episode_0660
by admin
Scarlett’s disappearance occurred exactly three days after I gave her the [Mirage Mirror] and the growth potion.
That day, I went to the laboratory assigned to her as usual and knocked on the door.
Smart-
“Scarlett. It’s time for dinner. Put down what you’re doing and come down.”
“… … .”
“Huh?”
No matter how important the experiment Scarlett was doing, she would always come running with a loud noise as soon as I called her name.
But now I couldn’t hear any of that sound.
No, there was absolutely no sign of movement beyond the door.
“Scarlett!”
Woohoo!
I realized something unusual had happened and opened the door, calling Scarlett’s name.
The door lock couldn’t withstand my force and just broke.
Kim Jae-yoon also came up from downstairs in a hurry after hearing the sound of the door breaking and my voice.
“Brother! What’s going on?!”
“… Scarlett is gone.”
I answered, looking into the laboratory.
Squeak-
As I pushed open the broken door and entered the laboratory, the same scenery as Scarlett’s usual experiments greeted me.
The only difference is that Scarlett, the owner of the room, is not visible.
Experimental tools arranged in a disorderly yet orderly manner, experiment results sheets covering not only the desk but also the floor, and even safety equipment to prevent any possible danger.
It was the same as usual.
Kim Jae-yoon followed me in with a confused look on his face.
“Scarlett? I definitely didn’t see her come up to the lab right after lunch and come back down… ”
“The door was locked from the inside. The window was open though… ”
That was originally a window that was always kept open for ventilation.
There was no visible evidence of someone stepping on the window frame and jumping down to the first floor.
If I had heard someone jump in the first place, I would have noticed.
“Where on earth did you go? Surely you weren’t kidnapped, were you?”
“Well, it can’t be a kidnapping. If there was an intruder, there would have been some kind of sound, whether it was Scarlett screaming or resisting, and there’s no way I would have missed it. Anyway, I’ll have to check it out. Just guard the area for a while.”
“Oh, yes!”
I sat down, crossed my legs, and concentrated.
The floor was a mess with Scarlett’s experiment notes and such, but I didn’t have time to care.
I concentrated all my nerves and showed off my skills with all my might.
A huge amount of internal energy gushed out throughout my body.
“Wow… !”
Even though he wasn’t trying to attack, Kim Jae-yoon felt an intangible pressure for a moment and took a step back.
The absolute time that I truly learned the Naegongsim method is by no means long.
However, because I had consumed various elixirs over the years, and because my body was able to accept nature’s energy almost without resistance thanks to the effect of [Yggdrasil’s Dew] that allowed me to receive nature’s love, the amount of internal energy I possessed was considerable.
The average master of Hwa-gyeong had already caught up to him a long time ago. His instantaneous output was already at its peak and matched Hwa-gyeong’s.
As time passed, the depth of my internal energy grew to a level that ordinary masters could never keep up with.
Honestly, I wondered how much internal energy my body could actually accept.
My body needs to be normally strong.
Anyway, I released all that enormous amount of internal energy just for this moment to unfold my energy.
Phew-
A village on the first floor, incomparably wider than the three-story village I had passed through a while ago, entered my field of vision.
‘No… no. This person is not like that either. This person feels similar… but his chest is too small.’
I carefully observed every movement of the people in the village.
The presence of so many people was felt, including the tower’s inhabitants and the transferees.
If it was a normal person, it would have been enough information to cause them to bleed from their nose and faint, let alone be able to distinguish the sound.
But I didn’t feel like it was too much of a burden to me, as the intelligence ability I had accumulated over time was doing its job.
However, it was not possible to find out the whereabouts of Scarlett who had disappeared.
Eventually, he concluded that Scarlett was not within his reach and stood up.
“There is none in the village.”
“By any chance… you didn’t run away, did you? Or did you enter the 4th floor test alone?”
When I, who always acted like I knew everything, couldn’t find Scarlett, Kim Jae-yoon suggested another possibility.
That was the very thing that made me wonder if Scarlett had disappeared of her own free will.
But I shook my head.
“No. That’s not it.”
It is often said that you can know the depth of ten feet of water, but you cannot know the heart of a person one foot deep, but this was something I could say with certainty.
Scarlett didn’t disappear of her own free will.
If she wanted to go somewhere, there’s no way we could stop her.
“The other luggage is still there. Literally, only the clothes I was wearing and my body are gone.”
Above all, Scarlett was extremely satisfied with her current life in the Rainmaker Clan.
She was afraid of going out alone because she had memories of being locked up in the Basterds Clan and having to make potions as she was told.
I enjoyed tasting the real-world foods I pulled out of my inventory, and especially enjoyed the simple burgers and sandwiches I could eat while experimenting.
While doing so, he showed a bright smile, different from his usual gloomy attitude, saying that he was very happy to be able to eat delicious food to his heart’s content and conduct experiments that he wanted to do.
“And, you didn’t even take the most precious thing.”
In the place where my eyes met, on the desk, there were two items, [Mirage Mirror] and Growth Accelerator, along with experimental tools.
An object that was left as if it had disappeared into thin air while Scarlett was conducting an experiment.
It meant that Scarlett didn’t run away because she coveted those two items.
In fact, I was the one who forced myself to do that experiment, even though it was burdensome to do.
‘I don’t know about the growth accelerator, but [the Mirage Mirror] is something that cannot be obtained from this tower, so if it were not Scarlett but someone else, she would definitely have been greedy.’
As I was thinking that, something crossed my mind.
‘for a moment.’
I hurriedly picked up the [Mirage Mirror] and looked at the explanation again.
– A hand mirror in a world where all kinds of anomalies exist. It was not created by someone, but was created by itself according to the laws of the world. You can put your hand in the mirror and take out the object reflected in it. The object taken out maintains its shape for three days, and after that time passes, it returns to the mirror.
*Caution: Living things are not reflected in mirrors. If you put your hand in the mirror for a long time, abnormalities may occur.
What caught my eye here was the content written in the precautions.
‘If you keep your hand in the mirror for a long time, something strange may happen.’
When I first read the explanation, I didn’t know what the ‘abnormality’ was and I had no reason to keep my hand in the mirror for a long time, so I read it lightly and passed over it as a cautionary note.
But Scarlett was different.
She was an alchemist with a desire to explore the nature and origin of matter.
So it’s entirely possible that she got curious and put her hand in the mirror, and that’s when the ‘anomaly’ happened.
Moreover, since she doesn’t have a ticket, she is not in a position to see the explanation of [Mirage Mirror].
Scarlett would have only known that I was copying objects as I said, and that the copied objects would disappear after three days…
‘Damn, I should’ve been more specific… So Scarlett disappeared because of the abnormality written on the notice?’
As of now, that seemed the most likely possibility.
I thought, ‘If I had made a contract with Scarlett in advance, I could have called her right away if something like this happened…’
I regret not signing a contract with her because she is not my woman and I don’t think I can use her properly if I make her goal of moving to a peaceful world come true too easily.
Of course, if you talk about a contract negatively, it’s like mortgaging your soul to the Summoner, so even if I had made the offer, Scarlett might have rejected it.
So perhaps it would be rude to Scarlett to think like this.
But it didn’t feel good to think that Scarlett’s disappearance was something that could have been prevented.
‘… Let’s start by saving Scarlett.’
I told Kim Jae-yoon my guess.
He muttered while looking into the [mirage mirror] with a disgusted expression.
“… So that mirror ate Scarlett?”
“I don’t know exactly what that ‘abnormal’ phenomenon is, but it seems like it is based on the current situation.”
“So it wasn’t just a convenient thing that copied things. So what do we do now?”
I picked up the [mirage mirror] and stuck my arm inside it.
“If this mirror really did eat Scarlett, we need to make it spit her out again.”
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