13. My Buff is a Drug
13. My Buff is a Drug
Today was E-rank raid day!
It would've been nice to grab a gun before we all gathered for the raid, but dropping in this early felt a little rude, so I held off.
"Hup."
A little light stretching. That was how Hye-yong started his day.
First thing after waking up: organizing his buffs.
[ Flower's Feast ]
Cognitive filter applied
Stamina stat +4 levels
Protection stat +4 levels
Seo Ha-yoon exclusive
[ Feeling of Fullness ]
Induces a feeling of fullness
Magic Power stat +3 levels
Han Geon-hu exclusive
[ Power Surge ]
Strength stat +6 levels
Chae Hwa-ra exclusive
[ Sword's Enlightenment ]
Longsword proficiency +3 levels
Strength stat +2 levels
Agility stat +2 levels
Choi Ah-young exclusive
'Huh, I can push them this far now. Nice to see my growth spelled out in numbers.'
Since his stat levels were still on the low side, he'd found he could push even more stats this morning.
'Good. One step at a time. Did someone spend all day yesterday thinking about me?'
Maybe Seo Ha-yoon?
Nah, couldn't be. Ha ha.
Hye-yong chuckled to himself for no good reason.
'Still, just standing around with a blank look during the raid feels kind of lame.'
Some kind of launcher would be nice.
Something magic-based. Like a Magic Missile.
'Let's pull one stat from each buff and put together a single attack skill for myself.'
Purely an experiment.
Hye-yong let his imagination run wild.
When making skills, having a concrete mental image helped enormously.
Hye-yong built the fantasy in his head as vividly as possible.
'I want a little "hup" that goes swoosh, smacks, and pops.'
Damage could be weak.
He wanted a Blessing Mage aesthetic — a bolt of divine power you could hurl at things.
'Should I make it consume mana instead? Divine Power drains too fast in a long fight.'
First condition: the skill had to use mana on cast.
He wrote that into the skill description.
Someone might wonder why he didn't just make the buff itself cost mana, but he'd already explored that.
The short answer: it was a net loss.
His working theory was that blessings operated under a kind of law that required Divine Power. Trying to swap the resource from Divine Power to mana broke that law, and he'd confirmed the buff's effectiveness dropped as a result.
'Holy Bolt sounds like a decent name. White orb flies out, then pop.'
For his mental image, he set the target as the stock fantasy staple: a goblin.
Dream-Hye-yong shouted at the goblin.
— Holy Bolt!
Swoooosh!
A pure-white orb shot forward.
Smack!
The orb smacked the stationary goblin square in the forehead and burst apart on impact.
— Grrk!
The goblin's head snapped back for a moment. It shook its head, then straightened up.
The power level — roughly a bare-knuckle thump to the skull — looked like something he could actually toss out alongside Han Geon-hu's magic spells.
— Holy Bolt! Holy Bolt! Holy Bolt!
Smack! Smack! Smack!
— Gurrk!
'Hmm. Spamming it like that doesn't look great.'
He decided to tweak the form to make it more practical.
For instance, a charge-up type.
— Holy Bolt!
This time when dream-Hye-yong cast it, four spheres of light appeared, bobbing around his body.
Smack-smack-smack-smack!
— Gurghk!
The spheres fired all at once, slamming the goblin with four rapid hits.
The imaginary goblin toppled over backward.
'This works.'
He shaped the buff around that concrete image.
[ Holy Aura ]
Consumes mana to use Holy Bolt.
On cast, creates 4 spheres of light around the caster.
The light spheres can be launched as projectiles.
'Okay. Looks right.'
He cast the buff on himself immediately.
Then he tried activating Holy Bolt.
"Holy Bolt."
Zing!
"Oh."
Four spheres of light winked into existence around Hye-yong, clearly visible, slowly orbiting him.
'Weird. It actually works.'
The moment he made his first attack skill, everything from the mental slog yesterday melted away like snow — he was practically giddy, like a little kid.
But building it wasn't the end.
He had to figure out how efficient this skill really was, check the current state of the other buffs, and tune everything accordingly.
'Ah, damn. They all dipped again.'
Every single buff had one more stat stripped out of it.
That was the cost he'd pulled over to fuel this new Holy Aura buff.
He'd meant to strip only one level per buff — instead two got pulled, so now he had to deliberately lower the new buff's value to buy them back.
'First, slap the exclusive tag on it.'
He marked the buff as 'Choi Hye-yong exclusive,' then tried redistributing stats. Still a little short.
'It was already weak to begin with ... gutting the damage further would be pointless. Hmm. How about this?'
As he mulled it over, a decent idea popped into his head.
There was no need to keep this buff active continuously. It didn't boost any stats; it was just a skill you fired and forgot.
Normal buffs lasted until your Divine Power ran out, but his Buff Custom ability seemed able to impose a fixed duration.
'Let's set the duration to 5 seconds.'
Sure enough, the skill's assessed value dropped.
That freed up a small amount of cost, enough to restore one stat level across the other buffs — though only barely.
'Huh ... the penalty's not actually that steep?'
Well, no help for it, then.
He'd just slap a cooldown on the thing.
Duration 5 seconds, cooldown around 15 seconds. Fine. He wasn't planning to spam the spell all day anyway — he'd just toss out a few pellets from the sidelines while Han Geon-hu was casting. Fifteen seconds didn't matter.
Honestly, spraying bolts every few seconds like an idiot and accidentally yanking aggro so the raid monster went berserk and charged at him? No thanks.
Hye-yong's reflexes weren't sharp enough to watch a monster bear down on him, cancel the buff, and craft a new defensive barrier to dodge the danger.
'How's that? Clear loss, right?'
As if the system agreed, he was able to restore every stat that had been stripped from the other buffs.
[ Holy Aura ]
Consumes mana to use Holy Bolt (level 2).
On cast, creates 4 spheres of light around the caster.
The light spheres can be launched as projectiles.
Duration: 5 seconds
Cooldown: 15 seconds
'What a janky little skill.'
His honest thought, now that it was done.
Wait — if he set the cooldown to something absurd like a hundred million years, would that turn it into a super-skill?
He tried to do exactly that. It didn't work.
Apparently, just like there was a ceiling on direct cost, there was also a limit to how much cost you could reclaim through penalties. Push the cooldown past a certain point, and it became a pure self-nerf.
[ Holy Aura ]
Consumes mana to use Holy Bolt (level 2).
On cast, creates 4 light spheres around the caster.
The light spheres can be launched as projectiles.
Duration: 4 seconds
Cooldown: 17 seconds
After a few rounds of tweaking, this was the optimum.
Even though both versions showed level-2 Holy Bolt, the second version's actual damage would be stronger.
'Yep, still a janky skill.'
Didn't matter in the slightest, though.
Hye-yong's role as a Blessing Mage was granting buffs. No one expected combat prowess out of him. He'd only made an attack skill because standing around doing nothing was boring — and because he wanted to try it.
Being useful as support-to-the-support-to-the-support was more than enough.
'Almost time.'
The party was meeting at 10 a.m. to head into the Otherworld.
Hye-yong checked himself in the mirror. Nothing weird.
'Alright. Let's go.'
Honestly, the best part of ending up in this other world: his body had returned to this age. Firm skin, low fatigue. He'd gotten a little shorter, but he'd grow again — no problem there.
The one downside was the age-appropriate, near-boiling sex drive, which did get annoying. But wasn't that just proof of good health?
"You're here."
10 a.m., Otherworld Waiting Room.
Choi Ah-young greeted him.
He'd arrived right on time, but everyone else was already there, waiting.
'Whoa — do they all show up ten minutes early? Dedicated bunch.'
Once everyone was seated, Choi Ah-young started the briefing.
"Alright, let's go over the plan. Today we're heading to 'The Field Where Earth Golems Roam.'"
She sent the party a video through Messenger.
The enemy was a golem made entirely of earth, roughly four meters tall.
"The Earth Golem is rated E-rank. Its movements are slow, but every hit it lands is heavy — potentially fatal. Its primary attack is a giant fist swing. Tanks can't just stand there and block everything. Ha-yoon, pay close attention to this. Only block if absolutely unavoidable — otherwise, dodge."
"R-Right! Leave it to me. M-My agility stat actually went up by one today!"
"That's reassuring."
Choi Ah-young smiled warmly.
"The Earth Golem has no weak points in its normal state. Instead, if you damage exposed areas — arms, legs, torso — it will try to regenerate. Each time it regenerates, its overall size shrinks a little. Once it's shrunk enough, an empty cavity opens up in its chest. The core inside is the weak point."
Following Ah-young's explanation, the video showed an Earth Golem struck by magic regenerating its body. Then its chest split open, revealing an ochre-colored orb. A ranged dealer with a bow planted an arrow there, and the golem crumpled to the ground and went limp.
"Geon-hu's role is especially important today. The window where the weak point is exposed is short, and whenever it opens, the golem always follows up with Earth Wave — so melee approaches are nearly impossible. To take it down in one go, you have to land Wind Blast. That'll let us finish the raid without taking heavy damage."
"Huff ... zero confidence here ... huff."
"Y-You can do it. Fighting."
Ah-young's expression turned awkward at Geon-hu's tactless remark.
"Special patterns: Earth Wave, where it raises walls of dirt, and Dig Charge, where spikes of earth shoot out from its body. Dig Charge in particular can kill you in a single hit — so stay alert. When it uses Earth Wave, it raises its leg high; for Dig Charge, it hunches its body down. If you watch carefully, both are easy to dodge. I'll call warnings if a pattern looks likely."
She rewound the video to just before the golem's death.
When Earth Wave triggered, the ground heaved up and shifted the terrain, disrupting movement. When it used Dig Charge, its body hunched, and spikes of earth burst up with a vicious shoop-shoop-shoop — looked like taking one of those wrong would end you instantly.
"Has anyone here ever died in the Otherworld?"
Nobody answered.
"No one. Thought so."
Ah-young gave a small nod, as if she'd expected that.
"It's a little embarrassing, but I've died a few times ... It's not real death, they say, but the helplessness — mentally and physically — is overwhelming. It's awful. You're basically useless for about a week. Hurts your rank badly, too. Let's all be careful not to die."
Sincere advice from a veteran. Choi Ah-young's fall to this level had definitely included deaths caused by sheer bad luck.
"That's the briefing. Everyone ready?"
"Let us proceed. The sword bestowed upon me by That Person thirsts for blood! If I do not sate it soon, a horrific festival of carnage may commence!"
Earth Golems didn't even bleed, though.
Every time Hye-yong saw Chae Hwa-ra, he thought the whole chuuni concept must be exhausting, but he'd seen it so often now it was starting to become endearing.
Hey, if it made things better, what was the harm?
"I'll insert the entrance ticket."
Choi Ah-young pressed the transition stone against the crystal.
Another day — and the most important part of it — got underway.
Rrrrrumble!
Boulders of all sizes, scattered randomly across the ground, began to float into the air. They swirled furiously, then started snapping together. Like puzzle pieces clicking into place, they assembled into arms and legs — the shape of a towering puppet.
The Earth Golem had arrived to greet the party.
"Hye-yong, buffs, please!"
"Okay."
The moment she received her buffs, Choi Ah-young charged toward the Earth Golem.
"Let's goooo!"
"H-Hwa-ra, let's go together!"
Hye-yong cast buffs on Chae Hwa-ra and Seo Ha-yoon too. They both followed in Ah-young's wake.
"Huff, huff, huff ..."
Han Geon-hu's breathing sounded a lot rougher today than usual.
'He's a heavy guy, so he always sounds like he's about to keel over, but ... is he okay?'
Not that Hye-yong was particularly worried, but he figured he'd ask.
"Geon-hu. You sick?"
"Huff ... not really. Huff."
"Your breathing's pretty rough."
"Just ... really hungry."
Hah. Right. Of course.
Hye-yong cast the buff on Han Geon-hu as well.
"Better now?"
"Huff ... feels like my stomach's ... full. Huff."
"Give it your all. They said you're critical today."
"Zero confidence ... huff."
"Nah. You've got this. Fighting!"
To be honest, Hye-yong didn't like Han Geon-hu much. If pressed, he leaned closer to dislike.
Oblivious. Incompetent. Zero self-control. Negative about everything.
Was there a single likeable trait in the guy? No.
Still, kind words were free; shit-talking cost you. If buttering him up a little earned Hye-yong some goodwill, wasn't that a net win?
"Huuuuuff ... Wind Blast!"
Han Geon-hu drew a huge breath and launched his Wind Blast at the Earth Golem.
'Oh, right — should I try out Holy Bolt too?'
He'd made the skill; he might as well use it when he could.
Hye-yong was just about to cast Holy Aura and test-fire Holy Bolt when—
"Choi Hye-yong! Look out! The patterns overlapped!"
"It's heading your wayyyyy!"
"D-D-Dodge! You guys!"
The Earth Golem was charging straight at him. The three who'd been fighting on the front line were shouting warnings and sprinting after it.
Had that earlier Wind Blast pulled its aggro?
One single shot, and instant aggro. The spell must've landed right in the exact gap where the three fighters' attacks briefly let up.
The timing was absolutely unreal.
Had Choi Ah-young been dealing with this kind of infuriating nonsense in every raid before the tutorial chapter even began?
'It's not dangerous. Just run.'
There was still plenty of distance. If he peeled away for a moment, the three of them would grab aggro back.
But as he pulled away, he had the nagging feeling he'd forgotten something.
"Huuuuff ...!"
Han Geon-hu.
Why wasn't he moving from his spot?