Chapter 2 : Wolf’s blood

“Tsk, judging by how you look, you must’ve come back from the brink of death. Still… you made it back alive.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

The guard stationed at the portal to the labyrinth heaved a deep sigh when he saw me.

My skin clung to my bones, and the stench of blood wafted off me. Surprisingly, I had no visible wounds, but the guard couldn’t know whose blood soaked my clothes, or what the condition of the skin beneath was.

With sunken cheeks and tattered gear, he must’ve figured I’d nearly died.

And he wasn’t wrong — I had, in fact, come back from death.

This was already my sixth expedition into the labyrinth, but just like always, I wrote “3” for my highest reached floor. The guild staff gave me a pitying look.

I’d spent nearly all my money resupplying on gear and materials, leaving me with only about thirty bronze coins.

I bought a stale rye loaf for five bronze coins — not even something I wanted to eat — shoved it in my mouth, and headed back to the inn where I still had two days left on my stay to do laundry.

The landlady was remarkably honest. She didn’t count time unless you were actually using the room.

There were plenty of innkeepers who cheated lower-ranked adventurers.

If a weak adventurer rented a room, the owner would take money from a stronger one and let them use it instead.

Of course, the weaker one couldn’t say a word, and when they tried to complain, the stronger adventurer would take the innkeeper’s side.

A lot of low-tier adventurers ended up getting ripped off and kicked out that way.

Thanks to the kind landlady, I’d paid for a full week up front. Someone else might use the room while I was in the labyrinth, but I could always get it back when I returned.

“The smell of blood is overwhelming. Wash up before you come in.”

“Haha, yes. Sorry, ma’am.”

“It’s fine. You’re not the first of your kind. Just don’t stink up the bed.”

“Understood.”

As always, her stern expression belied her generous heart. I left her behind and washed the blood-stained outer layer of my clothes in the well.

Maybe because of all the rain, they weren’t too badly soiled. Rainwater might be considered dirty, but still.

I washed up in the bath with moderately warm water and dragged myself back to the room to check my body.

“I definitely bled a lot… but I don’t feel dizzy or anything.”

The gambeson had protected me to some degree, but by the end, my right forearm was in tatters. And now? It was completely fine.

The biggest change of all, though, was in my left eye.

“No matter how I look at it… this is a direwolf’s eye…”

Beneath my blinking eyelid, my left eye socket was now occupied by an unmistakable direwolf eye. Its size was a bit smaller than I remembered, maybe because the creature was from the canine family.

“Did I really… eat the eyeball?”

That had to be it. I only had one skill, so if something strange was happening to my body, it must’ve come from that skill or someone else’s.

Still though — who the hell shoves a wolf’s eyeball into someone’s head with magic just because they lost an eye in the forest?

That doesn’t sound likely. If it really happened, maybe the person wasn’t evil. My body did come back in one piece.

That’s not the only strange thing.

“Why am I so hungry?”

Everything I’d stuffed into my stomach earlier felt completely digested, and the hunger was overwhelming. A chunk of bread wasn’t even close to enough.

I had about 25 bronze coins left. It was a decent amount, but meals at this inn usually cost 30 bronze coins.

Even though I was starving, I couldn’t afford to eat.

I already owed the landlady a lot.

“I basically mooched off her for a week after I ended up here.”

Of course, I helped with chores, used my strength to clean things. I wasn’t just freeloading shamelessly.

But still, I wouldn’t say I did enough to repay what I got…

“Ah.”

I remembered. A way to earn money.

‘Unusual, right? I mean, how many people have gone into the labyrinth? Discovering a completely new skill — that’s a big deal! If you ever learn more about it, you have to come see me, okay? I’ll even give you a small reward!’

That’s what the appraiser said when I first had my skill evaluated. I hadn’t mentioned that my right arm had turned into a steak the first time I used it. I just thought it was a useless, garbage skill.

But now…

“Let’s go.”

The labyrinth city of Kalax had countless appraisal shops. There wasn’t anything special about any of them, but since the price for a single appraisal wasn’t too high, shops in more convenient locations tended to be more expensive.

The farther out or worse the location, the cheaper the appraisals.

Adventurers like me — lower-ranked — usually went to those distant places.

Creaaak

The rusty metal hinges groaned as the door opened, revealing the inside.

“Welcome! This is the Sateria Appraisal Shop… Oh! You’re the one from last time, right?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“That… the unknown skill! Could it be?! Did you figure out what it does?!”

“Well, kind of…”

A bright smile bloomed on the face of the girl with flowing crimson hair as she pushed up her broken glasses.

Appraiser Ravi Sateria. She set up her shop in a suspiciously bad location — possibly on purpose.

Thanks to that, I could get my skill appraised for just 10 bronze coins. But come to think of it, I was supposed to be the one getting rewarded.

‘She doesn’t look like she has much money either… Should I go to a fancier appraiser and ask for payment?’

As I wrestled with the thought in my head, Ravi circled the desk and grabbed my arm.

“Come on! Tell me while I check the skill!”

“I didn’t get a new skill, so I don’t need an appraisal.”

“No! We’ll recheck the one from before! By looking at the circuit, I can tell what it’s doing!”

“Well…”

I’d already come all the way here. And now that I saw her face, I didn’t feel like going somewhere else.

Maybe because I’m poor, I felt a weird sense of camaraderie. She might not be desperate for money, having set up a shop, but compared to others, she was still a pauper.

Following Ravi’s instructions, I took off my top and lay face-down on the wide bed.

She had told me that my skill was engraved along my spine, starting from the back of my head and spreading through my body.

“Uhee… Hasn’t your body changed somehow…?”

And every time I saw this little squirt, I was reminded this really was another world.

If she’d been in South Korea with that face, she’d be raking in tens of millions a month through livestreams.

“Hi, hiyah… As expected, the difference in sex is huge for animals… Is every male body like this…?”

“Instead of just staring at the body, you should do your job.”

“Ugh, right….”

A soft, pale white hand that had never held anything but a pen or a wand slowly moved from the back of the head toward the spine.

“Yes! The circuit has been exposed! Then, could you tell me how you came to know about it and what effects you suspect?”

I explained the situation for now. That I encountered a direwolf on the 3rd floor of the labyrinth and was driven to the brink of death.

That my right arm had become tattered, and I had lost a lot of blood.

That in a do-or-die moment, I tore open the direwolf’s belly and ate its meat, heart, lungs, and eyes, and drank its blood.

That when I woke up in the morning, my eyes had changed to those of a direwolf.

“What?! Your eyes?!”

“Haven’t you seen them?”

“Gehk… I’m sorry… I have trouble making eye contact….”

Well, she always did avert her gaze.

“Th-then, could you stand up for a moment..? I’d like to see those eyes for myself….”

“Yes. It’s the left eye.”

When I sat up from the bed I was lying face down on, and our eyes met, Ravi clasped her hands to her cheeks, which turned as red as her hair, and darted her eyes around.

“What are you doing? Look at my eyes.”

“Uuh.. r-right….”

Ravi, who had tightly shut her eyelids, opened them and held eye contact with all her might for three seconds.

Then she turned her head and fanned her red cheeks for thirty seconds.

“Phew…!!”

“How is it?”

“I-I’m sorry… but it’s black…?”

What? That can’t be right.

Just in case, I picked up the small hand mirror on the desk, and sure enough, the yellow eyes of a direwolf were clearly reflected.

“What do you mean? They’re clearly yellow.”

“R-really?! I’m so sorry! I only looked at what’s the left side from my perspective!”

She said it was hard to look at both eyes, so she only looked at what was her left.

I considered smacking her, but held back.

“Look again. Here, these are a direwolf’s eyes.”

“W-wow, you’re right..!”

After confirming the eye color and lying back on the bed, Ravi came closer and started examining the exposed red circuits here and there.

“Ah! Unlike last time, some of the circuits are activated! So, this part functions like this… and that part works like that….”

After staring for a while, Ravi tilted her head a few times as if something was off.

Then, mumbling to herself, she asked me:

“Have you noticed any other changes?”

“Why? Is there a problem?”

“No..? It’s just, how do I say it. I don’t think just a single eyeball would cause this level of circuit activation…? The activated circuits are spread throughout your entire body…”

Whole body?

I don’t think my whole body has changed yet. Just the eyeball should’ve been enough.

It’s not like I ate the direwolf from head to toe. If that had caused the change, I’d probably have turned into some kind of werewolf by now.

“Ah! Wait… you said you drank the direwolf’s blood, right…?”

“Yes. Why?”

Huh?

“…Shit.”

“I-I’ll try a blood test! I only need a little!”

“Go ahead. If this is true, I’m starting to feel a bit nauseous.”

Wait, wolf blood flowing in my body now?

What kind of bullshit situation is this? That’s a bit too much.

Honestly, eyeballs? Even with Korean sensibilities, that’s not too bad.

In my opinion, as long as it’s not color blindness, this is actually pretty okay.

Wolf vision is better than an office worker’s, anyway.

But wolf blood flowing in my veins… that’s a problem.

From blood type issues to other complications.

“Uh, uhhhh….”

As she dropped a special reagent into my blood in a thin flask and swirled it around, Ravi’s expression started to change rapidly.

“Th-this… this is half direwolf’s blood……”

Suddenly, wolf blood started flowing through my body.