Chapter 137
Perhaps because there was so much to do, the days felt short. Woojin spent his time going out to sea to hunt magical beasts or studying magic.
As usual, Claire explained the theory.
“Do you understand it a bit now?”
“I’m trying.”
There were also plenty of moments when he struggled to keep up with her teaching. Woojin folded his arms and stared at the book as if he might tear it apart with his gaze.
Still, unlike before, his understanding of magic had improved somewhat, so he could follow Claire’s explanations to a certain degree.
The problem was…
Whenever they moved on to higher-tier spells, he would once again feel completely lost.
‘I’m going to go insane.’
As Woojin repeatedly drank cold water to ease his frustration, Claire encouraged him.
“Jin actually has talent for magic.”
“Me? Talent?”
That didn’t seem right.
When Woojin looked skeptical, Claire smiled and added more.
“I’m serious! It’s not empty praise. Jin learns spells faster than my classmates did. I just don’t show it much, but sometimes it surprises me.”
The reason Claire taught him magic so enthusiastically was because it was fun to teach him. Woojin complained every time, but he still learned magic at a surprisingly fast pace.
“Even today, we’ve already gone much further than I planned.”
“…Really?”
Now that he thought about it, learning magic had indeed become easier recently.
The reason was probably…
‘Because I’ve eaten a lot of inner cores.’
Woojin had recently stirred up the deep regions and hunted the Dark-side priests and the beasts from the farm there, gathering quite a number of inner cores.
Some of those creatures had possessed abilities similar to magic. By consuming their inner cores, his magical talent seemed to have grown considerably.
‘Maybe I should try a bit harder.’
Woojin looked back at the book with renewed concentration.
After studying for a long time, whenever he became tired, he rested by chatting with Claire.
During one of those moments…
A question suddenly came to his mind.
“Claire. Aren’t you going to visit your family home?”
Claire had once said that the port city of Elus was her hometown.
If she had grown up here, then her family house should be somewhere nearby. Yet Claire didn’t seem to have any intention of visiting her parents.
When Woojin pointed that out, Claire’s expression darkened noticeably.
‘Is there some kind of problem?’
Her reaction wasn’t good. Woojin tried to smooth things over.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, it’s just a small issue…”
After thinking for a moment, Claire began telling her story as if speaking to herself.
“…Actually, before I left my hometown… I had a huge fight with my parents. So I’m a bit hesitant to go back home.”
It was somewhat unexpected. Claire had a gentle personality and rarely got into conflicts with others.
Curious, Woojin asked,
“How did you end up fighting?”
“When Uncle Jonathan formed the mercenary group, I said I wanted to join and earn money with them… and the house basically exploded.”
“…That makes sense.”
It was a common story.
Parents who wanted their child to settle down and live a stable life in their hometown, and a child who wanted to chase their dreams even if it meant danger.
Claire’s choice afterward had been bold.
“I ran away from home secretly and joined the mercenary group. Uncle Jonathan was worried my dad would beat him to death later, but somehow he managed to persuade him.”
To earn big money, a mercenary group usually needed at least one mage.
Claire set out on that adventure, faced many dangers, and thanks to several strokes of luck, survived with her body intact and eventually became a high-ranking mage.
In the end, things worked out…
“…But now that time has passed, going back home feels a bit awkward.”
Because they had parted on such bad terms, she was hesitant to return.
“What should I do?”
Claire muttered quietly.
Woojin, who had been listening carefully, answered without hesitation.
“You used to get along well with your parents, right?”
“I think so… how did you know?”
“It’s obvious.”
Just the way she called them Mom and Dad made it clear enough.
So the answer was simple.
“Go home before it’s too late. Don’t waste time here.”
“…I guess you’re right.”
In the past, Claire had gotten angry because Woojin came back too late.
But now it seemed she wasn’t really in a position to scold others.
The longer things like this dragged on, the harder they became.
So Woojin immediately took action.
“Since we’re already talking about it, let’s go.”
“R-right now?”
Of course.
He grabbed Claire’s arm and pulled her along. The female mage was forced to stand up, and together they walked out of the mansion.
It almost looked like a half-kidnapping.
But Woojin didn’t care and simply asked,
“Which way?”
“…If you walk straight down that alley.”
Claire looked somewhat flustered, but she cooperated and guided him.
After walking for a while, they spotted a typical fishing village house.
A simple home built with gray-brown bricks. In the yard behind the stone wall, large fishing nets were spread out to dry.
Claire murmured as if entranced.
“Wow… it hasn’t changed at all.”
A long time had passed, yet the place holding her old memories looked almost preserved.
The destination was right in front of them.
But Claire hesitated and couldn’t bring herself to move forward. She clearly wasn’t mentally prepared to face her parents.
Seeing this, Woojin suggested,
“If you’re hesitant to go alone, want me to come with you?”
“….”
The idea tempted her for a moment.
But she quickly waved her hands.
“That would make it even harder. If I bring a man, my parents will definitely make a huge fuss.”
She had to go alone.
Having made up her mind, Claire slowly walked forward.
Woojin quietly watched her back for a moment, then turned away.
He had pushed someone who was hesitating forward. The rest was for them to resolve.
Claire grasped the doorknob and twisted it.
‘It’s unlocked.’
The hinges must have been oiled recently. The door opened smoothly without any creaking.
Claire stepped quietly inside.
A familiar scent and atmosphere greeted her, along with the idle chatter of family members and relatives.
“H-huh?”
“What’s wrong all of a sudden?”
“Over there…”
Jonathan, who had been sitting in the living room, gestured toward the entrance.
All the noise faded.
Everyone stared toward the doorway in shock.
Claire finally spoke the words she had repeated countless times in her mind.
“…I’m home.”
It felt as if a long adolescence had finally ended.
After sending the wandering girl back to where she belonged, Woojin sailed out to sea again.
The profits from the Northern Sea were quite substantial.
If he simply fried the fish that gathered at the scent of bait with lightning, he could secure multiple inner cores with a single move.
‘Caught quite a lot again today.’
Five inner cores from unidentified fish monsters and nine from Clown Piranhas. Since he had secured plenty, Woojin immediately turned the bow of the ship.
The next morning.
After returning to the harbor, Woojin docked the ship and headed straight back to the mansion without making any detours.
‘Claire hasn’t come back yet.’
He had expected that.
Now that she had returned to her family, it would probably take quite some time to catch up on everything they had missed.
She would likely return to the mansion after a few more days.
Meanwhile—
“Alright, this is our breakfast.”
Woojin gathered Arwen and Coco and poured the fish inner cores onto the table. Seeing this, the dark-side priest and the magical beast reacted with obvious reluctance.
Arwen muttered to herself.
“Wow… this feels like déjà vu. I can’t believe we came all the way here just to eat this again.”
“Piyyaa…”
Groans slipped out repeatedly as Arwen and Coco forced themselves to chew and swallow the inner cores.
Watching them, Woojin commented,
“You two seem to be getting pretty picky about side dishes lately.”
“Can’t deny that…”
It was unavoidable.
Recently Arwen and Coco had been staying at the mansion, eating rare delicacies every meal—meals luxurious enough to rival those of nobles.
After getting used to such food, chunks of bitter, disgusting meat like inner cores were hard to swallow.
“To be honest, Jin, you’re the same, aren’t you?”
“…That’s true.”
In fact, he wasn’t really in a position to criticize others. Woojin himself didn’t particularly enjoy eating inner cores either. He simply chewed and swallowed them while thinking of them as health supplements.
Hunting magical beasts seemed easier than eating their inner cores.
‘Still, we finished them all.’
Since they all worked diligently, the cores disappeared quickly. Woojin absentmindedly clenched and unclenched his hands.
His physical strength had increased slightly compared to before.
And perhaps because he had consumed fish inner cores, he could now stay underwater much longer than before. Moving underwater also felt easier.
It was as if he was becoming more attuned to water.
With results like this, he couldn’t slack off on hunting magical beasts.
‘I should head back to the Northern Sea again soon.’
Whenever he had free time, Woojin went to the Northern Sea to hunt marine magical beasts.
By hunting them, he helped secure the safety of the surrounding waters while also obtaining rare inner cores.
It was rewarding in many ways.
Two months passed like that.
One day, when Woojin arrived at the Northern Sea as usual, he suddenly felt puzzled.
‘There seem to be fewer magical beasts lately.’
Even when he scattered bait, none responded.
Just a few days ago, throwing bait once would attract four or five fish monsters—a golden fishing ground.
Why had things suddenly changed?
‘…Is it because of me?’
Either he had hunted so many that the marine magical beasts had been wiped out, or they had fled farther north to avoid him.
One of those possibilities seemed likely.
But he couldn’t come all the way here only to return empty-handed.
Woojin changed his target.
‘I guess I’ll catch some clams instead.’
He prepared to dive.
Ssshhh—
He took a deep breath.
Woojin swallowed as much air as possible until his chest swelled like a warship’s hull, then dove into the water.
Using his weight-enhancement ability, he sank deep into the sea. As he swam forward and looked around, he soon discovered a giant pearl clam.
‘That’s a pretty big one.’
Pulling this enormous clam up to the surface wouldn’t be easy.
It probably weighed nearly three hundred kilograms.
Because they were so heavy and clung tightly to the seabed like barnacles, fishermen of Elus had to use large pulleys to haul pearl clams up.
Woojin simply used brute force.
Swoosh—
He grabbed the giant clam monster and tore it free with his hands, then swam back to the surface.
Since carelessly tossing something that heavy could break the ship, Woojin carefully placed the clam on the deck.
One secured.
‘Probably can’t catch too many of these—they’re heavy.’
Pulling the clams up wasn’t difficult, but if he piled too many on the deck, the ship might sink.
To prevent that, he decided to lighten the load by getting rid of unnecessary items.
‘I guess it’s fine to throw the bait into the sea.’
Pig intestines and chunks of fish.
If he scattered those in the water, fish would eat them anyway. So Woojin tossed the extra food and bait into the sea without hesitation.
As expected, schools of fish large and small gathered quickly and enjoyed a feast.
‘Feels like feeding koi.’
It reminded him of tossing snacks to colorful koi in a pond.
Lost briefly in that nostalgic feeling, Woojin kept tossing bait one piece at a time—
Splash!
A human head suddenly popped out of the water.
Startled, Woojin nearly fell backward.
“W-what the—?!”
He had just seen something strange.
Quickly steadying himself, he stared at the sea. Something shaped like a human head was eating a piece of mackerel floating on the surface.
After taking another look, Woojin sighed in relief.
‘Ah, damn… it’s not a human. It’s a naga.’
A naga.
A race from the Demon Realm with the lower body of a snake. Its facial features resembled a human’s, which had confused him for a moment.
The male naga greedily devoured the floating bait, then casually slithered onto Woojin’s sailboat as if nothing were unusual.
The naga warrior raised the spear in his hand and pointed it forward.
“Hand over everything you have.”
Speaking with a faint hissing tone, the naga warrior jabbed his spear threateningly.
He seemed somewhat clumsy, but he could speak the human language.
Woojin blinked.
‘…Is this bastard trying to rob me?’
He had found quite a novel fellow.