No matter how he thought about it, Ian couldn’t imagine these catlike things causing him harm.
Of course, he didn’t trust them completely, but if asked whether they would do something bad to their master, he had to tilt his head.
If he had to define it, perhaps it was a relationship between parasite and host. Only, the parasite absolutely needed the host, and the host also received something from the parasite—a symbiotic relationship.
In the end, the problem was madness. If he could be free from madness, as he was with the Hand of Re-Creation, then there was no need to worry about the rest.
Ian removed the hand that had been stroking the grimoire and looked at the community screen again.
[Thanks for the concern. But what can I do? I already got two, so I’ll just have to adapt.]
[Yeah.]
More importantly, has anything special been going on lately? I solved the library request, so I’ve got enough money.
[Recommend 0][Not Recommend 0]
[Comments]
-Hey, fuck, did you take that library one? It was a sweet request, and I was going to do it.
└ㅇㅇ: haha
└Don’t laugh. I’ll get attached.
└ㅇㅇ: 🖕🖕
└?
-Deep-Sea Anglerfish: Nothing special. It’s peaceful South Korea, same as always.
└BugInYourEar: Not entirely. A vampire noble came in recently and is spawning brats all over the place. I’m out in the provinces, and I saw a ghoul and a vampire while catching bugs in the mountains.
└Deep-Sea Anglerfish: For real?
└BugInYourEar: Yeah. And fuck, those shitty elf bastards are acting up again. They made a huge fuss telling me not to catch bugs, so I got pissed and killed them all.
“Elves?”
Ian, who had been reading the comments, frowned at the sudden appearance of a race’s name.
Elves. A beautiful race with long ears, commonly found in fantasy worlds.
Naturally, he had thought they wouldn’t exist in reality, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
└BugInYourEar: Those bastards seriously all need to be killed. First of all, I hate their filthy-looking faces. Six ears, one eye, and a mouth split all the way up to the crown of their head. Fuck, and the stench is disgusting too.
However, the description was a little different from the elves Ian knew. He roughly cleared away the empty ramen bowl and tapped on his phone keyboard.
└ㅇㅇ: Elves exist?
└BugInYourEar: Yeah. If you wander around mountains or forests, you can run into them rarely. They look so gross that at first you wonder if these are really the elves you know, but amazingly, they are.
└BugInYourEar: They’re easy to deal with. If you don’t want to fight, just kiss a leaf and go back. Otherwise, kill them physically. Just be careful, because if you get hit by the arrows those bastards shoot, you’ll turn into a tree on the spot.
“Hm……”
Ian tapped the desk as he read the comments.
Since their area of appearance was limited to forests or mountains, he probably wouldn’t run into them often, but it still wouldn’t hurt to know. Something unexpected could happen.
And judging by the description, they seemed closer to primitive humans than fairies or a race capable of communication. There would be no need to bother trying to talk to them.
Ian left a reply thanking them for the information, then skimmed through the other posts.
There weren’t any particularly useful ones. After giving recommendations to a few amusing posts, he plugged his phone into the charger, launched a game for the first time in a while, and casually played a round.
And got absolutely destroyed.
[MID DIFF]
[Cut the bullshit, you fucking bitch]
[Fuuuck off]
As soon as the game ended, Ian stretched, leaving his teammates to fight among themselves.
Even though it had been a while since he logged in, this familiar, rich stench of shit that welcomed him was truly disgusting. There was a reason he had quit.
‘Still, I did pretty well, all things considered.’
Ian looked at his KDA on the scoreboard—3 kills, 15 deaths, 12 assists—and nodded in satisfaction.
Of course. It was a model KDA for a jungler who had sacrificed himself for the team. Look, wasn’t the proof that not a single teammate was blaming him?
[gg]
Ian tossed one final remark at his teammates, who were still fighting violently, and got up.
He had eaten a simple meal and enjoyed a game. It was about time the card was finished, so he could buy something to drink at a nearby café and head out.
Fortunately, the café wasn’t far. It took less than five minutes on foot.
Before leaving the PC café, Ian smoked a cigarette, then walked down the street for a bit and entered the café. He was about to order his usual iced Americano, but then Han Yuna suddenly came to mind, so he ordered a strawberry yogurt smoothie.
‘Let’s see how good it is.’
A short while later, the drink was ready. When he accepted it and took a sip, it tasted sweet with a slight sourness.
“Ugh, it’s too sweet.”
Objectively, it wasn’t a bad flavor, but it wasn’t to Ian’s taste. He sent Han Yuna a message saying strawberry yogurt smoothies weren’t that good, then walked toward the animal hospital while sucking on the straw.
The animal hospital, now in full business hours, was packed with pets and their owners. There were dogs and cats, and even a few hamsters and birds.
It seemed like entering through the front door would be difficult. He adjusted his bag and stood in front of the back door, looking up at the sky for a moment.
Just then, his phone vibrated. When he took it out and checked, a message had arrived saying the card issuance was complete.
Ian immediately opened the back door and went down to the basement of the animal hospital. In the basement, the nurse he had seen at first was sitting there as before.
“Ah. You’re here. Were you right upstairs?”
“Yeah. More importantly, the card?”
“Here it is.”
The nurse smoothly held out a black card toward Ian.
Its appearance wasn’t particularly special. Aside from the expiration date being quite far off, it looked ordinary.
“You may use the card anywhere without issue. Here are the bankbook and seal as well. I’ll put them in a separate small case for you.”
“What should I do when the expiration date runs out?”
“You can visit our branch again to renew it, or tell an Indemnis employee. That department only selects experts in various fields, you see. If you ask them for anything, they’ll take care of it.”
Ian nodded and accepted the case containing the bankbook and seal, putting it into his bag.
“Then is that it? I don’t need to do anything else, right?”
“Yes. You can check the money deposited into the account yourself through the Cartel app.”
“Good. You worked hard.”
“Not at all. Take care on your way out.”
Leaving behind the nurse, who bowed politely at the waist, Ian exited the animal hospital.
He launched the app and linked the bankbook to his account. When he checked, a huge sum of 150 million won was displayed in the balance.
With this, he wouldn’t have to worry about living expenses for the time being. He could slowly save up more and purchase various things or prepare to move.
Perhaps because it was his first time handling money exceeding 100 million won, he didn’t feel as good or as overwhelmed by reality as he had expected. He figured that maybe once he started spending it and still saw money remaining, he would feel it then.
Whatever the case, it wasn’t a bad thing. Ian smiled faintly and sat in the smoking area in the parking lot to smoke. This was his last cigarette.
“Phew……”
He rubbed the finished cigarette out in the ashtray and threw it away.
He went outside and checked the time.
It was just past the afternoon.
Since he had no major plans right away, there wasn’t much to do even if he went back. At most, he would read the grimoire, browse the community, or look up urban legend documents.
They were things he had to do, but there was no need to start right now. They were things that wouldn’t be too late even after he dealt with one more item on his schedule first.
He had no intention of wasting time, so it seemed better to find something suitable to do.
‘What would be good?’
Ian walked down the street for a while, thinking, then made up his mind when he saw the fish trapped in the tank of a raw fish restaurant.
‘I should test the magic from the Records of the Deep Sea.’
Just as he had used the alchemy of the Hand of Re-Creation as soon as he became a mage, it was time to test the abilities of his second grimoire this time.
The primary magic of the Records of the Deep Sea was summoning. Specifically, magic that summoned and wielded creatures personally created by an Outer God. Even if it couldn’t show the same outstanding versatility and utility in various fields as the Hand of Re-Creation, it should be specialized in killing and slaughtering things.
‘I can’t summon a strong summoned beast from the start. I don’t have any mystical internal organs, and I haven’t stored any blood beforehand either.’
What was consumed as the price of summoning was the flesh of a monster and the summoner’s blood. To summon a powerful summoned beast, both materials had to be prepared in large quantities. But Ian currently had neither of them prepared in advance.
So he had no choice but to summon the weakest one first.
Still, that wasn’t bad.
‘If I check the lowest point, I’ll be able to roughly gauge the level of the other creatures too. This is better than carelessly summoning something with a monstrous power level from the start and putting myself in danger.’
Ian didn’t know exactly how strong a powerful summoned beast would be. However, since it was a creature personally created by an Outer God, it would certainly not be ordinary.
There was no need to gamble just to test it right now. Now was the time to test something weak first.
After organizing his thoughts, Ian entered a nearby parking lot by a bench and launched the Cartel app. He began searching for a simple request he could do nearby.
Fortunately, there were several decent requests. The pay was low, but for Ian right now, that wasn’t a big problem.
He clicked one of them and looked it over.
[Eliminate 3 ghouls.]
[The location is a small cave in the back mountain. They were originally human, but they are hiker ghouls who were drained of blood by a vampire and transformed. Please dispose of them and bring back their blood.]
[Reward: 3 million won.]
Three ghouls.
They were beings capable of tearing an ordinary human apart whole, but Ian could tear them apart in return. If Ian touched them and told them to split in half and die, then they would have to die that way.
In any case.
They were sufficient opponents for testing a simple basic summoning spell. Since they were ghouls that couldn’t move during the day, they would be quietly trapped inside the cave, making them easy to find.
Above all, as long as he had his enchanted coat, ghouls—whose reason had been removed and who lived only by instinct—wouldn’t even be able to see Ian with their eyes. They would have to rely only on smell and hearing to locate him, and that brief amount of time would be more than enough for him to respond.
“Good. Shall we go?”
Once he had decided, there was no room to hesitate. Ian quietly summoned the grimoire without anyone noticing and slipped it into the grimoire-only pocket he had made inside his coat.
The Records of the Deep Sea, with its black cover, vibrated as if pleased and nestled snugly against his chest.
[……Woooong.]
The other grimoire inside his bag voiced its dissatisfaction, but Ian paid it no mind.