12
I've never really considered myself particularly good at enduring pain.
"Keuhak?!"
But at this moment, Baek Woo-jin was certain. No matter who you placed in his position right now, they would show the exact same reaction.
"You're quite lucky. If you had brought your physical body here intact, you would have failed due to lack of time."
Fail or whatever—who goes around shoving a hose into someone's body and injecting air like crazy? The pressure welling up from within made it feel like his body would burst at any moment.
"You won't die, so hold onto your senses tightly and focus even more on the sensations you're feeling."
"That's, what I'm—!! Ugh!!"
"Seeing as you're trying to talk back, it seems you can still endure."
At Schrodin's hollow laughter, Baek Woo-jin felt his eyes about to roll back. The pain was so unbearable that he desperately wanted to roll his eyes back and faint on the spot. The reason he endured and tried to run his mouth was because he felt he would truly lose consciousness if he didn't.
It wasn't that he had the leisure to do so.
"When a human is truly driven to their limits, they become unable to think of anything at all."
Forcing strength into his trembling eyelids and barely holding on, Baek Woo-jin caught sight of Schrodin's infuriating smile.
"If you have the mental capacity to chatter away, then hurry up and focus. Have you forgotten that the urgent one here isn't me, but you?"
"If I do, it will...!! It won't!!"
In his spirit body state, Baek Woo-jin clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and focused on the pain driving him mad.
'This is seriously enough to make me go crazy and jump around...!!'
Even with his eyes closed and focused, all he could feel was even more vivid pain. But having already bet everything on the old man, Baek Woo-jin stamped down on the momentary doubt that had risen and focused even harder on the pain tormenting him, just as the old man said.
"Keuheum..."
How much time had passed?
When the intensity of the groans slipping between Baek Woo-jin's lips slightly diminished, Schrodin spoke.
"How is it?"
"It hurts... a little less."
"I honestly hoped my prediction would be wrong, but sure enough, you have no talent for magic."
"..."
With nothing to say, Baek Woo-jin simply kept his mouth shut and focused on the subtle changes beginning to appear in his body.
As Schrodin's mana that had been penetrating from outside gradually retreated, the pressure naturally bearing down on his body lessened. And after a little more time passed, Baek Woo-jin understood why Schrodin had told him to focus.
"It seems you've finally felt it."
It was when about half of Schrodin's force, which had been pressing down like mad, had withdrawn. Something began to change around the vicinity of his chest.
'This is...'
When almost all of Schrodin's mana that had rushed in at once and overturned his entire body had withdrawn, an unfamiliar yet familiar energy crept out from near his heart and charged at Schrodin's nearly depleted mana.
"The nature of mana resembles the mage who harbors it."
At Schrodin's laugh, Baek Woo-jin, despite lacking a physical body, felt the illusion of his face flushing hot. He had caught the meaning behind the old man's words.
"Do you need a little more?"
"That's enough..."
"Cluck, you don't need to be embarrassed."
"No. It's enough."
This was a matter of life and death right now. My pride wasn't heavy enough to insist on it in such a situation. I was the type who thought even rolling in dog shit was better than the afterlife.
Schrodin, who had been amusedly observing Baek Woo-jin's mana struggling and putting on a show to push him out, finally withdrew his mana completely. Then, Baek Woo-jin's mana that had spread throughout his body returned to the vicinity of his heart and settled down.
'Focus.'
Not wanting to miss this golden opportunity where the sensation from just moments ago remained vivid, Baek Woo-jin steadied his breathing and pushed his concentration to the极限.
He knocked on the door of his insolent co-tenant—who had been perfectly settled inside his body all this time, yet had hidden like death without once greeting its owner—that had just closed.
Thump!
If he hadn't known, he would have lived his entire life unaware, but once he knew, drawing it out was surprisingly simple.
"Congratulations."
"..."
Opening his eyes at Schrodin's congratulations, Baek Woo-jin discovered a gray haze blooming over his right hand. It was his own mana that he had just drawn out.
"But gray... this is a property I'm seeing for the first time as well."
Schrodin, looking at the ashen mana overlaid on Baek Woo-jin's blue spirit body with a greatly intrigued gaze, flicked his finger. Then, his golden mana that had been clustered in the air without completely disappearing reached out again.
"Keuk..."
"Oh my."
Even before the golden light could touch it, the ashen light swelled up significantly and threatened the golden light.
"I suppose the research will have to be postponed. It's quite finicky."
"Haha..."
Baek Woo-jin hastily coaxed and gathered the mana that had momentarily slipped from his control.
"How is it?"
At the question laden with multiple meanings, Baek Woo-jin pondered briefly before answering.
"I thought I'd feel a sense of accomplishment for having done it, but that's not the case."
"That's something you feel when you've achieved it on your own."
"Haha. I suppose that's true."
Schrodin stroked his white beard and continued.
"Originally, the first time is always the hardest. Once you've actually done it, it feels like it was nothing special."
Indeed, that was exactly how Baek Woo-jin felt right now.
He had known through the test results that mana existed within his body, but no matter how much he effort and concentration he applied, he couldn't grasp even a single clue.
Yet this fellow, who hadn't shown the slightest response despite all his efforts, had so easily abandoned the resolve it had maintained in silence and come bursting out under the old man's shock therapy.
The old man Schrodin's treatment was truly simple and straightforward.
Not only had he forcibly opened the door and entered a house with an owner, but he had also tried to drive out the original owner by force. So Baek Woo-jin's mana, the original owner, had been startled awake by the rampage of Schrodin's mana that had come crashing in while it slept, and shrank back.
When Schrodin's mana withdrew on its own, perhaps it finally gathered the courage to be angry. The fellow, who had played dead despite Baek Woo-jin's desperate search, kicked open the door on its own and burst out, and that was how Baek Woo-jin grabbed it by the scruff of its neck.
The location of the house it had been so stubbornly hiding in had been discovered.
After discovering the house's location, just as Schrodin said, it was so easy it made all the previous suffering feel hollow. Simply open the door and pull it out. That was all.
It still felt like it was reluctantly complying with his will, but that was something time would gradually resolve.
"So."
Awakening from his thoughts at Schrodin's voice, Baek Woo-jin raised his head and looked into the old man's clear eyes.
Meeting Baek Woo-jin's gaze, Schrodin stroked his beard out of habit and smiled.
"May I look forward to the next time?"
"I honestly can't guarantee that you'll be satisfied."
Baek Woo-jin briefly flickered ashen mana over his lightly opened palm, then brushed it off and spoke confidently.
"But you can trust that today's meeting won't be our last."
"Kkeul, that's enough."
Whether it was a satisfactory answer, Schrodin rose from the sofa and headed for the desk where he had been sitting at first. And as Baek Woo-jin watched his back, his body gradually began to fade.
"Lord Schrodin."
"Don't worry."
Taking his seat, Schrodin opened a book and briefly raised his head to continue.
"I don't believe our meeting was simple coincidence. So your body will be safe."
"Haha."
"Eung."
When Baek Woo-jin laughed awkwardly, Schrodin shifted his gaze to the open book and clicked his tongue briefly.
"That question is meaningless unless it's asked right after awakening in the first place."
"...I'll see you next time."
With Schrodin lightly waving his hand in farewell as the last thing he saw, Baek Woo-jin's vision went dark.
**
Beeeep——
At the ringing in his ears that came with his returning consciousness, Baek Woo-jin frowned and lightly tapped his head. The ringing immediately disappeared.
"The ma-stone..."
"Shut up, you idiot! Is money important right now?!"
The moment his darkened vision returned, the scene that came into view was one of the three idiots placing his right hand over the outstretched hand.
In other words, it had taken less than a second to converse with Schrodin in that world and return to his physical body.
Leaving behind the three idiots who were still raising their voices and chattering, having forgotten even the basic fact that one should always remain quiet in a dungeon, Baek Woo-jin let out a short breath as he watched the woman swinging her hammer alone in the distance.
'If I die, you lose your house too, so cooperate with me here.'
Perhaps the threat-that-wasn't-quite-a-threat had worked, as a gray energy briefly flickered over his extended palm before being gathered back in.
It was at the level of someone who had just taken their first steps, but he clearly remembered the theories regarding various techniques for applying mana. Of course, theory was just theory. Actually realizing it was an entirely different matter.
That was why he didn't make any half-baked attempts.
"So this is mana."
Based on the sensation of mana spreading throughout his entire body to push back Schrodin's mana and the experience of condensing mana over his palm, Baek Woo-jin successfully reinforced his body by surrounding it with mana and let out a hollow laugh at the exhilaration he felt for the first time in his life.
But that was only for a moment.
The last Living Wood fell to the woman's hammer, and watching this, Baek Woo-jin gathered his mana back and felt around his inner pocket.
It was where he had stored the strength-enhancing potion that the future alchemy city lord had thrown in as a bonus.
'At most, I have two chances.'
Realistically, it was right to consider it as one.
'But why does she look so bright?'
For some unknown reason, the woman approaching with clear eyes that didn't seem like someone who had just been in combat seemed a bit odd, but he soon figured good enough was good enough.
'With the mental fortitude to smile in this situation, I can trust her as bait.'
The man and woman, each completely misunderstanding the other, gradually closed the distance between them.