The next day.
We moved to another location in Seoul to pay the price for the next treatment......
to subjugate the monster that doctor demanded.
-This next opponent is also a target I had given up on capturing myself.
The place the next enemy had settled in wasn’t a military base.
It was a monster that had claimed an entire large park in Seoul as its territory.
-The Legion should be able to do it.
And.
When we arrived in front of that territory, I turned my head and looked at one soldier.
“Jeong Sua.”
“Yes.”
The soldier answered my call with a tense expression.
Most of the heavy anguish that had been on her face the day before was gone.
But.
‘Looks like something’s still left.’
If what I could taste through [Taste Bud Enhancement] was any indication,
there was still a knot inside her.
I’d even proven her usefulness while feeding her cooking,
but aside from all that talk about usefulness, something was still left inside her.
Unlike the other soldiers,
Jeong Sua looked especially worked up this time.
There had to be another reason.
‘......Not something to think about right now.’
Still.
This wasn’t something I could solve leisurely in Seoul.
After everything was finished and we returned to the Legion,
I’d take time and talk with her properly, counsel her, whatever it took.
“Then let’s start.”
“......Loyalty!”
What we had to do now
was bring down the enemy.
[Spirit Eye]
[Trait - ‘Ingredients Identification (Enhanced)’ activates.]
[Skill - ‘Chef’s Eye’ activates.]
Through Jeong Sua’s Spirit Eye,
I confirmed what the enemy inside looked like.
{......!?}
The enemy had been lying in the middle of the park, resting,
but the moment our gaze reached it, it flinched and reacted.
“Damn, looks like it noticed.”
Spirits weren’t invincible.
Since they didn’t have a physical body, most beings couldn’t sense them,
but those who were especially sensitive to mana sometimes noticed.
[Wandering Clown Tel Lopol]
But.
This was enough.
“Bell, summon canceled.”
“Good. We go into prep immediately.”
Observation from an extremely long distance.
Even if the spirit’s presence got exposed, we could just dismiss the summon right away.
No matter how mana-sensitive it was,
it wouldn’t be able to identify the location of the spirit-caller connected to that spirit.
{I don’t know what you are, but.}
And.
After finishing preparations, we went to find it ourselves.
{To think the toy would come to me on its own. I can only be grateful.}
Behind the thing’s back, after it confirmed us,
a hole rippled into being, wavering in a faint gray.
And then—
SHOOOK.......
When it threw its body backward into it,
the monster that had been right in front of us vanished.
According to [Ingredients Identification (Enhanced)],
the wandering clown was a monster with a fairly unusual ability.
“It moved!”
“Confirmed!”
And that made sense.
{Hi?}
“......!”
Because this thing
was a monster that moved through space.
“Goddamn it!”
“Of all times, it had to go for the Legion Commander first......!”
Among the enemies we’d met so far,
there had been many monsters with various abilities, but not a single one that moved through space itself.
‘What the hell is this place supposed to be.’
Seoul, the former capital of the Republic of Korea.
Once again, I could understand just how mysterious and powerful the monsters that appeared here were.
But.
KANG!
{What the hell, you.......}
The three-meter-tall monster that had appeared behind my back
pulled away from me with a scowl.
{You’re not just a toy.}
On the hide over the back of its hand,
a long slash mark had opened up.
“It’s definitely a strange ability.”
And.
Staring at it, I muttered.
“But you’re not exactly hard to dress.”
{.......}
As much as it had a powerful supernatural ability,
its physical body wasn’t all that sturdy.
Of course, that didn’t mean it was weak, either.
If you included its supernatural ability and its physical ability,
it was a monster with an order that wouldn’t lose out even compared to the ‘Avaros’ we’d just subjugated.
Even so.
I had no intention of getting handled easily by that thing.
‘My body is light.’
KANG!
{How dare you......!}
The effect of the treatment I’d paid such an expensive price for
was showing clearly in my body.
After that, too,
it fought us, freely moving through space against me and the unit members.
And while fighting it,
I looked around the park.
[Ingredients Identification (Enhanced)]
[Old Bones]
[Freshness - Lowest]
[Old bones that appear to be from primates.]
All across the park, corpses of all kinds of living things had been arranged into grotesque decorations.
Some of them still had flesh on them.
Too many bones and corpses
to say it had hunted for food.
When it first saw us, it had said it would turn us into toys.
Just like it said—
‘There are human bones too.’
With that powerful ability,
it must have been making weaker beings into toys.
‘Thanks.’
Paying for my treatment with someone else’s life was a little unsettling,
but—
‘It’s not even the kind of thing I need to hesitate over.’
Seems like I didn’t have to wrestle with that kind of worry at all.
And then.
A moment later.
“Jeong Sua!”
“Yes!”
I shouted, pointing at a spot in the park.
Jeong Sua looked there and reached out a hand.
Then—
PAAAAHK!
A massive waterdrop formed
at the spot I indicated.
{You seem pretty confident in strength, but.}
And then, a moment later—
{Even so, you’ll just become a slightly tougher toy.......}
The wandering clown moved through space again—
{Kuh-heooook!!!}
and got trapped inside that water,
letting out a scream of pain.
*****
{My god! This time it didn’t even take half a day!}
When we captured the ‘wandering clown’ and returned to Gangnam,
that doctor couldn’t hide its shock as it looked at us.
{That thing was one of the top hunters even on this land. It would appear behind prey before they even realized it, subdue them, bring them to its territory, keep them alive as long as possible, torture them, and enjoy ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) their screams.}
“......I expected it to be vicious, but I didn’t know it was that vicious.”
{How did you do it? Even I couldn’t think of a way to catch it. I had to be afraid it would appear behind me and target my life.}
At that,
I shrugged and answered.
“It’s a powerful supernatural ability, but the thing itself isn’t that strong.”
{Just having that supernatural ability should be enough.}
“It is, but...... if it can’t even properly bear that supernatural ability, it’s a different story.”
According to what appeared in [Ingredients Identification (Enhanced)],
“To use that powerful supernatural ability, it has to burn an insane amount of high-purity mana.”
{So?}
“Its mana is definitely powerful, but not to the point it can keep using that supernatural ability nonstop. If you fight defensively and drag it out long-term.......”
I recalled the grayish hole it had made.
Its supernatural ability was the power to create that hole and pass through space.
And when it could no longer make new holes—
“I figured it would reuse holes it had already made.”
{.......}
“If you can predict where it’ll move, killing it isn’t hard. You just set a trap there.”
We had placed water through Jeong Sua at a place it had moved through space before.
The density of that water was beyond imagination.
If it appeared somewhere and that water was already there, the impact on it didn’t even need explaining.
“The only variable was it escaping, but...... maybe because it lived as a strong one for so long, it didn’t even consider it could become prey.”
{.......}
When I finished explaining,
the “doctor” fell silent for a moment, then asked in a quiet voice.
{Do you...... always fight like this, Legion Commander?}
“Hm? Not every time, but usually, yeah.”
First, identify the enemy’s information.
Then prepare the cooking and the method accordingly, and engage.
That was my most basic tactic.
{I said that thing was one of the top hunters even on this land.}
And.
Maybe because of how it saw me—
{And now the best hunter...... is standing right in front of me.}
In its voice
was a strange fear.
*****
{Like you said, that thing’s supernatural ability is certainly powerful, but to manifest it, it needs a massive quantity of high-purity mana.}
A few hours later.
The voice I heard while lying in bed.
{Which means, in other words, it needed an organ to store that massive quantity of high-purity mana in its body.}
“......I see.”
{I transplanted that mana hole.}
As soon as we handed over the wandering clown,
the second treatment proceeded.
{You can probably feel it too, Legion Commander. Mana moves through your body much more easily...... and there’s more of it.}
It was exactly as it said.
‘Even before, I was confident in my stats, but.......’
The ‘mana’ stat shown in my [Status Window] was an absurd number.
But.
Until now, I’d never really felt that my mana was overwhelmingly stronger than other awakened people......
especially mages.
{It seems your species wasn’t very familiar with mana. You had a recently formed mana hole, but because you pushed it too violently, it was barely holding its shape.}
Before, I’d just assumed it was because I wasn’t a combat class.
Now I understood.
‘The system gave me an enormous amount of mana...... but my body couldn’t properly contain it.’
Not anymore.
The overwhelmingly powerful mana I could feel inside my body.
KWA-GU-GU-GU.......
Just in case, I moved that power slightly,
and I felt a formless power circulating through my whole body with ease I’d never had before.
“......I didn’t even know there was an organ called that. Even our unit’s healers never said anything like that.”
{I called it an organ, but it isn’t an organ in the way native species think of organs. Think of it as an organ made of mana—an organ without a physical form. Low-level healers often don’t know. If you share this information with the Legion’s healers, it will be a great help.}
That probably wasn’t a joke.
Just like I’d raised my level drastically by exchanging information with Howard Jin,
if I taught our unit members the information it gave me, they could grow greatly based on that realization too.
‘......I’ve received so much it almost feels bad.’
Ever since that Cheonsanmu-gwan,
I couldn’t remember getting this much from an existence of another world.
“Can you have multiple mana holes?”
{Hm? It’s not impossible, but usually it’s one.}
“Then unlike the tendons last time, this is something only I use. Is that still okay?”
{If I said it wasn’t a waste, that would be a lie. But for mana holes, I have spare materials. It’s rare to find one that fits your size. And there wasn’t a single one with an order at that level.}
The material used in this treatment was probably extremely valuable.
And yet it used it on me......
{Well, I think this is worth investing in. And aside from the mana hole, I collected the other parts as treatment payment anyway.}
Just like it said before.
Because it wanted to build friendly relations with us.
‘Friendly relations.’
It was so ugly it was hard to look at,
but compared to any other existence of another world I’d met, there had never been cooperation this smooth.
Even my relationship with Mirinae or Borjin hadn’t been this easy.
“Hey.”
{What is it?}
Hmm.
Then.
“I have a few questions.”
{If you want advice on your condition or health management, I can give you as much as you like. The most important thing is improving diet and lifestyle habits. If you eat well and pair it with proper exercise, most illnesses—}
“No, not that.”
Anyway, after this surgery, I had to lie in bed for several hours for stability.
And with nothing else to do in that time—
“When you met me in that [Otherworld]...... that other Seoul.”
{Ah, that time. I was startled when that space suddenly gained a strange secondary dimension.}
“That secondary dimension was made by [Matron]. I don’t know how much you know about it, but.......”
Even so,
there was one thing it would definitely know.
“But it was an overwhelmingly powerful existence.”
In truth,
what I’d wanted to ask back when it had helped us in that [Otherworld]—
“This is what I want to ask.”
{.......}
“Why did you help us...... even to the point of making an enemy of an overwhelmingly powerful existence like that?”
At my question,
the “taste” coming from it......
began to change sharply.
