Chapter 7: Mission Accomplished
The girl could not scream lest she be killed.
The boy in front of her and the Sage Candidates disappeared right in front, only for the boy to be the only one to reappear. Even if she were to call security, what could she do? They wouldn't have been able to do anything against the Sage Candidate, so what chance did anyone in the hotel have against the monster in front of her?
The boy turned towards her, her spine tingling, in terror, in response.
And without a word, his hand was already on her forehead—
A woman, in luxurious clothes and brightly sparkling jewelry, and a baby announced their entrance with the opening of the automatic door.
Whoosh!
"Welcome! Do you have a reservation?" greeted the Receptionist
"Yes," the woman answered. "for room 209?"
"It is on the second floor. Have a nice stay."
The receptionist watched as the woman and her child went into the elevator before handling some documents to finish. She was a little out of it, and has been since yesterday. Her memories were in a bit of a haze ever since her coworkers found her collapsed on the counter. She couldn't remember past seeing out the Sage Candidates as they returned to their journey weirdly late into the night.
She must have been overworked. Her manager advised her to rest today, but, being the diligent worker she was, insisted on working.
The sunshine weaved past the buildings blocking it and shined brightly through the window, the shadows of the sofas, tables, and various furniture casting alluring shadows. Though she couldn't see it past the buildings in front of the hotel, she was sure that the sky was as blue as the sun bright.
What a beautiful day, she reflected.
With the Domain, Jinwoo was able to erase the students' memories of the Otherworld all at once. Manipulating memories of others never felt pleasant, but he was content with the fact that he was able to save the students from a long life of endless battles.
The student he later learned to be Yuuki Tachibana was, likewise, healed with the help of his Shadows within the Realm of Eternal Rest.
Afterwards, a bus accident was staged. The Rulers' Vessels made a damaged bus, the damage exactly like what a bus would experience after slipping on black ice and crashing. Then, they placed the students in their seats, with cadavers similar in every way to the killed driver, teacher, and two students also being produced, all the necessary tools being created by the Rulers and Jinwoo. They then anonymously gave a tip to the authorities that a bus accident happened and that they should hurry immediately. That was the plan, at first.
Actually, they settled on transporting the living students to a private hospital, funded by the Vessels, and tipping off the authorities about a bus accident that had just happened. The cadavers and the damaged bus were still needed after all.
The real concern would be the re-summoning of the students. To make it harder, they put different students in different wings in pairs. For most worlds, this much would make it impossible to redo something what the Sages aimed at doing. They hoped that the Sages would be no different.
Lastly, Tomochika and his sister had to have their memories of the Otherworld erased and were placed in the hospital. Before they had their memories erased, Jinah gave her final goodbyes to her brother:
"Uh, this is a little awkward," Jinah admitted, "but I just want to say thank you. Thank you for saving us, for saving our classmates, and… thank you for being my brother."
"We're not going to erase that far,"Jinwoo (returned to his original appearance) said, grinning. "You'll still be my sister after this."
"And Tomochika also wants to thank you" — her classmate beside her nodded— "And she says that it'd be a shame that she'd be forgetting you and that... it's a shame that she wouldn't get to see other tricks you can do."
Jinwoo smiled. "Yeah, I can imagine."
There was a melancholic pause between the siblings. Though Jinah was rescued from the world, she'd now have to forget, for a second time, a lot of things about Jinwoo that she learned.
Jinah bowed her head down, her shoulders lightly shaking.
"I really don't want to do this," she said while sniffing. "It's kinda scary, I'm not going to lie—"
"It'll be fine," Jinwoo assured. "It's just a touch-and-go ordeal."
"I know," Jinah said. "But that's not the point!"
Jinah snapped her head back up, revealing her teary eyes and a forming frown.
"I learned a lot of things about you, and... I started feeling closer to you. Even before you ran away, there was this distance between us, no matter how much you tried to hide it. So it felt great learning, even just a little, about some of the things you kept hidden. But now that that's all going away, I don't know…"
Jinah wiped her tears with her sleeve. "Now, I feel like the distance is going to come back after this. I don't like it!"
Jinah hugged Jinwoo, burying her face into his chest. "I don't want that again, Oppa. Please."
Jinwoo was both a bit shocked and a little sad. Shocked that she'd held it all in and sad that he let it happen.
But not this time, Jinwoo vowed. "Alright, I promise"
"Hm?"
Jinwoo held Jinah tighter
"I promise that I'll try to get rid of the distance between us as soon as you come to Korea. I'll meet you in the airport, drive you home, and talk to you about some of… this, all right? I'll try to be open about myself. But not about the school trip though. Deal?"
"…Alright," Jinah mumbled. "Oppa, you're suffocating me."
"Ah, sorry." Jinwoo pulled his sister from his bear hug.
"You better keep your promise, alright?"
"Yeah. See you later."
"Yeah."
Jinah and Tomochika turned and went into the car waiting outside their safehouse, Tomochika bowing a little before going in. The car leisurely weaved through the empty buildings and drove off, the sun hitting the black car's surface. The car shined, and it looked as if the car itself was the sun.
As soon as the car was out of sight, Jinwoo teleported back to Korea and resumed his daily life.
Right before teleporting, Jinwoo looked up at the sky in quiet contemplation.
"Glad to be under this sky again."
WORLD: OTHERWORLD
LOCATION: SAGE MANSION
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY ALL DISAPPEARED!?"
A spiky-haired Sage shot out of his seat, fuming. The Sages were gathered around in the room once they received news of the sudden disappearance of the Sage Candidates. Sage Santarou was missing, still sulking about not being able to catch a robot Regressor before it left back to its home.
"I was in bed," Sion explained, "then I felt something wrong. I checked the statuses of the Candidates and —"
"And you found them empty," finished Sage Van. "Frankly, I'm disappointed in you. Candidates can't just disappear from this world, especially with their current power. Imagine what Grandfather would think."
"Like he said," Sage Alice added, resting her chin on her palms, "you really should've been checking on the Candidates more often instead of lazing around in bed."
"Alright, Alright, let's calm down for a second," said the spiky-haired, leather jacket wearing Sage Yoshifumi. He put his hand to his eyes and sighed. "First, Sion, you done messed up. Do you even know who took them?"
"Who?" asked Alice.
"I mean, with the Battle Song System, nobody should be wanting to return to their world, so it's obvious someone spirited them away."
"I believe I do," said Sion.
Everyone in the room quickly turned their heads to her, wide-eyed with shock. Well, Sage Van did show a little interest but nonetheless looked rather unimpressed.
"Then why didn't you tell us before?" Yoshifumi said, tired. "No, the least you should've done is increasing surveillance of the Sage Candidates AFTER you met the Aggressor!"
"Were trying to sabotage the Sage Selection?!" accused Alice. "Geez, it should've been me who oversaw the selection process!"
"Well, I didn't think he was much of a threat then," Sion sighed.
"You let go an Aggressor," Yoshifumi spat out. "And la-dee-da! Look at the mess we're in now. Bet that was a mistake!"
"Wait," Van spoke up, "so when did you meet the Aggressor?"
Sion raised her eyebrow, as if trying to remember what she ate for dinner the day before.
"It was when I gave the Candidates their first mission, when they left four ungifted students behind to serve as bait for the dragon. As far as I know, two of them did die. When the survivors were about to be eaten, a man appeared, killed the dragon and left with the remaining two students. When sensed me, he left immediately. You could see why I thought he wasn't much of a threat when he acted this way."
"Still…" Yoshifumi said as he gritted his teeth.
"What did he look like?" Sage Lain asked.
"Hmm… I think he was pretty tall and wore a black coat. He's probably related to one of the survivors."
"How heroic," mused Lain.
"So, how are you going to take responsibility for this?" Van asked, going straight to the point. "The Candidates are gone, he's probably gone, what can you do?"
"The price of your failure is quite large," said Lain.
"I understand," said Sion. "I will resolve this–"
"How?" questioned Alice.
"I will resolve this by tomorrow," Sion emphasized.
Sage Van rubbed his hand on his hair, a mix of disappointment and frustration with the incompetence that was on display.
"Alright," he said. "However, if you do fail, you know what comes after, right?"
"I know, I know," Sion said while waving her hand. "You can go now."
"Geez, what a screw up," Yoshifumi uttered under his breath before leaving, followed by Alice and Lain.
"You know," said Van, "if you can't do it, maybe I should take over. Summoning so many must've been a pain, why not just make them? Wouldn't that be easier?."
He makes it sound easy, Sion thought, her eyes twitching a little. "You wouldn't understand, as the actual grandson of the Great Sage, but it's truly a difficult process."
"Sounds easy to me though. Then I'll try to make them. How many should I make?"
"I don't know. The Aggressors have been getting more powerful lately. And we don't know how powerful our culprit is, either. We could use as many as you could provide."
"Got it," Van smiled, "I'll see what I can do." And with that, the true grandson of the Great Sage went back to his lair in a blink.
Sion, exhausted from the back and forth with the other Sages, sat on her bed. Of course, she wasn't actually tired, but she did feel responsible for the whole fiasco.
"My goodness…"
Knock, knock!
"Are you done, Sion? I'm coming in."
"Ah, Yuichi!"
Yuichi, the Sage's assistant, breathed heavily out his nose and made an unpleasant expression.
"They sure were brutal. Did they really have to be so harsh?"
"It was my responsibility," said Sion in response, "and I failed. I should have been observing the Candidates more."
"That's the thing!" Yuichi exclaimed, putting his hand to his hip. "Why are you stuck with finding new Sages? That just doesn't seem right."
"Perhaps it's my personality. Arguing about it would be too bothersome anyway, and I'd rather keep a sense of order between us Sages."
"Hah…" Yuichi shut his eyes for a moment. When Sion was like this, she truly seemed so hopeless. "So, what do we do?"
"What shall we do, I wonder…" Sion closed her eyes in contemplation. "Ah! Why don't we just summon the class again?"
The sentence echoed through Yuichi's ear, bounced around inside his brain and exited through his other ear. As a result of this out-of-field bonkers suggestion, only bits of her words remained—
"Wait, can you run that by me again?"
"I said, why don't we re-summon the whole class?"
"Are you insane? How do we do that!?"
Sion gave a little smirk, as if she were about to reveal a trump card.
"I don't know. Let's see…"
A magic circle appeared on Sion's hand and on the ground.
"I still have all of their summoning data, so I should be able to search for them… huh."
"What is it?"
"It seems that they're in the same building, but placed separately within it. How annoying."
"That means that you'd have to summon them one at a time. Won't that be too difficult?"
"How bothersome."
"Hmm… what if we summon them when they go to school?"
"Oh, that's good. But that'd probably take some time. They won't be going to school right away."
"Yeah…" Yuichi scratched his head. "You really should ask for a week or two."
"You think so?" Sion wondered, pursing her lips together. "Then can you send a message to them to give me a week?"
"On it."