# 82
The portal connecting Earth and the Magic Tower entrance gave a similar feeling, but with a stronger sense of “being transported.” Now, it felt like he had jumped into the portal’s smoky mass in Seoul, walked a few steps, and already received notification that he had arrived in Busan.
“How much does this cost?” Jin-ha asked seriously.
“Regrettably, it’s not for sale.”
“…Even if I pay a high price?”
“No.”
It was a rare, firm answer.
Seeing this decisive response from a man who usually enjoyed teasing like fishing for reactions, it seemed truly impossible. Jin-ha obediently backed down, but his disappointment was obvious. Riyekan smirked and explained:
“To begin with, this isn’t something I can sell even if I wanted to.”
Jin-ha recalled the beings that had supposedly created such strangely distorted spaces inside the tower.
“It requires fairy power, I suppose.”
“Yes. But fairies don’t particularly like humans, so they don’t readily lend us their power. Especially not for portals. In fact, even this portal wouldn’t have been created under normal circumstances, despite being Master Senistry’s request.”
“What do you mean by ‘not normal circumstances’?”
Jin-ha had some idea. Hadn’t he thoroughly read the Master Senistry section in the Corridor of History?
“You mentioned that the Abon Kingdom sent Master Senistry to the tower, but then ordered her to return so they could marry her off to a neighboring country. Did she ask for the portal to be created to escape?”
“Wrong. It’s the opposite.”
“The opposite?”
“It means the portal was created to chase someone who was escaping.”
Tracking someone was a “not normal” special circumstance for fairies? That seemed like too easy a condition.
Moreover, judging by Riyekan’s smug expression, there seemed to be other conditions… As Jin-ha’s expression gradually turned irritated, Riyekan chuckled and spoke again:
“To be precise, to chase after a beloved lover.”
“…A lover, you say?”
“Yes. All the portals there were created by Master Senistry to catch her fleeing lover. I heard the fairies cooperated to support her love.”
There hadn’t been just one or two portals. If all those dozen or so portals they had seen earlier were traces of searching for a lover, then that was…
“…Was Master Senistry a stalker?”
At this somber question, Riyekan raised an eyebrow as if he had heard something unexpected.
“Stalker?”
“If she kept chasing someone who was desperately trying to escape, what else would you call it but stalking?”
“Hahaha!”
Laughing as if amused, Riyekan leaned toward Jin-ha and asked:
“Are you going to call me a stalker too?”
“……”
“What? Really?”
“You’re less of a stalker and more like an obnoxious complainant…”
“Obnoxious is a harsh word.”
Despite his protest, Riyekan smiled with satisfaction. He seemed to think it was better than being called a stalker.
“Anyway, I’m shocked that such impressive portals are the result of stalking.”
Jin-ha dared not open his Information Eye when looking at the portals, fearing he might faint from the overwhelming amount of information.
To think such amazing magic was the result of misguided obsession.
Noticing his disappointed look, Riyekan continued his explanation:
“Fortunately, it wasn’t stalking. They were lovers, but the man apparently had a dangerous status. He fled across the continent to separate from her because Master Senistry might have been endangered as well, but… well, as you can see from the result.”
“Master Senistry’s abilities were so extraordinary that escape failed?”
“Yes. That’s exactly it. Just like Hunter Lee Jin-ha can’t escape from me.”
His arrogant expression was absolutely hateful.
Jin-ha almost wanted to secretly escape someday just to wipe that expression off this man’s face.
How had he ever come to love such a man? This arrogant, overly sensitive man who always had to win was never his type to begin with.
Clearly, at first, he had only disliked him for being an unpleasant person who enjoyed teasing others. Yet his gaze kept drifting toward him, and at some point, he began to feel sorry for him, then wanted to help him. When he saw him melting at his touch, he even found it cute.
Jin-ha sighed and turned his head toward the window. In any case, Riyekan was a man who made him keenly feel that emotions don’t always go as expected.
“Huh?”
The carriage had already arrived at the harbor. Wondering how they had reached the harbor so quickly without slowing down, Jin-ha looked outside and leapt to his feet when he realized the carriage was heading toward an embankment jutting out from the harbor.
“Riyekan, the carriage is—”
He couldn’t finish his sentence as he collapsed onto Riyekan. Raising his head hastily, Jin-ha felt it was too late to speak and flung the carriage door open. He thought that if the carriage plunged into the water past the embankment, they might be unable to escape as it would instantly be submerged, making it impossible to open the door.
However, the scene that unfolded next was completely different from what Jin-ha had imagined.
“Oh dear. You should be careful.”
Riyekan grabbed his waist and sat him on his lap. Normally, especially after what had happened just yesterday, Jin-ha would have rejected this in horror, but now he could only stare blankly outside.
Because the carriage was running on water.
“What’s this? Did you think a Magic Tower carriage would just fall into the water?”
Just then, the carriage encountered a crashing wave and effortlessly cut through the strong current. They could even see fish swimming in the waves through the window.
Good heavens.
“I guess there’s nothing like this where you’re from?”
“There are similar things, but…”
The impact of a boat made with scientific technology and an artifact modeled after it was completely different.
Above all, there was a horse running in front. Jin-ha marveled at the sight of the pure white horse striding unflinchingly across the water’s surface and the white foam breaking beneath its hooves.
“So the horseshoes are artifacts. Made to synchronize with the carriage… like this…”
“Yes. They’re designed to walk on water only when pulling this carriage.”
“It’s truly… magical.”
Jin-ha reached his hand out the window to feel the cold seawater as he spoke. Riyekan laughed deeply at this uncreative exclamation.
For someone who had been a magician since childhood and was now hailed as a great magician, it might be incomprehensible, but Jin-ha often described fantastic sights as “magical.”
Riyekan found the thrilling excitement contained in that admiration pleasant. At times like this, even without Jin-ha caressing him, a strange tingling sensation flickered around his heart.
‘Hmm, this feels good…’
Riyekan, thoroughly enjoying this unfamiliar sensation, embraced Jin-ha’s waist and rested his chin on his shoulder. That made him feel even better.
He wanted to experience this sensation more often and more intensely. He already knew how. When Jin-ha was happy and pleased, he too became happy. Clearly, his soul inside Jin-ha was resonating with Jin-ha’s emotions and sending signals back to his body.
Come to think of it, yesterday had been amazing too. Seeing Jin-ha’s pleasure-filled expression had made him so aroused that his lower regions ached. If he had embraced him recklessly, this excessively sensitive man would have backed away not just three or four steps, but five or six, and would never have lowered his guard. That’s why he had held back to that extent—if Jin-ha had been even slightly more pliant, he would have devoured him completely.
Thinking about it again, regret washed over him like a tide. Suddenly, he felt thirsty too. As Riyekan’s gaze wandered, it fell upon a small mole on the nape of Jin-ha’s neck. He was just inclining his head toward that seductive mole, as if it were inviting him to lick it, when:
“By the way, how did you do that with the butterfly earlier…”
Jin-ha, who had turned his head and accidentally kissed the corner of Riyekan’s eye, jumped up in alarm.
“No, why are you so close—Ah!”
As Jin-ha, who had been questioning him, sat back down due to the carriage’s rocking, Riyekan quickly embraced his waist tightly again.
“Riyekan!”
“I heard Hunter Lee Jin-ha’s eyes read information, so I made something readable. Are you curious about how I embedded the information?”
Jin-ha narrowed his eyes and looked back and forth between Riyekan’s face and the hands encircling his waist. The grip on his waist wasn’t particularly strong. As if saying, try to escape if you want.
But if he broke free and sat across from him, Riyekan wouldn’t tell him about the butterfly.
What a petty man.
Jin-ha irritably moved his lips, then relaxed his body and leaned back against Riyekan.
“Good thinking, Lee Jin-ha.”
Riyekan planted a kiss somewhere on the back of his neck. When Jin-ha startled and covered the spot with his hand, Riyekan whispered with a smile in his eyes:
“What are you curious about? I’ll answer anything.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
