Chapter 3: Fire Spirit(2).
Seo Eunha looked at the class name stuck on her status window.
[Class: Elementalist]
Just from the name it sounded pretty decent.
A class where you only watched from the back, giving orders to the spirits you summoned, or occasionally overcoming trials to command high-ranking spirits.
Since this was reality where lives were on the line and not a game, it was understandable why the female leads in romance fantasy novels favored Elementalists—it was a comfortable and attractive job that didn’t require you to fight while spraying blood yourself.
But the real-world Elementalist was just useless class number one.
‘You can’t use a single skill if you don’t have a spirit? Are you kidding me?’
That’s right.
An Elementalist was a conditional class that could only display its abilities when it had a ‘spirit’.
It was obvious.
An Elementalist without a spirit?
That was even more useless baggage than a swordsman without a sword or a mage without a staff.
Out of a faint hope, Seo Eunha tried activating a skill toward the empty air.
[Skill: Elemental Summoning]
-Beep!
[There is no spirit that can be summoned.]
“Ah, fcking useless class.”
The problem was that those damn spirits only showed even a glimpse of their faces past the 50th floor of the Tower.
There was no way a low-level newbie who had just awakened and was still crawling around the first floor would have a spirit.
In the end, the current Seo Eunha was being treated as little more than a slightly sturdy ordinary person.
“Haa… This is my fate. Everyone else is shooting fire or swinging sword energy, so why am I…”
She was rolling around on the bed lamenting her situation when.
-Vrrr. Vrrr.
Her smartphone vibrated briefly.
When she checked the screen, Eunha’s brow furrowed.
[Sender: Ascender Gallery Admin]
The administrator of the Tower Ascender Gallery. The one commonly called ‘Juddak’.
He was also an acquaintance she had coincidentally met at an information exchange early after awakening and had maintained a strange friendship with until now.
– Juddak: Hey, did you see the gallery?
Eunha typed irritably.
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAndSwordsmenMagesArchersThieves: I’m on my period so don’t talk to me.
– Juddak: (Link)
– Juddak: Just go in and check this out once ㅋㅋ
Eunha clicked her tongue and pressed the link Juddak had sent.
It was an action based on the belief that even so, he wasn’t the type to send a virus link to an acquaintance.
Well, more than that, the bigger reason was that she herself right now was a penniless person with not even a single bean to scrape off.
What appeared on the screen was the best concept post list of the Ascender Gallery.
[Kyaaa!!!! My wife has finally arrived!!!]
[Is this texture for real? It really feels like a person?]
[From now on I will regard anyone who insults my master craftsman as my enemy]
[All the figures and dolls that have come out so far are trash if they’re ordinary, massive recommendation ㅋㅋ]
“……What is this? Did you send the wrong gallery?”
But even after checking again it was the Ascender Gallery.
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: Why is it like this here?
– Juddak: ㅋㅋ
From the perspective of the administrator Juddak, it was understandable that he would have a headache.
A gallery that was supposed to share information related to climbing had been completely swallowed by a sudden custom figure order bait.
The easiest solution was simple.
He could just post a notice saying ‘From now on, if you write figure-related posts that don’t fit the gallery’s nature, you will be blocked,’ and ban any user who violated it.
But Juddak’s disposition was far from that kind of dictatorial management.
He preferred to intervene with users as little as possible and pursue a natural flow—generously speaking it was laissez-faire, and ungenerously speaking it was laziness.
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: So what do you want me to do?
– Juddak: Just look at this too
– Juddak: (Link)
A new link arrived.
Eunha, who clicked it without much thought, jumped up from the bed.
[Adopting out a spirit]
Author: Mokinseoksim
“A, a spirit…? You’re selling a spirit!?”
Eunha’s pupils caused an earthquake.
But soon the swirling light in her eyes sank coldly.
It was nonsense.
Even fragments or byproducts related to spirits fetched hundreds of billions at auction houses, yet someone was posting an adoption post for the spirit itself on this trashy community?
It was clearly the scheme of an empty-headed aspiring scammer.
But she couldn’t completely hide the expectation rising in one corner of her heart, so Eunha forced her trembling hands to calm down and typed.
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: Not a lie? ㅋㅋ
– Juddak: I contacted them separately, you know?
-Gulp.
Dry saliva went down on its own from the tension.
– Juddak: They sent what they claimed was a verification photo, but I’ve never seen a real spirit so I don’t know if it’s genuine or fake?
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: ?
“Ah fck. I got my hopes up for nothing.”
– Juddak: So even I don’t know if it’s real or fake.
– Juddak: That’s why I’m saying this, you take the lead and contact them once.
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: What? Me?
– Juddak: Yeah. You’re an Elementalist. Probe them and if it’s a scam, you write a hit piece on the gallery. Then I’ll use that as justification to cleanly ban them and clean up the gallery.
– Juddak: If by any chance… it’s a real genuine spirit, then you get the spirit you’ve wanted so badly and skyrocket. While you’re at it, post a review on the gallery too ㅎㅎ Then the figure bait will naturally get buried. How about it, perfect right?
Eunha was speechless.
“Is this guy crazy for real…”
Curses slipped out, but Eunha’s gaze remained fixed on the smartphone screen and refused to leave.
‘If it’s real… if that is a real spirit?’
The humiliations of being treated like an unemployed jobless person and getting roasted on the party recruitment board until now flashed past like a lantern.
Eunha moistened her parched lips.
I blankly stared at the ceiling of my room corner.
It had already been a week since I uploaded that adoption post on the Ascender Gallery.
A lot of things had happened in the meantime.
Pet, unable to endure the pouring volume of orders, had declared a strike,
tried to pack its bags with those short arms and legs and run away from home,
and I had to soothe and coax the little one with tearful as-kissing, promising that later when I had spare nutrients I would lay out plastic subordinates for it.
In the end, using my Ascender certification, I even completed official business registration under the company name ‘PlaPet’.
Anyway.
“Haa… Should I just give up on the spirit business (which hasn’t even started yet)?”
Figure orders were exploding, but not a single useful contact related to my main product, the spirit, had come in.
At least the gallery administrator named Juddak had boldly claimed he would probe a spirit mage he knew, but there had been no news at all so far.
“Should I just use the money Pet earns to buy nutrients…”
In fact, if things continued like this, the minimum food, clothing, and shelter—no, the monthly food expenses of five million won—could be resolved with certainty.
Because the household handicraft ability of Pet, the actual head of our household, was that outstanding.
At this pace, earning hundreds of millions per month wasn’t even a dream.
Even now I felt a slight pang of conscience as I recalled Pet’s small back in the corner of the living room, having become a ‘spirit that carves plastic’.
“Still, 120 hours of labor a week was a bit much, wasn’t it…?”
-Ding!
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAndSwordsmenMagesArchersThieves: Hello? I was introduced by the Ascender Gallery admin!
Speak of the tiger and it appears. At last the customer I had been waiting and waiting for had arrived.
– Mokinseoksim: Yes, hello ㅎㅎ
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: Are you the person who wrote the post about adopting out a spirit on the gallery?
– Mokinseoksim: Yes, that’s correct.
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: (…)
The conversation cut off abruptly.
I could vividly feel the other party agonizing enormously beyond the screen.
How should I put it…
It seemed like the desire to shout ‘You scammer bstard! Confess your crimes!’ and the desperate hope of ‘What if this is a person who really intends to sell a spirit?’ were colliding fiercely.
Eventually the other party, having made a decision after deliberation, sent a chat.
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: Would it be possible to meet in person and check the spirit?
– Mokinseoksim: That would be a bit difficult ㅎㅎ
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: (…)
Because of the World Tree trait, going outside the house was no different from a suicide act that consumed extreme stamina, so I refused.
However, from the other party’s perspective it would obviously look different.
‘Ah! This fcking b*stard is definitely a scammer!’
The smell of all kinds of creative six-letter curses, family insults, and deceased-person mockery wafted strongly.
That (…) killing intent was pouring out through the screen.
Before the situation could turn into one where I would have to report for factual defamation, I quickly typed.
– Mokinseoksim: Ah, then how about you receive the spirit first and decide afterward?
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: (…)
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…:
The chat the other party had been writing was completely erased.
It seemed to have taken about ten seconds just to delete it by pressing backspace, and I couldn’t even imagine how long and profound the words contained inside must have been.
I didn’t even want to imagine it.
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: …Is it okay to do it that way?
– Mokinseoksim: Yes. It’s like a kind of trial version. I’ll lend you the spirit at your place for about a week, so try it out yourself and then decide whether to pay the cost.
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: Then roughly how much would the price be…
“Hmm…”
Come to think of it, I hadn’t decided the most important thing—the price.
I had only been thinking about the nutrients to fill my empty stomach right away, so I hadn’t set a concrete unit price.
These days it was an era where even adopting a common cat cost money.
Much less handing over a spirit with insane cost-effectiveness that didn’t eat feed, didn’t poop or pee, and could even use powerful supernatural abilities for a cheap price made no sense.
I casually searched the adoption prices of premium cat breeds on my smartphone.
“Crazy. It’s five million won?”
In that case my spirit deserved to receive at least in the hundreds of millions.
But I casually scanned the top of the chat window.
[WhyDidGodMakeMeAndSwordsmenMagesArchersThieves]
At a glance it was a penniless dirt-poor beggar.
“Tsk…”
If I called for a deposit here, they would definitely freak out and run away.
I decided to decide this later.
– Mokinseoksim: I’ll tell you the price when you purchase it after one week ㅎㅎ
– WhyDidGodMakeMeAnd…: Ah, yes… I understand.
In a capitalist society, the market for selling common goods has the consumer as the superior.
But if it’s a monopoly item that is the only one in the world, the story is different.
In other words, I as the seller was the unconditional superior.
I confidently received the other party’s address.
But once I actually received the address, one problem arose.
“Uh… how do I send this?”
Calling a quick delivery was out of the question because there was no way they would accept a living fireball (?).
After deep consideration, I brought a box that had been rolling around in the room corner, lined the inside with bubble wrap and vinyl foil, and began packing the fire spirit tightly.
‘Well, sending it by regular parcel should be fine, right?’
For reference, the fire spirit was currently in a dormant state.
When it had woken up once earlier, I had told it that I was going to send it to another house for adoption, and it had cried so sorrowfully that it tried to burn the floor, so I had put it back to sleep.
“Ah right. I need to poke air holes.”
-Poke! Poke!
It might be fine since it was a spirit, but since it was a ‘fire’ spirit, you never know.
Fire needs oxygen, after all.
I was this meticulous.