< Chapter 46: Letter (1) >
If I had to describe my feelings right now in one word, it would be ‘Gotcha, you bastard.’
“So, it was you who put me in this world, huh?”
I was half-doubting, but you were kind enough to send me an email?
I heard a loud crunching sound from my teeth.
“Meow?”
How noisy was I that I woke up Goldie, who was sleeping?
Goldie ran to me and gently laid his body on my lap.
“Aw, sorry Goldie. Did I wake you up?”
I softly stroked Goldie.
It’s all because of that trashy brother of mine.
My anger toward him grew even more.
“Let’s see what he wrote.”
I had more than one or two questions.
Why did he put me in the novel?
Why did he send me a message now?
Who is Kim Shin?
What is the purpose of this whole act?
How can I go back to my original world and so on?
There was no end to the list of things I wanted to know.
“He must have explained the reason at least.”
I opened the email with anticipation.
[GOR△BX]
“?”
But the email didn’t contain anything that would answer my curiosity.
Instead of satisfying my curiosity, it made me more curious.
“What is this?”
Six letters made up of alphabets and special characters. Is it a code?
“Is this all?”
There was nothing else.
I was dumbfounded.
My mind went blank.
That’s when it happened.
Zzzz-
“Huh?”
The computer screen started to flicker.
And the next moment.
“…It’s gone?”
The email was gone
* * *
The next morning.
I was lying blankly on the bed.
“I’m going crazy.”
The time was Sunday, 7:23 a.m.
I couldn’t sleep a wink since I received that mysterious email last night. My head was too cluttered to fall asleep.
“Why did the email disappear?”
The email was really gone. It was not in the trash, the inbox, or the spam folder.
It was as if I had a daydream, it was completely gone.
“Ugh.”
The only good thing was that I remembered the content of the email exactly.
I picked up the note I had left by my bedside and checked it again.
[GOR△BX]
The code was as mysterious as the disappearance of the email.
I thought about it all night, but it was a code that I really couldn’t figure out.
What the hell is this?
Give me a hint at least.
“Uuuuuu!!”
I flailed on the bed and scratched my head.
“Meow?”
Then Goldie, who was curled up near me, opened his eyes slowly and tilted his head as if to ask what was going on.
“It’s nothing. Sorry. Go back to sleep.”
I hugged Goldie and touched his silky fur.
Goldie made a purring sound and snuggled into my arms.
Ah. This is healing.
But that was only for a moment.
My mind was in such a rough state that even Goldie’s therapy couldn’t cure it.
“Ah. I’m annoyed.”
The more I think about it, the angrier I get.
It was so frustrating that I wondered if I could get any more pissed off.
“Ah. If he were in front of me, I would pluck out all his hair and fur.”
I can’t believe this.
He put me in this ridiculous situation.
And now, after a month, he sends me an email?
He only wrote six letters of code and sent it?
And he set it to disappear right away?
“Ah. I’m annoyed.”
I really had a proper rage time for the first time in a while. No, shouldn’t he at least explain the reason and the purpose?
So that I can what?
Act with a clearer sense of purpose.
“…Sigh.”
In the end, all I learned from this email was.
That me entering this novel was a supernatural phenomenon caused by a being called Kim Shin.
No, wait. I did get one clue.
I don’t know if I can call this a clue, but
[GOR△BX]
An unidentified code.
Yeah. Something will come out if I solve this.
“I’ll definitely solve this.”
I clenched my teeth and glared at the note.
* * *
Monday morning, 5:20 a.m.
As usual, I woke up at dawn and headed to Pi Jin Ho’s personal training room.
“Good morning.”
“Yeah. You’re here….”
Pi Jin Ho, who was warming up lightly in the training room, frowned as he looked at me.
“You don’t look so good. What happened?”
He came over to me and touched my arms and thighs here and there.
“You have a lot of fatigue accumulated. You didn’t get enough rest and your muscles didn’t recover properly.”
A sharp light flashed in Pi Jin Ho’s eyes.
“Lack of sleep, huh? What did you do for the last two days?”
What did I do?
I stared at the note with the code until my eyes popped out.
Except for when I stopped by the Bihon Guild to leave Geumho, I stayed in my room all day long.
“…I had a lot on my mind and couldn’t sleep well.”
I vaguely answered him.
“Hmm.”
Pi Jin Ho stroked his chin.
“Is it about your career?”
“…Something like that.”
My worries about my life’s path.
Where is my life going?
Something like that.
“I understand. It’s a time when you have a lot of worries because of all the offers you get.”
Pi Jin Ho nodded as if he was convinced.
“But still, try to sleep well. Resting is also part of training.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
Pi Jin Ho patted my shoulder.
“Okay. Then let’s just loosen up your body today.”
“Yes.”
“First, lie down on the mat. Let’s start with relieving the fatigue in your muscles.”
After that, a light stretching began. It also served as a warm-up to ease the tension in the muscles.
“Stretch your arms a little more. Feel like you’re stretching your back.”
“Yes.”
I felt the muscles in my whole body stretch out. He really is a professional, it feels great.
“Next, lie on your side and… hmm?”
Suddenly, the instructor bent his upper body down.
“What’s this?”
It was a gesture of picking something up.
In Pi Jin Ho’s hand, there was a familiar piece of paper.
“Oops!”
It was the note with the six-letter code.
I had it in my pocket, but it must have fallen out during the stretching motion.
“Is this a code?”
I desperately thought of an excuse. What should I say? Oh, yeah.
“Well, it’s kind of a trend among my friends to play code-breaking games!”
“Code-breaking, huh? That’s a weird trend. I used to do it a lot too.”
Pi Jin Ho stroked his chin and stared at the note.
Come to think of it, Pi Jin Ho had been in the intelligence department for about three years when he was active.
Code-breaking must have been his specialty.
I asked him with a glimmer of hope.
“Can you solve it?”
“Well, it might be a bit hard if there are no other hints.”
That makes sense.
That code was from Shin Hyung, who put me in this world. It was almost impossible for a third party who didn’t know about Kim Shin and my situation to break the code.
“But I have some guesses.”
My eyes widened.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Pi Jin Ho focused on the note again and said.
“Look here. The triangles between the alphabet. This is the hint.”
“The hint…?”
I also focused on the triangle shape. But why is that a hint?
“You look confused.”
Pi Jin Ho took out a pen from his pocket and drew lines on the note.
“Look carefully. If you divide it into two letters like this…”
[GO/R△/BX]
“How about that?”
“…Huh?”
He just added two lines with a pen, but I saw something completely different.
“You seem to have noticed.”
Pi Jin Ho smirked.
“Yeah. If you think about the correlation with the triangle in the middle, the O and X in front are likely to be circles and crosses rather than alphabets.”
“Circles, triangles, crosses…?”
That was my blind spot.
I just thought they were alphabets.
“The next part is simpler. G is a circle. R is a triangle. B is a cross.”
Pi Jin Ho looked at me and continued.
“Let’s think about the common meanings of these three symbols. Roughly speaking, G means good. R means caution. B means no. Something like that.”
Pi Jin Ho folded the note again and handed it to me.
“Well, he wouldn’t have just put G, R, B there. There’s a high probability that there are hints about words that start with these alphabets in your conversation with your friend. Think carefully.”
“Between me and… my friend?”
The rules of words that start with G, R, and B?
“…Huh?”
“You seem to have an idea.”
I felt a shock as if I had been hit by a hammer in the head.
Words that start with three initials.
Only I know.
And Shin Hyung would know.
There was one thing that came to mind.
Green.
Red.
Black.
The order of the colors that change on the tattoo engraved on my body.
Then the code means this.
Green=O
Green is safe.
Red=△
Red is caution.
Black=X
Black is danger.
“….”
I lifted my left arm and grabbed the world tree tattoo on my right shoulder.
This code seems to be a message telling me that the black tattoo is dangerous.
* * *
After all the classes on Monday.
I ate dinner casually and returned to my dorm room.
Now I’m lying on the bed and staring blankly at the ceiling.
“…Black is dangerous.”
Shin Hyung’s code was clear to me.
“It means don’t get the fourth trait, right?”
Don’t get a new trait after the black tattoo. That’s what it means.
Is it dangerous to be in this black state now? I thought about it, but since nothing happened for a week now, it didn’t seem like that.
Judging by the order of green (safe), red (warning), black (danger), it wasn’t hard to guess the risk of the fourth trait.
I clenched my head with both hands and sighed.
“…This sucks.”
I had a new restriction on my ability when I needed to speed up my growth.
And it was a very fatal restriction.
“Only three per race….”
It was a hard reality to accept.
No, why is it dangerous in the first place?
Why don’t you explain why? Just saying it’s dangerous and that’s it?
“Ah. I’m annoyed.”
This is too much.
I wish I could choose at least, but.
Whether you like it or not, you’re done with three.
What kind of shitty situation is this?
In the worst-case scenario, I could end up with three things like the beastkin’s sense of smell, hearing, and taste.
“Sigh.”
I sighed as if the ground was collapsing.
I was so annoyed that I just wanted to ignore the warning and get the fourth trait anyway.
“…Sigh. Get a grip.”
I wasn’t convinced, but anyway, it seemed better to refrain from getting more elf traits.
There must be a reason why he suddenly sent me an email after a month of silence.
I had to be careful.
“Ah. Right.”
I quickly opened the email.
I had to contact Elder Ail again before it was too late.
Now that I know that getting more elf traits is dangerous,
I had to request again to change the two ancient elf artifacts I asked for to something else.
* * *
Tuesday morning.
As usual, I woke up early in the morning.
The vigorous blood of the beastmen was urging me to move my body as soon as possible.
It was a familiar sensation by now.
Maybe it was because I pulled two all-nighters in a row, but I fell asleep early yesterday and my body felt refreshed.
“Sigh.”
Of course, my mood was still gloomy.
I headed straight to the shower.
I usually shower after my morning training, but I felt like I needed to splash some cold water on myself right away to get rid of this depressing feeling.
I quickly stripped off my clothes and stood in front of the full-length mirror.
It was a handsome face no matter how many times I looked at it.
The only good thing that happened after I became the protagonist of a novel was that my body improved and my face became handsome.
“So what. I’ll die within five years anyway.”
Being handsome and having a good body is only good if you’re alive.
What’s the point if you’re dead?
I smiled bitterly and rubbed my right shoulder where the world tree tattoo was.
The world tree tattoo, stained darkly beyond the mirror, caught my eye.
“Ah. The more I think about it, the more unfair it is.”
The limit of three times to acquire racial traits is too much no matter how you look at it.
“Haa.”
So the elf race’s traits are [Guardian of the Bow] [Wind’s Path] [Wind’s Arrow (?)] and that’s it.
Well. Let’s think positively.
It’s not like elves are the only race, and there are still many traits I can get.
I looked over the tattoos one by one.
Well, there’s not much to look at, but I just wanted to check them out once in a while.
“Angels, dragons, and spirits have two left each.”
The first thing I saw was the green angel tattoo on my chest.
The angel race’s trait was [Heavenly Wings] and nothing else, so I could get two more in the future.
The dragon tattoo on my back was also green. I got [Guardian] so this one also had two left.
The spirit race’s tattoo on the back of my right hand was also green, and I could get two more besides [Spirit’s Flame].
“Beastmen are….”
I finally lowered my gaze to my left thigh.
The beastmen traits I got were [Boiling Pureblood] and [Predator’s Flesh].
So, the number of beastmen traits I can get now is one―
“…Huh?”
My eyes widened then.
“…Why is this green?”
Left thigh.
The beastmen tattoo that was red until yesterday was shining green.
Please consider…
