Chapter 9
Yeoul.
A name smaller than a brook.
A name that evokes nature.
And.
“That's a really lovely name.”
A lovely name.
Just as the woman said, Yeoul was a lovely name, right from the way it sounded.
So I chose it without hesitation.
Han Yeoul.
Yeoul of Yeoulrim.
That's my name.
That's who I am.
A new body and a new name. My life from now on would be very different.
Like the rushing current of a stream.
Hmm.
Even I have to admit, it's a good name.
I could write a poem about it.
“Well then, Yeoul. Big sis has to get going. Are you heading home, too?”
“I should.”
Anyway, that was that.
I'd gone out to try my luck at the claw machines, and meeting this woman had made it more fun than I'd expected.
Time to head back and do some research.
I needed to properly study mana stones.
But!
“Aren't you going to tell me your name, big sis?”
Introductions are supposed to go both ways.
I didn't particularly need to know, but it felt like losing if I was the only one who gave my name.
“Oh! I haven't introduced myself, have I? Here~ Take this. This is who I am.”
The woman pointed at herself with her thumb and handed me a business card with her other hand.
The card showed the name Kang Nari and the company name Hi Mana Stone.
‘Nari. Kang Nari. What a pretty name.’
It had a cheerful ring to it.
If we were friends, I probably would've called her by her name casually.
Beneath her name was the title Mana Stone Brokerage Team Leader... Judging by the unfamiliar company name, it seemed like a small business.
“Big Sis Nari, do you trade mana stones?”
“More precisely, I look for clients and negotiate contracts.”
“So you're a salesperson.”
“W-well, yes. But I'm a team leader, at least!”
“How many people are on your team?”
“That's...”
"Don't tell me you're alone?”
“……….”
“Then you're a team leader in name only. The company must be tiny, too. Does the whole company even have five employees?”
“Guh. How does a brat know so much about this?”
“What?”
“N-no, nothing.”
Had she expected a child to see her business card and say something like, Wow, that's so cool!
Well, sure.
An ordinary child might've thought the very idea of a business card was cool. They wouldn't know what it was, but would assume it meant she was important.
That wouldn't work on me at all.
I was a shady adult on the inside, after all.
“Was that why you were playing for mana stones? Because of your job?”
“I just couldn't let go of it...”
“Couldn't let go?”
“N-never mind.”
“Did the company go under?”
“Kehk!…”
Why was that?
She looked like she'd just coughed up blood.
“Were you fired, or did it go under?”
“Th-the latter.”
“When did it go under?”
“About a week ago...”
A week ago.
That was when I'd first met Kang Nari.
Hadn't she been staggering around the street after drinking herself silly that day?
So she had a story behind it.
“Why did the company go under?”
“That's... Ahem! It's bad manners to pry into an adult's business.”
“Ohh.”
“And don't look at me with those pitying eyes!!”
Pity + 1
Sympathy + 1
If emotions had stats, would words like these be appearing?
She seemed that pitiful.
Her company had gone under, and she was unemployed.
“Okay. Still, don't be too discouraged. Here, take these and cheer up.”
Plop.
I took a few of the mana stones I'd won earlier out of my black bag and placed them on her lap.
“No, I don't need something like th—”
“See you again.”
Hop!
I stood up before she could refuse and gave a little jump.
I ran a short distance, then turned back, waved to the flustered woman, and hurried off.
“Ugh… I-I, of all people… getting this kind of sympathy from some little kid?… Sniff.”
She must've been so happy.
Glancing back from afar, I saw tears of joy streaming down her face like a river.
Phew. I hoped that cheered her up a little.
Tap, tap.
I headed home in quick little steps.
Ever since my body changed, I was full of restless energy and kept bouncing around without meaning to.
But that lasted only a moment.
Flinch!
I ran into the rough-looking man I'd seen the first day I went out to play claw machines.
He was keeping an eye on the surroundings by the roadside again today, and his gaze snapped right onto me.
‘What? Why's he glaring at me again...?’
I found myself shrinking back for no reason.
His face was fierce.
His gaze seemed to grow more hostile by the second.
Feeling that I couldn't stay there, I quickened my pace and slipped into an alley.
If I just kept going straight home...
“Hm?”
I stopped for a moment and looked behind me.
I felt like someone had just followed me.
“Am I imagining it?”
I couldn't sense anyone nearby.
I must've been mistaken.
Surely nobody had followed me?
N-no way.
Swish~
I turned back around and headed home.
Fortunately, nothing happened.
*
“Time for the real test, then.”
As soon as I got home, I put the mana stones on the dining table.
My goal was clear.
Processing mana stones.
Selling mana stones.
If possible, I wanted to get a legitimate job as a mana stone processor and earn money properly.
So I was going to cut these mana stones, but...
“First, some practice.”
I couldn't just start carving them haphazardly.
Even if they were cheap, each failure would be a huge loss on Earth because of the increased cost.
Therefore.
Fwoosh!~
I closed my eyes and connected to Yeoulrim.
I arrived deep beneath the sea in Yeoulrim.
“I'm going to make you shine from now on!”
Cheap World Power.
Mana stones in abundance.
In Yeoulrim, as long as I had time, I could carve mana stones as much as I wanted and hone my skills.
[Magnifying visual field to a microscopic level.]
First, I magnified my field of view.
My senses in Yeoulrim were omnipotent.
I could take in the vast ocean at a glance or magnify a tiny detail.
That was the key. I could magnify the mana stones as much as I wanted to see their structure and arrangement.
[Generating repulsion at the desired point.]
Crack.
If I could see it, I could touch it.
I gently applied a little force so the impurities would naturally fall away.
The key was not to use World Power to make mana stone processing happen, but to imitate the way people processed mana stones.
Why?
Because it was cheaper.
Just like the timed avatar I'd made before.
“To carve it into a crystal, I need to structure it so the directions and arrangements fit together.”
Crack.
A fragment fell off.
The impurities fell away from the uneven raw stone, leaving a neatly aligned angular arrangement.
Just as I'd studied, I gradually carved it while envisioning the mana stone's ideal crystal structure.
Super-concentration mode.
[The mana stone has been refined.]
How much time had passed?
After spending about thirty minutes, I succeeded in carving one shining mana stone.
[You can absorb 5pt of World Power.]
The result was more surprising than I'd expected.
It was cheaper and several times more efficient than when I'd processed it haphazardly with World Power.
“It only took 1pt to carve the mana stone.”
The World Power required was just 1pt.
All I did was generate a faint repulsive force.
There was even plenty of force left, so I could carve it further.
That was because the force pushing things apart inside the mana stone was weak.
I was starting to get the hang of it.
Depending on how it was used, the cost and effect of World Power could vary enormously.
Roughly speaking:
Use World Power to cause a miracle.
Use World Power to make a miracle happen.
That was the difference.
With knowledge and imagination, I could carefully link specific miracles to produce the same effect as the first approach at a lower cost.
Though it took intense concentration to directly align the mana stone's structure.
“The first time is always hard.”
I'd ride the momentum and try one more!
Let's spend the whole day carving mana stones.
*
“Phew... One more time.”
Crack.
I kept processing mana stones without a break.
In Yeoulrim, I could see the mana stones' structure with my all-powerful vision, but in reality, all I had was intuition.
I needed to be able to sense the mana stone's structure and arrangement just by looking at and touching it once.
So I examined countless raw stones with my own eyes, and whenever I saw an odd arrangement, I carved it myself and worked hard to understand the internal structure.
Put simply, I used a cheat code.
I was practicing with the answer key in front of me, after all.
One hour.
Two hours.
Six hours, half a day.
After staying up all day carving mana stones, I started to get the hang of it.
Which meant...
“Yeoulrim's mana stones and Earth's are different, but I think I understand the structure somehow.”
Time for the decisive test.
I returned to reality and looked down at the mana stones.
Their efficiency might differ, but I didn't think I'd fail to process them.
Without hesitation, I picked up a mana stone.
It was time to show the power of a Korean's ability to master something through repetition.
“Rather than letting the arrangement change as the impurities come off, I should align it instead...”
[Generating a faint repulsive force.]
[100pt of World Power has been consumed.]
Crack!
I carved the mana stone according to my intuition.
The result was...
[The mana stone has been refined.]
[You can absorb 1pt of World Power.]
“I did it!!”
Success.
I carved all ten of the mana stones I'd prepared.
The ones that should've only given me about 0.05pt each now yielded a full 1pt.
It was a big loss compared to the points I spent, but I was going to sell them on the market anyway.
It wasn't a losing business.
This was a victory of hard work!!
“With 100pt, I can carve about ten at a time. If the quality of the mana stones improves later... Heh. Maybe I'll really become rich?”
Grin.
A smile crept onto my face.
I pictured myself becoming a mana stone processor and raking in money.
The question of my identity.
The problem of selling them.
None of that mattered.
For now, I savored the moment. After letting my imagination run wild for a good while...
“Did I carve this well?”
I pondered seriously.
What level was I at?
Was it good enough for the market?
How valuable was this mana stone, and could it actually be used?
To be honest, my mana stones were less lustrous than the ones people carved and slightly translucent.
Their grain wasn't very visible.
They had little of that soft inner glow, either.
That seemed like a flaw.
“It'd be nice to have something to compare them to.”
I was sure I'd succeeded, since the amount of World Power I could absorb had increased, but I couldn't make a confident judgment without knowing the standard.
I wanted to have them properly appraised...
Glance.
Just then, one of the business cards I'd left on the dining table caught my eye.
Kang Nari.
Mana Stone Brokerage Team Leader.
The phone number written beneath it.
“She was unusually nice...”
She seemed like someone easy to talk to.
Someone I could trust.
She gave off that kind of impression. Thanks to that, it didn't take long to decide.
Tap, tap, tap.
I picked up my phone and entered the number.
When you don't know, it's best to ask. Since she'd come to mind, I decided to ask her to appraise them right away.
As it happened, Nari answered the phone.
“Ugh... Who is this...?”
But I didn't know.
That it was the middle of the night.