Healing After Sweeping Spirits with an Almighty Skill - Chapter 3

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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 3
3. Men’s Cave
The Arcade—the shopping district on the first floor of Boru.
In the plaza there, mainly used as a trading ground among Awakened Beings, I exchanged goods and money with a Mage.
The Mage reeked of alcohol, as if his wits had scattered somewhere.
But the moment he held the Magical Stone in his hands and confirmed the information window, his expression transformed—he smiled warmly like an entirely different person.
“Aha! Thank you so much for selling me the Magical Stone.”
“Oh, I’m the one who should be grateful for buying it.”
“I’ve been searching for nothing but this for months, you know. I really can’t thank you enough.”
“Seeing you so happy makes me happy too.”
“Here’s my business card. If you ever come across something like this again, please—I mean, absolutely do contact me.”
“Wow, thank you. I can already picture us building a win-win future together.”
“Aha! I really appreciate it. And please, do reach out.”
“Yes, take care, boss!”
I waved brightly until the Mage disappeared from sight. The moment he was gone, I tossed the business card into the trash.
Jeong Jin watched and asked.
“You’re throwing it away?”
“Of course I am. Why would I keep it?”
I wasn’t naive enough to contact that man every time a Magical Stone turned up. Why would I do that when putting it to auction each time made far more money?
He wasn’t some master of a major Guild—the auction route was clearly more profitable.
“Though I suppose I should remember his face since he did spend big money.”
[Transfer received: 102,050,100 won]
Over one hundred million won from the Mage’s transfer lit up my phone screen.
“Can’t believe it sold for this much.”
“Right? Looks like the ore vein depletion is accelerating.”
Jeong Jin muttered, sounding surprised.
Even though he was Guild-affiliated, Jeong Jin’s main work was tower climbing. Information about the Wasteland was bound to be scarce.
‘Over a hundred million.’
As a Porter, I’d need to work half a year to earn that much. Hunters really did operate on a different financial scale—both earning and spending.
Jeong Jin fell silent for a moment, thinking, then asked me.
“Are you planning to do direct trades like this next time too?”
“Yeah. You worried it’s risky?”
“I was with you this time, but if you end up meeting the wrong person when you’re alone, it could get dangerous. Why not affiliate with a Guild instead and make regular deliveries?”
“I don’t know. It’s a good idea, but I don’t think the timing’s right yet.”
“Trying to keep your strength hidden or something?”
“Not to that extent. I just don’t fully understand my own value yet, so I’d rather avoid premature contact until I do.”
“Hmm. That’s smart thinking.”
Selling unripe fruit at an unripe price was about as foolish as it got.
But equally foolish would be for someone to buy ripe fruit at a premium without even knowing what flavor it had.
So for now, I had to sharpen my skills on my own.
‘It won’t take that long.’
At most two weeks, at minimum five days.
That was plenty of time to understand the true value of whatever I’d acquired.
I’d set the auction window to just thirty minutes instead of being generous with time for exactly that reason.
With the Spirit Territory skill on my side, I could make far bigger money—I didn’t want to waste precious time trying to squeeze out an extra coin from my first item.
“So should we head back to Seoul for a bit?”
“To get materials for skill growth?”
“And grab lunch while we’re at it. What are you in the mood for? My treat today.”
As I waved my phone at him, Jeong Jin let out a short laugh.
“Chungmu kimbap for me.”
“Wow, you’re really pushing it.”
“If you think having an A-rank Hunter as a bodyguard comes cheap, you’ve got another thing coming.”
We exchanged jokes as we stepped through the gate leading back to Seoul.
* * *
Three hours later.
“Phew.”
I’d crossed through the Saksoon Zone once more and returned to the Spirit Territory.
Crash—
The moment I dumped the cart load of timber and stone onto the ground, the overloaded cart split in half with a groan.
“Aw, dang.”
Would you believe that cart, now smashed to pieces, was a brand-new item gleaming with polish just ten minutes ago?
The Wasteland dominates most of the Tower World.
The Saksoon wind that fills the Wasteland is no ordinary sandstorm. Things touched by that wind weather at a rate thousands of times faster than on Earth.
The same held true for human bodies, so the only way to survive this weathering was to craft clothing from materials found in the Tower or the Wasteland and wear them.
‘This outfit I’m wearing now is just crude leather stitched together, but it costs more than most luxury goods sold on Earth.’
A while ago, I disposed of my old Protective Gear and bought new ones. Since I seemed likely to move back and forth between the Spirit Territory and the Tower frequently, I got a sturdier monster-hide set.
I even bought large monster-hide sacks to hold lumber and stone, and nearly forty percent of the money I’d earned selling Magical Stones evaporated in the process.
‘The spending stings, but in a way, it’s thanks to that Saksoon wind that the value of the Magical Stones I mine keeps rising.’
It’s not just Magical Stones.
If I could mine various materials found only in the Wasteland’s mines—minerals essential for Hunter equipment—this easily, I could literally sit on a fortune.
“Krkrkrkr.”
As I stood there imagining a glittering future, Gnome came padding over and looked up at me eagerly.
I checked my skill window and saw the Mine marked as complete.
“Good. This is your promised payment.”
With that, I handed over six Chocolate Crackers.
“You finished the job quickly, so there’s a bonus. Keep it up next time too.”
[Ooh…!]
Gnome took the crackers with a delighted expression.
While Gnome happily waddled about, fattening up, I visited the completed Mine.
‘Interesting.’
The Mine had a quite unusual structure.
A Level 1 Spirit Territory was a hundred-pyeong plot. I’d wondered how a Mine could be dug within such a confined space, but the solution was nothing I’d imagined.
‘Should I call this a spiral staircase Mine?’
The Mine dropped straight down at a ninety-degree angle the moment the cave entrance ended. The hundred-pyeong limit appeared to be only a horizontal restriction; vertically, there was no limit.
‘True to its name as a Spirit of the Earth, it can mold the land however it pleases.’
With such a method, mining Magical Stones from an abandoned mine became easy to understand. It made sense—the Spirit of the Earth could reach areas where human hands could never touch.
Satisfied that the Mine was properly completed, I decided to build the second structure: the Main Hall.
Spirit Village LV. 1
┼ Construction Completed
└ Mine LV. 1
┼ Available for Construction
└ Main Hall LV. 1
└ Material: Lumber (10kg / 10kg)
└ Material: Stone (10kg / 10kg)
└ Water Source LV. 1
└ Requirement: Spirit of the Earth (1/1)
└ Requirement: Water Spirit (0/1)
Building the Main Hall required ten kilograms each of lumber and stone.
Since the materials had no special description, I’d brought cheap cement and wood pellets, ten kilograms of each.
‘Building the Main Hall.’
The faint blueprint emerged in my mind again.
I applied the blueprint to an appropriate location.
Then the cement powder and wood pellets I’d prepared flew up into the air and rushed toward the construction site.
Construction in progress: 300 seconds.
I’d wondered if I needed to use the Spirit as a worker for this too, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Perhaps buildings that required materials were constructed automatically once the materials were gathered.
Crunch-crunch.
As the Main Hall began to take shape, additional stone emerged from the ground along with the materials I’d prepared.
[Tee-hee-hee.]
Hearing laughter, I turned to see Jeong Jin playing with Gnome.
When Jeong Jin spun the wheel of the broken cart, Gnome ran on top of it like a hamster on a wheel, going pitter-patter.
Gnome’s face bore a purely joyful expression. Jeong Jin’s face too was lit up with delight.
“So Jin, you have quite the innocent side after all.”
“Hmm, hmm.”
At my words, Jeong Jin stopped the wheel and cleared his throat awkwardly. I met the gaze of Gnome, whose face had grown slightly dejected.
“Every time you mine a pretty stone like last time from the Mine, I’ll give you one Chocolate Cracker.”
[Ooh…!]
Gnome immediately raised both fists and bolted toward the Mine.
Jeong Jin smacked his lips regretfully and spun the empty wheel with his hand.
* * *
“Yong.”
As I was looking around the completed Main Hall, Jeong Jin called to me in a serious voice.
Wondering what was wrong, I saw a monster limping toward us from far away.
Outside the Tower, there are monsters in the Wasteland too.
The environment is so harsh that their numbers are sparse, but they do appear from time to time.
Crack—
Jeong Jin gripped his sword and stood beside me.
The monster was a single Dire Wolf of enormous size.
Given Jeong Jin’s skill, it was a monster that wouldn’t take more than a few seconds, so I watched it without tension.
And then something extraordinary happened.
– Growl.
The gaunt Dire Wolf sniffed the air toward us from within the sandstorm.
But it did not push its snout into this calm, windless space beyond the sand wall. Or rather, it seemed unable to.
Convinced that something existed on the other side, the Dire Wolf lingered uncertainly for a while before turning away.
Jeong Jin and I locked eyes. And we both realized we’d reached the same conclusion.
“Feels like a Sanctuary Declaration skill, doesn’t it?”
There is a skill called Sanctuary Declaration.
True to its name, it was a skill that designated a certain area as a sanctuary, blocking monster approach and bloodshed between Awakened Beings.
In the Mining Expedition—which had to cross the Wasteland for weeks at a time—it was such a precious skill that people paid premium rates and still couldn’t recruit someone who possessed it.
“The Spirit Territory… truly worthy of being called a special zone.”
Jeong Jin seized the moment to don Protective Gear and conduct several experiments outside the Territory. And he discovered several remarkable facts.
“From outside, the inside is completely invisible. Not only that—you can’t enter it either. Just like the Sanctuary Declaration skill.”
It was indeed a skill worthy of being called a special zone.
‘My own safe shelter.’
I looked around the Spirit Village with a slightly proud heart.
It was still a tiny settlement with just one building and one mine, but my chest swelled fiercely, as though I were the captain of an aircraft carrier.
Suddenly, a sense of déjà vu struck me.
This sensation filling my chest felt familiar somehow.
What could it be? When had I felt this before?
As I pondered, a childhood memory surfaced.
‘That’s right. My secret hideout under the desk.’
In childhood, whenever sleep wouldn’t come, there was a game I’d always play to escape the adults’ eyes.
I would crawl under the desk with a blanket and build a hideout. Using the desk, chair, and bookshelf, I’d spread a thin blanket like a tent and lie beneath it—and that alone brought such joy, as if I possessed the entire world.
Yes, that was exactly how I felt now.
Tee-hee-hee.
Laughter burst from me unbidden.
It seems I, too, have failed to shed the innocence of childhood.
* * *
The next day.
Since Jeong Jin had gone to his Guild for work, I was wondering if I might feel a little lonely when Gnome arrived with a friend in tow.
At first, I thought it was a second Gnome. But looking more carefully, something was different.
The emaciated body was brown, but what comprised that body was not earth.
‘Mud?’
In that instant, lightning struck in my mind.
“A Water Spirit?”
As I asked, the emaciated mud creature barely nodded. I quickly opened my skill menu.
┼ Available Construction List
└ Water Source LV. 1
└ Condition: Earth Spirit (1/1)
└ Condition: Water Spirit (1/1)
If I built just that, I could raise the Spirit Territory to level 2.

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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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