14. Gather Points (5)

First, I approached the spider that had died from having its back burned.

“Starting with the head…”

The parts that could be harvested and sold from the spider were its eyes, two fangs, the venomous stinger on its tail, and the venom sac located in its abdomen when opened.

“Damn it.”

However, since I had set its head on fire, 7 out of its 12 eyes were burned. Only 5 were relatively intact, but I still lost more than half.

“Sigh…”

It’s a shame, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

Afterward, I harvested the stinger by sawing it off and dissected the corpse as if I were dismantling a king crab, eventually finding the venom sac.

“Ugh… this stench is fucking unbearable.”

The venom sac emitted a horrifying stench that was hard to describe-sour yet metallic, like the smell of blood mixed with something uniquely poisonous.

It would probably fetch a decent price if sold, but since I didn’t know when I’d encounter another one like this, I decided to store it in my inventory. For reference, it was about the size of a watermelon.

“Phew…”

I stored all the harvested materials, including the venom sac, in my inventory. It seemed best to keep rare materials separately.

“Now then…”

I could feel my inventory was almost full. It was time to expand it immediately.

“Whoa…!”

I could feel the inventory space expand significantly. It was like the relief of clearing out a stuffy stomach-extremely refreshing.

‘With this, I have 509 points left.’

Moreover, if I bought just one more item, I could complete a quest and earn an additional 500 points.

[Quest: Purchase 10 or more items from the general store (9/10)]

[Reward: 500P, significant increase in credit score]

“I’m jumping right into this.”

I couldn’t resist. I needed to clear this blocked quest, earn 500 points, and boost my credit rating all at once.

“Reset!”

I spent 100 points to reset the general store immediately.

[Available Items]

[1. Collar of Subjugation]

[Details: Placing this collar on a sentient being grants the wearer command over them.]

[Price: 6666P]

[2. Blood Magic Book – Basic Blood Manipulation]

[Details: Reading this increases understanding of blood magic and teaches Blood Replenishment and Blood Flow Acceleration.]

[Price: 800P]

[3. Locked]

[Insufficient credit rating.]

[4. Locked]

[Not yet unlocked.]

“What the hell is this…?”

A collar with the ominous price of 6666 and a magic book that teaches vampire-like skills appeared.

I hesitated for a moment, staring at the Collar of Subjugation.

“Hmm.”

The Collar of Subjugation was exactly the kind of item I wanted right now.

‘I was just thinking how nice it’d be to have a laborer to handle menial tasks…’

With this collar, I could capture a goblin or anything else, put it around their neck, and turn them into my personal servant.

If I could just put this on, I could even bring back the yandere obsessive girl from the original protagonist’s harem and make her my maid.

Unfortunately, I only had 409 points left. Even if I bought the Blood Magic Book and earned 500 points from the quest reward, I’d still be far short.

And today was Wednesday evening.

‘Can I gather six thousand points by Monday?’

I managed to earn a thousand points in a single day, but I nearly died doing it. If I repeated this six times over four days, I might be able to gather six thousand points.

Anyway, the only thing I could buy right now was the Blood Magic Book.

With 409 points on hand, selling two spider eyes should be enough. Since a Silence Spider’s eye was worth 200 points each, it should suffice.

“Purchase.”

I sold the spider eyes and used the points to buy the Blood Magic Book.

As soon as I bought it, a hefty hardcover Blood Magic Book dropped in front of me.

Since I wasn’t in a position to read it now, I stored the weighty book in my inventory.

Then, a notification popped up-the quest was complete. The “Purchase 10 items from the general store” quest was now finished.

[Quest Complete]

[Rewards have been distributed.]

[Credit rating has increased.]

[Item #3 in the general store has been unlocked.]

“Now this is more like it.”

My credit rating had risen from F to D. As the notification said, the third item was now unlocked.

[3. Cursed Magic Book – Spirit Paper Curse]

[Details: Contains methods for cursing using shikigami. Requires the ability to create shikigami. The curse’s strength varies with the shikigami’s grade.]

[Price: 99P]

[4. Locked]

[Insufficient credit rating.]

‘Oh! Nice.’

A similar skill appeared in the original work. If I recall correctly, it allowed targeting someone from a distance and dealing damage by destroying a shikigami.

The terrifying part was that the victim wouldn’t even know where the attack was coming from-they could die with their limbs twisted.

As long as you had good vision, you could assassinate anyone.

Because it was so overpowered, the author gave this skill to the occult club’s vice president, a bespectacled, gloomy, big-breasted girl who was the object of the club president’s unrequited love.

‘But this is surprisingly cheap.’

It only cost 99 points. Maybe because it was a sub-skill of the shikigami main skill tree, it was priced low. The effect seemed disproportionately powerful for the cost.

Still, given that the curse’s strength depended on the shikigami’s grade, the basic paper shikigami probably wouldn’t deal much damage.

I immediately bought the book. Now I had 410 points left.

“Wow, it’s thin.”

It was the thinnest book I’d acquired so far. I could finish it in about 30 minutes.

With two new means to strengthen myself, I planned to read and meditate diligently today to start gathering points like crazy from tomorrow.

The goal was to buy the Collar of Subjugation before next Monday. I couldn’t afford to lose free labor.

Now, I just needed to accept one last quest and get out of the subway.

[Quest: Read a 300+ page book within 1 day (0/1)]

[Reward: 100P, random book]

[Warning: Failure will lower credit score.]

“What the…?”

I had to find and read a book with over 300 pages.

‘The Blood Magic Book earlier…’

I immediately pulled out the Blood Magic Book from my inventory to check the page count.

“Holy shit. 340 pages.”

Reading the Blood Magic Book would complete the quest. Since I planned to just skim through it without deep comprehension, I could finish it today.

“The exit…”

I’d gotten everything I needed. Time to finally head home.

******

“Phew…”

On the way home, I stopped by a stationery store. The reason was simple-to stock up on A4 paper.

Making paper shikigami required a lot of paper, so I decided to gather as much as I could while I had the chance.

-Rustle.

“Hmm…?”

While browsing the large store, I heard a strange noise.

‘What was that?’

I immediately pulled out my crowbar from the inventory and turned toward the sound.

-Rustle. Rustle.

Something was there. I hadn’t misheard.

‘Fuck…’

As I cautiously approached the storage area where the sound came from, the figure of something crouched in the corner, gnawing on something, became clearer.

‘What the hell is this thing now?’

An unidentified humanoid creature. Pale white skin, blue veins… and an egg-shaped head.

This albino monster, too white to be a doppelgänger, was feasting on a corpse-likely the store owner.

Since no information appeared when I looked at it, it probably wasn’t from the spirit realm.

“Churrup. No fight.”

“W-what did you say?”

“No fight.”

“…”

When I raised my crowbar to strike, it quickly distanced itself and spoke in human language.

According to the original work’s setting, communicating with beings from other dimensions required abilities like translation or telepathy-or specialized training.

Regardless, the fact that it spoke meant this monster was extremely dangerous.

‘Only a limited number of beings can use human language. Most are either highly intelligent or part of societies resembling humans.’

Of course, some creatures carry around human brains to communicate, or learn language by consuming humans.

This one seemed like the latter. Still dangerous either way.

‘Fuck…’

This world’s difficulty was all over the place. In some places, weak goblins roamed, while in others, incomprehensible monsters appeared.

There were no fixed leveling zones-level 100 and level 1 monsters were all mixed together, making random encounters with absurdly strong creatures possible.

In short, the difficulty was bullshit. For now, I needed to lull it into complacency.

“I don’t want to fight either.”

“Lie.”

“What?”

It immediately saw through my deception.

I had planned to pretend I didn’t want to fight, escape, and then burn down the entire store…

But that failed.

“I gave chance.”

“Shit…”

A strange tension filled the air. The fight was about to begin.

Whoooosh…!!!

“Guh!!!”

Suddenly, mana erupted from its body, levitating nearby objects.

Was it using telekinesis? If so, it was likely either a deep-sea creature from the water realm or a monster from the underworld.

‘It’s coming!!’

It shot sharpened pencils and pens at me like arrows, and I barely managed to block them by flipping over a display stand.

-Thunk!!

“Fucking hell!!!”

But I couldn’t block everything. A pencil lodged itself in my thigh. The pain was excruciating, enough to make me break out in cold sweat.

-Whoosh whoosh whoosh!!!!

It didn’t stop, relentlessly hurling sharp objects as if determined not to give me a chance.

-Bam bam bam!!!!!!

‘I can’t even get close!’

I quickly moved out of its detection range, gulped down two mouthfuls of the low-grade healing potion I’d prepared earlier, pulled the pencil from my thigh, and sprayed the wound with the potion.

‘Should I use the Demon Digestion Method…?’

But even if I used it here, it would definitely find me.

‘Damn it…’

Fighting a telekinetic monster was overwhelming. Still, I couldn’t just collapse. I decided to trust my 28 Strength and charge at it.

Most telekinetic beings weren’t physically strong, so if I got close, I could probably smash its head in one hit.

Just as I thought that-

-KABOOM!!!!!

‘Shit! What now?!’

I screamed internally as I looked toward the destroyed store entrance. Someone was entering.

‘Blond hair… dark skin. Average height, muscular build, and a ridiculously handsome face…’

An overwhelming aura of protagonist energy.

The person walking in looked like a troublemaker.

‘Is that the protagonist, Jang Yi-sang? Damn… I run into him here?’

He strode into the store and immediately shouted at the unidentified monster.

“Hey. You-male or female?”

From a normal person’s perspective, asking such a bizarre question to a monster made no sense. But if this was really Jang Yi-sang, it was understandable.

‘Who is Jang Yi-sang…?’

A madman who could seduce any woman he showed the slightest interest in.

A true NTR king of this era, unconcerned with boyfriends or husbands.

If not for laws and morals, he would’ve long since slept with monsters.

‘This bastard’s obsessed with women. Is he finally planning to fuck monsters…?’

He seemed ready to indulge in monster mating, as he already had a few corrupted female monsters following him.

‘What happened to his harem? Did he abandon them? Or…’

Was he really attracted to this egg-headed ghost thing?

I couldn’t figure out his tastes.

Well, I guess that’s what it takes to be the protagonist of this era’s cliché novels.

Regardless, I didn’t want to be caught by him.

If captured, I’d be ruined-in every sense.

‘For now…’

I crouched as low as possible and activated the Demon Digestion Method.

Instantly, my presence vanished, and the sounds around me became muffled.

‘Please… just go away…’

Fortunately, I could faintly hear them even while using the technique.

-What, you’re male? I thought I smelled a female… Hmm. No?

-W-wait..!!! No fight..!

-CRACKLE!!!!

-Tch. Guess I’ll call it a day. Let’s go.

The footsteps gradually faded.

Silence returned to the stationery store.

Just to be safe, I kept my eyes closed for about an hour.

‘Are they gone…?’

It should be safe to open my eyes now.

I deactivated the Demon Digestion Method and slowly opened my eyes.

“Haah. That was fucking terrifying.”

Darkness had settled over the store, its lights now off.

The protagonist and his female monster party had already left, and night was falling.

‘Crazy bastard…’

Before leaving, I checked the monster the protagonist had killed.

“Whoa…”

Its head had been cleanly ripped off-no other wounds.

This gave me a rough idea of the protagonist’s current power level.

‘The thing that made me run away got its head torn off without even resisting.’

My head spun. I quickly placed my hands on its body to find sellable parts.

‘The brain, both hands, heart, and liver?’

I pulled out a kitchen knife. From frequent use, the blade had dulled slightly.

Squelch.

“Phew…”

I slit its belly and extracted the heart.

How many points could I have gotten if I’d killed it myself?

It would’ve been a decent haul, but oh well. I removed the heart and liver without hesitation.

I also took out my cleaver and hacked off both wrists.

“Haah…”

I was too tired to extract the brain now. I’d take the head home.

With this, the third day of the apocalypse-Wednesday-came to an end.

Today, I learned that demons had settled nearby and that the protagonist was roaming the streets, building a harem of female monsters.

Unfortunately, there was no good news.

But it reinforced the fact that I needed to grow stronger.