We stepped into the cave.
Jinhyeok approached the wall and crouched down. Something was drawn there—something serious.
I looked back and forth between the wall full of drawings and Renya.
Renya drew this? No way.
Maybe I was biased. But it just didn't fit.
The pictures were crooked, childish, and almost cute. The kind of doodles Momo or Seira would make.
Renya, who'd been walking ahead, stopped and glanced back.
"I didn't draw that."
He left it at that and continued on.
It sounded like there was a story there, but I decided not to pry. I followed after him.
Either way, what mattered right now was the black dragon's scale.
I swept my flashlight around.
The cave was a mess—dust everywhere, like it had been abandoned for years.
Renya's definitely not the tidy type.
Another fact filed away.
BANG!
At the sudden sound, I whipped my head around.
Renya had punched his fist straight into the wall.
A section collapsed, revealing a new space beyond.
"A treasure vault?!"
I sprinted over—
And immediately recoiled with a grimace.
This wasn't a treasure vault.
It was more like a storage room. A warehouse for trophies.
There were all kinds of grotesque things piled up—massive monster heads, eyeballs, teeth, claws…
"Renya, I didn't know you had hobbies like this."
"It's not a hobby," he said flatly. "I just kept them because they sell."
While Renya rummaged through one corner—
"WOOOOOO!"
"Jesus."
I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Elia had suddenly manifested and started cheering.
Right. Of course she would lose her mind in a place like this.
"Wait, wait—Isn't this a black wyvern's eyeball?!"
Renya shrugged.
"The name was different, but it was black and it did fly."
Elia turned to me, eyes sparkling.
"Hey, goblin friend! Can I take this? It'll help a lot with potion-making! I'll let you drink it first! No, wait—maybe the master should drink it first! In case something goes wrong!"
Jinhyeok nodded with a tragically resigned expression.
What could he do? I was the only one who could act as a taste tester.
"Take whatever you want," Renya said. "I wasn't using it anyway."
"YAAAY!"
Elia immediately summoned the Star Workshop.
Then she started shoving everything on display into it.
Watching her, I suddenly felt a chill.
I hadn't visited the Star Workshop in a while.
How much of a disaster zone had it become by now?
Elia wasn't exactly the organized type. And both last time and today, she'd been stuffing things in without sorting.
She's going to end up calling Professor Daemomo for help soon.
With that grim prediction in mind, I went back to searching for the scale.
"Elia. Don't put the black dragon scale in there."
"Don't worry! If something that valuable shows up, I'll notice right away—"
Then she paused.
"Huh? What's this? This feels like 'something huge is hidden here' energy."
She pointed at a hollowed-out nook.
Inside, a pile of unidentifiable junk was stacked.
"Isn't that just a trash heap?"
"Excuse you! You clearly don't know how treasure works! The real treasure is always hidden in places like this!"
Elia dropped to the ground and shoved herself inside.
Fearless as always.
She started digging enthusiastically, tossing random things out while humming to herself.
"Master."
"Hm?"
"I think I found it."
"...What?!"
Elia stuck only her hand out and passed me something.
At first glance, it looked like it had a question mark stamped on it.
This is it? Seriously?
It was so covered in dust and sticky grime that multiple layers of gunk had fused to it.
It wasn't even black.
I took it and wiped at it.
The sticky residue wouldn't come off.
"Elia. Do you have something like hydrochloric acid? I think I need to melt this off."
"The Star Workshop probably has some... somewhere?"
"Okay."
If it really was a black dragon's scale, something like acid wouldn't melt it anyway.
I'd just pour it on without hesitation.
Creeeeak.
I opened the door to the workshop.
"...Mm."
Then I closed it again.
Instant surrender.
I knew it would be messy, but this?
It was on the level of those hoarder-trash-house shows on TV.
I pulled a portable gas burner from my inventory and crouched down in front of it.
I didn't have tongs, so I used my index finger instead.
I cranked the flame to maximum and started roasting the scale.
"Grotesque," Renya said, giving his one-line review as his master casually grilled an object—and nearly his own hand.
That aside, I had to admit it.
My body really was ridiculously versatile.
Even flame resistance was built in.
"Ooooh. The color's coming out."
After roasting it for a while, I lifted it up.
Now it was unmistakably black.
Ding!
[You have acquired the Scale of the Black Dragon Drakan!]
[Drakan—an ancient calamity that brought countless cities to ruin!]
[The Black Dragon was a terrifying lifeform, feared simply for existing!]
[The clue to the Black Dragon is being revealed!]
A burst of dark light exploded from the scale and washed over Jinhyeok.
It wasn't like the holograms I'd seen before.
This was sharper. More vivid.
It felt like I was sharing someone else's vision directly, no filter.
Eyes...
My entire view turned white.
There was no swirling snow, so the wind didn't seem strong.
A moment later, countless glaciers appeared.
It was a place you could only describe as a graveyard of ice.
The viewpoint drifted slowly—
Then plunged underwater.
I sank deeper and deeper, and only after a long descent did the vision stop.
Straight ahead was an iceberg so enormous it was hard to believe.
Everything around it was pitch-black, so I couldn't see much.
I leaned forward, trying to look closer.
The vision followed.
And then—
Jinhyeok sucked in a sharp breath.
Now I understood why the vision had shown me this place.
Halfway along the iceberg's base, stretching endlessly into the deep sea…
Something was sleeping there.
The very same presence whose traces I'd seen back in Frostheim.
Black Dragon Drakan.
The moment I said the name in my head—
The ocean vanished.
In an instant, I was back in the cave.
"Did you see something?" Renya asked.
I smiled.
"Yeah. I just went to visit your dragon friend."
I looked down at the scale in my hand with something close to affection.
I'd found it.
Drakan's scale.
I pulled out the Yodle Compass and tried using it immediately.
Nothing.
The deep mountains and the graveyard of ice were too far apart. The difference was massive.
I'd have to step outside and try again.
"Master?"
"Yeah?"
"It's an emergency."
"What is it?"
"I can't get out."
"Huh."
Elia, who had been wriggling for a while, went limp.
"Pull me."
"Okay."
I grabbed her ankle and tugged.
"It's not coming out."
Just as I was about to pull harder—
"Master. I think you should stop."
"You can get out by yourself?"
"No, but if you pull any more, it feels like my upper body and lower body might separate."
"That would be... bad. So what do we do?"
Renya, who'd been watching silently, finally spoke.
"Can't you just cancel your manifestation and re-manifest?"
"Ah."
"Oh."
The storage room fell into dead silence.
If you're dumb, your body suffers.
Thank god Renya was here.
If it had just been the two of us, we probably would've kept pulling until something truly awful happened.
"Phew."
Elia re-manifested and strolled over like nothing had happened.
Of course, her appearance said otherwise.
From her head down to half her torso, she was coated in dust and soot.
She looked like someone who'd survived a minor disaster.
"Just wait a little! I'll grab everything fast!"
Elia sped up.
Now she wasn't even trying to "store" things properly.
She just grabbed whatever she could and hurled it into the workshop.
"The inside must be a complete wreck," Renya muttered.
Sharp as ever.
"Order exists within chaos! Only a true sage can understand it!"
"A sage?"
"A sage with 3,271 years of knowledge, thank you very much."
"Not bad."
Good.
If it had been Kancho, he would've said something like, 'Sounds like it's about time you died, yep.'
"Make sure you call it very impressive."
After correcting herself, Elia resumed her looting.
The black dragon's scale...
Jinhyeok turned it over in his hand, smiling.
It was still early, but his heart was already starting to race.
First an imugi, and now a dragon.
And not just any dragon.
A calamity-class black dragon.
At dawn, I got into a taxi.
I decided to do the Tower of Despair runs at my new house.
I'd already finished the move-out cleaning at the old place—no point making it dirty again.
So this is Pangyo.
It felt different from Seoul.
I'd heard it was full of IT companies.
Including the game company that used to drain my allowance when I was a kid.
The memory hit me so hard I almost wiped at my eyes.
I'd been scammed and lost all the items I'd saved up for.
Yoo Jinhyeok, age fifteen.
The tears I cried back then were genuinely hot.
The upside was I'd developed lifelong paranoia and never got scammed again.
Well, mostly.
"We're here. Seopangyo."
"Thank you!"
Pangyo was quiet in general, but this neighborhood was even quieter.
There were barely any houses to begin with.
Nice. Really nice.
The houses were spaced far apart too.
Now I could hang out with friends and make as much noise as I wanted.
But…
What were all these vehicles?
Several vans were parked haphazardly in front of the house.
As I stood there frowning, a woman who'd been pacing around the property walked up.
She wore a clean, casual suit and looked stressed.
She'd been lingering here the whole time. Who was she?
"Excuse me."
"Yes?"
"Do you live here?"
"I just moved in today."
The woman pressed a hand to her forehead.
She didn't even forget to mutter, "Oh my god."
"Don't tell me you signed with those people?"
She held up her phone.
I glanced at the screen.
"Yeah. The realtor, the landlord, and… some kind of manager."
"Haah…"
She dragged a hand down her face.
"My name is Yoon Gyuri. I'm a lawyer."
"Yoo Jinhyeok."
"Have you seen the recent news about that big rental deposit scam? I'm representing the victims. Jinhyeok, listen carefully and don't panic. The three people you just mentioned—the ones in that photo—they're all the ringleaders."
My expression didn't change.
Gyuri continued, voice steady.
"They're experts at slipping through legal loopholes, so criminal punishment is hard. That's why we're going after them through civil court instead."
She took a breath.
"There's a high chance you've been scammed too. Even if the contract looks valid, they'll find a way to pressure you into giving up."
Gyuri looked genuinely upset.
He's still young, she probably thought. And he got caught by the worst kind of people.
But then again…
Why was she so calm?
Was she in shock?
"Thank you for telling me," I said.
"Are you okay? You should report it right away—"
"I'm fine."
Fine?
It was obvious she thought I didn't understand.
"These bastards are the worst," she said, voice tightening. "They operate nationwide. There's almost certainly someone backing them. People who tried to handle it alone have been threatened, hurt—more than one. It happened to me too."
Jinhyeok smiled.
She was a stranger, but she was still warning me this seriously.
She was a good person.
"I'm really fine," he said. "Because the people you just called the worst…"
He reached for the front gate.
"To them, I'm going to be the worst."
He opened the door.
And stepped inside.
Into my house.
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T/N:
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