Chapter 81

‘Right. This isn’t the time to be thinking about that.’

Kiryeo scratched the back of his neck and forced himself to shake off the memories of his homeland.

While he had been lost in thought, the situation in front of him had grown increasingly complicated.

“Our appraiser says it will be difficult to determine who used the grimoire.”

“Then give me a refund.”

“Well, as a rule, refunds cannot be issued for grimoires once they’ve been opened...”

Esther smiled at the employees.

“So you intend to keep insisting that none of this is your fault?”

“H-Hunter-nim, if you demand a refund based on something so difficult to prove...”

“Then perhaps I should borrow Justitia from England.”

“Heuk!”

“You know what it is, don’t you? The Scales of Judgment. With that one item, we could easily determine which of us is lying.”

Her smile deepened.

“Are you prepared for that?”

The situation had reached a critical point.

At that moment, however, the Magic Tower’s appraiser, who had remained silent until now, suddenly stepped forward.

“E-Excuse me! Hunter Kim Kiryeo!”

There was, after all, one person in the room who had known for certain that the grimoire had already been used.

“Come to think of it, Hunter Kim, how did you realize that the grimoire was nothing but an empty shell?”

If Kiryeo explained his reasoning, proving Esther’s claim would become much easier.

The appraiser looked toward the awakened individual standing behind him, silently pleading for help.

Kiryeo finally uncrossed his arms and stepped forward.

He had no particular desire to involve himself any further, but helping the cursed magician would not cost him anything.

“It’s simple.”

Tuk.

Kiryeo placed one hand on the grimoire lying on the table.

What followed was an explanation he had simplified as much as humanly possible.

“Look closely at the cover. Do you see where the circle is broken in the middle?”

“Yes?”

“Originally, this section should form an angle near the three o’clock position. After the grimoire is used, however, the line is severed between one o’clock and six o’clock. Do you understand?”

The distinction he pointed out was so subtle that no one would notice it without examining the pattern carefully.

To humans, Alphauri hieroglyphs probably looked like a kind of incomprehensible Morse code.

“Wasn’t the pattern on a sealed grimoire’s cover supposed to be random?”

The auction house employees exchanged puzzled looks.

Kiryeo immediately clarified.

“Before the book is opened, minor variations may make it appear that way. But after it has been used, the lines I just mentioned always settle into the same fixed pattern.”

Even the professional auctioneers had never heard of such a thing.

Sealed grimoires were exceptionally rare, with perhaps only one or two appearing on the market each year. Their single-use nature made it even harder for reliable information about them to circulate.

Kiryeo tried, in his own way, to understand their position.

Yes, he could see why they had not known.

What frustrated him was something else entirely.

“Excuse me...”

“Yes?”

“Do you people usually not... inspect the items more carefully? This is something you can identify with the naked eye.”

He was so dumbfounded that the words slipped out before he could stop them.

Only after speaking did he realize his mistake.

Both the auction house appraisers and the Korean Magic Tower’s appraiser had gathered here precisely because they were experts responsible for verifying such items.

‘Heuk!’

At a glance, the Korean Magic Tower’s appraiser appeared to possess roughly C-Class awakening power.

Even if he was not combat-oriented, someone at that level could crush an F-Class body as easily as an empty soda can.

“Ah, what I meant was...”

Kiryeo hurriedly tried to soften his words before the man took offense.

However, the Magic Tower’s appraiser spoke first.

His expression was not angry.

If anything, he looked deeply impressed.

“...Teacher!”

What kind of absurd title was that?

“So what you’re saying is that we shouldn’t rely solely on our appraisal abilities. We must also study the fundamental nature of the item itself. Is that correct?”

“Yes?”

“Oh... I’ve learned a great deal today.”

Rather than feeling insulted, the appraiser had somehow achieved enlightenment all on his own.

Worse still, he began assigning increasingly profound meaning to Kiryeo’s casual remark.

Kiryeo’s reputation as the man who had conquered the Magic Tower’s maze remained unshaken, after all.

“As expected of the person who cleared the Tower’s maze. He’s saying that an appraiser should trust their own eyes more than their abilities...”

“Wait. He’s the one who conquered that maze?”

The only hunter ever to pass through the Magic Tower’s maze.

That achievement alone lent enormous weight to everything Kiryeo said.

People had a habit of searching for profound meaning in even the smallest actions of someone famous—even something as trivial as a cough.

“This young man is extraordinary.”

“Most people who awaken as appraisers devote all their attention to that rare ability.”

“Exactly. They become so focused on raising their skill level that they rarely bother studying the items themselves.”

The room quickly filled with excited conversation.

Seeing where this was going, Kiryeo hurriedly cut them off.

He had already been kidnapped once because someone discovered he was an appraiser. The last thing he wanted was to become famous in this field.

“Anyway, that isn’t the point.”

The important thing was proving that the grimoire had been used before it ever reached Esther.

Kiryeo proposed several possible solutions.

They could bring in another grimoire and compare the fixed pattern on its cover. Alternatively, as Esther had suggested, they could obtain an item capable of detecting lies.

“Huh?”

In the end, however, the problem was resolved in a far simpler manner.

Several minutes later, the auction house manager arrived to handle the dispute.

“When a grimoire is used for the first time, the seal glows blue. Did anyone here see the symbol change color?”

Not the line pattern on the cover.

Not even the wax seal.

There was yet another way of determining whether the grimoire had been used.

As previously noted, appraisers in this world had an extreme tendency to rely on the supernatural abilities granted to them upon awakening.

That reliance was so severe that it bordered on dependence.

As a result, knowledge of seemingly minor physical characteristics rarely spread throughout the industry.

The manager’s revelation instantly silenced the room.

Perhaps it was because an S-Class hunter was present.

Perhaps the unusual circumstances had simply made everyone nervous.

Whatever the reason, no one could clearly remember what they had seen.

“Ah... Did this book glow?”

“I don’t know.”

“I was watching Hunter Esther, so I didn’t really notice...”

In the end, they reviewed the security footage to determine whether the book had emitted any light.

“There was no glow...!”

The auction house’s mistake had been proven.

“This item is worth billions. Who could possibly have used it without authorization?”

“It may have been tampered with before it ever arrived at the auction house. Report this to the Association immediately and request a full investigation!”

“Hunter Esther, we sincerely apologize!”

Esther had never appeared particularly concerned about the five billion won, regardless of whether she recovered it.

The real problem was the emotional state of a certain F-Class hunter.

‘I can’t even begin to describe how much I want to curse.’

The fact that the grimoire emitted light when used was new information even to him.

No matter how accomplished a mage he had once been, he could not possibly know every feature of every book produced in his homeland.

Kiryeo was mildly surprised that an old children’s textbook possessed such an effect.

At the same time, he swallowed a vicious curse.

‘I want to go home...’

Had they truly spent an entire hour resolving something so simple?

***

“Hahaha! So the symbol glows blue. Right. I can’t believe such an easy problem took us that long to solve.”

“...”

“It’s been so long since I last used {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} a grimoire that I must have forgotten as well. You know how it is. They’re extremely difficult to find. I normally wouldn’t remember such insignificant details.”

Everything had finally been settled.

They were once again walking through aisle G1 of the auction house.

Esther moved ahead of him, chatting cheerfully, while the hunter beside her looked thoroughly exhausted.

After all, they had only just returned from an absurdly elaborate waste of time and money.

‘Had I known it would be this exhausting, I would never have come to the auction house.’

Kim Kiryeo rubbed the back of his neck and followed Esther in silence.

Then she suddenly mentioned something that immediately improved his mood.

“Ah, by the way, I’d like to repay you.”

Repay him?

Seeing his confusion, Esther explained.

“Thanks to you, we managed to recover five billion won today.”

Kiryeo did not understand.

“How does that count as saving five billion won? You still bought the grimoire even after I warned you.”

Esther smiled.

“But if you hadn’t been there, I might have opened it after returning home. Or I might have given it to another guild member.”

“Ah.”

“In that case, proving that the item was defective would have been much more difficult.”

So she was thanking him for warning her beforehand.

“And the method you revealed for distinguishing a used grimoire was valuable information. You only had to disclose it because of me...”

“Hmm.”

“In that case, let’s treat this as proper compensation. Since we’ve come this far, is there anything you need?”

Something he needed.

Kim Kiryeo was a man easily blinded by material gain.

Naturally, he accepted the proposal without hesitation.

“Then... could you buy me a Pyromancer Necklace?”

However, the moment Esther saw the necklace’s price, her expression changed completely.

They had moved to the second floor of the Hunter Market.

There, Esther stared gravely at the price tag attached to the Pyromancer Necklace Kiryeo had requested.

‘I’m finished!’

The sight immediately filled Kiryeo with regret.

‘No matter how rich she is, asking her to buy me something worth more than fifty million won was insane!’

He began preparing an apology.

He wanted to remain on good terms with the cursed magician, after all.

But as it turned out, Esther’s expression had hardened for an entirely different reason.

‘The equipment only costs fifty million won...?’

From the perspective of an S-Class hunter, equipment worth fifty million won was hardly worth using.

Items sold at such a low price generally possessed power equivalent to only D-Class or C-Class equipment.

Esther had never worn anything that cost less than one hundred million won.

That was precisely why she found Kiryeo’s request so difficult to understand.

It was simply far too modest.

‘And it’s only Rare-grade equipment.’

Could anyone truly make such an innocent request?

By asking for such a cheap gift, he was clearly trying to prevent even a nominal debt from remaining between them.

“Hmm...”

Kim Kiryeo was attempting to dismiss the favor he had done for the leader of the Korean Magic Tower as though it had never mattered.

At least, that was how Esther interpreted his behavior.

A faint smile appeared on her face.

Her fondness for the F-Class hunter had grown even stronger.

“A Pyromancer Necklace. Since it’s gold, I think it will suit you, Kiryeo-ssi.”

“Yes?”

“You have warm-toned skin, don’t you? That’s why you dyed your hair that color, right?”

Esther continued making casual conversation as she carried the necklace toward the counter.

“Here is your total.”

Without the slightest hesitation, she produced a black card and completed the payment.

The entire transaction took only a few seconds.

“Huh?”

“Here. This is enough, isn’t it?”

Clink.

Kiryeo awkwardly accepted the necklace she handed him.

Then Esther asked him a question.

“But Kiryeo-ssi, this is only my personal impression.”

“Yes.”

“You gave us a new material called an absorbent. You rejected every other guild’s proposal, yet accepted an external appraisal request from us.”

“Yes...”

“I often get the feeling that you’re deliberately supporting the Korean Magic Tower.”

Esther’s large eyes shifted slightly as she searched for the right words.

“Am I imagining it? And if I’m not, then what exactly is your reason for... helping us?”

She had approached the subject cautiously, but the answer she received was so simple that it was almost frustrating.

To this F-Class hunter, the question was not even worth contemplating.

“Hmm? The Korean Magic Tower?”

Kim Kiryeo answered with a perfectly calm expression.

“I don’t particularly care what happens to places like the Magic Tower.”

Then he added:

“The only person I care about is you, Esther-ssi.”

The wording was somewhat misleading.

Nevertheless, it was not technically untrue.

Kiryeo had always kept a close eye on Esther, believing that becoming an enemy of the cursed magician would only bring him trouble.