Skeleton Life: Nine Out of Ten
The score I give this skeleton body of mine is pretty high. When I emerged from that space, thankfully not much time had passed at all. Yeonhee was actually thrilled that I had appeared the moment she called. With one worry lifted, I checked my condition again.
My body has been fine ever since I came to my senses. So that breathless feeling earlier wasn’t physical…
It had been the kind of focus that left a clean, empty space in my mind. If that was the result of intense mental training I hadn’t even realized I was doing, then the shortness of breath made sense.
In the end, I had gained a new trait today and two artifacts. Getting artifacts so often was starting to feel like finding heirlooms that every household supposedly had, but in reality these were items most low-rank hunters would never see even once in their lives.
I casually held them out to Yeonhee as if I had simply picked them up on the way.
“Huh? You brought these back from the fight with the Champion? This one looks… like a kettle?”
Yeonhee took the water pitcher I offered and spent several minutes turning it over in her hands, eyes sparkling as she declared how pretty it was.
“But there’s water inside. Why won’t it come out?”
The pitcher had stayed transparent ever since I first activated it. The water inside was clearly visible, yet when Yeonhee tried to pour, nothing came out—as if something blocked the spout.
“Eeeek! Why won’t it come out?! Even pouring mana into it doesn’t work—!”
I took the pitcher from her before she could smash it and poured the water into a cup myself. A clear stream flowed out.
“Wow… how did you do that?”
“Clack clack!”
Somehow managing to open the lid she couldn’t made my shoulders bounce with unnecessary pride.
Yeonhee sniffed the water in the cup, dipped her finger in, and rubbed it between her fingers. Her conclusion was simple.
“So… it’s just water?”
I nodded. Seeing that an artifact produced nothing but ordinary water left her looking slightly bewildered.
Helen or Jin-gyeong would be the real test. I’m curious!
Unable to contain my curiosity, I decided to test it on my summons first.
“Clack clack!!” (Hey! Wangwang!)
“Woof?” (You want Wangwang to have a sip?)
“Woof woof?!”
Drink up.
I filled Wangwang’s food bowl to the brim with the otherworldly lake water and set it down. The puppy eyed it warily at first, but after Yeonhee patted his belly a few times he forgot whose water it was and happily lapped it up.
Slurp, slurp.
I watched the water disappear into his fluffy white muzzle. After drinking his fill, Wangwang trotted back to Yeonhee and wagged his thick, fox-like tail. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
…Nothing special after all? Just drinking water?
No increase in mana, no mystical effects like the spirit spring from martial arts novels. Not even a little.
“Grr! That can’t be right!! Woof! Woof woof!!”
Having recovered his stamina, Wangwang simply ran circles around Yeonhee like a mad dog. No special changes appeared.
“Hmm. Looks like it doesn’t do anything, Ilwol.”
I nodded weakly.
“Still, we could probably sell it for a lot, right? Or… should I try drinking it?”
“Clack clack!!”
“Okay, okay, I won’t. What’s with that reaction? Hehe.”
I’ll save some and have Jin-gyeong try it tomorrow.
I filled an empty bottle with the otherworldly water and stored it in my inventory. Then I showed Yeonhee the second item.
Flutter, flutter.
“Huh? What’s that? A magic carpet?”
Close enough.
I draped the cloak around my neck, gave a small hop in the room, and sat cross-legged in midair.
“Kyaaah! Waaaah…!”
Heh heh heh. The feedback is great, so showing off feels worthwhile.
Yeonhee kept snapping photos of me slowly descending while sitting cross-legged in the air.
“Pfft—! Puhaha! Ilwol, you look ridiculous! Hahaha!”
This is funny? Why?
Even Wangwang and Ttungi had their eyes curved in amusement. A skeleton sitting cross-legged in a cloak while slowly floating down… was apparently a strange sight.
“Kikiki!”
That dumb-looking kobold laughing at me is even more annoying.
While Yeonhee clutched her stomach laughing, I gave both Ttungi and Wangwang a solid flick on the head.
Thwack.
“Boop?”
“Grrr.” (I accept your challenge anytime.)
They say a barking dog never bites, but Wangwang, you’ll never lay a paw on me no matter how long you live. After failing to counterattack with his short reach, Wangwang looked dejected and began gulping down the otherworldly water again.
“Oh my, Wangwang, aren’t you drinking too much? You’ll get an upset stomach.”
Yeonhee, having stopped laughing, brushed Wangwang’s tail with a worried look.
Slurp slurp slurp.
Anyone seeing this would think I starve him.
“Anyway, that cloak lets you fly in the sky? Well, not exactly fly—float, I guess?”
I nodded.
Want to go gliding together outside sometime and look at the night view, Yeonhee? With stealth added now.
“Hehehe. Ilwol, you’re becoming more and more of an unknown entity. Now you’re flying through the sky too. Are you going to turn into a real person someday?”
I tilted my head forty-five degrees. Yeonhee burst out laughing again, saying I was cute.
Truthfully, I had once wondered if there was a way to return to being human. But after living as a skeleton for nearly a month, my score for skeleton life was…
Nine out of ten! Being a skeleton is great!
First, I don’t feel pain even when injured. I don’t feel cold or heat, and I never have to worry about starving. Well, I’m already dead, so that’s obvious. There’s more: as an undead, I have no stamina limit. My frail appearance can make enemies let their guard down. I never have to worry about choosing clothes, and since I’m bald, I don’t even need to wash my hair. There are surprisingly many advantages.
The downsides are that I can’t speak and I look terrifying.
…Those two drawbacks are huge. Damn it. Still, I’m satisfied with everything else, so I only deducted one point.
Now that I could speak, I even worried whether I would be able to speak properly. And my face was so dark that even I sighed just looking at it. Maybe Yeonhee’s occasional blushing when she looked at me was actually her being on the verge of bursting into tears from fear?
Even so, I was simply grateful that she treated me the same as her other summons.
Anyway, this world was one where impossibilities had vanished and only possibilities remained. If I kept searching without giving up, I might obtain what I wanted someday. But right now, there was no reason to look for a way to become human again.
Humans are full of weaknesses. Hmph.
Flutter—
Bang!
“Kyahaha! This is so much fun!”
Yeonhee had already taken the cloak from me, wrapped it around her own neck, and was floating around the ceiling.
“Wow—I really think I chose the right path becoming a hunter!”
Of course, becoming a hunter was more about talent than choice, but if Yeonhee said so, then so be it.
“Woof! Woof!”
“Hahaha! Wangwang, look at me~ Hah, freestyle swimming in the air!”
“Whine— Grnn—”
Wangwang had been watching Yeonhee float enviously when he suddenly let out a sound like a dog that needed to poop. It seemed it was time for him to produce a magic stone. Earlier I had forcibly taken three low-grade stones from the dumb-looking Ttungi’s bundle. I wondered how Wangwang would do.
“Whine— Whine—”
Wangwang trembled much harder than yesterday, and the tip of his tail opened wide.
Roll, roll.
Huh? It’s bigger than usual.
I picked up the stone that had come out of Wangwang’s tail and checked its condition.
…This is mid-grade?!
Wangwang had been producing lowest-grade and low-grade stones, recently only low-grade. I had thought it would take ages before he could make mid-grade stones, yet here one was.
Roll, roll— Thud—
Watching him produce stone after stone, I wondered for a moment if this was his final burst of life before death. If not, then…
It must be because he drank so much of that otherworldly water from the pitcher.
(Wangwang, drink this while you go.)
I refilled the bowl in front of him with more water.
“Whiiine—”
But Wangwang had caught on. Even when I pushed the bowl to his snout, he refused to drink.
(Drink! Gulp it down! And produce! This is your only chance to prove your worth!)
Yeonhee, who had been enjoying her glide, looked at me squeezing Wangwang’s tail and asked,
“Ilwol, why are you suddenly being so touchy-feely when you never do that?”
Of course, rolling up his tail to squeeze was just an experiment. Maybe something was still left in that plump tail.
After landing, Yeonhee examined the stones Wangwang had produced from various angles while still wearing the cloak.
Roll, roll.
“Wow— Again? Wangwang, you don’t have to overdo it, okay?”
“Woof…”
Eventually Wangwang collapsed on the floor like a flat pancake, exhausted. Today he had produced a total of five stones. Recently he had been making two or three low-grade stones, but he had never produced this many at once. And all five were mid-grade.
Wangwang’s low-grade stones usually sold for around thirty thousand won each because of their quality. Mid-grade stones would fetch at least seventy thousand won apiece. If he produced stones like this every day, that would be three hundred fifty thousand won earned just by sitting around. Of course, judging by his current state, he would probably produce fewer starting tomorrow.
A true perpetual motion machine.
As long as I could supply bones, he had become a super puppy that created something from nothing!
“Wow— This is because he drank the water from the pitcher, right?”
I nodded.
The pitcher’s description had said it produced the cleanest, clearest water. If I thought about a typical fantasy otherworld, it wasn’t a world that had suddenly become like ours. Mana had permeated every corner of nature since the beginning. The cleanest, clearest water would likely be the water with the highest mana concentration…
Wangwang suddenly becoming so capable made sense. The expected effect had appeared after all!
Couldn’t this be used as a mana potion too?
Mana potions were extremely difficult even for high-ranking alchemists to make and sold for high prices. If this water had that kind of effect…
Just going the chaebol route wouldn’t be so bad either.