Yujun Opened His Inventory

Yujun opened his inventory.

The second preliminary task had been explicit: do not use any skill tied to magic or movement. That single condition had sealed away spatial teleportation, Flash, and Fly magic all at once.

Still, even if the sky collapsed, there was always a hole to crawl out through. He had an edge no one else possessed — the inventory of his No-Pay Casual Gamer character.

It was a cash-shop item, the sort that could only be had by spending real money. Honestly, if he could cast Fly, the thing was worthless beyond words... but right now he needed it desperately. Not for himself. For Manuela.

He pressed the Flight Scroll into her hand.

"What about you?"

"I don't need it."

"Huh? Why?"

"I'm climbing up myself."

"...Huh?"

Manuela made a thoroughly blank sound.

"Do you really have to?"

"Gotta save the scrolls."

That hit her hard. She had never once heard him talk about conserving an item.

He had his reasons, though. Back when he played War of the Gods, there had been little cause to use flight scrolls, so he had never bought them ahead of time. Even if he stocked them, he had figured, he would never have a reason to spend them.

If it weren't a situation this specific, I'd have left them rotting in the inventory for the rest of my life.

It wasn't only that he had so few. He also wanted to test himself — to see whether, just as he expected, he could reach the summit of the snow mountain on physical ability alone, without a Flight Scroll. He was genuinely curious.

"Master, and what of me?"

"What do you think? You stay inside."

"Understood."

"Why do you look so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pleased?"

"Pardon?"

His face hadn't changed at all, but Yujun's gut said otherwise. Paranet must have felt the prick of it. His shoulders gave a small jump.

Yujun smiled, and the look was full of meaning.

"You just don't feel like climbing, do you?"

"Master. How could that be? If it is a thing done at your side, there is nothing I am unwilling to do. Even should you command me to leap into the fires of hell, I would do so without a moment's hesitation."

"Yeah? Then how about we go together?"

"...Yes."

"That took you a while."

"...It did not!"

Yujun let out a short laugh.

"Just stay inside."

At that offhand word, a smile of pure rapture spread over Paranet's face.

"My thanks!"

Yujun hadn't even unsummoned him. Paranet withdrew of his own accord and vanished.

"Unbelievable..."

He made ready for the climb, wedging his sword between armor and cloak. He had no idea when an enemy might show itself, so he didn't store the blade in his inventory. Leave it in the sheath at his hip, though, and it would only snag him while he scaled the snow mountain — the cliff, rather.

"You're really going ahead of me?"

"Yeah."

"...Fine."

Manuela tore the Flight Scroll.

She rose into the empty air.

"This is incredible."

She felt her body buoyed with no mana at work, and she was fast — very fast. In an instant she had climbed high enough that Yujun looked small beneath her.

A snowstorm swept over her. It was a natural disaster laced with killing cold, but having taken in the Essence of Fire, she was thoroughly sealed against the chill.

That was when Yujun started. Hands and feet together, he began to climb at a fierce pace. Icicles jutted out here and there, plenty of holds to grab, and the ascent came easy enough. The icicles, though, couldn't bear much weight. Climb without care and he would fall. He went up regulating his strength as carefully as he could.

Call this a kind of training, and it isn't wrong.

In practice, scaling an ice cliff was excellent work for the control of force — for Control itself. The speed at which he took the snow mountain defied imagination. He looked like a great beast sprinting on all fours across open grassland.

Caught up to in a blink, until he was right beneath her, Manuela's mouth opened and closed.

"...What?"

Yujun devoured the mountainside at a fearsome pace. Feeling a competitive spark she couldn't quite name, Manuela cast a Weakening Curse on him before she knew what she was doing. She caught herself ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at once, but the curse had already triggered.

Yujun, of course, was completely immune to curses, and it did nothing to him. He did notice that she had used one. He looked up and spoke.

"What are you doing?"

"I-I'm sorry."

"...No. I'm not mad. I'm just curious. Why'd you do that?"

"I didn't mean to. Before I knew it, I cast the curse on reflex. I'm really sorry."

Then, with a swift scrape of limbs on ice, Yujun shot past her.

"Ah..."

Manuela, who had lost the lead before she quite understood how, was thrown into a fluster. She was not the only one nursing a competitive streak.

A smile on his lips, Yujun steadily picked up speed. He climbed faster than before. In that short while he had grown accustomed to the cliff, while Manuela, under the Flight Scroll's effect, held a constant pace. It neither quickened nor slowed.

"I'm going on ahead."

He was gone before she could answer.

The summit of the snow mountain was not long in coming. With his physical stats totaling in the tens of thousands, of course he was fast.

While he waited for Manuela, he lightly seared the Enhanced Yeti Meat he had brought and dipped it in salt. Delicious, as expected. The freshness had slipped a little from before, but that heavenly flavor hadn't gone anywhere.

He had just finished erasing every trace of the cooking and was looking over the summit when Manuela arrived.

"You made it?"

She looked badly worn. She had flown up on the Flight Scroll, but the way here had been anything but smooth. Flying monsters had attacked her without pause the whole climb, and only by wrapping herself in defensive magic and dumping curses onto them had she made it up alive. No wonder she was spent.

She let out a heavy sigh and sprawled back into the snow.

"I thought I was going to die."

Then a hologram message appeared.

"A divine beast?"

Black Yode seemed to be the creature's name, but finding it on a mountain this vast did not look easy.

Turn the place inside out, and it'll show itself eventually.

There was no time limit. No need to rush. Yujun summoned his guide golem, Tapagol, and Paranet came out along with him. The wretch had appeared on his own again. Yujun had meant to call him anyway, so he let it pass.

"Master. We need only find the divine beast, yes?"

"Oh. Not bad."

"Hardly. I am your foremost summon. This much is only to be expected."

Paranet shot him a thumbs-up. Tapagol, who had been silent until then, spoke.

"Master summoned me first."

"What was that, you punk?"

"You are not number one."

"...Y-you wretch! Do you truly wish to die? A tin can with nothing in its head dares to climb above me!"

"You also have none. Head. Hair."

"Y-you! Isn't that too harsh a thing to say, one bald head to another!"

Paranet flared and raised his sword. Yujun cracked him across the skull. The blow landed with a bang.

"Ghk!"

"Just find the divine beast."

"At once!"

Eager, perhaps, to look good before Yujun, Paranet set off ahead of Tapagol. Not to be outdone, Tapagol hurried after him.

With the snowstorm choking his vision, finding the divine beast by eye alone looked unlikely. Yujun donned the Eagle Eye Scouter and spread his senses wide. He felt no hint of the creature nearby.

It's the third one. They wouldn't tell me to do something easy.

Catching something like the Snowfield Yeti King would have been simpler. He hadn't even needed to search for that one. It had been impossible to miss, and it had walked out to meet him besides. This time he had to track the divine beast down himself before he could deal with it. A considerable nuisance.

Judging a search from where he stood to be nearly impossible, Yujun started to move. He raced across the unbroken white at tremendous speed. The landscape swapped out in a flash, so it might have looked as if he were blowing past everything — but he was checking every stretch he crossed. He could do it because of his absurdly high Agility, and because the Eagle Eye Scouter scaled with that Agility.

A full sweep of the summit told him there was nothing there. He was sorely disappointed not to find ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even a single wild ginseng root.

Shouldn't the coldest place have an Extreme Ice Stone? That's just common sense, isn't it?

The divine beast came before any Extreme Ice Stone, of course, but there was no harm in finding the stone early. He went on with the search while keeping an eye out for it, and he had just reached the snow mountain's midsection when the Unidentified Egg began to tremble again. It had been shivering faintly before. Now it was sending a clear signal.

"So it's somewhere around here."

Maybe the divine beast called Black Yode had something to do with the Unidentified Egg. Two birds with one stone. If he could take both, so much the better.

Moving slowly, he gauged the direction the egg's vibrations indicated. As he walked, a massive boulder came into view — one that looked as if someone had begun carving it into a statue and abandoned the work halfway. There was a shape to it, but too many blunt, unfinished masses to tell what it was supposed to be. The moment he stood before the rock, the egg bucked like mad.

He studied the boulder. There didn't seem to be any way inside. And yet the Unidentified Egg bounced merrily, as if insisting this was the place. He set a hand on the stone. Reading the flow of mana, he found neither spell nor barrier.

It's reacting... but I've got no idea what it wants me to do.

He brought the egg up against the rock. In that instant the boulder split in half, and a space ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠opened within.

He was thrown off. When he had first rapped on it, the inside had felt completely solid. Opened by the egg, though, it revealed a fairly roomy hollow. Astonishingly, a small altar stood inside the boulder, and upon it rested a black stone that gave off a lustrous gleam.

Without a moment's hesitation, Yujun stepped up to the altar and touched the black stone. At once it began to drink his mana at a terrifying rate. Startled, he tried to yank his hand back, but a powerful suction held him fast. He was weighing whether he ought to smash the thing when the absorption stopped. A little more than half his mana remained.

He was staring blankly at the stone when a hologram message rose before his eyes.

If the system was being this generous with its warnings, the odds were high that Black Yode was an extremely powerful monster. It had shown up late, and this was the final preliminary task — likely stronger even than the Snowfield Yeti King. Only a guess. A guess that bordered on certainty.

The stronger the enemy, the better.

A quiet smile touched Yujun's lips. The hatching of the Mythic-grade Unidentified Egg was not far off.