Chapter 104
The moment I got home, I threw myself onto the sofa.
Maybe it was because the battle with the black mage had been so mentally draining.
My body felt heavier than usual.
“Ugh….”
I let out a long sigh and stretched.
This wasn't like the fights before, where I just bludgeoned my way through with brute force.
It was my first fight against a being with real intelligence.
I won in the end, but I never let my guard down.
“Shall I get to work?”
After resting for a bit,
I dumped everything I'd obtained this time onto the living room floor.
Time to sort through the loot.
“Let's sort out the flags first.”
The first thing that caught my eye was the flag from Floor 40's reward.
One original and four copies. Five flags in total.
I left one at the temple, so that meant I had four left.
Where would be the most efficient place to use these?
I fell into thought for a moment.
“First, I should keep one at our house.”
I absolutely had to place one at home.
Being able to return home instantly anytime, anywhere was a tremendous advantage.
I went down to the basement and planted the original flag.
A faint light flashed from the flag and vanished.
“That leaves three….”
At first, I thought about planting them in Seoul or some other city in Korea.
But I shook my head and tossed that idea aside.
“It wouldn't mean much, would it?”
If I ever had to go to Seoul, I could just travel there with magic.
Or ask the old man for a ride.
There was no need to waste precious faith and items just to save a little time.
It might at least be useful in an overseas city.
“What reason would I even have to go overseas?”
I'd never once set foot on foreign soil.
I couldn't think of any overseas place worth visiting often.
“They're all better off being placed inside the tower.”
What would happen if I planted this flag in a key location inside the tower?
For example, the mines around the thirtieth floor where the dwarves lived.
That place was packed with all kinds of rare ores.
If I planted a flag there, I could drop by whenever I wanted, mine as much ore as I needed, and leave.
This was definitely an item I needed to use sparingly.
“I’m glad I left one on Floor 40 after all.”
I suddenly felt ridiculously proud of my past self for tossing Sharon a flag right before getting kicked out of the tower.
To pull off that kind of quick thinking in that situation? Am I a genius or what?
Floor 40 wasn't a place with resources.
But it was my first steady source of faith.
I had to visit periodically and harvest the faith Sharon had collected.
Once I got that far, I decided to test it while I was at it.
Could I really move freely within the tower?
I grabbed one of the flags and tried using it.
[Please select the coordinates to move to.]
Two images appeared before my eyes.
One of the Floor 40 temple, and one of our house.
Without hesitation, I selected the Floor 40 temple.
[Faith will be consumed to move to the selected coordinates.]
With the sensation of energy draining from my body, the scenery around me changed in an instant.
A fierce wind slapped my face.
“Huh?”
Looking down, I saw a dizzying view of the temple spread out far below.
I had told Sharon to plant it where it would be most visible, and she'd apparently stuck it at the very highest point of the temple.
“Kyaa!”
My legs gave out.
My mind went blank at the sight of that terrifying height.
I screamed and stumbled backward from the edge.
“I need to get down fast….”
But when I looked around, there wasn't anything like stairs.
I couldn't figure out how anyone had gotten up here to hang the flag.
So I simply broke off a chunk of temple stone and made a foothold.
In no time, I'd created my own personal elevator.
“I guess I should just tell them to keep the flag inside….”
Sharon came rushing over, startled by my loud and sudden appearance.
“Who in the world… Sage? You're back already?”
“Ah, I just stopped by while passing through. I'm heading back right away.”
I tried to act nonchalant and caught my breath.
I didn't plan to stay long.
The feature check was done.
After giving her a quick greeting, I used the flag again.
This time, I chose my home.
Once again, a familiar sensation wrapped around my body, and when I opened my eyes, I was back in our basement.
“Success. I should be able to make an emergency escape even inside the tower.”
As expected, it really was an item that let me move freely even inside the tower.
It was a massive haul.
There was just one thing that bothered me.
The faith cost.
“It's not as fuel-efficient as I thought.”
At this rate, moving every day would be impossible.
I did the math for a moment.
The faith I gained from visiting the temple had to exceed the cost of moving there.
“Let's visit again in a month for now.”
I nodded in satisfaction.
I turned my attention to the next item.
The black mage's legacy.
A skull-shaped wand and a black robe.
Each was an item that boosted black magic power and let the wearer use necromancy.
“As expected, I have no use for them right now.”
I decided to store both items for now and set them aside.
“This one is the problem….”
Now only the final piece of loot remained.
I shifted my gaze to the gourd-shaped flask on the table.
Inside it was the Floor 40 boss—the black mage extract.
This one was definitely strong.
But in my battle with it, it had fallen pathetically before it could even show its true strength.
That was because I was just too good.
“How was it supposed to know I'd copy its spell?”
That large-scale summon-dispelling spell it used at the beginning had already been threatening enough.
If Sandworm and the barrier hadn't each blocked one attack, the outcome might have been different.
How should I deal with this dangerous thing?
If it were up to me, I'd send it off to the afterlife right this second.
But there was one reason I couldn't bear to get rid of it and had kept it alive.
Gates.
The scroll it had was the key to closing gates inside the tower.
If I figured out the principle and could even close real-world gates?
The world would literally be turned upside down.
A change close to a revolution would take place.
I thought for a moment, then turned on the computer and logged into Hunter Gallery.
I figured it wouldn't hurt to see what people thought.
I wrote a post with practiced ease.
[Title: What happens if we figure out how to close gates?]
[Author: ㅇㅇ(555.555)
[Content: If someone discovered this, could they win a Nobel Prize?]
ㄴ How the hell are you supposed to close a gate, idiot? Does that even make sense?
ㄴ (Author) No, I'm just saying let's imagine it.
ㄴ Why imagine something impossible? Are you an idiot?
“What the hell is wrong with this guy….”
I instantly felt a surge of anger.
What are the mods even doing? Why aren't they banning this troll?
I can't believe the gallery's standards have fallen this low.
When I was a mod, there wasn't trolling like this.
These days, the mods aren't managing the gallery at all—they're just posting pointless junk, which is truly lamentable.
I kept reading the next comments.
ㄴ If we could close them, wouldn't North Korea just become ours???
ㄴ Could we take all the land where gates have opened?
ㄴ (waving Taegeukgi emote)
ㄴ At that point, it'd be less about getting a Nobel Prize and more about creating a whole new award.
ㄴ Governments around the world would probably be fighting over who gets to recruit you.
ㄴ But would it even work?
ㄴ For real, no way.
ㄴ It could be done. But that method isn't coming out in Korea lol.
ㄴㄴ Exactly.
After reading the comments, I came to a conclusion.
As expected, this was information I absolutely had to uncover.
I made up my mind and opened an online shopping site.
I needed supplies to properly tame the black mage.
I bought one centrifuge and one high-speed blender.
I planned to test them one by one and see which one worked better.
Since they offered rocket delivery, they'd arrive tomorrow.
“Come to think of it, are there even black mages among hunters?”
After finishing the payment, a question suddenly occurred to me.
Since I was thinking about it anyway, I decided to look into the black mage class too.
I posted another question in Hunter Gallery about the black mage class.
[Has anyone ever seen a black mage among hunters???]
ㄴ That bearded YouTuber who laughs all the time?
ㄴ I saw one; he took 2 damage and drew 1 card.
“Seriously, everyone just wants to make jokes and nobody's actually helpful.”
I clicked my tongue and moved to a more high-level community.
A gallery where only A-rank hunters and their team members were active.
There, I could at least get some proper information.
ㄴ Black mages really are rare. Probably even fewer than ordinary mages?
ㄴ (OP) Then it's a rare class? That's a good thing, right?
ㄴ Not really. Their skill set isn't that great for hunting monsters.
ㄴ Yeah. Supposedly it's only good for PvP. I haven't actually seen one myself either.
ㄴ I heard that if you see a black mage overseas, you're supposed to run.
ㄴ Why??
ㄴ Because they're state-trained agents meant to take out other hunters.
“What kind of garbage class is this?”
We awakened them to fight monsters, and it's a class specialized in taking out people?
Can a troll class like this even be allowed to exist?
I shook my head and scrolled down.
Then I found one interesting piece of information.
ㄴThen are there no S-rank black mages? Are they all assassins?
It was an answer to someone's question.
ㄴ There's one necromancer. An S-rank one, yeah.
Necromancer. A mage who controls the dead.
It was also one of the options attached to the robe that was now mine.
I quietly filed that fact away in my head.
Because I might run into them someday.
I was curious what that person would think if they saw my items and the black-mage goo.
“…?”
Just as I was organizing my thoughts,
I felt Chohogi move beside me.
Pretending to have no interest at all, it had already crept over to the table while keeping its gaze on some random spot.
Anyone could see that it was clearly watching my reaction.
‘What is it sneaking around for like that?’
No way I was going to lose.
I pretended to be looking at the gallery too, while covertly keeping an eye on what it was doing.
Chohogi kept glancing at me nervously.
Before long, it looked relieved and quickly stretched its sand arm toward the black robe.
“Hey!”
I knew it.
At my firm voice, Chohogi froze in place.
It slowly turned to look at me with a face that seemed to say, ‘I didn't do anything.’
If it thought I'd fall for a lie from that round face, it was sorely mistaken.
“You were about to put it on.”
Chohogi shook its head from side to side instead of answering.
But its gaze was still fixed on the robe.
That thing. Now that its intelligence had grown, it had only gotten sneakier.
“No. That's dangerous.”
I said firmly.
If I gave that to it, who knew what kind of trouble it would cause.
What if it suddenly revived the chicken bones I'd eaten and thrown away last night?
Just imagining it was horrifying.
Nothing but chicken bones running around the living room.
Absolutely not.
I stood up and picked up the robe and wand.
I could feel Chohogi's disappointed stare, but I ignored it.
Items this dangerous had to be kept somewhere out of its reach.
“It wouldn't even fit in the first place.”
I went into my room and rummaged through the depths of my closet.
I pulled out a box containing the magical girl belt and wand set.
I packed the items into the box with the belt and placed it on the very top, out of Chohogi's reach.
“Now I can relax a little.”
And with that, the investigation and item sorting were over.
Before long, I had nothing else to do.
I flopped onto the sofa and brought up the system window.
[Sandworm]
[Status: Unsummoned (22 hours 58 minutes remaining until resummon.)]
There was still almost a full day left.
It was the lingering effect of being forcibly unsummoned during the fight with the black mage.
“I miss our Wormy….”
I muttered in an intentionally sad voice.
I was bored, so maybe I should make a memorial video for Sandworm and upload it to the gallery.
I thought it'd be funny to bait people with a title like, 'My precious Sandworm has crossed the rainbow bridge…'
I picked up my phone and looked for videos of Sandworm while it was still alive.
“Huh, there isn't a single one?”
No matter how much I searched through my phone gallery, there wasn't a single photo or video of Sandworm.
Come to think of it, I'd never once thought to take a picture of it.
The only video I had was the Floor 40 battle footage I had just gotten from Sharon.
Even in that video, Sandworm swallowed the black mage the moment it appeared, and in the very next shot it was caught in a powerful shockwave and vanished without even a scream.
To think this was its only video record.
“I should've treated it better while it was alive….”
My nose tingled as I felt a pointless pang of sadness.
Of course, I'd see it again tomorrow, but somehow I still felt guilty.
This wasn't just a Sandworm problem.
Chohogi was the same.
We'd been together quite a while, but the only footage I had was battle footage.
“I should really reflect on myself.”
I resolved to start taking plenty of photos of Chohogi and Sandworm whenever I could.
Maybe I'll make them an album later.
I had no choice but to put the memorial video on hold.
Instead, I opened Mage Gallery.
I was planning to share the results of this Floor 40 clear.
The battle video Sharon had taken was a great bragging point in itself.
If I told them how I'd taken down that black mage who bragged about being a self-proclaimed Archmage of the Ninth Circle, they'd all be amazed.
I opened the gallery screen with confidence.
“Hm?”
I was just about to press the write button to make a new post.
A new post at the very top caught my eye.
[Title: Broke through a new floor with the shield a newbie sent me.]
[Author: MagicIsFirepower]
MagicIsFirepower was Jung Taeyeon.
Looks like she'd already posted a review of the shield.
I forgot all about writing my own post and clicked on it as if enchanted.