Episode 5. Me, a Butcher, Using Magic?!
[Constitution has increased by 24.]
“H-Holy crap…”
Having eaten the boss monster, Sindae dropped the leg he had been gnawing on and stared at the message. His Constitution stat had risen by a whopping 24. He had been told there would be double rewards, but he could hardly believe that it had gone up by 24.
‘If it’s 24, that’s a stat you’d normally only get from raising two levels….’
The 20 stats he had obtained from consuming the golden elephant previously, plus the current 24. Sindae smirked slyly at the fact that he had already raised his Constitution stat to 100 before anything else.
“Anyway, this is amazing. Absolutely amazing.”
Sindae, who had obtained an unexpected rune stone and raised his Constitution stat by 24. Realizing it was later than he’d thought for school, he hurriedly packed his things.
‘If I hurry, I can slip in midway.’
Having packed the magic stones and leather from the boss monster into his bag, Sindae hurriedly set off toward school.
***
“U-Um, Bak Sindae sunbae… h-hiiik!”
Bak Hyeyeon, who had approached Sindae to deliver a message from the student council, once again couldn’t help but tremble in fear at the sight of him.
“Is something the matter?”
Recalling the incident where she had burst into tears at his smile last time, Sindae put on the smile he had practiced all night. However, when Bak Hyeyeon suddenly fainted right before his eyes, he was at a loss for words.
“H-huh! H-How do we help Hyeyeon?!”
“What did she hear?!”
“Huh?! Wait, why is that sunbae covered in blood all over?!”
‘Blood? Oh, crap…’
All Sindae had been able to think about was getting to school. Recalling the monster blood on his body, his face flushed red with embarrassment.
‘How did I not think of this…’
As Sindae let out a sigh, thinking it was no wonder she fainted, there was someone watching him with a strange gaze.
‘That sunbae was an Awakened?’
O Gayeon had been watching all of this indifferently. She was now looking at him with a bit of interest, having learned that Sindae was an Awakened.
***
“Whew… What a strange day…”
Having cleared a 2-star dungeon and taken the fainted Bak Hyeyeon to the hospital, Sindae was walking home with a sigh.
“Bak Sindae sunbae?”
Sindae discovered O Gayeon near his house, as if she had been waiting for him. His eyes widened in surprise.
“O… O Gayeon-ssi?”
“Puhah, O Gayeon-ssi? What’s with that? Just call me Gayeon. And speak casually.”
“O-Okay.”
Sindae nodded as he looked at the smiling O Gayeon. She looked at him as if she found him amusing.
“I didn’t know you were an Awakened?”
Sindae nodded at her words. She looked at him for a moment, then tilted her head.
“Excuse me, but could you tell me what your Awakened grade is?”
The energy visible to the eye was about D-grade. Since there was no way she wouldn’t know an Awakened of D-grade or higher at the same university, when she asked, Sindae gave a bitter smile.
“I’m F-grade.”
“F… F, you say? Are you really F-grade?!”
O Gayeon looked Sindae up and down with shocked eyes. The energy she felt from him was clearly above E-grade and below D-grade, so she couldn’t help but stare in disbelief.
“Yeah. F-grade.”
“That’s impossible…”
Gayeon shook her head as she looked at Sindae. She soon let out an internal sigh.
‘Well, I suppose even among F-grades, there are different kinds.’
Since she had come out of curiosity upon learning that another Awakened had appeared in the same department, she no longer looked at Sindae with curious eyes.
“Anyway, let’s get along as fellow Awakened. This is my business card.”
“Business card…”
Sindae received her business card, which identified her as being from the Raid Team of ‘White Tiger’, one of Korea’s large guilds. Watching her turn and walk away after handing him the card, he couldn’t help but sigh internally.
‘Whew… She definitely gave this out of courtesy…’
If she had wanted to get close or was interested in him, she would have given him her personal contact information rather than a business card, so Sindae put the card away in his wallet with a disappointed heart.
***
“Hmm… Yeti meat is up again…”
Sindae entered the Hunter Market looking for suitable monster meat. He added several kinds of meat he had never seen before to his cart.
‘1-star Goblin, 3-star Glass Yeti, 4-star Burning Sapling… Can you even eat a sapling?’
Tilting his head as he looked at the sapling, he decided to give it a try anyway and added them all to his cart before tossing his phone onto his bed.
With nothing backordered, Sindae found that the items he had ordered the previous day had been delivered to his house after school the next day.
“Huh? There’s magic on this?”
Looking first at the box containing the ‘Burning Sapling’, Sindae could tell that magic had been cast on it. His worry that it might be inedible lasted only a moment, for as he opened the box, he could feel his mouth watering.
‘This means it can be eaten, right?’
The corpse of the Burning Sapling inside the box was a large root, like deodeok. If there was anything different from ordinary deodeok, it was that small embers could be seen here and there the moment the box was opened.
‘How am I supposed to eat this…’
When he trimmed it like deodeok with his apprentice blade, a message appeared before his eyes saying it could be consumed. However, Sindae was troubled about how to eat a sapling that had embers on it.
‘Deodeok… If I think of it as deodeok……’
While thinking of deodeok, something came to Sindae’s mind. He remembered a bottle of soju in his refrigerator.
“Let’s try thinking of it as deodeok liquor…”
With the grim determination that it would become his flesh and blood, Sindae took a shot of soju and tossed the sapling into his mouth. Although the sapling seemed like it would be burning hot, the moment it entered his mouth, Sindae was surprised that it tasted like ordinary deodeok, and his eyes widened.
‘Strange. I definitely didn’t use a cooking skill…’
The skill he possessed was limited to meat, so while he held this doubt, an amazing message soon appeared before his eyes.
[Strength has increased by 4 due to the Gluttony effect.]
[Fire attribute affinity increases for 30 minutes due to the effect of the Burning Sapling.]
“My fire attribute affinity increased?”
Surprised not only by the 4-point increase in Strength but also by the increase in fire attribute affinity, Sindae rose from his seat. As small embers appeared on the table he had jumped up from, his eyes widened in shock.
“F… Fire?!”
After staring at the flickering flames for a moment, Sindae quickly drew water from the sink and put them out.
‘Is this what fire attribute affinity is?’
Still looking at the table he had struck, which had caught fire, Sindae fell into thought. He tried recalling several Awakened who could conjure flames.
‘Did I just do something only those in the Mage line can do?’
Although it was just a small ember, Sindae looked at his own two hands, seemingly unable to believe that he, a butcher, had caused a fire.
“Wait, it’s not just the Burning Sapling, right?”
Sindae suddenly recalled monsters similar to the Burning Sapling. He hurriedly went online and searched for several monsters.
‘I’m sure I saw some…’
Sindae searched for monsters he had heard rumors about or learned of during his military service. Soon, looking at the monsters that appeared on the screen, he broke into a sly grin.
[Aqua Slime]
[Lightning Sparrow]
[Flame Realm Elephant]
They were all monsters possessing attributes, and Awakened of the Mage line had been essential when raiding them.
‘If it’s these guys…’
He was certain that if he consumed them, he would gain an attribute affinity just like with the Burning Sapling.
“This is something to look forward to…”
Setting aside the methods of consuming them, Sindae was in a good mood just thinking about the effects that would appear when he ate them.
***
Having bought several Burning Saplings at the Hunter Market over the course of a week, Sindae arrived at Suwon Station, where Collection Team 1 was located.
‘Just a little more and all my stats will be 100.’
Luckily, having been able to obtain monster corpses for a week, all his stats except Agility and Mana had already reached 100.
“You are I Changseok, correct?”
Park Hyeonsik, the team leader of Collection Team 1, looked at Sindae and furrowed his brows.
‘Even the guild executives… sending a Team 2 temp to Team 1?’
Unlike Collection Team 2, which only gathered F- to E-grade members, Collection Team 1 consisted of D- to C-grades, and even B-grades. Since some of them were facing promotion exams to advance to the raid team, Park Hyeonsik was not pleased with Sindae’s joining.
“You know we do everything from gathering to collection, right?”
Sindae nodded at Park Hyeonsik’s words. When he took out his apprentice knife, the other man openly clicked his tongue as he looked at Sindae.
‘He claims to have been gathering with that thing until now?’
He couldn’t help but snort at the fact that Sindae had been skinning monsters with a knife that looked like an ordinary kitchen knife.
‘It’s not even equipment made by an Awakened, tch… Well, he’ll have to make do…’
“Next time, come equipped with something decent. Got it?”
‘This thing works perfectly fine, so why is he acting like that?’
Since he himself had even butchered monsters from a 6-star dungeon—a higher grade than the 5-star ‘Whelk’s Pulsation’ dungeon before them—Park Hyeonsik’s reaction was hard to understand.
“If everyone’s gathered, let’s get in.”
As the other members of Collection Team 1 gathered, Sindae entered the dungeon. He looked around at the scenery with fascination; it was as if he had entered an ice age.
‘They say dungeons all have rather fascinating scenery.’
“Don’t space out. This is a permanently open dungeon, so monsters can pop out at any time.”
Perhaps because he didn’t like Sindae looking around for a moment, Park Hyeonsik gave him a rebuke, and Sindae simply shrugged.
“Wow, they really killed a lot this time… Just how many are there?”
“Right? It’s like they didn’t think of the collection team at all…”
As if proving the sigh-laden voices of Collection Team 1, over a hundred penguin-type monster corpses were spread out across a massive cavern. Before coming here, Sindae had heard that they were monsters with a grand name: [Ice Kaiser].
‘Ice… If it’s ice…’
Sindae harbored hopes that he might be able to gain an ice attribute affinity. Looking at such a Sindae, Park Hyeonsik smirked as if he had come up with a decent idea.
“Hey, everyone, pay attention for a sec.”
Collection Team 1 tilted their heads and looked at their team leader at his sudden words. Feeling their gazes, Park Hyeonsik smirked and looked at Sindae.
“Mr. Sindae, would you show us how you used to gather in Collection Team 2?”