Suspicious Gathering
The status window popped up before my eyes.
I invested the stats I gained from leveling up into Senses, which had grown increasingly important, Magic Power, which was being consumed more rapidly as I gained new skills, and Stamina just to round out the numbers nicely.
Out of the eleven enemies, I had personally killed four. Thanks to the Summoner’s Helper achievement, my stats had risen by a total of four points. It seemed the achievement only activated if I delivered the killing blow myself.
“Ah…”
Yeonhee stood there in a daze, her eyes darting rapidly. She was probably checking a similar achievement notification.
Kuhuk… Cough!
The single survivor I had spared had both arms bent at grotesque angles, as if he’d been trampled by a Lizardman.
“Tell me. What exactly were you doing here? And what did you do to those people?”
Yeonhee pointed at the ten or so severed heads scattered on the ground, already separated from their bodies.
The man coughed violently for a long while before finally speaking in a strained voice.
“W-we… we were just… following orders… We don’t know anything…”
“You were clearly performing some kind of ritual! You’re telling me you did all this without even knowing what it was? And you still call yourselves human?!”
Yeonhee’s voice had risen several pitches higher than usual. She was clearly starting to lose her temper.
“Cough… cough… That skeleton killed the high priest… He might have known something…”
Tap—
Ah… Did I kill him too hastily? No wonder he gave me two whole stat points. He must have been a higher-ranking bastard than the rest.
Next time, I should try to keep the strongest one alive…
Damn it, as if that would be possible. If I get the chance, I should just snipe the strongest one first with a surprise attack.
“What the hell do you people gain from this?! Killing innocent people—what exactly do you get out of it?!”
“Fuck! Money and gear, obviously! Kahak— Haa… haa…”
The man seemed to have given up on living and started shouting back at Yeonhee with equal fury.
“I’ve heard about you, you bitch! Summoner? Second awakening? Got lucky and gained some power, huh? Your earnings must have jumped several times over, right?! So what about me?! Am I supposed to crawl through low-grade dungeons with one shitty striking skill, constantly terrified of getting hurt, and just die like a dog?! This organization gives you a Shadow Cloak just for joining! You expect me to turn that down? Murder? Fuck, all the strong bastards hide in the shadows and pull this kind of shit anyway! How many people have you killed—!”
Shuk—!!
Gurgle—
“Hik! I-Ilwol…?”
“Clack!!”
Why the hell are you listening so politely to this garbage? We’re wasting time.
In the end, the man had gone on and on about how he killed people just to make money easily. I stabbed him repeatedly until the messages stopped appearing, making sure to finish him off completely.
[Summoner’s Helper] achievement has been activated.
Magic Power : 62(+1)
Oh, nice. Magic power is good.
I smiled inwardly at the achievement effect, then clapped my hands in front of Yeonhee, who was biting her lip hard. Of course, it only made a loud clacking sound of bone against bone, but it was enough to snap her out of her daze.
“Haa… We can’t just leave the victims like this, right? My inventory still has some space…”
Tap—
She’s too kind for her own good…
In the end, we gathered all the victims’ bodies and began dividing them between Yeonhee’s inventory and mine.
“Ah, three is my limit. Can you take any more, Ilwol?”
Hmm… Huh? They keep going in. Why is this happening?
“Whoa? They all fit? How?”
Yeah… Normally you can only store two or three corpses…
It was extremely strange, but we decided to just put them all in for now. We thoroughly searched the belongings of the blue-eyed bastards we had killed, but not a single one dropped even a common Vitality Rune.
So this is all we got in the end?
I pulled out the Magic Power Rune from the pouch hanging at my waist. The spiral pattern engraved on the dark red stone revealed its identity at once.
◈ Magic Power +8
Heh, the bastard was carrying something decent after all.
I handed the Magic Power Rune to Yeonhee, who was pouting because she hadn’t managed to obtain any loot.
“Huh? Wasn’t this something the high priest was carrying?”
“Clack clack clack!”
“Hmm… You should take this, Ilwol. I’ve already received more than my fair share lately. I’d feel bad taking any more. Here—”
Well, I still have plenty more to give her. If she starts refusing this early, it’ll be troublesome.
Still, I accepted the rune from her and immediately recalled the rune storage section of my inventory. The rune vanished with a soft shimmer.
Magic Power : 70(+8)
Now I had enough magic power to rapid-fire seventy Flame Bullets in a row.
Whoa—feels solid.
I expanded my senses just in case there was anything else nearby. Unexpectedly, I detected a faint trace of magic power coming from the black panel that had been laid out for the ritual.
Huh?
The panel was about one and a half times the length of a school desk. I casually placed my hand on it—and the world before my eyes went pitch black as I lost consciousness.
. . .
I felt my body being sucked into a massive vortex. When I came to my senses, a small ball of flame was resting in my palm.
“Ah, hot! Fuck! What the hell is this?!”
Startled by the flame, I was shocked once by the fact that I had skin on my hand, and shocked again by the fact that I could speak. My shoulders jerked up in a ridiculous motion.
“I know you’re trying your best to catch their eye, but do you really think the higher-ups care about the likes of us? Just stay quiet and you’ll at least make it to the middle, they say.”
“…Y-yeah.”
What the hell is going on? Where am I? And why am I not a skeleton?
Cold Calm
My momentarily chaotic mind cooled down instantly thanks to the trait’s effect. I lifted my arm and examined it again. The texture was too unnatural to be real human skin. It felt more like a mannequin.
The person who had spoken to me had a face that was only vaguely human—eyes, nose, and mouth were present but blurred like a watercolor painting. It was hard to call it a real human face.
When I looked around, I saw quite a few people scattered throughout a space the size of a soccer field. Every single one of them was standing still, staring in the same direction.
What they were looking at was a three-meter-tall humanoid figure standing on a raised platform. Its face was also blurred, just like the one beside me.
Everyone here seems to be in the same state, so they probably can’t recognize me either.
— Ahem. It looks like everyone has gathered. Some regions are short on time, so let’s begin the collection first.
The moment the tall figure on the platform said “collection,” the small ball of flame I was holding in my hand rapidly shrank and then vanished completely.
— Hmm… Not bad. Even if it looks incredibly insignificant to you all, these tiny things will gather and eventually become the power to accomplish a great cause.
He looked at the massive ball of flame gathered in his own hand with satisfaction, then disappeared from the platform after a short closing remark promising the next meeting.
The many people standing in the space began murmuring among themselves and soon started vanishing one by one.
“…By burning the flesh to build a bridge, we shall summon the god…”
The guy next to me muttered what sounded like an incantation for a while, then slowly faded away as he spoke.
“See you next time, brother. May Ashuran be with you.”
“…Ah, may A-Ashuran be with you…”
I quickly echoed the words of the man beside me. He gave me a faint smile and then disappeared.
How do I get out of here…
After thinking for a moment, I strongly wished in my mind to return to the place I had been before.
……Damn it, is it not working?
Whoosh—
Fortunately, the space around my body began to swirl, and something changed. Once again, I lost consciousness.
. . .
“…Wol? Ilwol!”
“……Clack clack clack!”
When I returned to the original space, I realized Yeonhee had placed my skull on her lap and was looking down at me. I quickly sat up.
“What… what happened? You suddenly collapsed and wouldn’t wake up for so long… I was scared that if I canceled the summoning something might go wrong, so I couldn’t do anything and… sob…”
She must have been really frightened. Tears were already streaming down her face.
I gently wiped away the tear stains on her cheeks, then raised both arms to signal that I was fine. Only then did Yeonhee seem relieved. She smiled brightly and began checking every part of my body.
Those damn blue-eyed bastards…
The thought that they were the reason Yeonhee was crying made rage surge inside me for a moment.
Swoosh—
“Mmm…”
I stroked her hair for a moment to calm myself down, then carefully thought back on how I had been transported to that gathering space.
When I pushed the high priest away, the ritual was still in full swing… When he fell onto the altar, the offerings toppled along with him.
Step—
When I looked at the black panel where the ritual had been performed, it was soaked with blood that had poured from the severed heads. The faint magical energy it had been emitting was now gone.
I approached it, grabbed the panel, and checked its information.
A makeshift altar crafted from Black Steel Wood, allowing followers of the Blue Eyes to perform rituals anywhere.
‘Black Steel Wood? There was a tree like that?’
Anyway, the fact that information appeared meant it had some usefulness or value. I roughly shook off the blood on the altar and stored it in my inventory.
Even though I had put eight corpses inside, I didn’t feel the subspace reaching its limit at all. Normally, when you approach the limit, you instinctively feel a sense of pressure.
It’s clear that my inventory space has become much larger than when I was human. Hmm… Well, there’s no harm in that.
Thinking too hard about why it had changed would only give me a headache. We left the enemies’ corpses behind and exited the area. We neatly arranged all the victims right in front of the hidden space and quickly left the scene.