The Spatial Ability User Who Puts Safety Above All Chapter 16

I Need Magic Stones (1)

 

There was a user who wasn’t even a Ranker or even a High Ranker… yet earned an enormous amount of money.

His ID was ‘Hephaestus’.

From the ID alone, it was obvious what he did.

His awakened ability was of the ‘Ability Master’ class.

More specifically, he was a ‘Smith Master.’

Just from that ability alone, the reason he made so much money should be obvious.

There was hardly a user who hadn’t commissioned him for crafting at least once.

After earning a great deal of money in the early days, he established a company specializing in mana-infused items and user equipment.

That company eventually became ‘BS (Blacksmith) Company,’ now evaluated as one of the world’s top ten corporations.

In short, he had become the owner of a major conglomerate.

And yet, despite being the head of such a massive enterprise, he still accepted custom-made commissions under the name ‘Special Order.’

However, to apply for a Special Order, one had to pay at least one high-grade magic stone as the production fee.

That payment was required upfront, and if the order became complicated, additional fees could be added.

Even so, Special Orders continued to come in steadily.

That alone proved just how high the quality of the items Hephaestus produced was.

 

***

 

“Hmm… It’s simple, but unusual.”

Hephaestus muttered with an intrigued expression as he reviewed the Special Order report submitted today.

“You want it as thin as possible, but as sturdy and as long as possible… and you’ve attached plenty of materials… The structure itself is simple, so one high-grade magic stone should be enough…”

What the customer wanted was a ‘thin, sturdy, and long wire.’ However, it stated that the form of the wire could be left to his discretion.

“If it needs to be sturdy and long, a chain structure wouldn’t be bad.”

Hephaestus pondered the order.

The materials the customer had sent were already more than sufficient. In fact, he suspected there would be leftovers, so he planned to add some of his own materials in return.

This was the very foundation of his success.

A true craftsman who never deceived his clients and instead always tried to give a little more.

That was the essence of Hephaestus.

“If I make it too thin, the strength will drop too much… With a chain structure about the thickness of a little finger, I could probably reach around 20 meters.”

Having roughly calculated it, Hephaestus opened the community mail window to confirm the final order.

And in the recipient field, he typed: ‘AbsoluteSafetyFirst.’

The one who had placed the Special Order with him was, of course, Seon Yul.

 

***

 

“Right. This is another way to earn magic stones.”

After sending the final order confirmation and the advance production fee (one high-grade magic stone) to Hephaestus, Seon Yul gave a small nod and muttered to himself.

He needed magic stones.

And not just a few… a lot.

It was obvious that he would have more and more uses for magic stones in the future, so he was constantly thinking of ways to earn them.

The first option that came to mind, hunting, naturally had to continue.

But hunting alone wouldn’t earn him as many magic stones as he wanted.

So he considered other methods.

And in doing so, he realized the most fundamental way to earn magic stones was not through himself… but by receiving them from others.

“Skilled users take commissions, right?”

Commissions were an official function attached to the community mailbox.

Users could assign quests to other users.

Naturally, compensation could be set, and once the success condition was fulfilled, the system would automatically transfer the reward attached to the commission.

“Couldn’t I take commissions too?”

Of course, just because he wanted to receive commissions didn’t mean people would hand them to him freely.

No one assigned tasks to just anybody.

Which meant what he needed now was reputation.

Fortunately, thanks to the previous raid event, his ID ‘AbsoluteSafetyFirst’ had gained some recognition.

“Let’s think it over more carefully.”

Taking commissions slightly conflicted with the safety that Seon Yul valued above all else, so he had to consider it cautiously.

To obtain the magic stones needed for more perfect and comfortable safety, he would have to give up some of his current safety.

In the end, it was a matter of placing two weights on a scale and deciding which side would tip.

 

***

 

“Got him!”

After scattering bait across the Market and waiting, Cha Seong Hyeon finally confirmed that AbsoluteSafetyFirst had taken it.

[Order: five boxes of depleted uranium rounds.]

[Recipient ID: “Absolute Safety First.”]

This was a perfect strike.

“Now I just need to trace this ID.”

By tracking the Market ID in real time during this transaction, Cha Seong Hyeon could obtain the answer he wanted.

Since he had caught the target in real time, there was no chance of missing him.

No matter how good the opponent was at erasing traces, he wouldn’t delete them before completing the transaction.

Which meant that if he traced immediately, he could determine where the owner of the Market ID was accessing from… and then dispatch Management Bureau agents based on that information.

“Just in case, I should send the top-tier agents.”

Preparing for the worst-case scenario, Cha Seong Hyeon quickly began backtracking the connection.

As expected of an S-grade intelligence-enhancement user, his tracking speed was astonishing.

It would only take a few minutes for the results to appear.

However…

Suddenly, his hands froze.

“Wh-what is this…?”

He stared at the monitor in disbelief.

His tracking had been flawless.

No one could shake off his reverse-tracing. In fact, the target hadn’t even responded… remaining still as though unaware of being traced.

That was why Seong Hyeon had expected an easy success.

But that expectation was shattered instantly.

Blocked.

Not just blocked… There was no connection line at all. It was as though he had hit a wall, and the screen simply went black.

Cha Seong Hyeon had done this countless times, but this was the first time he encountered something like this.

It wasn’t that tracing failed…

There was simply no access route to the Market in the first place.

It was as if someone hadn’t connected through the internet but had instead fallen from the sky directly into the Market itself.

“Is that even possible?”

The Market was fundamentally an app accessed through the internet.

Accessing it through any other method made no sense.

Cha Seong Hyeon tried manipulating various things to understand it, but the result remained the same.

Tracing impossible.

At this point, it was practically as if a ghost had placed the order.

“…Unbelievable.”

Eventually, he withdrew his hands from the keyboard and mouse and simply stared blankly at the monitor.

“I suppose I’ll have to approach this differently.”

The more he investigated AbsoluteSafetyFirst, the more intriguing he became.

At this point, beyond Project R, SeongHyeon personally wanted to meet AbsoluteSafetyFirst out of sheer curiosity.

Meanwhile, AbsoluteSafetyFirst himself had no idea about Seong Hyeon’s futile struggle.

After casually purchasing some additional ammunition he was short on, Seon Yul checked his remaining mid-grade magic stones.

“About 1.1 kilograms… That should be enough for now, right?’:

He had no intention of letting his intermediate-grade magic stone reserves fall below 1 kilogram.

If it dropped lower than that, he would feel pressure when opening and closing entrances.

That minimum reserve would only be broken in a true emergency.

“Let’s hunt.”

Since he hadn’t yet finished considering commissions, he decided to hunt first.

But there was a problem.

From now on, he needed to drastically change hunting areas.

The Pyongyang region, where he had conducted his first through third hunts, was where the lowest-grade monsters appeared within the North Korean dungeon region.

Now that Seon Yul had reached level 20, it was no longer efficient for him.

He could force himself to continue hunting there… but the time efficiency would be terrible.

Worse still, like in a game, if the level gap was too large, the amount of loot obtained from monsters decreased significantly, making it difficult to gather magic stones.

Thus, his conclusion was… To move…

 

***

 

The most dangerous moment for Seon Yul, who hunted safely within Absolute Space, was naturally when he had to ‘move’ in order to relocate Absolute Space.

He wore various items to minimize this risk, but it was still the most dangerous moment.

Step. Slide.

Like a turtle prepared to retreat into its shell (Absolute Space) at any time, he moved as slowly as possible.

Because of the penalty effect attached to his safety helmet, he couldn’t move quickly even if he wanted to.

As a result, travel time couldn’t help but be long.

“I need to find some method for this.”

At this rate, even a week might not be enough to reach the desired area.

An ordinary person would prioritize removing the helmet and moving faster, out of frustration.

But Seon Yul never even considered that option.

Slow and frustrating was fine.

Safety came first.

Until he found a better method, he chose to move slowly.

Originally, he had estimated it would take about ten days to travel northeast from the Pyongyang region to the area once called the Gaema Plateau. In reality, it took fifteen.

Fortunately, during that time, Hephaestus completed and delivered the wire weapon Seon Yul had commissioned.

Length: 25 meters.

Thickness: slightly thinner than a little finger.

Structure: chain form.

Material: reinforced mithril.

The moment he received the wire, Seon Yul was satisfied. Everything he had requested had been applied properly.

In some ways, it exceeded his expectations.

Initially, he had thought 16 meters would be sufficient. Instead, it reached 25. The thickness and strength were both to his liking.

At first, he had worried that storing something for so long would be inconvenient. But he could wind it up and place it in his backpack, and when combat began, he could wrap it around his entire body like armor.

As soon as he received it, Seon Yul constantly handled it, practicing.

In truth, practice was barely necessary.

Though this only applied within Absolute Space, he already possessed the Wire Master ability. He could freely manipulate the wire, displaying the presence of a perfect wire master.

Several days later…

Seon Yul moved further into the Gaema Plateau.

And finally, he encountered face-to-face the mid-grade monster he had been seeking.

Grrr

A massive, muscular creature.

An Ogre.