Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 54

54. Breaking the Limit (1)

The shimmering haze dissipated, and the scenery before me transformed into vivid, natural colors I hadn’t seen in Hell.

I felt a bit dizzy, but I quickly surveyed my surroundings.

It was a park in broad daylight. It was secluded, but I could see people strolling here and there.

“Damn.”

Fortunately, I seemed to have landed in the bushes without being noticed, but I couldn’t just walk out looking like this.

‘Actually, I’ve been lucky this time, and until now. It’s a relief I didn’t end up in the middle of the street.’

Judging by the unfamiliar park, the spatial deviation seemed quite significant. I brushed off as much dust and grime from Hell as I could and took out my phone from my inventory to check the date.

Eleven days had passed since I went to Hell. Even though my stay was much shorter than before, much more time had passed in the real world.

“…I see.”

I think I roughly understand the rules of time passage now.

The amount of time I ‘lived’ in Hell is the same amount of time that passes in reality. So, the ‘time until the next quest’ announced in Hell also starts only after the same amount of time has passed, whether in Hell or reality.

The time axis is aligned with ‘me being alive’.

It made sense since I was the only one traveling between the present and the future.

I clicked my tongue. Knowing this, I couldn’t just spend time in Hell anymore.

But it was better than not being able to predict the schedule. Either way, the growth efficiency was still much better in Difficulty: Hell than it was here.

‘Time aside, I wish I could do something about the spatial deviation.’

I grumbled as I took out clothes from my inventory and changed. If it rained, I could wash off or wear a raincoat, but it was a damn clear day.

My current appearance was, at best, that of a homeless person.

‘I should call Yumin and have her come this way.’

I tried to check my current location on my phone.

Just then, I saw a large retriever running towards the bushes where I was. The retriever flinched when it saw me and barked loudly.

A woman walking the dog asked, puzzled.

“Maru, what’s wrong? Is something there?”

Her eyes met mine. I thought I should stay calm and explain before she got scared.

But no matter how much I tried to clean myself, my appearance, covered in bloodstains and dust, and not having shaved for days, looked more like a war refugee than a homeless person.

A scream erupted in the quiet park.

***

“Pfft, ha ha ha! So you were mistaken for a pervert?”

“More like… I looked like a character from a zombie movie. The police even came, but I barely managed to escape.”

Yumin couldn’t hold back her laughter and collapsed on the table, giggling.

I loosened the tie around my neck as if it was bothering me. Yumin, who had been laughing for a while, saw my loosened tie and quickly tightened it again.

“It’s uncomfortable.”

“You have to get used to it. You know that, right?”

I was speechless at Yumin’s words.

You get better at fighting monsters by doing it often. If you just hide because it’s comfortable, you won’t make any progress.

Yumin smiled and started cutting the steak in front of her again.

“Still, it’s a good thing. Thanks to this, you even said you wanted to dress up a bit.”

“No… still, how could they mistake me for a zombie just because I didn’t shower? That woman was overreacting.”

I managed to get out of the predicament thanks to contacting Yumin. She secretly picked me up from the edge of the park and drove away. And now, we were at a restaurant in a department store in downtown Seoul.

I, who had been wearing rags, bought a bunch of clothes at the department store that I didn’t even know when or where to wear, got my hair done at a salon that Yumin frequented, and ended up at a restaurant with a clear view of the Seoul skyline.

Yumin, who was watching me cut the steak, opened her mouth.

“You cut it better than I thought, Oppa [term of endearment used by a younger woman to an older man]. I thought I’d have to teach you a lot since it’s your first time eating steak.”

“The technique is all similar.”

I smiled and twirled the knife around. Yumin grabbed my hand.

“Is that what you do at the table, you rude child?”

“Bad child.”

I answered casually and brought the meat to my mouth with a fork. I frowned as I chewed the meat.

“It tastes better than I thought, but I can’t really tell the difference from other meat.”

“Well, that’s accurate. This is an expensive and tasteless restaurant. You’re paying for the view and atmosphere.”

I remembered the price of the steak I had seen on the menu and chuckled.

“Why do you come to a place like this?”

“You have to eat bad things to know what good things are. If you had said you wanted to eat something delicious, I would have taken you to a place that makes it well. There’s a really cheap but decent beef rib place in Nowon [district in Seoul]. But you said you wanted to learn how to spend money. You can’t learn that in a day or two. You have to learn it with your body, little by little.”

Yumin poured wine into my glass. It was a wine that cost twice as much as the combined price of our meals.

I brought the wine to my lips and frowned again.

“Is this also expensive and tasteless wine?”

“No. This is expensive and delicious wine. Wine just doesn’t suit your taste. Everything is education, Oppa. There’s a reason why Mom’s cooking is the best. Your taste buds are used to that, so you have to try to get your taste buds used to unfamiliar things.”

Yumin tilted her wine glass to her lips with a relaxed motion.

I sighed and tried to savor the wine slowly, as Yumin had taught me.

Yumin watched me with amusement before opening her mouth.

“Watching you makes me curious, Oppa. Why do you want to know how to spend money?”

“What do you mean?”

“Usually, if you have money, there are many ways to spend it lavishly. Especially at your age, they say you spend a lot on entertainment. Ah, of course, I’m glad you’re not that type, but I’m curious. An upper-class experience?”

I answered without much thought.

“I lived like a dog, so I should live like a nobleman.”

“Don’t you think it’s pretentious?”

“Pretentious?”

I scoffed.

“Only someone who has done it can point out whether it’s pretentious or not. I don’t think it’s honest to be rude and frivolous without experiencing it. People who do rude things and say they’re just being honest are fools who lack empathy. I can decide on my attitude later.”

Yumin was surprised by my fluent answer.

She was also aware of my ambition and ideals. She knew that I would never be satisfied with the current level.

That’s why she thought I was learning in advance to move up to the upper class someday, but it seemed like I was thinking more deeply than she thought.

“I thought you were admiring aristocratic society.”

“Then I can’t say I don’t have a complex. I learned some things in a rough way. I won’t make the excuse that it’s because I grew up without parents. I’m just rough. Maybe it would have been the same even if I had parents.”

I put another piece of steak in my mouth. Besides cutting, I was perfectly performing the actions and etiquette that Yumin taught me, to the point where she didn’t need to teach me again.

Yumin watched me with a satisfied expression.

“Doesn’t it hurt your pride to be taught etiquette by a younger woman?”

“If there are three people together, there are three teachers [referencing the Korean proverb ‘If three people walk together, one is bound to be my teacher’].”

It seemed like I was trying to give an example of the saying ‘If there are three people, there must be a teacher among them’.

But Yumin didn’t feel like pointing that out. I didn’t think what I said was wrong.

“You’re the best guy I’ve ever met.”

“You’re a graduate student. What kind of people do graduate students meet?”

Yumin made a hurt expression.

“You’re hitting me hard all of a sudden. At least tell me you’re going to hit me before you do.”

“No, wait. Now that I think about it, there are a few strange things. What kind of graduate student has this much time? Where does a graduate student get the time to go to shopping courses or restaurants like this? Shouldn’t graduate students be at school until moss grows on their bodies?”

“I may not look like it, but graduate students are also humans with rights. They just made the wrong choice.”

Yumin glared at me, grumbling.

“And I spend many nights in the lab unless you call me. And… my professor is a bit of a unique person, so my schedule is relatively flexible.”

“If the professor is a unique person, that’s scary, right?”

“You’re wrong. There are no professors who aren’t unique in the world. Anyway, my professor is a bit more unique than most. Enough to send students to industrial complexes as gatherers.”

Yumin sighed.

“Anyway, that’s enough about that. Since we’re talking about the lab, I have the results of the investigation during the period you were missing. It’s about how much mana concentration is left until the rank increase…”

“Ah, that. I was trying to find out, but it was hard to find any information.”

I checked my level with regret. I knew it would be level 20, but I was doing it out of regret.

But I stopped the moment I saw my level. Yumin opened her mouth towards me.

“You don’t have a specific ability rank.”

My level was 26.

***

When I returned home, I could see the papers and materials piled high in the room. It was something I hadn’t noticed when I rushed out earlier.

I could tell that she had been diligently researching while I was gone.

I quickly skimmed through Yumin’s research materials spread out on the desk.

“Oh, Oppa. It’s hard to read because there are a lot of foreign languages.”

But I could read it.

The papers were written in a foreign language, but thanks to the ‘Language Comprehension’ skill, they were quickly translated into Korean and came into view.

I, who had been diligently looking at the papers that had already been completed in Korean, came to one conclusion.

Just because you can read it doesn’t mean you can understand it.

“…There are too many words I don’t know, so I can’t understand it. Keller-Gregory wave? Predation effect? And the ensemble theory of quantum rings and chamber implementation areas?”

“Oh, you can read it?”

“It’s just English.”

But Yumin made an even more suspicious expression.

“There’s French, German, and Russian mixed in?”

“…They all have the alphabet as their origin, so they look similar. Explain what they mean.”

“To understand this, you need to study for 4 years at university and 2 years at graduate school to know the basics. Mana theory has only been around for less than 10 years, so it’s a monster that arbitrarily attaches all sorts of miscellaneous theories…”

“Why is the explanation so long? Is there a summary?”

“I knew you’d say that, so I prepared a summary.”

Yumin quickly flipped through the papers and opened the last page.

There was a black and white photo and a strange chart printed on it.

“What do you think it is?”

“Virus? Bacteria?”

“It’s blood taken from your body last time. What you’re pointing at now is a red blood cell. A lot of mana accumulates near your dantian [energy center in the body, according to traditional Chinese medicine], so a lot of crystals also come out. So, what I’m talking about now is that the crystal is an indicator that allows you to estimate the rank…”

“Just the point.”

“Your crystal is a bit strange.”

Yumin said, pointing to one of the black and white photos.

“It’s a bit of a shady method, but we measure the rank by the shape of the crystal. Crystals have rings like tree rings as mana accumulates. So, the more rings there are, the higher the rank is measured, but you…”

A perfect circle. Nothing more, nothing less. The rings that Yumin was talking about couldn’t be found.

On the other hand, the photos that Yumin brought as other examples were different.

“This is the crystal form of a 2-star ability user, and this is the crystal form of a 3-star ability user. The 2-star is needle-shaped, and the 3-star is triangular, but you can clearly see that the 3-star has more rings. But the crystal you have is a form that has never been found anywhere. Except for one case.”

“One case?”

When I asked, Yumin answered me with a serious expression.

“Just one. Monsters sometimes have this form.”