27
A gaze that reappraises a human's value and calculates how to exploit them.
Having experienced this countless times before the regression, if nothing else, I can distinguish this particular type of gaze more certainly than anyone.
'Not bad.'
Ever since Schrodinger awakened my mana, I had been extremely busy, and it seemed I had unknowingly grown accustomed to the happiness and sense of stability that my home and family provided.
I truly believed I had been maintaining my tension, resolved to return twofold what my family couldn't enjoy before the regression, but the moment I met the unpleasant gaze sent by the woman before me, I realized that my mind, which I had kept tightly wound, had loosened without my knowing.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Baek Woojin, whose mind snapped awake as if cold water had been splashed on his head, tapped the armrest of his chair with his index finger and thought for a moment.
"Would you mind if I made a quick phone call?"
"Of course. However, you'll have to do it here—is that alright?"
"It doesn't matter."
"If you insist."
The woman, still smiling with only the corners of her mouth, extended her palm wide open as if to say she wanted to see what he would do.
'Truly refreshing in many ways.'
Finding the situation itself refreshingly novel, Baek Woojin didn't hide the laugh that escaped him and smirked with one corner of his mouth as he called Heo Sangmin.
-Yes, Hunter-nim.
"Are you available to talk?"
-Your timing is absolutely perfect. I just came out from inspecting a C-rank dungeon.
"Indeed, the timing is good."
-Isn't it? But shall I guess why you contacted me?
"If there's a reason for me to contact you first, Manager, there's only one, even if you were to guess the correct answer."
-Smack, this is embarrassing.
From the moment the call connected, Baek Woojin switched to speakerphone so that the woman, as well as the two men watching from behind, could hear their conversation.
And as the conversation between Baek Woojin and Heo Sangmin continued, cracks began to form on the face of the woman who had been wearing a fabricated smile from start to finish.
"They asked me for 100 million as the appraisal fee."
-Excuse me? How much?
"100 million."
-Did you perhaps see a business card lying around the black market or somewhere and go to some strange place?
"It's the Artisan Guild."
-The one in Yongsan?
"Yes."
-Where are you right now, by any chance?
Instead of answering immediately, Baek Woojin looked up at the woman sitting across from him. The corners of her mouth were still curved like a soft half-moon. However, if there was one thing that had changed from before the call, it was that the slightly upturned tail end of her smile was trembling as if having a spasm.
-Hunter-nim?
"I'll contact you again in a little while."
-Are you sure you're okay? First of all, the section chief has some connections with the higher-ups there, so I'll quickly——
"I'm quite tempted, but let's put it on hold for now."
-If you say so. Then please contact me again. I'll be waiting.
After ending the call with Heo Sangmin, Baek Woojin put away his smartphone, crossed the legs he had kept neatly parallel, and leaned back comfortably against the backrest.
"The Association—and a public official from the Busan branch at that—came all the way to Seoul to commission a rune stone appraisal. There must be appraisers contracted with the Association. Why go out of your way?"
Baek Woojin, as if possessed by an actor, widened his eyes and clapped his hands as if he had realized something tremendous.
"Ah! This smells fishy. A very rotten smell! This isn't a normally obtained rune stone! This is a size that can easily be swallowed. No repercussions if eaten."
Having said that much, Baek Woojin returned from being an actor to the original Baek Woojin, a hunter aspiring to grow stronger.
"I remember reading a novel like that somewhere, and it seems remarkably similar to the current situation."
"Hoho~ I suppose so."
The woman's upper body, which had been pressed against the backrest from their first meeting until now, leaned slightly closer to Baek Woojin than to the backrest.
"Customer?"
"Let's do it for 100 million."
"Oh my~! What are you saying? 100 million?"
The nameless woman's upper body leaned a little more toward Baek Woojin.
"Actually, you're our exact 1,000th customer, so I wanted to tell you about a special benefit a little more dramatically, so I just played a teeensy little prank? Yes, just a very small prank?"
"A special benefit. I'm curious what could be so special that you'd prepare such a prank for it."
"Ohoho~ It's nothing else but a coupon that allows you to use the service at one-tenth——"
Baek Woojin took out his smartphone again.
"——of the price! I'm presenting you with one coupon! And of course, this isn't a benefit but a congratulatory gift? The real benefit is right about~"
The woman, now leaning her upper body completely toward Baek Woojin, spread both arms wide and wore the most awkward smile in the world.
"Complete appraisal fee waiver~!! Wah~ Clap clap clap!!"
"That's quite an incredible benefit."
"R, right?"
"Yes."
Baek Woojin quietly swallowed a laugh at the woman's mouth corners, which were now trembling from a different kind of spasm, and put the half-drawn smartphone back away.
Instead, this time he took out the rune stone he had kept in his inner coat pocket and held it out to the woman.
"Since you said it's free, you'll naturally do the 100 million won one, right?"
"Of course~!! Hoho, it won't take long, so please wait just a moment."
Receiving the rune stone very politely with both hands, the woman let out a short breath, enveloped the rune stone with both hands, and closed her eyes.
Vwoooom.
Before long, purple runic characters floated up lightly from the woman's hands that enveloped the rune stone and began to spin around her.
'Looking at it like that, it seems somewhat familiar.'
To reiterate, rune stones are so rare that they aren't something you can simply look at whenever you want. So across both before and after the regression, this was the first time I'd seen a rune stone in person. Since it was my first time seeing a rune stone, the same went for the runic characters.
"Phew, I'm done."
The woman returned the rune stone and continued speaking.
"There are two ways to deliver the results—transcribing them onto paper or telling you directly. Which would you prefer?"
"The latter, please."
"Some water for a moment."
She pulled out a water bottle covered in cute rabbit stickers from under the table, opened the cap, and drank it down refreshingly.
"Phew~ Ahem, shall I tell you then?"
"Please do."
"First, the skill name imbued in the rune is called 'Night Step.' It consumes mana to block all sound within a 5-meter radius centered on the caster who has learned the skill. And true to its name Night Step, the effect changes when the moon is out. Instead of the radius, it hides the caster's appearance, presence, and even sound. However!"
At that moment when he thought he'd simply won the lottery, only to realize he'd actually won the Super Bowl. The woman poured cold water on it as if she knew exactly what was in his heart.
"When you use the skill at night, the mana consumption required to maintain it increases tenfold."
The heart that had been pounding wildly with excitement calmed down as if it were a lie.
Typically, skills related to stealth have extremely poor cost-efficiency the better their effects are. But the maintenance cost increases tenfold?
I'd have to actually use it to make a proper judgment, but to utilize that properly, I'd need at least an A-rank mana stat.
"You know how to resonate with it, right?"
"I believe you just need to drop blood on it."
"You know very well. There's a prepared room—would you like to use it?"
"Sure."
Rising from his seat, Baek Woojin followed the woman deeper inside.
"Once you're done, you can just come out comfortably. Then, I hope you get good results."
Left alone in a room that appeared to be just over three pyeong, Baek Woojin leaned back comfortably on the provided sofa.
Before him was a small table.
If there was one slightly unusual feature, it was that a black carpet was laid out.
"Selling it wouldn't matter, but learning it myself is still the best option."
Baek Woojin picked up a cute needle placed on the black carpet and pricked his thumb twice to draw blood. Then he let the droplets, forming like dew, fall onto the rune stone.
Whoooosh——!!
The rune stone absorbed the dropped blood as if it were a living creature, and pure white light began to emanate from it.
"I didn't have high expectations."
The white light, as time passed, gradually dyed golden before diminishing and fading away completely.
If the resonance is insufficient, the color doesn't change further from white and simply fades. Conversely, the higher the resonance, the brighter the color becomes.
'But I've never heard of gold before.'
Baek Woojin stared at the rune stone briefly before opening his mouth and swallowing the stone whole.
Swallowing it was a bit difficult, but once swallowed, before it even fully passed down his throat, the rune stone melted away like cotton candy touching water and disappeared.
"Keuheum…."
I frowned momentarily at the sensation of knowledge that wasn't mine flowing into my head—familiar yet never quite getting used to it.
"Right. This is what a skill is."
Information about the skill rose naturally, as if it had been with me since birth.
"It's…… better than I thought?"
I tested the skill briefly, and the mana consumption for maintenance was less than expected. To know the exact duration, I'd need to maintain it until my mana was completely depleted, but.
'At this level, I could hold out for 10 seconds—no. 5 seconds.'
If my mana were full, 10 seconds.
But there was nothing more vulnerable in a dungeon than a hunter whose mana was completely depleted, so I estimated half of that.
"Thank you for your help."
Leaving the room and returning to where the woman had been sitting, Baek Woojin approached the woman who was sitting in the exact same spot as before and held out his hand.
"Give me the discount coupon."
"…Here."
A discount coupon of such shoddy quality that anyone could tell it wasn't produced and distributed by the "official" organization.
However, having already completed the transaction, the two exchanged the coupon as if they knew nothing.
"It's transferable too, right?"
"…Y, es. Cus. Tom. Er."
After watching her quivering mouth corners for a moment, Baek Woojin lightly patted the woman's shoulder and left the place.
'Conscientiously, 10 million is too much—should I take 5 million?'
After completely leaving the Artisan Guild, Baek Woojin took out his smartphone to contact Heo Sangmin, then put it back away.
"Why don't we go in for a bit and talk instead?"
"No, we're just…"
"Right. We'll pay."
Having visited a bakery inside the station to buy macarons that his younger sister, who had gone out to play with friends since morning, loved, Baek Woojin spotted a familiar back being held by three men.