Chapter 99
I came out of the tower and realized something was seriously wrong.
As the light faded and the downtown Daejeon cityscape spread out before my eyes, everything looked just as it always did.
Rumble!
But right after that, the ground rumbled.
The floor shook as if an earthquake had struck.
I immediately found the cause.
“…We’re screwed.”
The one that should have been sitting on my finger like a ring was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, all I could see was a gigantic sandworm filling the plaza in front of the tower entrance.
Sandworm had been summoned right in the middle of Daejeon at its original size.
Rumble!
Every time its massive body wriggled, dust and tremors shook the ground.
A scene of utter disaster.
The city was on the verge of descending into chaos in an instant.
I screamed.
“Why didn’t you shrink yourself?”
Despite my frantic voice, it answered calmly.
[Sandworm says that if it shrinks, everything in its stomach will be digested.]
“What?”
[It says it has to keep this size to preserve the contents.]
“Try shrinking somehow!”
I had thought it was some convenient function like an extra-dimensional pouch, but apparently not.
It was just a giant stomach.
[Sandworm says it will try.]
Right after that, Sandworm’s size shrank.
More accurately, only its head and tail did.
“…A boa constrictor that swallowed an elephant?”
Its belly was bulging out so obviously that you could tell exactly what it had eaten.
I pressed a hand to my forehead.
At this rate, nothing was getting solved.
“We have to clear it away before anyone sees.”
I moved quickly.
Since an earthquake had already happened, people would soon come out to see what was going on.
If this got filmed and uploaded to the internet, leaving my identity aside, South Korea would be thrown into chaos.
“First, the mirage….”
I activated the skill without delay.
The skill most necessary for surviving modern society: Mirage.
The giant monster that had been ravaging the city wavered like a heat haze, then vanished from sight as if it had been a lie.
Of course, I couldn’t keep standing around like this.
There weren’t many Hunters in Daejeon, but what if someone came out for a walk because they were bored?
They could end up bumping into an invisible wall.
I gave Sandworm an order.
“First.... let’s start by pushing the head in.”
Rumble!
Following my command, the now-invisible Sandworm headed into the ground tail-first.
The hard asphalt and concrete crumbled like tofu, and a giant sinkhole formed.
Sandworm sank right in, like poking a hole in the ground with a finger.
In the meantime, there was another small earthquake, but there was no need to worry about casualties.
A few years ago, when a tower suddenly appeared in the middle of the city.
A disaster far beyond anything happening now had unfolded.
Buildings collapsed, underground infrastructure was destroyed. Many people died as well.
Afterward, building safety standards were raised several times over, and the underground around the tower was left as an empty lot.
So there was nothing under here now.
It was a decent place to park Sandworm for a while.
The noisy racket soon died down.
Sandworm hid itself vertically deep underground like a gigantic piece of rebar.
I approached the huge hole and looked down into it.
In the darkness, Sandworm’s giant mouth was waiting for me.
“Haah....”
A deep sigh escaped me.
The real work started now.
“From here on, spit them out one by one.”
I didn’t have the confidence to go in there and retrieve them myself.
If it were lying horizontally as usual, it would just be a cave and fine, but right now it was a vertical shaft.
I couldn’t bring myself to dive into that bottomless pit.
With a gurgling sound, one white bone popped out from its mouth.
“Ridiculously huge.”
Even the smallest bone was as tall as I was.
Fortunately, once I used both my Strength stat and magic, moving the bones wasn’t much trouble.
I carried the bones up to the surface and headed straight home.
“Wow, this is insane.”
Dragon bones that couldn’t even fit through the front door.
With no choice, I threw the bones into the yard.
Then I went back to the tower and repeated the process, taking out one bone after another.
After dozens of round trips, I finally managed to take out and stack all the bones.
“…Should I build a dedicated warehouse?”
A front yard that had turned into a hill.
I hid it with the Mirage skill for now, but living like this long-term was a headache.
“Sigh, I really hope nobody saw it.”
Thanks to the private road I’d built earlier, nobody should have been able to see me moving the bones.
What worried me was the moment Sandworm first appeared.
Just in case, I checked the gallery.
“There aren’t any posts about it in Hunter Gallery?”
Is Daejeon really that short on Hunters?
I headed to the earthquake-specialist gallery.
[Earthquake Gallery]
It wasn’t a place I’d normally ever have any reason to visit, but today was different.
“Ah, as expected, it’s here....”
As soon as I went in, I saw a few posts.
[Did Daejeon just shake a little?]
[Ah, I should’ve quickly taken off my pants and lain face-down on the floor]
[Why is my Simmons bed shaking on its own?]
[My jajangmyeon mixed itself for me, score lol]
Posts from people who had just felt the earthquake.
Fortunately, no one had seen Sandworm directly.
Most were just people who had been a little startled by the sudden quake and opened the gallery.
And since the earthquake itself seemed minor, the tone of the posts was generally light.
“Thank goodness.”
I let out a relieved breath.
At this level, it should just pass as a simple incident.
With that worry out of the way, I immediately started preparing to craft.
First, I checked the level of my crafting skill.
The level had been stuck since the last time I made the prosthetic arm.
“At this level, I should be able to make something pretty useful....”
I fed mana into the Dwarf’s Ring.
I flipped through the thick book containing the blueprints and searched for an item.
Armor that used dragon bones as a material and was of the highest rank I could make.
Soon, I found a suitable one.
[Dragonbone Shield]
[Rank: Unique]
[Materials: Ancient dragon bones, orichalcum alloy, refined mana stone, and 50 other auxiliary materials…]
“Good, this is it.”
A shield that used dragon bones as its main material.
Its rank was also Unique, one step below Legendary.
It couldn’t get any better than this.
Then I contacted the broker.
The various supplementary materials needed to make the shield.
[SsalDaPam: I’ll make sure you can receive them today.]
The reply arrived in less than a minute.
As expected, his work was fast and reliable.
While I was killing time browsing the gallery, the delivery arrived before long.
I moved all the boxes to the basement.
After bringing one suitably large, flat bone from the yard, I took a deep breath.
“Let’s get started.”
I once again infused mana into the ring to activate the mana conversion system.
A function that could replace blacksmithing equipment and the entire forging process with mana.
It was a function the dwarves themselves didn’t use because it consumed too much mana and was hard to control, but for me, who knew nothing about equipment or blacksmithing, it was the perfect option.
Soon, mana took shape and created an illusory forge.
A sturdy anvil and hammer made of blue mana.
I set the bone on the anvil first.
Clang! Clang!
Every time I brought down the mana-made hammer, it sent sparks flying as the shape slowly came together.
Since this was high-grade equipment, it took a bit more hands-on work than when all I had to do was swing a hammer.
Following the guide provided by the blueprint, I used magic to shave and assemble the materials.
In the process, far more mana was consumed than before.
Sweat poured from my forehead like rain, and my concentration was pushed to its limit.
How many hours had passed?
At last, the final stage.
I took out the finishing material and sprinkled it over the shield.
Then I engraved my own emblem, an hourglass, onto the shield.
It absorbed the surrounding mana and began to shine.
[Successfully crafted Dragonbone Shield!]
[Crafting experience increases!]
[Current Level: 11]
As the light faded, the status window announced my success.
At the same time, my crafting level went up too.
“Ugh, I’m dying...”
After checking the status window, I collapsed onto the floor.
My hands were numb.
I had only made one shield, but I felt as drained as if I had fought a boss monster to the death.
“I still need to make at least three, though....”
But I didn’t stop.
I couldn’t just make a single one and sell it.
Besides, I still had plenty of materials left.
I gritted my teeth and picked up the hammer again.
The second shield was much harder than the first.
I could feel my mana gradually running out.
By the time I started making the third shield, my vision had begun to blur.
The hand holding the hammer was trembling.
After barely sprinkling on the final finishing material, I sprawled out on the floor, arms and legs spread wide.
“I can’t, I can’t do any more...”
It felt like every drop of mana in my body had been completely drained.
I couldn’t even twitch a finger.
Breathing hard, I stared blankly at the ceiling. My vision spun.
Heat was rising off my body.
“…Chohogi?”
A cold sensation touched my forehead. It was Chohogi.
It whined and dragged over a block of ice as big as its own body, placing it on my overheated forehead.
“Why didn’t you just make one yourself?”
At that, Chohogi looked away.
It seemed it didn’t want to go through that much trouble.
“Seriously.”
A laugh burst out of me for no reason. I didn’t feel bad at all.
I turned my gaze to the side.
I could see the three shields I had made lined up side by side.
They were obviously top-quality pieces.
I felt proud, but I couldn’t just be happy about it.
“Is this even productive?”
After pouring in all my mana and stamina for half a day, I only got three shields.
Maybe I should rethink the way I sell them.
“I guess I can talk it over with him.”
With that thought as my last, I closed my eyes.
I just wanted to get some sleep right now.
“…?”
Tap, tap.
But the moment I closed my eyes, someone poked my cheek.
There was no need to check who it was.
It was probably Chohogi.
I opened my eyes a sliver.
It pointed upstairs with a finger.
It even mimed lying down in bed.
Because we were mentally linked, even that awkward gesture made it easy to understand what it was trying to say.
“You mean I shouldn’t sleep here and should go to bed?”
I let out a baffled laugh. It was nagging me now?
But I was too tired. I ignored it and closed my eyes again.
However, it kept poking my cheek and tickling the soles of my feet, keeping me from falling asleep.
In the end, I gave up.
“Okay, okay.”
We went up the stairs together and headed for the bedroom.
I threw myself onto the bed.
The soft feel of the blanket washed over my whole body.
From far away, I could see it burying itself in a flowerpot.
Fatigue came flooding in.
I stopped thinking about anything and fell into a deep sleep.
***
Several days passed.
I holed up in the basement and cranked out shields.
Since I was tired, I only made one or two a day.
Before long, ten shields were piled up in one corner of the basement.
I wiped the sweat from my face and looked at the sight with satisfaction.
I had already worked out what to do with them long ago.
I called the broker.
“Let’s go get these items appraised.”
I was more than confident in the quality.