Arcana Online
There were two nations on the Arcana Continent.
The Avalon Empire, home to ten master-class knights and backed by overwhelming military might.
And Arcadia, the land of three magic towers that had produced seven archmages and was known as the homeland of all mages.
The two countries cooperated to maintain peace, while countless guilds operated from bases in cities across the continent.
Among them was one of the ten major guilds: the Frey Guild, headquartered in Thalassa, the commercial city at the heart of the continent.
A small elite guild whose every member, including the guild leader, maintained high ranker status.
Today, however, the usually quiet office was echoing with a loud, uncharacteristic commotion.
Shasha, a high-ranker fighter, was throwing a fit at Kathlea, the Frey Guild leader, who was buried in paperwork in her office.
“Leader! I’m telling you, we have to recruit her! She’s got promise!”
“Really? What makes you say that?”
“A rabbit gave her a carrot as a gift!”
“And?”
“That was it!”
With a bright smile, Kathlea swept her shimmering blond hair aside and answered.
“Get out.”
“I’m serious! Look at this!”
A blue window appeared, and a video began to play.
It showed a young girl with blond hair and blue eyes, surrounded by rabbits and being showered with affection.
On top of that, she’d been given a carrot.
A carrot, with a drop rate so absurdly low that it supposedly only appeared once in ten thousand kills.
It was an ingredient used to make the potions needed for boss raids.
But something about it felt wrong.
Just looking at her made my chest tighten, as if I should be protecting her somehow.
Was it because she had such a childlike face?
Either way, it would be better to investigate.
“As your leader, I’m ordering you to look into that girl in detail and report back. We’ll decide whether to recruit her after that.”
“Leave it to me!”
Shasha stormed out, practically smashing the door on her way.
It was a headache. We had already repaired the door five times this month.
That cost money too, so why did she always have to break it on the way out?
Just then, the space rippled, and someone emerged.
The mage high-ranker Hecate, wearing a robe and a large hat.
“Honestly, Leader. Aren’t you a little too soft on Shasha?”
“Can’t help it. Guild members are family, after all. More importantly, did you finish the quest?”
“Of course! I cleared an S-rank quest and earned 10,000 reputation points!”
10,000 points meant ten potions.
Which meant I could raise my intelligence by a whole ten points.
With leveling being so brutally difficult, I had been using reputation quests to raise my stats instead.
“I was seriously about to die, you know? Since it was an S-rank quest, the monsters were practically a mountain of them, and the rankers I went with got turned to mush.”
After venting for a while, she said she was going out for a drink and left the office.
At last, peace returned.
Noise wasn’t always bad, but the usual quiet was still best.
More than that, though, my mind felt strangely unsettled.
A unique trait...? No, there was no such thing in this world.
It was pointless to worry about it right now. There was no solution anyway.
I pushed the image of the little girl drifting through my mind aside and went back to my paperwork.
Most of it was invoices sent to the guild because the guild members had destroyed something expensive.
*
*
*
Staring at the orb in my hand—no, the Yeouiju—I shouted, “Jackpot!!”
This had to be a win, right!?
Should I eat it right now!? Or save it for later!?
At that exact moment, my bedroom door suddenly burst open, and Belle noona stormed in.
“What happened!?”
Startled by the sudden intrusion, I could only stare at her in wide-eyed silence. Belle noona looked me over, then her gaze landed on the Yeouiju in my hand, and her eyes went wide.
“Th-that’s a Yeouiju, isn’t it!? Where did you get that!?”
If I said I got it from a random draw, she’d never believe me, would she?
“I-I just happened to get it by chance.”
“You weren’t planning to eat it, were you?”
“Huh? I can’t eat it?”
She didn’t say it out loud, but I could practically hear her thoughts.
No, how could you even think that?
So it wasn’t for eating...?
“A Yeouiju isn’t something people eat. You give it to a summon.”
“What would have happened if I’d eaten it?”
“It’d probably work like a powerful tonic.”
Since I’d decided to feed it to my summon once it hatched, we moved on and finished the conversation we’d started yesterday.
Following Belle noona downstairs, I found the inn still unopened, and not a single person was in sight in the usually bustling common room.
She told me to sit and wait a moment, then went into the kitchen and came back with a simple breakfast I could eat easily.
She said we should talk while I ate.
“Hmm. If you can’t become my disciple, there’s another way.”
“Another way?”
“But there’s a restriction.”
She handed me a ring.
[Sealing Ring]
It nullifies all magic, but in exchange you cannot use mana.
Belle noona explained that the mark itself was also a kind of magic.
“If you wear this ring, it’ll suppress the mark placed on you by the Demon Dragon King, Ernia. But you won’t be able to use magic, and the moment you take the ring off, the mark will activate again.”
She looked at me with apologetic eyes, but was there really a problem...?
To begin with, I didn’t even have a single skill.
Ah, but I did have that spellbook I received. I should try using it later.
“It’s okay. It can’t be helped.”
“Ugh... I’m sorry...”
“W-why are you crying!?”
Suddenly tearing up, she clasped my hand tightly.
She said she was sorry she couldn’t be more help, and the tears kept falling.
Was Belle noona really an NPC...?
After I spent a long time comforting her, she seemed embarrassed and chased me out of the inn, telling me to go play outside for a while.
Since I’d been kicked out anyway, I headed for the hunting grounds to level up.
The moment I took the spellbook from my inventory and opened it, it turned into light and vanished.
You have used the Goblin Spellbook.
Passive skill acquired: Commune.
Commune
Strengthens combat ability through a deep bond with your summons.
My first skill, and it turned out to be something strange.
Could I even use this?
“Commune!”
I shouted loudly, but nothing changed.
My face burned a little, and I quickened my steps toward the hunting grounds.
I even greeted the rabbits, and passed a slime on the road, but they just gave me a glance and moved on.
Weren’t you supposed to be aggressive monsters?
Leaving the slimes behind, I walked farther and finally spotted a goblin group in the distance.
I waved to greet them, and the goblins waved back.
But if it was like this, where was I supposed to hunt?
If I couldn’t kill rabbits, slimes, or goblins, then what was left?
Following the road until I reached a place far from the village for the first time, I saw something.
A monster with a pig’s head and a human body, carrying a huge sword in one hand.
[Orc]
Normally, I should have leveled up enough by hunting goblins before attempting this, but I didn’t have a choice.
When I approached the orc, it looked back at me too.
To avoid repeating the same mistake as before, I spoke to it.
“Do you perhaps have a family?”
“Young human! Asking about my family on our first meeting? I won’t let that slide!”
With that, the orc raised its enormous sword and charged.
I panicked so badly my whole body stiffened.
Just as the orc closed in and was about to swing the sword at me, I tried to block it with my staff, but my strength gave out and I dropped it.
The moment I squeezed my eyes shut and braced for pain, I heard a sharp clang and the sound of a sword being knocked aside.
When I opened my eyes, another orc had blocked the blade?
“How dare you swing your sword at a young human? You are a disgrace to the orc race!”
“That’s not true! That young human was the one who brought up family first!”
At that moment, the orc who had saved me turned to look at me.
The instant it saw the fear in my eyes, I heard the grinding of teeth.
“And now you lie as well. Die for the honor of our race.”
With that, it swung its sword, and a blue light flashed as the other orc was cut cleanly in two.
The corpse dissolved into light, and I was left alone with the orc that had been worrying about me.
“Young human, my name is Ppada. What is your name?”
“M-my name is Yuna.”
“A good name. Then go back the way you came. It is dangerous ahead.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ppada.”
I had almost been killed by an orc, then saved by another orc, and now I was on my way back to the village.
That left me with a new problem.
The orc I’d just seen was much stronger than I was.
So where was I supposed to level up now?
But the worry didn’t last long.
I’d forgotten something.
My job was a summoner.
All I had to do was wait until my summon hatched.
Honestly, if I said I wasn’t looking forward to it, that would be a lie.
What kind of summon would I get?
With a fluttering heart, I headed back to the village, when I suddenly remembered something I’d forgotten.
Something I didn’t want to do, but had to if I wanted to survive.
I had groceries to buy, and utility bills to pay.
How wonderful it would be if this world were reality.
The lightness in my steps from just a moment ago suddenly felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.