Chapter 15
1. The number of monsters increased by a Mana Core, hereafter called Clone Beasts, varies from specimen to specimen.
2. Every component of a Clone Beast, including its way of thinking, personality, abilities, and body, is identical to the original used as the Mana Core.
3. Clone Beasts obey the commands of the one who awakened the Mana Core without exception. This is not limited to spoken orders; by turning an image in the mind into intent, commands can be given at any time without distance restrictions.
4. Once issued, a command remains in effect permanently until the creature dies, unless it is taken back or reversed.
5. When a Clone Beast stops moving, nothing remains. It vanishes into black ash. No Magic Stone or Mana Core is recovered.
6. Even if a Clone Beast kills another monster, the same complete disappearance occurs. No byproduct remains.
7. A Mana Core, once used, cannot be reused.
8. Based on the above information gathered through simple experiments and collection observations, it is currently judged to be almost identical to Lord Demon King's known authority.
9. More cases and more detailed experiments are needed in order to obtain clearer information and confirm the precise differences.
10. What is the cause of the present situation?
The pen that had been moving so smoothly came to a brief halt. I tapped the page a few times, then wrote the next item.
Looking over the notes I had scrawled into the old notebook, I rubbed my chin in thought. When I killed monsters, a Mana Core came out instead of a Magic Stone.
It happened whether I killed them with brute force, with magic, or even by simply hurling a rock at them until they died. That left only one explanation I could think of right now.
“So it really is because of Jusu.”
I am Jusu. Not as a figure of speech, but literally. Everything I do carries the trace of that taboo power.
So maybe that was why even monsters killed by a rock I threw still produced Mana Cores.
“But why?”
What connection could there be between Jusu and Lord Demon King's authority? “Was Lord Demon King a shaman?” Taken at its simplest, that was one possibility. It wasn’t impossible.
But I shook my head at that thought. During the war, Lord Demon King had been with my master almost every single day. I had never once felt even the faintest hint of Jusu from him, let alone the character for it, so the idea that he was secretly a shaman was hard to take seriously.
Besides, my master had said there were only two shamans in this world: herself and me. My master had no reason to lie, so that had to be true.
“And even if he really had used Jusu, there aren’t any Magic Stones in Ragnarok.”
In the first place, Mana Cores were one of Lord Demon King's powers. More precisely, the power itself was the ability to kill a monster and replicate it, while a Mana Core was what stored that power so someone else could use it.
In a way, it was war material. In the past, they had often ridden winged dragons over enemy lines and scattered them like seeds across a field.
By contrast, I needed the intermediate step of a Mana Core when I duplicated monsters. I couldn't do it the way Lord Demon King did, killing them and duplicating them immediately.
Why was there such a difference? Was Jusu really the reason Mana Cores were created? If not, then what was?
“Damn it. This is giving me a hell of a headache.”
In the end, I gave up thinking about it and snapped the notebook shut, stuffing the thick, battered thing away. My head hurt from using it for the first time in a while.
I was built for brawling, not for brains. Figures something like this wouldn't suit me.
“Anyway, it's still a pain in the ass.”
I had looked into this and that on a hunch, but the conclusion was the same. I couldn't obtain Magic Stones directly.
Sure, I could use Lord Demon King's absurdly powerful authority. So what? It wasn't making me money right now. Useless. Completely useless.
Was it even worth calling myself a hunter if I couldn't get Magic Stones? I could sell monster bodies, sure, but a hunter's real source of income was Magic Stones.
In human society these days, Magic Stones were used so broadly that it was hard to find a place where they weren't needed. As an energy source used even more than electricity or oil had been on Earth, it made perfect sense that they were more valuable than monster bodies.
“Maybe I should just get a different job instead of being a hunter.”
I had picked this because it seemed like the easiest, simplest way to make money, and yet now it had turned into a problem I never saw coming.
Still, if I was honest, I wanted to avoid dealing with other humans as much as possible. My personality guaranteed friction.
That was a big part of why I had gone out of my way to find a hunting ground where no one else would come.
With a sigh, I put the notebook into my Inventory and flicked my finger.
The faint breath of the monster that had been dissected alive in front of me cut off at once.
After watching it scatter and vanish into black ash, I turned around.
“Hey! Bra! You done yet?”
When I shouted downward, a thick green arm rose in reply instead of a voice. A hideous fist covered in calluses lifted a finger.
It was the middle finger.
“That little bastard?”
Learned all the wrong things from somewhere, clearly. So now he was flipping off his master just because he was sulking?
Fine. Just wait there. I was coming down to step on him myself.
I jumped down at once.
Holding my nose against the sour stench of rotten blood, I stepped over heaps of monster corpses and walked toward my familiar.
“Kroaaak!!”
At that moment, the last monster let out a dying shriek and collapsed. My familiar, who had wrapped sword qi around a tree branch, turned to look at me.
“Goreuk. Have you only just come to help Gobra now?”
“I came to step on you, jackass.”
“Kuek!”
I glared at the familiar as he went flying from my kick, then turned my eyes to the corpses strewn around us.
I reached out toward the corpse right in front of me. With a wet tearing sound, my hand sank in and rummaged through flesh and organs.
Then, feeling something hard catch against my fingers, I gripped it and pulled it out.
“Pretty high purity.”
A purple stone glittered brilliantly in my hand. It was a little bigger than my palm, and according to the market rate I had checked on HunterNet, it would sell for a good price.
“Thinking about it pisses me off.”
If not for Mana Cores, I would have just had the whole thing to myself, and the fact that I had to rely on my familiar's hands instead was irritating as hell.
Still, at least Magic Stones that had already been formed like this didn't turn into Mana Cores when I touched them. If that hadn't been the case, I really would have considered changing careers.
“It seems like some unknown reaction that happens in the process of killing a monster is what decides whether something becomes a Magic Stone or a Mana Core.”
And I still had no idea what that reaction was. Jusu might be the cause, just as I had guessed earlier, but I couldn't be certain, and that was the problem.
“Goreuk. Did you learn anything at all?”
“No, not at all. I’ve only gotten more questions, and now my head hurts.”
As I answered the familiar's question, he had asked while plodding over to me, I lightly rolled my right foot.
Gooosh.
Along with the ripple spreading out from me, dark red blood rose up and swallowed the corpses of hundreds of monsters. In an instant, it gathered before me and formed a huge mouth.
“Inventory.”
When I opened my Inventory beneath it, the red mouth started spitting out Magic Stones like it was vomiting them.
As I thought, as long as I wasn't the one killing them directly, Magic Stones didn't seem to mutate even if I used Jusu.
“Master. Are we going back now?”
“We should. It's about morning.”
The hunt was more than enough for now, and I still had to make sure Lee Seo-ah got to school, so it was time to head back.
“Goreuk. Then I hope you go and pay Gobra the wages owed for his labor.”
“Huh?”
I turned back, wondering what kind of nonsense a familiar was spouting about wages for labor. He was wearing a strangely solemn expression and making the demand as if it were obvious.
“I don't ask for much. Get Gobra a sword and armor he can use.”
“Oh, that.”
“It seems like you'll keep hunting this way from now on, so you can't go on fighting with a tree branch forever.”
That was a perfectly fair point. I was just about to nod and agree when a thought suddenly struck me, and I called out to him.
“Bra. While we're at it, just use this as your sword.”
“Goreuk?”
I opened my mouth wide and shoved my hand inside.
Gwaeeek-
“Ta-da! Ex-calibur!”
“Ugh.”
I drew out the purple greatsword and thrust it toward him. My familiar covered his mouth and gagged.
“Ugh. Put that away, please. Don’t bring that filthy sword near Gobra.”
“Why not? This was your trophy in the first place.”
The holy sword my familiar had stolen after killing the previous Sword Saint. It was my dramatic prop, the thing I called Ex-calibur because it sounded cool enough.
“You wanted it when it was cool enough to steal, and now you’re pushing it on Gobra after turning a perfectly good sword into that? Have you lost your mind?”
“What does it matter? It still works great.”
“That’s not the issue. That thing is already a cursed object, isn’t it? How am I supposed to use something worse than a demon blade that chews up your life span just by holding it?”
“You aren't going to die, so why keep talking about lifespan?”
“Instead I’ll be in enough pain to wish I were dead. You want Gobra to fight while coughing up blood?”
“Fine, fine. Damn, you’re picky.”
Seriously. He should just take what I gave him.
He had hardly used it at all since the war ended, so I had been planning to return it in one generous gesture. Instead, he wouldn't take it.
Still, forcing it on him when he was rejecting it that hard would be a rotten thing to do. I wasn't that much of a bastard.
I sheathed the greatsword in the scabbard I had once made from my own blood and hung it at my waist.
Looks like the Magic Stones were all collected, so maybe it was time to head back.
“Master.”
“Hm?”
I was closing my Inventory when my familiar spoke, so I looked back.
“Going back to the human city you mentioned is fine. But there is a problem.”
“A problem?”
“Can goblins even enter that place?”
“...Huh?”
Our eyes met.
A cold silence fell between us.
Lee Seo-ah was getting ready for school that morning as usual. She left the orphanage as calmly as if nothing had happened the previous night, then came face-to-face with the pretty older sister who had already become part of her daily life.
But this time...
“Goreuk.”
There was a strange creature standing beside the pretty older sister.
It was about the same height as Lee Seo-ah, with a sturdy build. Green skin. A bald head, sharp long ears, and yellow goat-like eyes.
A broad, blunt nose and a jutting chin pushed forward. It wore a pink T-shirt with Love and Peace written across the chest, and a placard hung over one shoulder.
“Not dangerous. Doesn’t bite. Harmless. Do not give it attention...?”
Seo-ah quietly read the words on the sign in her head, then closed her eyes for a moment.
“Is this a dream?”
“Nope.”
At Cynthia's bright, clear voice, Seo-ah escaped from denial and opened her eyes again.
Then, as if it had been waiting for that moment, the strange creature stepped closer and extended a hand that wasn't holding the sign.
“Nice to meet you. Gobra is Gobra. I am the master's familiar. Please take care of me from here on.”
“...”
No matter how she looked at it, it was undeniably a monster. A creature that looked like a monster from every angle was offering a handshake as if nothing were wrong.
It was strange enough that the monster could talk, but it was even stranger that it was speaking fluent Korean.
Seo-ah briefly shifted her gaze and looked at Cynthia.
“Hm? Why?”
Her expression showed no trace of anything strange at all.
Seo-ah turned her head away and closed her eyes again. After taking a slow breath, she opened them.
“Ah. Yes. Hello. I’m Lee Seo-ah.”
Seo-ah decided to stop thinking.