Chapter 175.

[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 .

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