By Zephyria 
“The first cry of a newborn lamb, gold essence that has bathed in sunlight for 1,000 days and silver essence that has bathed in moonlight for 1,000 days, the first summer snow to fall on a mountain peak over 10,000 meters high, spring dew clinging to the first bud of a tree… things like these exist in the world…”
Tae-un’s voice was thick with a level of fluster that was unlike him. And that was only a part of the list.
“Above all, it’s winter right now. Even Everest isn’t 9,000 meters… and how on earth are you supposed to capture a cry?”
“Ugh… in mak slecht, they store all this stuff because they don’t know when they’ll need it… As I thought, you can’t get them either.”
Kim Si-baek, failing to notice Tae-un’s eyebrow twitch at the last remark, began crossing things off the list to downgrade the requirements. He had already implemented only the most basic performance; if he replaced the materials too, it would be nothing more than a disposable item, but it couldn’t be helped.
A newborn lamb became a lamb nursing from its mother; the requirement to bathe in sunlight and moonlight for 1,000 days was erased. Tae-un silently stared at the materials—now reduced to things like perennial snow and morning dew—which any layman could see were of a miserably lower quality.
Kim Si-baek voiced his concerns without any ill intent.
“I heard that extracting the essence of gold and silver to make gold and silver essence is a magic developed on Earth not long ago, so it’s really hard to find. I heard reservations are backed up for years and you can’t get it even if you pay a premium… Then it must be difficult for you too.”
“….”
“I wonder if pure gold and pure silver would cover it? Hmm, if I lower it any further, I won’t even be able to make a disposable one, and it’ll only work by chance. That would be a problem.”
“….”
“But since you can’t get them either, I guess we have no choi—”
“I’ll get them all. Hyung, you just have to receive what I bring.”
For some reason, Tae-un folded the paper with a deeply determined voice.
[Death and Beauty marvels that such a talent also existed within my apostle.]
“…?”
Even Biyendwe, who had been standing still, shook his head, leaving Kim Si-baek bewildered. Regardless, it was decided that the magical tool to capture the cry would be created by the research department under Biyendwe’s supervision.
“The perennial snow can be brought from Baekdu Mountain, and for the other collectable materials, we can just dispatch guild members.”
“I’ll collect the morning dew myself, as it needs to be verified precisely.”
“Tell them to film the collection process.”
Tae-un called Yang Eun-ho and ordered him to start the ‘Guild Master’s Morning Dew Collection Contest.’ He added the condition that unedited footage of the collection was required. Naturally, Yang Eun-ho protested this novel piece of nonsense, but he left quietly once Tae-un mentioned he would pay the prize money out of his own pocket.
All of this had taken less than ten minutes. Kim Si-baek was dazed; the boy who always acted so docile in front of him was suddenly pushing forward like a bulldozer.
“Gold and silver essence can be found in the US or Russia, so, hmm, Russia would be better to get back quickly, right?”
“Can you really get them?”
“I’ll have to go personally and settle it.”
“Then the purchase cost will be my mon—”
“Forget it. The salary Hyung receives comes out of my pocket anyway.”
As he spoke, Tae-un finished booking the fastest flight to Russia on his phone.
“Goodness, you’re a kid who catches colds easily; how can you go to such a cold place in winter? Let’s go together.”
“I’ll go alone this time.”
Tae-un gave a harmless, beaming smile, as if he had never been pushing his way through.
“I only want Hyung to see my pretty side.”
Only Biyendwe noticed that Tae-un intended to use illegal and unjust means to obtain the materials. Still not understanding, Kim Si-baek fussed about packing heat packs for Tae-un.
Leaving behind a guild buzzing with excitement over the massive prize money for the insane contest, Tae-un boarded the plane.
Much like the space race of the Cold War era, the US and Russia had poured astronomical funds into magic research, and only this summer had they finally developed the magic to extract gold and silver essence. Because the efficiency was incomparable to using ordinary gold or silver, orders flooded in from all over the world.
Of course, both the US and Russia prioritized distribution to their own laboratories and mages, so the amount sold abroad was extremely small. Even then, there were reservations spanning several years. However, as is the case with all worldly affairs, backdoors always exist.
The director of the laboratory, an S-class hunter and mage, was pleased by the request for a meeting from the Guild Master of the 7777 Guild, known as the representative hunter of Korea. Seeing that the request came directly to him without going through the sales department, it was clear the matter was quite urgent. A buyer’s desperation soon translates into money.
‘No matter how much bribery is offered, they’ll have to wait at least half a year, though.’
The man who visited the National Magic Research Institute alone, without any entourage, was much younger than expected. Since he had been famous for nearly twenty years, the director had subconsciously assumed he was middle-aged despite knowing his age.
After a brief exchange of greetings, Tae-un slowly traced his lips with a finger and then spoke. What reached the ears of the director, who was swelling with anticipation over how much would be offered, was not a number, but a name.
“Anatoly Ganzhuk.”
He was the former director who had been dismissed years ago for taking responsibility for the failure of a project under development due to the onset of epilepsy of unknown cause. The director, puzzled by the sudden name, was horrified by the words that followed.
“Bannik. The dismissal-shrimp…”
“W-wait!”
Cutting off Tae-un’s words with a scream, the director panicked and sent the interpreter out. Despite seizing control of the conversation with a single phrase, Tae-un did not look triumphant; he simply stared with his usual indifference. The director found that even more chilling.
“…How much do you know?”
“Down to the fact that using a reagent formulated based on the magic stone of the S-class magical beast Bannik allows for the creation of a poison with symptoms identical to epilepsy.”
Tae-un replied without hesitation to the question asked in slightly clumsy English. This man had come knowing everything. The director’s face turned pale, his lips trembling before he barely managed to retort.
“That is slander without evidence.”
“Is evidence necessary? If I just give a hint to Brushilova, she’ll create the evidence and witnesses on her own.”
The person Tae-un mentioned was the oligarch (a new Russian billionaire) who had supported the former director from behind. Unlike the former director, who had been dishonorably dismissed and had failed to recover until now, she was still a powerful figure.
Anyone could find out that the director of the National Magic Research Institute had been fired for an unpleasant incident with a little research, but knowing about Brushilova in the background was a different story. Since he saw through the innermost secrets of the laboratory, there was nothing the director could do.
To the director, who gave up and waved the white flag, Tae-un spoke calmly.
“I don’t intend to use this kind of petty blackmail twice, so name your highest price. On the condition that you sell it right now.”
It was a mercy that he wasn’t just seizing it. While sighing deeply, the director named the amount he had imagined, and Tae-un deposited it immediately into a secret account without a word. After confirming the deposit, the director asked one last thing.
“How on earth did you find out?”
No matter how he thought about it, there was no way the information could have leaked. Unless he was dragged into a hearing for being involved in another scandal.
“I wonder…”
Tae-un’s eyes, which had been indifferent throughout, sank with a sense of disillusionment and weariness.
“When you live a long time, a lot of things enter your ears even if you don’t want to know them.”
The trigger that causes a person who has lost all hope to not just break themselves through extreme despair, but to spread that despair destructively to the outside, must be as infinite as the saying ‘a hundred people, a hundred colors.’ In Kim Dae-ho’s case, it was his parents murdered at Dongdaemun Stadium; in Ahn So-hee’s case, it was the refugees who abandoned her and her sibling as bait in a magical beast’s habitat and fled.
In Gu Yeong-min’s case, there was no single special catalyst. It had simply piled up, and piled up, and piled up.
The boy isolated in Seoul saw the bottom of humanity amidst the chaos of collapsing civilization and crumbling society. He knew that it was sheer luck that he, a non-Awakened, had survived there.
Shelter leaders, represented by Tae-un and Justina, tried their best to save non-Awakened civilians, the elderly, and the infirm, but there were more who were not saved. If he had taken refuge in a place like the Dongdaemun Stadium shelter, he would have died within three months. Not by a magical beast, but by fellow humans.
It is an obvious fact that the magical beasts, which began appearing suddenly, hunted humans and trampled their lands. However, it was humans who painted that scene into a blood-soaked hellscape.
Because food was scarce. Because they were useless. Because they were a hindrance. Because they were weak. Because bait was needed to lure magical beasts. Because they were old. Because they were young. Because they were sick. Because they were injured. Because they had power. Because they were bored. Because it seemed like it would be fun. Because they wanted to.
There were so many reasons for humans to kill their own kind, and every reason was unnecessary. Just because. That one phrase was enough. Gu Yeong-min had seen a certain human massacre people in a shelter for the reason: ‘I just got tired of everything and wanted to kill.’
Yes, they were ‘humans,’ not monsters. Humans just like him, who had lived an ordinary daily life until a few months ago. Magical beasts kill and eat humans for the desire to survive, but humans kill their own kind for amusement.
Was the human society where civilization was maintained any different? No. It was the same.