Episode 9
Episode 9: The Sound of Rain is Nice, Good for Studying (1)
[You may choose a reward.]
▶Stone of Magic Memory
▶Aspiring Mage's Staff
▶170,000 Rian
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Burari's inventory window appeared before Gyeongjun.
The reward was choosing one of these, but none of them particularly appealed to Gyeongjun.
In the first place, he didn't even really know what kind of items they were.
'I don't need a staff since I'm not going to hunt, and when I don't know what to pick, choosing money is the best option, but.......'
170,000 Rian.
Since a hard loaf of bread cost 500 Rian each, it was enough money to buy 340 of them.
It was an enormous amount that could last over a month even if he devoured ten loaves a day!
'But I've already roughly figured out how to earn this month's food expenses.'
If he sold the nineteen Carpenter's chairs he had made for practice, he could easily make some extra money.
Therefore, Gyeongjun wanted to make a slightly different choice.
"May I ask a few questions too?"
"Of course. God of Studying... no, Sir Gyeongjun."
"What is this 'Stone of Magic Memory' here?"
As someone who had been studying magic recently, it was the one that had caught his eye the most.
"As expected, you recognize the most valuable one."
"Is it very expensive? Then I feel a bit sorry."
"No, no. It's just a bit more expensive than the 170,000 Rian I have."
Of course, the fact that a mere stone cost that much was proof enough that it was precious.
Burari cleared his throat once and began explaining about the Stone of Magic Memory.
"This stone is something mages use for this and that......."
Timo, who had been sticking beside Gyeongjun, quickly explained before Burari could!
Of course, Burari couldn't see this.
"Aha, I see. I understand what it is."
"Pardon...? I haven't even properly started my explanation yet?"
"I realized it after listening for a bit."
Gyeongjun cleared his throat slightly and continued.
"It seems to be a stone that can literally memorize magic. It would be used well for various purposes regardless of field, such as magic traps or magical tool crafting, for both hunting and research. Though it seems a bit tricky to handle instead."
Gyeongjun repeated Timo's words as if reviewing them.
"Ooh...! Exactly right! Have you heard of it before?"
"Hmm... I heard it exactly today."
From Timo, of course.
Anyway, Gyeongjun wasn't lying!
He had merely hidden the truth slightly.
[Affinity with Burari has increased by 2.]
"Wow... and yet such tremendous comprehension... As expected of the God of Studying."
"Come on, don't embarrass me."
Though he said that, Gyeongjun somehow felt pleased.
This must be why honeyed praise unexpectedly works on people.
Though of course, Burari probably meant it sincerely.
[You have chosen 『Stone of Magic Memory』 as your reward.]
"I'll go with this. I think it'll be fun to tinker with. I feel like something actually interesting might come out of it."
"Haha, I can't even begin to fathom what you will do with it."
Burari laughed awkwardly and tried to turn to leave.
"Then I must go see my sister at the monastery right away. Thank you for your time."
"No, thank you. But will it be alright if the library is left empty?"
"Ah...! You're right. Then I really should go after closing the library, ugh."
Burari, who had spoken thus, appeared restless, wanting to leave quickly.
Gyeongjun decided to help him a bit.
"If it's alright, may I watch the place in your stead? I can check passes when people enter and collect them when they leave."
"Oh! Really?"
It was a library that hardly anyone visited besides the village elders anyway.
Moreover, for some reason, even those few elders hadn't been coming lately.
It felt like just yesterday when the village elders had watched Libra with very worried eyes and tried to drag him to the monastery.......
'......They were definitely saying something about the Demon God's curse. Well, I suppose it's fine now.'
Gyeongjun soon erased the faint memory that hadn't remained well due to his focus on studying.
"Then I leave it to you, Sir Gyeongjun!"
"Yes. Go with peace of mind."
The two politely bid each other farewell and went about their respective tasks.
Burari headed to his sister, who would be undergoing purification at the monastery.
Gyeongjun examined the Stone of Magic Memory he had received as a reward, turning it this way and that.
"How should I use this to become known for using it well?"
Of course, Gyeongjun intended to use this stone for studying.
* * *
Several days had passed since Gyeongjun received the Stone of Magic Memory from Burari.
Plip. Plop-plop.
Rain was falling in the Starting Village.
"Oh, Kim Buha. You're working really focused today?"
"Ah, Team Leader."
When the team leader came to his desk, Kim Buha pulled out the earphones he had been wearing.
With that, the sound of rain that had been audible until just now disappeared.
"But you're doing miscellaneous work with the monitoring screen up? And it's the user Gyeongjun. Did he cause trouble again?"
"No, it's not that... I was just listening to the sound of rain for a moment."
"The sound of rain?"
"Isn't it called white noise?"
"Ah, that ASMR or whatever, the thing you listen to while working to focus better? So that's why it was the sound of rain."
ASMR!
It's an English acronym that literally translates to 'Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.'
One might wonder what on earth that means, but simply put, it refers to 'sounds that give you a sense of stability just by listening to them.'
The sound of waves, the sound of a valley stream, bird songs.
And the sound of rain coming from Gyeongjun's monitoring screen right now.
All of these are ASMR.
If you search for 'rain sounds for focusing while studying' on Mutube, you can find it right away.
"Besides, since User Gyeongjun is studying in front of me, I feel more motivated too. I wonder why?"
"I don't know. Isn't it a similar feeling to when you go to a library and end up studying because everyone else is studying?"
"Oh, that makes sense. Why don't you try it too, Team Leader?"
"Maybe if I feel like it. Then work hard."
"Yes, understood."
The team leader patted his shoulder and returned to his own seat.
Kim Buha also tried to return to his work by putting his earphones back in, but.......
-Waaah!
The moment he plugged in, a bizarre shriek that seemed like it would tear his ears assaulted him!
"Uwaack!"
So surprised, Kim Buha let out a similar sound.
"What! What's wrong?"
The startled staff all looked at Kim Buha, and the team leader rushed over.
"Ah, no... it's just that a bizarre shriek suddenly came from the earphones......"
"A shriek? You said you were monitoring User Gyeongjun?"
"Yes, but suddenly there was a shriek......"
"First, unplug the earphones and play it through the speakers."
At the team leader's words, Kim Buha unplugged the earphones from the computer.
Plip. Plop-plop.
Only the same sound of rain as before flowed through the speakers.
"It's just the sound of rain. Do you have auditory hallucinations or something?"
"No, I really heard it just now? User Gyeongjun definitely went waaah! and......"
"What are you talking about? He's just been studying the whole time."
The team leader scolded Kim Buha, telling him not to startle people.
Just then.......
-Waaah!
-Screeeech—
"Ugh! Turn down the speaker volume!"
"Y-yes!"
Kim Buha hurriedly lowered the speaker volume.
"I-I'll pull up the screen!"
Wondering what on earth was happening, he immediately displayed the monitoring screen on the hologram projector.
There, Gyeongjun was fiddling with some kind of stone.
Sending mana into the hand that held the stone.
"Isn't that the Stone of Magic Memory? Why does he have that?"
"W-well. I think he probably got it when we weren't here......."
The World was a popular game that was continuously on the rise, so the monitoring team always had a lot to do.
Therefore, it was impossible for Kim Buha and the team leader to know Gyeongjun's every move in real-time.
Just as Kim Buha tried to operate the computer to look through past logs, Gyeongjun began letting out another bizarre shriek.
-Waaah! Waaah! Waaah! Waaah!
"Keuk...! Why is he suddenly screaming like a madman! Did he eat something wrong?!"
"I-I wonder."
On screen, Gyeongjun kept alternating between screaming and stopping.
"Hmm?"
But the more they watched, there was a strangely distinct pattern.
From small sounds to big sounds.
From high sounds to low sounds.
He repeatedly let out various sounds, and each time he did so, he sent mana into the hand holding the stone.
He didn't just make sounds.
He would shriek once, scribble a line on a practice sheet, then shriek once more......
He kept repeating this process.
Of course, as for the meaning of this behavior, Kim Buha and the team leader.......
-Kiyaaaaaack!
"Ugh! I-It's loud enough to kill me! What on earth is that user doing?!"
"I really don't know......"
...had no idea at all.
* * *
Today as well, Gyeongjun sat at the librarian's desk in the Starting Village library in Burari's stead.
In the library where there was no one but him, he was writing something.
『Sound↔Mana Conversion Record Notebook』
『Very Small Sound: 0.01 Mana Volts
Small Sound: 0.03 Mana Volts
Medium Sound: 0.07 Mana Volts』
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『Medium Sound: 492 martz
High Sound: 875 martz
Very High Sound: 1347 martz』
Gyeongjun's hand, which had been writing, stopped once more.
"Then here goes the last one, Timo. You have to measure it well, okay?"
Gyeongjun held the Stone of Magic Memory in his hand instead of a pen.
He began sending mana into that hand while taking a deep breath.
When he had inhaled to his limit, he let out a shriek that seemed like it would tear something apart.
"Kiyaaaaaack!"
"Okay! This is the end!"
『Very, Very High Sound: 14,725 martz』
Gyeongjun, having finished all the records!
He immediately rose from his seat and let out a cheer.
"Wahoo! Now I just need to etch this information into the Stone of Magic Memory!"
Gyeongjun's antics until now were by no means because he had gone mad.
He had wanted to somehow make the Stone of Magic Memory into something that would help with studying, and after continued thought, he had come up with something.
It was a few days ago, when rain had fallen on the Starting Village.
-Plip. Plop-plop.
-The sound of rain is nice, good for studying. ...Ah!
Gyeongjun was deeply inspired by the words he had muttered unconsciously!
His thought was simple.
He wanted to record this very sound of rain into the Stone of Magic Memory!
Of course, The World was a fantasy game world.
There was no way things like tape recorders or smartphone recording functions from reality would exist.
Of course, broadcasting or recording was possible for streamers, but to replay them, one had to log out.
In other words, recording sound and listening to it again while logged into the game was virtually systemically impossible.
But just then, the title of the subsection in Physics 1 that Gyeongjun was studying was this:
『The Principles of Speakers and Recorders』
The magic of The World shared an extremely large number of aspects with the science of reality!
Realizing this, Gyeongjun immediately opened a magic theory book and began studying the corresponding section.
-As expected. There were phenomena in magic theory similar to the principles of speakers and recorders.
-It looks much harder than what I learned in Physics 1, but... I'll give it a shot anyway!
-Timo! Let's have a lesson for the first time in a while!
Having studied magic theory like that for several days, he soon embarked on the experiment.
The experiment was simple.
Gyeongjun sent mana into the Stone of Magic Memory while screaming, and Timo measured the mana that reacted at that moment.
Through this process, he identified the inherent mana frequency of the Stone of Magic Memory he had received from Burari.
Just now, when he had finished measuring the mana.
"Hehe, once the inherent mana frequency is identified, it's all over. Now I just need to go outside and record! Timo! Let's hurry and go record the rain before it stops!"
And so, Gyeongjun went outside the library to record the sound of rain.
Without any civilized tools like smartphones or recorders.
Holding only the magic knowledge he had studied and a single Stone of Magic Memory.