Chapter 61

The next evening, Neo Core’s lab building.

Sung Eunha still looked tired, but she greeted me warmly.

"Jehyun, you’re here?"

"Hello, Professor."

For reference, I’d been calling Sung Eunha “Professor.” She actually held a professorship, and since I didn’t have a better title anyway, I figured I might as well make her see me as a plucky, pitiable undergrad.

The lab space Sung Eunha opened to me at Neo Core was exactly one room—her personal lab.

If I had no affiliation at all, maybe it would’ve been different, but I belonged to SH Guild, which created a few restrictions. Luckily, Neo Core invested a fair bit into recruiting enchanters and magi-engineers. So, with conditions attached, they tended to open Neo Core labs as shared research spaces. The real goal was to poach capable enchanters or magi-engineers, of course.

Naturally, the conditions and procedures were pretty strict. It was only right—you had to be able to assign responsibility if, say, secrets leaked. SH’s side had already confirmed there was prior discussion before my contract with SH, so they didn’t make an issue of it.

In any case, I hadn’t intended to use Neo Core’s common labs, so it was a decent arrangement. Besides, aside from precision machining, simple research at an undergrad level was doable at home.

"Ah, take this. It’s what you asked for last time, Professor."

"Ah... thank you."

I paid Neo Core for using the lab, and I’d promised to procure the materials and items Sung Eunha personally requested. I covered the cost, obviously. In return, Sung Eunha shared the magi-engineering knowledge I needed or was curious about.

Today I handed over two types of A-rank magic stones she’d said she needed. She inspected the nail-sized stones carefully, then gave a faint smile, clearly satisfied.

"Come to think of it, Jehyun, you said there was something you wanted to test today...."

"Right, there’s something I want to check mana-wise. I’d also like to see the form."

"Is it a kind of magic stone or item?"

"Neither—biological."

At my answer, Sung Eunha tilted her head, a little surprised.

"Did you bring a beast?"

"Only a part."

No matter how much she was cooperating as a magi-engineer, I couldn’t tell her everything.

It’s not like there were zero cases of beasts being absorbed. There’d been dungeon accidents that left people half-and-half, like werewolves, and there’s even a domestic hunter whose entire arm is a beast’s arm. But those were rare, and I didn’t want to risk being identified.

So I chose another method.

I took a small glass vial out of my pocket. The look on Sung Eunha’s face as she stared at it slowly turned intrigued.

"So this is...."

"Flesh."

"It looks like human flesh. Especially the arrangement of elongated striations."

"Who knows—we’ll find out now."

Yeah. I’d called Do Yehyun over at dawn and ripped a bit of flesh off my palm right in front of him.

I can still see him screaming, "Please stop doing this!" Whether he screamed or not, he promptly healed my hand, and once the palm closed up, the perfect snowflake pattern etched itself back in.

"The mana analyzer is here. The sample’s not that big, so I don’t know if the mana volume will read cleanly... and it’s not freshly cut, so there’s a time gap."

"I’ll accept that."

"Where did you get it?"

"From a dungeon."

At my words, she nodded and booted up the analyzer. In a flash, a database printout of mana volume and flow direction appeared, with error values corrected.

The result was as expected. A form where a B-rank beast and a human were mixed.

"This is... human flesh."

She said it quietly. She closed her mouth for a moment, then went straight into her explanation, face as serious as ever.

"They’re separated along the mark—the human and the beast."

"Separated?"

She pushed up her glasses, glancing between the data and the sample.

"Yes. Human and beast are separated, so... they don’t share mana. But the difference in mana volume between them is considerable, so it’s hard to say. It looks like the beast could devour the person."

"Devour the person as in...."

"Control over the body, I’d think. Still, it looks better than a total fusion."

'Fuck.'

Of course a sweet skill wouldn’t just fall into my lap for free. I’d been considering the worst-case scenario ever since the beast was absorbed into my palm.

I’d already realized it wasn’t a total fusion. If human and beast had fused, the human could use the beast’s ability like a skill—but I wasn’t doing that.

All I was doing was using my Mimic skill to copy the beast on my palm whenever it used its ability.

And yet control of the body was in play. Control determined by the difference in mana volume.

Which meant—

'At least until I hit B-rank, I have to keep this bastard in check.'

I nodded as if calm. After thoroughly examining my sample, Sung Eunha gently probed me.

"Whose flesh was it? An SH hunter’s?"

"I’m afraid I can’t say, Professor."

"If you tell me, I’ll actively look for suppression methods tailored to that person’s traits."

Tempting. But I had to refuse. I didn’t want to reveal it was my own flesh, and I’d already come up with a rough suppression method.

"It’s classified, so that’s a bit difficult."

Smiling, I left her to it and started on the day’s studies: plowing through a mountain of papers, asking Sung Eunha about the parts I didn’t grasp, and doing some light practicals. In that I was dutifully paying Neo Core, it wasn’t much different from a university.

Watching me for a while, Sung Eunha broached a question.

"Why are you studying magi-engineering, Jehyun? Pure fun?"

"I might go into research later."

"You don’t really seem like a magi-engineer type."

There’s a “magi-engineer type”? If you came from engineering anyway, isn’t it reasonably related?

Maybe she sensed my doubt, because she spoke slowly.

"For a magi-engineer, you have far too little tolerance for the boring parts...."

"I’m deeply interested right now."

"Sure, now. But magi-engineering is still underdeveloped. Once there’s nothing more to learn, progressing on your own won’t suit you."

Fair point. Repeating experiments, racking up failures, and celebrating tiny successes never fit my temperament. Not that following a fixed manual suited me either.

'So what am I suited for?'

Suddenly, career anxiety. So it really is true that you see the path after dropping out?

Anyway, to sum up today’s results: the mark on my hand really was part of that beast I’d seen, and this bastard might grow and devour me.

Plus, the Status Window’s line about limitless growth stuck with me. And since I’d already absorbed it, pulling up a Status Window on the beast by focusing on my palm didn’t work.

'And it’s an ability, not a skill.'

I also hadn’t known Mimic could copy not just “skills” but “abilities.” If so, could I replicate other dungeon bosses’ abilities too? Because it’s all mana-based?

There was no way to know without actually trying it.

But copying an ability was something I’d have to train until it became second nature. I hadn’t absorbed the beast’s ability as my own. I was just copying what it did and making it passable.

As she said, the reason it hadn’t swallowed me and stayed docile was probably that. Absorbing a beast’s ability and using it as your own meant giving up bodily shares to the beast. Thank god for Mimic.

Then onto the next step.

How do I keep this ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ adorable beast from devouring my body? I’d already thought up a method.

A beast is, strictly speaking, a kind of living organism, and nothing suppresses a living thing like a natural enemy.

In short, I’d counter a B-rank beast with an A-rank beast. Not by adopting one, of course—I’d use part of an A-rank beast’s body.

'And I needed a weapon anyway.'

A-rank beast I can weaponize, natural enemy regardless of attribute.

Not many answers.

'Dragon Heart.'

I was going to get a Dragon Heart—with money.

Oh, and because a Dragon Heart is a Dragon Heart, the price matched my entire net worth; I couldn’t buy anything on the market right now....

'I’ll use an auction.'

People don’t know it yet, but there’s already a weapon out there made with a Dragon Heart.

***

Coming back home felt pretty great.

"Wow, home really is the best."

Muttering to himself as he came in, Joo Seowon got a reply from me as I looked his way.

"Yeah. Home’s good. We should clean."

"...Let’s just go back to a hotel."

"I’ll do it, hyung."

Honestly... At Do Yehyun’s earnest offer, I clicked my tongue and gave Joo Seowon an obvious look. He grumbled, full of complaints.

"Hey, I’m the one who usually cleans the most!"

"Right. Since we’re thinking about it, let’s run the vacuum."

That day we did a big clean, ordered simple food, and everyone worked on tightening up their routines.

That night, I knocked on Joo Seowon’s door.

"What?"

He looked up from the laptop he was typing on in bed. I dragged a chair close to the bed and plopped down.

"There’s something I want to find. It’ll probably come up at an auction."

"What thing? Auction?"

"But it’s not an open auction—it’s a private one. Can you find it?"

At that, he shut the laptop, scooted on his knees to the edge of the bed, and sat.

"What are you looking for?"

I smiled and answered his question.

"The sword Tae Hyunjin used."

A sword used until recently by one of Korea’s S-ranks, Tae Hyunjin—a blade with a Dragon Heart sleeping inside. At this point, the only person who knew the value of that sword was Tae Hyunjin himself.