Dark Fantasy Guide for the Summoner - Chapter 33

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 33.
Forest’s Rest III
My eyes opened.
Out of habit, I checked my body’s condition first thing.
“…….”
As I patted myself down, I felt the rough texture of bandages against my skin.
The wounds had been treated cleanly, as expected.
No expensive potions had been used, but for emergency treatment, it was excellent work.
“Huh.”
I exhaled slowly before taking in my surroundings.
It was a narrow but cozy space.
In what looked like a stone cavern, patched blankets and pillows with tufts of cotton spilling out lay scattered about, while mysterious ore embedded in the walls cast a soft glow throughout the chamber.
‘……That has to be a Moonstone, doesn’t it?’
A stone that produced its own light.
By reputation alone, it sounded quite expensive, but in reality it wasn’t.
For one thing, the light was far too dim, and even that only appeared under specific conditions.
Since POOP is a world where magical engineering has advanced considerably, most people use electric bulbs instead of these things.
A sharp pain shot through me.
I reflexively pushed myself upright, and my eyes throbbed.
Maybe sleeping helped after all?
My vision had cleared a bit compared to right before I’d collapsed.
‘It doesn’t seem to have been that serious.’
Relief washing over me, I crawled slowly out of the stone cavern.
A dark, cozy underground space. The walls were riddled with countless holes at regular intervals, like a rabbit warren.
So I’d been lying in one of those holes.
‘……Now that I look at it, it’s kind of like a capsule hotel.’
I checked on Cria and Seigrena sleeping in another chamber.
Neither of them seemed to be in any mortal danger.
“150,000 Seeds.”
At that moment, a drowsy voice bored into my ears.
I turned my head to see a front desk area arranged beneath the faint glow of Moonstones…….
A woman propping up her chin caught my eye.
“…….”
She was not human.
Rabbit ears sprouted visibly from the top of her head.
“What are you staring at? 150,000 Seeds. And just so you know, there’s no room for haggling.”
Tap-tap. She drummed her fingers on the desk, pressing the point once more.
I looked at the words floating above this woman’s head.
[Pashu, ‘Ha-arim’]
For the record, Pashu here wasn’t a name—it was the name of her race.
The kind of beastfolk species you’d find classified as such in typical fantasy settings…… that’s what Pashu are in POOP.
I’d heard it was a foreign word meaning something like “beast,” though I couldn’t say for certain.
What mattered was that the Pashu were the administrators of this hidden map…… Forest’s Rest.
‘Damn, that’s expensive.’
150,000 Seeds wasn’t exactly pocket change.
As I stood in place, Ha-arim’s eyes narrowed sharply.
“What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’re broke?”
“……I have it.”
Despite what I was thinking, I pulled out the money without protest.
Refusing a Manager’s instructions at the Rest was practically suicide.
They classified everyone in this world into just two categories.
‘Customers. And troublemakers.’
And once you were branded a troublemaker even once, you could never use the Rest again.
I knew better than anyone what a massive risk that was when exploring the forest.
“Before we settle up, I’d like you to appraise the Seeds first.”
“Sure, sure. Got it, surface-dweller.”
Ha-arim answered casually, tilting her head.
“But how’d you know we do appraisals here? Ever been to the Rest before?”
“No.”
“That’s what I thought. You didn’t come here as a proper customer—you got guided here by the forest itself. Hmm……”
Ha-arim flipped through the guest register for a moment, then shrugged with obvious annoyance.
“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter much.”
The creature who’d taken the pouch fished a monocle from her pocket, placed it on with a decisive click, and dumped the Seeds from her pouch onto the table.
“Sniff-sniff…. These are seeds from the Gunosaeng Area, aren’t they?”
“That’s right.”
“Hmm. Fresh enough, but these ones have weak vitality. The price reflects that.”
Ha-arim muttered to herself, and despite her irritated tone, she sorted through the Seeds meticulously before speaking again.
“Let’s see. By surface currency standards, that comes to 795,700 Seeds. Add the 150,000 Seeds lodging fee, emergency treatment, and the cost of materials used, and that’s another 115,000 Seeds.”
“…Right, you calculated it fast. And there’s something else I want to buy separately.”
“What is it?”
“A Delborla Wedge Potion and a Sunrise Potion, if you have them. One bottle each.”
“Hmm. That’s another 200,000 Seeds.”
…Really makes you want to curse.
Of course, I’d roughly anticipated the amount, but actually pulling it from my pouch stung.
Half of the Seeds I’d so carefully accumulated evaporating in an instant.
‘There’s no helping it.’
It’s not wasteful spending.
Besides, I haven’t spent all my money anyway.
The Red Seed I got from defeating the Black Tree—at a glance, it’s premium grade, and I’m planning to exchange it for currency once I reach the Royal Capital.
“Anything else you need?”
“Three servings of food.”
“That’s another 30,000 Seeds. Altogether, the total comes to 495,000 Seeds….”
Ha-arim suddenly frowned and grumbled.
“…Blast it. That’s awkward. Look, customer. Can’t we just round it to 500,000? There’s nothing else you want to buy?”
“Nothing.”
“Ugh.”
Ha-arim irritably scratched her head.
“Why did it have to be 495,000 and not 480,000 or 470,000? So annoying.”
What did I do wrong? Why is she suddenly like this?
‘Does she have some kind of compulsion about numbers?’
The sort of personality that feels uncomfortable when things don’t add up neatly.
“Or would you rather just pay 500,000?”
I swallowed the thought of whether she’d lost her mind and offered a more diplomatic version instead.
“That’s not going to work.”
It’s best to maintain the most favorable relationship possible with the manager of this Rest.
I’ll be stopping by this place many more times in the future.
‘There are items here you can only get at the Rest, after all.’
The Rest’s inventory grows with each visit.
What a first-time visitor like me can buy is extremely limited.
Though the prices tend to be high overall, sometimes items appear that you couldn’t buy even with money burning a hole in your pocket at the Royal Capital.
‘Better than the wandering merchants, but still at least double what the Royal Capital charges.’
I spoke while watching Ha-arim continue to agonize.
“Sorry, but there’s nothing else I want to buy. If it really bothers you, why don’t you just give me a discount?”
I knew the suggestion would fall on deaf ears, but I said it anyway.
“A discount…. Hmm, why not? Give me 400,000 Seeds.”
…Did I hear that right?
A discount. Not a word I’d ever heard at this Rest.
The Pashu members would gouge you if they could, but they’re not the type to knock anything off.
“Why? Don’t you want to?”
“…It’s not that. Are you sure you’re okay with it?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? Here—your change, the Delborla Wedge Potion, and the Sunrise Potion.”
The creature who’d insisted just moments ago that no haggling was allowed quickly finished the calculation and thrust a pouch and two bottles of potion toward me.
Judging by the volume of Seeds in my hand, she hadn’t shorted me.
‘What’s going on all of a sudden?’
Did she have some ulterior motive?
Or….
As various thoughts flitted through my mind, something suddenly clicked into place.
[You have now become a familiar figure to most Magical Beasts.]
And I looked at the creature’s ears again.
Rabbits aren’t exactly Magical Beasts, but if you had to classify the Pashu, they’d be creatures of the forest…in other words, Magical Beasts themselves.
‘Could she have been affected by that?’
In fact, no other possibility came to mind.
“If there’s nothing else you need, I’m going to start preparing dinner. It’ll take about thirty minutes.”
“Right. Oh—how long have I been at Forest’s Rest?”
“Twenty-two hours and twenty-six minutes.”
I’d slept nearly a full day away.
Well, I’d earned it.
‘So that means I have roughly an hour and a half before checkout.’
I could pay extra to stay another day, but with three people, that would cost 150,000 Seeds.
If I was lucky, I might negotiate again like before, but even accounting for that, it was too expensive.
‘At a decent inn in the Royal Capital, a night runs maybe 3,000 or 4,000 Seeds.’
Even a rough calculation showed the price here was ten times over market.
Of course, by the middle stages, this place would become somewhere I’d pay 1,500,000 Seeds to stay in if I had to, but that’s a future concern.
First, I returned to the stone chamber and woke Cria, who had been sleeping like the dead.
“Cria. Wake up.”
“Nngh…….”
Cria’s eyes barely opened.
Her gaze was half-lidded—twice as much as usual—and dark circles beneath her eyes were three times as pronounced.
“Drink this.”
“What is it……?”
“Something good for you. You’ll feel better after.”
Cria drank it without complaint.
Part of me worried about drinking on an empty stomach, but given her condition, every second counted. There was no time to leisurely get food into her system first.
‘Hopefully she doesn’t develop a Mana Manipulation Disorder trait.’
Since she’d made it through the day, the odds were fifty-fifty from here on.
I checked Cria’s stat window.
Name: Cria (?)
Level: 22
Class: Spirit Summoner (?)
Trust Level with Subject: 58
Stress: 54
Attributes
Strength: 5

Agility: 8
Endurance: 6

Mana: 21
Talents
Physical: F-

Mental: B
Art: D

Intuition: B+
Skills
Spirit Summon, Corpse Revival
Traits
Insomnia, Soul Awareness, Delusion, Toxicity, Spell Runaway
▶ Cria harbors a special secret. You can learn more once your Trust Level with her rises.
Her Trust Level had crossed fifty for the first time.
The last time I’d checked, it was hovering around twenty, so the death-defying battle we’d fought together had clearly deepened our bond considerably.
Her Stress was at fifty-four.
For someone who’d tumbled so far, the stat gains were lower than expected—but that was Cria all over. There was something peculiar about how resilient this one’s mental fortitude turned out to be.
‘The stats climbed primarily in Mana capacity.’
Before becoming a Spiritcaller, Cria’s previous class had also been Spirit-attuned, so this growth trajectory was exactly what I’d anticipated.
Of course, even accounting for that, the rate of Mana increase was extraordinary—and now I understood why.
Looking at the newly unlocked talent stats made it clear.
‘Spirit at B, Intuition at B+?’
Just as I’d predicted before, Cria was the classic late-bloomer type of companion.
Weak initial stats that make early cultivation grueling, but from the midgame onward, growth accelerates dramatically, until by the endgame you have an NPC with stats that far surpass the others.
What I hadn’t foreseen was two B-grade talents attached from the very start.
‘Looking purely at potential, this one’s above the caliber of most A-grade companions.’
The problem, then, would be that raising her from here on would be equally brutal.
I reviewed each of Cria’s newly unlocked traits one by one.
‘……why does every single trait have to be a double-edged sword?’
Soul Awareness paired with Delusion, Toxicity, Insomnia……
A complete buffet of conditions designed to drive someone mad.
If her Spirit talent had been even marginally lower, she’d have been broken long ago.
And then there was this.
‘So Spell Runaway attached itself after all.’
It stung, but this could at least be managed once we returned to the Royal Capital and stopped by the Magic Tower.
It would be costly, but it still beat the Mana Manipulation Disorder—a problem that wouldn’t have a solution until much later in the game.
And finally……
▶ Cria harbors a special secret. You will be able to confirm it as your Trust Level with her increases.
It seemed my Trust Level still wasn’t high enough to uncover this secret yet.
Well, that made sense—the question marks behind her name and class hadn’t disappeared either.
“You’ve got about an hour, so get some rest.”
After I watched Cria nod, her complexion markedly improved, I returned to my stone cave.
Gulp.
I immediately drank the Sunrise Potion, preventing Blindness from spreading from a mere debuff into a full trait.
I’d almost acquired the One-Eyed trait on top of it—though it would still take time before I returned to normal vision.
‘……so now.’
Time to answer the questions piling up.
[Summon the Magical Beast, Ash-fire Basilisk?]
I still had a mountain of things to ask this creature.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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