Ability Verification (2)
Outside, water-attribute ability users had gathered around a large, transparent rectangular water tank, using TP to fill it with water. Earth-attribute users were busy constructing earthen walls and, at the center, multiple hearths, a long table, and chairs.
A bonfire was already roaring in the hearth, tended by fire-attribute users, while six life-support members began preparing food from it.
Who knew abilities could be used like this.
After watching for a while, they called everyone over when meal preparation was complete.
Lunch consisted of Worm Driller meat. Visually, it looked nothing like the massive worm it had been; instead, it resembled the finest Hanwoo steak. When sliced with a fork, the meat parted like soft tofu... One bite and it melted like the finest sushi on the tongue.
Seated at the table, I finished my meal of delicious Worm Driller steak accompanied by a simple stew. Glancing around, I noticed Hwa Yeon and Franc had barely touched their portions.
“Aren’t you eating more?”
“Huhu. I’m saving room for something even tastier.”
“...Even tastier?”
“Yes. Someone stole it like a thief cat earlier.”
That single remark was the trigger. Hwa Yeon and Franc’s eyes flashed dangerously. Before I could react, I was seized by both arms and dragged into the tent...
My TP had been completely drained.
While eating, I had converted over 200,000 TP into semen and spent it all. The two women’s bellies were now slightly swollen from drinking every drop.
Staring blankly at the sight, they stroked their bellies with satisfied expressions, smiling like well-fed cats.
Kuek.
Even though it was my own body, it felt alien... I noticed my eyes looking a little hollow, but since my lovers were satisfied, I decided to let it go.
After lunch, the tent set up for the meeting room was filled with Hwa Yeon, Franc, Yeongeun, the branch manager, and the Hwarang boss.
“Then, let’s begin the verification using this method.”
Two verification methods had been proposed. The first was a full-scale hunt involving every member of the verification team. However, due to the terrain, it was rejected because large groups would only hinder movement.
The second involved gathering C-class and above users into small parties to locate and capture heteromorphs, but this was canceled by my third method.
My approach had the three of us—Seoha, Franc, and Hwa Yeon—roaming to find high-rank heteromorphs. Meanwhile, everyone except the guards would wait at the clearing near the forest where the swamp began.
Video recording was left to Hwa Yeon, and when a heteromorph was spotted, Franc would drop a lightning bolt from the air to pull it toward the gathering point. We would then catch the pulled heteromorph ourselves.
Since I would handle everything from start to finish without support from others, to avoid any strange noises later, everyone agreed.
“Let’s move immediately. Hwarang boss and the Korean general branch manager, select and lead the personnel to prepare for departure right away. Time River will move all except life support.”
Yeongeun’s composed demeanor lacked any playfulness, unlike Hwa Yeon’s, revealing a natural charisma that made people obey commands.
This sight was cool... When our eyes met, she arched her eyebrows prettily and stroked her belly.
Sigh.
Leaving the meeting tent, Hwa Yeon entered the warehouse tent, retrieved a square case, opened it, and began assembling something long and rectangular.
“What’s that? Ah... Nangah Bong?”
“Yes. It’s the Nangah Bong. Because regeneration ability is excellent, a blunt weapon is efficient against swamp trolls and swamp trends turning into wood.”
I had been about to suggest leaving the one that would hinder running, but since Hwa Yeon had more experience, I assumed there was a reason to bring it and kept it.
The finished Nangah Bong had spindle-shaped heads on both ends packed with vicious spikes. It was a vicious blunt weapon that would leave a gruesome wound if struck.
The handle had numerous deep grooves. Hwa Yeon gripped it, spun it terrifyingly like a circular shield, then stopped and thrust it forward.
The air exploded with a bang! and dust on the ground was blasted radially several meters, giving a clear sense of its power.
“Impressive.”
Franc nodded enthusiastically in agreement. Hwa Yeon, seeing me and Franc, blushed slightly, slung the larger-than-her-height Nangah Bong over her shoulder, and said, “Let’s go.”
TP consumed while adjusting aim had recovered substantially during the meeting, reaching two-thirds. The remainder would recover while moving.
While Hwa Yeon assembled the Nangah Bong, the twenty people who had finished preparation stood behind us. Then, the nine who had gone to find the return point after setting the base—had they already returned?
As Seoha, Franc, and Hwa Yeon moved, the twenty began following us.
“Found the return point that quickly? Very fast.”
“The return point disappears once used but regenerates nearby after some time. If you remember the location, you can use it repeatedly. That’s why exploration is important. You must find the return point as quickly as possible to enable emergency return in critical situations.”
“Ah... Then the second team’s departure was to check the location of the regenerated return point?”
“Yes.”
Hwa Yeon wore women’s full-plate-style tights armor on the left, Franc on the right—reassuring to have both.
Walking a bit faster into the swamp’s entrance, spatial perception revealed over twenty heteromorphs of mid to mid-high rank within a 1.5 km radius.
“Wait a moment.”
Using spatial perception to examine the heteromorphs’ appearances, most were snake-shaped, along with alligators... and what looked like octopuses? There were also turtle-like creatures.
Other strange bugs and leeches were visible too, reinforcing Hwa Yeon’s point that fighting in the swamp was not advisable.
Explaining what I had seen to Hwa Yeon and Franc, they fell into thought.
“Shall we roam and catch heteromorphs possessing phase stones to recover them?”
“Franc? Wait a moment. Can you fire Mana Bullets slowly at heteromorphs without phase stones?”
“Yes. But if shot slowly, they might all flee. Isn’t it better to catch them all at once?”
“Swamp heteromorphs have extremely high aggression. If they sense an attack, they charge without thinking. Moreover, this task is to verify your abilities, so showing the fighting scene would be ideal if possible.”
Then provoke them a little to draw aggro and retreat to the verification team.
“Understood. Then I’ll start.”
Hearing that, Hwa Yeon lifted the Nangah Bong obliquely and set her stance. Seeing this, I placed Mana Bullets around the heteromorphs, one TP each, and fired them slowly. A direct hit would evaporate them without leaving bones.
The Mana Bullets flew through breaking swamp trees, popping in the air and detonating shockwaves. Heteromorphs like 3–5 meter snakes, several-meter alligators, and amorphous slimes, struck by the shockwave, began crawling toward me with hissing sounds, thinking they were poisoned.
Since Mana Bullets were invisible, I wondered if they would track me, but they crawled precisely toward me. Had they sensed something?
“They’re coming. Let’s retreat.”
Rushing out of the forest, I deliberately fired Mana Bullets over their heads to break aggro and prevent them from chasing elsewhere. The killing intent began spreading vaguely toward me.
Exiting the forest and stopping 200 meters away, I felt the ability users 500 meters back, forming formation and staring at me curiously.
At that moment, the aggro-pulled heteromorphs burst from the forest. Leading, a spotted snake over 5 meters long spread bat-like wings and flew like lightning, but in mid-air I shot a Mana Laser to slice it.
The sight of it being cut into three pieces and falling drew murmurs from the gathered ability users.
Anyway, there was no need to erase all heteromorphs with Mana Bullets. Since they were all valuable, I wanted to leave as many as possible.
Soon, while slicing various 3–5 meter snakes and alligators with Mana Laser, trees were also cut and fell with thuds. Snakes and alligators under the falling trees screamed and thrashed, turning the scene into an asura field in an instant.
It was an asura field. While being careful not to let the Mana Laser sweep the phase stones, I halved a horned alligator and an octopus with needles on its legs, and a turtle whose entire body flowed like liquid. I shook off my hands.
After firing the Mana Laser for several minutes, I had used nearly 30,000 phase power. Yet even while shooting, phase power recovered quickly, so it hadn’t been excessive. Consuming 100 TP per second, with 300,000 phase power now, recovery was 50 per second. It would take 75 minutes to deplete it. Of course, with high-output laser it would be different.
Having watched the fighting scenes with heteromorphs several times, Franc, familiar with it, approached the cut pieces, recovered three mid-grade phase stones and one mid-high grade, and sucked in the water-like phase power bursting out.
“...I really need to train harder.”
Hwa Yeon, watching me chop the heteromorphs to the end, muttered with a weakened voice.
But it didn’t seem as frustrated as the physical reinforcement or attribute users felt.
Especially the branch manager and Hwa Joong-kang uncle looked drained.
“Let’s go again.”
“Ah, wait a moment.”
Hwa Yeon turned back and gestured to the ability users. It meant to recover the heteromorph corpses.
After that, it was... not difficult. Like before, provoke aggro to exit the swamp. When heteromorphs gathered, shoot Mana Laser to chop them, have ability users recover the corpses, then go in again and pull them out.
After mostly clearing the heteromorphs near the forest, I entered the forest directly and began drying them. The swamp ground looked dangerous, but with spatial perception there was no worry of falling into traps or ambushes.
In the meantime, the sight of a 7-meter giant snake shooting like a flying arrow startled me a bit, but with Mana Mode - Acceleration I quickly... Mana Laser, I suppose. In an instant, it was chopped into small pieces.
Poison leeches or poison bugs were handled by Franc spraying electricity while roaming, with lightning striking one by one, so they all died—no worry of poison.
At first, Hwa Yeon followed with tension, but soon she realized there was no need for it. Her expression became a bit empty, and when the number of caught heteromorphs without grade exceeded 300, she sighed deeply.
“Haaaa... I think we need to change the plan.”
Franc, who had just finished gutting a leech group as thick as a thumb and the length of an index finger, landed beside Hwa Yeon and asked, “What plan?”
“If it’s like this, we don’t need to gather a team to enter the Phase World. Just Seoha alone entering and slicing them all with Mana Laser would kill them all.”
Hwa Yeon looked around the devastated swamp and continued, “When the time comes, let’s enter the Phase World together and roam the places where exploration stopped due to high density of high-rank heteromorphs, catching them. The two deputy commanders and team leaders should focus on hunt battles. Especially places we discovered but couldn’t explore due to too high density—after clearing them, it seems there will be tens of trillions in profit.”
“Yes. Although we declared exploration ended, it’s not completely explored, and places with many high-rank heteromorphs, exploration will be almost impossible without damage.”
Couldn’t we make money by discarding high-grade heteromorphs or high-rank phase stones? But since we were recording video now, we couldn’t say that.
I hugged the waists of the two girlfriends and said, “Just say it. I’ll earn a lot of money and give it all to you.”
“Huhu, really? Then I’ll get to enjoy my cool boyfriend? Now, let’s step back a bit. This should be enough for today.”
Hwa Yeon naturally smiled, took out a joke, looked at the sky, checked her watch, and held my hand toward the swamp exit.
“Not stopping yet? It’s not even 4 o’clock.”
“It seems rain is coming soon. Meeting rain in the swamp is the worst. Moreover...”
She glanced at me. Franc also looked up at the gray sky and looked at me with a slightly worried expression.
Due to my PTSD? With girlfriends around, rain or swimming should be fine. There are ponds here and there in the swamp, perfectly fine.
Hwa Yeon shook her head lightly and continued, “Within 4 km radius, everything is cleared. If we go deeper, there might be problems pulling out, and possibility of it getting dark while fighting. Actually, this much is enough; no one has grounds to complain about your abilities. But when documenting, whether we caught only mid-high or also mid-high, the content will differ greatly, so we are only trying to catch high-rank heteromorphs.”
Coming out of the forest, Hwa Yeon exhaled a shallow breath looking at the ability users busily carrying the piled heteromorph corpses to the base beyond.
“But if I killed that many alone in less than 3 hours, the one who speaks out would be a fool.”
Not only supporters, but ability users, and Hwa Yeon herself, started loading the products onto a large transport vehicle, so I tried to help carry, but when ability users and life support looked at me with monster expressions and pushed me to go away, I got sulky again.
Why do they keep telling me to go away?!
Grumbling, I entered the meeting tent where Yeongeun was working. The branch manager looked at me and startled, so I smiled, and she awkwardly smiled back.
The strangely distorted handsome face was funny, so I giggled inwardly and looked down from beside Yeongeun writing something... I was writing the list of heteromorphs I caught in 3 hours today.
Next to it, the paper had the types of phase stones and byproducts acquired so far. Total phase stones about 40, total phase power only about 70,000. 7 billion won, I guess.
“Huhu. Over 200 billion net profit from casually catching in 3 hours? Our Seoha is really a treasure?”
“200 billion? Phase power is only about 70,000?”
“Some heteromorphs mixed in were more expensive than phase stones, and some were mixed in as ingredients for universal antidote, that’s why.”
The branch manager, hearing Yeongeun’s words, sighed deeply and muttered with a tired expression.
“You should call it Blue Gizzard instead of Blue Genius.”
Blasphemy!
No, in that case, it’s more like cursing, right? The branch manager glared at me, startled and avoided my eyes. She was indeed the one cursing!
“B-Class attribute ability user, so branch manager can do that much too, right?”
“...I’m not a monster. Using abilities to catch mid-grade heteromorphs in the first place is TP waste.”
“Stop saying monster monster. How cute Seoha is.”
“...”
The branch manager, making a face like chewing a persimmon, closed her mouth. Yeongeun glared at her once, but still nodded slightly, agreeing with the TP waste perspective.
“Attribute users’ TP consumption is no joke. Since recovery isn’t good, we can’t waste it like that.”
Huh? Recovery not good? I looked at Franc, who looked at me with surprised eyes. Yeongeun also saw it and her expression changed strangely, but she didn’t ask.
“Anyway, Seoha worked hard today. Do you want anything from this sister? With this mood, I can do anything for you~?”
Smiling brightly with playful face, the branch manager started writing the report, thinking it was a joke.
That’s not a joke.
“No, nothing in particular.”
Shaking head, Yeongeun suddenly had a lustful face, smiled hypnotically, and licked her lips...
-I want to drink Seoha’s semen until my belly bursts with my lower mouth.-
I read it with pure magic and sighed inwardly. Too revealing? It’s fine for me, but if discovered at the base, it would be a big problem.
Smiling and waving my hand, exiting the tent, I saw Yeongeun looking back with longing.
Anyway, coming out, watching other ability users working while sitting, one life support lady brought a cocktail drink to me, spread a small folding table next to me, and said “Please have a snack.” and placed some stir-fried meat gyeongdan-like thing.
Watching people working while eating drink and snacks, I felt like a high person.
Near the piled heteromorph corpses, supporter ability users were collecting byproducts, and unused remnants were piled next to them, and after about an hour, the corpse mountain remained the same but the byproduct mountain became tall and steep.
Because heteromorph corpses kept coming in from outside the base.
When document writing finished, Yeongeun came out of the tent yawning, and soon seeing the byproduct mountain, sighed.
“Sigh. What to do with this byproduct. If left, bugs will swarm, and if buried somewhere, it might rot and cause ghosts or zombies...”
Titi ting~! Puff puff.
At the moment when people around the byproduct mountain left, she flicked three fingers in sequence, firing three Mana Bullets without shockwave to erase it.
The space around the byproduct mountain distorted and disappeared entirely, startling Yeongeun who was looking at it. The ability users working around also startled and fell.
“Done?”
Everyone sitting there looking at me with amazed eyes, I felt a bit awkward. Did I say it and erase it?
Yeongeun, watching me start working again after calming the startled people, quietly opened her mouth.
“How much TP recovery does Seoha have? Other ability users recover all when TP is at bottom, taking about 17 hours?”
“What? 17 hours?”
Surprised, I looked at other ability users, Franc answered Yeongeun instead.
“Yeongeun. That’s the recovery time in the Phase World, not reality?”
“Eh? Yeah. How long does it take for Seoha?”
“...Seoha recovers 1% per minute. 1 hour 40 minutes for all recovery.”
“...Wow. Seoha is really the onion prince? No other abilities?”
Franc, forcing a smile at Yeongeun’s words, opened her mouth.
“I don’t know either. There are other abilities, maybe Seoha didn’t notice.”
“How is it that our Seoha might be the protagonist of this world. Huhu. Then are we heroines?”
“I don’t want to be the heroine of a super harem...”
“Ah, I don’t want that either.”
The two women chattering, it was awkward to chime in. Just obediently work or watch.
Approaching 5 PM, the sky was darkening. So, life support brought some poles and round spheres, placed two each near the corpse surroundings and byproduct processing stations, and surrounded the base area.
Then, pressing some switch, a very bright light without eyesore shot out from the spheres.
It seemed like they were setting up guards, two by two, three groups visible reporting to the branch manager in front.
“Since I have spatial perception, no need to set guards.”
“Eh? No. The lower ones tend to slack if you pamper them too much. It’s better to give them appropriate work and maintain tension. That way, when returning, they can stretch their legs and rest well to relieve stress by spending money.”
“Bad boss...”
“What?!”
Yeongeun made a deliberately angry face and tickled me, so I giggled and laughed, and from the corpse pile, Hwa Yeon came walking with Choi Soohan, Kim Ga-min, Yoo Min-hee towards me and opened her mouth.
“All heteromorph corpses have been moved. In about 4 hours, the byproduct collection will finish.”
“Really? Good work. Go wipe sweat and prepare for meal.”
“Okay.”
“Hwa Yeon, good work.”
“Got it.”
Oops, calling the name, Yoo Min-hee 3rd team leader glared. I smiled awkwardly, and Yoo Min-hee 3rd team leader turned head with “Hmph!” Kim Ga-min 2nd team leader bowed with apology, but this is my mistake for calling the raid team boss name.
By the way, Special Type. Huhuhu. This feeling like middle school 2nd year disease is coming back. I even unconsciously thought of middle school 2nd year thoughts earlier...
Even with middle school 2nd year disease, it’s good that I can fall in love with abilities.
...No! I’m already graduated from middle school 2nd year disease!!
“...”
I glanced at the middle school 2nd year girl Yeongeun from a century ago, Yeongeun looked up at the sky, hardened her face a bit, came in front of me, raised her voice and shouted.
“Everyone who can dismantle byproducts, please help with the byproduct dismantling work! Work quickly! The remaining ones will start work for rain protection at the base!”
And Yeongeun, who came with a shovel from somewhere, looked back at me and told me to go to the tent and rest.
No... I’m not tired at all, but treating me special like this makes me feel like I’m being left out!?