Jeong-min waited for the gate to open in Leia's inventory.
When the time came, the gate opened, and Jeong-min used Spatial Movement to stand next to Leia.
Stagger.
Jeong-min staggered for a moment, overwhelmed by dizziness, but quickly regained his balance.
He closed his eyes briefly to dispel the dizziness and greeted Leia.
Leia looked at Jeong-min, who was greeting her, and said,
"Did something happen? You don't look so good."
Leia's hair was damp, as if she had just washed it.
Jeong-min looked at Leia's hair and said,
"I'm just... a little complicated."
Leia looked at Jeong-min for a moment, then grabbed his hand and sat him down near the bonfire.
"Tell me. What happened?"
Jeong-min looked into Leia's eyes for a moment, then told her about his trip to the inventory of another world.
Leia was amazed by the [Trial of God] taking place in another world and said to Jeong-min,
"How many other worlds are there...? Are all those worlds going through the [Trial of God]...?"
Jeong-min, seeing that Leia had the same questions as him, continued to tell her about what happened in the inventory.
"...So I took all the items in that inventory and came back."
"You did well. If it was a yellow gate, it's a B-rank gate. Since it's an item from a world where the [Trial of God] has progressed much further than your world, it will be very useful to Jeong-min. It might even be better than the items in my inventory. My items have stat restrictions, so it's hard to use them properly..."
Jeong-min nodded and said,
"Yes, but... I feel a little complicated. Seeing the owner of the inventory die right in front of me and taking the items from inside... it's a bit..." "..."
Leia looked at Jeong-min for a moment, then said to him in a firm voice,
"Jeong-min, you need to toughen up a bit."
"..."
Leia looked at Jeong-min, who was staring at her, and said,
"You have to be ruthless, Jeong-min. You can't survive the [Trial of God] if you're not ruthless."
"Be ruthless..."
"Yes, you have to be ruthless. You have to live with the thought that everyone except me and your people are enemies."
"To that extent..."
Leia nodded and said,
"Yes, you have to go that far. Do you think that the only enemies of humans in the [Trial of God] are monsters and gates?"
"..."
Leia looked into Jeong-min's eyes and said,
"...Here in Elan, what do you think has killed the most humans since the [Trial of God] began nine years ago? Do you think it's the monsters?"
"..."
"No... it's... other humans."
"...!"
"If all of humanity's power had been united, the [Trial of God] would have ended long ago... But... it didn't. People formed groups around the Awakened and fought with other groups over resources. Since the Store opened, they fought over monsters and gates that could provide gold. They even started large-scale wars instead of joining forces against the common enemies of monsters and gates... In the end... when a high-rank gate appeared, humans didn't have the power left to destroy it..."
Jeong-min listened to Leia's words and thought of the large shelters and small guilds.
Was it just his imagination that Elan, where humans checked each other and even started wars instead of uniting, overlapped with Earth?
Leia continued to speak.
"I can't guarantee that the Earth where Jeong-min lives will follow the same path as Elan. But... since you're both going through the [Trial of God], I don't think it will be much different. You can't survive in such a world if you're not ruthless."
"If I want to be ruthless... what should I do?"
"Being ruthless doesn't mean... becoming a cold-blooded person. It's good that you take care of your people thoroughly, Jeong-min.
But... you have to be merciless to your enemies. If you decide someone is your enemy, punish them thoroughly..."
"..."
"Actually... I want to say that you should kill all your enemies... but it's probably too difficult for you to do that yet."
Jeong-min moved his butt and moved slightly away from Leia.
"So you don't need to feel guilty about taking items from the inventory of the dead. From now on, if you find an inventory without an owner, be sure to take everything. Actually, I want to say that you can take all the items from every inventory, whether the owner is alive or not... but that would be too hard on your heart, so I won't recommend it. The items from the inventories of the dead will be enough..."
Leia finished speaking and took out a cola from her inventory, drinking it down as if she was thirsty.
Jeong-min looked at Leia and said,
"Yes... I'll try. I'll try to be ruthless. I think I've been lacking in the ruthlessness needed to live in this world. Thank you for telling me, Leia."
"...I've seen so many people die in vain because of their personal feelings while going through the [Trial of God]... including my colleagues."
Leia spoke again in a soft voice.
"I don't want Jeong-min to die like that."
"..."
Leia drank the remaining cola and shuddered for a moment, as if her throat was stinging.
Then, in a cheerful tone, she said to Jeong-min,
"My nagging was too long. Shall we train again today? We decided to destroy a D-rank gate alone in six days, so we don't have time to rest.
From today, we'll gradually increase the sparring time."
"Increase the sparring time...?"
Leia nodded and said,
"Yesterday, we sparred for about ten minutes, right? We'll increase that time little by little."
"Wouldn't it be better to repeat the sparring a few times? We have plenty of time..."
Leia shook her head.
"Treatment skills and potions can heal the body completely... but they can't relieve mental fatigue. This training is perfect once a day. So it's better to do it a little longer each time than to increase the number of times. Instead, from today, we'll do training to increase your intelligence stat after sparring."
"Intelligence stat?"
"Yes, you can raise your strength, stamina, and agility stats a lot through sparring, but you can't raise your intelligence stat. You have to do separate training to raise your intelligence stat."
"How do you train to raise your intelligence stat?"
"There's only one way to train to raise your intelligence stat. Jeong-min, you said you tried it alone while training before the [Trial of God] started, right?"
"Yes, at the mineral spring... I just used skills, refilled my mana, and used skills again... I trained by repeating that."
"Yes, that's right. There's no other way to train to raise your intelligence stat. Use skills to consume mana, refill it, and consume it again... If you do that, your intelligence stat will increase and your skill level will also increase."
"Yes, I know, but... the time it takes to wait for mana to recover is too long, so it's not efficient."
Leia tilted her head and asked Jeong-min,
"Why do you wait for mana to recover?"
"Yes...? I have to wait for mana to recover to use skills again-"
"You can just drink a mana potion."
Jeong-min was stunned by Leia's answer, which seemed so obvious, and his mouth hung open.
"Use skills to consume all your mana, recover it with a mana potion, and then use skills again... If you keep repeating this, you can raise your intelligence stat quickly."
Jeong-min said with a dumbfounded expression.
"I... I know you have a lot of mana potions... but if you use them like that, they'll run out quickly..."
Leia smiled and said as if not to worry,
"If we use them all, we can just buy more. What's the worry?"
"...Didn't you say that you spent a lot of money when you bought the
'Detection' skill recently? That it's hard to even buy food right now..."
Leia flinched and avoided Jeong-min's eyes, saying,
"M, m, monsters swarm in once a day! Since they're monsters from an S-rank gate, you can get a lot of gold after each battle. No, actually, not a lot of gold,
but enough to buy plenty of mana potions. Mana potions aren't that expensive... no, actually, I can't say they're cheap, but still..."
'Her ears are turning red...'
Jeong-min thought that Leia's face would turn red if he continued, so he decided to stop questioning her.
"Ah, I see. Then... would it be okay if I relied on Leia for mana potions?" Leia said to Jeong-min with a slightly relieved face.
"...Of course. You can raise your intelligence stat and skill level easily with mana potions. Don't worry about the cost of the potions, and just focus on getting stronger, Jeong-min. We need to open the shop in Jeong-min's world quickly. That way... we can eat a lot of delicious things..."
Jeong-min smiled and said,
"Yes, I'll try to get stronger quickly."
Leia, hearing Jeong-min's words, took out a sword from her inventory.
"Well, shall we start? It's the beginning of full-scale training, so it will be much harder than yesterday."
Jeong-min put on the Shackles and Cuffs of Growth, adjusted the weight to 50KG each, and said,
"Yes, please take care of me."
********
"You called for me, Team Leader Gwak."
The door to the office where Gwak Jo-won was sitting opened, and two men entered.
One was a skinny man with a rather small build. And the other was a muscular young man with a similar build to 1st Team Leader Nam Seongdong.
Jo-won smiled and welcomed the two.
"Yes, come in, 3rd Team Leader, 4th Team Leader. I'm worried that I'm bothering you when you're busy with gate attack training."
The small man, who Jo-won called 3rd Team Leader, replied.
"Of course we have to come running when Team Leader Gwak calls. By the way, what did you call us for..."
Jo-won leaned back in his chair and said,
"Ah, it's nothing special, but I'll be calling you soon. I'm going to have an interview... or something similar with a friend, and I'd like you two to be there with me."
The 3rd Team Leader narrowed his eyes and smiled.
"If you need me and the 4th Team Leader together... I guess it's not an ordinary friend?"
"Well, the friend himself isn't really that great, to be honest... but I don't know who's behind him.
He seems to have a pretty big backer... so I'm going to ask him about this and that. 3rd Team Leader, I want you to listen to his story and judge whether it's true or not."
"That's easy. Leave it to me."
The 4th Team Leader, who had been listening to the conversation silently, said in a low voice.
"If that's the case, I don't think I'll be of much help. I think the 3rd Team Leader will be enough."
Jo-won smiled and said to the 4th Team Leader.
"I don't know if things will go smoothly... but we have to prepare for anything that might happen. Well, I heard that the friend doesn't have any combat skills, so there won't be any big problems..."
"...."
"I'm very weak, and the 3rd Team Leader's combat skills aren't skills that can be used in a place like this... so if something happens, the 4th Team Leader will have to step in."
The 4th Team Leader's expression visibly hardened.
Seeing that, Jo-won opened his inventory and took out a potion, handing it to the 4th Team Leader.
"It's a potion I bought from the [Jukang] shelter. Don't use it all at once, and save it as much as possible. You know how many resources were used to buy just one bottle, right?"
The 4th Team Leader bit his lip and carefully accepted the potion that Jowon handed him.
Jo-won looked at him and raised the corners of his mouth, saying,
"I'll give you some good information. You know the friend I said I'd meet soon? That friend has a potion with effects that can't be compared to the potion I just gave the 4th Team Leader. I don't know if he has a skill to make it himself, or if he's carrying something that someone else made. Anyway, if things go well, we might be able to use that potion. Do you know what I mean, 4th Team Leader?"
The 4th Team Leader stared at Jo-won and nodded, saying,
"...I understand."
Jo-won nodded and said to the two,
"Good. Then let's meet again soon. Just in case, you two should stay out of the combat team for a while. I'll give the instructions."
The 3rd Team Leader and 4th Team Leader stood up, greeted Jo-won, and went outside.
Jo-won smiled contentedly and buried himself in his chair.