Chapter 6
Seonghyeon and Suyeon finished collecting the magic stones and returned to their lodgings.
As strong and physically fit as Seonghyeon was, after carrying Suyeon for nearly two hours, his arms were trembling by the end.
Suyeon looked terribly sorry when Seonghyeon insisted he was fine, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually say she was sorry.
“Whew… That was exhausting.”
As soon as they arrived, Seonghyeon said it out of habit, took off his sweat-soaked clothes, and tossed them onto the bed.
Only then did Suyeon feel a chill of apprehension. She pleaded with Seonghyeon, almost in tears.
She rubbed her hands together so vigorously they might as well have been on fire.
“I’m sorry… You had to do all that because of me.”
“I told you, you don’t need to worry. I still have skill uses left, and healing magic can help me recover from fatigue.”
“But casting healing magic is tiring in itself… I’m sorry. I’ll work on building up my Mental Fortitude, too.”
“You’ll be able to assign stat points when you level up. You’re only level 1 right now, so you should level up quickly. Then you can put points into Mental Fortitude.”
Suyeon spoke with all the guilt she felt, but Seonghyeon explained it as if it were no big deal.
In truth, something like this really was no big deal for Seonghyeon.
Especially when he remembered how he’d nearly died soloing the middle levels of the Labyrinth last time, after miscounting how many skill uses he had left.
“R-right… So if I level up and put points into Mental Fortitude, I won’t be scared in dark places like you are?”
“Yeah. They say humans are adaptable. You’ll be fine eventually. I put about two more points into Mental Fortitude, and a lot of things stopped scaring me.”
“Can I trust you?”
“Yeah.”
“But… how do I open my status window?”
“Huh?”
Seonghyeon was taken aback by Suyeon’s question.
Of course… weren’t all the people from Earth who came to this other world able to bring up their status windows?
Besides, every adventurer seemed to know their own status window as a matter of course, so Seonghyeon had assumed everyone could open theirs.
“It’s obvious… Can you not see yours?”
“How am I supposed to see it? I tried saying ‘status window,’ but nothing came up.”
“Oh, no…”
Seonghyeon fell silent, thinking.
Suyeon kept giving him an apologetic look, but when he didn’t answer, she cautiously spoke up.
Her long hair and clothes were sticking to her skin from the sweat, so she looked quite uncomfortable.
“Can I… wash up first?”
“Go ahead.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Suyeon quickly took off her top and ran into the bathroom.
Was she embarrassed to show him her pitiful body?
Did that mean she wanted to keep that body all to herself?
It wasn’t as if Seonghyeon was interested in her scrawny body anyway.
She’d even gotten indigestion earlier, so it would take a long time for her body to get back in shape.
After a while, Suyeon came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her.
Seonghyeon headed toward the bathroom to wash up as though it were only natural, and Suyeon jumped in surprise.
“You startled me.”
“What startled you?”
“That huge thing… Damn…”
“What? Oh. The thing you don’t have anymore?”
“Tch…”
Suyeon furrowed her brow and pressed her lips together, then smacked Seonghyeon on the thigh.
How could someone so small hit that hard? A red handprint appeared with a sharp smack.
“You crazy—That fucking hurt!”
“Stop saying crap like that and get in there!”
“Did your personality change when you turned into a girl?”
“What kind of bullshit is that? It didn’t!”
“Hmph. Just you wait.”
Unable to hold back his anger, Seonghyeon went into the bathroom without even closing the door.
Suyeon, for her part, turned away with a huff, went to the bed, put a towel over her head, and lay down.
As Seonghyeon turned on the tap and washed, he wondered how he could get back at her.
His thigh stung—really stung.
**
When Seonghyeon finished washing and came out, he appeared in front of Suyeon completely naked.
Lying on her stomach, Suyeon was drying her hair with a towel and looking through the Fireball book, even though she couldn’t understand a word of it.
Seonghyeon slowly went behind Suyeon and flopped down on top of her.
The weight of Seonghyeon’s body squeezed the breath from Suyeon, drawing a strange sound from her.
“Pwah—!”
“Hehehe, got you.”
“Eek! What are you doing?”
“What does it look like? I’m going to check your status window.”
“Hic?”
Seonghyeon curled his fingers and tickled Suyeon under the arms.
Suyeon jumped and struggled to get away, but she couldn’t escape Seonghyeon’s hold.
“Hey—Hahaha! What are you dooing—Hehe! Get off!”
“I said I’m checking your status window. You have to touch someone’s heart to see it.”
Of course, touching someone’s heart had nothing to do with seeing their status window. It was just Seonghyeon’s excuse.
As his hand moved from Suyeon’s armpit toward her chest, she widened her eyes and squirmed.
“Aaah—! Are you gay? Hahaha! You disgusting bastard… Where are you touching me?!”
“Now, now, you shouldn’t say things like that, Miss Slave.”
“Nyaah… Aah—Hah!”
“And who’s the one panting and moaning like that? You’re the one who sounds gay!”
“Ugh… Stop… It hurts—!”
Unlike Seonghyeon, who looked perfectly calm, Suyeon’s face had turned bright red.
He found Suyeon’s ticklish reactions so amusing that he got caught up in the moment and pushed the teasing even further.
At first, Suyeon fought back fiercely, but then she suddenly went limp and collapsed as if she were dead.
She figured it was better to relax, but she was also completely worn out from everything that had happened that afternoon.
Her muscles stiffened if she moved even a little, and she didn’t want to start sweating again after washing up, so Suyeon let her body go limp.
“Ugh… Do… whatever you want.”
“Uh… Sorry. Status window.”
Seeing how exhausted Suyeon was, Seonghyeon stopped teasing her and opened her status window.
[Status Window]
Name: Erze El Rasia
Class: Sorcerer
Background: Slave, formerly a princess of the Rasia elf tribe
Status Effect: Denial of Reality
Level: 2
Strength: 2 Agility: 5 Stamina: 3
Intelligence: 9 Mental Fortitude: 3 Talent: 10 Charm: 9
Extra: 1
Seonghyeon checked the unassigned point labeled Extra.
“What? You’re level 2? When did you level up? You’ve got an Extra point, too.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s just what it sounds like—an extra point you haven’t assigned.”
“Huh? I have to assign it myself?”
“Yeah. I’ve always assigned mine myself.”
“But I can’t see my status window.”
“Then maybe there’s some other way to do it?”
“Why are you asking me? You’ve been doing this longer than I have, so shouldn’t you know more?”
Suyeon complained weakly, still sprawled out.
When Suyeon snapped at him like that, Seonghyeon felt guilty, remembering what he’d just done to her.
What had his party members done when they leveled up in the dungeon…?
Seonghyeon remembered that they seemed to take something out, and continued thinking about the status window.
“Hmm… Should I ask my old party members? Maybe we can visit the Adventurers’ Guild?”
“You really don’t know? Am I supposed to live like this forever, without raising a single stat?”
“No, if we ask at the Adventurers’ Guild, they’ll tell us something.”
“The Adventurers’ Guild… They really do have everything.”
Suyeon rolled over onto her back, spread-eagled, and stared at the ceiling.
She was done resisting, whether Seonghyeon tried to climb on top of her or not.
With a look of utter exasperation, Suyeon lamented her lot in life.
“Must be nice, living in a game. I’m in a documentary.”
“No, I was in a documentary, too.”
“And now?”
“Still a documentary.”
Seonghyeon considered the money he’d borrowed, what he had left on hand, and how he could earn more.
Taking Suyeon to the middle levels would be no different from killing her.
Besides, the party he’d worked best with had gone down to challenge the deep levels after making extensive preparations, so it would be a long time before they came back.
“Is it because of the money?”
“Yeah.”
“Then sell the blood you drew.”
“It won’t sell. It’s dead blood.”
“That’s just a superstition.”
“You’ve recovered thanks to that superstition several times.”
“Hmm…”
Suyeon turned over to face the wall.
Maybe she was embarrassed by Seonghyeon staring at her face.
It wasn’t as though he’d ever openly stared at it back when they were two guys.
Even so, Suyeon’s face was pretty enough to catch Seonghyeon’s eye, even without any rose-colored glasses.
Pretty enough that he didn’t regret spending his entire budget on her.
Just look at her status window—Suyeon’s Charm was a whopping 9.
“…It’s a documentary, huh.”
“Go to sleep. We didn’t earn much today, so tomorrow we’ll stop by the Adventurers’ Guild, pick up a quest, and head to the surface levels.”
“Okay… Can I leave the sleep lamp on?”
“Why?”
“Just because.”
“Do you even know the human language?”
“How did you know I was trying to read the book…?”
“You can’t just guess your way through it, can you?”
“Then what am I supposed to do? I couldn’t even help with the magic stones today. I was just dead weight.”
“I can pull out the magic stones.”
Seonghyeon thumped his chest with his fist, as if telling Suyeon to trust him.
Suyeon had apparently been watching him. She narrowed her eyes and glared when she saw him do that.
“Why do you keep trying to act cool? It doesn’t suit you.”
“Because I am cool?”
“Cut the crap and teach me the human language. Or translate the book into Korean and read it to me.”
“Do you think you can learn just by having me read it to you?”
“It’s better than not trying.”
Seonghyeon picked up the Fireball book in front of Suyeon.
He opened it and tried to read, but for some reason the words wouldn’t come into focus.
Seonghyeon thought he knew why. He’d had a similar experience before, when looking at equipment made exclusively for certain classes.
“Looks like you can’t even read this unless you’re a Sorcerer or a Wizard.”
“So what am I supposed to do? I’ll just follow you around like dead weight without helping at all.”
“We’ll ask at the Adventurers’ Guild.”
“…I hope they can solve everything. Then let’s just go to sleep.”
“Sure.”
They both agreed it was time to sleep.
It was late, and there wasn’t enough time to fully recover from their exhaustion.