The Enhancer's True Nature

"Woojin!!"

On the runway of Singapore Airport, flashbulbs exploded like artillery fire. Woojin's head snapped around at the thunderous shout that cut through the madhouse of reporters and hunters from every corner of the world.

That voice was familiar—so familiar that it should never have been heard here.

When he saw who it belonged to, Woojin's eyes went round as steamed buns.

"Huh...? Himari?"

The woman striding out through the crowd as if parting the Red Sea was wild, unfiltered, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠unmistakable.

She wore a traditional Japanese yukata, but it was more accurate to say she'd thrown a few scraps of cloth around her body than that she'd dressed properly. What stole the eye, though, was the outrageous upper half of her figure.

Her absurdly full breasts were tightly bound with white bandages, and over them she had slung a red haori so provocatively that it seemed ready to slip right off.

It was exactly the Saionji Himari Woojin remembered from Unliworld—body twenty-eight, mind thirty-eight.

"Hey, you really haven't changed one bit! You're still every bit as polished and handsome in person! So? Drinks tonight?"

Himari had a long pipe clamped between her teeth, and as if she couldn't care less about the stares around her, she came right up to Woojin and gave his shoulder a hard smack.

Even wrapped in bandages, her overwhelming curves couldn't be hidden, and the primal allure radiating from her healthy bronze skin was enough to assault Woojin's eyes all on its own.

"What are you doing here, noona? What about Japan?"

"Asia looks like it's about to go to hell together, so I figured I'd lend a paw. I have to earn my keep, don't I?"

Woojin let out a snort of laughter.

"You really haven't changed at all, noona. Not even your way of talking."

"Hahahaha, you're a cute one. Hey, you brat, you came straight over to this world without even saying hello, so the old man must be furious, right? You should go pay him a visit sometime."

Woojin swallowed hard.

The old man...?

"...Is he really that mad?"

"Yeah. He said he'd raised you like his own kid, only for you to run off without even a word. I heard he's swearing he'll bend your back in half."

"...I guess I shouldn't even look toward Germany for a while."

"If it were me, I'd handle it differently... heh heh heh."

Just then, an icy chill sharp enough to raise goosebumps rolled out from behind Woojin.

"Oh...? 'Big sister'?"

It was Eileen's voice.

She had already narrowed her eyes and was looking back and forth between Himari's bandage-strapped chest and the hand that kept patting Woojin's shoulder with casual familiarity.

Yu Jihyun spoke next, her face blank and unreadable.

"Woojin, who is this? She looks rather close to you. An acquaintance, I take it?"

Ah, crap...!

"S-She's just someone I knew back in Unliworld."

"Ahaha, 'just someone you knew' is a bit of an understatement, isn't it? Right?"

Woojin was already sweating buckets.

Jealousy.

More precisely, the killing intent of two women who were monsters at the top of the world had mixed together and fallen on Himari like a tidal wave. For an ordinary person, it was the kind of murderous pressure that would have buckled their knees and dropped them on the spot.

But Himari wasn't an ordinary woman.

She, too, was a hardened old-timer from Unliworld, a woman who had seen it all and survived it all.

Instead of shrinking back, she gave Eileen and Yu Jihyun a curious once-over from head to toe.

"Oh? Eileen Benedict! And Valkyrie Yu Jihyun! First time seeing the real thing. I'm a fan! I'm older than both of you, so I'll speak casually, okay?"

Eileen studied her with interest.

"Hmm. You're from Unliworld?"

"Yeah. I wasn't especially famous back ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠then, but I did spend a good ten years there."

Yu Jihyun still hadn't let her guard down.

"And your profession?"

"I'm a puppeteer."

"A puppeteer..."

They had never heard of dolls making that much of a splash.

After all, there was no way something made by hand could be stronger than they were.

Himari laughed cheerfully and jerked her chin toward the dolls waiting behind her.

Krrrk—

Kiiieek—

Behind her, six or seven giant wooden dolls came into view, moving with grotesque, creaking joint sounds. From their exquisitely carved bodies came a strange, alien pulse of mana, utterly different from anything alive.

"Maybe not for boss-class monsters, but for cleaning up trash mobs, nothing beats these guys. Ah, right."

Himari rummaged in her clothes and pulled out a tiny doll, which she handed to Woojin.

"Here, this is a gift. I couldn't show up empty-handed when I was meeting my little brother after so long. I like Korean goblins quite a bit, so I put a lot of care into carving this one."

What Woojin received was a cute little goblin doll, meticulously made from red cloth and wood, with a single horn on its head.

But its eyes were not glass beads; they stared straight at Woojin like the eyes of a living creature.

"I'll imprint it for you, so touch its forehead with your finger. It'll listen to you. Good for errands and little jobs, so use it well as your underling."

When Woojin carefully touched the doll's forehead, he felt a prickling, static-like sensation, and a thread of mana linked itself to him.

Pet?

"A growth-type doll?"

At Woojin's words, Himari grinned and blew out a thick stream of smoke from her pipe.

"Yeah. If you raise it well, it can even give you pretty solid support in battle later on. It earns its keep. Anyway, I'm off to meet the people from the Japanese branch. Those old fossils get nasty if I'm late. Let's have a drink sometime, Woojin! Call me!"

Himari gave them a carefree wave and disappeared with her legion of dolls in tow.

It felt like a storm had just blown through. Eileen and Yu Jihyun stared at her retreating back—more precisely, at the firm little glimpses of her hips that flashed now and then beneath the haori as she walked—before slowly turning their heads back toward Woojin.

"Woojin, I think we're going to have quite a lot to talk about at dinner. Very, very seriously."

At Yu Jihyun's frosty words, Woojin swallowed the lump in his throat.

"No... I told you, she's just someone I know... I swear..."

Eileen let out a sharp scoff.

"Hmph. I need to figure out just how many women you actually know."

Inside the Singapore Joint Command headquarters, the private zone specially assigned to Woojin's group was the highest-security area in the entire facility.

Before anything else, Benedict family agents draped black blackout curtains around the room and set up the first thing they'd brought in under wrap and concealment.

It was none other than the +15 Absolute Rest Sofa from Woojin's company president's office.

"...You went through the trouble of hauling this all the way here?"

Woojin sighed in exasperation, but once he considered the sofa's absurd mana recovery and absolute defense effect, bringing it was one hundred percent the right call.

When Eileen and Yu Jihyun, along with Jo Ayoung, were out on the battlefield, it was the only lifeline that could protect him, the noncombatant, from harm.

Hmm... then I guess I'd better get the factory rolling.

Woojin's main job was producing consumable items and enhancing equipment for the massive extermination force that was about to deploy.

In particular, the energy drinks he made dramatically increased the speed of fatigue recovery, which made them essential survival gear for Yu Jihyun and Eileen, who had to cover wide operational zones.

"What, am I some kind of potion factory foreman?"

He grumbled, but that didn't stop him from squeezing out mana nonstop and mass-producing energy drinks.

Because they needed to be strengthened to +5 or higher, each one had to be enhanced individually.

Meanwhile, the goblin doll Himari had given him, Hyeongrang, and the undead summon from Jang Jin's side, Clacky, busied themselves around Woojin, running little errands.

"These guys are pretty obedient, huh? Their hands and feet are in perfect sync."

Little Goblin Hyeongrang carried bottles of energy drink with its tiny, bean sprout-like hands, while Clacky clicked its bony fingers together and sorted the materials by type.

"Hey, Hyeongrang. You can just pile that over there."

"Kwaaak!!"

"What kind of cry is that? You're not a duck."

Hyeongrang toddled over on its short little legs, straining and grunting as it hauled a box nearly the size of its own body.

Watching it, Woojin suddenly lost himself in a strange thought.

Wait a second... if you think about it, it's still a doll made of cloth, wood, and mana, isn't it? Same with Clacky.

A single blazing hypothesis flashed through Woojin's mind.

The instincts of an Enhancer kicked in.

Could these also be classified as "items" from the system's perspective?

Woojin decided to test it at once.

He reached out toward the goblin doll standing in front of him.

"Enhance."

Wooooooong—

When he tried to enhance a living being, the system would normally throw back a message saying the target was not an item, and the mana would bounce off uselessly.

But Hyeongrang was different.

Maybe because it was a doll, Woojin's mana slipped into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠its body smoothly, without any rejection at all.

Woojin felt his heart start to hammer like crazy.

And then—

"...You've got to be kidding me, it works?"

"Kwaak! Kwaaak!"

Red light flashed through Hyeongrang's body, and the doll grew just a little larger while its material took on a slick, polished sheen. Its eyes even seemed a touch sharper, as if they had become more intelligent.

Woojin rode the momentum and called over Clacky, the skeleton soldier who was practically Jang Jin's split soul.

"Clacky, stop what you're doing and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠come here."

Clacky tilted its skull and came clattering over with a rattling noise.

Woojin placed his hand on the skeleton's smooth cranium and focused his mana.

Woooooong—

Without hesitation, he poured the energy of enhancement into it.

Brilliant mana wrapped around Clacky's bones.

"...What?"

Woojin shuddered.

This was a revolution that would overturn everything the Enhancer class had ever taken for granted.

Up until now, the common wisdom had been that an Enhancer could strengthen only "dead objects" such as weapons and armor.

But Woojin's enhancement ability had blown straight past that limit.

This never worked in Unliworld. It's only possible now because the skill became just plain "Enhance" when it came over here!!

Himari's puppet army, and Jang Jin's necromantic army of thousands upon thousands of undead.

What if every one of those summons was strengthened by Woojin?

What if they weren't just skeletons anymore, but +9 Skeletons marching through the battlefield with gilded bones?

Is this... even balanced?

Who cared about balance?

A beaming grin spread across Woojin's face.

"Jang Jin! You guys! All of you, over here! Assemble! Today, your big brother's going to gild your bones!!"