Chapter 48: Metamorphosis (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 48: Metamorphosis (1)
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
A loud noise shattered my peaceful sleep.
“Nngh…!”
My whole body felt refreshed.
To exaggerate a little, I felt as light as if I’d been reborn.
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
Once again, the sound of knocking assaulted my ears.
Impatient and utterly inconsiderate. That ruled out the ajumma.
Shin Yu-jeong?
“Hey, open the door!”
Yep, it was her.
I groggily pushed myself up, walked to the door, and went to unlock it… huh, it was already open.
It must have been unlocked ever since the ajumma went home last night.
This was the problem with analog locks.
“I should get a digital one.”
I’ll have to get it replaced with one that opens with at least a fingerprint scan, I thought as I opened the door.
The moment it opened, a body rushed in.
“Hey, what took you so long? Were you jerking off or something?”
“No, I was just sleeping…”
My eyes scanned her up and down before I could stop myself.
A tight white tank top and black dolphin shorts.
A casual outfit you’d only wear at home.
Someone once said that the person who invented dolphin shorts and leggings deserved a Nobel Prize.
Back then, I thought that was a bit of an overreaction for a pair of pants, but…
“Hmm.”
I think they might deserve it after all.
I quickly lifted my gaze before she could notice where I was looking.
My widened field of vision finally caught the silver-rimmed box tucked under her arm.
I remembered how she had selfishly grabbed the box and stormed off yesterday.
“Why’d you suddenly leave yesterday?”
“Yesterday…?”
At my question, she tilted her head, and then her expression slowly began to contort.
It seemed a bad memory had surfaced.
But was there anything from yesterday that would be bad enough to remember like that?
Hmm, I had no idea.
From my perspective, the day was filled with happy memories from start to finish.
“You… Hoo!”
She started to say something, then just sighed and shook her head.
Is this that thing they call hal-man-ha-ahn? [I have a lot to say, but I won’t.]
“Never mind. Just forget it.”
She cut the conversation short on her own terms, pushed me aside, and walked in.
“Don’t ask about yesterday. Let’s just open this thing.”
Shin Yu-jeong plopped the box onto the desk.
I was a little surprised.
“You haven’t opened it yet?”
With her personality, I’d have thought she would have opened it ages ago.
“I’m not that rude, you know?”
She said, pointing to the seal still intact on the box.
The seal, which would disappear without a trace if opened, was still there, so it was clear she hadn't opened it.
…Still, what you did yesterday was pretty damn rude, you brat.
I let it slide because we know each other and I figured something must have come up. If this had been a party formed to clear a dungeon, you’d be in a detention center by now.
“Anyway, hurry up and come here.”
“Okay.”
Shin Yu-jeong gestured for me to come over, her face practically screaming with anticipation.
It was impressive that she’d managed to hold back from opening it alone last night when she was this curious.
“Heehee, what do you think is inside?”
“Who knows…?”
The box was about the size of a 15-inch laptop.
That meant we could hope for pretty much anything except for bulky metal armor.
Personally, I was hoping for a magic tome.
Kallashu was an exceptional magician, so I didn't think it was an impossible goal.
“Alright, I’m opening it.”
I nodded at Shin Yu-jeong, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she opened the box.
Inside, it was packed tightly with bottles filled with a red liquid.
Stunned by the unexpected contents, Shin Yu-jeong picked one of them up.
“This is… a potion.”
A potion.
A healing draught made from the blood or bodily fluids of monsters with high regenerative abilities.
It was one of the few ways to quickly heal wounds without a Healer. Depending on the grade, even a lowest-grade potion that could heal minor injuries cost a good several hundred thousand won.
Come to think of it, Kallashu was not only a magician but also an Alchemist.
“Huh?”
Shin Yu-jeong’s gaze shifted from the potion in her hand back to the box.
“What’s this?”
She reached into the box and pulled out a faded piece of paper.
It was covered in densely written Unknown Text.
“Umm…”
Shin Yu-jeong scratched her head as she stared at the paper, then held it out to me.
“You can read this, can’t you?”
“Uh… one second.”
I placed my hand on the paper, feeling the faint magic seeping from it.
A short message translated into Korean and appeared in my mind.
The contents were nothing special.
First, an apology for being mischievous.
Ah, I remember now.
Come to think of it, that bastard lied to me, didn't he?
Next was a wish that things would be resolved smoothly.
What did he mean by a smooth resolution?
Finally, it said that he had sold all his assets to create the dungeon and had nothing left, but he was leaving a few remaining potions and hoped we would find them useful.
I filtered out the unnecessary information and relayed only what was important to Shin Yu-jeong.
“He says congratulations on clearing the dungeon…? And that these are potions he made himself. They’re mid-grade potions, so they should be usef—huh?”
Wait a minute.
Mid-grade potions…?
“Did you just say… mid-grade potions?” Shin Yu-jeong asked me, her voice dazed.
I answered, feeling a bit out of it myself.
“Yeah…”
Potions were divided into five grades, from lowest to highest.
The lowest grade could heal a wound that would require a few dozen stitches.
Low and mid-grade potions could downgrade a moderately severe injury to a minor one or heal it almost completely.
High-grade potions could be considered capable of healing almost any wound one might sustain in battle.
Even if a part of your body was severed, if you picked it up, reattached it, and poured a high-grade potion on it within three minutes, it would stick back on.
Of course, it would only reattach it, so you’d still need a Healer’s help for a long time to restore the damaged nerves, but it was much better than living without a limb.
As for the highest grade… it had only ever been discovered once.
Where was it again?
I think it was an American guild’s raid team.
Anyway, it was only discovered, never used, so no one knew how effective it was.
Ultimately, the best potion currently on the market was high-grade, and right below that was mid-grade.
“Th-th-this is a m-mid-grade potion.”
Shin Yu-jeong let out a deep breath and clutched the potion she had been holding carelessly to her chest.
Then she gently placed it back inside the box.
Do you see it?
The sheer prestige of a mid-grade potion.
The reason she was acting like this was because a single bottle of mid-grade potion cost over 5 million won.
“H-how many bottles are in here? One, two, three…”
Had her mental age regressed from sheer joy?
Why was she counting them one by one when she could just multiply the rows and columns?
In any case, she ended up counting every single one.
“F-fifteen bottles.”
Let’s see.
Fifteen bottles at 5 million won each…
“Oh… 75 million won.”
When I said it so casually, Shin Yu-jeong’s eyes went wide and she clutched her chest.
“S-seventy… hic, f-f-five… million…!”
She was even hiccupping. She must be ecstatic.
“Calm down and breathe. Breathe.”
I patted her on the back and guided her to take deep breaths.
Following my lead, Shin Yu-jeong slowly exhaled, and her expression gradually returned to normal.
I could understand why she was so shocked.
Honestly, the value of the reward was immense compared to the effort we put in.
Getting 75 million won for just a handjob and a blowjob?
This was truly… I couldn’t help but respect the great magician Kallashu.
While she was still patting her chest, half out of her mind, she suddenly spun around.
“Whoa.”
I barely stopped the hand that had shot out reflexively.
I almost touched her chest.
…Should I have just gone for it?
No.
Who knows what kind of fit she would have thrown?
“You lucky bastard!”
“Oof.”
Shin Yu-jeong, who had been staring at me blankly, hugged me in a fit of joy.
I could feel it.
That sensation I couldn’t feel last time because of that damn steel breastplate!
Not as much as the ajumma, but still plenty full.
I could feel a springiness that seemed like it would bounce my face right off if I buried it in them.
If the ajumma’s breasts felt like marshmallows, Shin Yu-jeong’s felt like bouncy balls.
To think that two pairs of full breasts could feel so different… The sheer variety made my desire to feel more breasts grow and grow.
“75 million for a mere Hunter aspirant. Aack, goddammit, for real!”
Now she was grabbing my head with both arms and jumping up and down.
You’re going to get a complaint from the downstairs neighbor, you brat…
Ah, right. This is her house.
After freaking out for a while, her movements stopped.
She stood there as if dead, still holding my head to her chest.
Just then.
“Sniffle, sob…”
I heard her whimpering.
What was with this drastic mood swing?
As I stood there bewildered, she mumbled.
“With this, I don’t have to worry about tuition anymore… sob!”
“……”
I was exempt from the entrance fee thanks to special admission, and my tuition would be waived depending on my grades, but that wasn’t the case for Shin Yu-jeong.
A single semester’s tuition at Korea University was roughly 10 million won.
That’s 20 million a year, and a staggering 80 million for four years.
And that wasn’t all.
She had to buy necessary equipment as a Hunter, and then there were maintenance fees to keep it in shape…
A Hunter aspirant was a money-eating machine.
Of course, once you became a Hunter, you earned a lot, but until then, the cost was certainly not easy for an average family to bear.
At least the ajumma owned a villa on the outskirts of Seoul, albeit an old one, and the ajeossi was a local government Awakened civil servant, so they made a decent living.
Even so, the costs were high enough to make this headstrong girl worry.
And being a Tanker, a class that requires all sorts of gear, meant equipment costs were no joke.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.”
I found myself patting her back without thinking.
What could I do? She was crying because she thought she could lessen the burden on her parents.
For now, all I could do was quietly comfort her.