Chapter 173
“Perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed are all top-tier.”
“As expected!”
So I really was a genius.
A fact I’d always thought over by myself, time and again.
But being recognized by numbers like this felt strangely moving.
“However, in terms of verbal comprehension, you were below average. Vocabulary and common sense, especially, are very low.”
“Eh.”
But at the doctor’s next words, I panicked and could only stammer.
Me, lacking common sense? No way.
Do you know how much random knowledge I’d picked up while browsing the gallery?
That test had to be wrong.
My common sense and the common sense the test wanted were just different.
“In cases like this, childhood usually has a big influence. Maybe you hardly read, or maybe you didn’t talk much....”
“Ah, no.”
“It’s okay. You can just do more from now on.”
Eun Mirae suddenly patted my head gently.
It was definitely a pointless misunderstanding.
I steadied my dizzying mind and waited for the doctor to continue.
“And as for the psychological test.... These results are a little strange. You answered honestly, without lying, right?”
“Yes.”
“However, the test reliability came out extremely low.”
The doctor flipped through the paper and pointed at a graph.
“This kind of shape usually appears when someone deliberately picks the model answers, you know?”
“Um.... No, I didn’t....”
But I swear I hadn’t done that.
At the very least, I had taken this test very seriously.
“Maybe it’s because there’s something wrong with my mind right now. I encountered monsters like that in the Tower....”
“You were a Hunter? You look awfully young for one.... Anyway, that would explain it.”
The doctor looked skeptical at me saying I was a Hunter.
But since Eun Mirae, acting as my guardian, didn’t deny it, the doctor seemed to just accept it for now.
“You could call it a forcibly induced state of extreme calm. You aren’t showing even the minimum anxiety or stress response a normal human would feel.”
“Could that be why the gallery stopped being fun for me?”
“I’m sorry, but what is the gallery?”
“?”
The moment I heard that answer, I felt the doctor’s credibility in front of me plummet.
There might be people who don’t use the gallery, but could there really be anyone who didn’t know it?
No, that’s impossible. He was definitely lying.
“Come on, you don’t know Hunter Gallery? It’s super famous.... These days, even broadcast TV uses slang made on the gallery. No way you wouldn’t know.”
“It’s just a community site.”
“Ah.”
That was when I was about to use my 160 IQ to point out the doctor’s logical flaw and expose the lie.
Eun Mirae cut me off and stepped in.
The doctor nodded and wrote something down on the paper.
“I understand all of it. Right now, you’re in a very strong, forcibly induced dopamine detox state. Your body no longer responds to immediate, stimulating pleasure.”
“Is that bad?”
“Hmm? I think it’s fine. Anyway, your current mental state is at a level you’d only see in a monk. You could say you’re halfway to enlightenment. I’m actually jealous.”
“B-but studying feels fun. Is that normal?”
“Isn’t that normal to begin with?”
“So ordinary.”
No, there was no way.
Maybe because these people were all highly educated, but something about them felt off.
Could it be that it’s not me who’s crazy, but the world?
“How about you start studying? You’re that smart—it’d be a waste.”
Eun Mirae said, as if it were nothing.
But it seemed like she was secretly hoping I’d do that.
The look a professor gives when recruiting grad students.
“You could do research instead of being a Hunter too. It doesn’t pay much, but it’s safe, fun....”
“Nah, it doesn’t suit me.”
“Research isn’t all sitting around bored. There are experimental labs, and especially these days, when Hunter research is booming, experiments are even more in demand....”
“I’m already getting dizzy....”
I answered like that and got to my feet.
The test was done, so it was about time to leave.
Eun Mirae escorted me out of the research institute.
She wore a smile that was almost too faint to see.
“You really are different from usual.”
“In what way?”
“Normally, you’d already have posted proof of your test results on the gallery.”
“… It really is, huh?”
I really didn’t feel any urge at all.
An extremely calm state of mind.
“Anyway, thanks for today. Come by again. Don’t worry too much.”
After waving goodbye to Eun Mirae, I used magic to propel myself along the ground and headed back to Daejeon.
Before I knew it, the sun was setting. By the time I got home, it’d be time to sleep right away.
“Anyway, one thing’s certain.”
There’s definitely something wrong with my head right now.
Though I wasn’t sure whether being forced to become healthy could really be called a problem.
“The cause is probably that, right?”
Reward for clearing the 49th floor.
A temporary, powerful buff that grants resistance to mental contamination.
It was obvious this was lifting my mental state into a transcendent realm.
“Yeah, let’s think of it positively.”
Maybe this was a good chance to try living a proper, productive life.
Study, exercise, and get out more to meet people.
I headed home, forcing myself to think positively.
“Sleepy....”
Even after I got home, the odd state of my mind was still the same.
If I were normal, I’d probably have stayed up late scrolling my phone until dawn.
But today was different.
As soon as 11 rolled around, sleepiness came crashing down.
And since I didn’t really feel like watching short-form videos, there was no need to force myself to stay up late.
I lay down on the bed and naturally closed my eyes.
My consciousness cut off there.
It was a deeply comfortable sleep, without even a dream.
***
7:00 a.m.
My eyes snapped open even though I hadn’t set an alarm.
“My goodness.”
It really felt like I’d become a whole new person.
Even my body didn’t feel heavy.
Normally, I’d have crawled back under the blankets in this cold weather.
But today my body was overflowing with energy. It felt like I could do anything.
“Should I try jogging?”
For some reason, I suddenly wanted to move my body today.
Just sitting still made my body ache.
I changed into some workout clothes and stepped outside.
“Brr, cold.”
I breathed in the cold, refreshing air.
I ran a big lap around the Tower.
After a while, my body quickly grew hot.
I hadn’t exercised even once since getting this body.
Normally, I should have collapsed after running only a short distance.
But maybe thanks to the stat bonus, my exercise performance was excellent.
Running at an ordinary pace didn’t even leave me out of breath or sweating.
“This is more pleasant than I expected.”
It didn’t really seem like exercise, but it felt good.
Just looking at the scenery while running felt like it was refreshing my brain.
Peace of mind washed over me as I took in nature.
I was in the middle of a run.
I spotted another runner up ahead.
A man was running, gasping for breath.
He looked strangely familiar.
“Mr. Jung Manho?”
“Huff.... Huff.... Huh? Hanbyeol?”
Glad to see him, I sped up, caught up to him in an instant, and moved up beside him.
Jung Manho’s eyes widened when he spotted me.
We greeted each other without stopping.
“What brings you out here?”
“I started jogging today. I’m more surprised that you’re exercising, though.”
If it were Jung Manho, wouldn’t he even take a car just to go to the supermarket in front of his house?
It felt very out of place to see him running first thing in the morning.
“Hey! I may look like this, but I’m someone who trains every day! ... To be honest, though, I only started not long ago.”
“How long has it been?”
“About a month?”
“You’ve been at it a while. But why did you start all of a sudden?”
“Well, it’s a new year and all....”
Anyone could tell he was just brushing it off.
I thought back to when the month he mentioned would have been.
“Ah.”
I quickly figured out the reason he was trying to hide.
A month ago was when I cleared the 45th floor and revealed my identity to Jung Manho.
“Heh.”
“Why are you smiling at my face like that?”
“It’s nothing.”
I remembered what had happened then.
Jung Manho shouting that a child shouldn’t be climbing the Tower.
What had I replied then?
Right. I’d asked if he was going to climb it for me instead.
Jung Manho had said he would gladly do it.
Even though he was scared stiff.
Looks like that wasn’t just a temporary bluff after all.
So he’d been training every morning like this.
“What about you? What wind blew you into this? And you’re a mage, too.”
“Running just feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Hmm, that’s true.”
Jung Manho grinned and handed me a water bottle.
“Drink while you go. You’ll get dehydrated.”
“I don’t even sweat, though.”
“Ah, I see. So you’re just running, then?”
Jung Manho said as if he’d just figured it out.
He stopped running for a moment and folded his arms.
Jung Manho started lecturing, as if teaching a beginner.
“Hunters don’t get any exercise just from running. That’s even more true for someone with your build.”
“Then what should I do?”
“You should wear special sandbags like this. The ones I’ve got on now are almost 100 kilograms.”
Jung Manho rolled up his pant leg and showed the sandbags strapped to his ankles with a grin.
“Sandbags, huh....”
It seemed like a good method. I flicked my finger, and sand rose from the ground, clumped together, and wrapped around my ankles.
“It didn’t feel all that heavy.”
No matter how much sand I added to my ankles, it didn’t feel heavy.
At this rate, I felt like I’d end up unable to walk not because of the weight, but because of the bulk.
I gathered the sand into a ball and held it with both hands.
But no matter how much sand I piled on, I couldn’t feel the weight.
It was only when I’d finally piled up enough sand on top of my head to amount to a truckload that...
“… What the—”
I heard Jung Manho suck in a breath beside me.
“I guess this method isn’t for me.”
“Just how strong are you?”
“I think it’s more that I can’t feel the weight of the sand than anything else....”
Come to think of it, inside the Tower I sometimes handled even larger amounts of sand with ease.
It would be strange not to be able to lift this now.
This had little to do with physical specs. It was more a matter of constitution.
“Hmm.... Then you should go to a Hunter-only training center. Daejeon’s facilities aren’t very good, so you should definitely go to Seoul.”
“You should have invested in the facilities, then.”
“Now you’re Daejeon’s top dog, so you should invest.”
“Should I really?”
“Make Daejeon great again?”
It seemed like a pretty good idea. Though I didn’t think Daejeon had ever been great at any point in Korean history.
“Well, even if it doesn’t turn into training, I’ll probably keep running. It feels better than I expected.”
“You know your stuff, huh? Morning exercise feels great. I come out at this time every day, so you’ll probably see me around.”
Jung Manho flashed an energetic smile.
He was only a month in, but the way he talked made him sound like someone who’d been exercising for years.
I smiled lightly and kept running.
***
After finishing my workout with Jung Manho, I came back and took a shower.
I hadn’t even broken a sweat, but the feeling still mattered.
A freshness I’d never felt before washed over my whole body.
To think I had gone on living without this. It felt like I’d lost half my life.
The black mage looked at me with a strange expression, as if seeing something odd.
[The sun will rise in the west. If that worm saw this, it would be so moved it might cry.]
“Ah, I should resummon the Sand Worm too.”
Conveniently, the 24-hour cooldown was almost up.
While waiting for the cooldown, I started meditating.
Meditation was something I usually only did for special occasions, except when I first awakened as a mage.
I sat cross-legged and closed my eyes.
Inhale, exhale.
Focusing on my breathing, I sank into my inner world.
“Huh?”
When I came to myself, there was a desert before me.
I could also see an oasis and a sand giant seated on a massive throne.
It was a landscape I had now become quite familiar with.
It had been a long time since I’d been in my inner world.
That meant I was in an extreme state of concentration.
“I hadn’t meant to come this deep.”
With nothing else to do, I wandered the desert blankly for a while.
There were still no stray thoughts in my head.
I simply felt the sunlight and the grains of sand digging into my bare feet.
It was a strange feeling.
Come to think of it, this was the first time I’d been this calm here.
Suddenly, I got curious what would happen if I started meditating again here.
Leaning against the shadow beside the sand giant, I began meditating.
With the concentration buff I had now, I sank into it in no time.
An inner world within the inner world.
Could such a thing exist?
Just as I kept my focus for a long while, my vision went black, and I felt my body sink down into somewhere deeper.
“There really is somewhere deeper...?”
It was just when I tried to open my eyes and search my surroundings.
「Not yet.」
My body jerked upright as if waking from sleep.
My consciousness returned to reality in an instant.
I blinked blankly for a moment.
“What just happened?”