13. Heart Beating Random box (3)

“A bug? Is this a game? What kind of bug?”

Yoo-sung was shocked after reading the donation message sent to him by the Goddess of Mischief. The Goddess had donated again to Yoo-sung.

[Goddess of Mischief donated 1,000 points.]

[Goddess of Mischief: I'm kidding! The system functioned normally.]

“It worked fine? But there isn’t anything that came out.”

Yoo-sung turned his head and looked at Titania, but she shook her head as if she didn't know.

[User Han Yoo-sung.]

“Yes?”

[I think I found the summoned creature.]

“You found the summoned creature?”

[Look here.]

The screen Eve showed to Yoo-sung was colorful, and full of blue, red, and yellow.

[This is a video footage of the hospital room with a thermal imaging camera built into the drone. Can you see an egg in the middle of the hospital room?]

“Oh, you're right.”

It was invisible to Yoo-sung’s eyes, but there was a round egg floating in the middle of the hospital room.

“Is it an invisible egg?”

Yoo-sung walked to the place where the egg on the screen was floating. When he moved his hands a few times in the air, something hit his hand.

“Here it is.” Yoo-sung carefully took the egg and hugged it in its arms.

‘It's warm.’

The egg wasn't invisible but transparent, and the warmth from the egg can be felt through his hand.

A system window popped up in front of Yoo-sung.

It's a transparent egg. No one has ever seen this egg because of its transparency. So no one knows what kind of creature this egg came from.

He thought the description of the item would be transparent as well. Fortunately, the explanation was properly stated, although it wasn't very helpful.

“Mr. Yoo-sung, what kind of egg is it?”

“It's a transparent egg. I read the description and it says that no one knows whose egg it is.”

“Transparent egg… I've never heard of it before.”

“Is it right there?”

Upon approaching Yoo-sung with flapping wings, Titania reached for the transparent egg in Yoo-sung’s arm.

“It's warm.” Titania also looked surprised when she felt the warmth of the egg.

“The eggs of the summoned creatures must be hatched through the hatching machines.”

“Does that cost some points?”

“Of course. Hatching machines cost 5,000 points.”

“You guys really adapted to capitalism. Alright, if I buy that hatcher, how many days will it take to hatch?”

“It depends on the egg. But I've never seen a transparent egg like that, so I don't know how many days it will take.”

“Can't you make a rough estimate?”

“Some eggs hatch in a day and some take years, so it's hard to estimate that.”

“Is that so…”

Since Titania didn’t know about it, he has no choice but to put the egg in the hatching machine and wait until it hatches.

“I think you should just put the egg in the hatching machine, put it in your inventory, and do something else. The system will tell you when the egg hatches.”

“Yes, I think that's right. I can't just hold on to the egg all day.”

Yoo-sung bought a hatching machine from the Point Store, carefully put the transparent egg in the hatching machine, and placed it back in the inventory.

“Well, let's end this here.”

“Aren’t you going to buy any items?”

“Uhm, about that…”

Yoo-sung had purchased 50 random boxes impulsively. It was worth 50,000 points. It was more than half the points Yoo-sung had.

At that time, he didn't know when he bought the random boxes impulsively. But he regretted using 50,000 points at once.

“We've got some equipment from donations and some low-class potions. I also got items called Samjae Sword Art and Samjae Inner Energy Control, wouldn't this work?”

“Samjae Sword Art and Samjae Inner Energy Control? Those are one of the lowest training books in martial arts….”

Samjae Sword Art and Samjae Inner Energy Control can be found at street bookstores in Muhuan. It was so low-class that even the thugs will just throw it out.

“Why don't we just go to F-Grade or E-Grade dungeons? We can save some points there and buy better stuff.”

“Then, you only have to go to F-Grade or E-Grade dungeons. Any dungeon with a grade higher than that will never be allowed, okay?”

“Okay, I promise.”

“Oh, Mr. Yoo-sung. I have one more thing to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“Do you remember when I said you can return to your world in about a month?”

“Of course, I do. How could I forget?”

It's a life-related subject, so how could he forget it? Yoo-sung was counting the days while waiting for the opening of the Dimension Gate.

“I think the Dimension Gate will open soon!”

“Didn't you say it will take about a month? It hasn't even been a week yet.”

“There were so many Gods and Spirits watching your Hunter Channel that the interference was greatly reduced! The interference has not been reduced enough to control this world, but it has been reduced enough to open up a gateway to your dimension!”

Titania said it while waving her short arms. That was good to hear.

“When can I go back?” Yoo-sung asked with an excited voice.

“I think it will open in about three or four days!”

He can finally go back home. The thought of being able to go back home made him smile.

***

The next day, Yoo-sung was able to reach the parallel universe's Earth.

It was thanks to the ultra-light speed ‘Warp’ technology that distorts and rapidly navigates through space.

However, thanks to this ‘Warp’ technology, Yoo-sung had to go through some struggles.

It was because of motion sickness.

It may not be a problem for people in the parallel universe who already adapted to Warp, but Yoo-sung, who had never been on a spaceship, suffered severe headaches and nausea.

He threw up a couple of times on his way to Earth due to motion sickness, but fortunately, he was able to reach Earth without any other abnormalities.

Upon arriving on Earth, Yoo-sung was immediately taken to a hospital, and while waiting for the passage gate to open, Yoo-sung spent time reading donated martial arts and energy training books.

“Why does this book say so many things?” Yoo-sung scratched his head while reading the Samjae Sword Art book.

The content of the Samjae Sword Art book complicated the simplest moves.

It was quite a thick book, but what it said was so obvious that it could be summarized in a few lines.

[Blocking, stabbing, cutting. These are the basic principles of swordsmanship. Avoid or stop enemy attacks. If you want to kill an enemy, you can kill an enemy by swinging the sword at the enemy.]

That was all that was written in the Samjae Sword Art book.

The good thing was that there were a few illustrations throughout the book. If there was no illustration of postures, Yoo-sung would have long thrown out the book.

The Samjae Inner Energy Control book seemed to be better. It also has some weird things inside, but it showed how to collect inner energy while breathing.

Yoo-sung tried to gather inner energy as written in the book, but there is too little chi in this parallel universe. He couldn’t collect any inner energy and it just felt empty.

All Yoo-sung could do was watch TV because he couldn't practice with a sword inside the hospital room, and he couldn't gather any inner energy either.

But he didn't just watch TV all day long.

Yoosung also talked to nurses and doctors who came to check his condition. He wanted to talk about various things comfortably, but they treated Yoo-sung carefully because he was a Noble.

The treatment he received was too much for him, who had lived a totally different life before. Eventually, Yoo-sung gave up trying to talk to them.

He didn't want to see the doctors and nurses get intimidated by him.

“Should I go ahead and feed weapons to the Weapon Eater in advance?”

Yoo-sung, who was rolling around on the bed, took out the Weapon Eater from the inventory.

“They said to feed it weapons, right?”

Yoo-sung pulled out the Practitioner Sword from the inventory.

After seeing the sword, the Weapon Eater pushed its tongue out and smacked its lips.

“How am I supposed to feed this?”

Grab!

While Yoo-sung was trying to figure out how to feed the Weapon Eater, the sword was taken out of his hold.

Crunch! Crunch, crunch!

It began to chew on the sword with its razor-sharp teeth.

Each time the Weapon Eater's mouth moved, the length of the sword slightly decreased. Less than five minutes later, the Practitioner Sword had disappeared into the Weapon Eater's stomach.

Smack! Smack!

The Weapon Eater, who devoured the Practitioner Sword, stared at Yoo-sung and smacked its lips.

“What? You want more?”

Slurp!

The Weapon Eater licked its lips. The behavior of the Weapon Eater seemed to say that it wants more weapons.

“Here you go. Have another one.”

Yoo-sung took out a rough Longsword and held it out to the Weapon Eater. The Weapon Eater ate the Longsword in an instant.

Snap! Snap!

“I don't have any more weapons. That's it.”

Snap! Snap!

The Weapon Eater protested, gnashing its teeth at Yoo-sung’s words that there were no more weapons.

“If you want to eat pieces of swords, here you go…”

Drop!

Yoo-sung took out all the broken pieces of the old, broken sword from his inventory and piled them in front of the Weapon Eater.

The Weapon Eater stuck out its tongue and licked a piece.

“Look at this guy. Are you testing the waters* right now?”

PR/N: an idiom that means to try something out before doing it

The Weapon Eater seemed to be agonizing over whether to eat the sword pieces. After much thought, the Weapon Eater lengthened its tongue and pushed all the sword pieces into its mouth.

Ugh! Ugh!

“Buehueh.”

“It tastes bad?”

The Weapon Eater, who had eaten the pieces of an old, broken sword, was wiggling its tongue like a human who had eaten bad food. Well, they were old pieces of a rusty sword, so it didn't taste good for sure.

[Congratulations! The Predator has eaten weapon and became stronger!]

Suddenly, a congratulatory message appeared in front of Yoo-sung.

“Ancient Rune Sword? What does that mean?”

The weapons that Yoo-sung fed to the Weapon Eater were the Practitioner sword, the rough Longsword, and the broken pieces of an old sword. He has never seen or heard about the Ancient Rune Sword before.

‘It can’t be the Practitioner Sword or the Longsword, since the names are totally different. So the only thing left is the old, broken sword…… Does that mean if you collect its pieces, it will become the weapon of the Ancient Rune?’