Chapter 58
A Tiger Leaves Behind Its Hide When It Dies (5)
Magic was a power with limitless potential.
It could ignite fire in empty air and make water flow where there had been none.
And beyond such basic feats, it had influenced human civilization in countless ways, both great and small.
[Even if mana existed, humanity could never have advanced this far without magic.]
[Magic is humanity’s true power.]
[Magic, together with mana, is the greatest gift the gods bestowed upon mankind.]
Scholars said things like that unanimously.
But magic was just as difficult as it was extraordinary.
It went beyond merely being difficult.
Only geniuses could learn it.
And even being a genius merely granted you an entry ticket.
No matter where you went in the world, there was always a heaven beyond heaven.
There was an institution that only the greatest geniuses among geniuses could enter.
The Magic Tower.
It was called both the birthplace and paradise of magic, as well as a place dedicated to honoring Aragon, the God of Magic.
And the master of that Magic Tower was widely regarded as the greatest mage in history.
So much so that people reverently called him the “Mage King.”
Considering how much weight the title of “king” carried in this world, the Magic Tower was practically a kingdom unto itself.
Even the Iris Kingdom, where the Magic Tower was located, had no choice but to tread carefully around it.
The very reason the Messiah Empire could not treat the kingdom recklessly was the existence of the Magic Tower.
And the mage who served as both the master of the Magic Tower and the revered Mage King was currently…
“Hmm-hmm~ Hmm~”
…leisurely humming while drinking coffee.
Age had turned his hair completely white, and his equally white beard was every bit as thick and luxurious as a dwarf’s.
Surprisingly, however, his face had very few wrinkles.
Rather than an old man, he looked closer to someone in late middle age.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
In front of the mage, a heart far larger than a human head was beating violently.
It was quite a gruesome sight, but the mage didn’t care in the slightest.
“Hehehe. What a lovely thing. You’re beating so energetically.”
If anything, he stared at it with an expression bordering on perversion.
Perhaps even the heart instinctively sensed something disturbing, because it actually stopped for a moment.
But soon, as if that had merely been his imagination, it resumed beating at a steady rhythm.
‘Its structure is the same as a Dragon Heart. Is such a thing truly possible?’
A Dragon Heart was, quite literally, the heart of a dragon—a creature said to stand at the pinnacle of all living beings.
It contained an almost limitless amount of mana.
If someone could somehow absorb it, they would never suffer from a shortage of mana for the rest of their life.
However, the heart itself possessed a will of its own, making it extraordinarily difficult to process.
A single mistake could cause an enormous explosion that reduced the surrounding area to ruins.
Even that knowledge had remained largely unexplored until relatively recently.
Until this very Mage King had subjugated a dragon.
Alone.
‘How can a tiger possess a Dragon Heart?’
The mage stared intently at the pulsating heart.
Even after drawing upon the knowledge he had accumulated over decades, he could not solve the mystery.
Only dragons were supposed to possess Dragon Hearts.
Yet today, that assumption had been shattered.
The amount of mana contained within it was woefully inferior, but a Dragon Heart was still a Dragon Heart.
The mage stared at it for a long time before slowly reaching out.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
“Oh my.”
The moment his hand approached it, the heart began thrashing as if it were about to explode.
As soon as the mage saw that, he lightly snapped his fingers.
Wiiing—
A cube-shaped barrier appeared around the heart.
A moment later, the heart emitted a flash of blue light and exploded.
BOOM!
The heart detonated inside the cubic barrier.
Yet the barrier itself remained completely intact.
With a casual flick of his hand, the mage dismissed the cube that had contained the explosion.
“It is highly sensitive to external mana. That too is a characteristic of a Dragon Heart. In that case…”
The mage began conducting all sorts of experiments on the tiger’s heart.
He triggered explosions by sending mana into it without physically touching it.
He tested methods of calming it down immediately before detonation.
He even managed to temporarily stop its heartbeat.
The more experiments he performed, the brighter the thirst for knowledge in his eyes became.
“What exactly is the Forest of Four Seasons?”
After finishing another experiment, the mage stroked his beard and muttered to himself.
Even someone revered as the Mage King feared the Forest of Four Seasons.
No matter how powerful humanity became, it was still helpless before the overwhelming majesty of nature.
The Mage King was no exception.
He had once set foot inside the Forest of Four Seasons long ago.
He had never gone anywhere near it again afterward.
‘And Grylls can even use the Gallery from within that place. His very existence is peculiar.’
At first, it had merely been curiosity.
He had started using the Gallery because he was lonely and bored.
But the more he explored it, the more the mage came to realize something.
The world was vast, and it was overflowing with creatures worse than beasts.
To him, the Gallery had become the perfect place to conduct a kind of “social experiment.”
Then, after he began trading with Grylls, he gained opportunities to encounter all sorts of rare plants and animals.
To the Mage King, who thirsted after every scrap of knowledge in the world, Grylls had now become practically indispensable.
‘Dragons usually inhabit deep mountain ranges overflowing with mana. The Forest of Four Seasons exceeds even such places. If a tiger can develop something equivalent to a Dragon Heart there, then one could argue that the species itself has fundamentally changed.’
One thought led into another.
Drawing upon every piece of knowledge he possessed, the Mage King constructed a plausible hypothesis.
‘Did it evolve into something akin to a spiritual beast? Or did successive generations gradually adapt? If so, did dragons themselves evolve from some other creature because they needed a body capable of containing vast amounts of mana? Or did some particular species simply alter its form through adaptation?’
‘Was the Dragon Heart never exclusive to dragons in the first place?’
The questions tangled together like knotted thread.
Even the Mage King found the hypotheses dizzying.
It felt as though the very concept of common sense had shattered and scattered above his head.
What kind of place was the Forest of Four Seasons?
The Mage King’s curiosity only deepened.
‘There are far too few samples. That tiger may simply have been a mutation. To determine that, I’ll need to support Grylls as much as possible.’
There was already the precedent of the Golden Poison Frog.
An ordinary golden frog was only about the size of a small fist.
But the frog Grylls had first caught had been as large as a small-to-medium-sized dog.
Even the one he had recently caught and traded away had been considerably larger than a fist.
‘Even an ordinary crab grew larger than a building. Is the Forest of Four Seasons a place that accelerates evolution?’
His curiosity as both a mage and a scholar burned even more fiercely.
‘There is still no certainty. If this truly is a Dragon Heart, I should determine whether it reacts to blood as well.’
Exceptions that defied common sense were not merely interesting to researchers.
They were beloved.
Naturally so.
They made excellent research papers.
A smile had already appeared on the Mage King’s lips.
He soon rose and headed somewhere else.
His destination was a massive freezer.
It was a storage facility containing all sorts of experimental materials and specimens.
Clunk—
Apparently, it didn’t even have a separate locking mechanism.
The Mage King simply pulled the door wide open.
The moment he did, icy air began spilling out.
“Dragon blood… Here it is.”
Inside the freezing storage room were animal hearts, blood, and…
A human skull.
Of course, it wasn’t an ordinary skull.
Green light shone from its empty eye sockets.
As though they truly were eyes, those green lights stared directly at the Mage King.
Normally, skeletons could not speak.
But there were always exceptions.
The skull spoke in a voice that sounded like it was on the verge of death.
[Kill me.]
“Later.”
The mage replied indifferently and shut the freezer door again.
He returned carrying a container filled with dragon blood.
He could hear shouting coming from inside the freezer, but ignored it completely.
Swish, swish—
The Mage King stirred the dragon blood with his index finger.
The blood, which had been frozen solid, slowly began to melt.
Before long, the dragon blood had returned to its original liquid state.
Suck—
The Mage King happily sucked the blood from his finger.
He looked like someone licking snack crumbs off their fingertips.
“Now, if I pour this on…”
The Mage King was excited.
If his prediction was correct, the heart would consume the blood and—
Pop!
It should have become stronger.
It didn’t.
It simply burst.
Not exploded.
Burst.
Completely.
The Mage King didn’t even think to remove the chunks of heart stuck to his face.
The result was far too different from what he had expected.
Still, it wasn’t as though he had gained absolutely nothing from the experiment.
He calmly peeled the chunks of heart tissue off his face.
‘Even if the structure is the same, a difference in species causes a violent rejection reaction.’
And just like that, he had added another excellent piece of “knowledge” to his collection.
The price he had paid for it had been rather tragic, though.
The Mage King, Kadir, stared at the heart with a calm expression.
The heart, which had once been far larger than a human head, had been blown to pieces beyond recognition.
Only the scattered chunks of flesh testified to what had happened.
“Haha. By Aragon…”
A hollow laugh escaped him.
No matter how great a Mage King he was, even he couldn’t turn back time.
The valuable research material Grylls had gone through the trouble of giving him had disappeared all at once.
What should he do now?
Kadir hurriedly racked his brain.
‘Lie.’
What kind of lie?
Tell Grylls that the heart had exploded as soon as it arrived?
If that had really happened, he should have posted about it in the Gallery immediately.
Rejected.
‘Tell him the truth.’
Given Grylls’s personality, he might forgive him.
But if Grylls discovered more rare plants or animals in the future, Kadir’s chances of getting first dibs on them would plummet.
Also rejected.
‘Say I’m buying it and give him something else.’
Realistically, that was the best option.
Kadir sank deep into thought.
Something equivalent in value to a degraded Dragon Heart.
What could possibly fit that description?
The conditions were rather demanding.
Above all else, it had to directly help Grylls survive.
Even Kadir found it difficult to decide on something that satisfied all those requirements.
‘…I should clean up first.’
Kadir sighed and began cleaning his filthy laboratory, feeling slightly guilty toward Grylls.
Even a being called the Mage King possessed at least a little conscience.
‘If I handle this properly, maybe I can get even better specimens next time.’
The problem was that his conscience was already thoroughly broken.
***
After handing the saber-toothed tiger’s heart over to Allfather, I headed out to gather a mature mandrake.
I didn’t have a shield, and my shoes were uncomfortable, but harvesting a mature mandrake wasn’t difficult.
I didn’t encounter any dangerous beasts along the way, either, and gathering the mandrake itself was easy.
All that remained was trading with Passing Dwarf.
I decided I’d give him his drinking snack next time.
[Passing Dwarf: You better give it to me tomorrow, okay? Otherwise I’ll become a liar.]
[Wild Grylls: What happens if you become a liar?]
[Passing Dwarf: They’ll take away my infused liquor. Absolutely fucking not.]
[Wild Grylls: Cut down on the booze ;;]
[Passing Dwarf: You telling me to die? Not happening lol.]
Right.
It was my fault for telling a dwarf to stop drinking.
Anyway, I managed to get the shoes through my trade with the dwarf.
They looked broadly similar to the combat boots I’d worn during my military service.
The main difference was the color.
He’d said they were made from the finest leather, and even the sheen looked different.
‘These are comfortable. Nice.’
They weren’t nearly as heavy as I expected, either.
I was extremely satisfied.
And since they’d been made by a dwarf—a craftsman, no less—I trusted their quality.
‘I’ll only compare the other shoes based on performance.’
I was already completely won over by this pair.
Since I’d gotten myself a new pair of shoes for the first time in a while, I connected to the Gallery to post a thank-you message to the dwarf.
[Mr. Grylls! Look at thisss!]
“Hm?”
Seeing my name whenever I entered the Gallery wasn’t unusual anymore.
But the distinctive way of speaking beside it, combined with the username, made it impossible to ignore.
Title: Mr. Grylls! Look at thisss!
Chae-U Princess
(Photo of several Chae-U uniforms lined up side by side)
I carefully picked out a bunch of long-sleeved uniforms for youuu! Choose whichever one you like from hereee!
Personally, I recommend the uniform from three years agooo! It’s red, so it looks really coolll!
└ Whoa ;; She’s seriously a hardcore fan.
└ Isn’t that uniform from fifty years ago? Lolol.
└ Demons live a long time too, I guess. But why does she have so many? Lol.
└ She seriously does nothing but eat and watch football all day ;;
└ Wild Grylls: Thank you. I don’t really have anything suitable to give you in return. Are you sure this is okay?
└ Chae-U Princess: I’d be sadder about losing a fellow Chae-U fan! So don’t feel pressured and just take ittt!
└ Wild Grylls: Thank you so much. I’ll send you a trade request.
└ Chae-U Princess: Yesss! I’d love to talk about football while we trade toooo! That alone is enough for meee!
└ Wild Grylls: I don’t know very much about it, but I’ll listen carefully.
└ “Don’t know very much,” he says lololol.
└ Since when did kicking a ball around require refinement? Lolol.
└ Don’t say that to a demon. You’ll get punched.
[Chae-U Princess: Hehe, then from now on, think about how football could develop furtherrr! Before I’m a Chae-U fan, I’m a football fan, and before I’m a football fan, I’m a sports fannn!]
Even while trading, I found myself wondering how I could help Chae-U Princess.
I’d gotten interested in football because of a friend, but that was about as far as it went.
I’d never supported any particular team.
Even my support for Chae-U was mostly because Chae-U Princess had helped me.
It would’ve been a stretch to say I had genuine affection for the team.
[Chae-U Princess: I registered the uniformmm! By the way, your body’s okay, righttt?]
[Wild Grylls: Thanks to the uniform, I wasn’t injured as badly as I could’ve been. I couldn’t do much about getting bitten, but it stopped the claws.]
[Chae-U Princess: Excellenttt! There’s a Chae-U match in two days, so make sure you cheer harddd!]
[Wild Grylls: Of course. I want to repay every favor I owe you.]
She really loved sports.
Then again, in a world without much entertainment, sports were probably like a drug.
I kept the trade open while thinking, then casually brought up an idea.
[Wild Grylls: You said there’s no World Cup here, right?]
[Chae-U Princess: World Cup?]
[Wild Grylls: Yes. A competition between countries instead of clubs. It was the biggest tournament where I came from.]
[Chae-U Princess: That’s interestinggg. We have competitions between races, but I’ve never heard of countries competing. There aren’t that many countries, though. Would it really be popularrr?]
Just as Chae-U Princess said, there weren’t many countries in this world.
The tendency for people of the same race to cluster together was simply too strong.
But if you looked at territories instead, it was a different story.
There might not be many countries, but there were countless territories.
A huge number of territories were gathered within the larger framework of each nation.
[Wild Grylls: Then use territories instead. Not clubs based in those territories, but players who were born there.]
[Chae-U Princess: Based on where they were born, not where their club is baseddd?]
[Wild Grylls: Right. Where I lived, we held a tournament roughly like that every four years. You were essentially competing for the honor of representing your country.]
[Chae-U Princess: Oohhh! Not every year, but once every four years? That’s another fresh ideaaa! Did the winners receive titles or somethinggg?]
The Olympics and the World Cup were different competitions, but would that really matter?
I didn’t feel the need to explain that much.
More importantly, I hadn’t expected this idea to count as repayment in the first place.
I was only saying, There was something like this where I came from.
Besides, I didn’t even know who Chae-U Princess really was.
I almost answered, My country gave athletes exemptions from military service.
But I stopped myself.
That was a peculiarity unique to South Korea, so there was no need to explain it.
[Wild Grylls: No. Social status didn’t mean much in the world I came from. Instead of titles, they added stars to their uniforms as proof that they’d won. In Chae-U’s case, imagine a star above the deer emblem.]
[Chae-U Princess: Inspiration! I’m getting inspirationnn! Thank you so muchhh! We could apply this not only to football, but to every sporttt!]
[Wild Grylls: Looks like our time is almost up. Thank you for the uniforms. I’ll definitely repay you.]
[Chae-U Princess: I should be thanking you for the inspirationnn. If you still feel like that isn’t enough, help me buy Chae-U somedayyy, haha.]
[Wild Grylls: You can buy Chae-U?]
[Chae-U Princess: If you have enough moneyyy, hehe.]
[Wild Grylls: A mature mandrake wouldn’t be remotely enough, right?]
[Chae-U Princess: You’d need quite a lot of them even if they workeddd.]
[Wild Grylls: If I ever find something expensive that I don’t need, I’ll give it to you. Use that to buy them.]
[Chae-U Princess: The offer alone means a lottt, hehe.]
“Ah.”
I immediately realized it.
Well.
I was being serious.
Anything that wasn’t directly related to food or equipment was fair game for barter.
At this point, I felt like I’d only be comfortable if I could at least pay money for all the uniforms she’d given me.
She hardly ever accepted anything and kept giving things away to me instead.
This was the best solution I could think of.
“Wait. She gave me all of these?”
But Chae-U Princess’s gift exceeded my expectations.
She hadn’t sent me just one of the uniforms from the photo.
She had sent every single one.
A pile of clothes appeared before me in an instant, leaving me stunned.
But there was something else that confused me even more.
‘Who the hell is supposed to wear something this small?’
Some of the uniforms looked like they were meant for children.
And when it came to children around here, there was only Wonmo and…
“Ah.”
I immediately realized it.