Time to ask for some help

[A/N: Hello! I know, I've been gone for a while. Between going for field works for my studies and expanding upon my own branch in LLation's 'Mind Control: The RPG', I barely had time to continue my own story. I'll try to keep things updated regularly from now on. Have a good one!]

He sighed, leaning on a wall just next to town's gate. It was frustrating, if he were to be honest. He looked everywhere he could, and he didn't manage to find anything that Iris said could be a medium for a curse. He looked all over Issar, checked every single hole he could find, and yet, as the night was coming to the town, he could only sit down and sigh.

'Dammit.' He thought. 'No wonder the time limit is so long.' He brought up the notification informing him about quest he received.

[Quest name: Strange presence]
[*Hidden quest*]

[Savi Mahoney, overseer of Issar estate, suspects the hamlet to be cursed. He has asked of your help in finding the source of the curse. However, he urges that you should hurry. Lord Balholm will soon arrive.]
[Objective: Find and destroy or seal away source of curse magic permeating Issar.]
[Time remaining: 22 days]

[Quest reward: Savi Mahoney will forever remember your favor. You will be seen as his closest friend, and his affinity towards you will not decrease easily.]
[Lord Balholm will become aware of you thanks to your achievement.]

[Quest failure: Savi Mahoney will slowly descend into madness due to influence of the curse. In the future, it will be highly likely that the estate of Issar will fall.]

Youngwoo felt a weight on his heart when he read the contents of the quest. In his mind, a memory of the future reverberated. The estate had withstood 9 floors, and was only destroyed on floor 20 (or rather, before it). On top of that, the words 'slowly' by descend only meant that Savi had suffered greatly throughout the years that passed between subsequent floors. No. He couldn't let this happen. Tall man gritted his teeth as he got up.

'I will finish this quest no matter the price.' There was clear resolution in his spirit. He would do whatever he could to ease Savi's burdens.

"Iris?" He asked quietly.

"...what?" She asked, but her voice wasn't filled with as much anger as before; it seemed that a few hours of silence allowed her to calm down, at least somewhat.

"..." He looked to his side for a moment, hesitating. "Is it possible to use a magical camera to detect that curse?"

"..." She squinted her eyes a little, but it didn't seem to be done out of annoyance. Actually, it kind of looked like she was curious herself. "...even if, my cameras can't interact with material world."

"I see..." He replied. For a brief moment, he wanted to question whether she actually knew or not, but decided against it. Besides, he knew one more person who could answer him. "Thank you."

"...?" Iris formed a little surprised expression, but it went unnoticed as he got up and started walking away.

Youngwoo decided that wasting time would be... well, wasteful. If he wanted to do this quest, he needed to get a move on. He couldn't do this quest on his own, at least not with his current skill set.

He transmitted to the 1st floor and went around the place a bit. It was late afternoon, about 16 or 17, if he had to guess. Without much thinking, he simply dialed a number.

"What is it?" He immediately heard Ieva's voice. She sounded a bit annoyed, but also curious.

"Are you in the Workshop?"

"Ya. Why?"

"Can I come around to ask you a favor?"

"Can't you do it now?"

"...It'd feel less awkward in person."

"...you Koreans. Fine, come around. My workplace is on 5th floor, room 62. Tell me when you'll be there."

15 minutes later

Youngwoo was standing in front of large door, awaiting Hilda's sister to open them for him. As he finally heard some movement from the locks, he got welcomed by sight of Ieva standing in the door, looking at him with a mix of annoyance and tiredness. Still, she didn't immediately say anything, instead standing aside and letting him in.

As he took his steps inside, he immediately noticed how this place was dirty. Yes, indeed, it was just like her room back at her home. There were pieces of scrap, nuts and bolt alike laying all around on almost every table. Some pieces of machines standing here and there, a large computer, and one of the tables seemed to have at least a dozen or so boxes from the Restaurant Gallery.

"So what did you want?" Asked Ieva, passing by him and sitting down on a chair. She grabbed the nearest screwdriver there was and rotated it in her hand slowly.

"Say, can your drones detect magic in any way?"

"Are you for real?" She raised an eyebrow, as if he was asking her if she could shoot down the Moon with a handheld harpoon.

"So... no, I see?"

"That's LITERALLY how I've been tracking you, Lee." For a brief moment, she let out a somewhat defeated sigh. "Did you really think I was using some kind of face recognition or anything like that?"

"...isn't that what they use in China and some other countries?"

"On fucking CCTVs that only see you clearly from 15 metres, not on drones half a kilometer away. What the fuck do you have under that skull, a rotten sponge?"

"..." He shrugged a little.

"Sorry. That last part wasn't me." Ieva shook her head. "Anyway, yes, I can. Why?"

"I got a hidden quest on 13th floor. It requires me to find source of a curse that's been permeating Issar estate. I've been looking for a few hours, but I honestly don't even know what I'm looking for. I barely ever had anything with magic power in my hands, so it's kind of destined to fail anyway if it's only me doing it. That's why I'm asking for help."

"So... you want to borrow a drone with ability to scan for magic?"

"...I guess." He nodded a little.

"Do you know how to pilot a drone?"

"...no."

"...right." She nodded lightly. "Ugh..." She groaned a little. "You're not gonna like my offer."

"I know." Youngwoo nodded. "I expected as much. Your time is valuable, after all."

"Glad to see at least you get it." She put on a smile. "So I guess you are ready, huh?"

"I'd rather just do it once and have the job finished than do it 20 times because I don't have the equipment to do it properly." 'Besides, regressing too many times would put Ieva in a weird situation...'

"That's a way to think about it." Ieva got up and walked over to the computer. "Give me 5 minutes, I'll get us one."

1 hour later

Ieva and Youngwoo were standing outside of Issar, a small drone in front of them. It seemed slicker than the one he had seen when him and Hilda got greeted by when they exited the 11th floor. The box holding the battery was most definitely at most half the size of the other one, and it had 6 propellers instead of 4, but all of them were smaller. The entire construct was small enough to be carried in his hand without much difficulty. However, there was one discerning feature of this one, and that was a hemisphere of large size (about the same as battery box itself), multiple cameras visible underneath the surface.

Ieva was checking its condition for the last time before she finally took control of it and flew it up above the Issar. From the viewpoint of nearly 150 metres above ground, she could see the entire hamlet clearly.

"Alright, let's begin proper scanning..." She placed a finger on a button, and pressed it.

In about 2 minutes, she received a notification on her phone.

"Okay, let's see how the map looks..." She fired a file on her phone, and within seconds, both her and Youngwoo were looking at the display. "...that's weird."

"Weird?"

What they saw was a heatmap representing the estate of Issar. There was a faint outline of the walls (drawn by Ieva before ), and most of the place was dark blue, indicating lack of magic. In some places, there were yellow-red dots clearly indicating there was some magic getting picked up. There seemed to be no more than 50 signatures in total. However, it was not what Ieva suddenly zoomed towards.

"What's in there?" He asked.

"There's a slight change in color... but that shouldn't happen. It's way too subtle."

"...is that bad?"

"...I'm not sure." She shook her head. "Maybe it's just a glitch in matrix or a refraction or something... I'll need to do one more measurement."

15 minutes later

"...again." She said. "This just can't be a coincidence."

She did 6 measurements from different positions, and every single time, there was a tiny bit of the heatmap that didn't fit completely with the rest. After doing a quick triangulation, she gave him a location.

"Somewhere under that building." She walked into the hamlet and over to the building that she meant.

'This makes sense...' Thought Youngwoo, seeing how the building picked by Ieva was Savi's home.

"How deep under it?" He asked.

"Can't say for sure. I'd say between 100 and 150, but that's pretty generous trimming on my side." She replied.

"I see... You worked hard, Ieva. Thank you." Youngwoo bowed his head a little towards her.

"I wouldn't call it 'hard work'." She shrugged. "Honestly, it kind of feels like taking a breather after work. You know what, if that's all you wanted me for here, I'm actually just gonna go and hit the sack. No need to be going through with our deal, okay?" She yawned, and started bringing the drone down, preparing to set off.

"You're being weirdly generous."

"Meh." She made a sound while shrugging. "You know, I have worked the entire day today. Why erase that? I like work, but let's not go overboard with that. I have a ton of stuff to do anyway."

"I see. I think I'll be going too. Now that I know where the curse is, I can-"

"Ieva!" Both of them heard a familiar voice, and turned around.

"Hilda?" The blonde woman tilted her head a little.

"Are you alright?!" The red-haired woman sprinted up to them, and just barely stopped by her sister.

There was sweat all over her face, and her blouse and shirt also were soaked. She must've been running for quite a while.

"What happened?!" Ieva suddenly felt her heart beat stronger. She glanced at Youngwoo, who immediately placed a hand on his sword, ready to fight anything that would dare come at them.

"A-Are you okay?" Hilda didn't care for her state much, instead checking on her sister. "I've been calling you for half an hour! I really thought something happened!" There was clear concern and worry in her voice.

"I just went here to help your boyfriend."

"And couldn't you have sent a text?!" Hilda asked, agitated. "I was so worried! Why must you do this to me!" For a moment, her voice became angry, but it seemed that Calm Mind quickly helped her get hold of herself.

"You worry too much about me, Hilda." Replied Ieva. "But yeah, I admit, okay? Sorry, I didn't think, I'm going home. Is that what you want to hear, mom?" In all honesty, Youngwoo couldn't tell whether she has added the last word to make it sound like a joke or if she did it because it fit. Maybe both?

"...To bed, sharp." Replied Hilda, either playing along or enabling her 'mother-mode', as Ieva called this state of hers. "And you, mister." She turned to Youngwoo. "Will have a talk with me."