Suit Creation
Again, Again, and Again! Solo Clear of an S+ Gate! Just How Far Does Ha Jia's Talent Go?
S-rank Hunter Ha Jia Entrusts Every Material to the Cheshire Workshop Once More! The Crafting Guilds...
On the phone screen beneath the headlines, a striking woman whipped her fiery red hair and swung a sword. Bottom to top. Left to right. Simple motions, and the necks of A+-rank monsters dropped like autumn leaves, then crumbled to ash and vanished.
"Whoa."
We weren't even that many years apart, and she was out there doing that—unlike a certain someone who still hadn't awakened.
"Wait. The hunt video's already at ten million views?"
The play count I'd nearly scrolled past snagged my eye again. I wasn't the only one reeling. The comments were blowing up in real time.
I watched a little longer, then killed the screen. The last bus would be at the stop any minute. Space out any further and I'd be stuck walking a full hour home.
Come to think of it, they said ten city buses cost about as much as the car Ha Jia rides around in.
Tsk.
The walk home after a shift was as pitch-dark as ever.
Life, huh...
I'd never exactly thought of myself as unhappy. No family, sure, but I could keep a roof over my head and food on the table, and I'd even managed to put a little aside from part-time work. It was just—
The problem is it feels like this is how it's going to stay.
Grind hard, earn little, lay your body down in a one-room. That kind of life.
"If I could just awaken, things would actually be good."
An ordinary person waking up one day, making ridiculous money, getting famous... If I said I wasn't jealous, I'd be lying. The fallacy of the average? Hunters have it rough too? ...Start factoring all of that in, and what was even the point of daydreaming?
Ding—
A notification chimed while I was hurrying along, and I checked my phone.
"...Yuna's doing well for herself, too."
A familiar face. In the video, Yuna smiled brightly and brushed the reporters' questions aside with ease. There'd been a time we were closer than anyone. Now I hesitated even to be the one who reached out first. Seeing her through a screen had become more natural than meeting her eyes.
I shook my head and jammed the phone deep into my pocket.
"If I want to clock in on time tomorrow, I need to get home and sleep."
Chewing on thoughts like that only dragged your mood down. And an awakening came whenever it felt like coming, if it came at all. Keep living hard, and someday I'd end up like that too—
Like tha...?
"...Huh?"
In that instant, a wash of dread stopped me cold. The horns and engines I'd been hearing a second ago were gone. So was the racket of drunks on a busy street, late on a weekend night. Even the wind cut out. Nothing remained but an unnatural silence, closing in around me.
And then.
"What the—"
Nausea surged. My vision spun with a thin, high whine. The wrongness was unbearable. I shut my eyes and sank to the ground. Almost at once the discomfort vanished, and I lifted my head to look around.
The road I knew well enough to walk with my eyes closed—
was gone.
Rough dirt instead of asphalt. Cliff walls with no visible end instead of buildings. Out in the open, people stood frozen, much the same as me.
"E-excuse me, where are we?"
Someone said it in a shaking voice. No one needed to answer. Hunters and gates were everyday life now; the mandatory education we'd all been drilled on until we were sick of it would already be coming back.
"A Spontaneous Gate..."
Did a gate have to spawn around here, of all places? I checked my phone at once. Obviously, there was no way the internet would connect.
"Everyone, gather up for now!"
If there was an Awakened among us, we'd be lucky. If not... Maybe I wouldn't think about that just yet.
People were shuffling together at the call of one brave girl when a low, rough growl rolled in from every direction.
Grrrr...
Rrrgh...
"Wh-what is that?"
"Monsters! Don't pani—"
"Run!"
Someone cut the girl off with a shout. I tore out of there at once. Fight? Not a chance. I wasn't a hunter. The cries drew closer, and I pushed my speed for everything I had. Mid-sprint I spotted a split in the cliff and shoved myself into the gap.
I killed my breath and waited for the monster to pass.
Krk. Grrrr...
"..."
Far from leaving, it had come close enough that I could hear the small sound of its breathing. I eased my head out past the crack.
Six legs planted on the ground, and still the bulk of it rose to about my shoulder. It resembled a wolf, except the enormous mouth was torn open all the way to just beneath the ears. And those pupils, narrowed to vicious vertical slits like a snake's...
"Ah."
The sharp eyes rolled and locked onto me.
In novels, you usually don't get spotted.
With that ridiculous thought, I spun and ran.
KRRRAAANG——!!!
"Damn it!"
It wouldn't help much, but I kicked a stone at my feet as hard as I could and took off. The footsteps hammering after me, utterly crazed, cinched tighter and tighter around my nerves.
I have to do something—
I swept my surroundings even as I ran. Rock. Rock. Rock. A perfectly smooth cliff face.
...
Pick one up and throw it? If it so much as mussed the fur on a body that size, I'd be lucky.
Not gonna work.
My thighs were screaming. My breath was coming shorter and shorter. I felt the thing's spit spatter the back of my neck. Imagination? Maybe it was sweat I'd shed myself.
...No. It isn't.
The moment a chill shot down my spine, letters rose before my eyes.
You have awakened.
"What?"
Congratulations on your awakening. Please check your status window.
I called the status window up without a second to think.
"A suit? Creation?"
Damn it. Just from the name, no matter how I turned it over—
"That's not a combat skill, aaaaaagh!!!"
KHUOOONG——!!!
Out of patience, or something like it, the monster launched itself from behind with a savage roar. A pitch-black shadow dropped over my head. On instinct, I rolled.
Crack!
A single step. If I hadn't thrown myself sideways and had just kept running, those enormous claws would have punched into my body instead of the ground. Awaken at last, and die without ever using the skill once.
"That is absolutely not happening."
Suit Creation. A suit. Right. So I was supposed to make one.
Out of what, though?
Cloth? Fiber? Metal... there was no way any of that was lying around. I hauled my half-crouched body upright and, pumping stiff legs, scanned for anything that could pass as material. Still rock. And more rock. Turn my head, rock. From pieces the size of my palm to chunks as huge as I was. Nothing but stones, everywhere.
"No way."
I snatched up a pebble rolling at my feet—a mana-infused stone, the kind that only appeared inside a gate. And the monster, charging in again.
"Hell if I know!"
Better to try something than just die.
"Suit Creation!"
The stone in my hand shattered. It split, then stretched. Even the rocks scattered around me rose into the air. Thrown by the sudden turn, the monster didn't rush straight in. It only hesitated.
"I-it's working, right?"
The stones floating overhead began to cling to me, slowly, starting from my toes.
Good. Faster.
Krrrk—
The monster, though, had no intention of waiting for a transformation to finish. Even so, the stone kept fastening itself to my body.
"H-hold on."
Why was this getting so thick? A suit, they said? What I'd pictured was something sleek and coo—
Thud.
My right foot drove into the earth.
"Huh."
Then the other leg failed to bear the weight, and I felt the ground sink beneath me. Heavy. Far heavier than I'd imagined. By now stone had sheathed me completely up to the chest. My shoulders had spread wide enough to lay four or five keyboards side by side with room to spare, and my forearms had grown thicker than my own torso. At last, crude slabs of rock wrapped the space around my head.
Through a field of view gone just a little narrow, I saw the monster charge.
Suit Creation has been completed.
"...A suit?"
This? Rocks forcibly stacked onto me. Wasn't this just a golem?
"Never mind that—it's coming right n—"
BOOM!
KYAAAANG—!
Too slow. My forearm barely made it halfway. Covering my face was all I could manage, and yet...
"Did it just go kyaang?"
I opened my eyes. A very thin spill of stone dust slid off my forearm. The monster stared from its own tooth on the ground to me and back again, face full of confusion.
"...What?"
K-kraaak!
This time the claws came. I saw the attack clearly, but my legs still wouldn't budge, so I raised my arm again at a crawl.
Skrrritch—!
Not even a chip of stone came off. A pale scratch on the surface was all it managed.
"Seriously, what is this?"
Had it realized its attacks weren't landing? The thing let out one long howl, then flared with killing intent. With my vision narrowed, I could focus all the more on the monster. No—this was the suit's doing. Information the old me never could have read poured in at a glance. Tension gathering in the muscles of its legs. Pupils contracting...
At last it leapt, jaws gaping wide.
"This time I'm not planning to just stand here!"
Not that I had any grand attack in mind. Once, matched to the timing.
...Even if I wanted to get fancy, I don't know how.
The suit's defense seemed pretty high, so... catch the thing, then squash it flat? That was the idea.
"Ah. Mistake."
At the sight of my arm coming up, the monster twisted in midair.
Thwack!
My fist met it somewhere around the ribs. That single blow sent the monster flying several meters through the air before it slammed into the cliff. It twitched for a moment, then staggered upright, still not fully back to its senses.
I stared blankly down at the fist wrapped in stone.
"This... is me?"
In that span, it recovered.
K-krang? Grrrr... Aaak!!
It charged again. A minute ago I'd been terrified. The look of the thing was still the kind that would show up in a nightmare, granted.
But right now I've got a rock suit.
I took one slow step forward.
Thoom.
Still heavy. Still slow. Still a shape with not a scrap of aesthetic sense. Even so.
"Hup!"
The monster came into range, and I swung my fist.
Crunch.
The sensation of something breaking. It didn't even get a death cry out. Its body folded at a right angle, then turned to ash and vanished.
"Uh..."
I knew dead monsters became ash right away. I just never thought I'd be the one to see it. No—past that, right now... I'd done it with my own hands? A hollow laugh slipped out of me.
But the monster I'd dealt with was only one.
Grrrk...
Krr... Kuuuuh!!
More of them, from far off. Not one this time. Several. I looked toward the sound, and slowly clenched the fist buried in stone.
...But.
"Is this even a crafting skill?"