Chapter 139 : Chapter 139

Chapter 139

Jang Incheol was thoroughly furious.

What the hell was this nonsense?

The reason his face looked so indifferent was because his time had been wasted.

Today was the day the International Superpowered Industry Exhibition opened.

In the morning, when he was already overwhelmed by Ironflame’s exhibition schedule, a call came in from Jeju Island.

They claimed that an item delivered to the Jeju Provincial Office a few days earlier had developed a problem and needed urgent repairs.

Since Jang Incheol himself had crafted that item, he had no choice but to hurry to Incheon and board a flight.

I should have been suspicious from that moment…

The notion that something he had personally delivered would develop a problem in just a few days was unacceptable to him.

Nor was it only him. The blacksmiths of Ironflame—no, all the artisans of District 7—could not readily make sense of it.

Who was Jang Incheol, after all?

He was, by universal acclaim, the finest blacksmith, praised in one voice by Seoul’s awakened beings.

Setting everything else aside, he was not the kind of man who would deliver an item that would fail in a matter of days.

A man who had hammered iron all his life, earned recognition through iron, and risen to the summit through iron, staining his own name?

Had he been bewitched or something?

Of course, he had called back repeatedly before boarding.

But the official in charge had only demanded, in an aggressive tone, that he repair it as quickly as possible.

Because Jang Incheol had spoken with that person before and even met him in person, it was difficult to dismiss it as a lie.

In the end, he boarded the plane and, upon arriving in Jeju, went to find the official, but…

He looked at me as if asking what I was talking about.

No matter how Jang Incheol explained the situation, the official strongly denied ever making such a call.

Moreover, there was nothing wrong with the delivered item, and only after hearing testimony from colleagues who had been with the official at the time of the supposed call did Jang Incheol get the instinctive sense that something was wrong.

Did someone do this on purpose just to toy with me?

The phone that had called him was one of the lines installed in the provincial office.

That meant searching records was meaningless.

If an outsider truly wanted to, borrowing a government office phone was as easy as pie.

But the voice was exactly the same…

With no other option, he returned to the airport, bought a ticket on the spot, and boarded a flight again.

Reviewing this bizarre experience mattered, but he had to get to District 8 quickly and fulfill his exhibition schedule.

Because he was a key figure of the exhibition, with a high probability of becoming the next head of the Production Guild.

At least it is fortunate that it does not even take twenty minutes to reach Incheon.

The flight he was on was an expensive route powered by mana stones.

Under normal circumstances, he would never indulge in such extravagance.

From the time he first began hammering iron, Jang Incheol had hated spending money on anything unrelated to blacksmithing.

The reason was simple: he had grown up poor.

That miserly streak drew disapproving looks from those around him, but ironically, when it came to blacksmithing, he invested so much that it bordered on excess.

Even if the net profit on a product he made was under five percent.

I need to get this annoying exhibition over with and return to the forge.

He was the sort of man who seemed born to become a blacksmith.

In truth, it was hard to believe that he had reached the tail end of middle age without ever serving as the Production Guild’s head.

The specialists of District 7 had long held him up as the ideal artisan, and several top-tier Hunters had unanimously called his skill the best.

And yet he never ran in the guild head election, because it would disrupt his work.

Whenever election season neared, he always said, I only know how to hammer my tools, so stop talking nonsense, and the rivals who had already declared candidacy always fretted that he might change his mind.

We will arrive soon.

Jang Incheol’s passion as a blacksmith had never cooled.

Even now, he wanted nothing more than to return to the forge and take his tools in hand, but…

As if mocking his impatience, the aircraft suddenly began to shake as though it had hit turbulence.

What is this…?

Soon, a strange in-flight announcement crackled through the cabin.

BZZT—CRACKLE!

—Ah, ah. The pilots are all dead. From now on, I decide the flight path as I please. If you do not want the entire aircraft to explode, do not even dream of doing anything foolish.

A voice that sounded as though it had been tampered with.

At the same time, a flight attendant screamed and ran down the aisle from the bow.

“Th-the Phantom Thief! The Phantom Thief has appeared!”

***

A helicopter cutting through the sky.

It had been five minutes already since we opened the door so I could jump at any time.

At last, the aircraft came into view.

And with it, Lee Eunho’s mana, vivid in the cockpit at the bow.

“Just wait there…!”

I shouted to the pilot.

“Get closer!”

“Get closer and do what, exactly?”

“We are going in.”

“…Pardon?”

The pilot looked as if he could not believe what he was hearing, but the only way to stop the aircraft in this situation was to make contact with Lee Eunho.

If we provoked the plane from outside when it was already close to Seoul’s airspace, we could trigger a situation beyond repair.

Even now, the Bureau was embroiled in fierce debate over whether to implement an air-defense operation.

The standard manual was to shoot it down in the air to protect civilians on the ground, but ironically, that aircraft used mana stones as fuel.

Meaning that the influential figures of Seoul’s inner wards—those who could afford such exorbitant fares—were likely aboard.

“Even among citizens, there is an unspoken hierarchy.”

As a result, the burden rested squarely on my shoulders as I pursued the Phantom Thief.

If I resolved the situation safely while they hesitated, all would be well, but if I failed even once, they would place the blame entirely on me.

At least, the Bureau’s high-ranking officials I knew were likely to do exactly that.

When the helicopter matched the aircraft’s speed, I tapped my in-ear device.

“Senior, I am entering now!”

—No, how are you entering? At least make it make sense!

“We can talk about that later!”

—You—!

The method for entering an aircraft sealed off from the outside was simple.

If I cut the shadow, the way I had done with my previous ability, Shadow Severance, then for an instant, I could slip free of physical constraints.

In other words, I could pass through the aircraft.

It was a gamble, given the circumstances, but there was no other way.

“I am going!”

Once I judged we had reached the right position, I leapt out of the helicopter with my bare body.

My target was the cockpit where Lee Eunho was.

By luck, my hand caught the bow, and in that instant I cut the shadow for only the briefest moment, letting my body pass through the plane.

“It worked…!”

I emerged in the business class cabin.

But the passengers seemed to have fled to the rear to escape the Phantom Thief.

Without hesitation, I ran for the cockpit.

As if he had been waiting, Lee Eunho’s voice came from behind the cockpit door.

More specifically, the voice altered by the Cloak of the Alluring Hermit.

“…Ji Seokhyeon. I knew you would come.”

He knew I would come?

I tried to open the cockpit door, but a high voltage current ran through it, set by Lee Eunho.

I could have bound the door with my shadow to restrict mana, but provoking him before even speaking would be foolish.

Moreover, he was controlling the aircraft with a lightning-aspected ability.

“So you were waiting for me.”

“That is right.”

“Why?”

As I asked, the aircraft met a mass of ash-gray clouds.

More precisely, it passed through the traces of the Great Rift hanging over Seoul’s sky.

Lee Eunho continued.

“Because only you can understand me.”

“…I am sorry, but I do not understand this at all.”

“Of course you would not. I am not asking you to understand so easily. You will face the truth soon enough.”

The truth…

How laughable.

“Just in case, will you change the flight path?”

“Not at all.”

“Do you truly intend to drop it onto Seoul?”

“Yes.”

“Then my options narrow to one.”

To subdue Lee Eunho by force.

I wanted to neutralize him immediately, but there was a problem.

With my Demonic Eye, I could see that Lee Eunho’s body was not touching the floor.

He seemed to be levitating using magnetism, and worse, he was emitting a faint electric current from his skin, keeping himself independent from the shadows inside.

…

A clear sign he was wary of my shadow ability.

As if picking at my silence, he spoke.

“I already know your ability. There is one part I cannot quite understand, however.”

Lee Eunho knew my ability.

That allowed me to infer Hyun Yuyeol’s ability, which had been unknown until now.

Shadows.

Because Lee Eunho had most likely heard about my ability from the Demonic Being Gen.

I had never met Gen, but Gen had met Hyun Yuyeol.

In other words, even the Demonic Beings already understood my bloodline.

…

As a thought struck me, I spoke urgently.

“You—no, you two. Your target this time is Jang Incheol of Ironflame, is it not?”

“Who can say.”

…

“It can be said to be true, and it can be said to be false.”

“You cannot mean…”

Lee Eunho gave a short laugh.

Not quite mocking, more self-deprecating.

“Yes, that is right. You said you do not understand this. I went through all this trouble for one reason: to persuade you.”

…

“Ji Seokhyeon, come with me. Come, and let us achieve our revenge. I will tell you everything. How rotten the awakened society is, who has defiled it. …Up here, where there are no eyes on us, no one will know where we disappear to.”

Only after facing him through the door did I realize.

Lee Eunho wanted to take me with him.

And he had confidence that I would be persuaded.

Because the moment I faced the truth, it would be only natural for me, the heir of the Gangneung line, to think of revenge.

In fact, when the narrative of “Ji Seokhyeon” had been added, an Avid Reader had described my goal as “gaining the power needed to take revenge on the Bureau of Superpowers, which framed my clan.”

…Had they anticipated my fall from the beginning? Or Lee Eunho’s?

I spoke calmly.

“Do you know that the Demonic Being with you is the true culprit behind the incident thirteen years ago?”

“I have guessed as much, of course. Once I finish what must be done, I plan to deal with him with my own hands.”

“Then what about you?”

…

“After you have killed so many people, what do you plan to do?”

For a moment, Lee Eunho’s voice sank.

“What are you talking about? I am only taking revenge. It is punishment on behalf of those who were sacrificed. I am judging them for their sake.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes. And for that, I need your help. Come with me. Let us take revenge for our hometown.”

It was impossible to persuade Lee Eunho with words.

The gooseflesh rising on my skin made that clear.

The Lee Eunho I had known no longer existed.

Why had he changed so much?

My Demonic Eye suspected the Ring of Illusions on his finger, but the deeper problem was my own oversight of how vicious Lee Eunho could be in the original story.

I had underestimated just how far he could fall.

“It is difficult for you to answer at once, is it…? Then I will hear your answer the next time we meet. You will not die from an explosion of this degree, will you?”

With those words, Lee Eunho shattered the cockpit glass and escaped outside.

Using lightning, he drifted through the sky and vanished in an instant.

…

Should I have caught him?

From the moment I realized he could never return to what he once was, my resolve to drag him back even by breaking his legs dulled.

Now, it was no longer a matter of persuasion.

Only the thought that I had to bring him down filled me.

“Phantom Thief Lee Eunho is a clear enemy who steals lives with malice, just as the Bureau did thirteen years ago…”

The pure, pale lightning had been stained black.

At that moment, Park Chaeshin’s shout snapped me back to reality.

—You insane bastard! The plane is going down!