My head hurt. I was always worn down with fatigue, but I rarely got sick; after coming out of the market, though, I was laid up for three straight days with muscle aches, a headache, and the rest of the flu-like symptoms.
If anything was different from before, it was that I could now run the heat as much as I liked.
For the first time in a long while, I cranked the heat up as hot as a sweltering summer even though it was only early fall, and rested. That didn't sort out my tangled head, but my body was comfortable.
'Time to start making my next plan.'
I got up as if to handle work I had put off. Raising my grade to Promising Investor was all well and good, but there was a problem.
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- An investor with experience of several trades.
- May use the Ghost Story Market shop.
- May own limited resources.
- Successful trades recognized; ghost trust grade LV 1.
(LV is divided into 3 tiers: LV 1, LV 2, LV 3.)
- May trade directly with ghosts; may cooperate with some ghosts.
Credits : 100
Points : 281
Human Assets : 10,000,000 won.
I had thought I had earned a lot of points.
The points needed to reach the next tier after Promising, Experienced Investor, were 500. It took more points than I had thought. It was a figure you could never reach by earning points only through the normal structure. From Promising on, it was a fight over points.
'How on earth do other people rack up their points?'
No. 2011 and the old woman were both [Expert], and going from Promising to Expert took a whopping 1,500 points. No matter how often you took part in the Colosseum, that was pushing it. With the game rules decided at random every time and the games being dangerous besides, that figure was as many points as clearing an A-difficulty game five times.
When I picked up my phone and went into the group chat, it was still nothing but useless information. It seemed like time to switch over to a room with higher-ranked investors.
But how?
If not for Ocheonsa, the schoolgirl, I would never have known this chat room even existed, so I had no idea how I was supposed to find an info room with higher-ranked investors.
'Should I use a wish ticket?'
No. Investors who had been around a long time would be all the more wary, so if I got in without an invitation from someone, chances were high they wouldn't give me any real information.
"Haa. Let's get out for now."
I had been holed up in my room for so long that my head didn't seem to be getting any fresh air. Now I had to find the optimal route to Expert Investor, based on what was in the old woman's notebook.
I went outside, walked into some café, and quickly organized the information about the Ghost Story Market in the cool air.
Ways to earn points.
1. Take part in the Colosseum. (Risk level: random.)
2. Sell what you have to the ghosts, including your body. (Risk level: low.)
3. Trade with lower-tier ghosts, resolve their requests, and receive points. (Risk level, points: random.)
Maybe because of my long years of office life, it didn't take long to organize. But once I had it organized, there were too many things that bothered me.
Unless you landed an F or E-Grade game, the Colosseum's risk level shot up to medium-high, and earning points by selling your body or part of what you owned carried no risk, but whatever you sold was lost forever.
The remaining method was earning points by trading with ghosts, but the abilities they could use in the real world were limited, and the requests they might make varied wildly. So how many points they would pay was anyone's guess.
'There have to be more ways to raise points.'
The structure clearly allowed other ways to raise points fast besides the information the market had given us. No matter how I calculated it, collecting points through little methods like these, it was impossible to climb all the way to Expert Investor and stay alive. But Experts plainly existed in the market. The current Experts surely hadn't risen by normal means either, so I had to find out their know-how one way or another.
CRASH—
"Hey, you crazy lady! Want me to show you what a real crazy bitch looks like?"
Startled by the commotion that broke out with the sound of a glass shattering, I looked toward the back and saw a schoolgirl in the uniform of a school near here arguing with an older woman.
"Well, I never. Kids get a little something on your clothes while they're playing around, and it's so obvious you weren't raised right!"
"Oh yeah? Then watch this! Kyahahahaha!"
The moment she finished speaking, the girl in the school uniform grabbed a drink and started running around the café, screaming like a crazy bitch.
'Are all kids these days like that?'
I had been thinking she looked a lot like someone, and when I came face to face with the schoolgirl as she spun around the café, I froze on the spot.
Ocheonsa....
She didn't seem to have seen me, because she charged straight at the older woman with the drink and dumped it all over her clothes.
"Kyaah! Oh my, what do you think you're doing?!"
"What's she on about? I wasn't raised right. Boss, is there a problem?"
The owner, who had come running out at Ocheonsa's over-the-line behavior, stopped short when he saw her face, then smiled brightly.
"No. There's no problem with anything a student does."
"Then kick that lady out and get me a new drink."
"Got it."
What? The lady was flustered that the owner was kicking her out instead of the schoolgirl. I wore the same expression as her, looking back and forth between the owner and Ocheonsa.
Ocheonsa had raised her voice first, and Ocheonsa was the one who had gone nuts in the café, so something was off. If he had kicked them both out, I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but the owner even made a new drink and set it neatly in front of Ocheonsa.
'A wish.'
But the only wishes she could use were E-Grade, so I wondered what kind of wish she had made to make this possible. I had brushed them off as a crappy grade, but did even E-Grade depend on how you used it? Impressed by the result, I was caught up wondering whether or not to go over to Ocheonsa.
"Huh?"
Just then, my eyes met Ocheonsa's. Making all my deliberating pointless, I got up naturally and went over to the table where Ocheonsa was sitting.
"I guess you don't have to go to school."
"What a boomer. You didn't go to work either, mister."
That school uniform. I knew it because it was a fairly prestigious high school. I knew it as a private school only rich kids attended, so Ocheonsa's problem-child streak really was inborn.
But to think she was really a high schooler....
"You gave me items last time, so I'm treating today."
"No, that's oka...."
"Boss. Bring him the same as mine."
At Ocheonsa's words, demanding it boldly from her seat without even paying, the owner smiled and nodded again.
'How on earth did she do it?'
An E-Grade wish could do something like this? Or had she used some item?
But no matter how I thought about it, the items I had given Ocheonsa had no such function.
[Dark-Dispelling Candle], [Shard of the Phantom Mirror]
Both were garbage-tier items whose only job was lighting up the dark or pointing you in the right direction when you were lost. After all, they were useless in the real world.
CLACK—
A cup of some unidentifiable cream coffee piled high with chocolate syrup was set in front of me. I gave the owner a little bob of the head and poked the drink with the straw. I didn't much like sweet things, but I pretended to drink it and then spoke to Ocheonsa.
"You're making good use of an E-Grade wish."
When I casually felt her out with a blank face, she sucked on her drink and shrugged.
"I upgraded it once. I figured I'd better if I'm going to kill the dog farm owner."
"......."
For a moment, I was at a loss for words. It was the first I had heard that a wish you had already received could be upgraded.
When I quietly kept my mouth shut, Ocheonsa leaned in close, her eyes full of curiosity.
"What was your first wish, mister? With that random box. Was it so long ago you don't remember?"
"Ah... I just asked them to get one person out of my sight."
"What?!"
At the sudden loud voice, I flinched and covered my ears slightly. Her high-pitched voice startled me quite a bit. I didn't know which part of what I had said had surprised her so much, but Ocheonsa seemed pretty angry.
"What! You mean a wish like that worked back in your day, mister?"
"Ah. Of course, I did pay a little in additional funds."
"How much?"
I didn't mind telling her, but somehow I felt I shouldn't just tell her.
"For nothing in return?"
"Ugh, damn. I don't have anything to give.... Then let's go to the dog farm toge...."
"No. Just tell me what wish you made, and I'll tell you."
Going to the dog farm with her was an absolute no. I might not look it, but I was an animal lover; in college, I had even volunteered at a shelter for abandoned dogs. Ocheonsa made a sour face at my offer.
"You're surprisingly nice, mister? Tell me if you change your mind later."
"...Sure."
I didn't know whether being called nice by Ocheonsa was a good thing, but the information she would tell me would be usable.
"I wished for people's favorability toward me to go up."
This schoolgirl was a genius. And after that, she had apparently wished for the favorability value to be adjusted further; she had used her E-Grade wish incredibly cleverly.
A young schoolgirl, a cute face, the uniform of a prestigious high school.
As long as she didn't open her mouth, people's baseline favorability toward her would be above average.
'So that's how you can use a wish.'
I had learned something new. But upgrading it must have cost funds too, so Ocheonsa was collecting points faster than I had thought.
I quickly told her what she wanted to know and slyly kept the conversation going. Luckily, Ocheonsa seemed to be in a good mood today, so she didn't suspect much.
"You're collecting points pretty fast. You'll be up to Promising in no time."
"Ah, right. I think I'll be able to go up to Promising next week."
I had just tossed it out there, but the ability of that schoolgirl to rise to Promising without ever once taking part in the Colosseum seemed more impressive than mine. Maybe my shower of praise had put her in an even better mood, because Ocheonsa leaned toward me, grinning.
"Actually, yesterday, a homeless guy. Shhk! They gave me a whole 50 points for him."
"...You can't kill a homeless man with chocolate."
Ocheonsa's expression twisted strangely, as if to say why ask something so obvious. But soon she seemed to decide I had made a funny joke and burst into giggles.
"That homeless guy was famous for groping schoolgirls around here. The country wouldn't get rid of him, so I got rid of him in the name of justice! And I got points for it too, so how great is that!"
I understood Ocheonsa's standards now. She was a psycho and a nutcase, but she had thorough standards of her own. Still, given how lightly she thought of murder, it seemed best not to get close to her.
After that, maybe because she thought we had become friends, she told me all sorts of things, but the time itself was an ordeal. I didn't want to know things like how to kill people. But through it, I learned that the only way to earn points outside the rules inside the Ghost Story Market was to harm people.
5 points for five toenails, 50 points for a murder.
Since the way Ocheonsa had killed the homeless man kept his pain to a minimum, that seemed to be why they had paid her those points. If you hurt someone in a more vicious way, the points would probably go up.
To raise my grade, I had to decide.
Whether to climb by hurting unrelated people for the sake of my revenge, or to climb step by step, even if it took time.
DING-DONG—
My phone's alert went off with perfect timing to give me an out, and I checked the sender.
[Min-jae. I found out where Hyun-woo lives.]
It was a text from Sang-min. I hurriedly got up and headed to the place on the map Sang-min had sent.