Chapter 374: I Hate Fire (1)

After taking a couple more days of personal vacation following the New Year’s Day when my younger sisters stormed in.

The day before yesterday, something I needed to do popped into my head while using my awakening points, so I visited the association for the first time in a while, instead of my company.

The reason was, of course, to complete the assignment Hwayoung Sunbae gave me in a previous class: ‘Improvement of Fire Magic’.

The assignment Hwayoung Sunbae gave me the meeting before last was to create ‘3rd Circle Magic’ myself.

Among the three spells I brought for that assignment, the Erpa… Frost Burst, which combined fire and ice magic, received passing marks to some extent, but…

Improving the other two spells, ‘Flame Whip’ and ‘Explosive Fist’, still remained as a new assignment.

I needed to complete the assignment in advance, even just to avoid being embarrassed when I meet Hwayoung Sunbae next time.

She clearly said this time it didn’t matter if it was 4th or 5th Circle, so I should somehow make it into a practical spell.

In the sense that I could now add units of concept, it might seem easier than the previous assignment limited to 3rd Circle magic, at first glance, but…

If you looked at the reality, it was definitely not an easy assignment at all.

Because what Hwayoung Sunbae meant by practical magic was magic that included power matching its circle stage.

Making superficially plausible magic by adding as much stability and power as possible was meaningless. The moment 5th Circle magic produced only 2nd or 3rd Circle level power, it was an automatic failure in the practicality category.

If you were to raise the circle stage, the power had to increase accordingly. Or else, it had to include something special comparable to that level.

Still, with Esila’s help, I somehow managed to figure out the improvement method for ‘Flame Whip’ among the two spells, so today was a practical test to see how practical the improved magic was.

And the best place for that kind of training was indeed the association dungeon, where there was less scrutiny than at the company.

“Hello~.”

“Ah, hello!”

The employee at the request management desk greeted me with a welcoming smile as soon as I entered the association.

Perhaps because it was the beginning of the year when the number of hunters tends to decrease, they seemed quite free despite it being daytime.

“It’s been a while, Hunter Kim Sungchul!”

“Yes, it has.”

“Lately, your frequency of visits seems to have decreased a bit compared to before. Is everything alright?”

“Ah, well…”

I could have honestly confessed that since I transferred to the company, I couldn’t pay as much attention to the association as before, but my identity at the company wasn’t ‘Kim Sungchul’, it was ‘Sung Taekyung’.

I explained to the desk employee the reason I haven’t been visiting the association often lately, along with a suitable excuse.

“It’s nothing major. Perhaps because my financial problems were resolved recently, I seem to have more days off.”

“Ah, I see…”

The employee nodded with a low exclamation as soon as they heard the words, ‘financial problems were resolved’.

It was practically an indirect way of saying ‘I succeeded in transferring jobs’, so the employee’s slightly bitter reaction was quite natural.

It felt a bit apologetic towards the employee working at the association, but the Hunters’ Autonomous Union was originally that kind of organization.

It was a guild organization where hunters with mediocre skills, unable to get hired by companies or foundations, or those kicked out of existing guilds for causing trouble, or even just hunters using other dungeons for hobbies or leisure activities gathered.

Or, like me, it was the characteristic of this guild, the Hunters’ Autonomous Union, that it was a place where hunters gathered to improve their skills and raise their ranks with the aim of transferring to companies or foundations.

It was common to secretly transfer to other guilds, and the association guild couldn’t strictly investigate it; that was their situation.

It wasn’t a situation that applied only to me; many people actually used the association this way.

Rather, I should be grateful just for being able to stop by occasionally, even after transferring to another guild like many others.

I didn’t want to create an unnecessarily awkward atmosphere because of my transfer, so I quickly changed the subject and asked the guide employee.

“Rather than that, since I’m going into the dungeon anyway, I’d like to pick up a request.”

“Ah, yes!”

The association employee quickly changed the mood upon hearing my words and responded with their original friendly expression.

Their response showed they had clearly been working as an association desk employee for quite some time.

“A request, you say? How can I help you with that?”

“By any chance, are there any material collection quests related to fire-element dungeons? Preferably B-rank or higher.”

“Fire-element dungeons, got it. Please wait a moment.”

Normally, I would have looked for requests beforehand and approached someone since it’s usually crowded, but today, there were hardly any other hunters around besides me.

I stood at the counter and leisurely waited while the guide employee looked up requests from their desk.

In less than 30 seconds, the employee handed me a list of a few potential requests.

“Currently, there are these three requests available for B-rank fire-element dungeons. This one involves collecting the heart of a lava elemental from the volcanic center. Others include…”

Roughly listening to the contents of the three requests, the level seemed pretty similar. They all involved defeating B-rank monsters in B-rank fire-element dungeons and collecting materials.

The dungeon characteristics, monster types, and collection quantities differed slightly, but since fire-element monsters generally had similar counter-strategies, it wasn’t a big problem. Besides, the guild would buy any leftover materials anyway.

When similar requests were candidates like this, the typical hunter’s method of choosing usually boiled down to one thing.

“I’ll take the one with the best reward among the three.”

“I’ll take the obsidian material collection request from the Granite Cave.”

“The obsidian material collection request from the Granite Cave? Confirmed.”

The counter employee took my word and the association’s B-rank hunter token, then engraved the request onto it with a special seal.

In just a few seconds, the number for the obsidian material collection request was engraved onto the association’s hunter token marked ‘Kim Sungchul’.

“Please don’t forget the collection quantity and submission deadline.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Yes, please take care!”

Receiving the employee’s parting words, I slowly walked away from the request counter with my hunter token back in hand.

Before heading straight into the B-rank Granite Cave dungeon, I first approached a mage hunter who was sitting and resting in the lobby lounge.

After all, since the assignment Hwayoung Sunbae gave me involved researching and training magic, I felt that the practicality of my magic, viewed from another mage’s perspective, was also important.

Because even if it felt quite practical to me, another mage might not see it that way.

Of course, I didn’t have the audacity to ask a stranger to look at my magic, so I had to ask someone I already knew for advice.

And among my acquaintances, excluding Hwayoung Sunbae, there was only one other mage.

“Have you been waiting long, Cha Yuri-ssi?”

“……”

Cha Yuri was sitting half-reclined on the association lobby sofa, wearing a round, navy blue mage hat pulled down low.

As soon as she heard my voice, she slightly lifted the hat she wore pulled down and slowly raised her head to check my face.

Her expression suggested she had waited for me for quite a long time, and a hint of petulance could be felt.

“……Late.”

“Sorry, Cha Yuri-ssi. Since I was going into the dungeon anyway, I thought I’d pick up a request and ended up being a bit late.”

“Why on earth are you going into a B-rank fire-element dungeon? You could just go to the Grave of Old Trees like usual. Or use the dungeon at the company.”

“I couldn’t reserve the company dungeon this time, so it can’t be helped. Besides, the Grave of Old Trees is a bit dangerous for handling fire magic.”

“Tsk.”

Of course, just wielding fire magic a bit probably wouldn’t cause a dungeon like the Grave of Old Trees to burn down completely, but compared to other dungeons, it was certainly an environment where accidents were much easier to happen.

Furthermore, I figured Hwayoung Sunbae would likely want to watch my magic’s practical test in a fire-element dungeon again this time.

Figuring out the questioner’s intent, practicing fire magic in a fire-element dungeon myself was the right approach in many ways.

That’s why I had requested advice on my magic research from Cha Yuri, who, despite handling different elements, was also a mage.

“……”

Seeing her sullen expression, looking somewhat uncomfortable, it seemed she didn’t like today’s date much for some reason.

…Honestly, I couldn’t quite tell what it was from that reaction alone.

“Could it be that you didn’t like me asking you out on my day off?”

“…It’s not that.”

“I asked because I thought maybe I could have a date with you while I was training, making the most of it. If you’re tired, you can leave early…”

“I said it’s not that. Are you going to make me repeat myself?”

“……”

I thought maybe she was tired since she had just returned yesterday after demonstrating magic to her heart’s content during the year-end event, but seeing this reaction, it seemed she wasn’t angry about that.

In the first place, when I contacted her by phone the day before yesterday with the suggestion to meet today, she had answered with a rather cheerful voice, so it seemed unlikely, but…

If she wasn’t angry about that, maybe she disliked the very idea of me asking her, a wind mage, to look at my fire magic.

“Could it be that you don’t feel like looking at my magic? After all, fire and wind magic have slightly different elements…”

“Do I look like such a low-level mage to you? Although I can’t handle fire magic, I understand the principles and operational methods better than you. Magic, in general, is mostly built on similar concepts, except for the most basic spells.”

“Indeed, I felt that way too when I tried using fire and ice magic together.”

“Therefore, I can discern whether your magic is practical or not even with my eyes closed.”

“Still, please keep your eyes open when you judge.”

“…That was just a figure of speech.”

Anyway, seeing her like this, it didn’t seem like she held a grudge about the fact that I asked her to look at fire magic.

If it wasn’t this or that, I couldn’t grasp at all what was displeasing her.

It clearly seemed like there was something she disliked that I didn’t know about.

“Then maybe…”

“You seem to be making some strange misunderstanding. I’m not particularly angry or upset, so don’t misunderstand. It’s rude to keep asking if I’m angry when I’m not.”

“Ah, right…”

Seeing her insist ‘I’m not angry’ to this extent, she didn’t seem to like me probing further, so asking Cha Yuri directly why she was upset became difficult.

In the end, without finding out what Cha Yuri was upset about, we entered the B-rank Granite Cave dungeon together.

To test the newly improved version of ‘Flame Whip’ and receive her evaluation.