Darkness Mirrors Its Master
The terrifying zombie 074 let out a terrifying zombie growl—Park Seona’s roar. If this world were a game, messages like these would probably have popped up.
The enemy’s morale has decreased.
The enemy’s stats have temporarily decreased.
They say you become like those you keep close. If you stay near darkness, you too will take on its black hue. But at the same time, the darkness will also come to resemble you. There is no such thing as a perfect one-way street. At first, summons are born while looking at their user. And as time passes, a phenomenon occurs where the user also gains the ability to wield the summon’s power. They grow to resemble each other. This power becomes clearly established at Stage 6. The reason Park Gibeom was able to manifest aura was because he experienced Stage 6 and underwent this phenomenon. Therefore, Park Seona imitating a leopard’s cry meant she had drawn close to Stage 6.
‘Come to think of it, the reason Cha Uyoon looked as ugly as a goblin… it wasn’t just my eyes playing tricks, was it?’
No matter how little makeup she wore, Cha Uyoon’s face had been far more distorted than I remembered. Stage 6’s influence must have been at work. Of course, it might not have been, but for the sake of preserving at least a shred of dignity, I decided to think of it that way.
‘In that sense, Park Seona isn’t following the leopard’s outward appearance. She must have chosen a different direction.’
While I was mulling over Stage 6 and smashing the clam castle soldiers, an unexpected message appeared.
The ‘Golden Lord’ is pursuing the thief.
‘What the hell is this?’
It was classified as a wide-area message. Since I was in the middle of combat, I dismissed the message and slammed my gauntlet down on a clam soldier. A crisp metallic clang rang out. Clang—
‘Wait a second… thief? Don’t tell me that’s me?’
Currently, there were only four users in Stage 5, including myself. That was why I had assumed someone else had done something, but looking at it again, it seemed to be referring to me.
‘No way. You’ve got to be kidding me.’
I felt wronged and angry. The Fruits of Good and Evil were things I had personally harvested one by one by running myself ragged through Stage 4. After all that hellish work, they were calling me a thief? If they had accused me of being a thief back in Stage 4, I might have understood, but what kind of nonsense was this, some random guy claiming ownership?
‘This… this…! Grateful bastard?’
While seething at being labeled a thief, I suddenly realized the situation was actually rather convenient for me. The guy’s name was ‘Golden Lord.’ That meant he was definitely the master of the golden city. And if I killed him…? Wouldn’t all the gold in El Dorado change from ‘indestructible’ to ‘neutral’? Ownerless floating objects could be dismantled. I swallowed hard.
‘Huh…? Being a gold thief might not be so bad after all?’
Of course, the Black Pit was gone. But if I searched Stage 5 thoroughly, there had to be somewhere to spend gold, right? The more money, the better.
***
The main effect of the Phantom Elixir was to make the user’s appearance more attractive. And the standard for that attractiveness varied from person to person. For example, someone might think a skinhead looked very cool. In that case, when they used the Phantom Elixir, instead of growing a full head of hair, they would gain a stylish bald head. In other words, it had no effect on raising stats. Even so, the Phantom Elixir was extremely popular among many users. Users who had reached around Stage 5 all secretly hoped they could return to Earth with this power. Masters of armies numbering at least in the hundreds. A life completely different from the one they had lived would be waiting for them on Earth. And that hope only increased the elixir’s popularity day by day.
Unfortunately, however, only one Phantom Elixir could be obtained per user. This was because the ingredients required to craft the elixir were extremely rare and limited even within Stage 5. And now, the first user to successfully mass-produce the Phantom Elixir had appeared.
“Yahoo…! Success!”
Mingming was a genius. Well-versed in mechanical engineering, she had evolved her golems beyond their given molds into complex forms. In Stage 4, she had turned them into cars, and in Stage 5, she had modified them into self-driving submarines. And upon reaching Stage 6, she had awakened magical engineering through the power there. She could have gone beyond Stage 6 long ago, but Mingming chose not to, instead devoting herself to various experiments and creations. She had no doubt that the creation of a giant robot—her long-held dream—would take root in this new world.
But a giant robot was no easy goal. All things in this world, once they exceeded a certain size or became too small, required astronomical resources and technology. Thus, Mingming wandered through Stage 6, gradually assembling her grand dream. Then one day, a project proposal came in. An order to seduce a certain user in Stage 5. Mingming liked the reward, but what excited her even more was the chance to experiment with magical engineering in Stage 5 once again. Mingming accepted the commission. And the first thing she did upon crossing over to Baek Suhan’s Stage 5 was to duplicate the Phantom Elixir. The result was a resounding success. With the materials needed to make one Phantom Elixir, she had produced a full five elixirs. When Mingming had conquered Stage 5, the elixir had not yet been known, so she had overlooked it. The unease that had been bothering her was resolved.
“Now, shall we see the effects?”
Mingming immediately drank three of the five elixirs. Her back and neck, bent from overwork, straightened, and her skin, which had been dry and flaky from long periods without sunlight, became firm and supple. Her eyes grew slightly larger, her lips gained color, her teeth aligned beautifully, and all her numerous freckles disappeared. She had become a completely different person from just moments ago.
“Oh! The effect is definitely there!”
More than her own newfound beauty, Mingming was interested in the fact that physical changes had occurred through the Phantom Elixir. It was a biologically fascinating phenomenon. Above all, this result itself was proof that she had successfully duplicated the elixir.
“Now, shall I go meet our darling soon?”
The remaining two bottles of Phantom Elixir were gifts for the Zombie Summoner she was about to meet. At that moment, a message appeared before her eyes.
The ‘Golden Lord’ is pursuing the thief.
‘Huh?’
Mingming instinctively knew. Our darling was once again causing all sorts of incidents in Stage 5, just as he always had.
“Hehe… How cute.”
Mingming immediately issued the departure order. After all, she wasn’t particularly curious about any experiments other than the elixir one. It was time to go fulfill the commission. A massive golem fortress assembled from five hundred golems through magical engineering, soaring through the sky. Mingming’s First Laboratory glided across the sea’s surface. Was it the ‘island’ Mingming had used in Stage 5? That had long since been dismantled and used as experimental material, only to be lost. The genius engineer moved to find Baek Suhan.
***
Crunch— Crunch— Baengnae chewed the clams whole, shells and all. Thanks to her Steel Teeth, there was no problem, but I still gave her some advice, feeling like she was eating impurities.
“It’d taste better if you grilled them.”
“Madda.”
Crunch— Crunch— Baengnae split the clams in front of her in half, grilling one portion and popping the rest straight into her mouth. Thanks to my advice, Baengnae’s share had doubled.
‘Yeah, eat as much as you want.’
We were currently enjoying a clam party near the clam castle. As the information had said, they tasted excellent. Even though it wasn’t combat, Baengnae summoned the Blue Ones. She could summon up to twenty. Now twenty-one gluttons, each using their Steel Teeth to devour the clams in an instant.
Crunch— Crunch— Crunch— Crunch—
‘Or maybe… this is combat for her?’
The reason we could afford to relax like this was because the enemies had switched to a defensive strategy. I had half-expected them to come pouring out after seeing their kin being eaten right in front of them. But the creatures kept the castle gates firmly shut.
‘Maybe they don’t even have a sense of kinship?’
The reason I wasn’t pressing the attack and was instead throwing a party was because of their king. As could be seen from the clam soldiers, these creatures protected themselves by forming shells out of something like rock. A kind of living armor. And their king used a shell as a fortress. So it could be called a living castle.
“It really is deep-sea grade, huh.”
Park Seona laughed beside me.
“Deep-sea grade creatures aren’t meant to be hunted in the first place, you know? The gimmick is to use explosives and run.”
“But there are hunting records, aren’t there?”
“Yes, all of them are records from users currently at the top of Stage 7. Even they were just lucky. There are no records of users invading like this and hunting them.”
She wasn’t wrong. But I firmly believed that someone must have been hunting deep-sea grade creatures. They simply hadn’t bragged about it on the community boards. True masters knew how to hide their existence.
“I’m only doing it because I can. If you get complacent and just live, you’ll eventually get left behind.”
Park Seona gave a deep-eyed smile.
“You’re right… I thought I’d been working pretty hard, but watching you, Nanggun-nim, sometimes makes me wonder if I was actually being lazy.”
“Then just start working hard from today.”
“Haha, that’s right!”
After finishing the clams, Park Seona came over to my side as I began my post-meal exercise and started working out with me. Naturally, the zombies were all doing their automatic daily routine as well. In fact, just a few days ago, there had been a few zombies slacking off. The worst offender had been the wyvern. Knowing it was a high-ranking unit and a valuable flying entity, it had been slyly avoiding exercise. It thought I wouldn’t be able to treat it carelessly. And indeed, because I had been distributing meat to the zombies based on ability, the monkeys and dark elves naturally treated the wyvern as a superior. But a long tail gets caught. The wyvern was eventually caught by Baengnae skipping exercise and got beaten until it was covered in dust. The zombies mocked the creature, calling it pathetic. But the wyvern didn’t come to its senses and, the next day during regular exercise time, flew off into the sky to escape. And the moment it touched the ground again, it became a snack. That night, Baengnae sang while holding a whole-chicken party. The massive high-ranking zombie that had soared through the sky was finely dismantled and disappeared into the belly of a small zombie. After that incident, no zombie dared to slack off. Interestingly, the leopards, perhaps shocked by the wyvern incident as well, began participating in the exercises. The wyvern was an irrefutable high-ranking unit. With a body the size of a small truck, flight capability, and even a high-grade skill that generated cold waves, it was clearly a predator from the leopards’ perspective. And that monster had been turned into fried chicken just for skipping exercise and running away.
“Chichicken. Chichicken. Mashida!”
The leopards shuddered as they recalled the eerie song the twenty-one tiny zombies had sung that day. Thus, the pirates who had been lost in alcohol and gambling under the influence of the small zombie were gradually turning into soldiers.