88. My Buff is a Drug
88. My Buff is a Drug
"But the buff has my name on it, and it says it's exclusive to me..."
That detail had been gnawing at her from the start.
Exclusive to me?
Did that mean this incredible buff could only be used on her?
"It's exactly what it says. A buff designed specifically for you."
"H-how does a buff like this even exist?"
"It's my trait. Any blessing I cast becomes an exclusive buff for that person. It tailors itself to the stats they need. The catch is, the conditions are a bit tricky. I had to burn through a considerable amount of power just to make it work on you."
Good lord!
It tailors itself to the stats you need!?
Kwon Jin-ah couldn't contain her shock.
'So that means he could give a unique buff like this to every single person in his party! Each one calibrated precisely to the stats they need!!'
Inside her head, Hye-yong's ability had inflated to utterly insane proportions.
Hye-yong's ability was broken, sure, but it wasn't that broken. Not yet.
Although, to be fair, if he stripped out the exclusive feature and built a party around a single class, it might produce a similar effect.
'I-if I'm understanding this correctly... that's enough to hit S-rank. At his age.'
Why was it that every time she dug deeper, she only uncovered more and more staggering things?
The world was vast, and it was full of monsters.
"Th-that's incredible. Boss. That's absolutely incredible."
"You're impressed too soon. We're not done yet."
Not done!?
What on earth else was he about to show her?
Kwon Jin-ah tensed up.
"You. Do you have a free finger slot for an artifact ring?"
Hye-yong produced a ring from his uniform pocket and held it up as he asked.
"No, I don't."
He'd figured as much.
Which was exactly why he'd gone and engraved the blessing onto her right index finger without asking first.
"Your right index finger. Swap it out for this one."
"This is..."
Kwon Jin-ah took the ring from Hye-yong, then materialized the one she currently wore on her right index finger and slid it off.
'It's a decent piece. Boosts Strength by two levels.'
What on earth was this ring, that he wanted her to wear it instead?
[ Ring of Strength ]
Strength stat +1 level
'It just looks like a normal Ring of Strength...'
But there was no way the Boss had given it to her for no reason.
There had to be something more to it.
Kwon Jin-ah put the ring on and showed her finger to Hye-yong.
"Now, pray to that ring. Ask it to grant you a blessing. Just a light one will do."
Kwon Jin-ah did as Hye-yong instructed and directed a prayer toward the ring.
[ Mystic Absorption ]
Adaptive Stat Growth Efficiency +12 levels
'...!!'
The buff that appeared was something she couldn't believe even as she stared at it with her own two eyes.
Kwon Jin-ah desperately needed an explanation and immediately looked up at Hye-yong.
"What does it say?"
"Mystic Absorption. It says Adaptive Stat Growth Efficiency increased by 12 levels..."
Now was the moment.
Hye-yong instantly activated his Acting buff and spoke.
"It's working properly. Just as I thought—you have a real talent for this."
"I need an explanation... What exactly is going on?"
"That ring looks ordinary on the outside, but it's a device built to suppress aberrations and simultaneously absorb their power."
Kwon Jin-ah stared at the ring with wonder.
This ring, which she'd dismissed as a cheap, generic artifact...
"Drawing out the power of an aberration lurking inside you and making it your own is something only someone with genuine talent can accomplish."
Is that so.
So this was happening because it was her.
For the first time in a long while, Kwon Jin-ah felt like she was someone special.
'I've seen this in comics. Using the power of an entity that's invaded your inner self to fight back...!!'
The situation felt like something ripped straight out of a comic, but listening to the Boss speak, she genuinely felt like she'd become the protagonist of one.
"If you can completely absorb its power through that ring, victory is yours. Train hard and grow strong."
"I'll work hard, Boss!!"
A swell of emotion rose in her chest, and Kwon Jin-ah gave a resounding reply.
She could feel that this would let her grow far faster than ever before.
But one thing still puzzled her.
"What exactly does this Adaptive Stat mean? I understand that the efficiency of stat growth is increased, but I've never heard of a stat like this."
"Simple. It means the stats you prioritize most will rise first. If you need Strength, Strength goes up. If you need Agility, Agility goes up... That sort of thing."
"W-what. Something like that...!!"
"An aberration."
Hye-yong tapped his own temple twice.
"The thing inside your head is an entity that defies common sense. Its power operates the same way."
"I—I see... That does make sense. I understand."
"Duration's about two hours. After roughly 200 uses, it'll lose its function. When that happens, come to me for maintenance."
Right. Of course an object this powerful couldn't just be used indefinitely.
This sort of inevitable limitation on a holy relic was what gave Kwon Jin-ah a sense of reality about the whole situation.
"I called you out today to tell you about your exclusive buff and to pass on that device. Well then..."
By now thoroughly immersed in his Boss persona thanks to the Acting buff, Hye-yong turned around with as much dignity as he could muster.
And as he walked away—there's a saying that if you do something you don't normally do, misfortune follows.
'Whew. That was tense. Guess I'll throw on a Relief buff.'
He'd been strutting, deep in his role, and the instant he dropped the Acting buff, figuring he'd done enough, his feet tangled.
'Huh?'
CRASH!
He pitched forward and slammed into the floor of the private sparring room.
"B-Boss...!!"
Kwon Jin-ah rushed over to check on him.
'F-fuck, this is so fucking embarrassing!!'
Hye-yong couldn't even lift his face.
He'd just tripped and fallen flat on his face while walking by himself.
"Boss, what happened?"
Well, nothing he could do about it now.
He'd just have to cast Acting again and bullshit his way through it.
"It's nothing. I simply pushed myself a little too hard. Don't worry about it."
Pretending to be overworked from secret society business, he forced himself to stand with visible effort, opened the door, and walked out.
'Whew. They'll really just assume I'm overworked, right?'
Hye-yong let out a deep sigh.
'Acting, my ass. This is fucking exhausting. Did I pick the wrong concept...?'
His neck and shoulders were utterly stiff.
The Acting buff didn't just magically boost his acting ability for free.
It dragged Hye-yong's emotions right to the surface, forcing him into deep immersion, and in doing so, it drained a significant chunk of his stamina.
'I guess that's what it takes to pull off a performance realistic enough to deceive people...'
The fatigue that came from all that tension hit him especially hard today.
He felt a boundless surge of respect for actors and performers who practiced for hours to deliver a passionate performance.
-
Kwon Jin-ah couldn't tear her eyes away from the spot where Hye-yong had left.
In her mind, the Boss was someone unbending and utterly reliable—a sharp contrast to his somewhat approachable first impression.
And that man had collapsed right in front of her.
Out of nowhere. While walking by himself. He'd crumpled like his legs gave out beneath him and hadn't been able to raise his head.
'Only pushed himself... a little?'
Kwon Jin-ah had clearly seen Hye-yong's face when he fell.
Even through a tangle of complex emotions, it had looked like a face silently screaming in pain.
'That wasn't from pushing himself "a little."'
Her eyes fell on the ring on her finger.
'This... it must have come from that secret society after all.'
She remembered the buff Hye-yong had cast on her.
'He said it was his trait...'
— Any blessing I cast becomes an exclusive buff for that person. It tailors itself to the stats they need. The catch is, the conditions are a bit tricky. I had to burn through a considerable amount of power just to make it work on you.
Jin-ah recalled Hye-yong's words.
One part stuck out in particular: that he had expended a considerable amount of power.
'Right... there's no way casting an amazing buff like that is easy. He pushed himself past his limit just to make that buff work for me.'
Otherwise, there was no way that man would have collapsed as if he'd suddenly become anemic.
Once she'd reached that conclusion, another key phrase surfaced in her mind.
— And I've been disciplined quite enough for it, too.
'The discipline... what was it? What kind of punishment did he take, defying orders from his superiors...?'
That expression of pain.
Something... excruciating, then?
'To save me, to help me, he went that far... even if it meant wrecking his own body?'
Once her imagination started running wild, there was no stopping it.
In her mind, Hye-yong had already become a benefactor who had sacrificed his own lifespan for her—a total stranger, someone he had no ties to.
A sudden sensation clamped around her heart. Kwon Jin-ah clutched her chest on instinct and dropped to her knees.
"Boss... ugh, why... for someone like me..."
Kwon Jin-ah couldn't even begin to guess why Hye-yong would go this far for her.
Of course she couldn't.
She was being deceived, after all.
And Hye-yong had no idea—not even in his wildest dreams—that she was thinking about him with this much raw, aching sincerity.
-
July 29 (Sunday), 11:53 AM
Inside the Otherworld
A hulking, muscle-bound physique standing over two meters tall.
A humanoid upper body and a lower body that looked like it had mutated into a bird's.
The D-rank mutant Heterogeneous Species, boasting an intimidating wingspan, swung a massive curved blade at Lanfang.
Lanfang dodged it lightly and exploited the attack delay, slashing three times in rapid succession with her Blade Tonfa.
The Mana Barrier encasing the gargoyle flaked away like scattered blue liquid.
WHOOSH! CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACK!
The creature swung its left arm, tipped with vicious talons, trying to do something—anything—to Lanfang, but the attack skidded off the Shield Hye-yong had cast.
This was exactly what made Shields so good.
Activating one in close quarters and blocking properly didn't just neutralize the attack—it could also create a massive opening.
"Hup...!"
Lanfang slipped into the opening, took a small, focused breath, and activated a skill.
Blade Dance—a skill favored by assassin-class Awakened.
SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH-SLASH!!
The rapid spinning slashes sliced over and over. The Mana Barrier, already on its last legs, shattered completely, leaving the body utterly exposed.
The abdomen, which had looked solid with muscle, was gruesomely carved apart. The mutant collapsed, innards structurally alien compared to a human's spilling out.
"Haah, haah, haah..."
Lanfang gasped for breath, splattered with the Heterogeneous Species' blood.
Soon, the monster's corpse vanished—and with it, the blood that had soaked her body and her Blade Tonfa.
"Lanfang, you did it!"
"Master...!!"
Lanfang, who had been staring expressionlessly at the spot where the monster disappeared, broke into a bright smile the moment Hye-yong called her name and ran toward him.
Hye-yong swept her into his arms, spun her once as if at a ballroom dance, and then stroked her under the chin.
"Even a D-rank Heterogeneous Species doesn't stand a chance against you, does it, Lanfang?"
"Ehehe! It's all thanks to your buffs, Master! Just the two of us, taking down a D-rank monster! I never dreamed something like this could happen!"
"It's because you trained hard."
Over time, Lanfang's stats had grown considerably.
E+ rank raids had started to feel too easy, so they'd challenged a D-rank—and it had ended with almost no difficulty at all.
'With a beefy Shield in play, it'd be a problem if it were hard.'
Something he'd learned in his Blessing Mage class was that a Blessing Mage with a strong Shield was treated practically like royalty in the raid market.
The number-one concern for any Awakened was, without question, forced retirement.
A Blessing Mage with a proper shield blessing slashed the retirement probability dramatically, which meant far safer raids.
Thanks to Hye-yong's Shield, the party led by Choi Ah-young had recently cleared a D-rank raid and was now proudly closing in on the academy average.
"At this rate, you could probably even solo it, don't you think?"
"I know, right! As long as I use the ring you gave me well...!"
Hye-yong had given Lanfang three rings.
One was a growth buff.
One was an exclusive buff.
The third was a Shield, which he'd told her to use only in emergencies.
Hye-yong had gotten the hang of creating holy relics, and even in this short span of time, he'd been churning them out without a hitch.
This was, in fact, the kind of thing that would completely flip the holy relic market of this world on its head—any other relic maker who heard about it would have a fit of shock.
'Just gotta be careful not to get caught.'
Through online research and questioning Instructor Yoo Ji-ah, Hye-yong had learned enough about holy relics to realize that what he was creating was absolute, utter bullshit.
As it turned out, the Holy Relic Maker trait came with a surprising number of restrictions.
The types of blessings that could be made into relics were determined by the maker's wavelength. Even a top-tier professional holy relic maker could barely manage to extract fifty percent of a blessing's original performance when engraving it into a relic.
Hye-yong, on the other hand, could turn a ring into a relic in a matter of days, could craft and imbue absolutely any blessing, and could pull out roughly eighty-five percent of its original performance.
Hye-yong's abilities were often wildly inefficient in some areas and brutally efficient in others.
'So when it comes to relic crafting, my ability is ridiculously high-efficiency.'
As we know, Hye-yong didn't possess the Holy Relic Maker trait.
His theory was that other relic makers were held back because the trait itself came with inherent penalties.
In exchange for gaining the know-how to craft relics, your efficiency took a hit—something like that.
If that were the case, it made sense that Hye-yong, who had shamelessly scooped up relic-crafting proficiency without the trait, would be pulling off monstrous levels of efficiency.
'If I keep increasing the number of people I can fully trust and rely on, and use my abilities well... world conquest might not even be a pipe dream. It really is a cheat ability, even with its limits.'
All of this was information Yoo Ji-ah had kindly shared with him.
'Speaking of which... Instructor Yoo Ji-ah has been strangely nice to me lately...'
Hm. Well, she was probably just that kind of person.
With no way of knowing the relationship between his body's original owner and Yoo Ji-ah, Hye-yong simply accepted her kindness without a second thought.