“Contamination?”
Lee Yang-hoon frowned at the absurd word.
Contamination.
What a ridiculous term.
Isn’t that something you’d expect to hear in a horror movie or a disaster film? It seemed like a word that should be prefixed with something dreadful like “nuclear test,” “biological weapon research,” or “virus study.”
“What kind of nonsense are you trying to pull by bringing up ‘contamination’?”
Jinseong smiled at Lee Yang-hoon’s words and tried to respond.
But just as he opened his mouth, the food he ordered began to fill the table one by one, and Jinseong thanked the person who delivered it and looked around.
Then he found a metal bowl of suitable size, lifted it, and tossed it into the air while igniting flames in his hand.
“Wait, what are you doing?!”
“Nothing much.”
Jinseong began to melt the metal while it floated in the air. Soon, the metal glowed red, and in sync with his movements, it started to change shape.
The form resembled a church bell.
Once the metal had taken on the shape of the church bell, he tossed it to the ground. Then he dragged a large water bottle from the chef’s area, opened the lid, and poured its contents into the metal bowl.
Sssss—
The sound of the metal cooling quickly was accompanied by a rising cloud of white steam.
Once he thought the metal had cooled enough, he brought it up to the table.
The metal dish, with a rugged look akin to an ancient relic, had a unique beauty and style, but it looked like it would crack and break after just a few uses.
However, Jinseong hadn’t shaped the dish to use it for long.
Just once.
This time was all he needed.
He poured the drink that had been served in a glass into the bell-shaped dish.
Then he asked Lee Yang-hoon, who was staring at him in disbelief,
“Can I eat first and talk later? I’m losing a lot of blood, so I’m not in great shape.”
“…Fine. I get it.”
As soon as Jinseong received permission, he started to devour the food.
He stuffed chunky pieces of meat, which spilled either juice or blood upon cutting, directly into his mouth, and gulped down a horrifying-looking beverage that was made of who-knows-what. Then he scooped up the ingredients from the bowl with a spoon and swallowed them along with the drink.
It was a meal that could hardly be described as dignified.
Lee Yang-hoon grimaced at the sight, but Jinseong didn’t care if he was making him uncomfortable—he just kept shoveling the food into his mouth. He scooped the ingredients like pudding and crammed the steak into his mouth as if a primitive man had just cooked raw prey on the fire, using the disgusting mix concoction only as a way to wash down the food.
As he kept eating, vitality began to return to Jinseong’s face.
The skin, which had been pale enough to resemble a corpse, regained some color, and his dulled eyes regained their intensity. The elasticity of his skin began to return, and warmth gradually replaced what had felt like coldness to the touch.
When he finished his meal, he subtly drew the Sign of the Cross and pretended to pray.
Only then did he smile and look at Lee Yang-hoon.
“What the heck was that?”
“I used some magic for quick recovery.”
What Jinseong had just paid as the cost of magic was blood.
In the Abrahamic tradition, especially within Christianity, blood was of utmost importance.
They regarded blood as life, believing sacrificing it was a rightful offering; enduring sacrifice and practicing love were key virtues. This perception of blood naturally translated into their practice of magic, developing it to utilize blood as a medium or payment.
However, such obsessions with blood evolved into more refined forms over generations, and ways to replenish it also advanced.
Yet, not all explorations of blood were accepted.
Some methods were shunned because they were deemed malevolent or associated with symbols that did not get along with Christianity, rendering them heretical and subject to persecution.
What Jinseong used was one of those persecuted forms of magic, which had become distorted and crumbled into folk beliefs or mere games.
Folk beliefs.
Strikingly close to superstition.
No, it had become trivial play that was pure superstition.
Now, it was just a fragment overly distant from true magic, reduced to a heap of dust, torn apart by those who believed in Christianity until it lost all semblance of shape.
Yet culture doesn’t easily disappear, and there’s a tendency for things that once flourished to leave their traces behind no matter how they decline.
When the Third World War, humanity’s greatest calamity, erupted, the world turned into a mess, becoming a hell where compassion was hard to find. And in that hell, ordinary people began to adopt all sorts of superstitions to live with some hope and to cling to their lives, deconstructing and reconstructing those beliefs.
In the name of cults.
Out of the resentments of those without a place to lean.
For the supports necessary to carry on in life.
And through that process, some things that had turned into mere games regained their vitality.
Some reworked superstitions began to develop unique powers.
Though they bore the chimera-like form created by mixing beings in a whimsical manner, and felt like an improvised bomb crafted without a thought, they somehow gained power.
And people began to utilize those creations.
To evade evil spirits during an assault.
When soldiers came to invade, to find a place to hide.
When bombs fell, to slightly increase the chance of survival.
When robbers came with knives and guns, to somehow preserve their lives.
The cost?
Such costs can only be paid if one lives to do so.
Is it truly a cost worth paying if it means having half your insides removed, becoming impotent, developing leukemia, or altering your appearance?
In Jinseong’s later years, it was often seen that people kept the snippets of magic they picked up in their minds, using them as mere life-saving tools.
Though the costs were horrifying, magic was the most accessible ability around.
While it couldn’t compare to those who specialized in its use, using it a time or two just to save one’s life was entirely manageable if you were prepared for it.
Of course, most people shuddered at the thought of encountering magic again after successfully escaping with their lives.
“I mimicked a vampire to absorb blood as effectively as possible, and as the price, I mixed a drink with garlic to fend off the scent that evil spirits are drawn to.”
Early English remedies were all over the place.
To remedy the condition known as “the attack of the dwarfs,” they served cakes made with grain flour and powdered dog excrement from white hunting dogs, or to recover from diseases attributed to demons, one had to drink herbal beverages made with garlic and holy water, which were infused by church bells.
Jinseong utilized a more refined method of “demon-repelling,” evolving from those primitive English remedies to eliminate the scents that attracted evil spirits.
“Got it.”
Lee Yang-hoon nodded as if to indicate understanding. Yet his expression suggested that he didn’t comprehend so much as he simply accepted it as just another one of Jinseong’s usual antics.
“I’ll ask again since you look a bit healthier now. Why did you use the word contamination, and why are you trying to go north?”
Jinseong stroked his chin.
He seemed to be pondering how to explain it so that Lee Yang-hoon would understand, considering various analogies.
After gathering his thoughts, Jinseong opened his mouth.
“Do you know about rare earth elements?”
“I do.”
There was no way he wouldn’t know.
If someone running a massive corporation had never heard of rare earth elements, it would be outrageous.
“These rare earth elements are quite fascinating. They’re highly useful and irreplaceable, yet they are collected in small quantities with a lot of effort involved. Especially during their mining and refining processes, it usually leads to horrific contamination.”
“That’s true.”
“When mining, radioactive materials spew out as a matter of course, and the chemicals used during refinement cause all sorts of pollution. Sulfur dioxide, sulfuric acid, acidic wastewater… these are terrifying substances that contaminate the water and land, and kill livestock.”
Jinseong paused for a moment, then smiled as he asked Lee Yang-hoon.
“But here’s the thing: just because the contamination is severe doesn’t mean we can stop mining it, can we?”
“…True.”
“But if we were to mine right next to a house or in the neighboring town, that would be a different story altogether. We must mine these materials in utterly useless places far from where people live, where they inhabit, to reduce the risks of this terrifying contamination, allowing us to get a return without any problems, right?”
Lee Yang-hoon began to pick up on the underlying meaning behind Jinseong’s words, and his expression subtly changed.
“I see now why you want to go north. But for the love of everything, what the heck are you planning that you equate it to the contamination caused by rare earth elements?!”
What kind of contamination was it?
Lee Yang-hoon looked at Jinseong with disbelief, and Jinseong scratched his head at the incredulous gaze.
“Oh, it’s nothing much. Just conducting a coming-of-age ceremony, during which some defilement will linger in the area, that’s all.”
