Chapter 176
Chapter 176
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 176
Chapter Title: Unpredictable Ally and an Arrest Warrant
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Only after hearing the full story from Lee Si-woo did she speak, her voice dazed as the drunkenness began to wear off.
"But is that a frog or a bear?"
Isabelle pointed out the helmet's mixed frog-and-bear appearance, and Lee Si-woo replied with a grimace.
"...Froggybear."
At the ridiculous name of the suit Lee Si-woo was wearing, Isabelle snickered.
"Damn it, I was wondering what you were up to after ditching me... You've been running around in that thing playing a virtual reality game?"
"I told you, it's not a game. What kind of game is there where you actually die if you die?"
Isabelle poked the spot over her heart with her thumb.
"What's the big deal about dying? I almost died from a broken heart after you rejected me."
The conversation had taken a strange turn. Wondering why she was acting like this again, Lee Si-woo scratched the back of his head.
"Isabelle. I've told you several times, I'm not joking, so take this seriously. This place is dangerous, a deathtrap where you could lose your life at any moment. And I need your help."
Isabelle crossed her legs and sat down on a nearby chair, then pulled a cigarette from her clothes and placed it between her lips.
As she lit it with a lighter and took a savory drag, Lee Si-woo crossed his arms.
"I thought you didn't smoke."
"I learned from you."
"From me? I don't smoke."
Isabelle spoke with a face that seemed to carry all the sorrows of the world.
"Heartbreak is a good teacher."
"...Stop being so melodramatic and let's talk seriously."
"Serious? Fine, whatever. Let's get down to business. So? You want me to help you?"
"That's not even a question. You helping me should be a given..."
Isabelle scoffed, cutting Lee Si-woo off.
"Nothing was 'a given' the moment you rejected me, you know?"
"Are you still drunk?"
Isabelle looked at Lee Si-woo with a renewed, wistful gaze filled with affection.
"I'm sober from the alcohol. Just not from the sorrow."
Only after hearing that did Lee Si-woo realize.
This woman.
She was completely out of it and still drunk.
His head starting to ache, Lee Si-woo pressed his thumb firmly between his eyebrows.
"Let's get this straight first. Can you use magic?"
Isabelle leaned her full weight back in the chair.
She enjoyed the rhythmic, precarious rocking of the chair as it teetered on the verge of tipping over.
"I can feel it."
Worried about what other nonsense she might spout, Lee Si-woo asked in a slightly weary tone.
"Feel it? Feel what?"
"That my time with you is running out. That's why I'm not going to use magic. I feel like if I do, it'll be bye-bye to you right away."
Somehow managing to grasp what Isabelle was trying to say, Lee Si-woo spoke.
"Your mana is decreasing, right?"
"Right. When I was summoned here, I had already lost a significant portion of my mana. I think my mana was used for the summoning. As time passes, it's slowly dissipating. It's like I have to pay a fee to exist here."
"With the mana you have now, what Circle of magic can you cast?"
"At first, I had enough to cast one 5th-Circle spell... now, I think it'll disappear after a few 4th-Circle spells."
Lee Si-woo was starting to get a rough idea of how the card draw system worked.
One of the beings bound to Barathrum or contracted with him was randomly selected and summoned through the card draw.
And it seemed that the summoned being had to pay with their own mana to use their abilities.
*Hah, so this system starts and ends completely with luck.*
It was a headache for Lee Si-woo.
He thought he'd be able to utilize Barathrum to some extent after gaining mana, but he hadn't expected there to be so many restrictions.
*On top of that, my physical abilities haven't been enhanced. Tsk, at this rate... it's all show and no go.*
Was that all?
Barathrum didn't just contain beings he could control.
There were also uncontrollable troublemakers who, despite being contracted, were constantly looking for a chance to stab him in the back.
*Now that I've lost my power, if I make one wrong move and summon one of the Four Calamities, I'll pay dearly for it... Hah, I can't not use this ability, but... I'm caught between a rock and a hard place.*
Still, it wasn't all negative.
*Let's summarize. I can use all my mana to draw a card and randomly summon one of the beings bound to Barathrum. These summoned beings use their own mana to cast magic or use abilities for me... Wait, what happens if I use Plenitas's food ability?*
Plenitas's food replenished mana.
So then?
What would happen if he fed this food to Isabelle?
"Isabelle. Come with me. There's something I need to check."
At Lee Si-woo's words, Isabelle dropped the cigarette, now burned down to the filter, and stood up.
"Alright, shall we go see our little Si-woo?"
"I'm telling you just in case, don't say anything unnecessary to him."
"Don't worry. I'm not that clueless. Still... I'd like to see just how cute our unlucky Si-woo was in his past life."
"I'm telling you again, don't mess around. If you leak the wrong information to him, I can't even begin to imagine the consequences."
Surprised by Lee Si-woo's genuine anxiety, Isabelle's eyes narrowed slightly.
In truth, seeing this vulnerable side of Lee Si-woo was rare.
So rare that she had never seen it in the Main Dimension.
"Hmm..."
"...What is it? Why are you staring at me like a pervert?"
"One date."
"What?"
"Promise me one date, and I'll keep my mouth shut. If you don't? Well, I don't know. Who knows what kind of nonsense I'll spout to our little Si-woo."
With those words, leaving him to wonder if she was serious or joking, Isabelle left the room first.
Her attitude, which seemed to brook no argument, should have been annoying, yet Lee Si-woo couldn't bring himself to get angry.
It was because he had seen her hands, which had been trembling faintly the entire time she was using her drunkenness to act tough.
*Should I call this a drunken confession, or a drunken scene...*
Was it that he just couldn't bring himself to rebuke her, a woman who was an appropriate mix of sincere and troublesome?
Lee Si-woo shook his head and followed her.
* * *
"Wow, this is damn delicious."
In the end, Lee Si-woo's prediction was correct.
The more snacks Plenitas produced that Isabelle ate, the longer her stay in the virtual world was extended.
The only downside was that Plenitas's ability was still too rudimentary to do more than maintain the status quo; it couldn't restore Isabelle's mana to its limit. Still, it was one less thing to worry about.
*If I draw a dud card, I'll have them quickly expend their mana and send them away. If I draw a good card, I can use Plenitas's ability to keep them here...*
Lee Si-woo's face crumpled as he was deep in thought, designing a plan around Plenitas's ability.
It was because of Isabelle, who was clinging to Si-woo like glue and relentlessly throwing suggestive comments at him.
"Hey, kiddo."
"Yes?"
"Aren't I pretty?"
What was there to say?
She was an elf, after all.
By human standards of beauty, even a combination of top-tier models and actors would feel inadequate next to her face and figure.
"Y-You're super pretty."
"Is that so? Then how about you date me—"
Lee Si-woo strode over and put Isabelle in a headlock.
"Ack! You bastard! Let go of me! Wait, I haven't heard his answer yet!"
"Stop teasing the kid and come over here to plan with me."
"I'm not teasing! I need to get some insurance, you know!"
"Insurance? What insurance? Just shut up and follow me. Stop bothering an innocent kid."
"Innocent, my ass! If he's anything like you, he's got a hundred snakes inside... Ack! Why'd you hit me, you bastard!"
"Get over here before I hit you again. Before I decide not to replenish your mana and send you back to the Main Dimension."
At Lee Si-woo's half-serious threat, Isabelle acted as if she had never been out of line.
"So, what plan are we making? Just say the word. I'll do anything you ask, except for telling me to get lost."
At this point, Lee Si-woo genuinely had no idea what to do with Isabelle.
* * *
"Commander. Now that the knight order has been reinforced, shouldn't we start preparing to subjugate the Gigant?"
At the mayor's urging, the Knight Commander placed his smartphone on the table and played a video he had obtained.
On the smartphone screen, a Gigant—so massive, several times larger than the other white giants, that it could be called a moving fortress—was lumbering toward some destination.
*Thud!*
With each thunderous step, the ground shook and cracked.
The mayor swallowed dryly.
"Where... is the Gigant heading?"
"There's no need to go out and subjugate it. The Gigant is coming to us."
"...Are we prepared?"
"We will hold the line, and Lee Si-woo and his companions will strike the Gigant's rear."
The Knight Commander's simple and clear statement made the mayor let out a hollow laugh.
The plan was as simple as saying they would block with a shield and strike the neck with a sword.
"Is that... the entire plan?"
"Or what? Do you have a better idea?"
"But... wasn't Lee Si-woo determined to have no abilities other than concealment? Furthermore, his companion, Eric, received the blessing of the Faceless One and gained no abilities."
"Eric was a dud, that's right. I felt nothing from him. But Lee Si-woo is different."
"Hmm? Is there something special about him?"
"Isn't it strange? Why is the Gigant, which had never moved a single step unless attacked, suddenly on the move?"
"Don't tell me you think Lee Si-woo and the Gigant are related?"
"You see it clearly. Look at the time the video was recorded. Coincidentally, the Gigant started moving around the same time Lee Si-woo received the blessing and awakened. And it's scheduled to arrive at the walled city in three hours."
"Are you suggesting that the Gigant is wary of the ability Lee Si-woo awakened? Hah... I trust you, Commander, but this seems a bit far-fetched. Why would those monsters be concerned with Lee Si-woo..."
Seeing the mayor's disbelief, the Knight Commander took out a document and placed it on the table.
"This is a report on Lee Si-woo that came from headquarters a few hours ago."
After hearing that Lee Si-woo possessed the ability to hide from the white monsters and confirming it himself, the very first thing the Knight Commander did was request a background report on him from headquarters.
As someone who had been fighting the white monsters for years, he couldn't comprehend Lee Si-woo, who could move alone without drawing their aggro.
In his mind, Lee Si-woo was clearly an irregular, a singularity.
A singularity whose identity was extremely suspicious.
And it seemed the Knight Commander wasn't the only one who thought so; the report from headquarters detailed the past activities of the wanderer Si-woo.
It appeared that headquarters had also been keeping an eye on Lee Si-woo, knowingly or not.
"Lee Si-woo's hometown is Smallville, a small village on the coast. But the strange thing is... Smallville is also where the white monsters first began to appear. And it's the same village where Lee Si-woo went missing."
"Missing?"
"Yes. For several years after that, his whereabouts were unknown. Then, the second place he appeared was... Normal Town. That's where the spiritual entities, the phantoms, first emerged. It was also Lee Si-woo who informed everyone that salt, silver, and holy relics were effective against them. At this point... isn't it strange? How on earth did Lee Si-woo know such things?"
"Now that you mention it... you're right. How did Lee Si-woo know that information?"
"The third place he appeared was a provincial city. That's where a virus with upgraded infectivity first broke out, and the entire city was wiped out. That's probably why. Why Lee Si-woo... handed over the data on the vaccine to us this time."
"...Are you suggesting that Lee Si-woo had the vaccine data from the very beginning?"
"Nine times out of ten, yes. That's why headquarters began to wonder. Who is this mysterious wanderer? Who could possibly possess data on the vaccine and all sorts of information about the White Calamity? As a result, they've made their judgment. A test subject. Or... the mastermind."
"Lee Si-woo... the mastermind? Commander. That's baseless speculation."
"Whether it's speculation or not doesn't matter now. What matters is the will of headquarters."
The commander pulled another document from his coat.
This time, it wasn't a report, but an arrest warrant.
The Knight Commander looked at the mayor with a cold gaze.
"Headquarters wants Lee Si-woo secured and brought to them immediately. Yes, even if... it means the destruction of this city."