Free Web NovelI took Do Yehyun and headed for the nearest hunter market. Sitting in the passenger seat, he spoke with a slightly excited look.
“Do you have a market you use often, hyung?”
“Well... something decent?”
I hadn’t been able to go back to the really useful night market even once since that day. The operator there happened to be Im Haekyung, so there was no helping it.
I pulled up in front of a hunter artifact specialty shop nearby and asked,
“Did you get paid out?”
“Yes.”
Time really flies. Well, since Do Yehhun was working as a healer, he got money every run, even leaving aside the byproducts and incentives; the per-run payments kept hitting his account.
“It’s not 12 billion won, but I can ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) probably buy you whatever you want, right?”
“What I want is 12 billion.”
“...”
Do Yehyun went quiet again. If you’ve got money you can buy whatever you want, so what’s the point? I snorted, opened the door, and got out.
“You’ll be able to earn quite a lot going forward—”
“Enough. What are we here to buy today? What do you want?”
I looked him over from head to toe, eyeballing the gear he’d need.
“Healer, so rather than buying offensive artifacts, it’s better to buy multiple sets of armor. He does have Poison-Cures-Poison... but for now even just practicing healing isn’t enough. And he should pick up some mana recovery potions.”
At SH he mostly wore the issued mobility suit during training. Same elsewhere, probably—but the suit hugged the body tight so the clothes wouldn’t snag while training.
So there were no pockets; you fixed a space-saving box or pouch with a garter at the thigh or waist and wore it like that.
“Even if you’ve got a space-saving box... for quick draw, lighter is better?”
While I was sunk in that question, Do Yehyun spoke in a clear voice like he already had something in mind.
“I want to buy items related to mana amplification. I want to activate a skill on multiple people at once, not just one.”
“Mhm, good.”
With “Surging Wave,” that was absolutely doable for him. When I nodded, he seemed to gain confidence and continued right away.
“I also want to buy one offensive item...”
“Offense?”
“Yes.”
“Armor would be better.”
I gave him serious advice, and he nodded. But what came back wasn’t agreement—it was a small rebuttal.
“I’ll buy armor too. But among offensive items, I think an AoE that affects the surroundings wholesale wouldn’t be bad.”
“Area items can’t be finely controlled. You could get fucked.”
“I can just heal myself.”
Having said that, he stared right at me.
“Deal damage all around in every direction and keep healing yourself alone to tank it, huh...”
In short, he was saying he’d endure while doing a bit of self-harm. I looked at him for a moment and tipped my chin.
“If you want it, buy it. Something poison-related or fire-related would be good.”
“Okay, then...”
Anyway, why was he suddenly so greedy about gear? Half ignoring whatever he was saying, I trailed after him at an easy pace.
After a simple check of our hunter IDs and guild affiliation, we were allowed to browse the in-house shops. Since I intended to prioritize getting him what he wanted, I let him do as he pleased.
The first place he headed was a store that sold artifacts processed from magic stones.
“Hello.”
“Yes, hello. What are you looking for?”
“Uh... related to mana amplification...”
“Ah, yes, yes.”
I left him to chat with the clerk and looked over the shop’s wares myself.
“Hm. This’ll do.”
4 Element Tattoo Device (A)
You can use the four elements tattooed on your body once as if they were your own skills.
Offense — Fire
Defense — Water, Earth, Air.
One offensive skill use and three defensive skill uses—definitely useful. I lifted my head to find a clerk.
“Excuse me.”
“Yes, one moment!”
By then, he’d already finished a purchase and had something in his hands.
“An item using a mana amplification stone.”
That should fit the original purpose. I held out the artifact to the clerk and asked them to ring it up.
“Please ring this up.”
“Yes, please wait just a moment.”
While the clerk took the artifact for a moment to process the purchase, I exchanged a few words with Do Yehyun.
“Did you get what you wanted?”
“Yes. But I’m not sure if it’ll be useful.”
“Is it in glove form?”
“No. A wrist guard.”
“Try it, and if not, we can have it reworked. It’s made from a magic stone anyway.”
Just then, the clerk finished ringing it up and handed the artifact back in its case. I took it and jerked my chin at Do Yehyun, who was staring at me.
“What?”
“What did you buy, hyung?”
“A tattoo device.”
“A... tattoo device?”
“Yup.”
Instead of answering the bewildered look on his face, I flicked my eyebrows.
“Not looking at anything else?”
“Ah, no. I’ll look more.”
So he went around to several shops and bought potions and a few pieces of necessary gear.
He’d come in with one goal—buy an AoE offensive item—and turned the place upside down for ages, but it seemed nothing hit exactly right.
As we left a shop, he muttered in a disappointed voice,
“They didn’t have what I wanted.”
“Well, you’ve got to stop by regularly. Check other places too.”
I gave him a half-assed answer as we headed for the car—he was acting like it was only natural to get full on the first bite. I’d been running my fucking ass off from shop to shop without finding the gear I wanted; where did a guy on his first shopping trip get off expecting to find exactly what he wanted right away?
Besides, a lot of artifacts were single items rather than mass-produced, so finding exactly what you wanted was even harder.
“And if you want price sanity on top of that, it gets worse.”
The moment we got in the car, he suddenly held out a shopping bag to me.
“What’s this?”
What, you want me to carry it?
But with an awkward expression, he spoke clearly.
“Potions. Better than the ones we use at SH...”
I opened the bag and carefully checked the contents. Earlier I’d wondered why a guy who already had a heal skill was buying so many potions so diligently, but it looked like he’d planned this from the start.
It wasn’t just a single potion he handed me; it was a bunch of different kinds. From mana recovery potions to wound treatment potions.
“I was going to stock up on potions anyway. Nice.”
I took the shopping bag and set it on the back seat, then asked,
“Why give this to me? You’re not going to use them?”
“I don’t need them.”
“You’ll need mana recovery potions.”
“Even so... I wanted to give them to you, hyung.”
He looked pretty resolute when he said that. As far as gifts from him went, it was very useful, so I was satisfied. If someone’s giving you something and you don’t take it, that’s just a loss. freёwebnovel.com
“Thanks. I’ll use them well. Thanks to the potions I can stop being a fucking scrub for a bit.”
“...”
Of course, I had something to give too. I hadn’t expected this to turn into an exchange of gifts.
I reached out, took his wrist, and slid my fingers under the wrist-guard item he’d put on as soon as he bought it.
“Uh...”
“I’m just taking it off for a second.”
I slipped off his wrist guard, then, one-handed, took out the artifact I’d bought and brought it close.
“Hyung.”
“I was the one planning to give the gift.”
“...”
“It’s a tattoo device. You put a pattern on your body, then if you infuse mana into your hand and erase the pattern, you get a skill related to that pattern for a short time. One-time use. The tattoo gets erased after use too.”
After the short explanation, I got the tattoo ready. I’d had zero interest in tattoos or piercings, and at some point I’d ended up doing all sorts of things.
“If I lose my job later, I should open a piercing shop.”
With that pointless thought, I aimed the device at his wrist. It wasn’t an actual tattoo gun; it stamped a pattern like a stamp, so operation was simple.
I grinned and met his eyes.
“If it hurts, scream.”
“...”
For the record, there wouldn’t be any pain. It didn’t make a wound to begin with.
Click. With a sound like a seal being stamped, a pattern appeared on his wrist. Fire, water, earth, and wind, each about the size of my index fingernail, circled his wrist in a neat row.
Having no more use for the tattoo device, I tossed it into the back seat, then fitted his wrist guard back over it.
“Use it when it’s really dangerous. Keep it covered otherwise.”
“...Why?”
“Fire is offense. Use the rest for defense... and the self-harm blackmail item you wanted—think it over one more time.”
Honestly, it wasn’t a bad idea, but it wasn’t exactly wise for a guy who’d hardly fought a few times to set his pain threshold too high by himself.
Feeling his eyes following me, I started the car.
Right—do things efficiently and you develop a feel for it.
And it wasn’t quite the same vein, but going out shopping with him had reminded me of something I wanted to try. I’d thought of a way to apply a skill well.
“Will it work in actual combat?”
Of course, you only know once you try.
***
A week later, while I was working hard at training as usual, the training room door burst open and a familiar person appeared.
“Guild Master.”
“Jehyun, hi.”
“Hello.”
Guild Master Song Hwayoung greeted me with a smile.
“You practically live in the training room these days. Is the training not too hard?”
“It’s not easy, but compared to the beginning, it’s manageable now.”
I’d been experimenting with a new way of tuning skills, and it had gone better than expected. Compared to a week ago, it was beyond what I’d hoped.
Nodding at my words, Song Hwayoung got to the point.
“Then can we talk for a bit? I’ve got something to discuss about work.”
What is it? If she wanted an appraisal, she’d have said it right here, so calling me out separately probably wasn’t that.
I nodded and obediently followed her out of the training room.
