Mansion Exploration [Community Update!]
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“...So this is what 2-star feels like.”
I muttered to myself while staring at the message announcing that my ability had been strengthened. This was the 2-star realm—the stage where one could influence their own body through their Mental Image.
“Reaching 2-star just three days after awakening… Even I’m scared of my own talent.”
As I grumbled those words in a rather satisfied mood, a post materialized before my eyes.
“……”
The post seemed to warn me against getting cocky when I hadn’t even left the starting line yet. I let out a long sigh. That was when I noticed something strange.
“Huh?”
Had posts always appeared even when I wasn’t consciously thinking about them? After awakening, hadn’t they only shown up when I deliberately read them? Before awakening, I could only see the titles.
“No way…”
2-star. Now that my Mental Image could affect my body, had my ability evolved a little? Had it grown to the point where it automatically displayed posts that matched my current situation and intent? It was a performance worthy of the name I’d personally given it—Future Sight.
Future Sight. It was a name I’d made up on the spot, but it suddenly felt a lot more fitting. Before, it had been closer to simply searching for information through keywords. Now it had evolved into something that presented the exact information I needed according to my situation and intentions.
“Oh, did you succeed in circulating your qi? I knew you would manage it.”
“Are you all right?”
“Didn’t I tell you? This one is quite familiar with curses of this sort.”
“Well, that’s a relief, but…”
No matter how I looked at her, Hwa-ryeong didn’t seem to be enduring a curse so much as completely unaffected by it.
“I have dealt with all the interlopers, so shall we continue our exploration?”
“Indeed. I wonder what exactly they’ve hidden to cause a reaction like this.”
The strategy guide didn’t explain the story, so I had no idea either. For now, we followed the guide and began searching each room of the mansion with Hwa-ryeong to solve the color puzzle.
“Hmm?”
But for some reason, the hints that should have been in every room were nowhere to be found. There were supposed to be cubes of various colors scattered throughout each room, yet instead what we saw was—
“A box? Is this something the necromancers left behind?”
“It appears so.”
“Whoa, it’s full of mana stones! And they’re…”
“Transparent mana stones. Must have taken a lot of effort to gather them.”
They were transparent mana stones. Every room on the first and second floors was packed with them. Transparent mana stones were supposed to be incredibly rare—yet here they were, filling the place.
“There is nothing else of note besides the mana stones.”
“Right. Then the only place left is…”
“The basement, it seems.”
With nowhere else to search, we stopped in front of the stairs leading underground. This was the source of the heavy, booming thuds that echoed throughout the entire mansion. Whatever was down there, it was clearly causing all the commotion. Probably a boss monster, but let’s go see for ourselves.
I casually took out a bottle of holy water from my bag and finished preparing to throw it at a moment’s notice. Looking at it now, the container even had a safety pin attached so you could throw it like a grenade.
“Hmm?”
When we descended the stairs, the door that should have sealed the basement was completely gone, ripped away. It looked as if someone had torn the original door off. Or rather, judging by all the tools scattered around, it seemed they had been in the middle of installing a new one. Either way, there was no obstacle blocking our path.
The underground space we entered clearly felt like it was still under heavy construction. Seeing the state of it, I finally understood why the mansion’s interior looked different from the strategy guide.
It seemed I had arrived way too early. The necromancers had only just reached this mansion and started their experiments when I showed up and wrecked everything. That was why so many things remained unfinished. Well, for me it meant even stronger free rewards, so I wasn’t complaining.
“Hoo… So they were trying to create a powerful corpse fiend down here. What a vile stench.”
The underground cavern was filled with the smell of corpses—so thick it nearly made me dizzy. In fact, the air was probably full of toxins. If I hadn’t ranked up to 2-star, I wouldn’t have been able to endure it. And in the center of that poisonous air, a mass of writhing flesh waited.
A heap of corpses pulsing like a beating heart. The moment I saw it, I realized this was the boss monster the strategy guide had mentioned. I immediately hurled the holy water at the lump of flesh. The bottle with its safety pin removed flew straight at the mass, and the holy water trapped inside the metal canister sprayed everywhere.
“Keeeeeek!!!”
A horrific scream erupted from the flesh that had been doused in holy water. Did it take massive damage? The mass thrashed about as if trying to escape, then a gigantic arm burst out from within the pile.
“It’s coming…!”
I tensed, ready for it to charge, but the thing inside the corpse pile couldn’t even free itself. The strength drained from the arm, and it went limp. Staring at the drooping monster limb, I muttered in bewilderment.
“...Is that it?”
Even the wight from earlier hadn’t died instantly after being splashed with holy water. But this thing died from a single bottle? There’s such a thing as too much free farming—this was ridiculous. While I stood there stunned, Hwa-ryeong seemed to share my sentiment and spoke up.
“Hmm. That holy water… was it truly necessary to keep it alive?”
“...Guess not.”
It felt a bit wasteful. Or rather, it proved just how effective the holy water really was. Changing my perspective, we approached the corpse pile with Hwa-ryeong and finished it off just in case.
“How gruesome.”
When I cut the throat of the creature buried inside the pile—something that resembled a beast fetus—the surrounding corpses dissolved into purple mist and vanished. It was the same phenomenon that occurred when a fusion anomaly died.
“Was it created through a Mental Image? Then…”
“It appears to be an artificially created fusion anomaly.”
Were the necromancers running experiments to manufacture artificial fusion anomalies? It seemed our business in the mansion was finished, yet the heavy thumping noise continued to echo from deeper inside. It sounded like it was coming from somewhere further down—most likely the secret room mentioned in the guide. As expected, following the thumping led us to a long corridor.
“Hmm. This place is different from the others.”
“Yeah. Looks like they started construction here first.”
Unlike the other areas that still looked unfinished, this corridor seemed quite advanced in its construction. At the end of the passage waited a wall with a very familiar shape.
“...Huh?”
It looked remarkably similar to the pure white wall where I had found the Mother Box. Could there be systems related to the Mother Box here? For a moment I felt a surge of anticipation, but the Mother Box remained silent, so it probably wasn’t the case. Still sensing that something unusual was present, Hwa-ryeong drew her sword and stood guard as we stepped through the hole in the white wall.
The moment we entered the space beyond the white wall, a copper-colored apple floated in the center of the pure white room.
“An apple?”
Looking closer, it wasn’t simply copper-colored. It was made of copper wires clumped together as if alive. It pulsed like a heartbeat, and each throb sent loud booming noises echoing out. So this was the source of the noise filling the mansion.
“What should we do? Take it with us?”
I glanced at Hwa-ryeong, wondering whether we should take it or cut it down where it floated, but—
“Cough, hack…”
“Hwa-ryeong?!”
Copper wires had already pierced straight through his chest. With a thud, Hwa-ryeong collapsed to the floor as a tree made of wires sprouted from his eyes and ears.
An attack? Or some kind of curse? Shocked by the horrific sight, I staggered back, but the apple in front of me simply continued pulsing like a heart without doing anything more. I hurriedly dragged Hwa-ryeong out of the room, but he had already stopped breathing.
What the hell just happened? Why was only Hwa-ryeong attacked? Why was I completely fine? As I stood there in confusion, a post appeared before me.
Anomalous Aggregation? Was that copper apple one of them?
I ran another search based on the keyword I’d seen in the post.
[How many unique Anomalous Aggregations were stolen from the Academy again?]
[The quests related to Anomalous Aggregations have a seriously creepy vibe]
[Farming aggregates is actually nauseating]
[The Copper Apple is good but its uses are pretty limited]
[It’s annoying having to go all the way to Academy Street to refine an aggregate]
“So it’s a kind of equipment…?”
From the posts that came up in the search, it seemed Anomalous Aggregations were used as a type of equipment in Last Shion.
And it looked like the process of refining aggregates was a unique technology belonging to the Academy Guild.
The Academy. Among the four major guilds, it was the one with the least information circulating in the public. If the Magic Tower used magic and the Murim Alliance used martial arts, the Academy used supernatural powers.
Although proper information about the Academy was scarce, there was one famous story. If you carelessly set foot in Academy Street, you might never die properly. The urban legends lurking in the district would make you suffer for eternity.
“...If that apple is Academy technology.”
It was common knowledge that the Academy was filthy rich. So if I took the Copper Apple with me, it would probably fetch a huge sum. Was that what the “item that can be sold for money” in the strategy guide had referred to?
“But why am I completely fine?”
From the posts mentioning the Copper Apple, it seemed to be an Anomalous Aggregation that attacked both friend and foe indiscriminately. So why hadn’t I been hit by its attack?
“...Is it because of the Mother Box?”
The hypothesis that came to mind was that the Copper Apple was similar to the Mother Box, so it didn’t attack me, its owner. After all, this room looked almost identical to the one where the Mother Box had been stored. I tried searching the board for more details, but—
[Copper Apple settings like this work?]
[Finished my Copper Apple setup, nice lol]
[Apple farming complete~]
[Copper Apples never drop, damn it]
[Why do so many Copper Apples drop?]
Every result was just people complaining about how hard it was to farm instead of actual settings. Even when I searched for “Copper Apple settings,” the results were polluted. No matter how many times I searched, I would only see lamentations.
[No search results found]
My last attempt ended in failure too. I still had one more search attempt left, but it felt too wasteful to use it now. I would have to spend proper time later searching the board about the Copper Apple. For now, I reached out to take the Copper Apple, but my hand met resistance and couldn’t touch it.
“What the…?”
So I couldn’t just grab it normally? In that case—
H.A.N.D Mode, Activated
When I activated H.A.N.D Mode and reached out again, the Copper Apple was grabbed without any resistance. The moment I held it, I felt as if the Copper Apple was connecting to me.
“Hmm…?”
No, it wasn’t just a feeling. Copper wires actually extended from the apple and wrapped around my gauntlet. Sensing the dangerous situation, I tried to let go in a hurry, but—
“Eh?”
Crackle. Sparks flew from the Copper Apple as if an overload had occurred. Then it suddenly went still. What just happened? While I was tilting my head and fiddling with the now-docile apple using my gauntleted hand, the system helper sent me a notification.
A device compatible with system linkage has been detected. Would you like to begin control?
“Control? Yeah, go ahead and control it.”
Beginning control of new device: Copper Apple.
“What exactly can I do with the Copper Apple?”
Growth, Absorption, and Dormancy.
“Growth? Absorption? Explain in detail.”
When Absorption Mode is activated, the Copper Apple will automatically collect Mental Images from its surroundings. Afterward, the Copper Apple will automatically switch to Growth Mode.
The Copper Apple converted to Growth Mode will erode the absorbed Mental Images and grow a body based on those images. Once there are no more Mental Images to absorb, the Copper Apple will automatically enter Dormancy.
“...So it’s an area-of-effect skill?”
Yes. You may think of it as a bomb that can be detonated at any time according to Master’s orders.
This was pretty good. Considering that I wasn’t affected by the Copper Apple’s influence for some reason, it could become a trump card for me.
“What is the Copper Apple’s current state?”
It is in Growth Mode.
“Then switch it to Dormancy.”
Understood. Executing order.
Following the command, the Copper Apple switched to Dormancy. The surface where the wires had been writhing was now covered by a copper-colored membrane. I placed the now-gently sleeping Copper Apple into my bag and let out a sigh of relief.
Although things had turned out a little different from what I’d expected, this was still an enormous profit. All that remained was to take Hwa-ryeong to the Hunter Guild and revive him. Then this request would be complete.
Good. Time to head back. Or so I thought—until I realized one major problem.
“...Where’s the way out?”
Just how was I supposed to get back from Mist Street to Central Street?
“...So what are you saying? Say it again.”
“Yes. He headed toward the government district early this morning, accepted the bait quest, and disappeared.”
Upon hearing Elsie’s report, Estelle was momentarily at a loss for words. She thought she had scared him plenty yesterday, yet he went and accepted a bait quest the very next day without hesitation. Whether he had guts of steel or simply no brain at all, one thing was certain—this situation gave her a headache.
“...If he’s sighted again, inform me at once.”
“Yes. Understood, Team Leader.”
After sending Elsie out of the room, Estelle sighed and took out her phone, accessing a familiar chat room. She felt like venting her frustration to someone.
⊳ SquaredLandscape: Ugh, my head hurts so bad
⊳ Dice: What’s going on?
⊳ SquaredLandscape: The kid I told you about yesterday—right after I warned him to be careful, he immediately took a bait quest. Seriously, my head is killing me.
⊳ Dice: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL what a mindset hahaha I like him already
⊳ SquaredLandscape: He needs to get burned once before he comes to his senses
⊳ Dice: Nah, from what I see he’s the same type as me
⊳ SquaredLandscape: ;; Even so, comparing him to a gambling addict like you is a bit much
⊳ Dice: I’m telling you, he’s a dopamine addict. I guarantee it.
⊳ Dice: But damn that kid is hilarious. He’s only been in the city for three days and every kind of rumor is already spreading about him lol
⊳ SquaredLandscape: That’s not exactly a good thing though
⊳ Dice: Ah, I can’t stand it. When I get some free time later I really want to meet him in person. He seems like he’d be so much fun.