31
Chapter 31
"That's impossible!"
"Why not!"
"If I could make an elixir that permanently increases mana, do you think I'd still be a student?"
"It's possible."
"If that were possible, I'd be the Top Student of the Alchemy Department, not Ruency!"
"Don't give up! Aria, you can do it!"
"Seo-ha, you've really started enjoying teasing me lately, haven't you?"
Aria glared at me with sharp, piercing eyes.
No way that's true!
"Oops, I said it out loud."
"Your inner thoughts just leaked."
"My bad."
"Seo-ha, don't tease her too much. Aria has to head out for training with me in a bit."
I voiced the question that suddenly popped into my head.
"You two are training separately?"
"Eek!"
Aria dove behind me to hide.
"Indeed. Thinking back to the recent incident, she said she wanted to at least be able to protect herself. Especially since, while protecting her, you got a ho..."
"Aaaah! What are you talking about!"
Aria leaped from behind me and tried to cover Ki Hoe's mouth.
Well, she tried to.
"She mentioned that if she'd known how to protect herself when you got a hole punched through you, you might not have been hurt as badly."
"But I didn't think it would be like this! I didn't know I'd be lifting weights all day!"
There was no way she could cover the mouth of someone wearing a helmet.
"Oh, that's a sweet thought, Aria."
I patted Aria on the head.
"Eh? Huh?"
Ah.
I've been petting Luna so much lately that it's become a habit.
"Sorry, I'm just used to petting Luna."
Girls don't usually like having their heads patted, right? Because they have to fix their hair.
As I pulled my hand away, someone snatched it.
"Warning!"
It was Luna.
"Luna issues a warning to Aria."
Luna, who had materialized at some point, snatched my hand and placed it on her own head.
"What? Me?"
Aria protested to Luna while tidying her own hair.
"Luna's position is under threat! Luna doesn't need a younger sister."
"Wait, is that where this is going? And since when am I the younger sister?"
Aria wasn't as timid as I thought.
She froze up and struggled to speak around strangers, but with people she knew, she could talk like any other ordinary girl. She especially became high-energy and spoke faster when talking about her interests or when she felt wronged.
"Luna, don't worry. We're too poor for you to ever get a sibling."
Truth be told, while I still make sure Luna's meals are nutritionally balanced, I've resorted to just barely scraping by with my own.
"Daddy..."
"Luna..."
Being poor is hard.
"Well, hang in there."
"Stay strong."
"I have to."
Isn't there some way to make money?
Honestly, selling an artifact would be such a waste. I use artifacts to save on arrow costs, so selling one to make money would completely defeat the purpose.
Based on what I've read, once the story hits the later stages, it's just non-stop fighting.
Why didn't the novel include things like winning lottery numbers?
Every reincarnated or possessed protagonist seems to secure their finances perfectly; why am I the only one struggling?
"Still, Seo-ha, you did get your rank reissued. Since you successfully ranked as a Knight, wouldn't there be a company willing to invest in your growth potential?"
True, even if I was the lowest rank of Knight, my growth rate was quite fast. I'd gone from a Pawn to a Knight in nearly a month.
Aria and Quixote were also aware that I didn't have any corporate sponsorship. I suppose it was inevitable since I was so blatantly broke. Not that I tried to hide it.
"You think so? Maybe a high-profile company would sponsor me just for the fun of it?"
"I think that might be a bit of a stretch."
"True, why would a company do that?"
Still, given my steep growth curve, I couldn't entirely rule out the possibility of getting a sponsor.
"Come to think of it, who sponsors you guys?"
"I am sponsored by the Alonso family, not a corporation."
Quixote was the first to answer my question.
Ah, I remember them from the original story. Was it the Knight Family Alliance? I'd seen the name a few times.
"I'm sponsored by Veritas."
So she was sponsored by one of the Three Major Alchemy Corporations. Aria, you were an elite after all. Originally, Alchemist had been the undisputed number one, but after a massive blunder, the alchemy field was now dominated by the Three Major Corporations.
"Isn't Veritas a pretty big deal?"
"Of course! Do you know how hard I studied? Did you know the Alchemy Department has 'Special Admission Students' who can enter based on skill alone, even without a Stigma? I'm one of them!"
Aria looked quite proud of herself. I had just thought of her as someone who was fun to tease, but she really was exceptionally talented.
"More importantly, you didn't have a Stigma?"
"Nope!"
Aria answered brightly.
She was even more impressive than I thought.
"Anyway, maybe I should try writing a proposal to get a sponsor."
"Why not do it right now?"
With my friends' help, I began drafting it.
Since Aria had started from scratch without any connections to earn her sponsorship, she was incredibly helpful, giving me practical tips as we wrote. She even recommended a site that was known for having many reputable companies.
"Thanks, everyone."
"Don't mention it."
"As a Knight, it was my pleasure to help a friend in need."
I really have great luck with people in this life.
"It's about time for my next part-time job. If I get a good sponsor, I'll treat you all to a meal!"
With those words, I bid them farewell.
I thought I heard Aria's voice as she was dragged off to training, but I just brushed it off.
The distance wasn't far. Since there was a significant gap between my previous part-time job and the current one, I'd been killing time at a nearby cafe.
After walking a bit, a convenience store came into view. This job was the night shift.
I arrived on time as usual and swapped shifts.
The best part about the night shift is that few people come in.
Far fewer than in the morning. And they pay more for it.
The downside is that most of those who do show up aren't exactly sane.
"I mean, that woman! Ugh! Does she even know how hard I work? Burp. I want to make more money! I want to come home early!"
"I feel you. Why is making money so hard? Wake up, work, go to school, finish classes, work again, carve out time for training, and then work some more."
"Exactly! My shitty boss only gives me grief! Burp. And my junior can't do a single thing right! I honestly just want to hand in my resignation and quit!!"
"Still, we have to work. We've got people to support."
"Right, we have to. Because I'm the head of the household."
"That's what being a head of household is all about."
At least the first customer today was somewhat normal. I really hated that guy last time who tried to pee on the convenience store floor.
"Kid, hang in there."
"You too, mister."
Somehow, I'd ended up forming a bond with this middle-aged man.
Then I dealt with various other customers from hell. The guy who ate everything and asked for a refund. The underage kids trying to buy cigarettes. The one who brought only one item from a 1+1 deal and demanded a discount. The one who just fell asleep. The one who walked on all fours. The one who ate without paying. The one who paid 35,000 won entirely in coins.
Everyone after that first customer was a nightmare.
Ah...
The weight of being a head of household is truly heavy.
But I'll endure it for Luna, my daughter.
I really hope a good sponsor comes along.
*Tinkle—*
"Welcome."
Ah, I'd forgotten because they hadn't visited much lately, but there was one more advantage.
There was a branch of Alchemist nearby, so their employees occasionally stopped by.
Given the recent massive blunder Alchemist made, they've been managing their staff quite strictly, so no one would risk acting like a thug in a convenience store. With the atmosphere at the company being so bleak, no one would be foolish enough to get fired over a bad mood.
The two people who walked in were wearing clean, sharp suits. Even at a glance, the fabric looked high-end and expensive. Though it was a branch and not the headquarters, their attire suggested they held fairly high positions.
They purchased cigarettes, two bottles of soju, and three cans of beer.
As they pulled their cards out of their wallets, I spotted an Alchemist business card, confirming they were employees.
Looking completely irritated, the employees sat at the table in front of the store, lit their cigarettes, and popped open the soju.
"Dammit. Why are those bastards giving us a hard time again? It wasn't even a project we handled in the first place!"
I realized what they were talking about. I left the store door open so I could hear them better. Cigarette smoke drifted in, but I'd consider it the price for information.
"Exactly, why is this landing on us? Seeing as the Spirit King visited headquarters, it might actually be true. I've been working overtime for days and only just got off. And now they want us to search for them in the Academy's jurisdiction without being seen? What a joke. I can't even quit because I haven't paid off my mortgage."
It was clear what they were discussing.
The White King.
The experiment that began with its corpse.
It was an experiment aimed at granting a King's authority to another entity to use that power to depose other Kings.
As I mentioned before, the result was a failure. Entities that received the authority properly couldn't handle the power and collapsed. Those who didn't collapse failed to obtain the actual authority. They tested it on objects, animals, artifacts, and more, but there were no successes. Instead, the failures combined their strengths and successfully manifested the power of Assimilation, one of the King's authorities.
The failures compensated for each other's deficiencies. Their hatred and anger merged and amplified through this assimilation.
Everyone's consciousness became a chaotic, tangled mess.
Even so, they possessed their own intelligence, causing them to splinter and scatter, spreading their whiteness everywhere.
White Erosion.
That was the only name given to those test subjects. Upon appearing, they were immediately labeled as Queen-class threats and devoured an entire city; however, after weeks of struggle, numerous Awakened, Heroes, the Spirit King, and Dark Shadow succeeded in capturing and killing every entity.
That is the story known to the public.
In reality, however, there was a hidden subject.
Alchemist maintained a fairly friendly relationship with the Spirit King. The World Tree, a spirit contracted with the Spirit King, had been severely damaged during the Fifth Continent purification operation and remained unstable. Alchemist helped the World Tree recover, and in exchange, they received the husks produced during the healing process.
The problem was that they used those husks for something other than the agreed-upon purpose.
They used them for this experiment.
AS-1-a.
Fearing the Spirit King's wrath if the experiment were discovered, they recorded the subject in a separate database.
The resulting entity was the only success of the experiment.
Although it inherited all the King's authority, the properties of the World Tree and the King's authority clashed, causing its body to weaken over time.
Thinking this was a process of collapse, they dismissed it as a failure. But the power of Assimilation gradually merged the properties of the World Tree with the King's authority.
Eventually, it succeeded in coexistence without collapsing.
"I'm telling you, it must just be a piece of data created by an error during the preprocessing!"
Their conversation wasn't very useful. The most I gained was the knowledge that the Spirit King had become aware of AS-1-a. It made sense; they were branch employees, not headquarters staff, so they wouldn't have much information. From the sound of it, a full-scale search hadn't even been confirmed yet.
I compared the current situation with the plot of the original novel.
In the original, this wasn't discovered for several years, right?
At this stage, the Spirit King could likely find and eliminate it alone.
This was probably one of the butterfly effects of my actions so far.
I guess not everything I change is a bad thing.
As time passed, my own clock-out time approached.
I prepared to leave with a joyful heart.
*Ring ring—*
Just as I finished preparing to leave, my phone rang.
[Professor Kim Hye-ra.]
Someone I had never contacted before was calling me first.
"Hello?"
I answered the phone.
[Yeah, it's me.]
The professor always used formal speech, but now she was speaking informally.
Her voice sounded dry and emotionless over the phone.
"Professor, is something the matter?"
[I heard you're looking for a sponsor.]
"Yes, that's correct."
[Then, wouldn't you want to get one from me?]
"Excuse me?"
Me?
Why?
[You're in? Got it.]
Then the line went dead.
I just stood there for a moment, a mental question mark floating over my head.