Questions [12]

Jin-Woo was surprised when Ichigo found some fish that couldn't quite be classified as monsters, but certainly couldn't be found on Earth to eat. She deduced whether they were edible or not in an instant, with a glint in her eye that confirmed she'd eaten monsters before. When he asked her about the trees' sap, she admitted that she didn't know much more than he did, noting that it probably was keeping the trees hydrated, supplemented with a horrible stench to keep big animals like bears or wolves away from it.

With a fire, the two slowly ate while they spoke to one another. In between bites, Ichigo spoke up with a low hum.

"Okay, are these all your summoned creatures?" Ichigo asked, glancing around to see at least 15 different summons, and those were only the ones on the instant perimeters. Plenty more had spread out under Igris's orders.

Jin-Woo glanced at the screens in the corner of his eye, laughing nervously.

[Soul Revival (Active) | Lv. 1]

Revive the soul of recently killed being. The chance of failure increases the higher the target's stats are.

Souls able to be revived: 50/50

[Soul Storage (Active) | Lv. 1]

Store the soul of a revived being. Stored souls can be summoned and stored at the user's will.

Souls able to be stored: 5/5

The ability to have 50 summons was absolutely insane, and Jin-Woo almost wanted to applaud Ichigo for waiting so long to ask the most obvious question.

Jin-Woo debated on whether he wanted to tell Ichigo the entire truth or not. The System seemed like an unnecessary addition to the conversation, as it could confuse Ichigo more than it may help her, but even if he ignored that part of his Dual Awakening, there was still a lot of other parts that he was confused about despite being the person to experience it all.

He could feel Ichigo's curious eyes peering into him, so he let out a sigh and slowly nodded.

"Well, first, could you… remind me how we first met?" Jin-Woo asked, chuckling nervously.

Ichigo blinked. "Ah, I thought I already explained that."

Jin-Woo blinked aggressively, "Have we really gotten any time to actually talk yet???"

Ichigo nodded softly, "Well… it was last year…. Or at least… I think it was…?"

-----

Jin-Woo barely tried not to yawn as Ichigo tried to recall what happened last year. She went on and on and on just to get very miniscule results, basically confirming to Jin-Woo that she couldn't remember much better than he did.

After so long of the droning on agony, Jin-Woo interrupted her.

"Okay, okay, I feel like I get the point!" Jin-Woo groaned, receiving a sheepish smile from Ichigo. "I gave you leviathan sushi, and you felt like you owed me!"

"Hehe, yeah, Momo always told me I was really bad at telling any kind of stories…." She laughed.

Letting out a soft sigh, Jin-Woo filed the name Momo under a mental list of people who he had to thank for their honesty before shaking his head, looking into the fire.

He couldn't tell if he was being stupid or not. When he was younger, he'd read stories about special individuals who received individual powers all the time. The main characters would, without fail, choose to keep them secret in fear of others finding out and wanting to use their powers for whatever villainous reasons they could think of.

In most of those stories, the main character would always fly under the radar and never have to think about hiding their abilities after so long. In a select few, their abilities got out despite their attempts to keep them secret, and the main character would suffer consequences for actions that really weren't their fault.

While Jin-Woo never thought the idea of hiding abilities was a bad idea, he always considered one additional condition.

Other people in the world had probably read those exact same stories, and while not everyone would keep them in mind, he always assumed that people were smarter than those main characters gave them credit for. Whether it was holding the power of God inside of themselves or having intimate connections with a princess of a different land, he was always convinced that people would catch on rather quickly.

So, he doubted that hiding an ability that he had to actively press into the air for—his status screens—would be possible. Either going off on his own all the time would be odd or treating his actions like they were just something he did normally would be just as odd, but either way, he didn't expect to be able to hide his ability from Ichigo, especially because he didn't know how long they'd be in the dungeon for.

So, he threw away a small piece of the logic that he was so used to and opened his mouth.

"I'll be honest, I am still confused about a lot of my… Dual Awakening. It only makes me more confused because I'm still an E-Rank."

Ichigo stopped mid-bite.

She looked at Jin-Woo, and after meeting his serious gaze, she slowly nodded.

"Yes, even with all these summons, I was evaluated as an E-Rank. That's why I'm so confused about everything," Jin-Woo tapped his chin before taking another bite.

The red-haired woman finished her fish quickly and started eating another before asking another question. "Then how are you getting stronger?"

Jin-Woo hesitated, only continuing when he had a solid way to continue, "Since you must've found out who I was through the Hunter Association, you may've heard some rumors as well. I can't absorb mana through mana crystals. Instead, I absorb mana through killing monsters."

'Well, that assumes that experience points really are mana…. Until proven otherwise, I'll just keep with that theory,' A thought flickered through Jin-Woo's mind.

Ichigo dropped her fish, barely catching it before it touched the ground. She looked up to Jin-Woo with a half-surprised half-confused expression.

"Doesn't that mean that you're completely immune to the problems normal Awakened face?" Ichigo asked, shaking her head before she nodded. "No, no, that's actually exactly what that means. If you don't have to wait on the cooldown from mana crystals, surely you can grow at a much faster rate compared to normal Awakened can."

Jin-Woo nodded, and Ichigo continued, "That makes a lot of sense. Compared to when I saw you last year, or even a few hours ago. You seem more refined. Beyond that, even that eerie mana of yours has gotten stronger. It's… more unsettling than ever."

Something about Ichigo's words clicked something in Jin-Woo's brain.

The E-Rank tapped his chin and thought, "My 'eerie' mana is getting stronger as I level up, that means those two are definitely connected in one way or another. Although, I've had this eerie mana since I Awakened…. Is it possible that by becoming larger in power, my odd mana gets stronger as well? No, if that was the case, shouldn't I have been evaluated as something higher than an E-Rank?"

Silently noting the interesting thoughts, Jin-Woo nodded.

"I don't really get what's up with my mana, or why so many people call it 'eerie,' but it honestly may be connected to my… weird Dual Awakening," Sung nodded to himself, softly humming. "But well, I'm still just an E-Rank…."

"That's bizarre, because that many summons should at least put you on the high-end of the A-Rank. Your physical abilities aren't anything to scoff at either, they're at least low B-Ranked. I'm a high B-Rank, and even I can't say if I'd win in a fight against you or not," Ichigo nodded, finishing her fish in one bite. "However, that's based on what I've seen, not what I feel."

Ichigo paused, taking a moment to think about her words.

"Your mana output is only comparable to an E-Rank, even with all the abilities I've seen from you. It's… only because I can feel your mana at all that I'm sure you're even an Awakened," Ichigo informed Jin-Woo, receiving a soft nod from him.

"That means that as my level increases, or decreases in number, my mana grows weaker and weaker despite all the strength I'm gaining. What could that mean…? I don't know enough about mana to create a viable theory of why my mana is so different compared to other people's," Jin-Woo thought, letting out a silent sigh.

As if sensing Jin-Woo's confusion, Ichigo continued, "I'm no mage, but since you're an E-Rank, I assume you haven't been taught the basics of mana, have you?"

Jin-Woo shook his head, suddenly feeling flustered as he realized his mistake. Having been an E-Rank, he wasn't informed of the basics of being a Hunter, so he had to learn it all on his own. The Korean Hunters Association had too many Hunters to arrange proper lessons for them all.

So even though everyone around him knew the basics of mana and the like, he was never informed of it. There wasn't much time to teach a lesson in a dungeon anyhow if anyone beyond Julie even thought about teaching him.

"I'm no teacher, so I won't act like one. You know so much about Hunting that I don't think I need to remind you of what you already know either. The only thing worth mentioning to me is that mana is bright, warm, and inviting, which is why so many Hunters are also actors or models, because mana naturally attracts people. That's also why the best Hunters are naturally really good with animals."

"That mana resides in everything that's alive and can use mana, from monsters to Awakened individuals. The only beings who don't use this mana are… the undead, who use normal mana, but also a mana that feels a lot like yours," Ichigo gestured to Jin-Woo, receiving a soft nod from him.

"Their mana is dark, cold, and repellent, but it's only found in minute amounts within undead monsters. Their mana, which most people just call Undead Mana, is so unnatural that it almost feels instinctual to kill them. They're… not natural beings, unlike everything else that uses mana."

"Your mana feels just like Undead Mana, only much more concentrated. Not to pry… but do you have many friends?" Ichigo asked, causing Jin-Woo to softly shake his head. "Your mana may be the cause of that."

Jin-Woo softly hummed to himself, "Undead Mana, huh?"

Sung understood the basic premise of Ichigo's words, but he didn't quite know if he agreed with it. Sure, when he thought about his past, he remembered more people treating him rudely than kindly, but he had seen how people treated undead monsters, and he was, without a doubt, treated much better than that. He remembered his conversation with Miss Cha just a little bit earlier in the day, and as far as he could remember, she treated him with respect and patience.

Julie, Jino, and Ichigo were all respectful and kind to him as well.

Reading Jin-Woo's doubtful expression, Ichigo continued, "The exceptions are probably either people who knew you before you Awakened, people who you've helped, or people who've helped you out of the kindness in their hearts."

Thinking about it, Jin-Woo couldn't refute that point.

"That doesn't mean everyone who was rude you've run into was a nice person, but some of them probably went out of their way to make your days more difficult," Ichigo nodded.

Kim Sang-Shik and Kim Byung-Ho appeared in Jin-Woo's mind. The former made his days as a Hunter constantly annoying, while the latter went as far as to ruin his chances of joining the Hunters Guild after he interrupted his creepy actions against Julie.

Furthermore, Jin-Woo could remember plenty of anonymous faces who seemed to have just enough of a problem with him to disrespect him on multiple occasions.

"It makes sense when you think about how undead monsters can't be detected in quite the same way as other monsters. Even when you appeared right in front of the white werewolf, it didn't even react, just like how some other monster types don't react to the undead," Ichigo further explained.

There were a few gaps in her reasoning, but Jin-Woo did see enough similarities to understand where she was coming from. However, there was one thing that bothered the E-Rank.

"You said my mana was more concentrated than Undead Mana. If it was more concentrated, what's the big difference between them?" Jin-Woo asked, receiving a soft nod from Ichigo. She looked at the fire for a moment.

"Without a mix of normal and Undead energies, undead monsters wouldn't be able to survive. They wouldn't be able to even form bodies. However, when an undead monster grows in Undead Mana with just enough normal mana to sustain their bodies, you get absolute monsters, like arch liches, vampires, and even undead ancient dragons."

Ichigo looked at Jin-Woo, her gaze flickering with small traces of pity. Jin-Woo's heart couldn't help but sink.

"But… those are monsters. You're a human and… human beings can't support Undead Mana. Jin-Woo… you're alive, aren't you?"