Everyone Else is a Returnee

Call Me Ishmael (3)

Partying was truly simple. It was done with Kang MiRae grabbing the offered hand.

[A party has been made.]

[Party members : 2]

At that moment, truly wondrously, he felt that Kang MiRae was much closer to him than before. It wasn’t just a psychological element. It felt as if his five senses had extended and embraced Kang MiRae inside it. Yes, if two existences were put inside one community, this kind of thing was possible.

“What? You’re like a person who’s partying for the first time……”

“I twitched only because it had been a while.”

Yu IlHan, who calmly replied to Kang MiRae’s a little too accurate question, thought that he should be more careful in the future and brought out his steel spear and held it. Now that he thought about it, this was the first time he picked up the spear since the battle began.

“Fuu……”

Yu IlHan’s gaze on the black leopard which was pouring blood from all over its body, was very cold.

Just how much did he suffer while fighting against that even though he had prepared meticulously!? He didn’t have any thoughts in keeping it alive even if it begged on its knees.

Although it would meet death in a few minutes even without him doing anything, he didn’t know what it would do in those few minutes. He first took a short, deep breath, then threw the spear with all his remaining strength.

[You have earend 2.938,097 experience.]

[You have become level 36. Strength, Agility, Health, Magic increases by 10.]

[You have earned the record of Lv102 Shadow Leopard.]

After a few lines appeared on his retina, a deep shock assaulted him. The pressure from the change in his physical body by levelling up by 8 levels from level 28 to 36, was very big.

Yu IlHan clenched his teeth while enduring the pain from the squirming of his muscles and bones from the self-evolution. Kang MiRae also seemed to undergo the same thing as she wordlessly shivered inside the car.

“And here, I thought I monopolized it too this time, phew.”

Yu IlHan thought that something had gone wrong as he had received an overwhelming experience compared to the Giant Leopard, but it seemed Kang MiRae had received the experience normally. Erta noticed his question and nonchalantly replied.

[There’s a huge difference between 3rd class and 2nd class. Of course, 1st class and 2nd class are the same.]

“‘That so.”

The pain disappeared suddenly like it came. Yu IlHan lightly stretched his body on the spot to adapt to his new physical body, then looked at the black leopard which was slumped down on the ground without life.

More specifically, he looked at its hide.

“That’s no good either.”

[I wondered why you didn’t say that earlier.]

It was a 3rd class monster. No matter how it specialized in concealment and had less durability than other 3rd class monster’s hides, it was still leather from a 3rd class monster! If he could make an armor from that, it would surpass the leather armor he was wearing now by a large margin.

Of course, as it was a 3rd class monster, he had to use all means possible in order to kill it. The result was that tattered hide right there.

“Sorry I wasn’t strong enough…..!”

[Don’t apologize to the leather.]

Yu IlHan cried tears of pity as he dismantled it. Although he couldn’t make an armor, there was lots of other things he could do with the leather.

Now that it came to this, he had no choice but to make partial armors. The moment he stuck the knife inside its head while resolving to make the best partial armor on Earth –

“……Huh?”

Yu IlHan voiced out his surprise.

“There’s a magic stone?”

[The mother and the child both had magic stones? Such a good luck.]

A magic stone was the remains of the monster’s strength. If the mana which should leak out at the moment of the monster’s death coagulates, then that would be called a magic stone, and so, it was pure luck whether one would acquire a magic stone or not by killing monsters.

The statistics that humans in other worlds had produced was 17%. The probability decreases as the their class becomes lower, and as their class becomes higher, the probability of a magic stone being generated becomes higher by a little bit.

Anyway, Yu IlHan could be cconsidered as having awesome luck.

“Wait, then this.”

Yu IlHan couldn’t not think of the evolution conditions of his resting skill. Now that he had earned the 3rd class monster’s magic core which was considered the hardest, couldn’t he now just fulfill the other conditions!?

However, he put away his thoughts after remembering that this was the product of party playing. It wouldn’t be too late to think about how to use this magic stone after fairly distributing the spoils of battle.

He was picky about his principles in such strange parts.

“I earned a little less than 1.5 million. How about you?”

At that moment, Kang MiRae got off the car and talked to him. Yu IlHan honestly replied.

“I earned a little less than 3 million.”

“3 million……”

She smiled bitterly and repeated that number in her mind. Yu IlHan also noticed that the corner of her mouth had curved up.

“But the difference is less than I thought. I thought that my contribution was way too little.”

“If it wasn’t for you, miss Kang MiRae, I wouldn’t even be able to kill it. I thought you were a critical help though……”

He had no thoughts of flattering her so his words were honest. However, Kang MiRae’s voice was still low.

“Do you think so? In the case of a party, the absolute judgement criteria of contribution is the distribution of experience, so your words are probably correct…… wait, can you tell me your name since I don’t want to keep calling you ‘you’? Or should I call you Sungdaein Bolt?”

“It’s Yu IlHan.”

The answer came at light speed. He didn’t like his nickname that much. Kang MiRae burst out laughing with a ‘pfft’ after looking at his response. He thought that it was fortunate that her mood had become better.

“That magic stone is yours, Mr. Yu IlHan. I told you last time, right? Magic stones have the value worth 60% of the total. The contribution is about 2:1, so assuming that you will do the dismantling for me, then I think it will be alright to split the body in half, are you alright with that?”

“Is it alright to give you so little?”

“I think you don’t know but the most important thing on Earth right now is not warriors, nor magicians, but a master dismantler. I don’t think there’s anyone who dismantles better than you, Mr. Yu IlHan, on Earth right now. So, it’s natural to receive that much compensation.”

Yu IlHan, who became ticklish(E/N: that fuzzy feeling you get) at her praise, silently put away the magic stone and started dismantling. The black leopard he thought to be smaller than its tmother, didn’t shrink after even after it died, so the quantity of the leather and bones he got from dismantling was way larger than what he got from its mother.

While realizing that monsters puffed up their bodies the more they were weak, Yu IlHan wielded the knife busily.

While he was doing that, Kang MiRae ordered Fred to recover the machine gun and the bullet belt and called somewhere with her phone. As Yu IlHan had thought so in the past, it seemed definite that she had a connection to somewhere whether it was the government or the military.

[I think it’s good to have a good relation with her. Amongst humans, she’s a rare one to have pride, ability, honesty and background.]

“Getting into a relation with another human is hard in itself, Erta……”

At the advice Erta gave him purely because she thought about Yu IlHan, he retorted with a dark voice.

Even while she couldn’t reply back to him in astonishment, the dismantling process was going well. After peeling all of its hide, in the process of removing useless bits of flesh, he suddenly thought that he might be able to use its tendons and muscles so he also cut them out.

After he separated the parts he could use from the body of the black leopard – the leather, the bones, the tendons, and the muscles – the dimantling was finally over. When he looked back, as he had expected, the vehicle that moved the Giant Leopard’s corpse from last time had arrived.

Kang MiRae’s figure, meticulously ordering to move only her portion to the vehicle, looked like she was strict with herself as much as she was strict with others.

“Mr. Yu IlHan.”

When she confirmed that she had moved all of her portion to the vehicle, Kang MiRae approached him.

“Thanks to you, we could exterminate the monster before the damage spread. I also sighed in relief now that I can go to sleep in peace.”

“Me too, thanks for the help.”

“However, please forget our talk form last time.”

“Sorry?”

When Yu IlHan tilted his head as if he didn’t understand, Kang MiRae spoke while smiling bitterly.

“Didn’t I say for us to go in a party last time?”

“Oh.”

Why does she want to cancel it so suddenly? Of course, he had no shock or whatever since he wasn’t planning to party with her in the first place, but he became slightly unsettled thinking that he might have done something wrong to her.

However, his doubts were cleared quickly. Kang MiRae had explained her reasons.”

“Mr. Yu IlHan is too strong. To say it differently, there’s too much of a gap between our level of ability. It’s not only impossible to to fight efficiently with monsters, at this rate, my pride won’t hold out.”

He didn’t know how to reply when she said her pride wouldn’t hold out. To be sad, he didn’t sympathize, to be happy, he was sorry for her. So, he just listened quietly when Kang MiRae spoke a line that didn’t suit her

“However, in the future, it will be different. You probably know already, but I’m no easy girl. I’ll show you that I will catch up quickly. I will ask you to be my partner then, so please don’t reject me at that time.”

“I will think about it at that time.”

Kang MiRae burst out in laughter when she saw that Yu IlHan wasn’t likely to put away the AT field even he was about to die. Then, she offered her hand. Just like the time they formed a party.

“Thank you.”

The moment Yu IlHan let go of her hand after lightly grabbint it, a line appeared on his retina.

[The party was disbanded.]

With the lightness of gaining freedom and the unknown feeling of loss due to losing a colleague, Yu IlHan licked his lips.

However, it wasn’t like he could grab her now. He bid her farewell while looking at Fred starting the vehicle.

“Goodbye.”

“Oh, before that.”

Kang MiRae, who he thought would leave with the sunset as her background, asked Yu IlHan.

“Can you leave me your contact info for me to contact you ?”

“That’s.”

“I won’t give anyone your name or number, Mr. Yu IlHan. I promise.”

Can I trust her? Yu IlHan asked himself.

Astonishingly, as a positive conclusion was reached, he told her his pone number even while hesitating a little bit.

“Thank you. Definitely, we will meet again in the near future.”

Kang MiRae, who received Yu IlHan’s contact info, clenched her fists lightly. Then, she seemed to declare confidently towards Yu IlHan when she left with her men, influding Fred.

Yu IlHan, who was left at that place alone, suddenly realized one fact.

“Whoa! This is the first time a girl asked for my number!”

[You’re too pitiful to be rejoicing over that!]

“I never rejoiced. I just received the rights to stand in front of other people confidently!”

[That’s even more sad! Other people aren’t even aware of you anyway!]

Yu IlHan felt strange now that he thought that Erta had come to know him too well.

“Are all angels as sharp as you?”

[You’re just incredibly simple.]

Yu IlHan frugally took his worth of spoils while listening to Erta’s grumbles and he left the scene.

No, actually, he looked around carefully before leaving. Because it would be his mess to clean up if there was a monster egg hidden inside the fucking flesh!

Author’s notes

N/A

Translator’s notes

Enjoy! And no, the Empress didn’t join him! Yay!!!

Editor’s notes

Enjoy~ and ye thank fuck