The Shop of Ten Thousand Things
"Black Snake, huh? What a flashy name for a gang."
Ryu Hwi had snorted the first time he learned what the pack of lawless thugs called themselves.
[Master, are you certain it is acceptable to leave the interest payments "unprocessed"?]
"It's fine."
Killing them would have been simple enough, but the cleanup afterward was a hassle in a dozen different ways.
More than anything, he had no desire to sink to the same level as that trash.
[There is a possibility of retaliation.]
"I already pulled their fangs."
Ryu Hwi had shattered them so thoroughly that the thought of ever striking back at him wouldn't even cross their minds.
He'd also planted the understanding that he was a madman who gave not a single damn about rules — even though he was an Unknown, robbed of his very name.
They had submitted to fear.
"Those guys are nothing but dogs with their teeth pulled out now. Or should I say snakes?"
Humans were weak to violence and terror. Once broken, they rarely found the strength to stand back up.
"And you did something to them too, didn't you?"
[Affirmative. Using the power of UR YggON, I interfered with their internal implants — their "SEED."]
The device every modern human carried in their body.
Commonly known as the SEED, it was an indispensable part of daily life in this era. Even the streams of visual information filtering into Ryu Hwi's field of view were all controlled by his own SEED.
[I subtly tampered with their visual feeds so that Master appears as a truly nightmarish monster. The more fear they feel toward Master, the more terrifying a presence you become to them. lololol]
Full marks. A perfect ten out of ten for support work.
"With this, the Black Snake boys won't dare think of defying me for a good long while. And if they ever do cross me again……"
He would make them regret not dying instead. It would be a mercy.
The Ryu Hwi of today was more than capable of it.
Still, my plans have gotten tangled up in more ways than one.
He fully intended to take revenge someday on the bastards who had stolen his SSR Account Creation Voucher. The plan had been to establish himself as a gamer first, then bury those people socially and completely.
Instead, this blunder had happened. The fault lay with Ryu Hwi's own carelessness.
There had been a camera installed in that shop. It must have recorded him drawing the UR.
After ten days of basking in the game labyrinth, Ryu Hwi had completely forgotten about that camera.
A perfect lapse in judgment — his mistake.
The one silver lining, though……
"Character Conversion — isn't that thing dangerous in all sorts of ways?"
…was that he'd gained the power to escape that particular crisis.
Not only had Sword Mastery activated, but Parrying had fired properly too.
With that power, he had swept the Black Snake gang off the board.
His plans had derailed, but things weren't bad. Not bad at all, and yet……
The performance of the UR was so overwhelming that a hollow laugh escaped him without his meaning to.
[That has always been the standard specification. For your reference, full implementation of skills is difficult outside of Yggdrasil. Skills are, at their core, realized through the power of Yggdrasil itself. Outside, their effectiveness is diminished — kindly take note.]
Ryu Hwi nodded at YggON's advice.
He was already aware that his movements were worse than they'd been inside the labyrinth. Even so, the fact that he could wield labyrinth skills out here was a benefit of absurd proportions.
If this truth ever came to light, chaos would erupt.
No —
The mere existence of the UR was enough to turn this world upside down from the start.
[Are you frightened now?]
A colossal power that overturned the world's common sense.
No one could blame him for feeling the weight of it.
"Why would I be?"
But Ryu Hwi was smiling.
Deep in his heart, he welcomed the immense power that had come looking for him.
Nothing could serve his goal better than this strength.
"You're the one who shouldn't be afraid later. I'm going to run you so ragged you'll be screaming."
[If that is genuinely possible, I shall raise Master's evaluation by a small margin.]
Ryu Hwi rested properly at home for the first time in ages.
Only about a single day had passed in real-world time, but by his own reckoning more than ten days had gone by.
"Nine in the morning, huh……"
Under normal circumstances, he would have been at work right now.
Every fiber of him ached to dive straight back into a game labyrinth, but he had decided to spend today outside.
There were plenty of things that could only be done in the real world.
He left the house and headed for a quiet, out-of-the-way spot.
An empty lot, deserted of people.
After confirming no one was around, he took out the item he'd prepared.
The old wooden sword he'd found in the alley yesterday.
The moment his hand closed around it, he had realized the Sword Mastery skill had manifested.
So what happened last night wasn't a dream.
Skills learned in a game labyrinth could be used in reality.
Having confirmed it once more, Ryu Hwi next tested how far he could move while the skill was active.
Pushing his body to the limit and taking stock of the results, he grasped the difference between the outside world and the game labyrinth.
"Roughly a power boost on the level of Sword Mastery Lv1, give or take?"
Just as YggON had said, the skills' effects were dampened outside.
He set the wooden sword on the ground and drew a folding knife this time — to check whether Sword Mastery would trigger while holding this kind of blade.
"It activated."
Not only did his capabilities rise, but he also found himself instinctively understanding how the knife was meant to be handled.
Since Sword Mastery worked with a folding knife too, there'd be no need to lug a wooden sword around everywhere.
The wooden sword was superior as a weapon, admittedly — the reach made a real difference — but a knife was more than enough for self-defense.
Beyond the knife, he ran through the other items he'd brought one by one.
"So for now: as long as I recognize something as a sword, the skill triggers."
Since the real-world mechanics might differ from the labyrinth's, he verified everything piece by piece.
Take Parrying, for example. In the game labyrinth, it had the effect of instantly blocking and deflecting an opponent's attack — out here, it manifested instead as a numbness shooting up his arm.
It wasn't merely that the effect had been weakened; the very way it manifested had changed.
"So, to sum it up simply……"
One: YggON's Character Conversion reshapes a human body itself to fit Yggdrasil directly.
Two: it operates on different rules than standard game-account access — he is subject to no system restrictions, but receives no system benefits either.
Three: skills learned in game labyrinths can still be used outside, though their effects are weakened or manifest differently.
Which meant……
[You need not worry about lifespan, Master. Even with your body converted, your time still flows according to the "outside world's" standard.]
His body itself had been converted — meaning that, unlike every other gamer, Ryu Hwi's physical flesh was effectively living within Yggdrasil's accelerated flow of time.
Ryu Hwi had worried about exactly that, but YggON had dismissed it as a non-issue.
[Were such a flaw to exist, it would scarcely deserve to call itself UR. Kindly refrain from underestimating YggON.]
One thing was certain — the robotic vacuum had pride to spare.
"How long until the appointment?"
[Approximately one hour remains.]
Ryu Hwi checked the time.
The sun had climbed to its height without his noticing.
He ambled leisurely toward the meeting place.
"Th-the, this way, please."
The leader of the Black Snake — wrapped head to toe in bandages — had shrunk into himself, cowed utterly.
Every trace of the swaggering arrogance was gone; all that remained was a groveling wretch gripped by fear and dread.
"Modern medicine really is something. All patched up like that in just a few hours."
"Th-that's, ah, the truth of it."
The Black Snake's leader bowed his head with an awkward smile.
"And the treatment costs — money you shook down from other people? Or whatever was left after selling my Account Creation Voucher?"
Ryu Hwi spun the folding knife idly around his fingers.
It was a meaningless gesture, but the leader apparently read some deeper menace into it — the color drained from his face entirely.
"Th-the money, we'll return it. If you'll just wait a little while……"
"Wait how long? A day? A week? A month?"
"That's……"
"Why would I wait for you in the first place?"
The leader's complexion turned even more corpse-pale. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, and his legs shook like aspen leaves.
"You people are still breathing because of one small whim of mine. Don't you forget that fact."
Ryu Hwi gave the leader's shoulder a light pat.
"Make sure I never come to regret that whim. I'll leave the meaning of that to you to figure out."
The leader managed a nod, barely.
Instill fear.
Make them understand you are something they can never defy.
The Black Snake's leader feared Ryu Hwi's very existence. Even though his wounds had mostly healed, the injured areas still throbbed with searing pain whenever the man laid eyes on him.
"Planning to stand there all day?"
At Ryu Hwi's words, the leader startled violently and hurried ahead to lead the way.
Before long, the two of them arrived at the Entertainment District.
Well before sundown, a decadent air already hung over the streets — gaudy to the point of excess, with a cloying sweetness in the air thick enough to choke on.
Yggdrasil had driven the world forward at a staggering pace, yet shadows like this never disappeared.
If the city center was light, this was its shadow.
The brighter the world's light burned, the darker the shadows grew beneath it.
The leader navigated the Entertainment District like it was his own back yard.
Eventually he turned into an alley where even here, foot traffic grew sparse.
At the far end of the alley stood a shabby building beneath a sign reading Jucheongwang — Curios of Every Kind.
"This the place?"
"Y-yes, sir."
The Black Snake's leader answered with a strained expression.
"This is the black-market dealer's shop. When people want to trade in illegal goods, this is where they come. That……"
"Also where you sold my Account Creation Voucher?"
Sweat poured down the leader's face.
A black-market dealer.
A merchant who traded in goods and services the state had never sanctioned.
The reason Ryu Hwi had summoned the Black Snake's leader today was simple: he needed an introduction to one.
Trying to move an Account Creation Voucher through legitimate channels would raise nothing but problems. Every detail of how he'd come to possess it would be scrutinized down to the last thread.
And that was where the black-market dealer came in.
Ryu Hwi had guessed that the Black Snake would have used one as well, and his guess had landed dead-on.
Creeeeak.
Ryu Hwi pushed open the door and stepped inside, frowning at once.
The exterior had been old and run-down, but the interior was worse. Whether from sheer neglect, the musty smell of accumulated dust pricked at his nose.
Called a "shop of every kind" and yet not a single decent item anywhere in sight.
"A customer, is it?"
At a counter shoved carelessly into the middle of the store sat a small boy.
An outfit resembling the hopping vampire from old cinema, paired with a monocle — a peculiar combination, to say the least.
And strangest of all: the face of a young boy, wearing the gruff voice of a grown man.
[Master, that is not a human body.]
Not a human body meant……
"A full-body prosthetic?"
"Hm?"
The boy's face registered surprise.
"Sharp eyes you've got there. Correct. This is a full-body prosthetic, custom-built to my own taste."
"Aren't full-body prosthetics strictly forbidden?"
Full-body prosthetics were regarded as an abandonment of the human body itself — an act that trampled on human dignity.
"Hahahaha. Isn't it a bit absurd for a black-market dealer to be lectured about following the law?"
"Fair point, I suppose."
Ryu Hwi accepted it without fuss.
"Aren't you taking this a bit too calmly? Most people start shrieking the moment they learn it's a full-body prosthetic, you know? If I get caught, it's an automatic Unknown designation for me."
"Not my problem. I'm an Unknown myself."
"Got a story of your own, then? Well, no matter."
The boy spread both arms wide in a gesture of welcome toward Ryu Hwi.
"I am Wolya, proprietor of Jucheongwang, shop of every kind. Man or woman, boy or elder — I discarded all such trifles the day I took this body. A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Now then, as for business……"
Having introduced himself as Wolya, the boy shot a sidelong glance at the Black Snake's leader.
"So you came on that fellow's introduction, did you? Is there something you're after?"
"Let me just confirm one thing first — what happened to my Account Creation Voucher?"
"Your Account Creation Voucher?"
Wolya wore a puzzled look for a moment.
"Ahh, so that's how it was? And here I wondered where that fool laid hands on something as rare as an Account Creation Voucher — you were the original owner all along?"
When Ryu Hwi nodded, Wolya clicked his tongue.
"Have you come to reclaim it? I'm afraid you'll find it a pity, then — a prize of that caliber fetches whatever price the market demands. I shan't take a loss on it myself, you understand, so you'd need money to match."
"Is that so? Well, nothing to be done about it."
When Ryu Hwi leveled a cold stare at him, the Black Snake's leader could do nothing but tremble in silence.
Watching the man — too broken even to think of defiance — Wolya's eyes glinted with interest.
"Tsk tsk. You've gone and laid hands on someone you really ought not to have touched. A case of reaping what one sows, I'd say. Well then — is that the whole of your business?"
"No."
He had come here for a different purpose.
"I came to trade."
"Trade? Hmmm. Which is to say, you've come to make a transaction of the not-exactly-legal sort as well."
Wolya snickered. The grown man's voice coming out of that boyish figure was deeply unsettling.
"What is it you desire? Jucheongwang trades in anything and everything, you know. A human life, even, should that be your fancy. Shall I sell you that nincompoop over there?"
Wolya was not joking. If Ryu Hwi had said yes, the Black Snake's leader would have been appraised and shelved as merchandise on the spot.
"Tempting offer, but what I'm trading today is something else."
Ryu Hwi set the item he'd pulled from his bag onto the counter.
The moment Wolya's eyes fell upon it, his expression changed.
"This is—!"