Completely My Own
If I could obtain that skill and make her completely mine, at the very least I would be recognized as the kind of mad dog no sane person would ever want to touch. For that to happen, Yeonhee needed to climb to D-rank as quickly as possible so she could enter that dungeon. Less than three months left… It’ll be tight, but I think we can just barely make it. Still, is her injury really okay? I used every potion we had, but the bleeding looked like it had mostly stopped.
It was only after a long while that Yeonhee’s clear voice finally broke the silence, sending a single ripple through the empty space. Right after, the massive door opened. By now the motion was familiar. I rose to my feet and walked toward it.
The moment Lee Yeonhee dismissed her skeleton soldier and stepped out of the dungeon, she was pulled aside for questioning by a Hunter Administration clerk.
“A total of 799 hunters entered this dungeon today. Seventeen of them went in alone. You are one of those seventeen, Miss Lee Yeonhee.”
“Yes…”
“And out of those seventeen, you were the only woman.”
“Ah… I see.”
The man questioning her was Jeong Hyochan from the Hunter Management Office. At first glance he seemed mild-mannered, but from the start only his mouth smiled. His eyes stayed fixed like pins, never moving.
Haa… I just want to go home.
She wanted the investigation to end quickly so she could escape this frightening man.
“I’ll only ask a few simple questions. Have you seen any of the men in these photos today?”
“…Yes, I have.”
“Where did you see them?”
“On the way back to the entrance. We passed each other.”
“Did anything else happen? Did they speak to you? Harass you in any way?”
“No… We really just passed by each other. The only reason I remember is because that man was so big.”
“You appear to be injured. How did that happen?”
“You must see injured hunters every single day…”
“Well, that’s true.”
Yeonhee had already removed her bloodstained clothes and changed inside the dungeon, so there was no way for them to analyze bloodstains. Jeong Hyochan’s skill told him she was lying, yet there was nothing concrete he could press her on. Of course, if he got aggressive he might be able to find other traces, including any blood that might still be on her body.
What a pain. Looks like some guy tried to hit on her because of that face and got himself killed. That’s his own karma.
He had already logged the required investigation time. His part was done. As he nodded while staring at her stunningly beautiful face, he briefly considered asking her out for coffee, but quickly shook the thought away and spoke.
“Understood. Thank you for your time. Please be aware that we may call you in without notice if there are any issues with the documents you submitted.”
“Yes… I understand.”
Jeong Hyochan admired her beauty one last time as she stood up. He couldn’t tear his eyes off her back until she pulled her robe hood over her head and left the office. Only after she was gone did he save her information on his phone and leave a short memo.
— Hunter Administration Memo —
Lee Yeonhee, F-rank Hunter, Summoner (Second Awakening)
Killed three F-rank Hunters. Abdominal stab wound. Large quantity of potions used.
Yeonhee let out a huge sigh the moment she left the dungeon management office and hurried toward home.
That was really scary. Did he… notice something?
When he had questioned her, she had felt a subtle flow of mana. She was almost certain the clerk had used some kind of ability. An ordinary person would never have noticed, but her potential far surpassed the norm, so she had been able to sense it.
Still, they said they can’t do anything without evidence…
In truth, several men had tried to assault her since she began working as a hunter, so she had managed to hide her tension fairly well. The memory of the first time she had killed someone suddenly surfaced, but she forcibly shoved the unpleasant recollection away.
It couldn’t be helped. It was self-defense.
She comforted herself with those words and lengthened her stride. She wanted to get home quickly, summon Ilwol, and pour out everything weighing on her heart. That skeleton soldier was truly special. Somehow it felt like he genuinely empathized with her and understood her story.
He’s mine… completely, entirely mine.
The very first thing she had ever possessed that was wholly hers. Thinking of Ilwol filled her heart with a warm fullness, yet at the same time the trait written as [98 Lives] stuck in her throat like a thorn.
Why does only Ilwol have that restriction?
Her second summon, Wangwang, could be brought back in the exact same form even if he died a hundred times. She had already grasped the core mechanics of the Summoner class, so she knew this clearly. Even the second skeleton soldier she had summoned had a completely different trait composition from Ilwol. It lacked the [Sense] stat entirely and its intelligence was noticeably lower.
Is it some hidden benefit that comes with being the first summon?
A trait that consumed no mana either when summoning or maintaining the summon. It seemed simple, yet she thought there was nothing stranger than this benefit. Just as no human could live without air, a summoned creature should not be able to manifest in this world without mana as a medium, yet Ilwol made that possible.
Maybe some existence I can’t perceive is shouldering that burden instead.
Lost in those fantastical thoughts, she walked until she suddenly found herself standing in front of her house.
Click—
It was a tiny one-room apartment of less than ten pyeong, yet for some reason it felt unbearably empty. She had only been able to meet her summons for less than a week, but the fact that she occupied the space alone felt incredibly lonely.
Fortunately, she possessed the power to fill that emptiness. She wanted to use that power right away, but first she decided to wash up.
“For some reason I don’t want to show Ilwol my naked body.”
Even she didn’t understand why she felt that way. Logically, her summons were nothing more than the monsters people always talked about. Yet despite that thought, she hurried into the bathroom and began washing herself.
After a few seconds of staring at the familiar blinding light, I looked down at the ground.
“Tada—!”
“Clack.”
“Pffhehehe, look at Ilwol getting startled~”
“Woof! Woof!”
I really have nothing to say. At least she looks fine physically.
I had been seriously pondering our future plans when she greeted me with the brightest smile in the world and said,
“Here, Ilwol, look at this. This is what we earned today.”
On the floor lay three runes with familiar patterns. One low-grade rune and two normal-grade runes. Along with roughly 130,000 won earned from killing about twenty goblins.
She let out a slightly sinister chuckle and continued.
“Ilwol, can you take out your low-grade rune for a second?”
This time I obediently handed it over. She compared it with the low-grade rune she had obtained, then immediately passed it back to me.
“The one we got today has +6, so handing this over should be fine. It’s probably the lowest stat among low-grade runes.”
I nodded.
“And of the two normal runes, one is Stamina +2 and the other is Stamina +3.”
A +2 was the lowest possible stat for a normal rune, while +3 was average. Perhaps disappointed that the runes earned from a life-or-death battle weren’t better, she pouted her lips and clicked her tongue.
“Well, I’ll use these two for a while and sell them at a decent price later.”
Since her inventory could only hold ten runes, she could use them until it filled up and then sell them once she obtained higher-grade ones.
After looking over her loot, I took out a few bones I had gathered today from my inventory and tossed them to Wangwang.
“Hek! Hek hek— Woof!”
Wangwang drooled all over the floor and frantically began sucking on the bones.
“Huhu, Wangwang, you still can’t drool on the floor. And you’re not supposed to bark loudly inside the room. We got another noise complaint yesterday and I was scolded so much!”
Noise between floors is a serious conflict that can threaten lives… Wouldn’t it be wise to eliminate the risk factor immediately?
With that thought, I stared intently at Wangwang. The little mutt glared back at me as if asking what I was looking at, then wagged his rear and began crunching the bones noisily.
Cheeky little dog. I’m the one who got those bones for you…
“You know what? After I left the dungeon today, I had to go through an investigation. The guy had these really sharp, narrow eyes.”
She squatted on the floor and poured out everything that had happened after leaving the dungeon, describing each detail as meticulously as if she were recording her daily log on a tape recorder. I kept nodding and listening attentively. When she mentioned that the clerk seemed to have noticed she was lying, a certain man’s face rose in my mind.
Jeong Hyochan, huh? He had a skill that could distinguish truth from lies.
It was an ability that worked with nearly one hundred percent accuracy on opponents of lower rank. He was currently a low-level employee, but he would rise quickly. Even with limitations on its use, the skill was so useful that it was only a matter of time before high-ranking officials noticed him. A few years from now, after the Hunter Administration Office gets hacked, his ability would become known to the world. Naturally he would disappear right after, but he would only be hiding his appearance while continuing his original line of work.
The saving grace was that he wasn’t the type to throw himself into his job with burning passion.
He probably let it slide because it wasn’t worth pushing further.
After chattering for a long time, she gradually began to voice her worries about the next dungeon.