Necromancer Survival

Chapter 30

Seo Dawon, however, annoyingly refused to tell me. "You'll know why when you meet him."

I responded, mockingly, "Friends often resemble each other."

He cleanly cut that line of thought short. "Who said we're friends."

It was like he was insisting that they were enemies when in reality their relationship was close; I chose to ignore his words.

"Anyway, you'll sympathize with me when you summon Ragi," Seo Dawon said.

Listening to his musings, I wondered who I should summon next. Of course, the best situation would be to revive them all at once, but, judging by Seo Dawon's revival, the summoning process may require for me to reach a certain level or standard.

I asked, "Who do you think I should call first?"

Seo Dawon hesitated, unable to answer. But, soon afterwards, his reply overturned my expectations. "Jung Garam. Garam-ie is perfect for you right now."

Jung Garam…the original owner of [Beatrice's Prayer]? The treasure hunter?

I thought it was surprising that Jung Garam's name would be offered first; I had thought he would recommend that I revive either Woo Ragi or Kim Olim.

Seo Dawon, Woo Ragi, and Kim Olim looked especially close, especially compared to the other guild members. Additionally, his two close friends both were close-range physical fighters; their classes would balance well with ours: long-rage spell casters.

"I thought you would ask me to resurrect either Ragi-ssi or Olim-ssi." 1

"There's a reason why Jung Garam should be summoned first."

When I still looked confused, Seo Dawon gave me a piercing stare. His gaze was quite familiar–I had seen many times in various Dungeons. Those eyes seemed to search my soul, as if it were searching for any use or talent and finding it lacking. I panicked, wondering if I had missed something vital.

"I said that Jung Garam was a genius right?" Seo Dawon said.

"Huh? Uh, yeah…"

"Bae Jaemin wasn't jealous of him for no reason…Garam entered the top rankings 6 months after becoming a User."

"What? No way!" The feat seemed so impossible that I, without realizing, brought my fist down onto the table with a loud thud!

It's already been a year since I became a Necromancer. All I did during that year was earn the ire of others around me and scrimp a living with allowances from home….He became a ranker after half a year? Is that even possible?? From others’ anecdotes, even the most ambitious needed at least a year to enter the top 500 rankings…Even then, these ranker hopefuls needed to dive into Dungeons 24 hours a day.

Of course, he accomplished this feat 3 years ago–there's a gap between the competence of the ranking scene then and now. But, even taking into account the growing pains of early Users, half a year was still a phenomenally short timeline.

I asked Seo Dawon incredulously, "How was that even possible?"

"I’m not sure exactly how he did it. However, I could tell, while raiding with Jung Garam, that he was different from the other Treasure Hunters. He had extraordinary chasing and hunting senses–I ended every raid twice as fast after he joined the party."

"Then…."

"First, we'll summon Jung Garam and power level. 2 That way, we can summon the other members quickly. Otherwise, you could spend your whole life summoning the guild members and just die of old age. I want to end this revenge as soon as possible; three years have already been wasted."

He spoke sensibly.

I had neither the know-how nor the money to level quickly, and Seo Dawon could not afford to waste time. In three years, a power gap would have formed between Seo Dawon and Bae Jaemin. If the traitor was allowed the time to grow stronger, it may take decades just to attain revenge upon one singular enemy, even with the strength of all the revived Red Lotus guild members. Furthermore, there were enemies beyond Bae Jaemin as well…

I nodded to show that I understood the plan. Seo Dawon motioned at me to materialize my status window. I docilely followed his instructions and floated the translucent screen between us.

He observed the minutiae of my stats and asked for me to take out the [Vengeful Ghost Essence] from the inventory. Deft fingers poked and examined the black wedge. "To summon Jung Garam, you'll probably need to gain at least 10 levels."

10 levels….

I was discouraged–despite the great increase in ability after reviving Seo Dawon, I was clearly lacking. To gain 10 levels at my usual rate…..

….No. Now that I have Seo Dawon, there's a chance that I can successfully participate in higher level Dungeons.

So, with furtive expectation, I asked Seo Dawon, "Wouldn't it be easy to raise my level if you were to carry me?"

"Did you forget that the servant and his contractor don't share the same experience pool?"

"Ah."

The contract I had signed with him, floating next to the status window, harshly reminded us of that limitation on line 5: "Party A and B do not share experience."

Does that mean a servant's kill won't be beneficial to my growth? If so, how am I supposed to level up when I can't leech any experience from these contracted servants?

However, Seo Dawon said, "Fortunately, at these low levels, you can scrape by on the virtue of items." With that, he opened the [Market Raid] app on my cell phone.

╔═══════════ ∘◦ ✾ ◦∘ ════════════╗

Welcome, User ‘Choi Lee-Kyung1327'-nim! Would you like to browse the most popular items of the week?

The hottest items from the <Tower of Command> at one glance!

A new work by master alchemist ‘Bang Sohyun,' who is registered as a User of interest by ‘Choi Lee-kyung1327' has been released!

‘Choi Lee-kyung1327'-nim! Do you have any items for sale? Currently, the item [Valkyrie's Shining Lock of Hair] is popular. Register now for free sales commissions on [Valkyrie's Shining Lock of Hair]!

╚═══════════ ∘◦ ❈ ◦∘ ════════════╝

"I-I don't have any money….."

"Yeah, it looks like you don't." Seo Dawon kept browsing through the site while calmly replying to my frantic statements. He entered [Barnasium], an item I had never seen before, into the search engine.

╔═══════════ ∘◦ ✾ ◦∘ ════════════╗

Barnasium Statue (Search results…. 371 results found.)

[**Buying Barnasium** Immediate purchase of intermediate quality or higher. 130 million per unit.]

[Intermediate to High rank Barna~ Will buy straight away ^^] 3

[Selling one Intermediate Barnasium for 1.8]

[Buying top grade Barnasium Statues. I'll do my best to match your asking price. Please direct message me by User Alert app. ID: ggw1982]

╚═══════════ ∘◦ ❈ ◦∘ ════════════╝

"Ah, the market value dropped drastically…." Seo Dawon sighed regretfully, as if the 180 million selling price was a ‘big drop,' and suddenly pressed [Begin direct User transaction] with my ID. I stared blankly at the message he sent: [For Sale, en masse, mid to highest grade Barnasium statues. Asking for 170 ~ 550 million per item]

He casually submitted the post; he wrote whatever he pleased without consulting me! Afterwards, he scrolled through my listings for sale that I had uploaded the day before. "Does anyone buy things like this?"

"No, wait! What did you just do?" "What?"

"Barnasium or whatever! Did you just post something for sale?"

"Uhuh."

"You–do you have it?"

"I posted it because I have it." As he spoke, Seo Dawon drew a line with his hand in the air. Along his finger's trajectory, a golden line manifested. The line split apart to create a spatial gap; he stuck his hand in that distortion, pulled out a handful of round, sky-blue jewels, and set them on the dining table.

Automatically, I grasped the rolling sky-blue jewels. My touch activated the system, which updated as soon as I encountered new items.

╔═══════════ ∘◦ ✾ ◦∘ ════════════╗

You've acquired the ‘Highest grade Barnasium.'

A rare mineral that occurs only in the lair of Aesddeya, the ruler of the ‘Second Company.' It increases the chances of reinforcing or strengthening <Legendary Grade> accessories (earrings, rings).

*The chance increases 3% by grade. (The base (intermediate) provides a 3% increase. Afterwards, each quality grade increases the chance by +3%. The highest grade Barnasium increases the chance by +9%.)

╚═══════════ ∘◦ ❈ ◦∘ ════════════╝

"Back then, even the base quality would sell for 300 million…I guess the item's supply deflated its value."

I was shocked that he would ask 500 million won for this tiny little gem and was even more dumbfounded that Seo Dawon didn't seem to be satisfied with his asking price….Oh my god….

"You….How many of these do you have?"

"About 35 of the highest grade ones?"

"….."

I ran some mental calculations. If he succeeds with his 500 million asking price….17.5 billion won?! For me, who had never had more than 100 million in the bank account all my life, 17.5 billion was such an unfathomable, distant amount of money.

Before I could even express my incredulity, the alarm on the [Market Raid] app started to ring like crazy. "Ding! Ding! Ding!"

╔════════════════════════╗

Ban Soohyun: Hello, I'd like to inquire about purchasing the highest grade Barnasium…

Hong Junghoon: I'd like to buy the Highest grade Barnasium. How many in total…

Kim Geumja: How many of the base quality do you have? Have you sold them all already?

Lee Hui-seok: Hello~ How many Barnasiums do you have? 4

Seo-kyung: How are you! I want to ask about buying the Barnasiums!

╚════════════════════════╝

Less than a minute after the posting was uploaded, 50 purchase inquiries flooded my inbox. ‘Barnasium' had even trended in the [Market Raid] application's real-time search popularity list.

It seems that news of someone selling a rare item in large quantities had spread throughout the community. Interested parties were quick to search for these opportunities. Seo Dawon began bargaining in the message inbox of the first buyer he contacted.

"Hey, tell me your account number," he said.

"…..XX Bank, 613-XXXX-XXXX-XX-XXX…."

[Web Transaction]

XX/XX 16:25

Deposit: 1,440,000,000

Balance: 1,440, 537,448

Choi Lee-Kyung

613**************

XX Bank

1. I had a note about this before, but ssi is a subject ender of respect!
2. In gaming terms, this means that they're going to work hard to gain massive amounts of experience/levels through various methods.
3. Two ‘s' letters put together like this: ㅅㅅ, is often used instead of the emoticon ^^ in korean chat sites.
4. Actually, Lee Hui seok started the message with ㅎㅇ요. Earlier, I said that ㅎㅇ translates to a casual Hi, right? 요 is a sentence ender that denotes formality or respect. I chose to interpret it as a Formal Hello with a tilda at the end for whimsicality! This is probably something you guys didn't need to know, but it's a view into how confusing translating korean chat language can be at times.