Another World Magician
Alt Korean Title: 속임수의 마법사 (The Magician of Deception)
Written by: [Xirus]
⚡ Chapter 3: Revenge with Magic
The study room smelled of dust and old dreams.
A flickering fluorescent light buzzed overhead, casting long shadows across Kim Jiwon's cluttered desk. Blueprints bled into bank statements, USB drives spilled from cracked plastic casings, and a torn notebook lay open, its cover marked with three words that had followed him since childhood:
Unveil the Trick.
He tapped his pen once against the page.
Then again. Slower.
"Who killed them?"
He had asked that question a hundred times as a boy, quietly, persistently. But it wasn't until a few nights ago that Miss Baek finally gave him the answer.
That night, the orphanage had been silent. Only the low hum of the refrigerator and the rhythmic chorus of cicadas filled the kitchen, where Miss Baek sat, steam curling from her cup of barley tea like ghostly fingers.
"I still remember that storm," she murmured. "Like it was yesterday. Your mother came in soaked, holding you wrapped in her coat. You were barely a year old, but your eyes…" she paused, her voice catching. "Your mother was from a wealthy family. But she chose your father. A street performer. A man with no name… but full of wonder."
Jiwon said nothing. He let the past unfold like an old play, each word a spotlight.
"She told me she'd return for you," Miss Baek whispered. "But she never did. Three days later… the magician's studio was burned to the ground. They said it was an accident."
Her eyes met his across the table.
"We both know better."
Jiwon's fingers curled around his cup. It was warm. Grounding. The sound of the cicadas buzzed louder, as if protesting the silence between them.
He spoke at last.
"What was she like?"
Miss Baek didn't answer right away. Her eyes drifted to the window, where fireworks flickered in the distance, tiny bursts of red and gold beyond the trees.
Then, quietly, she began to speak.
It was New Year's Festival… fifteen years ago. When I met her…
The sky had exploded with color that night. Fireworks cracked above the hilltop orphanage, their echoes tumbling down the valley.
Little Nari stood barefoot near the front gate, her nose red from the cold, cheeks streaked with tears.
"I can't see anything…" she sniffled. "Miss Baek… I lost my shoes…"
Miss Baek had been searching the courtyard, trying to calm her, when a voice sliced through the winter air like silk.
"What's behind your ear, little one?"
A woman with long, flowing black hair knelt before Nari. Her coat was simple, her smile simpler, but her hands moved like poetry. In one smooth motion, a honey candy glimmered between her fingers, as if plucked from the moonlight.
Nari's breath hitched.
She gasped.
And for the first time in days, she laughed.
The woman smiled gently.
"Every sad night deserves a little sweetness."
Miss Baek stepped forward. The stranger looked up and offered a quiet nod.
"There's a show in the next district," she said. "Tell the children they're invited."
Then she vanished into the crowd, her footsteps swallowed by music and fireworks, just like a magician should.
Miss Baek smiled at the memory.
"She had that magic," she said softly. "Even if it wasn't real."
They both laughed, quiet, nostalgic laughter. A tender reprieve from the bitterness of truth.
The story of Nari as a sniffling little troublemaker made them giggle like siblings caught in a memory too sweet to resist.
After that night, Jiwon barely spoke.
He stayed in his room. Quiet by day, a shadow by night. Nari knocked once and asked if he was okay. He smiled at her, calm, polite.
"Just tired. Get some rest."
She didn't push. She knew that look in his eyes.
He'd found something.
Just like when he used to obsess over the secrets in the magician's album.
His desk had become a war room.
The notebook lay open to a single line:
Operation Name: The Last Performance
Objective: Expose Bae Jungho's corruption in real time
Method: Public illusion using real stolen funds
Tools: Data access, manipulated banking routes, micro rain dispersal rig, timed crowd misdirection
Stage: National Foundation Day Celebration, televised
Jiwon had infiltrated Jungho's financial team six months ago. Played the quiet, brilliant assistant, background scrubbed clean, eyes always lowered.
Greed made the politician lazy. Arrogant. Predictable.
Jiwon traced every shell company, mirrored every transfer, and slowly siphoned off a portion of the stolen funds, bit by bit, until the money was his to command.
But Jungho wasn't entirely a fool.
One night, the man called him into his private office.
The lights were dim. A single bulb flickered above a mahogany desk. Jungho sat behind it, cradling a glass of amber whiskey.
He swirled it once. The golden liquid circled slowly, forming a vortex that caught the light like fire in a jar.
"You've got sharp eyes, kid," Jungho said, voice casual, almost amused. "You remind me of someone. A thorn I once pulled out… and burned."
The ice clinked faintly as he lifted the glass to his lips.
Jiwon smiled. Calm. Flat.
"Funny. People say I have one of those forgettable faces."
Jungho chuckled. The laugh was slow, like it had waited years to come out. He leaned forward, placing the glass down with a solid thunk. His eyes gleamed.
"Jiwon… I know who you really are."
The room seemed to tighten around them.
"To be exact," Jungho said, "I know who your parents were."
He leaned back. Let the words marinate.
"Did you know how rich your family actually is? I was supposed to marry your mom. But that stupid woman fell for a street magician. Can you believe it?"
The whiskey glass began swirling again.
"So, I did what needed to be done. I made it seem like the troupe your father led was trying to scam her. Said they wanted her wealth. All lies, of course. But magician is a con man, right? Little lies are part of the job."
Jiwon didn't blink.
Jungho's voice dropped lower, a whisper wrapped in pride.
"I also burned down their studio. Stardust Magician Troupe. Poof. Gone. Why wait for them to expose me? They were close, you know, too close. Your father found my records. Saw what I was doing with the bank."
He took another sip, eyes glittering.
"Every cent in that bank? It's mine. When someone files insurance, I delay it. When they need loans, I hook them with nice rates, then bleed them dry. And the service taxes? Every transaction taxed. When people complain, I just smile and say, 'There's nothing free in this world.'"
He pointed his glass toward Jiwon like a king offering wine to a peasant.
"I've prepared a gift for you too. So it's better if you just quit. Go back to your little orphanage."
"I will resign ,don't you dare touch the orphanage" Jiwon said that angrily as he stomp out of the office.
Jungho ,he grinned, smug and sharp.
What Jungho didn't know… was that every word was being recorded. Hidden cameras embedded in the corner bookshelf.
Then came the celebration.
National Foundation Day.
A sprawling plaza downtown. Flags waved. Drones buzzed overhead. The crowd surged. Applause cracked like fireworks.
Banners rippled across the stage:
Building the Future Together
Bae Jungho stood center stage, waving like a king in a democracy.
"Today, we celebrate unity! Progress! The pillars of our society!"
Jiwon stood deep in the crowd, hidden beneath a hoodie and sunglasses. His hand curled around the device in his pocket.
One press. That's all it would take.
"Today is the day."
***
"As the thorn was thrown and burned, the pain remains, painful and annoying. I'll get rid of it today." Jungho whisper to himself.
But Jungho wasn't worried. Swirling his whiskey with a practiced flick, the golden spiral catching the soft light above, he grinned.
He could still hear his own voice from the call earlier that morning, sharp, deliberate, soaked in disdain:
"Burn the orphanage. That rat should join his parents in hell."
The words had rolled off his tongue like the final twist of a dagger.
"The place is full of rats," he'd added with cruel satisfaction. "We can buy the land later."
And then:
"And for Jiwon? This is my final gift. A chance to meet the parents he never even saw. You don't have to thank me for the gift. Just shut the hell up and suffer."
That building wasn't just his childhood.
It was meant to be his graveyard.
What he didn't know... was that Jiwon wasn't there.
As the politician grinned on national TV,
it began.
The projector lit up, displaying a video, footage of Jungho and Jiwon in the office days earlier.
From above, money rained down like confetti.
Slow at first. Then faster. Dozens, hundreds, of bills drifting from the sky, glinting under the stage lights.
The crowd gasped, enchanted.
"A gimmick?" someone laughed. "What a show!"
But then,
"Wait! That's my money, my bank account is draining right now!"
"Mine too! It's showing zero! What kind of magic bullshit is this?!"
Panic rippled through the crowd like static.
Phones lit up. Gasps turned to shouts. Faces twisted into horror.
Jiwon stood silent, watching the chaos bloom.
"It's not magic, you fools," he thought, smirking.
"It's logistics. Physics. Planning."
He shouted like the others, just another voice in the chaos.
But he smiled, unknowingly impressed with all the work he had done.
Yesterday, it began.
Morning traffic was hell. Always was in Seoul.
But I wasn't sweating it.
Not today.
Five armored bank trucks rolled out just after dawn, escorted like royalty. Squad cars. Two sky drones. Full radio sync. Every vehicle tagged and tracked.
And me? I was driving truck number three.
Kim Jiwon. Fake name. Fake license. Real nerves of steel.
I kept my hands loose on the wheel. Kept my breathing calm.
The key to magic isn't speed. It's misdirection.
And this whole thing?
It was a magic trick. The biggest one I'd ever pulled.
Step one: Break their eyes.
Last night, I uploaded a silent firmware patch into the bank's logistics hub. Tiny change, barely noticeable. It rerouted the escort GPS if the system detected a police warning.
This morning, I triggered fake police reports at just the right intersections.
Every escort driver's radio suddenly said the same thing:
"Police roadblock ahead. Take alternate tunnel route."
They didn't question it. Why would they?
That's the beauty of a trusted system.
Step two: Control the scene.
We dipped into the Han River tunnel. Quiet. Dim. Steel and concrete walls closing in like a stage curtain.
Right on cue, an electrical flicker. Emergency lights blinked out for eight seconds. Just enough.
One truck peeled off. I swapped it with a fake.
The third truck disappeared. And the feed?
It wasn't live. It was a loop. Footage I shot last week, same angles, same timing, same route.
Nobody noticed.
Inside that decoy? Flash paper. Bills that would crumble to ash with one spark.
A decoy inside a decoy.
Step three: Reveal nothing.
I took the hidden road up, exited in a back alley of Gangnam, and ditched the uniform. Swapped the truck again. Repainted the plates.
Just another delivery guy.
Because the real money?
It wasn't in any truck anymore.
Step four: Hide it in plain sight.
Three days ago, I moved the real cash into sealed crates and airlifted them up during a rooftop maintenance window.
Now, those crates sat quietly atop a scaffolding overlooking the Seoul River Festival stage. Camouflaged. Taped. Labeled "Stage Lighting Equipment."
No one questioned it.
Drones waited. Quiet. Pre-programmed. Perfectly timed.
The man they had trusted, the one who controlled the nation's largest bank, stood exposed under a sky of stolen wealth.
The money falling around them?
Not props. Not tricks.
It was real.
As the crowd roared and fury erupted as the video stop playing revealing the truth. Jiwon stepped away from the chaos..
He pulled down his hood. Removed his glasses.
And walked off.
This wasn't just revenge.
It was a reckoning.
And for a moment, brief and bittersweet, Kim Jiwon felt like a real magician.
But magic…
what does it cost?