“Madam! You have a guest! It is the person you said you wanted to give work to! He is a corpse-fucker, though. Is that all right!?”
That was what the Demon bartender shouted toward the inside of the bar.
Park Il-sang thought, ‘A racist… no, a class-discriminating Demon, is she? Tsk, tsk. In any case, perhaps because she is a Demon, she naturally recognizes that I am a Necromancer. Since she is a being from another dimension, I suppose that makes sense.’
A Demon who discriminated as naturally as breathing!
Watching that Demon, Park Il-sang sat down on a stool at the counter for now.
Then the bartender Demon’s neck spun around, and she stared at Park Il-sang. Her body remained facing the other way while only her neck turned 180 degrees, making the sight utterly grotesque.
“She says you may come in.”
“Yes.”
“But you were not a corpse-fucker before, were you? How did you become a corpse-fucker?”
“You remembered me?”
“Ahem! Demons have good memories! You may praise me.”
“Uh… impressive?”
“Yes! I was praised!”
As expected of this Demon.
Her energy was far too high!
In truth, this was not Park Il-sang’s first time visiting this shop. Most decent work in Yeouido was traded through Yu Ina.
In other words, even when he had worked as a Menial Worker, he had used Yu Ina’s shop.
Even so, for her to remember him, when he had merely been a mediocre Menial Worker…. Honestly, he had come to this shop only about three times.
After that, he had taken work through the site.
This shop
also ran a site called Ina Pocha, and that site functioned as an actual job-placement brokerage.
So it would have been normal for her not to remember his face, yet this Demon bartender, Seiran, remembered Park Il-sang.
Should he say that she was truly a Demon?
“Then, excuse me.”
Park Il-sang decided to go inside for now.
CLICK.
When he opened the door inside the bar and stepped through, a luxuriously decorated bedroom appeared.
It was a place he had entered once in the past, and the owner, Yu Ina, had the peculiar taste of conducting interviews here.
An interview in a bedroom? That was hardly normal, was it?
Even Menial Workers had to go through an interview before being hired at first, and that interview had also taken place here.
On one side of that bedroom, he saw a beautiful woman sitting half-reclined on a sofa before an old-fashioned table used for drinking tea and the like.
She wore a dress that clung tightly to her body, and her eyes exuded a deeply decadent beauty.
Her body looked soft and supple, but she seemed taller than expected.
She appeared to be at least 180 centimeters tall. Yet her proportions were so artful that her appearance made one think she was exceedingly beautiful.
“It has been a long time. Even when I saw you before, I thought you were a special child, but I never imagined you would grow this quickly.”
“It has been a long time, Madam. I did not expect you to remember me.”
Park Il-sang truly thought so.
After all, he had been nothing more than a common orphan-turned-Menial Worker.
“Special children are not common.”
‘Special, she says…. I do have memories of my previous life, but from the outside, there should be nothing special about me.’
In truth, he had memories of his previous life, but he could not use the power of that previous life. He guessed it was because the world was different, and therefore its laws and rules were different, but he did not know the exact reason.
Because of that, there should have been nothing about him that looked special.
Yet she had seen him as special….
Was there something only she could see?
“Coffee? Tea? I have alcohol too.”
“I will have coffee.”
“Seiran. One cup of coffee.”
“Yes!”
Seiran’s reply came from beyond the door.
Though President Yu Ina had clearly murmured in a quiet voice, the Demon bartender understood her words and answered loudly.
‘As expected of a Demon. To think she can hear even such a quiet voice.’
Yu Ina, Job: Witch.
Her Rank was said to be B, but in reality, people assumed she was even higher. Especially in the case of her contracted Demon, the bartender Seiran, there was a story that she had torn apart a C-Grade Hunter who attacked her with her bare hands.
Furthermore, he had heard that her Job, Witch, involved contracts with Demons, black magic, curses, and peculiar ritual magic of a sort different from ordinary Magic or Skills.
That was right.
It was no exaggeration to say that the strange, beautiful woman before Park Il-sang effectively ruled the Yeouido National Assembly Building market street.
“So. It seems President Lee delivered my message properly. Sit down.”
“Yes.”
Park Il-sang sat in the chair. He immediately opened his mouth.
“I came to hear the details….”
“I hear that not long after Awakening as a Warrior, you Awakened as a Necromancer?”
“That is correct.”
“People do not know very well what a Necromancer can do, but I am different.”
“I suppose Seiran told you.”
“No. These are things I found out myself. Discovering and learning the knowledge of the world is enjoyable, you see.”
“I see.”
It was not as though the concept of a Necromancer did not exist on Earth. They appeared plenty of times in games and novels.
In reality, there were many similar parts and even parts that matched.
It was just that they were not completely the same as Park Il-sang’s previous life.
And in practice, Park Il-sang could not use the power of his previous life at all.
Because of that, Park Il-sang thought that if the world was different, the laws were also different…. But since Demon Seiran, as a being from another dimension, seemed to know quite a bit about Necromancers, it was true that a slight question arose in his mind.
Was the Necromancer known to her, a Demon, the same as the Necromancer Park Il-sang had been in his previous life?
They might be similar, but it was possible they used power through different methods.
Because of that, Park Il-sang paid attention to her words. Specifically, to the part where she had said, “People do not know very well what a Necromancer can do, but I am different.”
Did she truly know what Park Il-sang could do?
Although he was bound by the Hunter System, the power Park Il-sang currently used resembled that of his previous life to an uncanny degree.
“Now then. I heard our little Corpse Manipulator is rather powerful. They say you made a very large Undead beast?”
“I have been managing somehow. So, may I hear what the commission is?”
“It is simple. A transport commission.”
“A transport commission…? There should already be people doing that.”
At present, only twelve major cities had survived in Korea, and all of Korea’s population was concentrated in those twelve cities.
That was how dangerous it was outside the walls.
That did not mean there was no logistics distribution between the cities. It was impossible for a single city to feed itself through complete self-sufficiency.
And naturally, companies specializing in logistics transportation existed. There were also freelance transporters who operated on an individual basis.
“It is a private commission. Small-scale transport. That is why I was looking for a Hunter who could provide a large number of meat shields.”
“As bait?”
“Yes. As bait.”
“Are there separate high-rank Hunters in charge of defense or offense?”
“Of course. For reference, the fee is 300 million.”
Park Il-sang said nothing in particular.
300 million.
It was a fairly hefty sum, but for the current Park Il-sang, it was not an amount he particularly needed to accept.
When he could earn 100 million a day just by grinding F-Grade Dungeons, why would he do such dangerous work?
“You do not like it, do you?”
“My earnings have been rather good lately. For 300 million, it is a little….”
“Hmm. I thought as much. Still, I would like you to do this job….”
Her words dragged out slowly.
However, Park Il-sang did not so much as blink at that level of pressure. If necessary, he could simply leave this neighborhood.
“Very well. If you agree to take this job, I will give you this.”
As she said that, she took out a book and offered it to him.
When Park Il-sang received it and looked at it, the Hunter System reacted.
[Skillbook: Spiritual Power Increase]
Grade: Rare
Type: Passive
Description: Spiritual Power rises by one stage.
Function: Spiritual Power increases by 1 Grade
Details: Universal Skill
A Rare Grade Skillbook!
And a Universal Skill at that!
Universal Skills were Skills that could be learned regardless of Job.
They were things like that Broadcasting Skill or Internet Skill, and they fetched fairly high prices.
Of course, with Park Il-sang’s recent earnings, it was not as though he could not buy one.
After all, the majority of Universal Skills were not especially impressive.
Even Broadcasting Skills or Internet Skills could be bought for around 100 million.
But those were Common Grade, and this was Rare Grade.
Common. Special. Then came Rare.
On top of that, judging by the fact that it unconditionally raised Spiritual Power by 1 Grade… at the very least, this had to be a Skill worth over one billion won.
“This is… an extremely precious item.”
“It is an investment. And I want you to do this job. For reference, if you agree to do the job, I will give this to you in advance. So will you do it?”
Park Il-sang thought for a moment.
Was it some sort of trap?
No.
Park Il-sang himself did not yet have enough value to make it worth putting up a Skillbook worth over one billion as bait for a trap.
“Very well. I will try.”
Park Il-sang took hold of the Skillbook.
***
Spiritual Power was, as the name implied, a spiritual force.
It could also be called the power of the Soul, and for a Necromancer, it was a power one would eventually obtain by some means.
To be precise, one used Necro Mana to “create” Spiritual Power and use it.
Later, once one reached a considerably high level as a Necromancer, Spiritual Power would arise on its own. But it took quite a long time to reach that point.
One had to be at least a 4th Tier Necromancer.
For Park Il-sang, who was currently an E-Grade Hunter only roughly equivalent to a 2nd Tier Necromancer, obtaining Spiritual Power was something that lay far in the distant future.
Yet to think there was a Universal Skill that allowed one to acquire Spiritual Power.
[Why is Strength Increase so expensive?]
Written by: ㅇㅇ
-Ah, damn it! Even if it is a Universal Skill, is this not too much? Why is the price of a Strength Increase Skillbook like this? The price is so absurd it makes me dizzy.
-It is a popular Skill, after all.
-If learning it can turn even a scrawny man into a muscular one, would it not be stranger if it were not expensive?
-Still, there is plenty of stock, so take comfort in that.
When one searched for posts related to Universal Skills on the [Hunter Gallery], there were posts like this. In truth, he had often seen posts like this before as well.
If even Strength Increase was like this, then, in other words, this Spiritual Power Increase Skillbook was an incredible item.