06. Midterm exam (1)

You have successfully signed a contract with Certatus.

It was a job that I had to do for my safety, and it was to develop my own strength so that I wouldn’t be disturbed by Yoon Seo-hee and Baek Ji-soo even after I reached the tower.

By the way, what if you realized something after signing a contract with this guy?

“More than you think… Aren’t you any help?”

[It can’t be! It’s because you haven’t yet fully realized how great the power of this body, the strongest demon in the demon world, the embodiment of struggle, and the best fighter!]

Some strange titles have increased, but Kertatus was really useless.

“During the fair, even if there were only marbles left, you drained your mana and turned it into magic. It also supplies magic power to the gate. Can’t you do that anymore?”

[Even if you say that, I don’t remember when I was in marble state… If I were to speculate, that would have been a bit of a special circumstance. Since the ceremony was in progress, so to speak, the magic power present at that place must have been treated as an offering to me. If it was an offering to the devil, I could switch it at will, but if it’s not like that, it’s a bit difficult.]

“Then what can I do?”

[As I said before, it is possible to deliver my demonic energy to you.]

“… ….”

If you receive something like that, the future of being accused of being a devil worshiper and going straight to the public security interrogation room is obvious. Possibly reading my sullen feelings, Kertatus shouted in a voice of resentment.

[Kuh! There is no need to borrow the power of grabbing, which is available to all demons. The demon you contracted with is the demon of struggle!]

“You keep talking about the devil of struggle. What exactly is that struggle? Is it your power?”

[It could also be called authority… To be precise, it is my source. My strength, my existence, and the source of my life. Other demons must have their own sources, and so do I. I live by struggle because I am the devil of struggle.]

“Then can you give me the strength of that struggle?”

[Impossible.]

No, really… What can be substituted? He barely swallowed the anger that welled up in his throat. I’m not naturally this hot-tempered, but strangely, when I deal with this guy, I get angry right away.

“Why not?”

[To be precise, it’s possible, but it’s definitely not the direction you want as a child. Accepting the devil’s power means becoming the devil’s apostle. You kid, do you want to be my apostle?]

“… What is an apostle?”

[From there. Whoa… It’s a step further than the devil worshipers you hate so much. It is to go beyond worshiping the devil and become the devil’s representative. And when he becomes an apostle, his body can no longer be called a human being. Also, it cannot be turned back.]

“Something is a little hideous. Certainly, with that kind of power, I don’t think I’ll need it.”

[Huh… Since only one apostle can be appointed, even the devil takes great care when appointing an apostle. In my heyday, demons, humans, and even dragons crawled under my feet to become my apostles… Of course, I’m in a position to have this kid as my contractor.]

Certatus lamented his situation again and continued his lamentations about his situation. It has been like this often since the contract was signed. It seems that he doesn’t like the fact that he signed a contract with me, but I didn’t sign the contract because I really liked him. If possible, I want you to get out of my body right now.

“I can’t give you magic power, I can’t give you power… Then what the hell is the great Kertatus capable of?”

[If a battle takes place, I can fight myself instead of you pathetic bastard.]

“So you’re going to fight using Magi, right? If that’s the case, there’s not much difference between fighting with demons from you.”

There is no difference in that it goes directly to the public security interrogation room.

[Keuuugh… ! Then… I will fight with only your magical power… ! Then there is no problem!]

“Mmm.”

I’m sure there won’t be any problems then….

I am going to borrow the power of Kertatus to become stronger, but if I just entrust the battle to Kertatus whenever I need it, it feels like the master and the guest are reversed. It won’t help anything with my combat experience, and there are trust issues.

Can Seohee Yoon and Jisu Baek truly trust Kertatus who has taken control of my body? Will Kertatus be able to reconcile the battle with them? Considering the self-righteous and arrogant personality of Kertatus, I feel somewhat regretful.

I could clearly see the future that would make the two of them in trouble after going crazy alone….

Above all, the most important thing.

“If you fight only with my body and magic power, exactly how strong are you?”

[What?]

“No, to be honest. We are going to climb the tower from now on… If I have to hand over my body to you to become vaguely strong… Doesn’t it make a lot of sense?”

In front of A-class monsters, there is not much difference between F-class and E-class skills.

In the face of an overwhelming crisis, the difference between a slightly stronger person and a less strong person is not great. A slightly stronger person might have a chance to live a few seconds longer, but it won’t make much of a difference in terms of dying anyway.

As before, Kertatus’ fighting skills will work well against stubborn bullies, but will they be useful against bosses on the top floor of the tower? Thinking like that makes me tilt my head.

[That’s… Isn’t that my fault! It’s because your childish body is trash! If it was my body in my prime, I would just have my bare body, even if I didn’t have that kind of magical power or demonic energy-!]

“There is a lot of talk about the subject of living on top of trash because you don’t have that body. Anyway, I knew that was all you could do.”

[Quaaa!!]

I’m not particularly sarcastic. That’s just the reality However, my tone, which seemed to have given up somewhere, seemed to irritate my nerves even more. Kertatus raised his voice loudly in my head, but I pushed his consciousness deep into my head.

It’s true that I was disappointed in front of my face saying it’s useless and saying there’s nothing special, but in fact, it wasn’t such a bad thing to have a card that I could use in case of emergency.

I still don’t know what kind of power Magi is, but in the end, I just don’t use it in front of others. Yoon Seo-hee and Baek Ji-soo, including me, know that I am not a devil worshiper, so if you follow the situation well, you can become a surprisingly strong hand.

I have no intention of becoming an apostle, but I am also concerned about what the power of struggle is like.

Of course, I had no intention of letting Kertatus know that. If you say you’re great and try to lift it up, will it do anything more than to straighten the bridge of your nose that you barely bent? For the convenience of my mind and body, he had to remain quiet for a while.

“Is Plan B Next?”

If there is a limit to strengthening using demons, I have no choice but to return to my original job.

I am a blacksmith, and the role of a blacksmith is always fixed.

To create a strong weapon.

–

After Outbreak, towers rose all over the world and firearms were eliminated. This is because the bullets and missiles did not give proper power to the monsters that appeared through the gate.

It wasn’t that it didn’t work at all, but it’s impossible to fire a ballistic missile that burns down the city to kill dozens of low-level monsters that appear from a small gate. Of course, a world has arrived where hunters who fight directly with melee weapons are given preferential treatment.

Even then, guns don’t work on monsters, but they still work on humans. If you don’t raise your durability stat above a certain level, even if you’re a hunter, you’ll die if you get shot in the head.

And not all Awoken become Hunters and climb the tower… If there was a place other than the tower where firearms were preferred, it was undoubtedly the mercenary business.

‘Wow… This guy attaches a chain to his sub machine gun and shoots while swinging it.’

There are various hunters in the world these days that are a bit difficult for me to understand, such as idol hunters, but it is also true that the top hunters enjoy celebrity-level popularity and receive all kinds of attention from the media and the public. And it’s not limited to Hunter.

What I’m looking at right now is a so-called non-registered hunter… This is a YouTube promotional video of an S rank awakened mercenary. Of course, he is not an officially registered hunter in the country, but only claims to be an S rank, but once he looked at the coolly edited promotional video, he definitely seemed to have the ability to be proud of his S rank.

The scene in which the two sub-machine guns were wrapped around a chain and swung across the battlefield in the wasteland, shooting at targets the size of beans placed in all directions was reminiscent of the Gunkata in the movie.

In this way, firearms were still preferred by many when the Awoken were mainly dealing with people rather than monsters. This industry is a gray zone… It was an industry that was so talkative that it was close to black, so I didn’t want to look into it in detail, but I couldn’t help it as a reference for Gunblade.

I also carefully checked the promotional videos of other awakened mercenaries.

‘This man’s weapon fires bullets when you turn the hilt? It’ll be useful for a surprise attack.’

But there were too many flaws to call this a gunblade. It would certainly be surprising if you could fire while pretending to draw a knife, but if it could only be used for surprise attacks, it would be structurally problematic.

“What are you focusing on?”

At that moment, a soft voice was heard from the other side. Western blue eyes stared at my face from the seat on the other side of the limousine.

“Oh, sorry. I was doing some research for a while.”

“Hmm… Jin is sincere. It would be okay if you could chat with me on the way. Or, is it a burden to talk to me?”

“Huh? No, it can’t be. It’s my first time making a weapon like this, so I just want to be careful.”

Saturday morning.

I contacted Yuna early in the morning and was on my way to the Claprot mansion.

“Whoops, I’m kidding. I was really surprised when Jin Lee contacted me saying he wanted to make a gunblade first… Did you manage to think of accepting the offer?”

“That’s what. I was personally interested… Are you really okay? That you can submit the gunblade you made this time as an intermediate practical product.”

“Yes. It’s not like you’re submitting a blueprint to another competitor, right? Submitting the results to the academy is fine.”

The limousine was moving smoothly down the road towards the Claprot mansion. It’s because I accepted the proposal that Yuna asked her before.

It doesn’t matter if I make it at my house, but in Klaproth Mansion, there are materials that Yuna has accumulated while researching gunblades and materials for making them. So, I wanted to rent a studio in the Claprot mansion and test things out.

It’s the weekend, so I have a lot of time, and as long as I go home before it’s too late, even her grandfather won’t worry too much.

“Whoops… We’re together all weekend… Could this be an opportunity?”

“Huh? What?”

“Nothing. Now, I can see the mansion soon. Shall we go in together?”

I definitely looked out the window and began to see the huge front door of the Klaproth mansion.

There wasn’t even such a mess a few days ago, but in just a few days it seemed to have started to recover.