jungwan looked me over and nodded.
“Then where have you been until now?”
What should I say? I hadn’t expected everyone to be gathered in one place like this. This was going to be a pain.
“…I was sleeping in my dorm.”
“You weren’t in your dorm, though.”
Seo-jun interjected bluntly.
“Yes, I was. I was sleeping.”
“Sleeping? We knocked like crazy to wake you up.”
Ah. His room was across from mine.
“…Once I fall into deep sleep, it’s hard to wake me.”
Hearing that, Seo-jun gave me a baffled look. He seemed like he wanted to say something, but after glancing around, he shut his mouth.
“All right, that’s enough. The important thing is that everyone is now safe and accounted for.”
Park Jungwan stepped forward and spoke.
“The Association has confirmed that the terrorists have fled and that things are safe now. So there’s no need to worry.”
“Yes.”
“You were probably all very shaken by the sudden incident, but please take the remaining time to rest and find peace of mind. Ah, and both morning and afternoon training sessions for today have been canceled.”
“Knew it…”
As expected, the students nodded. While not officially announced, they had likely sensed that something had gone wrong with ‘Poseidon,’ the main power source of Atlantis.
“They’re working on resolving the situation and getting some of the ship’s facilities back to normal, so we just need to wait.”
After a while, Park Jungwan spoke with someone via a communication device.
“We’ve received a clear confirmation of safety from the Association. All right, everyone, keep your smart student notebooks with you at all times, and you’re dismissed.”
“Okaaay.”
The students answered with tired voices and scattered in all directions.
Only a few of us remained—me, Lee Seo-jun, and major figures like Choi Seo-yoon and Yoo Ara.
“……”
An awkward silence lingered. Just as we all hesitated, Yoo Ara turned to me and said,
“You didn’t sleep, did you? You were off doing something.”
“With all this chaos going on, what could I have done?”
At my reply, Yoo Ara glanced around and pressed her lips together.
Everyone seemed like they wanted to ask me something, but they were holding back.
What’s with these guys?
Then Yoon Hayoung smiled and said,
“It’s still early morning. Let’s all head out.”
“Yeah, let’s. Yaaawn… I’m dead tired.”
As I yawned, Seo-jun looked at me.
“For someone who was supposedly sleeping the whole time, you look the most exhausted.”
I just shrugged in response.
“Aren’t you guys going to sleep?”
“…We will.”
“I’m going to bed now.”
With that, I walked off in the direction of the dorms.
I could feel their piercing stares behind my back.
Woo-ooong…
The floor shook as the roar of a powerful mana engine echoed through the space.
Inside a massive airship.
Members of Jaun were gathered around Baek Eun-seong, who had returned late.
“You show up late and look like hell. Where’d your arm go? Pfft.”
Baek Eun-seong frowned at Natasha’s teasing.
“Ugh! Don’t start with me—just back off!”
“But your opponent must’ve been decent, huh? If you lost an arm, it probably wasn’t just any regular guy.”
“…If I fought him again, I’d win. Not saying I lost, okay? I just got careless, that’s all.”
“If you lost an arm, that is losing.”
Natasha snickered again.
“And what do you mean ‘careless’? You had probably let your guard down again. So who was it? Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“When I went to drag him back ‘cause he was taking so long, he was fighting two-on-one.”
It was Bert, who had been silently observing from behind.
“The redhead was there from the start, but who was the guy in the hat? Was he with them too?”
When Bert asked, Baek Eun-seong shook his head.
“Probably not. Even that redhead girl didn’t seem to know him well.”
“Yeah? So the guy who took your arm—was it the one in the hat?”
Baek Eunseong nodded.
“Yeah. And that guy… that’s him.”
“Him? Who?”
“The one who stole the Cup of Life. And the survivor of the Rune Clan who took down Theresa.”
Everyone around him wore a stunned expression.
“No way. Seriously? What the hell’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was strange too. It’s like he knew we were coming and was waiting for us.”
“But it was weird, right? Even Alex and the redhead guy, the ones who blocked us first, were already on standby. Who are they really?”
“Aren’t they Han Se-jin’s mercenaries? Word’s already gotten around in the mage community.”
Jin crossed his arms and spoke.
“Han Se-jin’s mercenaries, huh… I figured they’d fade away, but they’ve gathered some pretty capable people. This is getting troublesome.”
“How the hell did they know we’d be going after Atlantis?”
“…Don’t tell me there’s a leak?”
At Baek Eun-seong’s mutter, everyone tensed.
Just as the mood began to grow heavy, Bert stepped in.
“There are no traitors. We don’t suspect our own. That was our promise.”
“Hmph. Then how’d they know we were in Atlantis?”
“They must’ve used some kind of trick. It’s rare, but there are Mysteries with the power of prophecy. Or a gifted user with prophetic abilities.”
At the word “prophecy,” everyone fell silent in thought.
They had stolen countless Mysteries, but none that related to foresight.
“Prophecy, huh. What a pain.”
Baek Eun-seong grumbled.
“Still, prophecy always comes with a heavy cost. They probably can’t use it often.”
“True. So does that bearded guy have some prophetic ability too?”
“Probably, yeah.”
“Guess that explains it.”
Then Baek Eun-seong suddenly recalled something.
“Oh, right. That bearded guy seemed pretty old, actually.”
“Yeah?”
“And get this—the redhead turned out to be part of the Rune Clan too. She called that guy ‘elder.’”
“What? Really? If he’s an elder of the Rune Clan, he must be pretty strong, right?”
Natasha looked surprised. The group had clashed directly with an elder of the Rune Clan once before when stealing the clan’s treasure.
Bert nodded after a brief moment of thought.
“Yeah, since he used a secret technique from the clan, he must’ve been someone of significant age.”
“Wow. So our opponent was an old man?”
“Calling him an old man somehow makes it scarier.”
In their minds, a terrifying elderly figure surfaced—Kim Jin-cheol.
Underground.
After finishing her debriefing with the Association, Elin reunited with her teammates.
Thankfully, every one of them had survived without a single casualty.
“Damn, did you get clocked hard? You spit blood or something?”
Jung Kyungwon was the first to speak, pointing at the dried blood near Elin’s lips.
“Shut up. And it didn’t even hurt that much.”
To anyone else, it might’ve sounded like bravado, but Elin was sincere.
It had hurt—but compared to the agony of using the magical seal engraved across her body, it was nothing.
This kind of pain? She could handle it without medicine.
“…Is that so? You’re really something else, every time I see you.”
Jung Kyungwon gave her a look of disbelief.
Elin didn’t reply. She simply dug through her coat pocket.
She pulled out a potion glowing with a blue hue and downed it in one go.
“Ugh.”
The potion dulled the pain from using the magic circle—just slightly.
But she’d used the drug so much, its effectiveness was declining.
‘Maybe I should find a new one…’
A new potion. A stronger one.
Come to think of it, wasn’t the boss’s little sister a famous alchemist?
“But you sure made it out alive somehow.”
“What are you talking about?”
Elin tilted her head at Jung Kyungwon’s remark.
“I mean, the guy you were with underground—wasn’t that Baek Eun-seong? I heard there’s barely anyone who can match him in a one-on-one.”
Elin thought back to the events underground.
Baek Eun-seong… he had been powerful. Ridiculously so.
She had to use every trick in her arsenal just to hold him off, and even then, he never lost his cool—saving a trump card until the very end.
For a mage, mana and magical skill matter, sure—but in the end, the most important thing is experience.
He was a veteran who had probably fought in thousands of battles.
And she, compared to him, was still a rookie.
In a normal situation, she would’ve died.
But—she survived. No, she was saved.
Even thinking about it now, it felt like a miracle.
That mysterious man who suddenly appeared before her.
Unbelievable as it was, he was a survivor of her own clan.
And not just anyone—he was a fellow practitioner, like Lord Douglas himself.
He’d even used the clan’s secret technique, Runes Binding, and had managed to briefly overpower Baek Eun-seong.
Not just that—he seemed well-versed in other class of magic too.
How much effort would it take to reach that level?
He was truly incredible.
She wanted to see him again. But when would that happen?
I should’ve at least asked for his name…
“…What’s with that face?”
Elin snapped out of her thoughts at the sudden voice.
“What?”
“Just never seen you smile before. Something good happen?”
Elin froze at Jung Kyungwon’s words.
I… smiled?
She couldn’t remember smiling once since Lord Douglas had passed.
“When… when did I smile?”
“What do you mean? I saw it clearly just now.”
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