Chapter 137
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Translator: Prime Works
Chapter: 137
Chapter Title: Premium Random Draw (2)
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“Cheep!”
A vigorous, mature voice echoed from within the light.
It was coming.
This time for sure.
Something was emerging.
Lloyd steeled himself.
He strained to make out the silhouette starting to appear in the light.
That was the moment.
“Cheep-cheep!”
Zap!
A small lump burst out from the dazzling light.
It flew straight toward him in an instant.
It plunged right into his arms.
“Cheep!”
“......Huh?”
The first thing he saw was the fluffy, snow-white feathers.
‘Fluff? No, feathers?’
A plump, two-headed-proportion body covered in pure white feathers.
A pair of tiny wings flapping energetically.
The round head was as big as the body.
But the beak was adorable, and the eyes were pitch black.
So this was......
“A titmouse?”
“Cheep!”
A titmouse smaller than his fist looked up at him and replied maturely.
It looked just like a baby bird chirping with its beak wide open toward its mother.
Lloyd had to swallow hard.
“Hey, um.”
“Cheep?”
“Your name is Cheep, right?”
“Cheep!”
“But why did a titmouse come out now?”
“Cheep?”
“No, uh, I’m not saying anything bad about you, but, um, I actually set the condition for a fantasy beast that would give me something tough and durable like unbreakable wire or rope, no deformation.”
A premium random draw where he could attach conditions.
He naturally assumed something matching that condition would appear.
‘I was hoping for a spider or something similar.’
Tough spider silk could easily serve as wire or mesh.
So he really hoped for a spider-type fantasy beast.
That’s honestly what he wanted.
But the result now was......
‘A titmouse.’
Even the premium random draw had failed.
It seemed completely unrelated to spider silk.
His heart sank.
Thinking about the RP spent on this one draw made his stomach churn so badly it felt like he’d get reflux esophagitis.
‘Argh, my RP. I spent 800 on this. How hard was it to save that?’
The RP he got this time was 700, for the continental first of building an apartment.
So he’d dumped all the RP from a historic achievement into this one draw.
‘Whew, no. Still, there has to be some useful way to make use of it.’
Lloyd shook his head vigorously.
He pulled himself together mentally.
It was too early to judge.
He thought Hamang was a dud at first, but it turned out to be a jackpot.
First priority was checking what abilities this little one had.
“So, you have a note too, right? With the manual written on it.”
“Cheep-cheep? Cheep!”
“You do? Can you show it to me by any chance?”
“Cheep!”
The titmouse, Cheep, buried its beak into its chest.
From the fluffy chest feathers, it pulled out a stamp-sized folded note.
Lloyd took it and unfolded it.
As expected, tiny print was written there.
[Cheep Usage Manual]
[Cheep is a cute titmouse. Please care for it with love.]
[Cheep offers absolute loyalty to you, its summoner. A fantasy beast is a lifelong companion and another family member. Please do not abandon it carelessly.]
[Cheep can change its size by eating two kinds of sunflower seeds.]
[Red Sunflower Seed: Makes Cheep gigantic. Maximum giant duration = 12 hours]
[Blue Sunflower Seed: Makes Cheep petite. Feed it before the maximum giant duration expires. If you exceed 12 hours in giant state without the blue sunflower seed, Cheep enters exhaustion. In exhaustion, it automatically returns to petite form, but cannot gigantify for 24 hours.]
[2-Color Sunflower Seed Set purchase cost is 1 RP.]
[Cheep can use various skills in giant state.]
[Cheep Skill List]
[Spider Silk Spinning (Lv. 1)]
[Spider Silk Spraying (Lv. 1)]
[Nest Weaving (Lv. 1)]
[Poop Bombing (Lv. 1)]
‘What’s this?’
Lloyd finished reading the manual and tilted his head.
Cheep had two completely unexpected skills attached.
‘Nest Weaving or Poop...... Well, bombing makes sense for a titmouse. But Spider Silk Spinning? Spider Silk Spraying? Why are those there?’
It was weird.
Did it spew spider silk instead of poop or something?
Lloyd looked at Cheep on his palm.
“Hey, Cheep?”
“Cheep!”
“I have a question.”
“Cheep-cheep!”
“How do you spin spider silk?”
“Cheep? Cheep-cheep! Cheep!”
Receiving the question, Cheep turned its body dramatically as if to show off.
Only then did Lloyd notice the petite bag on Cheep’s back.
It was a spider-shaped bag.
Seeing it, Lloyd twitched one eyebrow up.
“Wait. Don’t tell me......”
“Cheep!”
“The spider silk comes from that spider doll bag?”
“Cheep!”
“For real?”
“Cheep!”
“You’re not saying the bag is the real body, right?”
“Cheep-cheep!”
“......”
Cheep shook its head vigorously no.
Thanks to that, Lloyd felt a ray of hope.
‘Anyway, it’s a relief. Spider silk. This draw didn’t totally flop!’
Spider silk.
It was exactly the kind of ability he wanted most.
To build the gabion retaining wall, he needed something rust-proof and tough like mesh or wire no matter what.
Lloyd suppressed his grin threatening to split to his ears and said.
“Ahem! Good. Then we need to do some testing.”
“Cheep?”
“The spider silk from the bag. We need to test how good its performance is.”
It was obvious.
This spider silk would be the core material for the retaining wall.
How much weight could it hold?
What about in high or low temperatures?
What if it got wet?
He needed to test and verify its abilities in as many conditions as possible.
“I have to design based on how tough the spider silk is. Otherwise, accidents are likely. Retaining walls? If they fail, it’s often a major disaster.”
It was true.
Retaining walls were mostly built on slopes or cut hillsides.
Roads or houses were often below them.
But if the wall collapsed?
Dozens or hundreds of tons of earth would pour toward the roads or houses.
A literal landslide.
“This time is the same. I’m planning to use that spider silk to support a retaining wall for rice paddies and fields where countless people will make their lives. But if the wall collapses? If a landslide happens? It’d be a big problem. Right?”
Finishing the explanation, Lloyd held out a red sunflower seed.
But Cheep showed an unexpected reaction.
“Cheep......”
It didn’t eat the red sunflower seed.
It looked back and forth between the seed and his face.
And its eyes held a strange dissatisfaction.
“Hm? What’s wrong?”
“Cheep-cheep......”
“Do you hate sunflower seeds maybe?”
“Cheep, cheep-cheep.”
“Not that, you’re just too lazy?”
“Cheep-cheep! Cheep! Cheep-cheep-cheep! Cheep!”
“Hmm, so, you don’t want to work, everything’s a hassle? You don’t want to fly in the sky, don’t want to gigantify, and since you’re summoned anyway, just let you roll around on your own pretending you don’t exist?”
“Cheep!”
Cheep flapped its tiny wings and nodded emphatically.
Lloyd felt troubled.
‘This isn’t some aspiring NEET.’
He summoned a fantasy beast to work.
But it didn’t want to work.
It wanted to lounge around all day.
This one seemed like a huge slacker despite its cute looks.
‘Tsk. This is a problem. Yeah, a real problem.’
In this era of economic downturn and job instability, such a brazen aspiring NEET.
It hadn’t done anything yet but already didn’t want to do anything in the future.
‘I can’t allow that.’
Even he, its master, worked every day.
He lived without dipping a finger in the honey pot he craved.
But this one wanted to flop down and roll around immediately.
Lloyd found that attitude outrageous.
‘Plus, the RP I invested in you!’
He spent a whopping 800 RP for the premium random draw.
And adding the previous three straight misses?
A total of 1,513 insane RP poured out to get this one.
And it already wanted to slack off.
‘This is like paying the highest transfer fee in club history for a soccer or baseball player, and them refusing training and striking right at the debut ceremony.’
Absolutely unacceptable.
No slacking for fantasy beasts until he enjoyed the sweet life himself.
Etching that principle(?) in his mind, Lloyd looked up.
He spoke to Podong, Bangul, and Hamang, who had been watching from the side.
“Kids?”
“Po, Bang, Ha?”
“Let’s instill some discipline?”
“Po! Bang! Ha!”
The three fantasy beasts replied energetically to Lloyd’s words.
They’d been watching the conversation between Lloyd and the new recruit anyway.
They inwardly sighed at the newcomer declaring itself a slacker right after summoning.
These days were something else.
Back in their day, it was common courtesy to sparkle with eyes begging for work upon summoning.
It was a given virtue to cry out, ‘Master, leave it all to me!’
Clicking their tongues at the fantasy beast world’s loss of principles, Podong, Bangul, and Hamang approached.
They hooked their short arms over Cheep’s shoulders.
“Podo-dong? Podong?”
“Cheep?”
“Podong?”
Hey, wanna talk?
At Podong’s kind words, Cheep nodded.
And so, oblivious, Cheep followed the three senior fantasy beasts to a shady corner of the training ground.
Meanwhile, Lloyd gazed at the bright full moon in the night sky.
“Ah, what a perfect night for discipline.”
Crunch, thwack, squeak, crash sounds faintly drifted over.
And shortly after.
Cheep, with feathers missing in spots here and there, scurried back over. It flew up to his palm in one go and cried out with sparkling eyes.
“Cheep!”
“Hm? You want to work now? You’re dying to eat the red sunflower seed?”
“Cheep-cheep! Cheep!”
“Yeah, good thinking. Big bro and big sis kindly taught you how society works?”
“Cheep!”
Cheep nodded vigorously and opened its beak.
Lloyd smiled proudly and held out the sunflower seed.
♣
The test was a success.
No, more than just successful.
The spider silk Cheep spun was an absolute jackpot.
‘This is better than real spider silk?’
He couldn’t dismiss it as fake just because it came from a bag.
It was far tougher and more durable than expected.
He grabbed the spider silk with both hands.
Pulled with all his might.
It didn’t snap, not even stretch.
In that state, he invoked the Asrahan Heart Method.
He spun his mana circles one by one, increasing them.
He infused the amplified mana’s power and pulled even harder.
He mobilized all three circles to their limit.
Even the Asrahan skill’s exclusive option, Latent Power Burst.
Kiiiiing!
For 30 seconds, mana amplification surged 5 times.
“Grrrrraah!”
He poured in all his strength.
Only then did the spider silk ‘slightly’ stretch.
It endured without breaking.
‘This is more than enough. No, way better than I expected.’
In nature, spider silk was the icon of thin yet tough materials.
How strong? It boasted about 3 times the tensile strength and elasticity of steel of the same thickness.
And its durability was top-notch; even after 20-30 years, strength barely dropped.
‘And it’s resistant to moisture too. Almost no deformation, and it doesn’t lose toughness even after long sun exposure.’
But Cheep’s spider silk?
It seemed even better.
Plus, another advantage perfect for retaining wall construction.
‘Sticky!’
To test, he’d gripped it hard, and it took forever to peel off.
Force wouldn’t do it.
He scraped with a knife.
Still not.
Finally, slathering soybean oil let him barely peel it off.
Such powerful adhesiveness.
A huge advantage.
‘Of course. Make gabion frames for the wall with this? It’ll grip the inner stones tight, and perfectly hold the soil inside the wall too.’
Inside the retaining wall.
The space between the cut slope face and the wall.
Where the on-site ‘backfill’ soil goes.
Securing stable support there was crucial in retaining wall construction.
But with the spider silk’s insane stickiness?
He could secure support that wouldn’t fail even after a thousand years.
‘Not just gabions, but layer spider silk nets inside the wall space. Lay one net, cover with soil of certain thickness. Another net and soil on top. Like stacking scallion pancakes, green onion pancakes, or pancakes.’
He thought of applying modern reinforced soil retaining walls (Mechanically Stabilized Earth = MSE), specifically the HDPE geogrid method.
‘Combine that with gabions. Connect with this spider silk? It’ll last not just a thousand, but ten thousand years easy.’
Crack!
Lloyd cracked his knuckles.
He could do it.
His design skills.
The fantasy beasts’ power and skills.
Newly added Cheep’s spider silk.
Plus mobilizing Haviel, Sir Bayern, the Engineering Corps, and refugees en masse?
For this terraced farmland using the retaining wall.
He brimmed with confidence to make it a world cultural heritage-level legacy to pass down generations.
And so Lloyd dove into full-scale design.
He started construction right after finishing the design.
Word spread like wildfire among the participating refugees.
The young lord of this territory freely commands unheard-of fantasy beasts for the project.
He must be a genius in summoning magic.
Adoration for Lloyd rose high.