The daily wage for a porter was 150,000 won.
A blue tent had been set up on the asphalt in front of the Gate entrance. There was a folding desk and a plastic chair. The man sitting behind the desk tapped a list with the tip of his ballpoint pen.
"Yoon Jae-ha. You're Awakened, right?"
"Yes."
"Rank?"
"F-rank."
The man raised his head. His gaze swept over me from head to toe, lingering for about three seconds. It was exactly the same kind of look I'd received at the Association's assessment center yesterday.
You'd think I'd have grown accustomed to it after experiencing it twice in one day, but I hadn't.
"Combat Aptitude Index?"
"0.00."
"……People who don't qualify for a combat aptitude rating don't usually come here."
"Do I need a combat aptitude rating to carry luggage?"
The man's pen stopped for a moment before he circled my name on the list.
"If you get hurt, that's your responsibility. Follow the party members' instructions without question. No entering combat zones. Understood?"
"Understood."
I accepted a backpack. It contained a box for collecting mana crystals, an emergency kit, and twelve liters of drinking water. The shoulder straps dug into my flesh.
My twenty-one-year-old body was weaker than I'd expected. By the time I was twenty-eight, after spending years being worked to the bone in Basement Level 4, my body had grown accustomed to carrying this kind of weight.
But this body hadn't experienced any of that yet.
I'll have to get used to it. I'm starting over with this body, after all.
As I walked toward the waiting line, a window appeared at the edge of my vision.
[Awakened registration confirmed. Awaiting Gate entry.]
I'd placed my hand on the crystal yesterday, so it was only natural that a system window would appear.
It was natural, but something bothered me.
I'd seen a window yesterday, too.
Before entering the assessment room.
At the very moment I'd awakened on the bench and Min-a had spoken to me. Long before I'd placed my hand on the crystal.
System windows didn't appear for people who hadn't Awakened. That was written on the first page of the Association's information booklet.
The order was wrong.
Perhaps I hadn't returned to the system.
Perhaps the system had caught hold of me first.
I put the thought aside. It wasn't a question I could answer right now.
＊
A D-rank Gate stood in the middle of an abandoned redevelopment lot in northwestern Seoul.
There were four combat members in the party.
Jeong Tae-sik, who carried a shield, was the party leader. He was in his early thirties and D-rank. He had a habit of never removing his helmet.
The healer was a woman who looked about twenty-five, though I never learned her name.
There was also a man who used a bow.
And then there was Park Seung-woo.
He was a C-rank damage dealer. His skill was [Flame Projection].
He was the only C-rank member of the party, and the only person nobody would meet in the eye.
"Mr. Seung-woo, today, could you please……"
Jeong Tae-sik spoke from inside his helmet.
"Please what?"
"Just try to finish things quickly. We can't afford another incident like last time."
Park Seung-woo didn't answer. Instead, he clenched and unclenched his right hand. A red glow briefly gathered at his fingertips before dispersing.
I watched his hand.
A C-rank damage dealer was participating in a D-rank Gate raid. Judging by rank alone, he was more than qualified.
Yet the party leader was already pleading with him before the raid had even begun.
There could only be one reason.
He was slow.
＊
Inside the Gate was a cavern.
Damp earthen walls, a low ceiling, and the sound of water dripping somewhere in the darkness.
The air carried the distinctive smell of wet dogs that came with a kobold habitat.
The rule was that the two porters had to follow thirty meters behind the party.
The first battle broke out at the third fork.
Six kobolds poured out of a side tunnel.
Jeong Tae-sik raised his shield, the archer brought one down, and the healer retreated.
"Mr. Seung-woo!"
Park Seung-woo raised his hand.
A red glow gathered at his fingertips.
And stayed there.
One, two.
I counted silently.
1.2 seconds.
Only then did the fire shoot out.
Two kobolds were burned black and sent sprawling. The destructive power was undeniable.
There was a reason he was C-rank.
The problem was that during those 1.2 seconds, Jeong Tae-sik had been forced to hold off the remaining three kobolds alone with his shield.
By the time the battle ended, Jeong Tae-sik's left arm was hanging limply at his side. The healer hurried over and placed her hand on it while he leaned against the wall without removing his helmet.
"See? What did I tell you?"
The archer spoke in a low voice.
"What's the point of being C-rank? By the time he fires, the rest of us are already dead."
Park Seung-woo looked down at his palm.
"It's been like this since I Awakened. There's nothing I can do about it."
"Then you should try to fix it."
"The procedure at the research institute costs thirty million won. Thirty million. If I had that kind of money, why would I be here?"
The research institute.
For some reason, those words sounded unusually loud inside the cavern.
I lowered my backpack and stepped forward.
"Excuse me."
All four turned toward me at once.
"Porters stay in the back."
Jeong Tae-sik spoke.
"It's not that your skill activates slowly. The sequence is wrong."
Only after the words left my mouth did my heart begin to pound.
For the first time in seven years, I'd said those words somewhere my life wasn't at stake.
＊
Park Seung-woo stared at me.
"What did you say?"
"I'll show you. Just give me four seconds."
"Aren't you F-rank?"
"I am."
"Then what could you possibly see?"
"That's precisely the point. Looking is all I can do."
Jeong Tae-sik started to say something from inside his helmet, then stopped.
I looked at Park Seung-woo's right hand.
I closed my eyes and opened them again.
[Structure Inspection].
The color drained from the world.
The cavern, the smell of earth, and the people around me all seemed to recede into the background.
Only one thing remained.
The structure resting over Park Seung-woo's hand.
It wasn't fire.
It was a wiring diagram.
The uppermost layer came into focus first.
A small cluster resembling a switch. It was the point that clicked shut whenever Park Seung-woo bent his fingers. The part that determined when the skill would activate.
The Activation Unit.
Below it, the lines branched apart.
They were pathways for mana. Six smaller branches extended from a single thick conduit, converging toward the fingertips.
The Circuit Unit.
Three of the six branches were faintly damp.
The second, fourth, and sixth branches from the left.
Mana was slowly seeping out of those points as it passed through.
Where the branches converged, there was a thick plate.
It was the part that converted the incoming mana into heat. The component that determined what each skill ultimately produced.
The Conversion Unit.
And beneath that……
Everything was blurry.
There was another layer below the plate, but I couldn't make out its shape. All I could tell was that a small, dark point was embedded there.
It looked close enough to touch, yet I couldn't bring it into focus.
I knew what it was.
The Signature Layer.
The very foundation of a skill.
The same seal stamped at the bottom of every skill in this world.
I knew it was there, but I couldn't see it now.
I'd spent four seconds inspecting the structure, and the image had already begun to blur at the second layer.
At twenty-eight, I could have reached the bottom in 0.3 seconds.
This body had never reached that depth.
My mind was twenty-eight, but my eyes were still twenty-one.
The disparity sent a chill down the back of my neck.
＊
Still, what I'd seen was enough for today.
I knew this skill.
The standard version of [Flame Projection].
I'd dismantled it sixteen times at the research institute. The entire blueprint was stored in my head, including the ignition point coordinates, projectile trajectory calculations, and mana consumption coefficients.
In the standard version, the Activation Unit was positioned in the middle of the Circuit Unit.
Ignition occurred when the circuit was approximately half-filled with mana, and the remaining half propelled the flames outward.
But Park Seung-woo's Activation Unit was attached to the very end of the Circuit Unit.
The switch wouldn't close until all six branches were filled.
That was why it took 1.2 seconds.
And while the branches filled, mana leaked from three different points without him even realizing it.
The switch had been installed incorrectly from the moment he Awakened.
But something about that was strange.
Skills were granted by the system.
Skills with the same name should have identical blueprints.
If products leaving a factory had different wiring configurations, the problem wasn't with the products.
It meant something was wrong with the factory itself.
For seven years, I'd recorded those discrepancies as individual variations.
Because nobody had ever asked a different question.
But now, I felt I needed to start asking one.
I set the thought aside.
The kobolds came first.
I opened my eyes.
A dull pressure throbbed inside my temples.
If a four-second inspection was already taking this much out of me, I wouldn't have many more attempts left today.
"Your Activation Unit is attached to the end."
I spoke.
"The switch that ignites the fire is positioned at the very end of the pipe. It won't activate until the entire pipe fills with water. That's why it takes 1.2 seconds, and while it's filling, three points are leaking. The second, fourth, and sixth branches from the left."
Park Seung-woo's expression changed.
"……Is that why the inside of my wrist feels cold after I fire?"
"Yes."
"I've never told anyone about that."
"That's where the mana is leaking."
Silence settled over the cavern.
Only the sound of dripping water remained.
"If you move the switch to the middle, you can fire in 0.4 seconds."
"How would I even do that?"
"I can't move it myself."
I raised my hand, showing him my empty palm.
"All I can do is read. I can't reach inside someone else's skill. Only the owner can move its components using their own mana. I'll tell you where to move it. You just need to push."
＊
Park Seung-woo raised his hand.
"Don't put any strength into your fingertips."
I continued.
"You're probably imagining that the fire starts at your fingertips. It doesn't. Imagine it starting inside your wrist, between the two bones. Think of that as the place where you ignite it."
"……My wrist."
"You can feel something catching there right now, can't you?"
Park Seung-woo held his breath.
"I can."
"Push it. Not forward, but inward, into the pipe."
The red glow wavered around his wrist.
And within my inspection view, the switch cluster broke free.
It detached from the fifth of the six branches with a click and slid toward the midpoint where the smaller branches diverged.
The entire circuit shifted out of alignment for an instant before reconnecting.
Nothing remained where the switch had originally been attached.
It settled into its new position.
Park Seung-woo grabbed his arm and collapsed into a sitting position.
"……What?"
His breathing was ragged.
"Just now……"
He looked up at me.
"What did you just do inside my skill?"
"Dismantled it and put it back together."
"Is that actually possible?"
"You did it yourself. I only told you where everything needed to go."
Even as I spoke, my fingertips trembled.
I'd done this hundreds of times over seven years.
Every single time had been in Basement Level 4, in front of someone bound by restraints, following the sequence written on Han Do-gyeong's request forms.
This was the first time I'd done it of my own free will.
＊
"They're coming!"
Jeong Tae-sik raised his shield.
Footsteps thundered from deeper inside the cavern.
They were heavier than before.
It was a leader-class kobold.
Its shoulders were as broad as a man's, and it carried a broken pickaxe.
Park Seung-woo stood up.
"Mr. Seung-woo, get back!"
Jeong Tae-sik shouted.
Park Seung-woo raised his right hand.
A red glow gathered around his wrist.
One.
The flames erupted before I could count any further.
The kobold leader's entire upper body snapped backward.
Two kobolds following behind it were caught in the flames and hurled against the cavern wall.
Jeong Tae-sik didn't even have time to raise his shield.
The cavern flared brightly, then fell dark again.
"……0.4 seconds."
Jeong Tae-sik removed his helmet.
Park Seung-woo was staring at his hand.
He held it exactly as he had before, but his expression was completely different.
"Your firepower has decreased."
I spoke.
All four looked at me simultaneously.
"By about fifteen percent. You're firing before the pipe is completely filled, after all. Earlier, you probably would have needed only half your original output to bring down that leader."
"Then isn't that a loss?"
The archer asked.
"It's a question of whether you'd rather fire at a hundred percent power in 1.2 seconds or eighty-five percent power in 0.4 seconds. That's not for me to decide. It's his choice."
I looked at Park Seung-woo.
"If you don't like it, I can also tell you how to restore the original configuration. I remember the coordinates of its previous position."
"No, thanks."
Park Seung-woo clenched and unclenched his hand.
"This is better. Much better."
I nodded.
Then I added something else.
It was something I absolutely needed to make clear.
"There's one thing you should know. Anything I reassemble will always be inferior to the original design in some way."
"What do you mean, inferior?"
"Whoever designed the skill must have had a reason for putting that component where it was. I don't know all those reasons when I dismantle something. Once I take it apart and put it back together, something inevitably decreases. Today, it was firepower. If I'd adjusted something else, a different aspect would have suffered."
"……But I'm alive right now, aren't I?"
Park Seung-woo said.
Before I could answer, Jeong Tae-sik approached us.
He had tucked his helmet under one arm.
"Hey, porter."
"My name is Yoon Jae-ha."
"Mr. Yoon Jae-ha. What's your skill?"
"[Structure Inspection]."
"What's it supposed to do?"
A drop of water fell from the cavern ceiling.
I thought for a moment.
To explain something that didn't exist on the ranking chart, I needed a word that wasn't on the chart either.
"Dismantling."