Chapter 12
Chapter 12
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 12
Chapter Title: A Successful Debut
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“Oh... this looks like it was just pulled from a monster.”
“I-I see... That’s a relief.”
“By the way, is that a summoning skill?”
“Come to think of it, you had a skill called Summon, right?”
Suri glanced around for a moment, preened her wings, then came over to me and tapped the magic stone with her beak.
“Hm? What is it, Suri?”
Then, she waddled over on her bird legs and pecked at Minium’s head.
“Why Minium?”
She stretched her neck out long, pointed toward the magic stone, and then repeatedly tapped Minium’s head. Based on her actions, I could guess...
“Oh..! I get it!”
“What’s Suri saying, Eve?”
“I think she’s saying it’s heavy for me to hold, so I should give it to Minium.”
Thwack!
Suri raised a wing to her forehead. She must be impressed by my brilliant comprehension. She’s such a good girl, thinking of me like this.
“Well... Suri has a magic stone in her body too. Isn’t she telling you to give that magic stone to the little robot?”
“Isn’t that... what I just said?”
Chae-ah repeated what I’d said. Didn’t I just say that?
“No, no, not that. Like... giving it as food or something?”
“Ah, that’s it. She’s telling you to synthesize it with Minium.”
When Chae-ah, who didn’t know much about synthesis, mentioned “food,” Han Do-hee finally understood Suri’s intention.
Do-hee had seen me create a golem using a sword that contained a magic stone through the Mecha-Doggo’s video call feature before.
“Aha..!”
She should have just said so from the start. I guess it’s because Suri can’t talk.
“Give this to Minium? Hmm... Okay!”
The magic stone was small enough to fit neatly in my palm. According to Han Do-hee’s estimate, it came from a monster about fifty percent stronger than the wolf monster we fought back then.
“Where on earth did she hunt another monster...?”
Not that it really mattered right now. I doubted Suri would just hunt any random monster. She might have spotted an open-type gate nearby while flying over with us.
Or maybe it was a monster that escaped from a gate that briefly opened and closed in the mountains. Since Korea has mountains scattered throughout its cities, I heard that kind of thing happens occasionally.
If it was a timid monster, it might have hidden in the mountains, surviving by preying on animals.
“Here, Minium. Take this.”
Minium reached out with both hands and took the magic stone, which was about the size of his forearm. So... what do I do now?
“Hmm...”
Since the magic stone hadn’t been made into a golem, I wasn’t sure if it could be synthesized. When in doubt, just try it.
“Umm..! Minium and the magic stone, combine...?”
Vwooom..!
The moment I finished speaking, the magic stone in Minium’s hands began to glow.
With an intense blue light, the magic stone melted like a liquid and was absorbed into Minium’s body. A moment later, Minium’s body was also engulfed in light, and soon, the transformation was complete.
“Whoa, whoa..!”
Minium celebrated his own evolution. He even had something like a cape now, and he was holding a sword.
“What, he got bigger?”
“Wow, that’s amazing.”
He now came up to my waist. That must be at least a meter, right?
“How tall do you think he is?”
“Hmm, looks about 90cm?”
“But he comes up to my waist..?”
Han Do-hee looked me over carefully again, then nodded as if to confirm her words were correct.
“Yeah, you’re not even 140cm.”
“Whaaat?!”
No way. I’m not even 140cm tall? My entire life, the one thing I could be proud of was my height. No matter what anyone said, I’d always thought, ‘At least I’m tall.’
Crash.
The shock was like a bolt of lightning striking my mind. I lost all will and collapsed to the ground. My one and only strength...
“This can’t be... my height...”
“Pfft... Is it that shocking? It’s cute, what’s the problem?”
“B-But...”
Minium stood before my slumped form and reached out a hand.
“Minium... you won’t grow taller than me, will you...?”
He shook his head.
“No way...”
Minium had betrayed me too. And after I gave him that magic stone!! Of course... Suri was the one who got it, but still. I was the one who gave it to him...
“What does it matter? You’re still young. You’ll grow more.”
That’s right. Come to think of it, I’m only ten right now. Of course I’ll grow taller. I’ll probably be around 200 meters tall. Because I’m amazing.
“Ugh... I’m so sad...”
“Being short has its charms. Don’t worry.”
“Haaah...”
My first entry into a gate began with shock, depression, and a sense of loss.
Minium, now slightly larger, was also holding a small sword from his transformation. The heat blast function from the hairdryer seemed to still be there. A fighting hairdryer. It felt a bit strange, but what did it matter?
“Alright, don’t be so down. You can get seriously hurt in here if you’re not careful, so let’s stay sharp.”
“But Eve, is that dog following you going to be okay?”
“Huh? The dog?”
I turned my head and glanced back to see the Mecha-Doggo diligently following us. Come to think of it, it didn’t seem like the Mecha-Doggo could fight at all...
The Mecha-Doggo had been completely wrecked by a weak wolf monster. Its combat ability was practically nonexistent.
It doesn’t really have any offensive capabilities, does it...? Though it is good at stock trading...
“Mecha-Doggo, you have to stick close to me, okay? Got it?”
Beep!
“I think he’ll be fine.”
“Really? Well, okay then.”
This was my first-ever gate. Even though it was low-difficulty, it was still a place with monsters that would charge at you with the intent to kill.
“Phew..! I’m nervous.”
“We have a Healer, so don’t worry too much. But not getting hurt is the most important thing, so you have to listen carefully to what we say, okay?”
“Okay..!”
In reality, it wasn’t like a game dungeon where you’re swarmed by monsters the moment you enter. While those kinds of entry-type gates exist, this wasn’t one of them.
The difficulty was low, it was easily accessible, and the infrastructure was well-developed. Maybe because the entrance fee was free, there were a lot of people inside the gate, so the overall monster population wasn’t that high.
Someone tell Nexon to release the squirrels. You get me?
“Does Suri always fly that far away?”
“Um... actually, this is the first time we’ve been in a real battle...”
“Right, that makes sense.”
Like a real eagle, Suri was soaring high in the sky far away. I hadn’t specifically ordered her to fly, so was she planning to handle everything herself?
“Won’t your commands not reach her if she’s that far?”
“I don’t really give Suri commands... hehe.”
“You’re really something else.”
Kim Chae-ah kept looking at me with an expression of amazement. After all, a familiar’s number one priority is to protect its summoner, and most of them don’t move without a command.
This was even more true for golems. Most of them are designed with something similar to programming, and the vast majority are so inferior that they can’t even properly defend themselves without their summoner’s word.
A golem equipped with AI was truly incredible.
Rustle...
Upon entering the forest, Han Do-hee plunged her blade into the ground, gripped the hilt with both hands, and closed her eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for monsters. I have a vibration detection skill.”
“Aha...”
I guess B-rank Hunters have skills like this. After kneeling on one knee for a while, Han Do-hee nodded and pulled her blade from the earth.
“Let’s go that way. I think there’s something there.”
“Is it a person?”
“The footsteps are lighter. Might be goblins.”
What Han Do-hee’s detection skill picked up were goblins. After walking a short distance in the direction of the sounds, we indeed found goblins wandering in the forest.
“Eww... they’re disgusting...”
Dirty green skin and a protruding, witch-like nose. A small body compared to its face, and thin, gangly limbs for such a small frame.
Each one was holding a club or a crudely fashioned stone axe, but their combat power was said to be about that of an elementary schooler with a weapon.
“Shh, they might hear you.”
“Ah, right..!”
There were quite a few of them, maybe about eight. Considering Suri’s combat ability, they weren’t a difficult opponent.
“What do you want to do? Want to call Suri and give it a try? Or should we show you how we take them down?”
“Um... I’ll give it a try.”
I didn’t have any memory of properly using my Issue Command skill yet. The commands I had given so far weren’t through the skill; I had just been making requests, and my golems were smart enough to understand.
I steadied my breathing and called out to Suri in my mind.
‘Suri, take care of those goblins over there.’
A moment later, the sound of rushing wind began next to where we were hiding in the bushes.
Nimbly dodging through the dense branches of the lush forest, Suri dove vertically toward the ground. Just before landing, she spread her wings wide, turning at a near-right angle, and then...
Whoooosh...!!
With a sound that cut through the air, Suri folded her wings, curled her body like a bullet, and charged horizontally toward the goblin pack.
Slice!
“Whoa... that’s incredible.”
“I-It really is.”
Just before reaching the goblins, she fully extended her three-meter wingspan and, like a blade, sliced through all eight goblins in a single pass.
The goblins had been peacefully strolling along when a living blade suddenly flew in from nowhere and sliced them clean in half, separating their upper and lower bodies. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if giving a command with my mind would work, but somehow it did.
After slicing through the goblins, Suri performed a high-speed spin in mid-air to shake off the blood from her body before approaching the goblin corpses again.
“Suri! You did great!!”
This was her first proper hunt in a gate. If I had known Suri was this good at fighting, maybe we should have gone to a place with slightly stronger monsters?
No, you never know. Suri might fight well, but I could get hurt if I can’t escape. Safety first.
“Suri? Seems like she’s a really strong golem. But what’s she doing now?”
“Um... I’m not sure. Suri, what are you doing?”
After rummaging through the goblin corpses, Suri found something and brought it over to me.
“What’s this...?”
“Huh, it’s a magic stone. It’s goblin-level, but these are surprisingly hard to find.”
It was a bottom-of-the-barrel magic stone that would sell for about 20,000 won. Most goblins don’t even have them, which apparently makes them rare.
“Hmm! Do you want this, Suri?”
She nodded.
Suri did a good job this time, so it was only right to give it to her. To be honest, it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference, but if they stacked up, it might become something.
“Suri, combine with this!”
There was no full-body transformation like with Minium. The magic stone simply floated into the air, melted like liquid, and became a handful of mana that was absorbed into the magic stone embedded in Suri’s chest.
“Ooh...”
“Why, did something pop up?”
“Ah, yes! A message just appeared saying the completion rate went up. By 0.8 percent, though.”
“Completion rate? What are you talking about?”
“She found a Hidden Piece.”
“Really?! Already!?”
At Han Do-hee’s simple explanation, Kim Chae-ah stared at me in astonishment. It wasn’t like Hidden Pieces were easy to find; even among people who had been Hunters for a very long time, finding one was extremely rare.
Suri paused for a moment to feel the increase in her mana, then preened her wing with her beak before ascending into the sky again.
Beside me, Minium suddenly poked my shoulder with his finger and thumped his chest.
“Hm? What is it? You want me to leave it to you?”
Clank!
It seemed the newly empowered Minium was eager to test his abilities as well.
“Alright, then shall we find a few more goblins?”
“Please do!”