Chapter 138
Chapter 138
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 138
Chapter Title: The Alchemist's Ransom is Expensive
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◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "Ugh... Urk...!!"
Eun-ha heaved up black sludge for what felt like ages. An unbelievable amount of the dark liquid poured out from her petite frame.
The thick, black goo writhed like it was alive. But since it had just been expelled, it hadn't taken on any solid form yet. It was just like half-digested gastric juices from an impure giant.
And judging by the sheer volume, it didn't seem like this stuff had been physically inside Eun-ha's body. It felt more like it had been stored in her soul and was now spilling out through her mouth.
"Cough... Ghk..."
After vomiting up the last drop of sludge, Eun-ha seemed to succumb to anemia, collapsing to the floor. Her face was pale, her body trembling faintly, so I quickly caught her as she fell and scooped her up in a princess carry.
"Hey! Hey! Lee Eun-ha! Snap out of it!"
Eun-ha had lost consciousness. Meanwhile, the sludge she'd puked up began to gather in one spot, slowly taking shape.
I hurriedly handed her off to the Dullahan and barked an order.
"Take Eun-ha and fall back! Everyone else, battle stations!!"
Gu Gyohan was all about physical attacks, so he looked useless against the sludge, which clearly had resistance to them. Better for the Dullahan to stay back and protect Eun-ha than swing that greatsword and mess up the formation up front.
"Hey! A-reum! Go grab Su-min and the Japanese folks!!"
"O-Okay!"
A-reum, the dancer, relied mainly on physical attacks too. So I sent her to fetch Hwang Su-min, who'd just class-changed to Witch, along with the priests and shrine maidens—who were natural counters to evil spirits. Most of the Japanese were cleric types anyway, so anyone would help.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [A tremendous presence...! It's making my flesh crawl!!] I drew Yang Ji-sang, and he let out a piercing shout. What a noisy bastard.
"Can you handle that thing?"
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [It's not singular. It's a plural mass forcibly merged from countless spiritual entities... Absorbing it would probably shatter the sword. So kill it and break it into pieces.] The sword couldn't handle absorbing it due to capacity issues. Did that mean we really had to kill it...? Felt like a waste. It was a being forged from dozens of anomalies fused into one, and we had to waste it.
Just then, Lee Hoon—the Possession Warrior who'd been hauling gear—came charging in, snorting like a bull.
"Bro! There's a spiritual entity here... Huh...? What the hell is that...?"
Lee Hoon's class absorbed and digested ghosts and spirits to boost stats. Unlike Eun-ha, who stored them in her body, he fully processed them, so he seemed unaffected by the God's Idol's range.
Anyway, he'd sensed the sludge's spiritual aura from afar and dropped everything to rush over. But his expression said he was pretty spooked now that he was face-to-face with it.
"Hey! Can you eat this right away?!"
"Uh... Not right now... Gotta prep it first..."
"Prep my ass..."
He meant slice it up nice and edible, I guess.
"Charge!!"
The sludge was trying to form a human shape, so we surrounded it and unleashed a barrage of skills mercilessly.
"Gaaahhh!!!!"
Once it took enough damage, a torrent of malice erupted from it, blasting the first to charge—Lee Hoon—back several meters.
"What the fuck!!!"
"That bastard's trying to transform!!!"
"Beat it!! Pound it non-stop!!! Don't let it transform!!!!"
Rule number one: when an enemy tries to transform or awaken, whale on it like crazy. Drain its HP before phase two kicks in. Miss this window, and you're fighting the powered-up version—no way we were letting that happen.
Yeah, this was fever time. With it frozen mid-transformation, now was our best shot to kill it.
No extra rewards for beating the buffed version anyway. No point taking the hard road.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Kieeehh!!!!!] As we piled on relentlessly, the sludge screamed in agony.
Once Hwang Su-min and Sora joined after A-reum's call, blasting it with holy light and exorcism spells, it started shrinking for real, writhing and shrieking nonstop.
Soon the Japanese priests gathered too, chanting weird incantations in unison, driving it to the brink of purification. The group exorcism left it helpless.
This is why humans form groups. If it'd been just me against this insane liquid freak, I'd have burned through every skill and suffered hard. But with diverse classes and numbers, it was a breeze.
"W-Wait...! Comrades!! Hold on a sec!!"
Just as I figured Lee Hoon could eat half and feed the rest to Yang Ji-sang, Eun-ha—still in the Dullahan's arms—shouted urgently.
She hopped down and hugged the writhing sludge on the floor, the black liquid blob.
Since we'd beaten it down before it could fully form, it was still a liquid mass—like an impure Yellow Springs slime.
"D-Don't kill it...! This is enough already..."
"Everyone, stop."
I'd seen Eun-ha talk to ectoplasm before, so I approached them cautiously. Communication was possible, it seemed. Maybe because she was its creator?
"What're they saying?"
"I-It... It's crying and begging to be accepted..."
This thing might be tamable.
"But isn't it dangerous? And bringing it inside because of that would make getting past the God's Idol tough."
"There must be... some way..."
The simplest fix: drop it off in the underground vault with the God's Idol. As Yang Ji-sang said, that place was thick with death energy and negative vibes—the perfect home for this thing. It'd probably thrive there on its own. But the issue was trusting this freakish entity.
It only communicated through emotional fragments, no real language, and only Eun-ha could talk to it. Without her oversight, who knew what it'd do? Devour the God's Idol or grow into an uncontrollable boss monster, maybe.
Too dumb to enslave, even.
If Eun-ha had to babysit it constantly, she'd be stuck in that dark, damp vault overflowing with bad energy—hardly ideal for a living person.
Or raise it outside the school separately. But that was insanely risky.
'In the end, only way is to buff Lee Hoon and Yang Ji-sang...?'
As I pondered how to dispose of the sludge, Hellas came huffing over from outside, looking for Hwang Su-min.
"Huff... Huff... That thing..."
He spotted the sludge in Eun-ha's arms and his eyes went wide in shock. He knew something. Maybe he could help.
"You know what this is?"
"Uh... I don't know exactly what that entity is that the lady's holding. But I know what it's leaking."
Hellas crouched near the sludge Eun-ha cradled. The black slime-like mass vibrated threateningly, emitting a warning rumble.
Hellas, with his days numbered, ignored it completely and poked at the sludge remnants scattered on the ground.
"This is high-grade ectoplasm... Only harvestable from high-tier undead... Real heavy-hitters like Banshee Queens... Such a precious resource..."
Liquid leaked by a Banshee Queen...? Sounds kinda like... ghostly love juices...
As I had that weird thought, Hellas went ahead and licked the black, murky, sticky goo with his tongue. An old man on death's door delicately lapping up floor sludge—grossed me out.
"Mmm... Hngh..."
"Dude... Fuck... Old man, why the hell are you eating that shit...?"
"Ah, got too focused and savored it... Ahem. High-grade ectoplasm has a natural sweetness. And this... It's so sweet it stings the tongue. Top-tier among everything I've tasted."
"Sweet? That?"
Giant snot-sweet...? No matter how sweet, I'd never taste it. Not even if I died. I'd never put something that freaky in my mouth. Hwa-young looked up at me curiously.
"Oppa... You won't drink it?"
"What?"
"I mean... You always scarf down random stuff. Thought you might skip this one..."
"N-No!"
Hwa-young thinks I'm a dumpster diver!
This is unfair! Everything I've eaten so far was necessary for power-ups—out of pure necessity. Not like some hobo picking up scraps.
"Hahaha! Just kidding. Kidding~~ Don't get so serious! Hey! Hey!"
Hwa-young poked me playfully, claiming it was a joke. A cute girl acting all coy like that just made me laugh.
"Nom nom nom..."
"Seriously, stop eating it!"
"Ah, sorry...! I ate too much of this precious stuff all by myself."
I didn't mean stop because it's precious...
Once I ordered him to quit, Hellas pulled out a glass vial from his robes and started scraping the scattered ectoplasm into it with a scalpel.
"Disciple. Don't just watch—help me. Getting old, it's tough."
"Yes, Master."
Even Hwang Su-min jumped in to collect it. Hellas was even teaching her the basics like a proper mentor.
"Ectoplasm's used a lot as a licorice substitute for its unique sweetness. It excels at mana recovery on its own and serves as a base for many high potions, so remember that. But an entity leaking this high-grade stuff..."
Hellas's eyes gleamed dangerously. The gleam of scholarly madness.
"Honestly, more amazing than anything I've seen. Were you planning to kill it? That'd be a real shame..."
"Nah. Not set on killing it, but Eun-ha's the only one who can tame it. Can't stick her in the underground vault just to house it inside the school."
"Hmm... The God's Idol... The core of the school's barrier, that cursed idol the owner brought from the forest."
"Yeah, that."
"That's what's blocking spiritual entities or the deceased right now... Mind if I take a closer look?"
He must have a solution. I nodded.
"Disciple. Grab your notebook. Prep some large jars or vials... And..."
With permission to inspect the God's Idol, Hellas immediately ordered his prized disciple Hwang Su-min around. I told Son Ha-eun and Gu Gyohan to wait here.
"Son Ha-eun and Gu Gyohan, hold at the back gate. Don't come inside and collapse. Hwa-young and A-reum, watch the kids."
"Got it."
"Be safe..."
"Eun-ha, bring that thing and come with."
"Understood."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "Hmm... I think I get how it works."
Hellas fiddled with the God's Idol as he spoke. Once installed, lifting it from the floor would break its effect, so we couldn't move it.
"I can make protective charms for that Lich girl and headless friend. No good materials for permanence—they'll need monthly swaps. But with charms, they can enter. And..."
Hellas swallowed hard, eyeing the sludge happily crawling over the vault walls and ceiling.
"...Merge that with the God's Idol."
"You can do that?"
"Yes. With enough time and resources... Fuse the sludge into the idol... Turn it into an ectoplasm fountain... Er, an automated defense idol."
"Whoa... Old man, aren't you a bit too useful?"
"Hahaha! I am, aren't I?"
Hellas had been sold cheap at the slave market due to his short lifespan.
But for a bargain slave, he was insanely versatile. Money well spent. Great value. Knew a ton, whipped up anything on demand—like a universal sage.
"Oh, right. Old man, you meet the Engineer yet?"
"Pardon?"
"Engineer Jung Ji-yeon. I'll introduce you later."
Right now, Hellas ranked high in my precious allies list. This incident skyrocketed him. He was already key for weird potions, but now he felt like a Dora*mon.
'Plus, alchemist meets engineer... Magic engineering? Like how mage Hwang Su-min evolved to witch...'
Slave trader said Hellas had less than ten years left. Had to milk his knowledge while he lasted.
'Next lifespan-boosting item... Gotta snag one for him...'
Come to think of it, that beauty pack from the drug dealer supposedly added five years... If any left, give it to Hellas.
Couldn't let such a useful old coot die soon. Slaves can't die without owner's permission.
Mulling the Hellas Longevity Project, I left the vault.
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