The Mage Who Devours Disasters - Chapter 14

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

Chapter 14.
“Could it be… that I had a relative I didn’t know about?”
Park Ha-yan asked, her voice trembling.
As far as she knew, she was an orphan with no family ties.
Her parents, her only blood relatives, had passed away in a passenger plane crash.
But one could never be certain.
It was possible that a distant relative whose face she’d never seen, or perhaps an acquaintance of her parents, had learned of her situation and come to find her.
Otherwise, how could anyone simply produce such an enormous sum of money?
But the staff member’s answer was unexpected.
“No. He said his name is Kim Jung-seok.”
“Kim… Jung-seok?”
It was a name she’d never heard before.
Even the surname was different.
No matter how hard she searched her memory, there was no trace of connection—not even a fleeting acquaintance with this unfamiliar name.
“We were surprised too. He was very emphatic about it.”
The staff member continued.
“He said to repair it thoroughly enough that she could walk without any difficulty for the rest of her life. He said the cost didn’t matter.”
I was stunned.
Was this a dream?
This had to be a dream.
A sweet fantasy born from the anesthesia injection.
When I opened my eyes, the cold hospital room would be waiting, along with the harsh reality of clutching my rotting leg and weeping.
Just as Park Ha-yan was about to pinch her cheek to test reality—
“Congratulations, truly.”
The nurses smiled warmly and applauded.
It wasn’t a hallucination.
The hospital air against my skin, the scent of disinfectant, the warmth of people around me.
Everything was real.
A complete stranger.
Without any expectation of return.
Had saved my life.
It felt as though a single ray of light had poured into a world that had been nothing but darkness.
That was when—
“Oh, right! I almost forgot this.”
Another nurse hurried into the hospital room.
In her hand was a white envelope.
“It’s a letter left by the benefactor. He asked us to make sure to deliver it to you.”
“… A letter?”
Park Ha-yan accepted the envelope with trembling hands.
A simple white envelope.
Could it be him?
That Kim Jung-seok who saved me.
‘Why on earth would he do this for me….’
Half fear, half anticipation.
She carefully opened the envelope.
Inside lay a single sheet of letterhead written in neat, deliberate handwriting.
Park Ha-yan read through the letter slowly.
[To Park Ha-yan,
I imagine you were quite shocked by this sudden sponsorship.
Since you must be curious about who I am and why I’m helping you, I’m writing this brief note.
I, too, am someone who lost family in that airplane crash.
My parents were on that flight.]
Park Ha-yan’s eyes widened.
A fellow bereaved family member.
A victim of that terrible tragedy.
[You are the sole survivor of that accident.
You survived not only for yourself, but for my parents and all those who departed from that place.
So you must walk forward.
Rise again, walk, run, and embrace the world with all your heart.
That is surely what those who have passed would wish for you.]
Her vision blurred.
The letters wavered and rippled through her tears.
[Do not burden yourself. No repayment is necessary.
I simply wish to see you living a healthy, fulfilling life.
I will always cheer for you from afar.
You are not alone.
Kim Jung-seok]
Plink.
A teardrop fell onto the letter.
“Ah….”
The sobs she had held back burst forth.
“Hic, hic….”
It was never about the money.
The fact that she was not alone.
The comfort that survival was not a sin.
That warm heart reaching out to support her life—it melted the frozen depths of her own.
Park Ha-yan held the letter to her chest and wept.
Her sobs filled the hospital room with such poignant, overwhelming emotion that everyone fell silent.
That day.
The girl resolved to live again.
Having been given a second chance at life, I swore I would repay this debt without fail.
* * *
Beyond the small glass window on the hospital room door.
I watched the scene unfold in silence.
Park Ha-yan clutched the letter to her chest, her body crumbling.
She wept as though the world itself were abandoning her.
It became certain.
‘She is no avatar of The Deity.’
This was no performance.
This was raw emotion—the kind only those who have clawed their way up from the depths could display.
A desperate survival instinct and relief that The Deities could never counterfeit.
The sum was considerable, yet I felt no regret.
If anything, I had gotten a bargain.
I knew her future.
‘Spirit Lord Park Ha-yan.’
Before my return, she was one of humanity’s final five.
My comrade who climbed the Tower to its very end.
Yet I had never fully trusted her.
It was because of her epithet.
‘The White Demon.’
That was what people called her.
Her appearance was that of a pure white angel.
Always smiling, always speaking in gentle tones.
But beneath that facade, she was rotted black and putrid.
I remember the spirits she commanded.
Every last one of them wept with hollow, lifeless eyes.
To her, spirits were not companions.
‘Tools.’
Disposable commodities and slaves.
She used wind spirits for eavesdropping.
She commissioned shadow spirits to carry out assassinations.
At times, she forcibly possessed others’ minds with spirits, turning them into puppets, or manipulated their memories.
She even engaged in fraud at gambling tables, switching cards.
To survive, to win—she would stop at nothing.
Evil.
She was unmistakably wicked.
Yet I could not condemn her.
‘Because it was for survival.’
Her beginning had been tragic.
Paralysis of the lower body.
An orphan with nothing to their name.
After the cataclysm, a girl confined to a wheelchair would have had few ways to survive.
To avoid being exploited by others, she had to exploit first.
To avoid being trampled, she had to trample first.
Her malice sprouted from desperate struggles for survival.
Having survived that way, she would never know how to stop.
Even after gaining power, she remained anxious and exploited others with increasing cruelty.
In the end, her talent grew twisted, shackled by the chains of ‘survival.’
But this time will be different.
I looked at the girl beyond the Glass Window once more.
She will heal her legs.
She will stand on the ground with both feet.
No longer struggling with poverty, no longer needing to grovel before anyone.
I have planted ‘hope’ within her.
The belief that someone is watching over her.
The comfort of knowing she is not alone.
That will transform her very roots.
‘Do not become twisted.’
You need not become a demon.
Not a ruler of damp Back Alleys, but a confident lord beneath the sun.
If Park Ha-yan treats spirits not as tools but as companions.
If she cultivates that overwhelming talent in the right direction.
‘Spirit Lord.’
Not merely a Spirit Lord.
Perhaps she could even command beings far greater than that.
I was certain of it.
My investment would not fail.
She would grow into a far more powerful and trustworthy ally than before the regression.
“Grow well.”
I murmured softly.
There was nothing more to see.
I turned away.
My footsteps down the Hospital corridor felt light.
‘Money can always be earned again.’
I know how to earn it.
Where and what I need to do.
And even what will happen there.
‘An unexpected blizzard will fall on Daegu.’
In two days, the blizzard will come.
Snow will accumulate to a height of seventy centimeters.
Monsters began to appear.
In short.
‘There’s another Deity’s avatar in that place.’
* * *
Daegu, Icheon-dong Antique Street.
It was sweltering. Maddening heat.
With each breath, scorching air plunged deep into my lungs.
Heat shimmer rippled across the asphalt, and the road resembled a skillet on the verge of boiling.
People called this place ‘Dafrika’.
A self-deprecating joke—as hot as Africa itself.
I wiped the sweat from my brow and gazed upward.
The blazing sun. A cloudless azure sky.
‘Two days from now.’
Who could have imagined it?
That a blizzard would descend upon this suffocating heat.
That over 70 centimeters of snow would accumulate and paralyze the city’s functions.
It wasn’t a natural phenomenon.
It was unmistakably a ‘calamity’.
Evidence that a Deity’s avatar with ice-crystallization or cold-attribute powers had taken root nearby.
Before I went to capture that creature, there was somewhere I needed to visit.
I walked through the street, scanning left and right.
Worn and shabby signs.
Stone statues and ceramics haphazardly stacked in front of shops.
To ordinary eyes, it would appear nothing more than an antique district.
But my perception was different.
‘A treasure trove.’
The world had been turned upside down.
Not only living creatures had transformed.
Objects that had endured countless years, antiques imbued with stories and history—they too had mutated in response to mana.
Among them were ‘Relic’-grade items that harbored extraordinary power.
People didn’t yet know.
How immense the value of these weathered objects truly was.
Within two weeks, at most a month.
The moment Awakeners recognized the utility of Relics, the items here would command any price asked.
I stepped into the Shabby Wooden Building.
Ding.
A wind chime chimed, but no one greeted me.
The shop interior was dim and reeked of stale dust.
“Welcome.”
From deeper within, an Old Man in a tank top fanned himself and replied with indifference.
He glanced at me, then turned away.
A young man in a hoodie.
He’d clearly decided I wasn’t a customer worth his time.
“Just look around. Don’t touch anything.”
Dismissal.
It didn’t matter. If anything, it was convenient.
I slowly scanned the display cases.
Counterfeit celadon, crude wooden figurines, rusted brass vessels.
Most of it was junk.
But gems were always hidden among the refuse.
I stopped before a shelf in the corner, thick with dust.
A bronze mirror, no larger than my palm.
Corroded so thoroughly that it had long since ceased to function as a mirror.
‘This is it.’
I reached out carefully.
At an angle beyond the shopkeeper’s line of sight.
I channeled the faintest whisper of mana through my fingertips, letting it flow across the mirror’s surface.
Hum.
It responded.
A sharp, tingling vibration traveled through my fingertips.
This was no dead scrap metal.
Mana breathed within it.
Certain.
I picked up the mirror and walked to the counter.
“How much is this?”
The Old Man stopped fanning himself and peered at the mirror over his magnifying glasses.
“That? A hundred thousand won.”
He was overcharging.
The thing wasn’t worth thirty thousand originally.
But I didn’t haggle.
I pulled out several crumpled bills from my pocket.
“Here.”
“Take it.”
The moment he took the money, the Old Man lost interest again.
I left the shop with the mirror in hand.
The instant I stepped out into the scorching sunlight.
Ding!
A System Message materialized before my eyes.
[You have discovered a hidden artifact.]
[Your eye for treasure is exceptional.]
[Skill ‘Appraisal’ has been created.]
As expected.
Detecting mana to discern the true value of an object.
That was the trigger for skill creation.
I immediately cast the skill.
“Appraisal.”
Whoosh.
A translucent information window materialized before my eyes.
[Item: Mirror of Revealed Truth]
[Grade: Rare]
[Description: A mirror once used by a shaman during the Silla Dynasty. Infuse it with mana to perceive hidden things.]
[Effect (1): Detection of invisibility and concealment within a 10-meter radius.]
[Effect (2): Increased resistance to illusion-type magic.]
Success.
Rare grade.
For an item obtainable early on, this was top-tier.
Especially the ‘concealment detection’ option—that’s an ability money alone cannot buy.
In that moment, a hundred-thousand-won piece of scrap metal transformed into a treasure worth hundreds of millions.
‘Not bad at all.’
I slipped the mirror into my pocket.
This was only the beginning.
I had five hundred million won remaining.
It was the emergency fund left after generously giving one billion to Park Ha-yan.
For ordinary people, it was a fortune, but in the awakened world, it was barely enough to outfit a single piece of equipment.
Here, however, on Antique Art Street where values had yet to be established, the situation was entirely different.
‘I can spend like a king.’
I began sweeping through the street.
I entered every shop in sight.
My eyes never stopped moving.
‘Appraisal.’
[Normal: A counterfeit celadon piece.]
Pass.
‘Appraisal.’
[Normal: A mass-produced wooden figurine from a factory.]
Pass.
It was like searching for jewels in a heap of garbage.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred were duds, but I refused to give up.
Each time a blue glow filled my vision, I opened my wallet.
“How much is this?”
“Fifty thousand won.”
“Here.”
[Item: Vitality Jade Ring]
[Grade: Uncommon]
[Effect: Slightly increases health recovery speed.]
“What about that one?”
“That’s a bit pricey. I’d need at least 200,000 won….”
“Keep the change.”
[Item: Worn Bodyguard’s Sword]
[Grade: Rare]
[Effect: Maintains sharpness until durability is exhausted.]
I swept them all into my inventory.
A ring, a hairpin, a scroll, an old sword.
To the naked eye, it looked like junk a pawnshop would reject, but my inventory was filling with genuine artifacts.
The merchants treated me like a fool.
They whispered that some young punk was heat-addled, collecting random trinkets.
I laughed inwardly.
These items I’d just picked up for 100,000 or 200,000 won each.
In just a month, they’d be worth tens of millions.
That’s when I reached the end of the street.
Dong—dong—!
A crude bell tolled through the air.
People began to murmur.
“Huh? Is today an auction day?”
“Has it gotten that late already?”
“Let’s go! Maybe they’ll have something decent today.”
Merchants and onlookers streamed toward a single location.
It was in front of a fairly large gallery positioned in the center of the street.
‘An auction?’
My interest piqued.
Auctions in places like this were predictable.
Stolen goods or unappraised items sold for pennies due to unknown provenance.
In other words, a place where jackpots and duds converged.
I slipped into the gallery with the crowd.
The air conditioning was refreshing.
An auctioneer in a tuxedo stood on the platform, microphone in hand.
“Alright, alright! It’s hot out there, so let’s get started with a bang!”
The auction began.
The early lots were unremarkable.
Sketches by famous painters, white porcelain from the late Joseon period.
They had artistic value, perhaps, but they held no magical essence.
I swallowed a yawn, my arms crossed.
Just as I was contemplating whether to leave.
“Next item! A rather unique specimen, I must say.”
The staff member wheeled out a cart.
As the black cloth was removed, snickers erupted from the crowd.
“What is that?”
“It’s just a rock.”
“Did they pick that up from the Riverbank?”
What sat on the Platform was a fist-sized blue stone.
Its surface was rough and covered in moss, looking every bit like common rubble.
But.
“…!”
I narrowed my eyes.
My heart raced with recognition.
It looked familiar.
More than just familiar—I’d seen this before.
I knew this object intimately.
‘Appraisal.’
I activated the skill.
[Item: Pandora’s Cube (Sealed)]
[Grade: Unknown]
[Description: A toy box left behind by the God of Fortune. What emerges, not even a daughter-in-law nor the gods themselves can predict.]
Pandora’s Cube.
Among Tower Veterans, it was known as the ‘Demon’s Gacha’.
The odds were absolutely abysmal.
A 99.9% chance of getting garbage.
Rotten eggs, a goblin’s loincloth, or perhaps a slip of paper marked with a blank.
But.
‘There was one time a legendary weapon dropped from it.’
The memory from my past life flashed through my mind.
A rumor about a certain ranker who cleared Floor 30 of the Tower and pulled a ‘Legendary Grade’ item from this cube.
Thanks to that equipment, he skyrocketed into the top 10 rankings.
“Why would they bring out such garbage?”
“Who would even buy something like that?”
Everyone saw it as nothing more than a moss-covered stone.
But to my eyes, it was a chance to strike it rich.
No—it was guaranteed legendary grade equipment.
Because.
‘I am a man blessed by fortune.’

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