Chapter 132
It was only natural that Choa’s family was wealthy.
Choa’s mother was healer Yoo Sunyoung, on the Union Guild’s main raiding team—the same team as Kim Hyeok-seon.
She wasn’t just some plus-or-minus healer; she was the kind who bumps you up a whole grade. And even among A-ranks, her mana output was top-tier. On top of that, her specialty was the single-target, ultra-powerful healing considered the best among healers.
Huh? You might think wide-area multi-target healing is better, but reality isn’t like a game—when you get hit, your HP doesn’t drop from 100 to 20; your arms and legs start falling off one by one.
In games, there are even berserkers whose damage goes up as their current HP gets lower, but in reality, the lower your health gets, the more the bleed DoT keeps ticking. Of course, you can’t keep fighting.
As the range gets wider and the number of targets increases, it’s only natural that the single-target heal amount drops. Besides, unlike in games, monsters aren’t using huge AoE attacks; if you properly heal just one tank, that’s enough. So do you have to hold a tank down for dozens of minutes? Not at all—you just heal one person, then heal another.
Rather than slowly topping off the whole raiding team with 10 + 10 + 10, it’s best to immediately heal one person by 100, then another by 100.
A major operation that would require the world’s best surgeons to spend hours on a patient can be finished with a flick of mana, leaving no trace or side effects. Of course there’s a private-practice fee attached, but every time she treats someone in critical condition, the money keeps pouring in.
Did they say conglomerate chairmen even get regular whole-body healing when they’re perfectly fine? Anyway, when it comes to making money, there’s no bigger privileged elite than a healer.
Yoo Sunyoung is that kind of talent. From a company’s point of view—even one that owns an insanely expensive building—having a healer stationed in its largest building who can handle the workload of dozens of specialist surgeons? That’s just ridiculously good.
“I see…. So Choa was super rich….”
“My mom’s the rich one. Why would I be rich?”
“I-I guess….”
The ten-million-won treatment fee Choa mentioned at the start of the semester was actually incredibly cost-effective.
But the problem was—was my family that rich too?? Sure, Ophelia makes a ton of money, but I wasn’t sure if we could afford a place where a single house was 200 pyeong.
They did say we’d been making a lot of money lately….
“How much does a house like this cost..?”
“Maybe around three or four hundred million won.”
“R-rent..?”
“The sale price. Of course it’s in the hundreds of millions, what are you talking about.”
“Hwaaack….”
By my standards, even three or four hundred million won in monthly rent is honestly ridiculous, okay?? But the house price is several hundred billion won each?? People must really be loaded—how do they even live in places like that.
I can’t even imagine how much I could spend on games with that money. Wouldn’t I still not be able to spend it all even if I played games my whole life? That’s insane….
“That’s strange. There probably weren’t even many listings. How did they even close the deal.”
“I don’t really know about that…. Hehe.”
The house I’m living in now is already huge and comfortable, but a house five times bigger than this? And it even says duplex, so does that mean it has stairs inside and a second floor, like the rich houses you see in movies?
I’m not really the type to brag, but this is kind of ridiculously amazing, isn’t it? Apparently, only the top 0.00001 percent in Korea can live in a place like this. I can’t believe I’ve already become one of them!!
Heehee.
As expected, I’m the best.
* * * * *
“But why are we suddenly moving?”
“The reasons are complex, but the top priority is safety and security. In general, high-end residential spaces tend to have good privacy protection, so they can also stay fairly safe from gate-related danger.”
“Ohh, I see.”
Basically, mana doesn’t gather well in midair. Unlike its mysterious image, mana particles floating in the air are surprisingly affected by gravity and tend to flow along the ground.
So apparently, if you’re only about 400 meters above the ground, it’s already hard for one to appear. I learned that in school.
Coming home after walking back from school with Ophelia felt strange. It had only been about four months, but I’d just barely started to get attached, and now we’re already moving.
“Daengdaeng, what do you think? Does the new house seem nice?”
ㅡBeep-beep!!
“A room just for you? There’s no such thing…. Why would you need a room?”
ㅡBeep-beep..!! Beep, beep!!
“Is that so..? Do animals even have privacy..?”
“Unfortunately, it looks like Daengdaeng won’t have a room of its own.”
ㅡBeep?!
“That’s what they say?”
ㅡBeep-beep….
But if the house is this huge, finding Daengdaeng inside it would be a job in itself. I guess if I just call its name or use the Summon skill, it would come, but besides, Daengdaeng already sleeps with me anyway.
“And I plan to add a few more maids.”
“M-maids..!?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Which means…. Ophelia’s going to be too busy to look after me now..?”
Come to think of it, Ophelia really did have too much work. There were a lot of things she had to handle in person, like going out to sign contracts, and on top of that, taking me to and from school took a ton of time.
She also said she worked with foreign companies at night to match overseas time zones, and before I went to school, she had to stay home because of me. While I was at school, she said she’d been working hard on all the work she couldn’t get to before….
So it would definitely be good if Ophelia had more time, but….
“Uu…. Ophelia….”
“It seems Princess has misunderstood. That is not the case at all.”
“Huh..?”
“Rather, I merely thought we needed a new maid so I could watch over you more closely.”
“I-Is that so..?”
“I am, after all, the head maid and your personal maid. Though I have neglected that role because I had so much outside work, my true duty is handling matters for you personally. More importantly, even if only on the surface, for someone of my rank inside the company to be going around handling external business personally would, from an outsider’s perspective, be rather inappropriate.”
“Gasp..!”
Come to think of it, yeah. Eve Project is in Ophelia’s name in place of me, who isn’t legally an adult yet, but if the boss herself were the one going around writing contracts and stamping them, the company might look a little weak.
“Of course it’s not like the company representative never goes out in person... I just mean that generally.”
It’s not that Ophelia is leaving me with the other maids and going out to work; she’s handing the outside work off to the other maids so she can take good care of me.
“I see…. I feel completely relieved now. Hehe.”
“I’m glad you’re relieved, Princess.”
Now there really are going to be tons of maids. But there was one thing I was curious about.
“Ophelia, Choa said…. that even if you had money, you couldn’t buy this house because there were no listings. How did we get it?”
“Actually, there was one tenant whose finances were in very bad shape.”
“What the heck, how did someone living in a place like this end up broke?”
“It was Kim Man-hyeok, the founder of the Orders Guild.”
“Ah.”
The Orders Guild went under, huh. Makes sense.
* * * * *
“Hmmm…. Is this enough?”
“Yes. Since they won’t be used in combat, just being fast at processing is enough.”
“Hee.”
A few days later, the materials Ophelia had mentioned for making the new maids were ready. As for rare metal, we used a slightly cheaper, softer kind that didn’t really care about hardness or anything like that.
Instead, we put in a little more equipment than usual—latest-model desktops, smartphones, and other devices for computation—and a bit more magic stone than usual.
The total is 25 kg of low-grade rare metal and 240 grams of high-grade magic stone. Since the soldier golems used 30 kg of mid-grade rare metal and 120 grams of high-grade magic stone, this uses twice as much magic stone alone.
Well, even expensive things like inkjet printers and computer towers are dirt cheap compared to the rare metal and high-grade magic stone, so they don’t have much impact.
The total number is five, and all of them will be assigned to Ophelia’s unit. Unit...? That feels a little weird, but Ophelia is the head maid, after all. Which means Ophelia is the boss, too.
“Come to think of it, something huge is going on in the smithy too?”
“Kwahahah! If you want speed, you need at least this much more!”
“Ooooh..!”
A few soldier golems had been summoned in the smithy and were busily tinkering with the facilities. The house-fairy golems were helping out enthusiastically from the side, and containers and boxes that looked like they were wrapped for shipping were piled up in one corner.
“Those over there are the commercial rare metal we’re sending to our overseas partner companies.”
“Hee, is the stuff used here worse than that?”
“Not at all. The rare metal used to make the maids is low-grade, but it’s still a better material than the commercial stuff.”
“I see….”
With this much difference in technology, isn’t this basically a huge jackpot? Something our side treats as low-grade is better than a product they can’t get enough of over there. It really makes me realize how amazing Grandpa’s metallurgy was.
“Then I’ll begin!”
“Yes, understood.”
Five neatly arranged sets of maid materials.
“W-wait…. The maids aren’t included in the 100, right..?”
“They count.”
“Ah.”
Oh my God. It went up again.
“Hoo, but it can’t be helped..! Maids! Respond to the Princess’s summons ㅡ !!”
ㅡWhoooosh
It took quite a bit more mana than I expected. By feel, it seemed like about 1.5 times what it took to make five soldier golems? My mana capacity had increased and my efficiency had improved too, so if it feels this much, wouldn’t the actual difference be more than double?
The five sets of materials went shush-shush, crunch-crunch. The machines themselves also clattered and twisted into new forms this way and that, then popped into existence in a blue shimmer.
I had set the magic stone amount to the minimum required to maintain a human shape from the outside, so….
ㅡFlaaash!
“Eep.”
When I opened my eyes, which I had squeezed shut for a moment, five maids were standing in front of me.
“It’s an honor to serve you again, Princess.”
“H-hello!!”
ㅡBow….
The maids bowed at a stiff 90 degrees. They all looked so kind that it felt like if I complained and threw a tantrum about being tired, they’d even let me skip bathing for a day…. And if I spent 100,000 won on games, they probably wouldn’t ask, “Princess? What is this purchase history?”….
‘Hmm.’
Then what about Ophelia..?
“What is it, Princess?”
“N-no, it’s nothing.”
“Hmm….”