TNAAS Ch 9

Episode 9

After exploring the village, Yeonwoo had dinner at a nearby restaurant and then returned to the hotel, booking the same room as the previous night. Having been on the move since early morning, he must have been very tired, as the spirits were already lying on the bed, fast asleep.

So far, he had only walked around the village of Firenze, and nothing seemed unusual. The geography had not changed, nor had the names of the shops or the village NPCs. The only difference was this hotel.

He had a feeling that the issue lay either with the Ivant Guild, which ran the hotel, or with its guild master, Rai. Yeonwoo preferred to avoid Rai if possible.

Pushing aside the complicated thoughts for now, Yeonwoo sat down on the living room sofa and opened his inventory, gazing at the materials he had bought in the village. He was not planning to attempt full-scale enhancement yet, but since he wanted to at least try something, he had purchased enough materials for a single piece as a test.

If the enhancement failed badly, the equipment could break, and his only option would be to buy new gear or hope to obtain better equipment in the upcoming raid.

“Since I have to do it anyway, I might as well give it a shot!”

Yeonwoo voiced with all his resolve. He could not raise his voice too much with the children asleep in the room, but his tone was brimming with confidence. It was only natural, as his character had an enhancement success rate nearly twice as high as others, thanks to the extensive enhancement and item crafting he had done. He could fail, but the chance of destruction was extremely low.

Yeonwoo took the enhancement material from his inventory and removed the ring, the easiest piece to attempt. That was when a problem arose.

“But… How am I supposed to enhance this?”

In the game, there had been a separate enhancement window, but now this was the game world itself. Even with the “Transmigrator Buff,” it was too much to expect story guidance or even the most basic instructions in such a harsh reality. He had no idea how to proceed.

As Yeonwoo sat there, groaning with a grave expression, a male voice echoed in his mind.

[SYSTEM. You can enhance equipment by bringing the enhancement material close to it.]

Oh, so this is the so-called transmigrator buff? Delighted that he was finally receiving guidance messages, Yeonwoo followed the words echoing in his head and pressed the material to the ring.

The material turned into light and seeped into the ring. The enhancement seemed complete.

“But how am I supposed to know if the stats changed?”

No sooner had one problem been solved than another appeared. Even if this was a trash game with few benefits for beginners, this level of unfriendliness was absurd.

“Would it kill you to show it all at once? Trash game! Just go bankrupt already and give me my money back!”

As Yeonwoo’s desperate cry of frustration filled the living room, another voice rang in his head, this time sounding noticeably annoyed.

[SYSTEM. The option to view item stats has been added.]

As soon as the voice faded, the ring’s stats appeared before his eyes, just like a game window. It was identical to what he had seen in the game. Yeonwoo, convinced that the loudest customer always won and that even a trash game could not resist persistent complaints, examined the stats with a satisfied look.

Since he had used mid-grade materials, the improvement was not dramatic, but it was decent enough for immediate use. Relieved with the result of his trial run, Yeonwoo slipped the ring back onto his finger.

Excited by the success of his experiment, a question suddenly arose in Yeonwoo’s mind. This game had never featured a system voice explanation before. Even if it was due to the transmigrator buff, it was still fundamentally game-based, so the sudden appearance of something that had not existed was strange.

What was more, it did not sound like a machine voice but carried the depth of a real human voice. The last message had even sounded weary, which only deepened his suspicion into certainty.

“Could this really not be a game at all… Ugh.”

The moment the thought crossed his mind, a sudden headache struck him, as if warning him not to think further. Letting out a short groan from the pain that felt like his head might split open, Yeonwoo collapsed onto the sofa, unable to even sit upright.

It was as though something was blocking his thoughts. Not only did his head ache, but the words in his mind were tangling into a jumbled mess. He wanted to take the strong painkillers he had safely stored back at home, but that was impossible here. Forcing himself to raise his hand, Yeonwoo pulled out a status ailment potion from his inventory and drank it.

This potion was a top-grade one Yeonwoo had personally crafted for fighting the final boss, yet the headache persisted. The more he tried to think or do something, the worse the pain became, until it escalated to the point that he nearly gagged.  

“Help… me… Aah!”

He wanted to live. The pain was so unbearable that he thought his head might literally explode. As the agony clouded his mind and he felt as though he were being pulled into the depths of the ocean, a gust of wind blew in from somewhere, even though all the windows were shut.

“What… Why are you….”

A sharp voice slipped into the room. Someone had entered. Yeonwoo, unable to move even a finger, had no chance to check whether it was an intruder or a staff member. The man who stepped inside hurried over to him with urgent footsteps.

Ah, so this is how I die.

As Yeonwoo resigned himself to death, the only things he saw were black hair and eyes as dark as the night, before his consciousness faded away.

* * *

The next morning, Yeonwoo did not open his eyes until noon. Slowly blinking as he looked around to assess the situation, he suddenly snapped to his senses and shot upright. The abrupt movement brought on a wave of dizziness that darkened his vision, but when he clutched his head and stayed still, his sight gradually returned.

The moment his vision cleared, he was met with the sight of the spirits crying. The three of them clutched the hand supporting his head, tears streaming down their faces as though they were about to faint from sobbing.

[Waaah! Master, you must not die.]

[We are sorry we could not protect you.]

[Sniff, if you die now, we will not even get the insurance payout!]

In the game, there had been a death insurance system. By paying a set premium each day, like a savings plan, a character’s family could receive a payout if the character died… No, wait—you little punk!

Yesterday, he had suffered from a splitting headache so intense he could not think at all, until he eventually lost consciousness. At the very end, he had even seen a man… An incredibly handsome one. It was the first time since entering this world that he had seen such a face.

Since Yeonwoo was still breathing and had been moved from the sofa to the bed, it did not seem that the man had been an intruder. But then who could he have been, sneaking into the top floor so late at night, not through the door but the window? Yeonwoo’s gaze shifted to the wide-open window.

“Did you perhaps heal me?”

The man who had appeared suddenly and vanished just as quickly would be difficult to track down immediately, so Yeonwoo decided it was more important to first dig into what had happened yesterday. Thinking the spirits might know something, he asked them, but when they shook their tear-stained heads, it seemed they did not.

“Why was I in so much pain yesterday…? All I did was try to figure out what this world really is. And that voice, what was that….”

[Master, there really was some strange energy inside your body!]

[That’s right. It was a mana that was completely incompatible with us!]

[Maybe that is what caused the pain?]

Strange energy? Mana that was incompatible? The more he listened, the more it felt like he was sinking into an abyss. He had never even heard of something like “compatibility,” and even if it did exist, then logically, if it was a kind of energy that clashed with spirits…

When he tried to think further, the headache began to pound again, so Yeonwoo grabbed his head and forced himself to stop. He needed to untangle things one at a time. Yesterday, he had been lucky, but if this continued, he really could die.

“Was that the first time you guys saw that kind of energy?”

[I think I might have seen it, but I cannot recall where!]

[Do not try to figure it out in detail! If you do, Master, you really might die!]

To risk his life over a game? This was not even a death game. It was absurd, yet somehow not entirely unbelievable. Silently, Yeonwoo nodded in agreement. He had to stay alive first if he wanted to defeat the final boss and return home.

For now, he set aside his thoughts and prepared to move. It was time to join the scheduled raid.

* * *

After stopping by the lobby to return his key and say goodbye to Rena, Yeonwoo left the hotel. With a solemn expression, as though setting out on a journey to become an XX-mon Master^[1], he took a deep breath and started down the road.

The village he needed to reach was a little distance away, a place called Vieta. Modeled after the Maldives, it offered a wealth of ocean-based content and was beloved by players.

Yeonwoo knew the area well, as his clan had established its base there. The boss he was heading out to fight was one of the lower-tier bosses his clan members used to hunt every day, just to earn some pocket money.

“Let us finish this request quickly and then go on vacation!”

[Vacation!]

[The sea!]

[Seafood!]

As always, once Yeonwoo spoke aloud with energy, the spirits’ voices followed after. Normally, he would not have cared about chatting back with them in public, but today, there were far too many people around. While the NPCs would not mind if he looked like a lunatic, talking to something invisible would surely draw suspicion.

Forcing down the words that had risen to his throat, Yeonwoo approached the village entrance with a bright smile. But as he stood there, Yeonwoo once again faced the same recurring problem.

“But how am I supposed to get there?”

[Let’s walk!]

[Let’s crawl!]

[Let’s swim!]

Normally, he would have used teleportation or a mount, but now he had neither. Thanks to the trash-game developer’s meddling, the Spirit Master class was overpowered yet still lacked teleportation skill.

On top of that, he hadn’t bought any cash items, so he had no mount either. Walking all the way to Vieta would be a grueling task, long enough that he might collapse from muscle rupture before even arriving. It was technically possible if he constantly used buffs and healed himself along the way, but still…

“This is hard! I hate it! It’s annoying!!!”

No buff in the world could overcome sheer laziness. As he stomped the ground in frustration, cursing both the lousy game and his useless alt character, a voice suddenly drifted over. By now, it was a voice he had grown used to hearing. 

“Then would you like to go with me?”