Chapter 33

Change of Plan

“Meow!”

What woke me up early in the morning was the cry of a cat-like creature, otherwise known as the ‘cat.’

The sound came from under the bed, and I just sat there, yet did not react.

Thump!

He jumped up onto the bed, and the sound of four feet walking on the mattress resonated in the room. It came up and sat down with a plump hip next to my pillow.

In that state, it cried loudly again and reclined its neck in protest.

“Meeow!”

I then spoke in a morning voice.

“Wait.”

It cried louder as if responding to me.

“Meoooooow!”

“···Okay.”

He was such a brat.

I got up. I could feel him staring at my back. As I put on my slippers, the cat also leaped out of bed. From then, I pulled out a handful of skill cards from the drawer.

Sitting on the floor, the cat was raising its neck while attentively staring at my hand movements, almost making me worry that its chin would flip to the back. I wouldn’t have had a bone left if it could eat off something with its gaze.

I looked at him again while I was turning over the cards.

“Meoooow!”

The little guy came up to me and brushed its furry body on me as if to tell me not to make him wait. Afterward, it sat down and cried again.

‘Making me hurry, huh.’

I wasn’t taking time for it to be desperate. Beyond it having gained some weight, I was comparing him to his previous state as he had definitely gotten bigger.

“You’re surely larger.”

Perhaps its growth had stopped, since there was no food in the black market. The records then said that it would remain in that size for a few months.

This would be good enough.

I took two of the cards at the bottom of the deck.

[Sword Mastery (Rank: C)]

[Mana Barrier (Rank: C)]

I received the cards before I entered the Okcheon Dungeon.

Even though I had [Replica], it was only right that I should be equipped with basic skills, so the supply team prepared it.

All four skill slots were not filled all at once, because the items that expanded or overwrote the slots were expensive. If one got too high-ranked skills from the start, it would be exhausting to keep up with the Mana usage, and if one were to get too low of a rank, you had to replace it quickly, so they had prepared only two cards of a reasonable level.

However, I didn’t mean to fill in the slot with these.

When I received the card, I had this thought in my mind.

‘That’s great. I’ll use them to feed the cat later.’

I thought it would have to wait a bit more to digest this card’s level but seeing it now; I could at least feed him a C-ranked one.

Having made up my mind, I activated the [Mana Barrier (Rank: C)] card first. The card had become a powder of light and disappeared, and only the crystallized Mana remained on the spot.

At that moment…

“···”

The eyes of the cat widened to a circle. His nostrils twitched, then his reactions that followed were very intense.

“Meooooow! Meooooooooow!”

As if it was telling me to give it to him right away, he rubbed his body on my calves and covered my ankles with his tail.

“You do know what’s good for you. Did you call dibs on it?”

I reached out to lay down the Mana crystal in front of the cat. I thought that it would eat it if I put it in his feeding bowl as usual.

But then…

Ra-ta-ta!

He must have been in a rush; he did not wait for me to put it down, but instead placed its mouth in my hands to eat hurriedly.

It was his first time eating something directly in my hand. After he finished his meal quickly…

“Grrrr!”

The cat opened its eyes slightly as if he was satisfied. He lay on the bottom of the carpet with a throbbing sound, showing his belly before beginning to roll.

Compared to how he was wary of me at first, he had undergone a considerable change of attitude.

“There’s no business in front of food.”

Whether it was a snake or a cat.

“But, I think you still need to grow up.”

The ability of Iponia was not limited to eating the skills just drawn from the skill card and making crystals out of it. They also consumed already activated skills that had been maintained for a long time.

I had no choice but to rely on the cat unless I had my own skill that could invalidate all other skills.

“Do you want to test the waters? If you can eat it?”

The curse’s energy that was once wholly asleep would reappear following my lead after the Okcheon dungeon incident.

However, each time it surfaced, it was beaten hard by [The Successor’s Eyes] and hid back into the core.

I tried moving the Mana quietly. I reproduced the wave that occurred when the thing in my core penetrated the curse of Park Chang-hee.

What I saw then was a red Mana, and what I was moving now was a blue Mana. Therefore, even if I were to move it like this, there was no activation of new curses or creation of new tentacles.

However, the guy in the core had reacted to this. Like a squid that mistook the light for a full moon, it was attracted to it, rising up to the shallow water.

‘Geeeeek!’

Red energy began to spread out of my heart.

“····”

The cat, who lay around in satisfaction, suddenly got on his feet.

“How is it? Do you want to taste a…”

Ra-ta-ta!

I couldn’t finish my sentence.

I apologized to the cat, who immediately went under the bed after a long time, staring at my chest with a wary eye.

“Okay, I’m sorry. We still have a long way to go.”

As I felt the red tentacles exploring outside the core hide again as [The Successor’s Eyes] suppressed it, I sighed.

I then sat on the chair, recalling the thoughts I arranged in my mind until I fell asleep last night. I couldn’t fall asleep easily after Han-seol dropped by yesterday. Her words lingered around my ears.

‘Jin-wook, my unique skill is called [Prophecy].’

She gave a strange answer to my question about my future 40 years later, saying Seo Jin-wook was alive until then.

‘Maybe it’s a lie, and maybe it’s because the future hasn’t changed yet. Anyway, it’s clear that Han-seol has a way to get information about the future.’

Otherwise, she couldn’t immediately conclude that ‘someone who knows the future has intervened’ in Park Chang-hee’s incident.

Of course, that wasn’t because of [Prophecy] but me intentionally changing the history.

Seo Jin-wook might have held out in his previous life by being against going to the dungeon with Park Chang-hee. Perhaps that was why he lived for another year.

‘It can’t be a coincidence that she mentioned the name of the skill [Prophecy].’

What was the relationship between Han-seol and Angelica Heard? The more I thought about it, the more I narrowed it down to two things.

Hypothesis 1. The two were the same person.

Hypothesis 2. The two were independent characters, but were related. Angelica Heard had colluded with Han-seol or had used Han-seol.

‘Whatever the truth of the two is, the curse remains questioned. It may not be moving alone. No, I’m almost sure.’

A person must be a regressor like me to have more than one unique skill.

I thought about the hypothesis, that there were no traces of Angelica because it evaporated like that of Choi Seung-hyun, and that Han-seol in this life was indeed a regressionist. I soon erased it from my head.

If Angelica had returned to this era, she would have made many more changes than I, thanks to her unique skills. If the goal was still to ‘secure the egg of Dimensional Bird,’ there was still too much room to reach out with her past life memories. In other words, there should be a change in history that was not registered in me, but I hadn’t seen any so far.

‘Whatever the hypothesis is, I need to speed up the execution of the plan.‘

The situation had become urgent because, contrary to my first guess, I was not the only victim who was cursed.

I had no idea how far the curse had spread in the guild, and if I were to leave it as is, the number of hosts would increase, possibly strangling my neck.

For me, who knew the future, my previous life’s death wouldn’t be repeated the same, but the possibility of threatening me in a different method was indeed high.

Now that it had come to this point, should I abandon the Celestial Dragon whose existence value was uncertain, as protection?

It was enough to leave it as my last move. To prevent the collapse of SSS-rated dungeons, it was better to have a foothold called Celestial Dragon.

‘To put it into action faster, I have to get stronger even faster.’

Unlike the external data that Han-seol was an A-Class hunter, She was someone much stronger than Seo Gyu-cheol in reality.

So far, I worked hard on the undisclosed dungeon to absorb Mana cores, but it was still not enough. In fact, there were other ways to reinforce the power other than Mana Drain.

‘One is to increase the number of trusted colleagues.’

The prodigies and the members of my past life. I could not stick to the original plan to prepare for the price they would want and scout at the best timing to bring them in.

I would advance the timing, even if it was too much.

‘And the other one.’

Through collecting legendary items that had shocked the future Hunter society, surpassing what had been known so far. Faster than planned, and taking the risk.

However, it was not as simple as it sounded. This was because both methods were…

‘Not possible by being only in South Korea.’

First of all, I needed to travel to another country.

*

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long. I am Director Oh Jin-hwa. I’ll take you inside.”

I headed to the black market in Incheon after a long time.

I was wearing a mask slime that depicted a different face than before. The one that welcomed me this time was a woman Hunter named Oh Jin-hwa again.

‘I guess the last time she said about us being a special guest wasn’t because she recognized me but rather just a formality.’

I rejected her offer to be guided to an internal warehouse.

Last time, I pretended to look around to get items at low prices that were not properly valued, but I didn’t need to do that today.

“I hope to both sell and buy. There is a list of items I want to buy. I don’t think I’ll have to look around paying my deposit several times.”

Deposits paid in stages were the same as paying the price to open the Black Market inventory. When I said that I would skip it, Director Oh Jin-hwa gladly nodded.

“Would you like to sell first?”

“Buy first.”

“I see.”

I didn’t have to sell my stuff first and raise the available budget expectable on their end. Instead, I said the first thing I needed.

“I need an Awakening stone. Do you have it?”

The sale of an Awakening Stone was only possible through government intervention.

However, the state didn’t apply the margin or set the value, but it was just an expression of the state’s determination to thoroughly identify sellers and buyers.

They intended to minimize the creation of hunters outside the country’s control by letting the Awakening Stone flow to the wrong places.

However, not everything in the world could be controlled within the boundaries of the law.

“Yes, there is.”

I received an immediate reply with a calm smile.

Here it was, an Awakening Stone sold outside the country’s surveillance network.

“How much are the ones from an F-level dungeon?”

Director Oh Jin-hwa spoke politely yet persuasively. “Many hunters have told us from their experience that using the Awakening Stone from a high-grade dungeon will increase the potential Mana and the chances of becoming a Hunter with excellent specifications. In fact, many customers prefer items from high-end dungeons. Pardon me, but if you tell me your budget, I’ll recommend the appropriate Awakening Stone…”

The willingness to shake off more money was fantastic, but I was not gullible.

“Is it scientifically proven?”

“Unfortunately, that’s…”

“That’s enough. Just give me an F-grade.”

It was one of the superstitions of this age. Just as there was a higher chance that useful items would come out from high-grade dungeons, the Awakening stones’ quality would change.

Of course, it was not true. The only factor that influenced a hunter’s specifications was his potential Mana and talent. The Awakening Stone was only the key to give such opportunities, and the effects were practically the same as those from any other dungeon.

Director Oh Jin-hwa did not cheat. Nothing had been proven yet. I was just explaining that conventional ideas were indeed like that. Psychologically, it made people become all ears.

“The price is···”

What she offered was a total of 10.1 billion won.

It reminded me of a thesis that I had read in my previous life. The page went over in my head: article 7, Graph 15. Awakening Stone price trend graph according to the period. A picture appeared in my head – 2035-2040, F-level dungeon source, average market price: 62.7 billion.

‘What an expensive time.’

The price given by Director Oh Jin-hwa had added a premium that it was out of government surveillance.

“Did you purposely call on 10.1 billion to give a discount of 0.1 billion?”

“No, it’s because I’m discounting 0.9 billion from 11 billion won.”

What the heck!

Director Oh Jin-hwa spoke without even changing a facial muscle as she flicked off my words.

Either way, it was an item that I couldn’t get unless it was the black market, and the opponent knew so, and the value of the item was certain.

And with this, I gave up the bargain.

“I’ll buy it. The deposit can wait until my sale is completed, right?

“Of course, sir.”

I told the next item immediately. “Next, do you have Pezzotto’s coffin?”

“Of course. If you buy a single coffin, you buy for 7.2 billion won, and if you buy the package with the ‘identity,’ you can get it for 7.5 billion won.”

“The package, please.”

“Yes, I’ll get it ready.”

And then…

“And, by any chance, are Mana cores available?”

“···”

When asked if I could buy a Mana core, Director Oh Jin-hwa gave a brief silence.

Then, she spoke, all without removing the gentle smile from her mouth.

“I’m sorry. We don’t handle those.”

Of course, I had no business buying a core with my money. I was just testing the water for now.

There was a black market side that handled a Mana core, and one which didn’t. Here was the latter.

That meant there was a 99% chance that they were connected to someone I knew. At least, now in 2038.

Even if I remembered all sorts of things through [The Successor’s Eyes], I had no choice but to face things myself to check the information that was not passed onto the future.

Fortunately, Oh Jin-hwa’s answer met my expectations.

“Well… that’s it for the items.”

“Do you want to go to the sale?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. You do sell information other than goods here, right? Information-wise, they say this place is better than Tokyo.”

It was a few years ago that Tokyo and Incheon turned their ranks around in the information market. I knew because I had already talked to someone from the market in Tokyo in the future.

Director Oh Jin-hwa’s eyes painted two pairs of crescent moons that went beyond the glasses.

“…There aren’t many customers that know those. It seems like I have a very special guest today.”

The way she talked was still calm, but I could still read a little agitation from her eyes.

I asked a question right away.

“I’d like to know how to contact the Black Market in the U.S.”

The light of tension disappeared from her eyes once more.

“You’ve bought a lot today, so I’ll give you this much information for free. As you know, there isn’t only one American market. If you would please specify to me which one you need, Cupertino or Jersey City or Chicago…”

“I need a contact in the D.C. area.”

The moment my words came out…

For the first time, the smile disappeared from Director Oh Jin-hwa’s mouth.