Dropping into the filthy waters of the sewers, Minori went to straighten his cuff but found himself staring at bare skin.
'Ah… my sleeves are in tatters. I should properly formulate spell circles instead of just throwing my mana around.'
He grimaced behind the mask and looked around to find his partners in crime.
Leaning up against the wall, with her whip in hand was Yoo Yeonha, the fox mask was cracked but not too badly damaged. Unfortunately she seemed to have hurt her arm a little. It wasn't too bad but it could be patched up.
Laying by her side were the disintegrating remains of a djinn, from what was left of the fur and the long tail, Minori could tell he had some sort of rat transformation. Its entire body was scarred and lacerated with whip marks.
On the other side was a man in a Panther mask, Kim Hajin. He had his hands on his knees and breathed heavily, a platinum shotgun still firmly gripped in his right hand. He didn't have a single scratch on him but nevertheless seemed more out of breath than Yeonha.
Strangely enough Hajin's victim was not present, save for a quickly disintegrating splat on the floor in front of him.
"Are you two ready? We need to go, as soon as possible."
Minori spoke, fatigue slithered out in his words as he marched forward.
Minori himself wasn't in the best of states, having fought off 7 entire Djinn as well as discovered a new use for his gift. Thankfully everyone there only barely held midrank mana, except for the White clad and the Djinn under the crystal skull's influence.
The plan went off without a hitch, and now it was time to make a break for it. They were still in Seoul after all, the hero capital of the world. Even with the distraction in place Minori still felt a sinking feeling of unease in his stomach.
Yeonha righted herself, and gracefully hilted her whip.
"I… should be alright. Our sharpshooter seems to be in a rather pathetic state though."
Hajin perked up and seemed to want to say something, but in the end kept his mouth shut and made his way over.
"Phew, good. Do you two remember how to get out?"
Yeonha nodded, and without further conversation began jogging in the direction they came from. The two others followed close behind.
"So… boss, how exactly should we go about getting out of Seoul before we're noticed?" Hajin raised an important question.
"Oh, about that. Once we leave, we'll be close to Haengju Bridge. If we go a little bit more inland from there, we should arrive at a hotel. I had Yeonha reserve a room and I visited there this morning to place some spare civilian clothes."
Yeonha tilted her head a little as if it helped her listen in.
"After we get there, all we need to do is get changed and go out together. We don't really need to leave Seoul too quickly since that will draw attention."
Hajin nodded but then spoke again.
"What about your mana? There'll be traces of it everywhere."
"That's not a problem either, my mana is attributed with fire and seems to burn itself up as fuel as opposed to channeling spells normally."
There was a brief moment of silence after that before Hajin forced himself to interject again.
"...remember to enchant my bullets after thi-"
"Yes yes, I'll get that done so focus on running."
The waters in the sewage system grew more turbulent as the group of masked figures ran.
Minori's head ached, his muscles were sore and his throat was dry. His mana streams seemed to be struggling to remain open as his reserves dried. Using [Encryption] on a living being, storing them in a space that can only contain information, took far more energy than Minori had anticipated.
He hadn't tested [Encryption] on a human beforehand so he was pleasantly surprised that it actually worked. If it hadn't Minori would've been forced to use the hole he had dug in advance to store the man before visiting at a later date.
'Now I can just take him out of storage and interrogate him when I get home.'
…
"This building will remain standing."
A petite blonde girl could be seen standing on a street lamp. Heroes and civilians could be seen swarming beneath her like ants. They were covered in soot and ash from the building that had nearly collapsed.
The building in question was currently leaning at a harsh 45 degree angle, as though the supports on one side of it had been melted. More than that, several smaller explosions caused mass damage to infrastructure around the area.
The largest of the smaller explosions came from a book shop almost 1 kilometre away, the building itself was two stories tall yet almost the entire thing went up in flames.
Aileen's face contorted in anguish as the screams of people entered her ears.
How did this happen? Security had increased almost two-fold on this specific day.
"These flames will be doused in water."
Aileen couldn't help but think these incidents were connected. A plan on such a large scale and such synchronicity couldn't be perpetrated by a single person. No… a person would need to at least be a 5 star mage to cast such an intricate spell.
But who would have a motive to spend so many resources to attack the city today? Don't they realise the consequences of their actions? Heroes as a whole have been losing the trust of the citizens after the barrage of incidents that have stemmed from Cube.
But this? Aileen had a feeling that the person responsible knew that the Temple of Justice would be involved today.
"Aileen! The White Clad are here as reinforcements!" Someone below yelled out.
Turning to the right, Aileen watched as a man in white robes easily lifted rubble off of the ground, helping people trapped underneath it with a dashing smile.
"...motive." She muttered beneath her breath, as though coming to a conclusion.
…
Later, a trio of teenagers were seen sitting on a park bench.
One was decked out in denim, his style was rather fashionable and seemed to be from an older generation. His hair was parted in the middle and his looks were rather average.
"That… went well enough."
The other was a girl in sunglasses and a bucket hat, dressed in a jacket with a skirt that reached her ankles. Her left hand was hidden inside her pocket while the other one was trying to unscrew a bottle of water.
"Did it? Even after getting rid of those djinn… it felt off."
The last member of the group was a pale boy with messy black hair. He was dressed in a black overshirt and sweatpants.
"Off…? Well, killing shouldn't ever feel right. So I think it's natural." Minori reassured her.
Yeonha couldn't help but sigh, her eyes narrowing with suspicion behind her glasses.
"Yeah. You're right… But was it necessary to blow up buildings as a distraction?"
Minori's pale eyes flickered with something darker before he smiled and shrugged.
"I had to think of some way to get rid of any prying eyes. That was the most sure fire way. It's not like it killed anyone."
Minori pointed across the park towards the rubble that was floating upwards.
"See that? I picked today because I knew the guild master of the White Clad would be here."
'And very aware of any incidents.'
A silence settled over the three as they watched the aftermath of their… activity.
"So what's next?" Hajin looked down at his watch despite the screen being black.
Minori, without missing a beat, spoke.
"We head back to Cube and pretend nothing happened. I might get you guys to help me again… you never know when trouble might follow right?"
"Then you better give us the same treatment when we need help." Hajin got up from the bench.
"I'll be heading off first. I need to take care of something."
Minori watched him go before getting up himself, stretching out a hand to the girl beside him.
"Come on Yeonha. We should probably go too."
The girl hesitantly took the hand feeling herself get pulled up by the strangely soft hand, Yeonha couldn't help but wonder.
Was what she did right? Killing Djinn was something that every hero did, no one would bat an eye if you said you killed a Djinn… no, you'd actually be decorated for something like that.
In fact, the boy in front of her as well as her best friend had both been in that situation. But their acts were rewarded because of the way they did it.
They were heroes.
Yeonha, for some reason, couldn't say the same for herself.
"Hey, you alright?" A quiet voice snapped her out of her stupor.
"H-Huh? Oh, I'm okay."
A somewhat sly smirk made its way onto Minori's face before he returned to looking ahead.
Yeonha looked down at how they were still holding hands… and quietly returned a grip.
Her previous thoughts exited her mind as an eerie weight settled on her shoulders. She couldn't tell if she was feeling pressured or reassured, yet either way, she didn't mind.
"...yeah, I'm okay." She whispered under her breath as she walked.
Minori's eyes turned to the side for a short glance at Yeonha, before looking at the pyre of smoke and floating stones off in the distance again.
'Of course you are.'
[End of Volume 1: Waking]