Chapter 94 Part B

 

 

 

Sunghee was next to me now, holding one of my hands with an excited fierce grip. With the other she was pointing at the blue screen and going over it. We both looked at the screen, following along while she read it verbally to me.

Skills;

Stun Ray, lasts up to ten seconds, lasts less with more resistance; has a cool time of one usage per minute. Can be used in ray form or as target only with small range.

Movement buff, up to 12% movement speed buff, + 1% attack speed increase. target must be touched to apply buff or within five feet.

Resistance to elements and magic, 23% absorption rate; target must be touched to apply buff or within five feet.

Combat core stats Buff, +11% to Strength, Endurance, Agility/Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma; target must be touched to apply buff or within five feet.

Heal; just like it sounds;

Light; just like it sounds; acts in a radius of effect. Perimeter of circle radius depends on mana used and can be adjusted. Default setting radius of around five feet.

Minor Telekinesis; Incomplete;

Mana Sensory feeling for healers and biological magic; *newly acquired*

Mana Stitches; *newly acquired*

Runic Mana Shielding +17%; can be applied by touch to team target, self, or any target within 15 feet of caster; +5% bonus of shielding effect if used on known team or harem member.

Starry Missiles (up to 3 missiles, +13% damage each);

Cure Disease/Poison, must be used with mana sensor skill for full effect;

Dreamweaver (unique skill, unpredictable)

Alter Biological functions/ Adapt

Control Energy Sword (Joint Ownership bonus / permission through Fox) (Dangerous, Unstable, may cause harm to owner(s) due to massive power cost, not recommended at present mana levels);

Paladin Holy Light (weaponized version); Danger! Doesn’t mix well with Demon Summoner biology, use at own risk; unpredictable penalties may occur.

Shared Mana Pool (several upgrades);

Soul crystals unlocked through combat; (Fox, Sunghee;)

Soul crystals unlocked through ancient magic; (Ayumi Sensei unlocked but not opened, unknown negative biohazard in effect but frozen in stasis; one unused slot; one unused human locked in other stasis crystal, name; Haruka)

Debuff; movement speed -12%, -1% Attack speed decrease

Debuff; Lower resistance to elements and magic, 12% decrease;

Debuff; Lower core combat attributes buff, -10% to Strength, Agility/Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma;

Demon Summoner’s familiar; *newly acquired* (Asakura) see description for additional details;

Summon equipment; *newly acquired*

Mana sense (improved); gained the ability to sense mana in others and sense other mages within close proximity;

That last one on the list surprised me.

So it wasn’t a given to be able to tell where all mages were all the time? Did that also mean there were ways of masking that?

But it was really bad too. I hadn’t been working about how to prevent others from discovering me as a mage and how that might cause me to become hunted.

“Holy shit, there’s a ton of new stuff!” Sunghee exclaimed, jumping up and down and making her big boobs shake and wobble. I was momentarily caught up in watching the swelling motions shake and wobble instead of the screen.

She’s basically helping me be able to read the system’s interface. I still can’t do most of it on my own.

My mouth was gaping open in shock. “Wow?”

“Why is there so many of them though?” I asked.

“Are you freaking kidding me?! You are so overpowered to have this many skills! Do you have any right to complain about too many skills? Most people take years to get stuff like this, and even then it wouldn’t be all rare magic stuff,” Sunghee is giving me a hard time now because of it.

“Well I’m not complaining but its different right?” I asked.

“Well, what I don’t get is why you get so many cool toys and stuff. It’s so not fair. Nobody I know except mages have this many skills and they usually don’t have a whole lump of them like this but might have maybe basic element spells for each element like fire, water, earth, and air. You have a lot of skills than quite a few mages too and you are already just a new apprentice to Fox too. That’s the weird part,” Sunghee said to me.

Of course she did it while rubbing her thick big nipples against me to tease me. I can’t help but notice she flicks them back and forth against me.

Wow, her nipples are huge!

“Well I guess its cool being a mage or summoner whatever. But what are these things? The one on mana stitching and sensory feeling I know what they are. Sensory feeling is for mapping out wounds and finding internal bleeding…but those other things?” I rolled my eyes.

Sunghee goes over the blue screen and clicks on one. She started with the Demon Summoner’s familiar and clicks on it.

We’re surprised when a mini screen of Asakura pops up, complete with even a picture of her. But this time she’s got white hair, no body hair whatsoever below the neck, violet eyes, long fingernails and toenails that shouldn’t be possible, and it’s also showing all her other upgrades including the giant humongous boobs that sag just enough to convince you they are real.

“That explains a lot,” I said.

She was a demon’s familiar for feeding and defense both. Thus the boobs were swollen to huge size that wasn’t humanly possible to achieve.

“Uh, Shun. People are going to notice her looking like that,” Sunghee warned.

“Ya think?” I couldn’t help but be sarcastic.

But she’s right.

I need to do something about it.

“Well humans don’t have natural boobs that big and this world is very suspicious of demonization,” she added with a lilt in her voice.

“So we’re going to have to come up with a cover story or scheme,” I sighed.

“Yep.”

“I’m curious how this all started…and a bit jealous of the bigger boobs. So the demon box had capitalized on the closeness of your relationship and made her your familiar? That’s so sick,” Sunghee said disappointedly.

“It is?” I was suddenly worried. If Sunghee thought it was sick then…

“Yeah, I wanted to be your number one, and she’s stealing my thunder. She stole my spot and mages usually only have one familiar,” Sunghee looks teary eyed and is visibly crying now.

“We don’t have time to feel bad,” I said. “Don’t worry you have your own spot. She’ll never take that away from you.”

I put my arm around her and hold her close.

“Really?” she wipes her tears away but it still takes a few minutes comforting her and hugging her before I can get her back to reading the skill windows.

Seriously the pheromones make them so jealous and emotional so easily…I’d have to be careful what I said to them in the future about each other. It turns out not telling them about each other was the right thing, I again confirmed; although for different reasons than I’d originally thought off.

“What does it say about her abilities?” I finally got a chance to ask.

“But I’m supposed to be your number one! You should be asking about my abilities lover,” Sunghee was now pouting and trying to give me puppy dog eyes.

“It’s OK, she’s kind of in veg mode anyway. This isn’t her being first, this is more like she needs maintenance right now and I’ve only got you to count on. So that means you can be number one for a bit. I like you still don’t worry,” I said thinking quickly. Whew, it’s good I could think quickly on the fly… She believed me on this and again jumped up and down happily pushing her chest into me excitedly at hearing my putting her first. I just hope she doesn’t blab and brab to others about what I said. It took a few minutes of soothing and petting her head and neck to calm her down. Of course teasing her with stirring her pot down below where we were still connected also worked.

“I-its OK, I forgive you. I can’t get enough of this anyway lover,” Sunghee exclaimed. She sort of hopped up and down excitedly; which was undoubtedly the pheromones at work.

“And what does it say for abilities on the familiar? What’s up with her changes anyway? What’s it turning her into?” I asked quickly while we’re on topic.

“Wow, Shun look at this!” she is suddenly very excited.

“OK? What am I looking at?” I asked.

“This! Look! Her race here! It says demon familiar, race is a type of ghoul but I’m not sure which kind. Has nightvision, mana bond to master summoner with mana synergy effect, ability to store emergency mana for master, strong demon milk production and storage, can sense master’s location, all other traits and racial abilities of ghoul variant type 3C-Alpha1, and…the rest doesn’t sound so great so far except there’s a master servant bond that lets her sense where you are and instills her with protective instincts and that sort of thing,” Sunghee sighs jealously with angry looking eyes.

I better tread lightly here, so Sunghee doesn’t feel bad.

“No way really? But isn’t a ghoul a type of undead? What was that variant type jargon about too,” I asked her worriedly.

Was she an undead? I’m confused…I’m obviously not a necromancer so what the farm is going on?!

“Hmm, I don’t know actually. That’s what I thought too, but she’s not undead and she’s alive. I had thought that you can’t make milk and lactate if you’re undead anyway and who want an undead producing milk, but this confuses me too. So that means you’ll have to ask Fox to be sure, but it sounds like some other variant type. There may possibly be ghouls in several element forms like light and dark. In this case ghoul seems to be some kind of feral human is my hypothesis,” Sunghee said.

“Great, another goose chase. We just ended up with more questions than answers,” I complained.

“You did find out why she was experiencing changes and what it is. That’s worth something,” she told me.

“That’s true. We didn’t find out everything about what it means. But we gained some ground,” I admitted.

“It’ll be OK lover. I’m with you,” she didn’t realize she’s being totally emotional now and irrational as she squeezes my hand and hers together with our fingers interlocking. It’s kind of the way a couple would hold hands while sitting on a bench. Her face is beaming with happiness at me with radiant feeling. It’s more than lust; she has totally fallen for me head over heels. She was like this from before too, but she didn’t hide it before and this is like the sun has gotten powerful enough to dry up all the water on the ‘planet’.

But her face twitched suddenly as she read something else, “what? What is it?” I asked reading her face.

She seemed reluctant to say anything. “Well…it’s some of the cons. It’s not that big a deal really,” she tried to reassure me. Was she lying or was she just sugar coating it? I wasn’t sure which.

“It’s OK, tell me.”

“Well this type of ghoul familiar…it says needs lots of constant and heavy feeding,” she blushed.

“So how is that bad?” I asked.

“Well…it means…a certain type of feeding,” she said tapping my private part.

“OHhhhhh.”

She means...sex.

“But don’t worry, I’ll feed you way more than she will,” Sunghee interjected fuming with rage and burning crimson jealousy. Hmm, interesting; the pheromones and the loyalty high they produce don’t let her lie to me? She was so angry at Asakura now that I feared letting them in the same room together.

“I won’t that whore steal my lover,” Sunghee swore in vengeance.

“Hey ease up, we’re on the same side remember,” I said.

Sunghee didn’t respond to that right away but she did get a bit less tense.

“I need you to cooperate with each other and with me. Our survival depends on it,” I restated.

She sighed, “Yo-you’re right. I knew that but…I just get so worked up…it was like less than five minutes ago I told you to get more women too. I swear your penus is messing up my brain.” She shook her head.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll work it out,” I said.

“Shun…you can’t let any of us go,” she suddenly switched modes.

“Why would I do that?” I said in confusion and horror.

“These…feelings…are so powerful…I have to tell you if you ever broke up with one of us we’d probably go crazy and kill ourselves and others. The pheromones…I can tell they are messing with us in a bad way. It’s kind of like obsession squared mixed with hyperactivity?” Sunghee admitted shamefully while clutching me tightly.

“Woah, relax. Nobody is doing anything like that,” I said.

It felt like a weight came off her shoulders, “OK good. I know this pheromone stuff is making me crazy. But I do love you Shun. I can’t stop it or myself. I just needed you to understand.”

“Don’t worry I care about you too,” I held her even tighter, mashing her warm boobs against me. I love that feeling…I could enjoy it all day.

“What are you going to do with your mana cores?” Sunghee asked suddenly.

“Eh? I have enough to do something with?” I asked.

She confirmed it back to me.

“Good question, do I even have enough for anything?” I asked.

“Hell yeah, you have enough for two more skills,” she said biting her lip.

“Really? That’s cool,” I smiled.

She continued to pout jealously. “Seriously though, why does it let you have all the good stuff.”

“What are my options? Does it say anything about that?” I asked.

“Well you can have this protection from normal missiles spell. That sounds good, has good protection from arrows, stones, javelins, thrown spears, and other thrown objects from range weapons. Says it uses low mana to activate and can go for quite awhile. Will absorb damage of any number of missiles up until a certain threshold of damage is reached, at which time enchantment will immediately fail. Magic missile blockage depends on if the damage is classified is purely physical, purely magical which is not covered, and hybrid damage which can be a blend of each. Lasts for anywhere from one hour to a full day depending on caster strength,” she said. She’s reading more.

“And?”

“Weird. It’s like you are getting skills and spells that are related to protection. Is that because you’ve been thrown into all these life and death situations?” she said. She regarded me coolly for a bit. I was curious what that look meant.

“Is that good in your opinion?” I asked.

She gave me a funny look after reacting to my comment, “something like this would make it hard for anyone to snipe you. They’d have to be pro to even do some damage.”

“So it’s cool,” I nodded trying to be humble and not show my smug reaction.

But then she crashed my party, “of course there is a learning curve to be able to learn how to use this. This is a type of spell you’d actually have to get practice with blocking real projectiles.”

“What? That’s cheating, so there’s like a prerequisite skill that affects its success? Depending on the circumstances it might be good for dungeons too? I’m confused,” I said.

She folded her arms over her chest, “well it doesn’t say that part, but that’s what my gut feeling is. Your natural feel for combat affects the runic shielding right?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Then wouldn’t it also be true that would also apply to ranged weapons affecting both that and this?” she gave me a look almost like a teacher leading a student along.

“Crap, you are right. This just means I have tons more work to do to be able to even break this thing in,” I think my face looked like someone who was told they had to do overtime with no pay.

“Try not to feel bad. There will be some immediate effect. I’m just saying you have to do some things to get its strength up to impenetrable,” she rubbed my shoulder affectionately.

“Probably, hmm, does it have any other cons that you can think of?” I asked.

She kept reading again with her finger tracing the symbols to help her keep her place, “yeah, I’d say so. It will use a good bit of mana, particularly before you get used to it. But this actually is a good spell no matter what type of magic user you want to focus on becoming.”

“So is purchasing this going to mean I only get protection spells though? Maybe I want to branch out into other things. I would like some flashier stuff and like some cool nukes,” I asked.

“This is perfect for orcs and goblins and a lot of other things. It has a lot of transferrable content and you will be versatile,” she said.

“I don’t want to be versatile, I want to win and be like at the top,” I frowned.

She shrugged, “if you survive long enough you will always be at the top. But people who don’t have resistance, resilience, and shielding will someday get pulled down if they have a weak spot.”

“You are right again,” I said, admitting it.

“You know a lot of people who have magic aren’t actually consulting with people with real fighting and battle experience on what’s the best to have. You have that advantage lover and it will pay off in better efficiency just for showing me love,” she said putting her hand over mine and keeping it there. I couldn’t help but smile because it was a nice feeling.

“That’s probably true about it being useful for many kinds of adversaries too; not just orcs and goblins but anything intelligent basically?” I frowned.

She nodded, “yes your right. Most intelligent life forms, like people are going to have bows and arrows, crossbows in this world. There are a lot of things that will want to pick stuff off from range without wanting to get up close and dirty in close combat or situations where you need to reach the enemy and can’t get close but maybe they have a longer reach. That particular situation can get pretty scary, especially when you encounter groups and group battles.”

“I’m just curious but…would this stop a bullet? Bullets and guns are pretty powerful so it makes you wonder right? And guns and bullets were the king of the world we came from right?” I asked.

“This world doesn’t have bullets and guns though, but it’s still right to compare it to those things because we’re trying to compare it to strengths that we’re used to and familiar with; and that gives a frame of reference or what not. Hell, if they did and with orcs or worse having them I can’t imagine how much more awful it could get,” she cringed even while saying it.

“Yeah that’d suck,” I agreed.

“I don’t think that could ever happen. But…” she hopped on one foot excitedly. I think she couldn’t help it. She’s definitely trying to curry favor with me. That’s why she won’t put clothes on, I’m sure.

“That’s true, but I’m just curious on the physics of this see. I mean stopping a bullet is about as much protection as our world would think is the best right? Would it work even though we both agree that there are no guns on this world,” I added after that.

“Probably, I’m guessing bullets would just absorb more damage than an arrow would. So it would probably eat them up with its barrier but just not the whole thing.”

“So what are my other choices? What’s it say?” I asked.

Sunghee didn’t bother to cover up but just leaned onto me more. She seemed to be deliberately trying to put her nipples next to my mouth, but I do really want to know more about my skills. Its fun to mix consulting with pillow talk with her and making out. It adds a strange exotic feel to her.

“Please, let’s just…a few more minutes,” Sunghee said. She still was trying to start sex up again and already playing with my thing in her love pot, squeezing it mercilessly to get me going again.

“Focus, we have to keep fighting this. Our enemies are circling even as we speak,” I said.

That got her in serious mode. She hopped off me, though we were both disappointed.

Then after she composed herself she started reading the screen again, “so it looks like you can also do another shared mana pool upgrade, which is the lower cost of 500 monster cores. That will also let you do either that or pick another monster or demon trait to absorb,” she looked at me questioningly.

“No, no, I don’t want to absorb any more traits from the demon job, I am still having trouble fighting this demonic hunger for sex all the time. Every trait I absorb from the demon tree seems to be costing me self control and humanity,” I said.

She gave me a concerned look but stayed silent for a time. But then another thought came up…

“Yeah, but isn’t it fun? Who else has like naked and willing women around them all the time? Every day is fun for us too right?” Sunghee flashed her teeth wickedly. “You can’t deny it’s amazingly fun right?” As if to emphasize her point she rolls her chest and shoulders at me making her boobs shake with a giggle.

I frowned, “what are the alternatives? I think we’re paying for it more exposure to the evil of this world and more fighting though.”

She frowned, “well you can buy a skill that has some kind of healer bless skill that attracts followers…all fully clothed ugly people that are old and wretched, probably all with skin diseases and …should I say anything more on this?” She added a smirky grin at the end. I am sure she added that part on her own from her own bias.

“Lame,” I interrupted her. “Let’s not do stupid and uncool abilities. Wow, I can’t believe I’m saying that. Being like a church guy doesn’t seem that much fun for some reason.”

“Well I suggest you unlock one of the other girls first, but oh…what’s this?” she suddenly stopped as she’d discovered something else.

“Give me a second please?” she held up a finger and then was squinting at the screen again and she was looking serious for once. She read for a few minutes.

“This is like a dimension door skill to bring your familiar or another follower wherever you go. It would even work in the dream state. Has a combined bonus effect when used with the adventurer’s party system magic,” she read.

But that made me realize something else…there was more about Sunghee that I hadn’t realized yet.

“Eh? Adventurer job classes have a party system magic? Is that true?” I asked her since she was one. I hadn’t thought about that much lately. Maybe it has some resources I can still tap into.

“Yeah, we do. It’s not really very powerful and not offensive really, and it doesn’t do a whole in terms of damage and defense but helps us to keep track of each other, and provide visuals, and also do communication networking with each other, and know who is alive in our party, and works in conjunction with our mapping magic,” she said.

“How come you didn’t tell me about that?” I cringed.

“Well I’m always with you. And I suppose I was depressed for a bit. But now I’m ready to help you more. I intended to mention it anytime it would be used but it’s just…I feel so poor compared to your abilities Shun. You have like tons of magic abilities now and enough to even make Fox potentially jealous and risk being your slave to work with you so she can benefit. And all I have is this ability to show like a screen that shows team members and their health status and names that has almost no combat value?” She gave me a look that showed she was extremely self conscious about it.

Now I get it. She had felt inferior this whole time. But it’s kind of funny that people can feel self pity and things like that when she is actually super strong in front line close combat.

I’d make a goal to investigate more about using this earlier.

“It’s true that we’re always together in the demon box. But I wonder if something like that can act as a backup measure?” I asked.

“Maybe if it’s for back up, yes. It’s a good skill for having emergency communication. But if you lose a fight or have to retreat, having better communication is still a loss and a retreat,” she shrugged.

“So just a thought can your network ability be used to let us talk to each other while you are asleep in the box and I’m outside it?” I asked.

She shook her head, “unfortunately no. If it did I would have been able to coordinate my own rescue from the box years ago. That’s a no go.”

Oh well…it was worth asking about. The physics of this were interesting. Maybe a pocket dimension wasn’t entirely fully in this world, and that might be why cross communication didn’t work?

So adventurers of this world have mapping magic too? That was also interesting. Wow. Cool.

“The truth is, I’m tired of wandering around the wilderness. I want to find a town soon,” I said in a depressed voice.

“Yeah who doesn’t? You need a bed to rest in and stuff like that so you can fuck us without us giving you a sore back from the ground or any ants that try to climb on. Plus a place to live and instead you’ve been avoiding orcs and goblins for almost your whole life. I get it. The dwarves should have some kind of caravans for travel that network with other cities. Just focus on getting to their main town and you’ll get there,” she assured me.

“This dimension door thing what’s the range on it? Can it take me to places I’ve never been to?” I asked.

“Unfortunately no,” she said while reading it. Her finger roved over the characters.

Damn.

“So basically it allows you to teleport up to a certain distance of at least 400 feet in any direction plus…a bonus effect of however strong you are adding a certain amount after that. You can only take what you are carrying, which is the maximum amount you can carry,” I then interrupted Sunghee.

“So does that includes living people? It’s too bad it’s not got a longer range than 400 feet maximum,” I asked.

“Yeah, living objects it seems are allowed. But it has to be what you are carrying, so if they are too heavy for you to carry steadily then most likely the stress would add up by degrees until it fails. Then you’d be screwed. But you know this could be a real game changer for escaping stuff that is too strong for you to fight at this time,” She said it like it was no big deal but inwardly I worried about it. A lot can easily go wrong fast in this world.

“So if it lets me use it on myself and …someone I’m carrying? I could probably carry Rina through and then summon Asakura or whoever is with me at the time?” I asked to make sure.

This type of having Sunghee look for flaws in my logic was good.

“Oh hang on a minute, there’s another note here that I’m reading,” Sunghee stopped. Her forehead was scrunched up. Then she began talking again after working it out in her mind.

“OK, so…it will also let you take other people in addition to the one you are carrying but they have to have contact with you,” she said while thinking about it aloud.

“What’s contact mean?”

“That’s like, you can take someone holding your hand or your shoulder, but skin contact and a tight grip is safer and affects its success rate. The more powerful the caster the more the number of people he can take with him this way. So a weak caster could only take one person beyond what they are carrying and the other person. But a fairly strong new apprentice might be able to take two plus a carry. A medium strength caster could take three and a carry, and a super archmage could probably take four or five and so on?”

“So what happens if I’m only able to take one, but two people are hanging onto me? Do they die? Are they hurt? Or does it just leave them behind? Does the spell fail?” I asked. Magic was serious after all. So if there were details like this unresolved, I didn’t want to be surprised.

Sunghee’s face paled, “uh, it doesn’t clearly explain that part. I’m afraid we’ll have to experiment to be sure. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this isn’t a spell we’ll want to try in battle without knowing how it works with real experience.”

“Right, I agree. The last thing I want to do is play with people’s lives,” I said.

“Maybe you can experiment using people you don’t know, or live animals? Like bunnies?” Sunghee asked innocently. It made me snicker.

“Hey that’s a good idea!” I said.

“Yeah I know right!” she gave me a hug. Of course she’s not letting go. I’ve forgotten how powerful the pheromones are again. She’s already trying to kiss and make out.

“Uh, wait. Uh stop,” I finally pushed her away. “What happens if I like run into a block of stone or whatever, or something already occupied by other objects?”

“Yeah, you will probably die,” Sunghee answered.

The next hour went something like that, toying with and figuring out new skill options.

I ended up opening up another +10% mana passive skill unlock, but this wasn’t a shared mana pool skill, but rather an upgrade from just reaching a certain level of skill as a mage apprentice. It was labeled as ‘experienced apprentice mana pool upgrade option’.

Even though its not flashy any increase in mana has a huge gain on combat effectiveness that is way more than just 10%!

The protection from normal missiles and dimension door mini teleport was also obtained. Because the dimension door ability was a sort of Demon Summoner upgrade option I was able to get it cheap, where I’d normally not have been able to get three abilities in one upgrade.

But I feel really tempted to not use any of the soul crystal upgrades and force them open through battle rather than unlocking them. If I do it will mean that I can then use those soul crystals on other new “pets” that I acquire later.

This is amazing!

I have tons of options!

There are risks in continued usage of the paladin holy light it seems, since my demon DNA has been active or whatever it is that I’ve got. I’d have to talk to Fox about this.

We investigated and found that the Summon Equipment spell was how I’d had the fire axe the whole time, but because I couldn’t read the interface I didn’t notice it. It was with me, way back at the beginning when this mess whole started. And this is why the ‘system’ prevented the goblin from stealing it and using it against me with his ‘steal weapon’ skill!

This was one of the items in the gear but not directly tied to the Summon Equipment, but some kind of basic apprentice mage bonus skill. But after obtaining Summon Equipment it had been eaten and placed into this skill’s contents.

When I’d first obtained the axe, I hadn’t realized I was using a skill because I didn’t know what magic was or what I was doing, not to mention I was disoriented from the teleport. My brain had thought that I’d picked up the fire axe in the school, but that doesn’t make any sense and if we hadn’t had so many stressful things going on I would have noticed. There of course wouldn’t be a sharp fireman’s axe in a school with teenage kids. And after the fact, I’d been refusing to think about what happened at the school because it felt much like a trauma, so until now I hadn’t gotten a chance to discover it.

Sunghee read the description for Summon Equipment spell, “summons a wooden crate of equipment which can be used for survival in the new world. This spell is upgradable and a subskill under and through the Dreamweaver skill, which feeds its growth. Foundation is based upon magic, and magic stats for growth. As magic stats grow, equipment in the box changes from time to time.”

“Eh? Really? That’s got me curious,” I said.

“I know right? What could be in there?” Sunghee looked at me strangely.

“What?” I asked.

“Well, try it out. Summon the crate,” she nudged me playfully.

“Does it have an incantation or symbol drawing structure for me to do to get it to work?” I asked.

Sunghee then carefully grabbed a pen and some paper, which were next to the bed. Apparently she’d gotten some of it from the time when Fox had drawn and written instructions from mana exercises for me to do.

“You just draw these symbols in the air with your finger,” she said coaching me along and playfully holding my hand to draw them for me with my own hands in hers. It was sort of relaxing and she’s beaming with happiness at me.

At first it looked something like trying to read some kind of funky foreign stuff like Hindu or Turkish but in the Egyptian symbols which I didn’t know yet. She carefully walked me through them.

It was daunting, but after awhile I got the hang of it. The first couple times using this spell it failed.

Badly in fact…

There was a cloud of sulphuric smoke created as it backfired. We choked on the smoke for awhile. Then after the eleventh or twelfth try the spell finally worked.

We stood there looking at a big wooden crate in the center of the room.

I still don’t know if its just ‘rented’ equipment or…?

“That thing is huge,” Sunghee gasped.

“Yeah it is. What could be in there,” I wondered.

Slowly Sunghee helps me open the lid, which is also wood. “You know as an adventurer, a wooden box like this is worth a lot. If it’s summoning you a new box like this, the box alone is worth a lot. You could end up making a shelter out of a dozen or so of these boxes, or use them for firewood, or to carve the wood up for other uses,” she coached.

“That’s a good idea, I do like to have extra supplies and being exposed to the weather is kind of a bad deal. I hate being cold,” I admitted.

“And as an adventurer, you are always looking for firewood. This is a big score,” she said.

As she opens the lid we’re surprised, “Weird,” Sunghee shook her head.

I’m looking at what she’s looking at. She points to a corner of the box.

Sure enough there’s a fireman’s axe in the corner.

“Is there only one axe or several?” I asked.

We have to search carefully and it turns out much of the box is covered in those white packing peanuts used for commercial shipping back on our world. Somehow it’s humorous to us and we had a packing peanut fight by throwing them playfully at each other for awhile before returning to the box. There is also a sheet of bubble wrap around all of it and covering the top. Sunghee laughs when she sees them and starts to pop them.

“I love popping these,” she said laughing. She immediately starts popping them for “therapy”.

After sifting into the box of packing peanuts, and under the bubble wrap amidst her popping I find more equipment, though most of isn’t anything special.

There are school uniforms for one boy, and several girls. I’m surprised.

“They look brand new,” I said, with my face scrunched up in wonder. It’s weird seeing this. As I sift through the equipment I find also tennis shoes, and socks for both sets. All of it looks and smells like something brand new in a department store.

“Hey check that out, our names are on them over the breast pocket,” Sunghee says as she holds one up.

“Weird.”

But she’s right. The blouse uniform she’s holding up has the name ‘Asakura’ over it. It’s also a much bigger shirt than the others because of her monster sized bust.

“Is there one for everyone in here?” I asked aloud.

“Good question.” She helps me pick through them.

We soon find other uniforms with them, one with my name over the pocket, one for Rina, one for Fox, Ayumi Sensei, Haruka, and then we get to the bottom of the box!

Weird…

It’s letting me have ‘stewardship’ over Ayumi and Haruke already?

“So it’s basically clothes? Is there any weapons or other stuff in there?” I asked.

It’s actually hard to sift through such a big box because of its size and how much packing peanuts there are, which we are spilling all over the floor.

“Hey, what’s that?” Sunghee asked quickly. She points to another uniform near the back. I’d almost missed it.

“There’s one for each living team member it looks like…but who could the last one be for?” Sunghee asked. She picked it up gingerly. Unlike the other uniforms that are brand new and freshly ironed in perfect condition this one is not in perfect condition and is torn up and partly shredded with what looks like grass stains and dirt on it. It smells clean in spite of this, but looks like it was part of a tug of war. All the buttons are torn off too, and one of the sleeves is missing. The skirt that goes with it is torn up one side all the way to the top but still has the band intact.

‘??????’ can be read across the breast pocket.

“Wh-what? What does this mean?” I ask aloud in shock.

I don’t have a good feeling about it.

It’s a strange concept.

We thought Yumi was dead and so I’m not sure who it could be. Could it be from the broken slave crystal; or just potential from someone else? And if it had been her wouldn’t it have her name there? There really are too many unknowns here. There are no other uniforms in there, not even for Akira, that earth mage girl, or others. It makes me wonder what’s up.

But the box summons equipment for the casters team. I’m pretty sure Akira is probably alive somewhere but he doesn’t consider me part of his team. So that would be why he wouldn’t have a uniform in my ‘team’ box.

“Wow, that’s got to be a big bonus to you huh?” Sunghee said. She gives me a big hug. I like hugs a lot, especially when Sunghee is naked and so warm to feel.

“Let’s stop, we have work to do,” I said.

“Oh come on, we can go for another round,” Sunghee rolls her eyes at me, and puffs her chest out.

“Aren’t you curious about what’s in the box? We’ve only gotten about a third of the way through the sea of packing peanuts,” I said.

“But why packing peanuts? Its funny isn’t it? Because Earth doesn’t have magic, but this world does…but it’s got a crate of something that shouldn’t exist on this world?” she guessed.

“I guess the mind makes it real. Magic hits our mind in ways we understand, and my magic is less elemental and more team and mind specific? Perhaps that’s why,” I said.

“Wow that’s deep,” Sunghee agreed.

After we swim through the packing peanuts some more we find some more equipment. But nothing that is real weapons, instead we find a bunch of military surplus military grade survival bowie knives. Each is identifical with a a matching sheath, black, and with the classic serrated edge.

“Why knives though? Why didn’t it pull out like baseball bats, or guns, or a bunch of kendo swords?” Sunghee wondered.

“Hmm.”

Suddenly I remember that when I was twelve and interested in camping and woodcarving this was the type of knife I’d wanted at the time.

“It seems like it must pick stuff we are familiar with or liked, or perhaps had as possessions back on our world,” I shrugged. Then I pointed to the middle of the packing peanuts, “like that’s a tent I wanted for my birthday when I was thirteen.”

“This stuff will turn out pretty useful I suppose. But is this stuff permanent? Will it melt or disappear after a day? Or what happens if we try to sell it and then summon the same things again? Will we have an endless supply?” Sunghee asked.

“That would be cool if it did,” I said, flashing a smile. “We’d have an endless supply of money from the re-sales.”

“It sounds too good to be true though. And magic always has a catch,” Sunghee said quickly.

The only other things we found in the box were plastic box shaped lunch boxes with packets of juice in each, also with disposable plastic bottled water, and a fresh tuna fish sandwich inside each. I recognized the tin lunch box and its meal were what mom used to make for me when I was going to elementary school. They had been really popular back then. There was one of these lunch boxes for everyone in the team.

I’d had this type of lunch literally for years. I’d almost forgotten about them because I’d gone on strike and told her I’d never eat it again from being so sick of the same meal everyday for ten years that I’d become nauseated whenever I tried to eat that lunch again.

There was also a sealed box of disposable alcohol cleaning wipes.

“Holy shit, those are worth more than gold here Shun!” Sunghee cried out seeing them. She snatched the box of them away before I could look at it.

“Why? I don’t get it? It’s just alcohol wipes,” I said.

“Think about it. This is a world with no toiletries, and you suddenly have the only skill that can summon something to clean our bodies with in an area that has no running water or electricity. This is going to make you popular with the ladies really fast,” she said.

Ahh, so it’s like that. Actually she had a point.

Of course she’s broken into them and borrowed about a tenth of the wipes to clean herself up with right away before I can say anything. After cleaning up her face and body she sealed the box and returned it to me with a massive French kiss.

Things were starting to look up.

“Hey this is cool. If this is true, then we’ve got an endless food supply!” Sunghee exclaimed, also looking at the plastic lunch boxes.

“Hmm.”

But it left me worried. I thought about the skills. I needed to slow down. Everything was happening so fast too. How many enemies will all this stuff lure to us too? People will start to notice if we’re showing off funky gadgets that don’t look like they come from this world.

I’m most concerned with being hunted by other mages or mage hunters.

Is the runic magic shielding going to be enough? I felt like I needed more absorption for mage elements from if other mages attacked me. I wasn’t ready for every type of situation out there. Something similar to the goblin tattoo enchant magic seemed like it might be useful and help with my shielding problem or to augment going with it. My shielding right now was only good enough for close combat non-magic types and sooner or later I’d run into other mages like Fox had been telling me about.

I obviously was not going to want a goblin as one of my pets, though. Just the thought of that seemed disgusting.

“You know you need to open up one of the other slave slots. It will increase your combat potential up a ton,” Sunghee said to me near the end.

“You think so? I agree but I’m worried it’s too early. If I have more skills and abilities myself I’m thinking maybe I’ll achieve a better growth rate with them later? I may be able to also have more total harem slots if I unlock them through trial by combat instead of through mana cores too,” I suggested.

I’m curious what Sunghee thinks. I want to bounce the ideas and arguments off each other.

“Well actually that’s a good idea, but you have to remember too that at some point you can’t get past real experience. If they aren’t getting that what are you going to do?” Sunghee crossed her arms. Naturally she cradles and pushes her boobs up for me to look at with a sly smile.

“Yeah that’s a good point. So you think opening one of them soon will be good enough?” I asked.

“Well the good news is now that Asakura is your ghoul familiar, you won’t actually need a soul crystal slot for her so you have actually increased your capacity by one just recently. The reason being according to what we read together she can be summoned in the same way that the summoned minions can be summoned,” Sunghee admitted. Of course she said it like she didn’t want to really tell me. She was afraid that Asakura would get more attention than she would.

“Eh? EH?! Really?!!” That was very cool.

“You didn’t know what?” Sunghee was surprised.

“Well you’ve been on this world longer than I have. How could I know that? Plus it’s hard to perceive all the stats right when I can’t read Egyptian, so I have to go on this verbal relay that doesn’t always let me see it fully,” I protested, sitting down on the bed.

Actually I’m having a hard time taking all this in. There’s now too many skills to think about and remember all at once. If it’s like this I will fumble around when it’s time to fight from having too many options to choose from too. This would actually slow me down from seeing too much at once.

“Well that’s true. Basically in this world, mages always have familiars of some kind. But most don’t specialize in familiar magic and will have minor pets like dogs, cats, ravens, and it goes on up from there. What you should know is that you don’t want a lot of people to know you have a humanoid familiar. That will create buckets of jealousy,” she said leaning in close.

“Yeah that makes sense.”

“But every mage that I’ve ever ran into, whether big or small, new or old all have familiars. I was actually wondering when yours would show up too. But I didn’t say anything because I thought you would get it when we got to a human city that had magic schools and got you in one,” she said.

“I admit I’m a bit curious about magic schools too. There would be resources I can use there but not having come from this world I’m wondering where to even start. I would stick out like a sore thumb if I show up at a magic school without knowing more about how this world worked. People with more education and intelligence would also notice things like that more too. So that plan had to be shelved for awhile,” I said.

“Yeah that’s a good point. We need to address that. It took me a long time to fit in to be honest. Because people also knew me and our group weren’t from around here they also preyed upon us like crazy. It made adapting hard, long, and difficult,” Sunghee had her legs crossed and now was sitting directly in front of me.

“My first year on this world…actually my first two years were complete hell because we were dying faster than we could acquire information while being treated like serfs. People here also wanted cheap labor and to live their dream but couldn’t do that without preying upon another.”

“I’m sorry,” I said with real intent. I shifted position and put my arm around her.

Then she started crying. She had her head lowered.

I now had a reason to fight evil. The people in the slave crystals would have been slaves or bodies to build another’s life if I hadn’t reached them. I had to make their lives better I told myself.

Sunghee seemed to be pulling my arm around her tighter. She wanted to feel she was a person and valued for more than just sex. I had sometimes put it in the back of my mind that she’d been through hell.

“Please don’t make me go back out there!” Sunghee cried out earnestly. “I just want to stay here in the demon box. I’ll do anything, but please don’t put me out in that world. It’s awful. I can be your trainer. I’ll even do reports and an official program. I can try to help you get the other girls free even. But please don’t make me go outside anymore.”

She tried to wipe away the tears and was now crying leaning against me with her face buried in my neck and shoulder area.

Crap. This was a setback.

I’d really counted on being able to pull her out to have an extra ally, if something really bad happened as a failsafe. I did still need a failsafe in either Fox or Sunghee still. It was absolutely necessary. How would I pull that off?

The problem was that nobody else was as strong or as knowledgeable about this world. Fox had knowledge of magic but not much knowledge of human culture except as their adversary. It meant that she wouldn’t be able to help us navigate human culture without becoming enslaved to it.

I can see why Sunghee had been targeted.

All the girls in the soul crystals were the best looking women you could ever find. But Sunghee had an especially exotic and innocent looking face. Because of it she’s had to suffer. I feel angry at this world right now by quite a bit.

I think the alcohol wipes made Sunghee feel a bit better though. She starts to doze off while hugging them like a teddy bear. It’s a simple type of gratitude over having just a bit more control over her life that makes me pity her a little bit, even while she’s holding them completely nude.

I pat her head affectionately for a bit, which she likes. Some of her reactions seemed a bit cheesy and simple but this type good feelings were actually what was made life rewarding and fun. I liked and looked forward to more of this simple same type of repetitive cheesy loving atmosphere from Sunghee and Asakura…as long as they didn’t see each other doing it however, which would be a total disaster.

I guess it couldn’t hurt to leave them with her for the day and pick them up tomorrow. I only needed like one or two of them to make myself a bit cleaner. Interestingly enough the supply box seemed like the most gain, since I hated bugs, and dirt, and creepy crawly stuff which we’d been exposed too since coming to this world.