The Archmage’s Swordsmanship Is Too Strong - Chapter 37

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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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37
Episode 37. Manners and Clues
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[You’ve got the right number, haven’t you? Come to the cafe in front of the office where the red bicycle is.]
I stared down at the text floating across the smartphone screen. Rude sentences drifted lazily above the blue light that pricked the retina.
Utterly devoid of basic manners. If you’re going to ask someone to meet you, you ought to show at least minimal courtesy.
It’s common sense to share a precise street address or point out a landmark that even someone hopelessly directionally-challenged could recognize at a glance.
‘The cafe with the red bicycle in front of the office.’
A preposterous landmark. In that trivial and perfunctory phrase, the depths of that person’s character laid utterly bare.
An attitude so thoroughly self-centered it gave not a thread’s worth of consideration to another’s time and trouble.
I’d wandered through countless battlefields before the regression and witnessed all manner of human types, but this sort always boasted the worst efficiency.
The kind that drove mental fatigue skyward just by having them nearby.
The youngest daughter of Taesung Energy—a glittering pedigree.
If she’d been cast out from that all-powerful household and dumped in some moldy municipal department because of that unruly temperament, it was a fairly rational chain of causality.
Because the Law of Causality was sometimes that honest.
I began to thread through the alleys. The area around the office was thick with narrow back roads that twisted like a maze.
I turned down several side streets where damp cement walls glistened with moisture and unidentifiable black plastic bags tumbled across the pavement.
Only the crunch of sand beneath my shoes filled the silence.
“A bicycle…”
Finally, beside a faded red brick wall, I spotted a single red bicycle with its paint worn clean away.
The chain was caked thick with grease, and the tires had long since gone flat—a hunk of scrap metal.
It wasn’t even a proper cafe; there was barely a sign.
Old stained glass covered the front entirely, thick with dust and sealing off the interior completely, while wild ivy climbed the walls like the writhing tentacles of some creature trying to devour the building.
A gloomy design that rejected even the midday sun.
To demand that someone visiting such a hidden hideaway for the first time find it instantly was both unreasonable and arrogant.
Ding—
I pushed open the heavy wooden door and a sharp bell chimed like rusted metal striking metal, leaving a dull ring hanging in the space. The interior was far darker than the outside.
It took several seconds for my retinas to adjust to the sudden change in brightness.
A stale, musty smell pricked my nostrils, and a few incandescent bulbs flickered weakly with yellowish light into view.
A strange space, as if carved out from the flow of the world and preserved like a specimen.
“Welcome.”
Beyond the counter, the owner—with silver-white hair—greeted me in a soft but low voice.
That kind greeting didn’t completely cleanse my already sour mood.
But the thick, rich aroma of coffee saturating the space’s density did pleasantly stimulate my sense of smell.
The roasting was intensely thorough, as if burning away even the flaws inherent in green beans.
For a mere cafe, there was a faint, trembling echo of Mana mixed into the air.
I turned my gaze and surveyed the interior of the cafe. In the farthest corner sat a weathered wooden table bearing the marks of years.
A figure in a Black Rider Jacket sat with an indifferent expression, idly fiddling with a Smartphone.
It was Jeong Se-hee.
I approached the table and dragged back the chair across from her.
Screech—a sound like a cry of protest scraped across the floor, yet she didn’t lift her head.
Only after I settled myself deeply into the chair did she reluctantly tear her gaze from the Smartphone and look at me.
“You came. Manners-free.”
Her voice was measured. But the title she spat out still bristled with thorns. Rather than narrow my brow, I met her gaze evenly.
Wasting emotion on such things was what amateurs did.
“Let me set something straight.”
I fixed my gaze directly into her brown eyes.
“You were the one who opened the locked door, and you were the one who wandered through my office without permission.”
Jeong Se-hee’s eyes wavered, unable to find purchase. She puckered her lips and shifted her gaze away, out the window toward the ivy.
“What was I supposed to do? The door just opened. I was startled too, you know?”
The words tumbled out as if grumbled, but my ears caught something deeper than a simple excuse—a discord that nagged at me.
“That doesn’t make sense—”
Just as I was about to press the question, the owner approached with impeccable timing, setting down two worn Mug Cups on the table, steam rising in lazy wisps.
White vapor shimmered above the dark brown liquid.
“Try it. The coffee here is really something.”
Jeong Se-hee pulled her cup toward her and gestured with her chin. Not a single word of apology for her transgression—shameless to the end.
Finding no value in squandering energy on this meaningless exchange, I quietly lifted the cup and wet my lips.
……
The moment the coffee touched my tongue, thought came to a temporary halt.
A sharp acidity awakened my palate first, followed by a deep, rich body that coated my entire tongue and slid down my throat.
A blend controlled to perfection, even the aftertaste lingering on the palate. This was no mere consumer product.
It was the crafted work of a master—the roasting temperature and time, the grind size of the beans, the extraction pressure all calculated with meticulous precision.
This quality had no business emerging from a shabby cafe tucked into some forgotten alley. It was incongruous, a jarring refinement that didn’t belong in this bizarre space.
While my gaze remained fixed on the cup, Jeong Se-hee fished something from her pocket and dropped it onto the center of the table with a dull thunk.
Clink.
Transparent plastic casing. Inside it, an ominous orange liquid sloshed—the structure bore an eerie resemblance to a Nebulizer used by asthma patients.
The external form was crude. It looked like a knockoff of some common medical device. Yet my instinct had already begun to sound its alarm.
Above the thin plastic surface, there rose a heat shimmer of Mana residue so pungently murky it was nauseating.
To ordinary eyes it would appear as transparent air, but across a Grand Mage’s retina it rippled with the clarity of fangs dipped in the color of death.
“A Booster.”
The blood in my veins went cold.
Fragments of the past I’d forced deep into the abyss of my consciousness began clawing their way back into my mind.
Hunters intoxicated by the drug, tearing apart their own families. Innocent citizens whose bodies burst open as their Magical Power ran rampant. The starting point of every tragedy lay before my eyes.
“Why are you holding this?”
The suppressed accusation fell cold and sharp. Jeong Se-hee made a face and threw both hands up in protest.
“Don’t misunderstand. I don’t touch garbage like this. That schemer Kim Dae-han handed it over and told you two to track down the distribution network.”
She flicked the Booster with her finger. The cylindrical container spun across the table—her touch careless, as if she were playing with children’s toys.
That thoughtlessness made the thread of my reason tremble.
Snap!
I snatched the spinning Booster from the table and clenched it in my fist. Behind the cold plastic texture pressing against my palm came the throb of twisted Mana.
“Wh-what?! Suddenly like that!”
Jeong Se-hee flinched, hunching her shoulders, but I didn’t look at her. I allowed a Magical Power so minutely controlled that it was barely perceptible to flow into the Booster in my palm.
Not a crude aura, but precise reconnaissance for pure magical sensing and scanning alone.
I fractured the Magical Power particles down to the nanoscale, brushing the surface so the thin plastic exterior wouldn’t be damaged.
In the moment I traced the grain of the wavelength, scattered clues converged toward a single conclusion.
‘So that’s why.’
The reason Kim Dae-han insisted I couldn’t do this alone and forced this F-rank Hunter onto me.
In a flash, the secret of this drug—which had spread like a cockroach through black markets before my regression, evading countless Tracking Magic spells—became clear.
‘Mana-Blocking Coating.’
The surface of the Nebulizer. An imperceptibly thin special finish kept the oscillation of Magical Power perfectly contained. The design itself had been meticulous from the start.
Vaporized Mana liquid injected directly into the lungs through the mouth left almost no residual leakage to the outside.
And with the entire casing coated in premium Mana-blocking agent, unless the user succumbed to frenzy under the drug’s influence, it would elude any detection magic during normal use.
Once I’d examined the actual object, the malicious and cunning design was so brilliant I could only laugh hollowly. And yet a question remained.
How in the world could this woman possibly trace a tail so perfectly concealed?
“Thank you for the coffee.”
I stood and seized Jeong Se-hee’s wrist, yanking her forward roughly. Her seated body pitched toward me like a paper doll.
“Ah! Stop! Stop! My hand! Let go of me!”
***
“Come with me.”
Her sharp protests went in one ear and out the other. The chair scraped against the floor with a loud shriek, but I didn’t care.
I dragged her out of the cafe and into the alley.
Ding!
The shabby bell chimed once more. I shoved her roughly against the damp brick wall of the alley beside the sparsely peopled cafe.
The cold of the wet wall surface pressed against her back.
“Are you insane?! What are you doing!”
“Be quiet.”
Still gripping her wrist, I forced a heavy Magical Power into her body—not for reconnaissance this time, but something far more intrusive.
Blood Flow Scan, searching through the vessels for impurities.
Forcing Magical Power into another Mage’s Mana circuits without consent was tantamount to a declaration of war—an act of utter depravity.
But such ethical measures were a luxury I couldn’t afford now.
As my Magical Power traced through her nervous system, Jeong Se-hee’s face contorted with unbearable revulsion and primal terror.
Cold sweat streamed down her now-pallid complexion.
“Let… please, let go of me…!”
Her lips turned blue and her breathing grew ragged, but I continued the exhaustive scan from her heart’s core to the tips of her fingers and toes.
I had to eliminate even the slimmest possibility that she might be a supplier or user connected to the Booster.
In my world, there is no room for collaborators without certainty.
After a few seconds of silence, I withdrew my Magical Power. Just as she’d said, not a single drop of turbidity remained in her circuits.
They were crystalline and pure, glass-smooth and clean. I looked down at her as she gasped for breath, her eyes blazing with fury and contempt. The civil servant act was over. I honed my voice to a cutting edge and let it drop.
“Listen carefully.”
The Mana in the air resonated with my killing intent and seemed to scream. The atmosphere of the alley transformed in an instant to the weight of tens of tons, crushing down upon her.
“I don’t have time. And I’m certainly not about to stand idle while this disgusting filth walks around in front of me. If I don’t dispose of it right now, I can’t even guarantee what I might do.”
The glazed eyes of colleagues transformed into monsters by the drug, the landscapes of a crumbling city—all of it clawed through her mind with razor sharpness. The Booster was no mere narcotic.
It was a cancer eating away at the very order of this world.
Jeong Se-hee’s brown eyes began to quiver finely. She looked like prey standing before a beast’s gaping maw. I met her fear head-on and drove the wedge deeper.
“You’ll see a proper reward once this is resolved, too. Kim Dae-han doesn’t do bad business deals. So let’s not waste time playing these petty mind games, shall we?”
Jeong Se-hee forced her voice out through clenched teeth, barely suppressing the terror that had risen to her throat.
“I—I was thinking the same thing! I’m sick of being tangled up with someone like you!”
Her voice trembled violently, but that feeble spark of defiance was almost a relief.
A completely shattered puppet would be useless for tracking.
“Then get to work. Prove to me why Kim Dae-han attached you to me.”
I released the wrist I’d been holding without hesitation.
She snatched her hand back to her chest in panic, then ran her fingers over the reddened wrist, muttering with venom in her voice.
“Really······ you’re insufferable. Someone like you should die alone for your whole life.”
Her ragged breathing steadied. Then she tilted her chin toward the Booster in my hand. The whimpering attitude from moments before had vanished entirely.
With her posture corrected, her gaze sank to an eerie depth. The shallow pride had fallen away, leaving only a cool, crystalline focus.
“Breathe······.”
Mana rose from the tips of her slender fingers extended before her—a white, pure radiance that belonged nowhere in this filthy, humid alley.
It held no crude physical destructive force, no flashy elemental properties, yet it carried a sharpness and essence far more penetrating than any concealment magic in the world: the very nature of pursuit itself.
And then, a mystical incantation pierced the silence of the alley and resonated outward.
“Labyrinth robbed of light, sinners who have lost their way. Bind the invisible thread, and draw forth the truth.”
Ariadne’s Thread.
The moment the incantation ended, a brilliant white thread of Mana burst through the plastic surface of the Booster in my hand.
That thin, resilient strand, ignoring even the Mana-Blocking Coating, tore through the air, shot skyward, and then stretched straight toward the darkest, deepest abyss of the city.
It was a thread binding cause and effect.

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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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