Urban Vagabond: Reload

The longer Dr. Man spoke with the young spellcaster standing before him, the more captivated he became.

“When did you first learn spellcraft?”

“When I was around seven? I watched a basic spellcraft lecture on YouTube and copied it.”

Most videos like that were fake composites made just to farm views, though?

“Th-then what led to your spirit sight opening? To control several anomalies at once like you do, you must have gone through considerable trauma.......”

“I’ve just been able to see ghosts since I was little?”

Could it be that she had some remarkable shaman among her ancestors?

“You’re saying you enslaved those things after reading just one spellbook on handling anomalies?”

“The book had pretty kind explanations and annotations, so it wasn’t that hard.”

“......?”

She was only a little over twenty at most, a child by his standards.

And yet the talent Kim Bokja was displaying as a spellcaster was enough to shatter Dr. Man’s common sense.

And on top of that.......

BBAK!

The moment he saw Apricot poke its head out of the bag, apparently having recovered a little stamina—

‘A Great Anomaly?’

Dr. Man recognized what Apricot was at a glance, and he almost reacted without meaning to.

That was how dangerous a Great Anomaly was.

He did not realize it was a baby Golden Winged Bird, but the intense energy it carried inside it was enough to make his skin prickle.

“Apricot. Stay inside.”

BBAK!

Kim Bokja noticed Dr. Man’s gaze, then swung the bag behind her back so he could not see it.

Apricot, apparently annoyed at being cramped, kept poking Kim Bokja in the back from behind.

“Hm. About that anomaly. Could it be.......”

At Dr. Man’s cautious question, Kim Bokja gave him a sweet little smile.

Since deceiving a Grand Spellcaster was impossible, she chose the direct route.

“Even so, thanks to this one, none of the spellcasters got hurt, so couldn’t you keep it secret?”

Dr. Man thought for a moment, then nodded.

“......Very well. Understood.”

Ordinarily, the rule was that a Great Anomaly had to be reported the moment it was discovered.

But the values of a Grand Spellcaster who had lived his whole life as a scholar were rather far removed from those of a normal person.

‘The coexistence of a Great Anomaly and a human is also a topic worth investigating academically. It is more than worthy of observation.’

Fortunately, unless one was a Grand Spellcaster like him, it was unlikely anyone would recognize a Great Anomaly at a glance.

“Just in case, I’ll teach you a spell to conceal its energy. If you cast it on a regular basis, no one else should recognize it again.”

“Really? I was worried about that too. Thank you! That’s a relief, Apricot!”

KYYAAAAH!

Kim Bokja, apparently reassured, pulled Apricot out of the bag and rubbed it all over her cheek.

Dr. Man watched the two of them with a mixture of warmth and astonishment.

‘She keeps a Great Anomaly by her side, yet suffers no influence from it. If anything, is she naturally harmonizing with that powerful energy?’

This child.

She possessed a vessel far broader than even his, a Grand Spellcaster’s.

The corners of Dr. Man’s mouth kept rising without end.

“Ahem. So then, would you have any intention of properly learning spellcraft from me?”

“Um. About that.......”

Even though this was already the second offer, Kim Bokja was still hesitating, and it made Dr. Man anxious.

Martial arts were the same, but spellcraft was a field where reaching a high level through self-study alone was nearly impossible.

Pilcheon Style, in particular, had long been famous for being difficult to master.

Why else would it have become a lineage passed down from one person to one person alone by his generation?

‘The reason I never took a disciple until now was simply because none of them were good enough for my standards. And whenever one looked even a little promising, those other Grand Spellcaster bastards would snatch them away at once.......’

Dr. Man did not want to lose this child to anyone.

At that moment, Kim Bokja, looking as though she had made up her mind about something, asked bluntly,

“What are the conditions for becoming your disciple?”

“......Conditions?”

There was a reason Kim Bokja wanted to learn spellcraft and yet had still hesitated.

She had heard that the customs surrounding master-disciple relationships in the spellcraft world were all equally horrible.

The basic standard, she had heard, was that a disciple became an unpaid slave who had to come running to work whenever their master called, and there were also many cases where they had to bring large sums of money every month under the name of tuition.

I’m not signing some sucker contract like that.

Fortunately, the other party seemed to like her quite a bit, so Kim Bokja intended to negotiate the terms as favorably as possible.

“For starters, I have to be at the shop at least five days a week.”

“......The shop?”

“I recently started a Spellcraft Beauty Shop in Yeonnam-dong. It’s not really at the point where it’s making serious profit yet, so honestly, tuition would be a bit of a burden.”

“......Tuition?”

Dr. Man’s expression twisted strangely, and Bokja hurried to add that she was not saying she wanted it for free.

“So I’m not saying I won’t pay. But, uh, do you take installments?”

It took Dr. Man quite a long time to understand what she was saying.

“Good heavens! I was wondering what in the world you were talking about!”

He too knew how some spellcasters treated their disciples.

Once, he had gone to visit a fellow spellcaster’s laboratory, seen disciples being worked like slaves, and cut ties with that person on the spot.

Dr. Man gave a bitter smile, then firmly shook his head.

“There is no need for money.”

“Huh?”

“I shall also buy every material needed for your spellcraft training out of my own pocket. It would not do for the successor of Pilcheon Style to be unable to study because of money. And one or two lessons a week should be more than enough.”

Dr. Man truly thought that would be sufficient.

With talent this great, if he only taught her the fundamentals properly, then after that she would grow rapidly on her own even if he only checked in on her from time to time.

“These are my conditions. Do they satisfy you?”

The terms were so shockingly generous that this time it was Kim Bokja’s turn to be flustered.

“......That’s all?”

Rather than rejoice rashly, she grew suspicious first.

That was only natural for a spellcaster still more used to the rules of the underworld than to those of the respectable world.

Because kindness that expected no price always had some motive hidden behind it.

“Ah, I forgot the most important part.”

There it is.

Thinking the other party was finally about to reveal his real ulterior motive, Kim Bokja narrowed her eyes.

“After every lesson, I will assign homework, and you absolutely must turn it in by the next lesson!”

Dr. Man spoke with his arms folded, firm in a way that said that point alone was something he would never compromise on.

From Kim Bokja’s point of view, it was an absurdly easy condition.

So she decided to just ask honestly.

“Aren’t these terms way too good for me? Not even a con artist would do this.”

“You are laboring under a great misunderstanding. This is not an offer for your sake, but for mine.”

“......?”

Dr. Man had never taken a disciple before, nor had he ever cared how other people taught theirs.

But once he became fixated on something, his desire to achieve results in it was stronger than anyone’s.

“I am not particularly a good person. If anything, I am a greedy old man beyond compare. For the first time in my life, I have found talent in Korea greater than my own. Shouldn’t I at least invest this much?”

As he said that, Dr. Man’s eyes shone with such pure clarity that Kim Bokja was briefly left speechless.

He was supposedly one of only five Grand Spellcasters in Korea, and he definitely was not normal.

But it was also true that she could clearly feel his sincerity.

“......Then should I bow to you right now?”

“Haha! We are still in the middle of a battle, so do that later.”

When Kim Bokja moved to bow, Dr. Man stopped her and burst out laughing.

And so, the two of them formed a master-disciple bond.

Though it was very different from the relationship that ordinary spellcasters formed between master and disciple, it was a result that satisfied both sides.

But this old man...... isn’t he just a genuinely nice sucker?

As Kim Bokja looked at Dr. Man’s profile, she suddenly thought his eyes resembled Choi Geon’s.

......I was a little jealous.

The eyes of a master who wanted to teach their disciple everything.

Maybe a similar kind of luck had come to her too.

Of course, she could not trust someone she had only just met.

But she opened the door to her heart, just a little.

“......Well, to commemorate you becoming my master, I’ll tell you my real name. It’s Bokja. Kim Bokja.”

“That is a beautiful name.”

No one had ever said that to her before except Kim Muhyuk’s parents. For no reason, Kim Bokja put the Blue Wolf mask back over her face.

Watching her, Dr. Man spoke.

“Follow me. It would be a waste to use your abilities only on the perimeter.”

The two moved toward the center, where the spellcasters were lined up in formation. There, they advanced while dismantling the Black Heaven Society’s toughest mechanism formations.

WHUMMMMMM!

Dr. Man, overflowing with motivation after gaining a disciple, moved his hands busily while complex incantations flowed from his lips.

Whenever the characters floating around Dr. Man’s body seeped into the gaps in the Black Heaven Society’s mechanism formations or spellcraft, those defenses were neutralized a moment later with a heavy crash.

And each time a spell formation was undone, Dr. Man turned to Kim Bokja and said,

“Bokja. Can you understand the spell I just used to dismantle that mechanism formation?”

“......I think I could maybe copy a little of it?”

“What did you say? Hahahaha!”

Just adding Kim Bokja to the now-excited Dr. Man made the speed of dismantling the Black Heaven Society’s mechanism formations increase even further.

Before long, the two of them succeeded in undoing most of the major mechanism formations and spell formations installed throughout the Black Heaven Society’s main base.

RUMBLE......!

Along with a vibration that shook the ground, the vast spell energy that had enveloped the entire Black Heaven Society slowly began to disperse.

The illusions, fog, and maze-like phenomena that had been obstructing the martial artists’ advance all vanished.

And far beyond that—

KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWAANG!

With a tremendous explosion, fragments of surging qi could be seen whipping through the air. Each one carried enough force to smash through a concrete wall.

“All spellcasters, wait here!”

Dr. Man narrowed his eyes, and it seemed as though the situation in that distant place, like a natural disaster, was visible within his field of vision. He murmured quietly,

“The Martial Alliance Leader and the sect leaders of the Eight Great Sects have clashed with the Black Heaven Society’s society leader. If we approach any farther, we may enter the range of that battle’s effects.”

“We’ll win easily, right?”

At his disciple’s question, Dr. Man furrowed his brow.

“If one looks only at military strength, then yes, they should clearly win without much difficulty, but.......”

Even as he said that, Dr. Man did not look reassured in the slightest.

“The unorthodox faction is unorthodox because they do not care about means or methods. I believe what matters is what they have hidden away.”

The strength of an unorthodox organization like the Black Heaven Society could not be measured simply by the number of its martial artists.

Unlike the orthodox faction, they did not hesitate to use poison, anomalies, firearms, Demonic Void Art, or forbidden blood arts, and if necessary, they could even abduct civilians and stage a hostage situation.

There was no way to predict when or where such things might appear.

That was why the spellcasters were waiting in the rear, to prepare for precisely those variables.

“It is asymmetric force that the orthodox faction does not possess. I understand that this raid was launched in order to cut off as many of those variables as possible, but.......”

Kim Bokja, who had been listening quietly, crossed her arms and grinned.

“If that’s what you’re worried about, then I don’t think you need to be.”

“Hm?”

To commemorate him becoming her master, Kim Bokja shared one secret with Dr. Man.

“We’ve got one asymmetric force on this side too. An expert who specializes in dealing with the exact things you just mentioned.”

*****

Thud.......

A severed head rolled across the floor.

The terror the man had felt just before death was vividly carved into the twisted face of the head.

“M-monster......!”

“Bring in more demonic martial artists! The enemy is only one man!”

“Fuck! How did we empty this many rounds and not hit him even once?!”

But neither firearms nor poison nor even martial artists who had mastered Demonic Void Art worked.

More than several dozen men had rushed the intruder wearing the wolf mask.

But all of them had done nothing except help create a blood-red carpet beneath the man’s feet.

“Heh heh. The feel of the cut is poor. Those bastards who practice Demonic Void Art always have such tough flesh.”

A figure who spoke like a demonic martial artist more casually than anyone.

The flight jacket he wore had been stained red in places.

Beyond the Blue Wolf mask, savage killing intent that would never tolerate evil rippled in his eyes.

“If I’m going to slaughter them all, it’ll take some time.”

As Choi Geon took one step at a time down the corridor, the enemies finally surrendered to fear, turned their backs, and ran.

“Eeeek!”

“Run—!”

This had happened the moment the largest branch of the Black Heaven Society, the one whose demonic martial artists had moved out to support the main base, tried to deploy.

And behind him—

“That man...... really is on our side, right?”

“If he wasn’t, do you think we’d still be alive right now?”

Hwang Suksu and Han Jaechun, clutching their pounding chests, were following after Choi Geon.