Geon-mu and Kim Cheol-mun headed for the infirmary side by side.
If it came to deciding which of the two was the urgent patient, it was Kim Cheol-mun, the assessor.
In truth, the reason the examination had been halted looked as though it were Geon-mu's external injuries, but Kim Cheol-mun himself had used it as a pretext because he did not think he could carry the examination on.
The aftereffects of the divine descent had been severe on him.
He had forced a magical deployment, so a healer had to examine him closely.
"Are you really all right? Without an anesthetic?"
"Do I look like a human who would make a fuss over this much? Just pull them out."
"Yes. Yes......."
Detecting and drawing them out through magnetic magic was easy enough, but in the process the bleeding and the wounds grew worse.
It was a procedure that should have been done under anesthetic, but Geon-mu looked entirely at ease.
The number of fragments lodged in his body came to seventy-two.
Put another way, seventy-two pains had all been drawn out without anesthetic.
After applying disinfectant and a coagulant, they wound bandages and finished the procedure.
The prescription handed down to him was absolute rest.
"Please stay lying down here for the time being."
"There is still an examination left."
"Since Assessor Kim Cheol-mun has gone into rest, the examination will not be continued in any case. We will send out a fresh notice to everyone else, so it would be best to come then."
"Is that so?"
Hearing that, Geon-mu lay down without a trace of reluctance.
With the man who set the test gone, getting worked up would only hurt him.
"Is that assessor in critical condition?"
"Not that, but an excessive amount of mana was injected into his body, and a great deal went out at once when it left as well, so stress and fatigue will have built up rapidly."
"He looked perfectly fine standing there, from what I saw."
"An assessor can hardly let an examinee see him collapse. In any case, please rest as you are."
With those words, the staff member left.
Geon-mu lay on the bed and quietly closed his eyes.
[<Lion Statue That Loves Riddles> watches you closely.]
He looked steadily at the message that had appeared before him.
[<Lion Statue That Loves Riddles> sends praise for your battle.]
It looked no different from the messages other Patron Stars sent.
Just as Geon-mu was yawning and about to fall asleep,
[<Lion Statue That Loves Riddles> has sent you a gift.]
"A gift?"
Geon-mu's eyes snapped open.
His delight lasted only a moment; Geon-mu threw out a cautious question.
"There isn't something I have to do, is there? A contract or the like."
[<Lion Statue That Loves Riddles> reassures you that you may rest easy.]
A Patron Star answering as though handling a first-year employee.
Since it said there was nothing unpleasant attached, Geon-mu accepted the gift.
[Gift]
Type: Consumable Item
Grade: None
A gift sent by the <Lion Statue That Loves Riddles>.
Upon destruction, you acquire the following goods.
<Book of the Sun> x1
Title, <Golden Wind> x1
[Book of the Sun]
Type: Equipment Item
Grade: A
A book recording the magic of light.
Twelve spells in total are recorded within.
Light made the life and the fate of all things,
so with light we shall protect ourselves, and with light we shall burn them.
Requirement: Magic Power 100 or higher
'Is this someone's idea of a joke?'
It said it had been deeply impressed by Geon-mu's fight, and what it gave him was a spellbook.
And on top of that, a spellbook with a requirement that made it unusable.
His displeasure lasted only a moment.
Geon-mu tried thinking about it differently.
'No, could this be a new challenge instead?'
He had reincarnated three times, and until now he had never once used magic.
When he had fallen into the fantasy world, Geon-mu had been a human who could barely respond even when he sensed mana, and he had never felt mana to a degree that produced any meaningful effect.
Magic had been his companions' domain, so he left it at that.
'This life, it seems worth learning magic too.'
If he searched properly and worked out a method of training, raising the Magic Power stat would be easy.
Thinking that, Geon-mu smiled.
[You have obtained the title <Golden Wind>.]
[All penalty effects brought about by deserts are reduced by 50%.]
[You obtain 10 additional stat points.]
Desert penalty effects halved.
The penalties he had barely blocked by wrapping himself in the Body-Protecting Aura were gone, which was excellent news for Geon-mu.
Truly excellent news.
Not having to burn internal force wrapping himself in the Body-Protecting Aura for nothing was more critical than it might seem.
"Thank you."
[<Lion Statue That Loves Riddles> is pleased.]
[<Goblin King> watches you with a displeased face.]
Geon-mu put the <Book of the Sun> he had received into the subspace pocket.
A moment later, someone approached him.
The click-clack of heels was familiar to his ear.
"Mister Cha Geon-mu, may I come in?"
It was Team Leader Woo Hyo-jeong's voice.
"Come in."
Geon-mu gave his consent, and Team Leader Woo Hyo-jeong came inside.
Her air was rather different from their first meeting.
Where she had been businesslike at first, her eyes now held feeling in them.
Geon-mu greeted her first.
"So we meet again. We're acquainted, aren't we?"
"Yes. Back then, I tried to make a direct contract with you through Mister Kang Ho-seok."
"Then does this make the third time?"
"Sorry?"
"You were looking down at me from above an hour ago, weren't you?"
"So you knew."
Woo Hyo-jeong was inwardly startled.
She had not expected that even in the middle of all that chaos he had checked as far as the people at a glass window that was barely visible.
"I saw you breathe sword qi into your swords, Mister Cha Geon-mu. And......"
"Ah, one moment."
Geon-mu cut Woo Hyo-jeong off and corrected her.
"Sword aura. Not sword qi."
"Sword aura?"
Woo Hyo-jeong's eyes went wider still.
"Do you not know sword aura?"
Geon-mu took it as her not having understood, and tilted his head.
Woo Hyo-jeong shook her head.
"No, I know it. It is only......"
"You did not expect a low-level scrub like this to use it?"
"I did not think anything so rude."
Woo Hyo-jeong cleared her throat, and Geon-mu let out a snort of laughter.
Swordsmen who used sword qi were rare even among A-Grades.
But sword aura?
It was a technique rare enough that those in the world who could use it could be counted on a few fingers.
'But if that was sword aura...... it does explain killing Anubis.'
Woo Hyo-jeong could not believe it either, but she had no choice but to believe it.
The power had been proven through Geon-mu's swords, and Woo Hyo-jeong had seen it with both eyes, so she could only accept it as such.
"Even those who use sword qi are rare, so how are you able to use sword aura?"
"Sword aura is not external art...... no, it is not a technique you obtain on your own by grinding your level relentlessly. What you feel and what you realize through the martial art you hone, that is what matters most. Which is why even someone as strapped for level as I am can use a formidable technique."
"Might you be able to tell me what that technique was? Of course, if you cannot, I will not press......"
"Torrent Dragon Flash Wave. The eleventh form of the Heaven-Breaking Divine Art."
At Woo Hyo-jeong's careful question, Geon-mu answered without any fuss.
"You tell me without the slightest hesitation."
"Teaching someone how to make a fist doesn't make them a boxer, does it? It isn't a technique you can use simply because you have power."
Geon-mu looked down at his own hands.
"And even if you know it, if the conditions are not sufficient, the recoil comes back at you like this."
Geon-mu answered everything that openly, hiding nothing.
But perhaps because he answered so faithfully, Woo Hyo-jeong could believe Geon-mu less and less.
The reason was that the Heaven-Breaking Divine Art he spoke of was unfamiliar to her.
'The Heaven-Breaking Divine Art? What on earth is that?'
Woo Hyo-jeong had to deal with the Awakened, so she was well versed in their abilities.
Among them were martial arts.
The North Sea Ice Art, the Purple Haze Divine Art, the Gaui Divine Art, the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.......
The users were unknown, but the varieties of martial art were known in great number, and for Woo Hyo-jeong, who had to deal with people, they were among the things she absolutely had to memorize.
If it were a martial art this strong and this threatening, she would surely have heard of it at least once.
But she could say with certainty that the Heaven-Breaking Divine Art was a martial art she had never once heard of.
'He does not seem to be lying, so why can't I be sure of this?'
Had he lied, her ability would have reacted.
Seen through Judge Eye, Geon-mu was confidence itself.
Which was why he was a mass of riddles.
He had no Patron Star, and he used a martial art no one had ever heard of.
How many people could take what a Geon-mu in that state said at face value?
'Was I too honest?'
Geon-mu saw Woo Hyo-jeong's expression and realized she was suspicious.
To Geon-mu's mind it was nothing so remarkable, so his intention had simply been to tell her and be done with it, but it had not been received that way, so a misunderstanding had arisen.
Being misunderstood was unwelcome, but he had no intention of holding her there and explaining himself at tedious length.
"Let us stop with the side topics."
Geon-mu sat straight up on the bed and asked.
"Why did you come here?"
At the invitation to move on to the main matter, Woo Hyo-jeong put her personal curiosity away.
"I came to ask whether you would reconsider receiving an A-Grade assessment."
"Reconsider the A-Grade assessment? What do you mean by that?"
"For the moment you may be pleased at having proved yourself, Mister Cha Geon-mu, but looking at it over the long term there is nothing good in it."
"And what would that be?"
The answer Woo Hyo-jeong gave to Geon-mu's question was unexpected.
"If you pass at A-Grade now, you will be promoted not to A but to S-Grade."
Not A, but S.
That the alphabet ran better in reverse and that S came after A was something Geon-mu knew as well.
"S-Grade? Isn't S-Grade even better?"
"Yes. A hall of fame with only fifty people in the Republic of Korea."
"I heard it was impossible to become S-Grade at a first examination."
Geon-mu knew what S-Grade was as well.
In the case of A-Grade, the Awakened Management Bureau of the Republic of Korea conducted the screening.
But he had heard that S-Grade was a grade possible only when recognized by the World Awakened Management Alliance, a non-governmental international body.
"The Awakened who have contracted with the <Lion Statue That Loves Riddles> number forty-five in total. Among them, the only one recorded as having brought down a summoned Avatar of Anubis single-handedly is you, Mister Cha Geon-mu. And under the adverse conditions of a fully implemented battlefield, at that."
"So going by precedent, since there is no such case, you can guarantee I'll be made S-Grade?"
"Yes."
"That still isn't a reason for me to hide that I passed at A-Grade. Isn't it the sort of thing people trumpet as enhancing national prestige?"
Woo Hyo-jeong brought up the real reason for hiding it.
"Do you know a man called Gwak Min-seo, the Swift Wind Sword?"
It was a name he heard every time A-Grade came up, so he remembered it.
"I've heard the name."
"After his A-Grade assessment, that man was caught up in a number of scandals and there were several occasions when his reputation was nearly ruined."
"Nearly means it stopped at an attempt."
"Yes. He was subjected to staged-injury extortion and false reports dozens of times, attacked so persistently that for a month he never left the newspaper headlines."
"Hmm, that doesn't sound like such a big deal."
Woo Hyo-jeong nodded in agreement.
"Of course, a problem like that we can resolve at our level."
"And so?"
"It has not been made public, but there were some thirty assassination attempts against the Awakened Gwak Min-seo."
"Assassination......."
Woo Hyo-jeong had said it out of concern, but to Geon-mu the situation was interesting.
In any world, there was always a check placed on the strong, and there had always been assassins who came for Geon-mu.
They came with the purpose of harming Geon-mu, but Geon-mu called them something a little different.
Updaters.
They were the ones who either handed over more information or money, or were used as sacrifices so that Geon-mu could test a technique he had been working on.
The assassins who came for Geon-mu had never once escaped that mold.
"You do not seem to like troublesome things happening, Mister Cha Geon-mu, so I am advising you. Your level is currently low, and you have no equipment to speak of, so it would be best to avoid such matters if at all possible."
"Throwing away a grade I've earned isn't very welcome, though."
"Which is why, as I said, it is only a temporary hold. The record will remain as it is."
"A hold......."
Geon-mu appeared to be deliberating, but he had already agreed with her persuasion.
'Level and equipment are the biggest problems, true enough.'
The biggest was equipment above all.
The Swords Bestowed by Kachusa still remained, but he could not go on using them as consumables forever.
"How long is possible?"
"A month at the shortest. A year at the longest."
"A month to a year....... Can I hear the specifics of how you would put it on hold?"
"We simply say that your qualifications are in doubt, Mister Cha Geon-mu. You were injured just now, were you not?"
"I was."
"You sustained what appear to be serious injuries in the third test, and the examination was suspended accordingly. And no one outside the involved parties knows about the third test. Which means no one knows whether you are the loser or the winner. If we simply prevent the information from leaking during that time, no one will know that you are a talent worthy of an A-Grade assessment."
"That's a fairly good idea."
Geon-mu liked Woo Hyo-jeong's plan, and he nodded as he answered.
"All right. I'll put it off as you say."
"Thank you for your cooperation."
Woo Hyo-jeong bowed her head, and the topic was closed.
That was the end of her business.
And yet Woo Hyo-jeong did not leave her seat; she looked at Geon-mu quietly.
The sight of him fighting Anubis was still vivid before her eyes.
The technique that had overwhelmed Anubis.
The thrill carried over from that upheaval wrapped around her body once more.
"Mister Cha Geon-mu, could you reconsider just one more time?"
"Reconsider what?"
"Joining our Awakened Management Bureau."
Even as she let the words out, Woo Hyo-jeong was startled at herself.
Woo Hyo-jeong did not make a second offer to someone who had refused once.
Only then could the relationship between both sides stay comfortable.
And Woo Hyo-jeong, who kept that principle in mind wherever she went, had thrown a proposal at Geon-mu again.
Knowing that, she still offered Geon-mu the contract a second time.
"I answered that last time, didn't I? I like being a free spirit."
Geon-mu's answer, of course, was the same.