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Memorize - Episode 53
053 Our Oppa (Hyung) Has Changed
As I approached the vagrant who was gaping with an unbelieving face, the female mage looked up at me with eyes full of fear. I also lowered my head and exchanged glances with her with indifferent eyes. She was a typical cat-like beauty with slightly upturned eyes. Suddenly, seeing her trembling, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
I spent most of my first run operating in the shadows. Despite my activities, not many people knew me, but those who did once called me the
Later on, the boundary between existing users and vagrants becomes blurred, but originally, vagrants were associated with negative images like murder, robbery, and rape. As vagrant activities intensified, existing users secretly formed a clan in response, following the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" principle. A gathering of users who hunt vagrants. That clan was the term referring to users who specialized in hunting vagrants.
That clan literally didn't care what they did as long as the target was a vagrant. Whether enslaving, conducting human experiments, murder, or rape. If the target was a vagrant, they had the authority to be forgiven for any trash behavior. They committed such vicious acts that even some existing users who knew the circumstances began to avoid the hunter users in the clan.
I briefly participated, and memories of what I did as a member of that clan back then came flooding back. I lowered my sword, which was sticky with the blood of the vagrants I had just dealt with. Still, as she seemed quite skilled and sensible for a mage, I was curious about her information.
『 User Information (Player Status) 』
Name : Lee Bo-mi (0th year)
『 Abilities 』
[Strength 36] [Endurance 28] [Agility 42] [Vitality 34] [Mana 62] [Luck 40]
As I expected, she was a user who hadn't even been here for a year. Her experience as a vagrant would be even shorter. Looking at her ability scores, she could be classified as quite decent for a mage. The kids' ability scores were so exceptional that this level of scores would actually be above average for her year. If I had met her during the Trial of Passage, I might have considered recruiting her as a companion, but one way or another, Bo-mi was currently a member of the vagrants who tried to kill us.
"Hwaaa..."
Sensing my chilling killing intent, Bo-mi let out a weak scream. Meanwhile, as the binding seemed to be loosening slightly, I firmly stepped on her wriggling fingers and slowly raised my sword. As a drop of blood from the sword fell and stained her cheek, the woman finally seemed to realize death was right in front of her and spoke in an urgent voice.
"P-please spare me!"
I ignored her words and turned my gaze to the kids who were staring blankly.
"See. You can do it if you just try. Anyway, this battle was quite good. You clearly showed a different performance from earlier, having experience fighting users. Of course, these guys were careless too... but it was pretty good."
"I'll do whatever you say! Please! We're both from Korea, right? I didn't want to do this. Please, please...!"
The kids' faces were very ambiguous. They seemed happy to hear my praise, but they had troubled expressions watching the woman screaming desperately while being trampled underfoot. I continued speaking, thoroughly ignoring Bo-mi.
"But you shouldn't just be good at familiar battles. Of course, this will be resolved as you gain more experience, but you should always do your part without panicking, just like now. And as I said earlier, never show mercy when dealing with vagrants. They're troublesome beings if left alive... Ah. Wait a moment. That's really noisy."
"I'll give you everything I have! If you want, even my body, no. I'll even become a slave... Urk!"
Annoyed by her incessant babbling, I lightly stabbed a sword into her neck. As I thrust the sword into Bo-mi's slender neck, she let out a short scream before coughing up blood and dying.
"Ah..."
"Huh...!"
As I roughly pulled the sword out of her neck and swung it once to shake off the blood, I heard voices filled with the kids' surprised emotions. For a moment, I realized my mistake. It was a habit from my days as a vagrant hunter in the first run. I had killed her without thinking, just out of habit, like during my first run in the Hollow Plane, but I realized this might seem a bit disconnected from the image I had shown the kids so far.
Just in case, I glanced over and saw the kids' Adam's apples bobbing as they looked at the woman with her head drooping.
Night was falling before we knew it. The sunlight that had been shining faintly was now completely gone, and pitch-black darkness was gradually engulfing our surroundings. Estimating the distance we had come so far, we were still crossing the middle section. Since it wasn't a distance that could be covered in just a day or two, I decided not to feel rushed.
The kids were clearly growing with each battle they fought. While not perfect, they weren't making the same mistakes as in the very beginning. We had fought a total of 6 battles just today in the Pitch-black Forest, and if it weren't for the last battle, we could have gotten by pretty well today.
"Cure!"
"Ugh..."
I looked at Ahn Hyun lying on the forest floor, groaning. Sol was casting healing spells while sweating profusely over Hyun, who was lying on the grass. Hyun's entire body was covered with bite marks from wolves. It was because a pack of about 16 Pitch-black Forest wolves had attacked us. There wasn't much to say since nearly half, 8 wolves, had pounced on and dug into Ahn Hyun. He must have desperately held on, thinking Sol would be in danger if he broke.
Wolves aren't usually difficult opponents, but because they received the Pitch-black Forest buff, they possessed aggressiveness and agility on a different level from normal wolves. Even while being bitten and torn at from all directions, Ahn Hyun fought valiantly, wielding his spear with my support and appropriate battlefield coordination, and in the end achieved the feat of taking down most of the 8 wolves that had attacked him. But ultimately, he couldn't avoid collapsing covered in blood after the battle ended.
I quickly took out the healing potion I had brought, applied half to his body, and poured the other half down his throat. Sol was also shedding tears while excessively pouring Cure spells on Hyun after he was injured. Anyway, receiving injuries like this is an everyday occurrence in the Hollow Plane. With proper treatment from the potion and having a priest, there was no worry about Ahn Hyun losing his life.
In any case, after finishing the treatment, Ahn Hyun raised his upper body while groaning, and Yoo-jung, who had been watching with a worried face, finally let out a sigh of relief.
"Phew... Idiot. Thank goodness."
"Pick one - praise or insult."
"It's concern, okay?"
"Hyung. Did the sun set in the east today by any chance?"
Yoo-jung thought about Ahn Hyun's words for a moment, then realizing he was teasing her, narrowed her eyes and glared at him. Watching the two bicker as soon as he got up, I shook my head.
"How's your body?"
"...It seems to have recovered. My joints are stiff and I don't have much strength, but it shouldn't hinder movement."
"Then further battles today are impossible. We'd better prepare to camp here. It's getting dark too. Anyway, good job. You held on well."
"It's nothing. Without your support, I probably would have collapsed long ago."
It seems he noticed that I had helped him even in the midst of frantically swinging his spear. No matter how many wolves came out, they weren't much of a threat to me. Nevertheless, there was a separate reason why I let Ahn Hyun get beaten up (?) to some extent.
When injured in battle and then recovering, there's a chance for an increase in endurance score. It's also thought to possibly help in manifesting the potential ability
With night falling and having fought 6 battles today, I thought this was enough for today. When I said we would camp, Yoo-jung's body became busy, except for Ahn Hyun. I took off the bag Sol was carrying and rummaged through it to take out a mana stone.
Yoo-jung, who had been sweeping the ground and clearing leaves and undergrowth, tilted her head looking at the mana stone I took out and opened her mouth.
"Oppa. Then we're sleeping in this forest tonight, right?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"No. Isn't it a bit dangerous? Monsters could attack at night. I'm a bit uneasy with just night watch."
"Hmm. I bought mana stones used for camping, so it should be okay to some extent."
Seeing the kids speaking to me without hesitation, it seemed they fortunately didn't show any particular aversion to me stabbing Bo-mi's neck. Of course, they might be pretending. But if they had said things like "You killed another person so casually" or "It's too scary," I would have been quite annoyed. However, having been thoroughly educated about vagrants at the User Academy, the uncomfortable atmosphere from the Trial of Passage didn't emerge.
At the mention of mana stones, Yoo-jung's face changed strangely. She alternately looked at her weapon, the weapons Hyun and Sol were holding, the backpack, the empty potion bottles, and finally the mana stone, then opened her mouth with a confused face.
"O-oppa."
"What now. If it's not urgent, just help with the camping preparations."
"No, it's not that. It's not urgent, but... where on earth did you get all this?"
"What?"
When I asked back with a nonchalant face, Yoo-jung pointed to each item one by one as she continued speaking.
"The weapons. Inn fee. Backpack. Mana stones. Potions. And so on. The money we gave you plus your wages should only be about 10 gold, right? I heard mana stones alone are insanely expensive..."
"Mana stones used for camping aren't that expensive. They contain energy that repels monsters. And they're not very high quality, so we still need to keep watch."
"Still. No matter how I think about it, it doesn't make sense that you got all this with 10 gold. Did you get money from somewhere?"
As Yoo-jung finished speaking, Ahn Hyun and Ahn Sol also nodded. I wanted to just gloss over it, but seeing their curious faces, I could see their determination to get an answer before moving on. While pretending to level the ground to set up the camping area, holding 4 mana stones, I opened my mouth in an indifferent voice.
"User Academy."
"The academy? Was there some separate money given to those with excellent training results?"
"No. I received it along with the clan offers."
"Huh? But you rejected them all, oppa. They still gave it to you?"
"Hyung. Don't tell me you ran off with it?"
As Yoo-jung and Hyun asked alternately, I sighed again. Seeing my sigh, the kids' bodies flinched once more. It seemed the anger I showed at first was still lingering in their minds. Even though I just sighed once, Yoo-jung looked like she regretted asking, and Ahn Hyun also scratched his head worriedly, as if he had made a mistake.
I licked my lips once and continued speaking.
"They just gave it as a gesture of goodwill. Saying to come later if I ever change my mind. There's no reason to refuse when they're giving it as a simple gift, right?"
"Oho..."
What's with the "oho." Although it was an excuse I made up on the spot, it wasn't a completely unreasonable explanation, so the kids seemed to accept it more or less. I didn't feel entirely comfortable lying like this every time. But I couldn't talk about my past either, so I just answered with a calm face.
"I thought it would be better to just accept it than to stand on ceremony. That doesn't mean we have plenty though. They didn't give that much. If we don't achieve results worth the investment in this exploration, we might not be able to eat, let alone stay at an inn in the future."
"Heh. I don't like that. So that's why you told us to check the vagrants' possessions earlier. I didn't really like that."
Pitch-black Scorpions and wolves don't have anything worth money. Among monsters, there are those that are profitable and those that aren't. One reason vagrants increase is that killing fellow users can earn much more money at once compared to hunting monsters. Conversely, from the user's perspective, catching vagrants can also yield quite a tidy profit.
Honestly, if the kids weren't here, I would have stripped the male and female vagrants down to their underwear and taken everything. But since I had some secret funds and considering the kids' eyes, I only took what was visible on the outside. Having struggled so much to survive in my first run, it seemed I still couldn't shake off the habits emerging from my subconscious.
"Don't talk like you're well-off. Gold coins don't grow on trees. Anyway, let's rest for today and march hard again tomorrow. Let's roughly lay out our spots and prepare for camping."
After making Ahn Hyun lie down again as he tried to get up at my words, I reached for the backpack. Lifting the backpack slightly, it seemed a bit heavier than before we left, probably because we had thoroughly stripped the vagrants earlier.
I took out a sleeping bag and looked blankly at Yoo-jung and Sol preparing dinner. They both looked visibly tired, but it didn't seem like they had received any particular shock. There were still many areas to improve, and I planned to keep watching, but for now, it seemed okay to feel somewhat relieved.
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