[Boar Thigh]

[Boar Neck]

[Boar Belly]

[Boar...]

“Great, great~”

Aileen smiled in satisfaction as she stared at her inventory. The boar that was filling up her inventory had now turned into food that could be cooked. Even if she ate three meals a day until she was full, it was enough to last her two weeks.

「Yongha, I got the boar dismantled.」

First, she messaged Yi Yongha. He was complaining a lot about being hungry, and Aileen was excited to present herself as a reliable older sister.

FlameWizard: 「What? ...Why? -.-」

“...?”

However, his reaction caught Aileen off guard. Aileen tilted her head, wondering if he went crazy from hunger, as she typed a reply.

「Why not? Didn’t you say you were hungry?」

FlameWizard: 「If Aileen-ssi dismantles it, a lot of edible parts will become wasted. Dismantling a wild animal isn’t easy, you know -.-」

“Ah~”

‘So that was what he was worried about. Heh, what a fool.’

Aileen snickered as she typed proudly.

「I didn’t do it. I asked a passerby for help.」

FlameWizard: 「Oh? You finally got Spirit Speech to work on a person?」

「No, my magic power hasn’t recovered enough to command someone, but I can induce a positive response.」

Although the man probably didn’t notice, Aileen used Spirit Speech when she asked him to dismantle her boar. Her intent was to induce the man to agree.

FlameWizard: 「Great! What level was his Dismantling technique?」

「Lv.3. My inventory is filled with meat now, hehe.」

FlameWizard: 「He had a Lv.3 technique? Wow, that’s amazing. Anyways, let’s meet up now.」

「See if you can buy some lettuce on your way here so we can eat ssam.」

Their conversation ended here, and Aileen began to walk back to the city proudly.

But not long afterward, five zombies rose up from the ground. They emitted strange cursing auras and blocked Aileen’s path.

“Hmph.”

Aileen snorted and unleashed her magic power.

At first, she planned to simply destroy them. But because she was in a good mood, and to test how much her power recovered, she condensed her magic power into a blunt weapon.

“Listen up.”

Lv.1 zombies had no intelligence and only acted on their instincts.

In Spirit Speech, ‘speech’ was only a means. The true power of a Spirit Speech Master wasn’t restricted to just speech.

“This hammer~”

She pointed at her blunt weapon formed from magic power.

At that moment, a strange power descended on the weapon.

The ‘power of words’, an incomprehensible phenomenon manifested by speech. This was Spirit Speech, a tangible power that transcended simple hypnosis.

“Is going to crush your heads.”

Immediately, the blunt weapon moved, or perhaps it didn’t. One could only guess that it did from the faint afterimage seen in the air and the crushed heads of the five zombies.

“Huhu.”

Aileen smiled proudly.

Even though her stats were suppressed, the art of wielding magic power was engraved in her body, just like how blood flowed through her veins.

[Your magic power increases by 0.02 points.]

A system alert popped up, boosting her morale even higher.

“Oh right.”

Just as she was about to pass by the zombies, she remembered to rummage through the zombies’ corpses for anything useful.

However, all five Lv.1 zombies died without dropping any items.

“Absolutely trash.”

Aileen began to hop back to Prestige. Perhaps because of her earlier display of might, no zombies bothered her again.

Once she returned to the city, she passed by several starving Players and returned to her hideout.

[Lv.0 Temple of Justice Hideout]

After reading on the Community that hideouts had the ability to boost rest and stat increase, Aileen and Yi Yongha had hurriedly purchased this hideout of 150TP monthly rent. They were relieved to find out that the price of land wasn’t as astronomical as the price of food.

As soon as she entered the hideout, Aileen took out her frying pan and burner.

Tak, tak.

Around the time she put meat on the frying pan...

“Aileen-ssi!”

Yi Yongha ran into the hideout with a touched expression.

“Oh, you made it back just in time. Come grill this for me.”

“Before that, let me see your inventory.”

“Fine, go ahead.”

It seemed Yi Yongha couldn’t fully believe Aileen until he saw it with his own eyes.

Aileen flipped her hair back proudly and shared her inventory.

“Wow... if we’re frugal, all that might last a month. Thank god we brought a boar from the 2nd floor.”

“Yeah.”

As far as they were concerned, only complete idiots would forget to bring food after suffering in the Highest Difficulty Tutorial Town.

For this reason, Aileen felt sorry for the Players who came from a lower difficulty tutorial. In her eyes, they were suffering because they chose the easy way out initially.

“This is all thanks to me, right~? I’m the one who caught that Lv.3 boar on the 2nd floor~”

“Yeah, yeah, ssp. Sure, ssp...”

Aileen replied to Yi Yongha half-heartedly while staring at the meat and swallowing her saliva. Although she had many questions she wanted to ask him, her mind turned blank when she saw the meat.

Five minutes later...

“I think they’re done, Aileen-ssi.”

“Yeah, let’s eat.”

The meat that took five minutes to cook disappeared in a minute.

“How about some neck meat this time?”

“Sounds good.”

Aileen took out more meat, and Yi Yongha glanced at the Community as he grilled the meat.

“Ah!”

“Hiik! ...Ah, geez, what?!”

“Aileen-ssi, look at this.”

Yi Yongha showed Aileen a post on the public forum.

===

[The Brother and Sister Shop has new items.]

Posted by: Prementium

The Brother and Sister Shop has a Lv.3 Magic Amplification Staff and three Lv.2 equipment.

Oh, they have potions too, the standard mana potions and health potions. They also have other potions, which all averaged about 150TP. The thing is, these potions are leagues above the trash potions sold in the Tutorial Town...

===

“...Magic Amplification Staff?”

Aileen’s eyes shone.

“Let’s go after we finish this. If anything, we can buy some mana potions.”

“Good idea. How much money do you have?”

“I have about 1500TP.”

“That much?”

“As you know, my Gift is specialized for hunting monsters.”

Yi Yongha flipped over the meat as he laughed.

Meanwhile, Aileen fell into thought, ‘since I have about 1000TP, we’ll have 2500TP total. With that, we should be able to buy something nice.... Exactly how much do I have again?’

Aileen opened her inventory to check her balance.

Then...

“...Eh?”

She blanked out.

Thinking something was wrong with the system, she closed her inventory and opened it again.

However, nothing changed.

She rubbed her eyes and looked at it again.

She was confused and flustered.

Aileen blinked in a daze then rummaged through her pockets.

“...What’s wrong?”

Sssk, sssk

Seeing Aileen rummaging through her pockets like a crazy woman, Yi Yongha asked suspiciously.

“Ah, um, you see....”

Her TP was gone.

There wasn’t even one remaining.

The TP she worked her ass off to gather up had just disappeared.

‘Where, just where did they...’

Aileen spoke with her voice trembling.

“M-My money, it... it disappeared....”

As she softly muttered these words, tears flowed down from her eyes.

**

[Lv.5 Grahamson’s Cave]

I stood in front of a cave, where the demon ‘Grahamson’ lived.

The reason I was here was to find an item. Although it wasn’t quite good enough to be called a hidden piece, it was still too good to be an ordinary item.

“Hmm....”

Click.

Before entering the cave, I checked the Desert Eagle. It was nothing special, just seeing whether the trigger was jammed or dulled.

[Warning! If killed by a demon, you can lose up to three lives!]

While I was checking my equipment, a system alert popped up.

As you can see from the alert, Players having seven lives was a form of a trap. It made Players lazier and less tense in battle.

In truth, unless a death resulted from a very clean PvP (Player versus Player), each death shaved off at least two lives. Furthermore, being killed by one of the Tower’s four hostile races – ‘demons’, ‘celestials’, ‘giants’, and ‘hellwraiths’ – shaved off at least 3~4 lives.

As a result, each Player could only revive two to three times.

“Thank you for the advice. I’ll be careful.”

As always, I replied to the system politely.

Then, I checked the Book of Truth once again.

[Lv.6 Grahamson]

—Lives in ‘Lv.5 Grahamson’s Cave’.

—Wields many undead monsters. A monster trainer who commands an army of undead monsters against Prestige.

—Strength: necromancy

—Weakness: physical resilience

Grahamson was Lv.6.

Although its highest stat should be 5~6 points, I should be able to beat it thanks to its low physical resilience. One bullet from a shotgun should send it off easily.

Still, I made full preparations.

First, I took out the [Dwarven Supercar] from my inventory.

“Ooh.”

It was just as beautiful and elegant as the first time I saw it.

I hopped on and casted a blessing with [Lv.3 Yggdrasil Leaf].

[The Dwarven Supercar has been granted with a blessing!]

[‘Lv.3 Yggdrasil Leaf’ whispers its ability to you.]

[TIP! ‘Lv.3 Yggdrasil Leaf’ says it can grant permanent blessings to five equipment.]

[Would you like to grant the Dwarven Supercar with a permanent blessing?]

Was this the system helping me?

I nodded.

[The Dwarven Supercar has been granted a permanent blessing!]

[All of its effects permanently increase by 1 level.]

[A dormant magic effect awakens.]

○Lv.2 Like the Wind

—You can strengthen or weaken its frictional force.

—For a short period of time, it can glide through the air at a low altitude.

“Oh?”

On top of being amphibious, it could also fly?

“Amazing.”

After finishing my item check-up, I drove the Dwarven Supercar inside.

Ssss— The car entered the cave slowly and quietly. Although the cave was pitch-black, my surroundings lit up brightly when I turned on the light.

After about 15 minutes of driving...

“Hm?”

The cave began to rumble.

Dudududu—

The entire cave was shaking. To be more precise, something seemed to be digging itself up from the ground. I stopped the car and observed my surroundings carefully.

“...Oh, undead monsters.”

From the ground, undead monsters were rising like rice in a rice field.

There weren’t just one or two of them. There were at least a hundred, two hundred, three hundred.... It was a large army, but I wasn’t particularly nervous as they were all Lv.1s or Lv.2s. Ah, there were also a few Lv.3s mixed in.

“Pft.”

I snickered inadvertently.

Unfortunately for them, the Dwarven Supercar also had offensive capabilities. I just had to drive fast and run them over.

As always, weaklings didn’t pose a problem to me no matter how many of them there were.

Guoooo—

Kegelgelgel—

Hundreds of zombies, skeletons, ghouls, and will-o-wisps advanced towards me from all sides.

I simply stepped on the Dwarven Supercar’s accelerator.

Sss.... Its magic engine ignited. Young Dwarf’s Dexterity surely applied to my ‘offensive driving’ as well.

Believing so, I drove the car forward.

Bzzzzz—!

A thunderous explosion rang out. The Dwarven Supercar shot forward, radiating a golden light and crackling with fierce sparks.

The Dwarven Supercar wasn’t affected by terrain, height, walls or open air, narrowness or wideness, and ceiling or ground. It was unhindered, in every sense of the word. As the car burst forward, it crushed everything it touched. The flesh of zombies, bones of skeletons, and nails of ghouls scattered in the air.

[Your Driving technique improves to Lv.4]

—You can more cleanly drive vehicles.

—Your perception of ‘roads’ reaches the creative level of a genius.

It only took 10 minutes for the above alert to pop up.

By the time I finished my crazed joyride inside the huge cave area, the army of monsters was decimated.

“Auu, I’m dizzy now.”

There was one side effect. The smell of blood and dizziness from driving made me retch. To collect my breath, I got down from the car. While I was blocking my nose and frowning... magic power suddenly ignited in front of me.

“....!”

A beam of magic power filled with killing intent was hurling towards me.

The attacker was a [Lv.3 Skeleton Mage].

Blue light flickered from its hollow eyes.

It was too late to dodge it.

However, I didn’t need to anyways.

[You activated the skill, Extraction and Permanent Materialization.]

I stood still and activated a skill.

The beam of light stopped in front of my face and was condensed into a solid substance.

Tk—

A cube-shaped lump of magic power dropped to the ground.

“...Whew, I thought I was gonna die. That surprised me.”

Can’t it shout out a skill name or something before attacking?

I breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the cube.

[Lv.3 Skeleton Mage’s Curse Crystal]

I put it in my inventory for now. It was surely good for something.

At the same time, I raised my Desert Eagle and immediately fired. The bullet pierced the mage’s head, and the light in its eyes flickered off.

“Wait, come to think of it...”

Taking all the items lying around was going to be a problem.

I looked around.

The huge cave area was littered with corpses and bones.

Among them were a few items, the so-called ‘drops’.

“I’ll deal with Grahamson first and pick them up later.”

I hopped back on the Dwarven Supercar and drove deeper into the cave.

Soon, I arrived at a dead end. A throne was placed in the large empty space I was in. Grahamson was sitting on the throne, trying to look imposing.

I got off the Dwarven Supercar.

“...A human?”

Grahamson muttered.

Since it didn’t look like he needed an answer, I didn’t say anything and simply walked closer with my gun.

Tap, tap.

Eerie footsteps rang out in the empty cave.

“This is the problem with humans.”

Grahamson continued. I also kept walking closer, changing the Desert Eagle into its shotgun form.

The reason I was walking closer was to enter the ‘shooting range’ for a shotgun.

Each of my footsteps should be something he’s working to stop.

“They are incapable of understanding who is in front of them and how to act properly.”

However, Grahamson remained arrogant and impertinent, only muttering the lines of a third-rate villain.

I continued walking, ignoring his useless rambling. Soon, I was at an appropriate distance.

I checked my shotgun’s magazine.

It was loaded with two shells.

“Foolish human...”

“You’re the fool, idiot.”

“...You dare!”

I aimed my gun at the demon from 20 meters away.

However, Grahamson didn’t seem to know what my weapon even did.

“What’s that?”

“You don’t have to know. You won’t need to soon.”

KWANG!

Along with my reply, I pulled the trigger. A shotgun shell shot forward, scattering a trail of magic power behind it.

“Kuhuk—!”

The bullet struck the demon’s chest.

“Y-You trash...!”

To my surprise, Grahamson was able to withstand the first bullet. It seemed his armor was quite high-leveled, despite being made of leather.

“Rise, my crea—”

However, a third-rate villain deserved a cliché death.

KWANG!

I fired at his chest once again.

The demon race’s weakness wasn’t the head but the heart.

“....”

Grahamson died, without being able to finish his sentence or summon the creations he was so proud of. He slumped down and landed head-first onto his throne.

Ssss—

His corpse turned into dust and scattered. Only a single book was left behind in his wake.

That was the item I was looking for.

I approached the throne and grabbed the book.

===

[Lv.6 Special Magic Record Book – Demon’s Cunning Speech] [Unique]

○Recorded Page

—The owner of this book can cast the spells recorded in this book using his own magic power.

===

This book was a very useful item. Simply put, it was a book containing skills. Using this as a medium, I could use the following ‘effect skills’.

===

○Deceitful Quest

—You can arbitrarily grant quests to Players.

—The difficulty, rank, and reward of the quest can be set by the user. The reward does not have to be paid.

===

First was Deceitful Quest.

This skill was perfect for pretending to be an NPC and ordering Players around. After all, Players were crazy when it came to quests.

===

○Suggestive Voice

—You can cast a hypnotic suggestion on yourself or others.

—However, you cannot make unrealistic or detailed commands. The effect of the hypnotic suggestion increases with the amount of magic power used (more effective when cast on yourself or targets with low intelligence).

—When used, you can change your voice for 30 minutes (the hypnotic suggestion may see improved or lowered effect depending on how trustworthy your changed voice sounds).

===

Next was Suggestive Voice.

This was an especially good skill. Casting hypnotic suggestions on others wasn’t particularly useful, especially since it was unlikely to work on anyone stronger than me. However, self-hypnosis would be incredibly useful for ‘training’.

===

○Cowardly Lie

—You can make magic power-infused lies to Players or NPCs.

—Overly unrealistic or nonsensical lies will not work, but ‘believable’ lies become more trustworthy.

===

Last was Cowardly Lie.

This...

Tiring—

While I was looking at the book, my messenger rang.

CaptainBritain: 「Hajin-ssi, have you visited the shop?」

It was from Rachel.

「Shop?」

CaptainBritain: 「The Brother and Sister Shop. That’s the only well-known shop in Prestige... ah, have you not been checking the Community lately?」

「No, I didn’t have any time.」

CaptainBritain: 「You can’t do that!! (#｀皿´)」

A smile emerged on my face.

Rachel never said much when we were together in person, but she was incredibly expressive in text.

Was it because of the emoticon? She sounded especially cute.

CaptainBritain: 「Anyways, this Brother and Sister Shop is currently the most important named shop in the outer city. They’re selling potions now too, and they’re cheaper and higher quality than the ones being sold in the inner city. I’m standing in line, so Hajin-ssi should hurry over too...」

While I was wondering how to reply to her long message...

—...What is this place?

Someone’s voice echoed out from the other side of the cave.