Chapter 23
A week had passed since the transfer student, Ma Yu-ri, arrived.
Lee Seo-ah had been spending that time trailing along beside her.
Of course, it had not been by choice.
“Seo-ah feels like my little sister. Hehe.”
Apparently, she had taken one look at Seo-ah and decided she was adorable, small, and precious.
“How did you know my name? I never told you.”
“I saw your name tag! My eyes are really good!”
Yu-ri really did have a sharp eye.
“Uuugh. Math is hard.”
“If it's hard, don't give up.”
“Why should I? The Device tells me everything I don't know!”
“...Still, you should memorize the multiplication tables.”
On the other hand, she was not especially bright.
Seo-ah could not tell whether Yu-ri was bad at thinking or simply hated studying.
“Yay! Hey, what are you guys talking about?”
“Ah, well...”
“Ohhh! Monster hunting! I'm good at that game! You play too? What rank are you?”
She was easy to get along with, too.
She walked right up to the boys and girls in class alike, struck up conversations without a hint of awkwardness, and became friendly with them in no time.
“Seo-ah! Look at that cloud! It looks like a hamburger!”
And she was a slightly unusual girl.
The moment she came out after changing into her gym clothes, Yu-ri shouted, staring at the clouds drifting across the blue sky with sparkling eyes and licking her lips.
“Looks delicioussss.”
“You’re drooling.”
“Ah!”
At Seo-ah's words, she snapped back to her senses, wiped at the corner of her mouth, and laughed sheepishly.
“I just didn't eat breakfast this morning.”
“...Are you really that hungry?”
“I'm fine! Lunch will be here soon, anyway! I can hold out!”
She bounced around chanting, “Let's go! Let's go!”
Even through the thin gym uniform, her body was far more developed than Seo-ah's, and it swayed with every hop.
The students gathered around her kept stealing glances, one after another.
It was hardly surprising; if Seo-ah had not been standing nearby, they would have been swarming her outright.
“Attendance is done. Be careful not to get hurt. Class rep, check the headcount when it's time, and if everyone's fine, you can dismiss the class.”
After finishing his instructions, the gym teacher headed back into the school building.
Except during exam season, gym class was almost always like this.
Good news for the students, but sometimes Seo-ah wondered if a teacher was really allowed to get away with that.
An officially sanctioned study period to rest and play in peace.
The boys played ball games like soccer, while the girls walked around the field or sat in the shade and passed the time.
“Yaaah!”
“H-hey, block her!”
“She's way too fast!”
Seo-ah sat alone in the shade beneath a tree and watched the soccer game.
The reason she was doing something other than zoning out the time as usual was because Yu-ri had joined the boys' game.
With her bright personality and excellent athleticism, she fit right in with them.
Her long, straight legs flashed as she weaved past an opponent, then kicked the ball up hard with a fluid motion.
Seo-ah did not know much about soccer, but even to her eyes, the ball drew a beautiful arc through the air, sailed past the goalkeeper, and slipped into the net.
“Yeeaaah!!”
Thrilled to have scored, Yu-ri started hopping around again.
Her ponytail, tied high and left to fall down her back, spun in a lively circle.
Then, perhaps noticing Seo-ah watching her, she turned and thrust up a V sign with her hand.
The pretty face smeared faintly with dirt, slick with sweat, showed its teeth as she grinned like a brat.
She's pretty.
She had the kind of fresh, healthy beauty that practically radiated from her.
It was hard to believe she was the same age as Seo-ah.
Especially when it came to build.
“Huh? This much?”
“...Yeah. I was a little hungry too.”
Lunch came after gym class.
It was nothing compared to Yu-ri, who carried two trays, but Seo-ah had filled hers with more food than usual.
She avoided Yu-ri's eyes as she answered the question, surprised as they sat facing each other.
There were other moments, too, when what seemed like a perfectly ordinary friendship suddenly ran into something unexpected.
“Yu-ri. Don't get too close to Lee Seo-ah.”
“Huh? Why?”
Seo-ah held her breath while listening from the toilet stall as she relieved herself.
“You just transferred here, so you wouldn't know, but getting tangled up with her is dangerous.”
“Yeah, yeah. Quite a few people have already gone missing, you know.”
“And not long ago, some weird person smashed through a window during class and made a huge scene over Lee Seo-ah.”
“Even the teachers avoid her.”
Yu-ri and a few of the girls in class were talking about Seo-ah.
“Ehh, I don't like that.”
“We're saying this for your own good.”
“But Seo-ah is kind and cute. And I get that something bad happened to her, but that wasn't Seo-ah's fault, right? Or do you have proof or something?”
“Th-that isn't it, but...”
“Then it was just an unfortunate accident! Did you avoid Seo-ah all this time because of some superstition like that?”
The girls did not answer.
Then Yu-ri's cheerful voice scolded them with sudden firmness.
“That's awful! Then Seo-ah would be so pitiful! Seo-ah is really kind and nice! She's smarter than me, and cuter too! There's something wrong with bullying someone for no reason!”
“Y-You mean Yu-ri!”
Footsteps sounded, then gradually faded away.
Yu-ri and the girls had left the restroom.
Seo-ah, still seated on the toilet, gently clasped her chest with both hands.
She lowered her head and bit her lip hard.
Something surged up from deep inside her.
But...
It did not feel that bad.
Rather, it felt a little warm. Seo-ah drew in a deep breath.
Lately, his daughter-in-the-making had been talking about another girl a lot.
“Fine. Should I kill her?”
“Goreuk. Calm down. She just made a friend, that's all.”
Friend?
What was that. Was it edible?
“Can I just chew her up and swallow her?”
“Not everything that doesn't belong to the master belongs to everyone else either. It seems like the girl's the first friend the young Lee Seo-ah has made, so don't do anything foolish.”
Crunch. Crack.
“It's annoying. I'm jealous. Seo-ah smiles when she talks about that girl. Why? It used to be my smile alone. Why? Why? Why?”
“Goreuk. Enough of that. Stop eating your own hand, too. Come over here and sort the mana stones.”
At the familiar's words, I pulled my half-eaten left hand out of my mouth and walked over.
I stamped down on the pile of monster corpses on the floor, just to get my frustration out.
“Aaaagh! This is so irritating!”
“There it goes again.”
Even while the corpses were gurgling, spilling blood, and being swallowed up as I gathered the mana stones, my teeth still rattled whenever I thought about that girl.
“Trying to seduce our Seo-ah while acting all innocent just because her face is a little pretty!”
“Does the master think all females in the world are like the master?”
“What's gender got to do with it if she's pretty and cool!”
“Obviously it matters. I know this is asking a lot, but could you try to have a little common sense, master?”
The familiar sighed and looked at me with a cold, exasperated stare.
I was already in a rotten mood, and now this brat was pushing it?
“Then I'll stomp you.”
Bang.
I kicked with all my strength, but for some reason, the impact felt disappointingly weak.
“Goreuk.”
The familiar stood there just fine, grinning annoyingly with one corner of its mouth raised.
Come to think of it, the little bastard was wearing armor right now.
It really did earn its price.
“So what! White Blood, you punk!”
“Kuhak?!”
A white explosion burst from my right foot, which had been pressed against its abdomen, and blew the familiar away.
Seeing it fly far off and slam into a huge tree trunk made me feel a little better.
“Damn it. What the hell is that girl? She shows up out of nowhere and starts clinging to our Seo-ah.”
What was her name again? Ma. Ma. Ma?
“Goreuk. Ma Yu-ri.”
“Right, Ma Yu-ri!”
I clapped at the familiar's answer as it returned without a single scorch mark.
The name sounded vaguely familiar, so I must have seen it somewhere before.
“You had forgotten, hadn't you.”
“No, I didn't!”
“Gobra is always impressed by the master's shamelessness.”
That goblin bastard. Ever since he got some decent armor, he'd been getting way too cocky lately.
Auto-farming was convenient and all, but I was starting to think I should never have bought the thing.
Should I stomp him again?
“Goreuk. Master.”
“What.”
“Isn't that a Mana Core?”
“Huh?”
I lowered the leg I'd been about to raise and turned my eyes toward the direction he pointed.
A single familiar black orb was rolling around in the open.
“Why is that there?”
“It looks like there was a fellow pretending to be dead.”
Looking at the situation, it seemed the familiar's guess was right.
I was currently in the middle of implementing a formula to make the corpses of monsters on the floor be eaten while separating out only the mana stones, and it looked like one of the dead-pretending bastards had been consumed by my blood and turned into a Mana Core.
“Damn it. What a waste.”
I walked over, picked up the Mana Core, and frowned.
I already had a pile of useless Mana Cores gathering in my inventory, and now another one was about to be added to the stack.
“And I can't exactly throw it away or sell it, either.”
A Mana Core was a strategic weapon that anyone with mana could use.
If I carelessly dumped one on this fragile Earth, it was obvious future trouble would follow.
“Can't you sell it?”
Then the familiar sidled up beside me and said something strange.
When I turned around, wondering what nonsense he was spouting, the familiar said, “Didn't the special perk for Returnees you mentioned include a function called a shop?”
“Ah, that.”
On the day I returned to Earth and accidentally killed a man.
I had looked into the system and all its bits and pieces back then.
I could accept the status window and inventory well enough, but I had opened the shop, closed it again in less than a minute, and left it alone ever since.
Part of that was the discouragement of having zero Karma Points, but the biggest reason was the item I had seen the moment the shop opened.
“Shop.”
A shop window as large as my inventory appeared before my eyes.
Experience buffs? Potions? Weapons? Spellbooks? It even sold language magic scrolls that could be learned instantly.
The categories were vast, and the goods on display were all over the place, but there were certain items arranged prominently at the very top.
And there, plain as day, was...
0/104
The panacea manufactured through a very special method by a saintess chosen by the supreme god. It is said even the supreme god does not know that method. Once consumed, it restores the drinker's body by as much as they desire. - K.P 1,000,000 -
The Elixir I had drunk was sitting there in bold type.
“Damn it. It still pisses me off to look at.”
If I had used the shop, I might have fixed my blindness
Of course, I knew that was just a twisted line of reasoning.
If you do not recognize the system, you cannot use it.
I couldn't even open my eyes, so how was I supposed to use a shop I didn't know existed?
The only consolation was that the Elixir I drank had been the very last one left.
The number marked beside an item represented the total quantity available in the era the Returnee had landed in, along with the remaining stock.
One more thing: aside from ordinary consumables like potions, every Returnee was apparently offered different goods for sale.
That came from the guy with glasses.
Just in case there was more information I didn't know, like “The Return Button grants five achievements!”, I had grabbed Eraser and gone to ask him after that.
I only listened to the essentials and then hurried off to see Seo-ah, though.
“So what about this shop?”
I shot the familiar a sidelong glance.
According to the guy with glasses, you could earn Karma Points by hunting monsters on Earth too.
However, if the monster's level was below your own, you gained nothing.
And my level was 724, while the highest-level monster discovered so far was in the 500s.
In other words, my Karma Points were going to stay at zero forever.
What good was the shop under those circumstances?
It was just irritating to see the Elixir sitting there.
“Master. It's literally a shop, isn't it? If you can buy something, then being able to sell something too is common sense.”
“This shop doesn't allow that, you idiot.”
It had already been twenty years since the Returnees came back to Earth.
Of course, research on the system had long since been completed.
In the end, the shop only allowed purchases, and nothing could be sold back.
“Goreuk. Are you saying nothing can be sold at all?”
“Yeah. Mana stones, monster corpses, and of course this Mana Core too can't be sold...
I was in the middle of speaking, lifting the Mana Core in my hand.
Would you like to sell the Mana Core (lower-middle grade)?
You have sold the Mana Core (lower-middle grade).
You obtained 75,000 K.P.
...Why did that work?
“Master. What is it?”