Episode 121.
“Hello, how about a nice, cold drink before you fight the Dungeon Boss?”
Jung Si-woo remembered seeing the figure who appeared as a burst of a grey cloud out of thin air before.
“Merchant Fairy…Luta?”
“It’s an honor for you to remember me, son-nim! I got to see you sooner than I thought!”
The fairy fluttered its colorful wings simr to that of a tiger butterfly. The constantly shining silver hair and the strange eyes where the ck and white of its eyeball repeated indefinitely were impressive. It was all the same as he’d seen before. But looking at it now, her wings…
“It’s like the yers.”
“Yes, because I’m involved in the Sky Castle and Ant Cave! But I don’t think you know much about it yet, given the fact that you’re confirming it through me, do you?”
“I don’t really like riddles.”
Jung Si-woo made a face like, beyond not liking a riddle, he was going to smash her to pieces if Luta kept acting like a wise guy. Merchant Fairy Luta smiled vaguely and slipped back.
“I’m not trying to tease you, son-nim. We’re always mutually helpful! A happy world where we help each other!”
“Sigh.”
Something didn’t feel right when he was looking at her. Like a sickly feeling that it was a memory that he couldn’t recall even if it were in his head. But Luta didn’t seem to want to say anything more, and unless she had hostile intention against him, he couldn’t do anything wrong to her.
“We were supposed tomunicate with you regrly and give you information, son-nim, but in the meantime, you’ve cleared the dungeons with great strengthpared to the dungeons, so I didn’t have a chance to show up…”
“Do I have to be at a disadvantage for you to show up?”
“That’s ssified!”
ssified, my ass. You’re spilling everything about it. While watching Jung Si-woo pouting, Luta continued with a fidgety expression, making it wonder what got her so happy.
“But fortunately, thanks to your activation of the Ant Cave’s new function, essential information that I had to give you was created, so I was able to reappear like this again. Although I didn’t know, I’d show up in a dungeon like this!”
“New function? You mean this integrated dungeon?”
“Uh, no.”
Luta chuckled.
“There’s nothing you can get out of here. I was talking about the residence area, son-nim!”
“Ah, ah, ah.”
Indeed, Jung Si-woo thought that he roughly had an idea.
“You, could it be that you want to enter the residence area?”
“Bingo! The residential area’s opening has enabled us, Merchant Fairies, to escape from a situation where we wait anxiously for the customers in dungeons and instead visit the customers ourselves! We handle all kinds of materials needed to tend and expand the residence area, like Magic Engineering ingredients that can’t be obtained from ordinary dungeons!”
“And where do thosee from?”
“That’s ssified!”
Jung Si-woo vowed to crush the fairy.
“But it’s really a secret, so I can’t help it! Spare me!”
“Oppa, there may be some restrictions that we don’t know about. Even the Sky Castle and the Ant Cave are full of things we don’t know.”
“Ngh….”
He sighed and turned to Luta.
“It’s the same for me for wanting to do something about the residential area. So? What should I do for you?”
“Please grant me the permission to move in!”
Luta answered quickly. At that moment, a familiar message window came up in front of Jung Si-woo’s eyes.
[Merchant Fairy Luta wishes to move into the residence area. If you ept her, you will be able to reliably trade all the supplies you need in your area and consumables and artifacts you need to proceed with the dungeon through the Merchant Fairies that trade with her.
“Not entering but moving in?”
“Well, it would be better for one individual living in the residential area to support the customers more perfectly! Even if I move in, since I’m a Merchant Fairy, it’s possible to get supplies through other Merchant Fairies!”
“Where are the other Merchant Fairies…alright, you don’t have to tell me.”
It must be confidential. Jung Si-woo nodded, realizing that there were still many things about the Ant Cave and Sky Castle that he didn’t know.
“Okay, I’ll grant your request.”
“Thank you, son-nim! Now I should call you Lord!”
“I don’t need it.”
As if Luta was happy to be granted permission to move in, she spun in ce and yed cute tricks. Jung Si-woo ignored it neatly.
“Then move along now.”
“Before that, I must thank you for allowing me to move in! Here, have a cool drink!”
A drinking cup appeared in the thin air. Jung Si-woo checked it while holding it in his hand. It was the same as the Recovery Potion he received from her before. It was the potion that perfectly restored Strength and Stamina. Jung Si-woo only drank half of it and handed the rest over to Yong Se-ha.
“Hyu-hyung-nim…thank you.”
“Ah, aaaah.”
Soo Ah-rin red at Yong Se-ha with envious eyes. Jung Si-woo smiled bitterly and pulled out some beads, handing them out to Luta.
“Give me another Recovery Potion.”
“Thank you always, son-nim! Oh, but the bead is of high quality, so I’ll only take one!”
“Oh, uh, that’s not what I wanted…I mean, I’d drink it if you would…”
[Master, I want it too.]
“You two can share it.”
Although it wasn’t intended initially, as Caina was reborn as a magical creature and not undead, she was no different from ordinary creatures except for magic power and physiology. Consuming food as possible as well.
“There’s something wrong with this…”
[Don’t grumble, human.]
Soo Ah-rin looked very dissatisfied with the ending that was different from what she had expected. Still, she drank exactly half of her potion anyway. While Caina was drinking the rest of the potion, Jung Si-woo faced Luta, who still seemed to have something to say.
“If it’s that you want to sell Mana Potions, I’m fine. Now I don’t have to replenish my Mana with consumables anymore.”
“I am aware of that, too. Your awakening is so fast that it’s surprising, son-nim! But what I’m trying to sell isn’t just something like a Mana potion. It is one piece of information and an additional good that follows that information!
Information and goods? What a truly suspiciousbination. Jung Si-woo hadn’t even taken the bait yet, and Luta exined additionally as she was excited.
“It’s supposedly a rule that I can’t appear unless you, son-nim, is in danger, but I got to appear in connection with moving in the residential area! Thanks to that, I got to sell information and items that could help you, son-nim! Well, you can thank me!”
“…”
Thinking that it could be that she was diagnosed with a disease that killed her if she didn’t use an exmation mark in a sentence, Jung Si-woo asked reluctantly.
“So, how much is the information fee?”
“I’ll only receive 3,500 beads from imitation monsters below Lv. 200 and 500 beads from Chimera above Lv. 200!”
Had he roamed around other dungeons, he would have pulled out the hammer the moment he heard the trade conditions. Still, Jung Si-woo at the moment had dozens of times as many beads as Luta had just proposed, as he had been crushing the huge dungeon for three weeks.
“Alright, take it.”
“Thank you, son-nim! Then I’ll give you the information. I’m sure it’ll be a very important piece of advice for your future direction!”
“Just talk already.”
Luta coughed, ahem, and opened her mouth.
“So far, son-nim, you have obtained fragments of the god of lightning and the god of undead. Right?”
Jung Si-woo had already assumed that Luta would know that. When he nodded quietly, she spoke even more excitedly.
“And in the process, son-nim, you have instinctively taken a very wise step. You sucked in the power of the thunder god with the object left with the traces of the thunder god and sucked in the god of undead’s power with the essence of the undead. Oh, did you upgrade your skills before that?”
“What’s with that?”
“You should continue to do so.”
“Are those yourst words?”
Jung Si-woo lifted the hammer without hesitation. Luta panicked and quickly continued to exin.
“I actually know, too, that you can digest the power that god’s fragment into your flesh, son-nim!”
“Yes, but why did you say that?”
“But the only thing that grows, as a result, is son-nim’s level and Mana! Your power, son-nim, is so overwhelming that it only digests all that power into yours!”
That was the gist of the Takeover ability. Jung Si-woo had never thought it was bad.
“But level and Mana can be increased just by catching monsters as well. It’s a waste to discard the characteristics of the god’s power, the Unique Ability!”
“Hmm…?”
Luta’s words that resonated then beat Jung Si-woo from two directions.
“So, I wanted to tell you to focus on artifacts and skills that can make the most of the distinctive characteristics when you steal the god’s power as you’ve done until now.”
“No, wait a minute. Did you just mention the Unique Ability?”
“Yes! Every god holds its Unique Ability! The thunder god is lightning, the god of the undead is death and soul! Each has its Unique Ability that enhanced its characteristics!”
Jung Si-woo retracted the hammer again. His gaze lingered in order from the tattoo, which was born from the Soul Force, Caina, the magical creature born as a result of characteristics of a god’s power remaining and loss of control, to the Rage Rifle, which was created by stealing the thunder god’s power as it is. And naturally, he was convinced.
“So that was the result of the Unique Ability, huh.”
He didn’t think that Unique Ability would be a power that every yer had, but it wasn’t expected to be connected to a god. It mustn’t be that the power he holds is of the same as the god, but it was quite baffling.
But that wasn’t what mattered now. It was Luta’s advice.
“Let’s sort it out. If I absorb the power of a god myself, it loses its characteristics and turns to my magic power. So does it mean that once I take ownership of it, I am to save it separately in artifacts or skills and not in my body? Like I did to Caina, and to the Rage Rifle?”
“Bingo!”
Jung Si-woo was shocked after sorting out the situation. This was indeed a piece of advice that was life-changing!
“Lastly, you wanted to tell me not to absorb the power of Metimoa myself, that would be at the end of this dungeon, but to store it in something else!”
“That is right! But you don’t have to limit the subject of applying god’s power to objects. The ce called dungeon holds infinite possibilities; there is also a way to manipte the god’s power using the power that the dungeons hold!”
“Don’t beat around the bush. Just draw to the conclusion.”
“I’ll do that, son-nim!”
Luta took a rolled-up piece of paper out of her arms. The object, which contained an unusual Mana, somehow felt very familiar even though it was the first time he had seen it.
“Son-nim, are you aware of the existence of the altar, which appears in fairly low probability after clearing a dungeon?”
“The altar…? Wait, no way.”
Jung Si-woo’s eyes grew a little bigger. Luta grinned and stuck the paper out to him. The moment his fingertips touched the paper, the name of the consumable was revealed.
[Altar of Reward Transformation Scroll– Altar of Synthesis]
**Trantor’s note: Son-nim refers to the honorifics directly meaning “Customer”.