Chapter 9: Paid Skin "Boss, a strange request came in."
Frey frowned as she looked at the mission statement her subordinate had brought her.
Seeing her expression, the subordinate chuckled as if he had expected that reaction.
"I'm thinking it's either a competitor or one of those suits."
"And why do you think that?"
"Isn't it obvious? Only people with something to hide or pretentious suits pull stunts like this. They probably sent this to have us clean up some mess they made."
'Go to the convenience store where Seo Yeon-woo works and listen to his request.'
Even Frey, who had spent her entire life as a mercenary, had never received such an absurd request.
It wasn't that she would be paid after hearing the man named Seo Yeon-woo out and then resolving his problem. Simply listening to the request was the mission. Whether she chose to actually accept the task afterward was entirely up to her, but she would be paid just for listening.
In terms of content, it was essentially free money.
Giving away a staggering sum of 100 million G just to have someone listen to a story? It made no sense.
Requests like this always had something hidden behind them.
"I don't know who sent it, but the down payment… can I even call it a down payment? 100% of the reward has already been deposited."
"All of it…?"
"Yes, the full 100 million G. Are they looking down on Greyhound? They must be pretty arrogant to assume we'd definitely take the job."
The mercenary business was said to be built on trust, but trust often vanished in the face of money and lives.
Employers would struggle desperately to avoid paying, while mercenaries would refuse contracts and pull out immediately when faced with danger.
In that sense, sending the entire reward as an upfront payment was something not even a complete amateur would do.
"Boss, this smells fishy."
"Who do you suspect?"
"The suits, maybe?"
Frey shook her head at the slang for the government.
"No."
"Why not?"
"The request says 'listen to the request.' If it were the suits, they would have written 'accept the request.'"
There was a distinct difference between getting 100 million to listen and 100 million to accept.
If it were a government agency, they would have meticulously set the conditions so that even a minor word choice wouldn't become an issue.
"Aha, I guess that's true. Those guys hate it when we get a free ride. …Wait, then is it a trap?"
"We'll find out soon enough."
Frey placed the request on her desk with a faint, predatory smirk.
Even though she said she would accept a request that might be a trap, her subordinate didn't worry. Instead, he looked at her with admiration.
Frey and the Greyhound mercenary group were strong enough to walk into such a petty trick knowing full well what it might be.
If someone was targeting Greyhound, they had better be prepared to pay the price.
The teeth of a hound were very sharp, after all.
*
"Please help me with my training."
Frey, who had arrived fully prepared for anything, went momentarily blank at Yeon-woo's words.
Just what kind of person would issue such a request to the leader of one of the three major mercenary groups?
She had been in a foul mood from the moment she stepped into the convenience store.
His face was certainly handsome, but a strange sense of revulsion welled up from deep within her gut. It was an irritation even more intense than what she felt toward the swindler who had sold her a fake Baekmunilhongja for a fortune a while back.
She couldn't understand why she felt such loathing for a man she was meeting for the first time, but Frey managed her emotions like a professional and continued to listen to Yeon-woo's nonsense.
The energy radiating from his body was nothing special, yet the more she watched him drone on with an attitude that hovered somewhere between confidence and conceit, the tighter her fists clenched.
Why am I so angry?
The request was absurd, but it wasn't enough to make her this furious.
She understood it logically, but an inexplicable unpleasantness continued to plague her.
"I'm not a nanny. I have no interest in babysitting."
Frey turned around, feeling like she might actually hit him if she stayed.
If she let her emotions take over and threw a punch, this frail-looking guy's head would probably be punched clean through.
She began to suspect that this might be the trap. A scheme to catch her on a murder charge and use that leverage to seize Greyhound.
She checked to see if any mental interference magic had been cast on her, but found nothing. He was just naturally infuriating.
Just as Frey was about to leave, a dull thud echoed, and Yeon-woo called out.
"This is the advance payment."
"No matter how much money you pay—"
Frey turned back with a scowl, but she could no longer maintain her professional composure.
The Baekmunilhongja.
The heirloom she had been searching for so desperately. The symbol of her family, lost when her house fell, was sitting ridiculously on top of a convenience store counter.
Even without a close inspection, Frey instinctively knew the moment she saw the blade that it was the real deal.
It possessed the unmistakable aura that only the genuine article could emit.
The heirloom she had seen countless times a day when she was a child…
Even the scratch at the end of the hilt, caused when she had secretly tried to swing it and dropped it, remained exactly as it was.
Frey, who had been stroking the Baekmunilhongja as if possessed, stiffened her expression when she felt his gaze.
He had a smug look on his face, as if he had known this would happen all along.
Strangely, however, the unpleasantness Frey had felt earlier vanished. She now thought his face was actually quite decent.
Maybe he's not such a bad guy…
There was a brief moment when she thought that, but Frey had to scrap that evaluation the moment she began overseeing his training.
Before starting, she asked him to demonstrate his best magic to gauge his skill level. Yeon-woo snapped his fingers, creating a tiny flame at his fingertip.
It was just the right size to light a cigarette. Frey naturally assumed this was a "fusion" intended to lead into a larger spell.
Magic Fusion is a method of combining two or more spells to maximize their power.
Usually, it starts with a small base spell; while the activation is slow, it is highly efficient due to mana savings and increased potency. However, it is a high-level magical technique that is difficult to use without absolute confidence in one's control.
Magic Fusion at his age? Frey thought there was a reason for his confident attitude and waited expectantly for the next spell he would show.
"… …"
"… …?"
"?"
After staring at each other with faces full of question marks for a long time, Frey, who had been blinking in confusion, finally couldn't take it anymore and raised her hand.
Simultaneously, a fireball the size of a fist floated above her palm. As Frey fused the magic, the fire erupted into the shape of a massive dragon, circling around her as if to protect her.
It looked spectacular, but it was the absolute basic of basics for fire-type Magic Fusion—the kind used for practice when first learning the technique.
"Wasn't this what you were trying to do?"
"Whoa—how did you do that?"
"…You don't know fusion? No… no, no. Wait. Then, if it wasn't fusion, why did you light that tiny flame?"
"Ah—so that's what fusion is. You asked me to show you my most confident magic."
"Didn't you say you were a student at Yggdrasil? How on earth did you pass the entrance exam?"
"Uh… talent, maybe?"
Yeon-woo, who had presented a lighter-sized flame—something even someone without talent could do with enough effort—as his "most confident magic," awkwardly looked away from Frey's chilling gaze.
"…Why did you snap your fingers?"
"Snapping your fingers for a flame is the unwritten rule."
"… …?"
"Friction. You know, friction."
Using physical actions to save on magic circles or mana was also a high-level technique.
But did he really need that just to light a cigarette? And contrary to his words, Yeon-woo hadn't even used friction; he had created the flame directly with mana.
Even though Frey was a high-level mage, Yeon-woo's magic was so simple and pathetic that even a novice could see through it at a glance.
Telling him to stop joking and show her if he had anything else, Yeon-woo gripped a stick, claiming she'd be satisfied this time.
He slowly raised the stick to his forehead and then swung it toward the ground with disciplined movements.
With his arm lowered diagonally and his head slightly turned to look at the ground, he looked like an idol finishing a choreography routine. Simultaneously, a cross-shaped light rose behind his back.
The cross of light, which rose about a head taller than Yeon-woo, shattered as if decomposing, scattering sparkling fragments in all directions.
Frey, who had been watching Yeon-woo stand amidst the shower of light with her arms crossed, asked in a flat voice.
"So, what does that actually do?"
"It looks cool?"
Frey, who had expected as much since she hadn't felt any energy from the start, was no longer surprised or even exasperated.
She decided to give up on his kindergarten-talent-show magic and evaluate his overall physical capabilities instead.
"That's strange…? His body is clearly in good shape."
Many people thought that a mage's physical body wasn't important as long as they had physical enhancement magic, but that was a misconception.
Enhancement magic multiplied one's base abilities, so it was always better to train the body, and men generally had an advantage in this regard.
In exchange, women could increase their mana more easily than men, allowing them to use stronger enhancement magic. Still, since the benefits of magic increased the more one built their body, physical training was essential for both genders.
In that sense, the body Frey saw on Yeon-woo was perfection itself.
It was a well-balanced body with muscles that clearly took a long time to build, possessing both flexibility and elasticity. It was flawless in every way.
Visually, at least.
"Huff… huff… I think I'm going to die…"
"Are you faking it? You have the muscles to do way more than this."
Frey, who was testing his physical abilities, touched Yeon-woo's sweat-drenched body with a look of total incomprehension.
As her hand passed over his forearm, shoulder, and chest, Yeon-woo had a look on his face like he was feeling something, but Frey, faced with an unsolvable puzzle, didn't notice and simply continued to touch his body with a serious expression.
"It's… because this is like a paid skin."
"Paid?"
"Uh—never mind. Just nonsense. Anyway, that's how it is."
Frey stared at Yeon-woo for a long time as he dodged the question, then let out a sigh.
His magic skills were so pathetic she couldn't fathom how he had passed the Yggdrasil exam.
Not only was his skill level low, but his knowledge was a jumbled mess, and he would occasionally spout pseudo-magical theories he had picked up somewhere.
When she asked where he heard them, he said the internet.
The internet…
The internet was an ocean of information, but magic knowledge was the one thing you should never trust there.
You could trust magic knowledge released by the government, but information provided by individuals lacked expertise. Above all, there was no way mages would properly share their most important assets—their spells.
Even if they did it for popularity, they would hide parts of the magic circle, making the efficiency terrible or unnecessarily complicating it.
Frey had heard that there were many magic streamers lately, but she never imagined there would be a lunatic who took what they said at face value.
And an elite candidate, a student of Yggdrasil at that!
Wasn't he like a child who had only just begun to perceive the world?
But complaining wouldn't change anything.
She had simply realized that the request she had taken was, in fact, incredibly difficult.
There was a reason the reward included 100 million G and the Baekmunilhongja.
Realizing once again that there was no such thing as an easy request, Frey began to draw up a training plan for Yeon-woo, with the mindset that she was raising a child from scratch.
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