Chapter 48
From somewhere high above, a thunderous roar split the sky.
I’d never heard anything like it before, but if a meteor were falling, I figured it had to sound just like that.
I tipped my head back and looked up.
Something was dropping through the air with a sound like it was tearing the atmosphere in half.
It was at least three times larger than my torso, and it definitely wasn’t a meteor.
It was the World Tree pinecone that had burst out of my smartphone screen.
The pinecone had rocketed up so high it vanished from sight, and now that its force was gone, it was falling back down.
“Should I not have taken it now?”
The impact alone made me think that much.
Maybe I should’ve saved it for later and used it instead of an attack skill.
Judging by that absurd roar, I had a feeling it might even work on a Cyclops.
I stepped a little away from where the meteor, no, the pinecone, looked like it was going to land.
BOOM!
“Hah, hahahaha…!”
A dry laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
Thank God this was a special event location.
If this had been asphalt or plain dirt, there’d definitely be a giant crater.
Anyone who saw it would’ve gone on and on about a meteor strike or a sinkhole.
Just as intended, I used my newly acquired skill to store the pinecone.
“Inventory.”
A pale blue inventory window appeared before my eyes.
As the skill window had explained, it held fifty slots in total.
In the upper right corner were an X and a gear icon; one was obviously the close button, the other the settings button.
I pressed the settings button first.
[Inventory Basic Settings]
[Please check the desired options]
[□ Use Warm Touch and make contact when acquiring and registering items]
[□ Use Warm Touch and name the item when storing it]
[□ Use Warm Touch and name the item when taking it out]
[* Position and ejection speed can be adjusted]
[Position - △ Registered position]
[Speed - △ Slow △ Normal △ Fast △ At Saessak's whim]
Every option looked useful, so I checked them all.
As I clicked through, one item stood out in particular.
It was the line saying the ejection speed could be adjusted.
[△ At Saessak's whim]
Why would things come flying out of the inventory at Saessak's whim?
While I was thinking about it, I remembered Saessak spitting out dirt and hurling pebbles at me.
Maybe letting Saessak eject things at will from the inventory would work the same way.
I stared blankly at the pinecone in front of me.
The pinecone that had looked like a launched missile.
[The World Tree sprout recommends that the Manager mark the item as desired.]
“I was going to do that anyway. No need to rush me.”
After marking Saessak’s whim, I closed the settings window.
Then I moved the pinecone and everything else from the magic pouch into the inventory.
The inventory stored items one slot at a time, regardless of size.
The magic pouch held Arca, the Eye of Shadow, shattered stone fragments, Seoljicho, and so on.
As I moved everything over, I found something I’d never seen before.
“Huh, this isn’t mine.”
It was a black cardboard box that looked expensive.
When I opened it, I found a pair of white wrist guards inside.
On top of them, neatly placed, was a black envelope with the gold letters “PTAH” printed on it.
Ptah was a blacksmith shop under the Ildae Group.
In terms of time, it had only recently launched, but I knew it was growing quickly thanks to a premium strategy aimed at A-class hunters.
They didn’t even need to bother finding a promotional model.
Whatever Woo Yeon-hoo’s party wore became advertising on the spot.
I opened the envelope and read the paper inside.
[Warranty Certificate]
This certificate guarantees that the product you purchased is an authentic PTAH item.
Product Name - “Armus”
Notes - Made from “Beast-Crusher Steel Alloy,” rated for Defense Grade A.
The wearer can use the item skill Shield Magic of A-grade, and the activation word for Shield Magic is “Tutus.”
※ This certificate is essential when requesting repairs.
Please keep it safe, as service can only be provided if you present this certificate.
The free after-sales service period is one year from the date of purchase.
“Did Woo Yeon-hoo leave this in here?”
He was the one who had given me this magic pouch.
If it wasn’t him, there was no one else who could’ve put these wrist guards inside.
He must’ve slipped them in before handing me the pouch at Hongyureung Gate.
No wonder he’d been so absurdly firm about saying the pouch was mine.
I put the rough leather wrist guards I’d been wearing on my left arm into the magic pouch.
They’d been something I wore because I had gone to the trouble of having them made and it felt wasteful to throw them away, but now that I had something better, I decided to switch.
I took Armus out of the box and put it on.
It fit my wrist perfectly, as if it had been custom measured, and the part that covered the back of my hand didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable at all.
“Tutus.”
When I said the activation word, shield magic manifested along my left forearm.
The blue-tinged magic shield was large enough to cover my entire torso.
I loved everything about it, from the shape to the performance.
I’d have to thank him when I saw him next.
The Manager has received all rewards from the special event.
Would you like to leave this location? (YES / NO)
Of course I’d leave.
I dismissed the shield magic and chose to exit.
The Manager is being transported outside.
Please look forward to another event in the future.
[- PG Corporation.]
As soon as the message appeared, white light burst from my smartphone and washed over me.
When the glare gradually faded, I slowly opened my eyes.
I was back in the parking lot before I knew it.
I had returned to the place I’d been standing before I was moved to the special event location.
The one thing that had changed was the time.
The dark night sky was gone, and the sun hung high overhead.
When I checked the time, lunch was long over and it was almost two o’clock.
“It’s already this late?”
It had only felt like a few hours.
In reality, it hadn’t been a few hours at all, but nearly half a day.
If I ever ended up doing another special event, I’d have to keep an eye on the clock.
If I didn’t, I might end up wasting an entire day.
Brrrr…!
My smartphone vibrated in my hand.
I thought it was a call and was about to answer, but that wasn’t it.
“Why are there so many messages?”
The vibration kept going because messages were pouring in one after another.
It was the same thing that happened when you came out of a gate where there was no signal.
The transmissions that couldn’t reach me had been cut off inside the special event area, then suddenly regained their signal outside, so all the messages came through at once.
“Did something happen?”
I tilted my head at the unusually high number of incoming messages.
At the same time, I opened my palm.
I was trying to take out my car key from the inventory.
Using the registration system, I could designate where an item would appear when it came out of the inventory.
For the car key, I’d set it to appear above my right palm.
A moment later, the key popped into existence over my palm.
It bounced up slightly, then landed neatly in my hand, and I opened the door with it.
While I was doing that, the vibration from my smartphone stopped.
All the messages had finally come in.
I got in the car and checked them.
The very first thing that caught my eye was a single message from Yu Jae-i.
Baek Do-woon, don’t come to the blacksmith today.
“……?”
What was this intense, short message supposed to mean?
I tried to think whether I’d done something wrong, but nothing came to mind.
Maybe because we hadn’t spent much time together, Yu Jae-i didn’t really know me.
She told me not to come when I hadn’t even done anything wrong, and what, she expected me to say, “Okay, got it. I won’t go” and obediently stay away?
“Not a chance.”
I went into the group chat to read the other messages.
In the chatroom created by Shim Yoon-jin, she and Kim Ji-yeon were already in there.
Woo Yeon-hoo had also been invited, but he wasn’t present.
Seeing that he hadn’t accepted the invitation from the same party member, I figured he must still be inside a gate.
Like me, he probably couldn’t receive signals there, which meant he hadn’t been able to check the messages.
Kim Mu-yeon…?
That name sounded familiar somehow.
“Ah! That bastard who got turned away!”
I remembered what Deputy Manager Lee had told me in front of Hongyureung Gate.
He was the hunter who’d asked Yu Jae-i to make gear for him and got rejected.
What a brat.
A guy ranked 47th in the Hunter Rankings was throwing a fit over having gear made for him?
I frowned as I kept reading, already irritated.
Was he completely out of his mind?
Shim Yoon-jin sent me a video link.
It was the same video Jae-sik had sent me last night, the one I’d already watched once.
Kim Mu-yeon must have seen Arca in the video and realized Yu Jae-i had made a new piece of gear.
He probably figured it out from the initials JY engraved on Arca.
Me? Why the hell would he be looking for me?
A blacksmith who said she wasn’t making gear for him had made and sold equipment to another customer.
As a customer who used that blacksmith, I could understand blowing up over it.
He might have thought she was being selective about who she served.
I could even imagine him feeling slighted and angry.
After all, Kim Mu-yeon was ranked 47th in the Hunter Rankings.
How enormous must his pride be?
Guys like that usually couldn’t let something like this go, if only because of their pride.
What was this nonsense?
Who the hell was he to talk about who had the right to something?
And he was the one with no right to be talking about rights in the first place.
[Saessak is showing signs of annoyance.]
[It says it feels like throwing stones right now.]
“Yeah, Saessak. You think so too, huh?”
I nodded and scrolled down.
Even if she told me not to worry about it, I couldn’t help but do exactly that.
He was saying my weapon should belong to him, and that I had no right to hold it.
The bastard had a real talent for making people sick to their stomachs.
My Arca should belong to him?
After that, no more messages came from Kim Ji-yeon or Shim Yoon-jin.
I wondered if things had settled down, but if they had, they would’ve at least mentioned that Kim Mu-yeon had left.
The fact that no such message came meant the situation was still ongoing.
Just then, a new message arrived.
The sender was Yu Jae-i.
“Splatter, my ass.”
If Kim Mu-yeon was looking for me, then this wasn’t just her problem.
He already knew who I was, so even if I didn’t go to the blacksmith right now, he’d definitely come looking for me within a few days.
If I was going to meet him anyway, I might as well go and clear it up quickly.
I grabbed the steering wheel and drove to Jae-i’s Blacksmith.
Saessak sent me a message on the way.
The World Tree sprout says it is ready to throw stones.
It was a message that made me nod on instinct.
I was annoyed too.
How dare he covet my property for such a worthless reason?