The Magical Hunter Girl Decorates the Dungeon! - Chapter 40
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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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The Magical Hunter Girl Decorates Her Dungeon! Episode 40
Nabi grasped the situation just a fraction too late.
That soft, squishy thing was trying to swallow her!
[Evacuate! Calculate escape vector!]
Nabi retracted the Stigma Radar and calculated the optimal direction for escape from Slime.
The calculation was flawless.
But the moment she accelerated the mana engine—
Whirrrrr…….
Tick! Tick! Tick!
[!!]
The thick stickers clinging to her wings ruined all her calculations.
[Weight error! Angle error! Recalculating……]
“Waaaaa!”
Crunch! Gulp!
Her wings thrashed uselessly. Each time they did, Slime’s soft, gelatinous body wormed deeper between her components.
Her resistance was overwhelmed with pathetic ease.
Slime rolled Nabi around in her mouth for a long moment.
“Hmm…… tastes bad.”
There was certainly enough mana packed in there.
But the thing was designed so compactly, so intricately, that chewing and digesting it seemed more trouble than it was worth.
After a brief moment of consideration.
“Ptooey!”
The apple-scented Nabi rolled across the floor.
Nabi hastily checked her body. She ignored her wings and engine, her circuit board—
[Ooooh……!]
A hidden button had been torn from her body!
[Wuh! Wuh! Wuh!]
Now she could only use the Attack Reflection function listed in her item description!
Her item grade downgraded in real time.
From EX-Rank all the way down to S++-Rank.
[Self-repair assessment…… impossible! Missing components!]
“Missing components? You mean this?”
Inside Slime’s translucent body, a stumpy little foreleg bobbed and drifted.
[Affirmative! Required!]
“If I give it back, are you going to keep Eji awake again?”
[Negative!]
She wasn’t lying.
The Stigma Radar wasn’t nearly as dazzling from the side as it was head-on. Eji would sleep peacefully.
Slime bobbed her body in agreement.
“I’ll give it back. Come here!”
Nabi wobbled forward and landed in front of Slime.
And then, Slime did exactly as she did with the Eji sisters…….
“Whoooosh—!”
She kneaded and shaped something from her belly, then spat it out at Nabi.
Click!
The hollow socket in her foreleg filled immediately.
“All done, see?”
[Whooooh— component assembly confirmed! Positioning perfect!]
“Perfect!”
Slime bounced happily, her body jiggling with glee. Nabi matched her energy, spinning once in the air before rising.
And then she activated the Stigma Radar again—
[……? Anomaly detected—component malfunction!]
The button wouldn’t activate.
The space that had been empty before was filled again, but……?
That was when Slime spoke.
“I got Apple Honey all over your front legs! Eat it, yum!”
[!!]
Nabi struggled to move her forelegs. But they were frozen stiff as if glued together.
To make matters worse, she felt sticky apple juice spreading through her internal systems.
“Sleep well then!”
[Problem, problem, kyu-ooooh—! Kyu?]
Strange sounds came from Nabi’s vocalization module. Just like that silly Slime.
[Check, check, muu-whang…… repair, not working…… whang……]
Nabi flapped her wings roughly in an attempt to free her front legs.
But even inertia couldn’t pull them loose. If anything, the apple juice was spreading through her body faster with each wingbeat, and the apple scent grew stronger.
[Useless……]
“……hehe.”
That was when a small laugh came from below.
It was Eji.
Nabi, who had been struggling, had somehow drifted to the head of the bed.
“Smells nice…….”
Eji’s heartbeat rose and fell like a song, staying well within the normal range.
The internal manual of the Rainbow Butterfly activated.
First Directive. Protect Eji’s peace and health.
[……usefulness, confirmed. Grade, re-evaluating.]
Even though the outcome differed from the original plan—
After determining that an acceptable result had been achieved.
Nabi curled up and settled back into the corner of Eji’s bag.
“Puuuh, puuuh…….”
Beneath the bed, Slime’s gentle, contented breathing guided everyone in the house toward peaceful dreams.
* * *
Siheon’s eyebrows twitched as he looked at the Rainbow Butterfly.
“You said it was an EX-Rank item?”
“It really was! Grimoire saw it too!”
Unfair!
The day after their consultation, the Rainbow Butterfly that Eji had excitedly brought into the Alice Dungeon had become S+++-Rank.
When Eji’s face fell, Siheon waved his hand in alarm.
“Calm down! S+++-Rank is still ridiculously incredible!”
“But it really was…….”
“Trust me. And there are rumors that items S-Rank and above automatically assess their condition in real time and update their descriptions accordingly. I’ve never seen it myself, but.”
“Oh! That reminds me—”
“Has anything changed since you first found it?”
“It smells like apples!”
“……Well, that works. But how are we supposed to test its actual function?”
He couldn’t very well attack Eji to confirm the effects.
Siheon seemed to be thinking, then suddenly opened his mouth and made a ridiculous sound.
“Squeak.”
Immediately after, he clutched his ears and rolled across the floor.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
“Mr. Siheon! What’s wrong?”
“I yelled in your ears…… and it suddenly bounced back to mine…….”
Eji’s eyes sparkled.
‘It really works!’
“Let’s go to the dangerous dungeon where your soul is right away!”
“Don’t rush into this like that!”
“But now I’m safe. You said you could clear a B-Rank Dungeon on your own!”
“That’s true, but still. It can’t be right now.”
“Why not……?”
That was when Geumhui jumped in.
“Even grown-ups don’t head straight up the mountain just because they got a nice new pair of hiking boots. They check how high it is, what the weather will be, everything first.”
Her voice carried more authority through the bear’s vocal cords than usual. Eji accepted it immediately, and Siheon looked at Geumhui with something like envy before speaking.
“Right. We should prepare as much as we can. If possible, I want to recover my Smartphone first and gather paid member information.”
“I got my Hunter License—can’t I use that?”
“Information quality varies by Trading Grade. One ID per Smartphone, so I can’t log in with someone else’s phone.”
“I see. Then let’s start by finding where your Smartphone went.”
Geumhui handed over her phone. Siheon took both it and the Tablet from Hyunji, then sat down with a grave expression—
A moment later.
He discovered that rabbit paws had no protruding skin, only soft fur, making the Smartphone screen impossible to touch.
“I can use it well! I’ll help instead!”
“Thank you…… ma’am, why are there so many ads the moment it turns on?”
“The Real Estate Agent downloaded them because you earn money by watching.”
“Eji, delete them! While you’re at it, open some background programs! Why are there so many? Turn them all off!”
After completing the phone cleanup with Geumhui’s help.
Eji navigated through various sites as instructed, and—
Siheon quickly picked up the trail of who’d had his Smartphone, and he clenched his teeth.
“What kind of bastard does this?”
“What’s wrong?”
“The signal came from the same location for three straight months. Someone kept charging my phone and opening it every day. Without a factory reset.”
[…… doesn’t that basically mean they called for you every single day?]
“Exactly. If they’d managed to unlock it, they would’ve known who the owner was.”
[Could it be a follower waiting for your return? No. You couldn’t have followers.]
“Stop talking to yourself.”
Geumhui clicked her tongue.
“You said you dropped it while working, yes? Maybe someone was tailing you, quickly picked it up, and kept it.”
“……That’s probably it.”
“Then there’s only one thing we need to ask now.”
Geumhui asked gravely.
“Is there anyone who might dislike you?”
Siheon fell silent for a moment, Eji prepared to shout at her grandmother that you shouldn’t ask things like that, and Grimoire burst out laughing.
[Puahahaha!]
* * *
Shortly after, Siheon’s Smartphone location was pinpointed. It was a building in Guro-gu, Seoul.
Since it wasn’t a Dungeon, only Eji and Geumhui could go there directly.
There was some friction over who shouldn’t go.
“Grandmother, you just came out of the hospital not long ago! Respect your elders!”
“I can bite through steel now thanks to you. The person who shouldn’t go is you. What if something happens? How am I supposed to take a tiny thing like you?”
“Don’t disrespect me for being young! Children can play their part just fine! And now I have the Rainbow Butterfly reflection too!”
“Don’t disrespect the elderly either. Better to do everything you want now than regret it later when you’re dead!”
[Here are two vulnerable people fighting over how to help out someone turning thirty tomorrow. Truly moving.]
“…….”
Siheon just sighed a hundred times.
In the end, they decided that Geumhui would handle the direct task, while Eji would accompany her partway and keep an eye on her grandmother’s safety.
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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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