Chapter 24: Resting Time

Raydel finally completed the first stage of the hunter test. The next one would be held one week from this.

It was in the evening in front of the Hunter Guild's building. The hunters who participated in the test had already left the place. However, some of them were still gathering around the scoreboard which still showed the score rankings of the participants in the first stage of the hunter test.

Among them was someone intensely staring at the top of the scoreboard.

When the person saw the name 'Raydel Klein' instead of the expected name, the person pouted angrily.

When the person turned around, the aggressive aura could be seen clearly.

…

Raydel who just arrived at his place. He jumped on the bed and took a nap before doing anything else. He dreamt of Cthulhu right away. In the dream, Cthulhu was sitting cross-legged in front of him while Raydel was being hung upside down. The two of them stared at each other in confusion. Raydel whispered, "what?"

Cthulhu narrowed his eyes, annoyed, as if he wanted to curse at Raydel but did not say anything. He looked the other way and sighed. Then, he suddenly ordered the tentacles to let go of Raydel. He fell down as a result.

"?!"

Raydel woke up falling from his bed.

"..." He blinked and panted like he had just woken up from a nightmare. The sky outside the window had turned into a dark shade of the evening. It was seven o'clock now. Raydel's stomach rumbled since he had not eaten anything yet. The nightmare only added even more to the uneasiness he felt.

He's bullying me, that damn takoyaki, Raydel thought angrily. He wiped the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand and walked to the fridge to find something he could eat.

The only thing he could make was a simple toast with jam.

Raydel hummed a song as he put some jam on the toast and looked at the view outside the window. The capital city at night was a lively place that never really fell asleep.

He ate his fill and started to think about his current situation. He now had one week to prepare for the second stage of the hunter test which would obviously test a person's true capability to be a hunter. Raydel needed to make sure his body was in a perfect condition while also focusing on preparing for the university exam.

He had to do both in case he failed the hunter test.

That was why, apart from working out, Raydel also asked Han to help him clear easy dungeons to practice his boss summoning skill.

Raydel realized that summoning Cthulhu was his trump card. And when something was a trump card, it meant that it had brutal conditions he needed to fulfill first. In this case, Cthulhu consumed a massive amount of his energy and made it impossible for him to summon Cthulhu several times. Raydel needed to try using it as many times as he could to test his limit, so he could plan his future boss summoning.

The dungeons that Han took him to were D-ranks which had monsters like 'bloodthirsty chameleons.' They were normally low-level monsters with little health points that could be killed easily by some amateur hunters' attacks. So, Raydel was not surprised when the protagonist killed them all in a single blow. He had to ask, "will you leave me at least one monster to kill?" so, Han finally agreed to stop his rampage. Moreover, he stepped away and kept watch from afar as if he was afraid that he would accidentally kill another one of them.

When Raydel got his hands on a monster, he started summoning the boss. But it was a bit awkward to use in front of other people. He gave the monster a middle finger and mumbled reluctantly, "I'm craving some takoyaki…"

Then, a tentacle shot out of the ground and hit the monster to death!

"You haven't eaten?" Han asked with a straight face.

Raydel pursed, his cheeks blushing. He heard it?!

Luckily, the protagonist seemed to be more interested in the tentacle shooting out of the ground. He did not ask anything but acted like he was analyzing it. Han let Raydel practice his skill as long as he wanted and never interfered even once. Raydel eventually learned that he could summon Cthulhu only two times a day, if he tried really hard.

And he needed to rest for a full day after that before he could summon Cthulhu again.

Using the trump card consumed that much energy. Raydel became fatally exhausted after summoning Cthulhu, which meant that his takoyaki summoning was limited to only one time a day. It was almost too much even doing it just once. From now on, he had to be careful in choosing the moment to use his trump card. If he did it whenever he wanted, he would be the first one to fall in battles.

On the other hand, summoning the Plague Doctor was a much more pleasant experience than that of Cthulhu since he could keep summoning him due to the small amount of the required energy. Still, he would actually be able to summon the Plague Doctor only a few times if he had already used up almost all of his energy to summon Cthulhu.

On their third day of clearing dungeons, Raydel said to Han.

"Can you go to the Hunter Guild with me?"

The Hunter Guild at noon was filled with people. The skyscraper was located next to the underground train station. Raydel brought Han to sit listlessly in front of the building for about ten minutes. They waited until a truck arrived and stopped there. Some staff members got out of the truck and carried the products into the shop of the Hunter Guild. Raydel nudged and signaled at Han to follow him.

One of the products was the energy recovering potion.

Raydel bought more than ten bottles at once. He chose to buy from the new lot because the closer they were to the expiration dates, the less effective the potions became. If he bought them from the new lots, they could be kept around for about two weeks before the potions lost their effects. Raydel needed these potions in his resting days after he summoned Cthulhu. They helped get rid of all the accumulated exhaustion that could leave him a mess the next day.

Apart from that, there were many things he wanted to buy.

"Umm, the 'Tears of Heaven,' a second hand legendary artifact sold at ten thousand del?"

The Tears of Heaven could transform into a durable whip.

"I'll have this one as well. And a piece of the 'Three-Layered Cloak' too."

The Three-Layered Cloak was a multi-purpose item that could protect its wearer from everything except for bullets. It looked like a cowboy cloak.

"Do you still have the 'Voodoo Doll'? Oh, they're already sold out… it's okay."

The Voodoo Doll was a unique artifact that could transform into a bloodthirsty sword. The more blood it drank, the stronger it became.

Raydel finished buying all the things he wanted. Raydel opened his wallet as they waited for the total price from the cashier. He raised his eyebrows when he realized that Han, who had been standing aside watching him shopping for a while, had already paid for everything.

"Why…," Raydel began, but was interrupted by Han.

"We're friends. I buy things for my friends."

"..."

Raydel was completely stunned. He did not understand why Han suddenly acted generous and paid for everything. He noticed that the cashier was acting strangely and seemed unsure of what to do. The cashier then looked at him and Han with a suspicious expression. It seemed he knew something that Raydel did not because his eyes were amusedly sparkling. But Raydel failed to figure out the reasons that made Han so kind toward him and reluctantly let him pay.

"But you can't buy me everything for free like this. At least, you should let me do something for you in return."

The protagonist smiled and nodded at the cafe located next to the Hunter Guild.

"Let's go eat something."

This time, Raydel saw that the cashier was trying to tighten his lips as best as possible.

Raydel found himself sitting next to the protagonist in a cafe. He now considered this week the week of resting before the second stage of the hunter test, so he decided to use this opportunity to rest as much as he could. He knew that when next week arrived, he would definitely pray for the peaceful life to return. So, for now, Raydel threw away the thought about the test and sat comfortably.

Raydel insisted that he would pay for his food. They both chose their own drinks and desserts. As Raydel was sitting there eating his ice cream and looking around, he suddenly raised his eyebrows because he saw something…

At first, it was a ball of mud.

Then, it transformed into the shape of the Plague Doctor.

The Plague Doctor was staring curiously at the cafe.

"Uh." Raydel rubbed his eyes, and the image disappeared.

But Raydel was not that shocked. In fact, he had been seeing things for a while now. It seemed that the more he practiced the boss summoning skill, the more he saw these illusions of the bosses becoming parts of his daily life. Sometimes he saw the Plague Doctor looking at the human world and other times he saw tentacles slithering around on objects like snakes.

These things happened.

Schluck.

"...!"

Raydel was startled because a tentacle hit the back of his hand.

[Cthulhu is angry that he's mistaken for food.]

"...I'm sorry."

Raydel let his mind wander so far that he accidentally stabbed the tentacle with his fork.

He was the only one who saw these illusions, and they looked so real he could feel it. For example, he felt some tentacles sliding along his collarbones and necks before disappearing under his shirt. Their suction cups pressed against his skin, tickling him. Raydel tried to turn away from the tentacles. He thought, 'what is it now?'

As he tried to push the tentacles away with his shoulders, Raydel heard Han.

"What? Deather came to find you?"

The protagonist nodded.

"He wanted me to apply for the hunter test."

"He must have known what you're capable of."

"But it's annoying."

"Why?"

Han glanced at a direction outside the cafe. There on the opposite side of the road stood two men in a suit.

"Deather's men have been following me around all the time."

Raydel was stunned.

"He spied on you that much? We should call him a stalker!"

"Yes, they followed me up to my condo yesterday as well."

"What?"

"So, I notified the police."

"..."

Actually, this kind of situation occurred in the novel as well. After Deather knew that Han existed and what he could do, he kept tracking and watching Han's every move. But the novel did not explain the reasons behind Deather's doing, so Raydel figured that Deather might just want to keep track of a hunter that could become stronger than him.

But asking him to participate in the hunter test like this was a little too different from the novel.

"Did you talk to him? Why was he following you?" Raydel asked.

Then, Raydel went silent because Han did not say a word. He felt his heart pumping fast in his chest. He was wishing that the protagonist might trust a side character like him enough to share it.

Raydel thought that Han and he were not that close. The protagonist would never share a story so significant to the plot to him. On top of that, a side character like Raydel made no difference knowing these details, so Han had no reasons to tell him.

However, the protagonist's eyes flickered when he looked at Raydel's face.

"Deather wants me to join him and clear high-ranking dungeons with him," Han said. "He's looking for a dungeon of a boss called 'Nyarlathotep'"

Raydel never thought Han would really tell him that.

This was one of the main plots of the novel because in the future, Han would crush the boss into an unidentifiable mess and take its power. Still, Raydel could only nod and thought that Deather must have been trying to search for Nyarlarthotep because of the information he gave him in the hospital. It might not have even the slightest significance. Hunters' main job was to defeat all types of dungeons anyway. Nyarlarthotep was a boss of a mutated dungeon. It was no surprise Deather wanted to destroy it.

However, as Raydel was convincing himself that, the protagonist out of nowhere said something that shocked Raydel to the bones.

"He's suspecting that Nyarlathotep is related to a bizarre cult. Deather told me that he found out that this cult does exist. And the members of the cult collectively committed suicide in a rented room," Han said in a plain voice. "At the scene, they found a notebook. There are three names written with blood in there."

"Names?"

"'Nyarlarthotep,' 'Yog-Sothoth,' and 'Azathoth.'"

Raydel sat quietly for a moment.

Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth? Those names were not in the novel as far as he remembered. But after hearing the names, Raydel glanced at the tentacles under his shirt curiously. Was Cthulhu related to the three bosses? These names probably were all bosses in dungeons. They came from the same origin, but did they have the same goals?

The atmosphere around them became more intense due to the story of the cult. Raydel mixed the ice cream with his spoon and whispered.

"He told you lots of things. It seems he really wants you."

"I don't care about him."

"Then, what do you care about?"

Han did not answer. They both remained silent for a while before Han said.

"I'll follow you."

Raydel smiled awkwardly.

Following? Oh, right, there were only a few days left before the second stage of the hunter test.

When Raydel looked at the protagonist's face, he felt like something bad was bound to happen…

Raydel did not know what it would be, but on the day of the second test, he woke up breathing strangely. There was an abnormal feeling clinging to his heart for a huge while, a bad omen. Raydel did everything with extreme carefulness. He was afraid that the bad omen would be something like being late to the train or the exam or something like that.

Raydel got on the train in time, and the exam registration as well.

He did not stumble or accidentally drop anything. Nothing happened.

Raydel frowned, confused. Then, what is this weird emptiness inside me?

He was staring at the scoreboard absent-mindedly before noticing a person stopped next to him.

When he glanced at the person, he froze in shock.

The person looked at him and smiled. "You're Raydel Klein, right?"

Raydel was speechless.

This was Han's golden leg… the protagonist's love interest!