Chapter 5 : Adventure Level 1 (5)

“Did it come out okay?”
Do Yugeon asked with a flushed face.
“No.”
I opened the smartphone gallery and showed him the photos.
All the pictures were stained with rainbow colors.
Apparently, photos don’t come out properly in this white space.
I recall seeing rumors like that online.
“Give it here.”
He took the smartphone and suggested checking the video recording too, then pointed it at me.
“Is it recording?”
“It’s all colorful. Is yours the only one acting weird?”
He returned the phone and took out his own smartphone.

Turning away from Do Yugeon, I surveyed the white space.
I couldn’t tell if this was inside a building or just a space.
There were no windows or lights, yet it was bright.
With this level of fantasy, it might just be a space rather than a building.
“It’s not recording.”
Do Yugeon seemed to have stopped recording and put his phone in his pocket.
Then he pointed the sword he held toward me and waved it around.
“Alright, you pick a weapon too.”
“What are you doing? That’s dangerous.”
He lowered the sword.
“Ah, sorry. Anyway, hurry up and pick.”

Looking at the shelf he pointed to, I saw various weapons.
They shone sharply, looking real.
I wasn’t very interested.
Suddenly feeling something strange, I glanced at the shelf and spotted a book.
What’s this?
“It’s a book?”
“Oh! It must be a spellbook, obviously.”
A plausible guess.
I picked it up.
The book was hardcover, with fantasy-like symbols etched on the cover.
It was as if it were declaring, This is what a spellbook looks like.
Rubbing the cover, it felt smooth, slightly rough, and hard.
Nice.
Even if it wasn’t a spellbook, it’d look great on a bookshelf.
Though my senses reacting confirms it is a spellbook.

Feeling slightly excited, I took a breath and opened the first page.
It was blank.
The first page is usually blank.
I kept flipping.
Still blank pages.
Beside me, Do Yugeon chuckled.
“Wow. It really is a spellbook. Can’t see anything.”
“It’s more like a notebook than a spellbook. But the design is nice.”
I have plenty of notebooks like this at home.
“Huh? No, that’s not it—I mean I literally can’t see any content. Is it blank?”
He didn’t look like he was joking.
In that case, does this spellbook have magic or some futuristic science applied to it?
Concentrating my senses, I felt something arranged like a magic circle throughout the entire book.
It’s more likely to be magic.

“What? What is it?”
He asked, perhaps noticing the concentration on my face.
“Shh.”
I closed my eyes and focused on the book.
The energy enveloping it must be mana.
Somehow, it felt like I could move it if I decided to.
“Wow. Now I see it. It really is blank.”
It worked.
I returned the mana I’d moved back to where it was.
He said he couldn’t see it again.
I shifted my focus from the book to my surroundings.
I could feel the mana present in the world, albeit very faintly.
It was something I’d missed until now.
Once aware, I could clearly perceive it.
I opened my eyes.
“Amazing. I can feel the world’s mana.”

“Really? Let me try.”
“Close your eyes and feel.”
I examined the spellbook again.
Still blank.
There was no sense of mana either; it really was just blank paper.
Does it mean I should use it as a notebook?
If I write down the magic knowledge I learn from now on, this notebook might indeed become a spellbook.
I closed the book and idly rubbed the cover again.
It felt nice.
Beside me, Do Yugeon had his eyes closed.
“Feel anything?”
“Umm.”
Shortly after, he opened his eyes.
“How was it? Amazing, right?”
“Is this mana right now?”
He waved his arm through the air.
“Mana exists, but what you’re waving through is air.”
“Right? I don’t feel any mana.”
“You don’t feel it?”
“Don’t feel it.”
“Why?”
“You sometimes say weird things, and this is exactly one of those times.”
“What? Out of nowhere.”
This kid must have no talent.

“More importantly, can you move mana?”
“Yeah.”
“Then try shooting it.”
“Huh?”
“You know how in games, they gather mana and shoot it? Seems like that should be possible.”
Shooting it should be easy. More importantly, can mana exert physical force? Seems likely.
There was no need to gather much mana for an experiment.
I pushed the air with mana.
A gentle breeze stirred around us.
It works.
“Did you just create wind?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a total mage! You were always holed up reading books, and now you’ve become a mage.”
“It’s not quite like that.”
“Anyway, it’s your calling. Let’s go now. It’s time for adventure.”
He turned and started walking toward the doors.

Following him, I checked the time.
It was almost 7 PM.
I’d called Mom, but I should probably head home now.
It was May, so the sun hadn’t set yet, but it would get dark soon.
Do Yugeon pointed at the doors with the tip of his sword.
There were five doors in total.
Each door had a large number written on it: 1, 25, 50, 75, 100.
“I get it. These are level restrictions.”
“If this were a game, yes. But this is reality.”
Do Yugeon looked at me and smiled.
“But it’s fantasy.”
He approached the door labeled “1.”
“Do Yugeon.”
He turned around, and I continued.
“What time do you think it is?”
“Not really curious.”
“It’s almost 7. We should go home now. Shouldn’t we?”
“Isn’t that something only kids who diligently sleep at 10 PM would do?”
I do diligently sleep at 10 PM.
“Yes, that’s right. So I’m going home—what about you?”

He looked back and forth between me and the door.
Then he approached the door labeled “1” and grabbed the doorknob.
“Then let’s just open the door slightly.”
He opened it a crack and peered inside.
Then he beckoned me over with a flick of his finger.
Approaching the gap, I saw another room.
At the far end was one door, and in the center was a slime.
Not a boss-like slime—just the usual kind we hunt.
“Another slime,” Do Yugeon said.
Then he looked at me.
“Try catching that one with magic.”
“Didn’t I say I’m going home?”
“Aw, just once.”
“Hmm.”
I looked at the slime again.
Still just a regular slime.
Intuitively, it felt like one hit would kill it.
“Okay, fine. Just this once.”

I gathered the ambient mana.
Will this be enough?
Gathering a bit more, I shot it at the slime.
An impact sound echoed.
Gold powder scattered.
Do Yugeon muttered in a deflated voice.
“It wasn’t even disguised…”

The weekend passed, followed by Monday, the substitute holiday for Children’s Day, and then it was Tuesday.
Boarding the subway after school, I saw Do Yugeon.
He looked completely out of it.
What’s wrong with him?
“Do Yugeon?”
“Huh? Oh. You’re here?”
“Something wrong? You look terrible.”
“Is it obvious? Grades came out today.”
“Ah, grades.”
My middle school sent grades via text over the weekend, but his hadn’t released them yet.
They must have come out today.
And he must have bombed.
How should I console this kid?
“Don’t worry. Grades now aren’t that important. Third year of middle school or high school is what matters.”
“More than that, I promised I’d go to cram school if my grades weren’t good…”
Right, he did mention making that promise.
Why did he make such a promise? I patted his back.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. You can just go.”
“Hey. Easy for you to say—it’s not your problem.”
I wasn’t trying to tease him.
“Cram school is no big deal.”
“You haven’t been.”
I went in my past life.
“I know a bit from hearing about it. I’ve even visited one. It’s really no big deal.”
“Ughh.”

He remained gloomy until we got off the subway.
This is making me unnecessarily worried.
Arriving home, I turned on the laptop.
The internet was still flooded with unverified rumors.
Talk about the white space and the slime behind the level 1 door was mixed in.
It’s strange how these unbelievable rumors turned out to be true.
I searched for what was behind the inner door of the level 1 room.
As expected, talk of monsters came up.
Everything from goblins to dragons was mentioned.
Besides monsters, there were claims that the inner door required level 2 to enter, that trying the doorknob resulted in an “Preparing for Update” message, and so on.
The consistent story that the door wouldn’t open suggests it probably didn’t.
Probably.

The next day, Do Yugeon looked fine when I met him on the subway.
When I asked why, he said he’d talked to his parents, promised to study hard from now on, and managed to avoid cram school.
Furthermore, he declared he’d even take a break from adventuring to focus on studying.
He’s motivated.
But isn’t the Sports Festival from tomorrow until Friday, and the school trip from next Monday to Wednesday? I knew our school schedules were similar, and asking him confirmed his school was the same.
He’ll get a lot of studying done.
I doubted whether he’d actually study hard, but since he was motivated, I cheered him on.

The Sports Festival passed, the weekend passed, the school trip passed, and a few more days went by until it was the weekend again.
Surprisingly, he managed to study without asking to hang out until then.
An uncharacteristically commendable result for him.
Meanwhile, online, the rumors about the inner door not opening decreased, replaced by discussions on how to fight goblins.
The discussion hub was the Slime Detector site.
Perhaps because this site was necessary to enter the white space, it tended to have more specific information.
Though the reliability of that information wasn’t guaranteed.
The discussion had been ongoing for several days, apparently starting when the door, previously stuck on “Preparing for Update,” finally opened, revealing a forest and goblins beyond.
Was the discussion productive? Not at all.
It started with what weapons to use, drifted into needing guns, and then suddenly claims of resurrection after death popped up.
After that, it devolved into a fight between the few who truly believed in resurrection and the majority telling them to stop trolling the discussion.
Resurrection sounds completely unbelievable, but the existence of goblins and the danger of fighting them seem true.

My phone rang. It was Do Yugeon.
“What? Having trouble with a problem?”
“Not about studying—let’s go adventuring. You’re home, right? Login.”
“Tired of studying already?”
“Hahaha. I decided not to study now, but to cram hard during the exam period. That should work, right?”
“Your grades aren’t improving—only your excuses.”
Cha Haneul picked up her empty mug and stood, heading to the kitchen.
“Anyway, let’s play.”
“Playing sounds good, but I don’t want to log in.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t you checked the detector site?”
“I checked it.”
“The discussions?”
“I even participated.”
“The offline meeting part?”
I took out an espresso capsule and started the coffee machine.
“Not that—just the discussion.”
“If you saw it, you know. They say goblins are appearing, and it’s dangerous. Wouldn’t it be better to stop logging in and just research for now?”
“But they say you can resurrect.”
“If you genuinely believe that, sure.”

The coffee finished.
I removed the mug and frothed milk with the milk frother.
Cappuccino complete.
While the espresso turned into cappuccino, he just made hesitant noises, not saying anything.
Apparently, he didn’t like my suggestion.
Do Yugeon spoke.
“Then let’s just hang out normally today.”
“Okay, sounds good.”
That day, we played realistically.
And then Sunday arrived.

Lately, I’ve picked up a hobby: practicing magic.
It’s because shortly after learning magic, I realized an amazing application for it.
Usually, the disadvantage of physical books is their weight.
Holding or supporting them for a long time makes your arms or wrists hurt.
Bookstands exist, but having to readjust them every time you turn a page is cumbersome.
Because of these issues, you end up reading ebooks even when you want physical books, but with magic, the story changes.
If you hold a physical book with magic, you not only solve the disadvantage but also enable new reading styles.
It means you can even read while lying down or eating.
I don’t intend to read while eating, but it’s still an incredible feat.

However, when I actually tried it, it was difficult.
Gathering mana and shooting it was simple and easy, but when I tried lifting objects with mana, I couldn’t maintain balance, causing them to shake constantly.
Furthermore, force control was poor, even crumpling individual pages.
Fortunately, lifting the object itself was easy, but reading like this was impossible.
So, I practiced lifting the spellbook I brought from the white space with mana.
The spellbook is hard and sturdy, making it easy to lift.
A full two weeks of practice paid off; now, although the book still shakes, I can support it stably enough to read the text.
Controlling the force enough to avoid crumpling paper is still difficult, so I don’t actually read this way yet, but it’s good progress.
A bright future awaits.

Today, after finishing practice, I stretched.
But then, something strange happened.
It felt like my senses caught something, and looking into the empty air, gold powder burst out from that direction and was absorbed into me.
“…?”
What? Why did experience points fly over?
Feeling uneasy, I called Do Yugeon.
No answer.
The amount of gold powder that flew over was definitely more than what a slime usually gives.
Then what is this kid doing right now?
I sent texts and KakaoTalk messages to Do Yugeon and called again.
I called several times, but he didn’t pick up.
And just then, experience points flew over once more.
He must be hunting right now and hasn’t disbanded the party, so the experience is being distributed.
Judging by the interval between the EXP gains, he probably wasn’t in a dangerous situation.
I’ll trust that for now, at least.
Cha Haneul swept her hair back.
“Login.”