Chapter 40
No matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t imagine these cat-like things ever causing harm.
Of course, I didn’t trust them completely, but if you asked whether they’d do something bad to their master, I couldn’t help tilting my head in doubt.
If I had to put it into words, it was probably the relationship between parasite and host. Except this parasite needed a host, and the host got something out of the parasite too—a symbiotic relationship like that.
In the end, madness was the problem. If I could be free of madness like with the Hand of Re-Creation, there was no need to worry about anything else.
Ian moved the hand that had been stroking the grimoire away and looked back at the community screen.
[Thanks for worrying. But what can I do? I’ve already gotten two, so I’ll have to get used to it.]
[Yeah.]
More importantly, anything special going on lately? I handled the library request, so I’ve got enough money.
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[Comments]
-Damn, did you snag that library request? It was such a sweet gig, I was gonna do it.
ㄴㅇㅇ: Heh.
ㄴDon’t laugh, I’ll get attached.
ㄴㅇㅇ: ㅗㅗ
ㄴ?
-심해아귀: Nothing special. Just the usual peaceful Republic of Korea.
ㄴ네귀에벌레: Not quite. A vampire noble recently moved in and has been spawning all over the place. This is the countryside, but I saw ghouls and vampires while catching bugs in the mountains.
ㄴ심해아귀: Really?
ㄴ네귀에벌레: Yeah. And fuck, these shitty elf bastards are at it again. They were throwing a fit, telling me not to catch bugs, so I killed them all out of spite.
“Elves?”
As Ian read the comments, he frowned at the race that had suddenly appeared.
Elves. The long-eared, beautiful race commonly found in fantasy worlds.
I’d assumed they naturally wouldn’t exist in the real world, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
ㄴ네귀에벌레: Seriously, these bastards just need to be killed. First of all, I hate their disgusting-looking faces. They’ve got six ears, one eye, mouths split clear up to the top of their heads, and fuck, the stench is disgusting.
But the way they were described was a little different from the elves Ian knew. He casually pushed the finished ramen aside and tapped away at his phone keyboard.
ㄴㅇㅇ: Do elves actually exist?
ㄴ네귀에벌레: Yeah. If you wander around mountains or forests, you can run into them occasionally. They look so grotesque that at first you wonder if they’re really the elves you know, but surprisingly, they are.
ㄴ네귀에벌레: Dealing with them is easy. If you don’t want to fight, just kiss a leaf and leave. Otherwise, kill them outright. But if one of the arrows those bastards shoot hits you, you’ll turn into a tree on the spot, so be careful.
“Hmm…….”
Ian tapped the desk as he read the comments.
Since their range was limited to forests and mountains, it didn’t seem like he’d run into them very often, but it was still good to know. You never knew what might happen.
And from the description, they seemed closer to primitives than to fairies or any race capable of communication. There was no need to bother trying to talk to them.
Ian left a reply thanking them for the information, then flicked through the other posts.
There wasn’t anything particularly worthwhile. After giving a few funny posts an upvote, he plugged his phone into the charger and launched a game he hadn’t played in a while for a quick round.
And he got absolutely demolished.
[ㅁㄷㅊㅇ]
[What the fuck are you talking about, you bitch?]
[Fuck off.]
As soon as the game ended, Ian left behind the teammates who were still bickering and stretched his arms.
Even after coming back after so long, the warm, familiar stink of crap that welcomed him was utterly revolting. There was a reason he’d quit in the first place.
‘Still, I did pretty well.’
Ian nodded in satisfaction at the scoreboard, which listed his 3 kills, 15 deaths, and 12 assists.
Of course. It had to be the textbook K/D/A of a jungler who’d sacrificed himself for the team. Look, as proof, none of his teammates were blaming him.
[Good work.]
Ian tossed a line toward the teammates who were still arguing fiercely and stood up.
He’d eaten a simple meal and enjoyed a game. The card should be ready soon enough, so he figured he’d stop by a nearby café for a drink and head over.
Luckily, the café wasn’t far away. It was less than a five-minute walk.
Before leaving the PC bang, Ian smoked a cigarette, walked a short way down the street, and went into the café. He was about to order his usual iced Americano when Han Yu-na suddenly came to mind, so he ordered a strawberry yogurt smoothie instead.
‘Let’s see how tasty it is.’
A little while later, the drink was ready. He took it and had a sip; it was sweet with a slight sour tang.
“Ugh, way too sweet.”
Objectively, it wasn’t a bad taste, but it just wasn’t Ian’s thing. He sent Han Yu-na a message saying the strawberry yogurt smoothie wasn’t very good, and walked toward the animal hospital while slurping on the straw.
The inside of the animal hospital, which had just opened for business, was packed with pets and their owners. Dogs and cats, and even a few hamsters and birds, were visible.
It looked like going in through the front entrance would be difficult. He readjusted his bag, stood before the back door, and looked up at the sky for a moment.
Then his phone vibrated. He took it out and checked, and a message had come in saying the card had been issued.
Ian immediately opened the back door and went down to the animal hospital basement. The nurse he’d first seen was still sitting there.
“Ah. You’re here. Were you just upstairs?”
“Yeah. More importantly, the card?”
“Here it is.”
The nurse held out a black card toward Ian.
It didn’t look particularly special. Aside from the expiration date being absurdly far off, it looked completely ordinary.
“You can use the card anywhere without any problem. Here’s the passbook and seal as well. I’ll put them in a separate small case and hand them over.”
“What should I do when it expires?”
“You can visit our branch again to renew it, or tell an Indemnity employee. That department only hires experts in all sorts of fields, so they’ll handle just about anything you ask.”
Ian nodded and took the case containing the passbook and seal, then put it in his bag.
“Then that’s it? I don’t need to do anything else?”
“Yes. You can check the money in the passbook directly through the Cartel app.”
“Good. You worked hard.”
“Not at all. Be careful on your way.”
Ian left the bowing nurse behind and stepped out of the animal hospital.
He launched the app and linked the passbook to his account. When he checked, the balance showed a whopping 150 million won.
This meant he wouldn’t have to worry about living expenses for a while. He could slowly save up more, buy all sorts of things, or start preparing to move.
Maybe because it was the first time he’d ever handled more than 100 million won, he didn’t feel especially happy or as if it were real. He figured he’d probably only really feel it once he started spending it and there was still money left.
Whatever the case, it wasn’t a bad thing. Ian smiled faintly and sat in the smoking area in the parking lot, smoking a cigarette. It was his last one.
“Hoo…….”
He ground the finished cigarette out in the ashtray and threw it away.
He went outside and checked the time.
The time was now just past noon.
He didn’t have any major plans right now, so there wasn’t much to do even if he went back. At most, it would just be studying the grimoire, reading the community forum, or looking up urban-legend files.
They were things he did need to do, but there was no need to start them right now. It wouldn’t be too late to take care of one thing first and then move on.
Since he didn’t intend to waste time, it seemed best to find something suitable to do.
‘What should I do?’
Ian walked along the street for a moment, thinking, then made up his mind after seeing the fish trapped in the tank at a sashimi restaurant.
‘I should test the Deep-Sea Travelogue’s magic.’
Just as he had used Hand of Re-Creation alchemy immediately after becoming a mage, now it was time to test the abilities of his second grimoire.
The Deep-Sea Travelogue’s main magic was summoning. More specifically, it was magic that summoned and commanded creatures directly created by an Outer God. Even if it couldn’t show the broad versatility and usefulness of Hand of Re-Creation, it would certainly be specialized in killing and tearing things apart.
‘I can’t summon a strong creature from the very start. I don’t have any mystical organs, and I haven’t stored any blood in advance.’
The cost of summoning was the flesh of aberrations and the summoner’s blood. To summon a powerful creature, he’d need large amounts of both materials prepared in advance. But Ian didn’t have either of them on hand.
So there was no choice but to summon the weakest one first.
Still, that wasn’t bad.
‘If I check the lowest end, I can get a rough idea of the others’ scale too. Better this than summoning some hulking brute from the start and putting myself in danger.’
Ian didn’t know just how powerful a strong summon could be. But as a creature directly created by an Outer God, it definitely wouldn’t be ordinary.
There was no need to gamble by trying it out now just to satisfy his curiosity. This was the time to test the weak ones first.
After sorting out his thoughts, Ian went into the parking lot, sat on a nearby bench, and launched the Cartel app. He immediately started looking for a simple request he could handle nearby.
Luckily, there were a few decent requests available. The pay was low, but they were nothing Ian couldn’t handle at the moment.
He clicked one of them to take a look.
[Eliminate 3 ghouls.]
[The location is a small cave in the back mountain. They were originally human, but after a vampire sucked their blood, they turned into hiker ghouls. Please deal with them and bring back their blood.]
[Reward: 3,000,000 won.]
Three ghouls.
They were beings capable of tearing most humans apart whole, but Ian could tear them apart in return. If Ian put his hand on them and told them to split in half and die, they’d have no choice but to die that way.
Anyway.
They were more than enough opponents to test a basic summoning spell. Since ghouls couldn’t move during the day, they’d be trapped quietly in the cave, making them easy to find.
More importantly, as long as he wore the enchanted coat, a ghoul stripped of reason and living only by instinct couldn’t even see Ian. They’d have to rely on smell and hearing to locate him, and that brief window would be enough for him to react.
“Good, let’s go.”
Once he’d made up his mind, there was no reason to hesitate. Quietly, without anyone noticing, Ian summoned the grimoire and slipped it into the grimoire pocket inside his coat.
The black-covered Deep-Sea Travelogue vibrated happily and clung to his chest.
[……Humm.]
The other grimoire in his bag let out a disgruntled protest, but Ian paid it no mind.