The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 111

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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111
Episode 111. The Memory of Crystal
***
After the black beast that gnawed at the soul vanished, the air of the Interrogation Room fell into a strange, suffocating silence.
In the place where that overwhelming malice had pressed down upon Hong Tae-hwa’s body, there remained only the intermittent breathing of a boy who seemed like an empty husk.
He stared at his own palms for a long while.
“I’m fine now.”
Like a child observing an object he’d never seen before—or like a criminal trying to make out the invisible blood staining his own hands.
The shock of breaking free from the shackles of Brainwashing cut deeper than expected.
The gap of lost years, those eons of time during which he’d committed destruction and slaughter, seemed to come crashing down all at once.
His pupils still wavered with confusion, unable to focus.
Yet in those trembling eyes there was more than confusion alone. He clenched and unclenched his fists several times over, as if confirming something, exhaling thin, careful breaths.
The heavy air of the underground Interrogation Room had grown cold.
Moisture trickling down the walls had formed small puddles on the floor, and the aged fluorescent lamp in the ceiling flickered intermittently with a crackling hiss.
Each time that light cast shadow across Hong Tae-hwa’s gaunt face, his silhouette twisted grotesquely.
After another hour or so of meaningless silence and fragmented conversation, he gradually began to show the face of a nineteen-year-old boy—his true self.
Unexpectedly, he was quite the talker.
It seemed as though words that had been dammed up for so long were finally spilling out belated.
“How’s Sang-gu doing? That kid—if you don’t feed him on time, he’ll just go right there in the middle of the living room. The cleanup is no joke. You have no idea how foul the smell is. Takes at least three passes with bleach to even touch it.”
Clear red marks remained where the handcuffs had been severed from his wrists. Hong Tae-hwa unconsciously fiddled with the marks and offered an awkward smile.
The smile held no servility, but there was something transparently fragile about it, as if it might shatter at any moment.
“He’s doing well. Team Leader Kim Dae-han’s been emptying his own pockets to buy food for him.”
I answered while running my fingers over the cold stainless steel cup on the table. A faint gleam returned to the boy’s eyes.
“That’s really kind of him. Kim Dae-han is a good man. My memory’s hazy on most things, but I remember that clearly.”
“That’s good.”
“It really is. And I was so worried about Sang-gu. He was being abused and tormented by some hooligan part-timer at the local Convenience Store. Getting kicked was routine—and that sweet little thing, can you believe it, the bastard tried to burn him with a cigarette. That’s why I stole him away in secret. Stealing’s wrong, but I couldn’t just let him die like that.”
The ordinary past of an ordinary boy tumbled onto the table between us, falling from his matter-of-fact voice.
Small scars, likely from that time, were dotted across the back of his hands.
“A creature like that deserves to burn in hell.”
I withdrew my hand from the stainless steel cup. The short words struck the cement wall and echoed dryly.
But Hong Tae-hwa only twisted his lips in bitter amusement and lowered his gaze.
“I don’t even ask for hell. Just… I wish that person understood. That Sang-gu is a living being that feels pain, just like anyone else. That he feels heat and pain the same way.”
“You didn’t kill him, did you?”
At my question, Hong Tae-hwa’s eyes widened in shock, and he waved both hands in denial. The chair scraped harshly against the floor.
“No way! How would I kill someone? I was too scared and just ran. Later I found out that the thug had reported it to the police—leaving out all the abuse he’d inflicted, and claiming the dog had been stolen instead.”
I studied his eyes. The microscopic twitch of his eyelids, the irregular rhythm of his breathing, the weight of sincerity mixed between each utterance.
Nowhere in his behavior so far could I detect the nature of a villain Awakened One who enjoyed harming others or destruction itself.
What stood before me was a boy of such relentless ordinariness that he even pitied the life of a stray dog trampled on the street.
So then—who had shackled such a pure spirit with those terrible chains of a Berserker? How?
Where did that cruel, explosive power bloom from, nourished by the boy’s innocence, truly originate?
It was time to bore into the core of the trajectory. I straightened my back slowly from the chair’s support and leaned forward toward the table.
My shadow fell across his knees.
“When.”
A heavy word slipped between my lips.
“When did that thing enter your body? The moment a force not of your own will began to consume you—when did it start?”
Hong Tae-hwa’s expression froze in an instant. The shallow breath he’d been taking caught in his throat.
Below the severed handcuffs, the tips of the boy’s fingers curled subtly inward.
His fingers curled deeper into his palms.
His pupils shook violently from side to side, chasing dust motes in the empty air.
“If you’re not ready, you don’t have to speak. There’s no need to force it out right now.”
“No.”
Hong Tae-hwa shook his head firmly. Then he wrapped both hands around the paper cup sitting on the table.
The cup’s surface crumpled under his grip, making an unpleasant sound.
After taking a sip of lukewarm water to wet his throat, the boy’s voice came out more composed, yet sinking like the depths of dark water.
“I’ll tell you everything I remember. I… I need to understand why I changed like that too.”
***
The story he carefully drew out began with an unexpected fact: Hong Tae-hwa was not a mere Awakened One. He was an Early Awakener.
Long before the moment Team Leader Kim Dae-han of the Ability Management Team had grasped through the national information network, in those days before the System’s surveillance could reach him, he had already possessed abnormal Mana.
“…It was the day the Gate first tore open.”
At those words that left his lips, my fingers stilled on the cup.
Ten years ago. The starting point of the great catastrophe—when spatial rifts first tore open across this land, and unknown Mana poured forth, rending the very atmosphere.
Most of those who awakened their powers during that chaos either suffered severe mental corruption or went berserk and disappeared.
He was one of the rare First Generation Awakeners who had awakened his abilities at the moment the Gate appeared and lived to tell of it.
“I was playing in the neighborhood Playground with friends, building sandcastles, when I suddenly felt something strange. My fingertips started tingling, and a leaf I was holding just—poof—burst apart. Not pretty fireworks like fireworks shows, but a really unpleasant heat. Back then it was just a tiny spark, though. Weaker than those cheap lighters they sell at stationery shops, so I didn’t even know if it counted as an Awakening. I just thought something had gone a little weird with me.”
“And now that spark has grown, whether you will it or not.”
“Yes. That’s why I’m afraid of this power. It feels like I’m holding a time bomb in both my hands, and I don’t know when it’ll go off. My memory’s hazy, but… my hands remember.”
Hong Tae-hwa slowly opened his right palm. Between his fingers, a crimson detonative Mana began to shimmer like heat haze.
The uncontrolled power burned through the air, emitting a sharp crackling sound.
But the moment he closed his eyes and steadied his breath, those ferocious flames vanished without a trace.
“Become conscious of your Mana. Engrave it endlessly in your mind that you hold dominion over it, and the surge will naturally settle beneath your will.”
“Do you think so?”
“Yes. It’s become your power, whether you like it or not. If you let that power control you and hurt people, that’s on you now.”
Hong Tae-hwa’s eyes widened slightly, as if startled.
“… Thank you for the advice. I really do want to believe that.”
“Continue with what you were saying before.”
“Yes, we’d gotten to the Playground, hadn’t we? That’s my first memory of ever noticing my power.”
“Then you’ve been leaking Mana since around age nine.”
I rested my chin in my hand, boring my gaze deep into the pupils of his eyes. Ten years of time.
During all that span, it would be impossible for such a tremendous explosive force to remain undetected. Someone’s interference must have been involved.
“Around that time, was there anything unusual about your body or your surroundings? Even the faintest trace of Sorcery, or any person you encountered—anything will do. Even the slightest sense of wrongness.”
The power of an Awakening doesn’t grow from simple training alone.
Especially for Early Awakeners in childhood, emotional trauma or subtle external interference can completely warp the trajectory of a Mana Circuit.
Sometimes such warping becomes a vicious curse that alters the very form of the soul.
“Well… it was so long ago.”
Hong Tae-hwa furrowed his brow deeply, pressing his temples lightly with both hands.
Like someone fishing for a worn, weathered fragment from the depths of memory, his eyes rolled slowly left and right.
The ticking of the Interrogation Room’s clock sounded unusually loud. I watched as his breathing grew ragged, sweat beading cold on his back.
“It… wasn’t a church. But there was a place where everyone gathered together to sing hymns and pray.
It was a very run-down building made of red brick, and instead of a cross on the roof, it had a flag with a strange symbol on it. What do you call a place like that?”
Crackle.
Just then, a familiar voice leaked through the static of the speaker mounted in the corner of the Interrogation Room’s ceiling.
—[A Prayer Center, you mean?]
It was the soft voice of Lee Min-young, listening in from beyond the Observation Room. I glanced sideways through the glass partition.
From behind the opaque, one-way mirror, I sensed Bae Hyun-gyeom and Lee Min-young holding their breath, their attention fixed on me, their presence conveyed through the undulating of Mana.
Their tension seemed to spread through the air like contagion.
“Yes, a Prayer Center!”
Hong Tae-hwa snapped his fingers and nodded vigorously.
“That’s what it was. It was at the edge of the neighborhood, on the path leading up the mountain.”
“What happened there? Did someone call you over?”
“No, nothing special happened. A friend from the neighborhood just said they gave out free tteokbokki there, so I tagged along eagerly.
I was really hungry. They gave warm broth too, and the teachers were kind.”
“So?”
“Um… After the service ended and we were all playing, I showed off to my friend. I told him sparks came from my fingertips.
He thought it was amazing and shouted in wonder, and someone—a staff member—happened to walk by and saw it.
I think they were wearing white clothes…”
Hong Tae-hwa’s voice gradually grew quieter and more subdued. Like someone under hypnosis, his gaze fixed on a single point in the past.
“When that person saw my sparks, they got a very sad expression on their face. It was the kind of eyes someone gets when they truly pity you.
They said, ‘What a terrible thing, for such a young soul to be engulfed in flames already.’ And then they held me very tightly. Like I was their own child.”
“They held you? Is that all?”
“Yes. And they laid a hand on top of my head and prayed for me. It was a very long and earnest prayer.”
“What was the prayer about? Recite whatever you can remember, word by word.”
“Um… I don’t remember it well. I was too young.
It was something about how sad it was that I had to bear such a cruel burden at such a young age, and asking for protection for this pitiful soul.
Oh, and I think they kept repeating something like, ‘Fill this Crystal-clear vessel with light.'”
Hong Tae-hwa continued speaking while mimicking the gesture of laying both hands on top of his head.
A wistful smile played across his face, as if recalling the warmth of that moment. But a chill traced down my spine.
“You didn’t feel anything strange? Mana forcibly intruding, or a throbbing pain in your head?”
“Not at all. It was the opposite, actually. I didn’t dislike it.
That person’s touch was very warm, and while I was held, I remember feeling like all the blood in my body was flowing peacefully.
After that prayer ended, strangely enough, the sparks at my fingertips no longer felt hot. That’s all I remember.”
There were no signs of forced sorcery or violent Mana injection.
If anything, it was likely that the spiritual shell had been opened in the most intricate and subtle manner possible, so the host would accept it without resistance.
Wrapped in the veneer of ‘warmth,’ they planted the cult’s seed in the boy’s Mana Circuit. It bore the hallmarks of methods I knew well. He had lived for ten years believing it was a blessing.
“Do you remember the exact name or location of that prayer center?”
“I can’t remember the name. The place was so run-down it didn’t even have a proper sign. But I could find my way back there.
It was tucked away in a corner of the neighborhood where I lived until elementary school. I remember there was a large water parsley field nearby.”
I gestured decisively toward Lee Min-young through the glass partition. There was no reason to detain him any longer. The thread of the hunt had finally surfaced.
***
I slipped out of the Interrogation Room and sank deep into the sofa in the spacious Gate Management Bureau’s Office. The cool leather pressed against my entire back.
Beyond the window, night had already fallen, and Seoul’s lights flickered brilliantly.
But thinking of how many Crystals lay corrupted under the cult’s touch beneath those brilliant lights left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Hong Tae-hwa’s disposition proceeded as expected—swiftly.
Once he severed the chains of his past, he accepted his reality with unexpected composure the moment the Gate Management Bureau’s final disposition paperwork came through.
‘I need to go see my grandfather.’
At least he clung to that single line I’d tossed at him carelessly, and turned his body toward living again.
As he left the Interrogation Room, he bowed to me. His retreating figure was no longer that of a monster, but merely a somewhat weary nineteen-year-old boy.
Of course, the debt for his crimes would not be entirely erased.
Under the Awakened One’s Special Law’s brainwashing mitigation clause, his sentence would be substantially reduced, but the charges of involvement with a criminal organization and destruction of public property would remain as permanent marks.
The world is not kind enough to understand the circumstances of every boy.
Instead, under Director Ryu Gang-jin’s authority, Hong Tae-hwa was provisionally enrolled in the Gate Management Bureau’s Special Re-education Probation Program.
If he survived the grueling re-education process over the coming months and passed, he would finally be completely released from legal restraint and able to breathe the air of society as an ordinary Awakened One.
It was a method of paying his debt through service to the nation.
However, the difficulty of that graduation would approach hell itself. The name listed as the re-education supervisor was none other than Bae Hyun-gyeom.
For him, it might prove even harsher than prison.
“Hunter, I found it.”
The thick glass door of the Office opened, and Lee Min-young approached with quick strides. The sound of her heels striking the marble floor was regular and sharp.
Not even thirty minutes had passed since our conversation ended.
The file she carried already contained neatly printed detailed property registration transcripts and administrative records for the corresponding coordinates.
Truly, her administrative processing speed exceeded even that of Kim Dae-han, the director of the Ability Management Team. She was a talented operative I couldn’t help but covet.
The tips of her fingers were slightly flushed from turning pages.
Perhaps my gaze had been rather obvious—Lee Min-young, as she handed over the documents, stopped and furrowed her brow slightly.
“…Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?”
“No. I was simply reflecting on how exceptionally swift your work processing is.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She cleared her throat and tapped the first page of the documents with her pen.
“Based on Hong Tae-hwa’s statement regarding the location, I cross-referenced all past closed religious facilities.
Since it was an unlicensed private prayer center never registered as an official religious institution, the tracking was difficult, but the address and the history in the construction registry align perfectly.
Much of the data from ten years ago was lost, but I found it by searching even the cadastral service server.”
“The name?”
“Sujung Prayer Center.”
Lee Min-young pointed with her pen’s tip to one corner of the faded satellite photo. The outline of a red brick building remained dimly visible in the black-and-white print.
“Is it a lead worth pursuing? It’s already been ten years, and all the relevant parties have likely disappeared.”
“Sujung Prayer Center.”
I leaned back deeply into my chair. Ten years ago, an unregistered prayer center founded during the period of great upheaval.
By now, it would have long vanished without a trace into ruins, or been replaced by another commercial building.
Catching the true tail of the Gate Cult at this location, across a gap of ten years, was near impossible. They had long since destroyed evidence.
“Going there now would be pointless. There won’t be a shred of evidence left. They would have ground the very soil to dust.”
“Yes. Your judgment is correct. It was completely sealed off by local administrative order six years ago, and currently an old knowledge industry center building stands on that site. The foundation was completely excavated during construction, so not a single physical trace remains. Sending an investigator would be a wasted trip.”
The result aligned exactly with my prediction. They are never careless. I was about to roughly cover the documents and toss them onto the table.
There was no time to cling to meaningless remnants of the past.
“But.”
Lee Min-young resolutely stopped my wrist and unfolded the very last page of the file, pushing it toward me.
“There remains one connection. The physical location has vanished, but the records were never erased.”
I barely managed to suppress the surge of exhilaration that nearly burst from my mouth.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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