Beep-beep-beep-.
At the familiar alarm sound, Raon tossed and turned with a sigh and reached out to find his cell phone on the nightstand beside the bed. Since he’d set it to ring ceaselessly until he definitely turned off the alarm on the phone screen, it wasn’t an alarm he could avoid just by trying.
With his head buried under the pillow at the unpleasant sound, only one arm stretched out long as Raon’s movements fumbling the nightstand gradually grew rougher. When he moved his hand a bit more from its usual spot, he touched the lamp, and bright light seeped into the darkness he’d worked hard to create with blackout curtains.
“Where did it go?”
Who in this world gets up at the first alarm anyway? Raon’s wake-up alarms were set at 10-minute intervals, three of them. So if he turned off this alarm now, he could sleep at least 20 more minutes. Usually he fumbled with his hands like this to touch the phone screen, and then the alarm would turn right off.
Raon, who had been fumbling the nightstand without looking, made no effort to hide his irritation as he removed the pillow he’d put over his head and lifted his head. His eyes squinting hard at the glare of the lamp light, Raon spat out a low curse as he looked at the nightstand.
No wonder I couldn’t turn it off. Confirming there was no phone, he looked at the nightstand on the opposite side, but the phone wasn’t there either. To say he’d put it somewhere else, the loud sound of the continuously ringing alarm indicated the phone was right nearby.
Not the opposite side, it should be in the usual place, but did I drop it on the floor?
Half-awake now, Raon leaned just his upper body forward to look at the floor. Seeing the phone screen with an analog clock shape floating on it instead of the usual black screen, it was definitely his phone. The problem was that the phone screen was half-hidden by something and couldn’t be seen.
“……”
His gaze met golden almond-shaped eyes. A small head tilted, and even smaller feet were tapping the phone screen. Looking at the phone screen and tapping it with front paws once. Looking up at him once.
The small creature quite diligently repeated the same action before making a strange sound, “Ppwing~”
“…A cat?”
I saw this in my dream. Is it not a dream? Or is it a continuation of the dream?
“Chwi chwi.”
“Right, cats don’t meow like that.”
Rubbing his face with one hand, Raon got down from the bed, wanting to solve this noisy alarm first and grabbed the phone. But at the same time, because of something like a cotton ball that climbed onto the back of his hand, he couldn’t readily move his hand.
Something small and soft, about the size of his thumb joint, was just sitting on the back of his hand, but still. As if something weighing a thousand or ten thousand geun was pressing on the back of his hand, he could hardly lift his hand. If he relaxed and stayed still, he didn’t particularly feel the weight, but the moment he tried to lift the phone with force, he felt the pressure on the back of his hand.
Looking at the cat tilting its head cutely, Raon politely said, “I want to turn off the alarm, could you move your paw?” and at the same time, the small paw moved away from the back of his hand.
After turning off the alarm first, Raon blankly watched white wings flutter and the small creature’s body float up lightly. The creature that flew up to the height of the bed and landed softly beside him seemed to like the fluffy blanket and bounced around on it. Even while doing that, it didn’t forget to suddenly look at him.
The current time. And seeing the minutes changing, it’s definitely not a dream.
Why did the fur color that was light pink in the dream now look light sky blue?
Inside dungeons live various life forms including ore, plants, and monsters. And since updates were always made whenever new life forms were discovered, Raon knew most of them too. Even if he couldn’t memorize the names, characteristics, weaknesses and strengths of each life form as well as the Espers who always roamed dungeons like their own home, he knew the basics.
But he’d never heard or seen a life form like this. If it was such a cute and adorable creature, whether Espers or Guides, they’d try to raise their affinity and take it around with them. If he put it on the market, it would probably go for whatever price was named.
Raon stared intently at the creature that was earnestly jumping and rolling on the bed, really acting like a cat. Where did it come from? The only thing he could think of was the dungeon he’d visited last night. Did it follow him from there?
“Did you follow me from the dungeon?”
Whether it was listening to his words or not, whether he was there or not, the creature was absorbed in jumping around the bed and had no shortage of climbing over or stepping on Raon’s legs as it pleased. It didn’t hurt to be stepped on by the small thing, and as long as it wasn’t a dangerous species, living together wouldn’t be a problem, but first he needed to know what this was.
His sleepiness had completely disappeared, and since it was time to get up anyway, Raon carefully got off the bed so as not to interfere with the creature playing. Lightly rolling his neck and shoulders, the first thing Raon looked for when he went out to the living room was his dungeon tablet.
He didn’t remember all life forms, so he had no choice but to check with the tablet.
Wrinkles formed on Raon’s brow as he took out the tablet from the half-open backpack. His hands gradually moved faster as he took out everything inside the backpack. Tablet, lantern, gloves, wet wipes, tissues, mini first aid kit. The ore he’d worked hard to mine, one, two, three, four… Five? Even after taking everything out and shaking it upside down thoroughly, one ore was missing.
Everything else was there but only one ore disappeared? On top of that, the disappeared ore was the most expensive rare ore among what he’d mined. The ore that was the only one in the dungeon. That ore he’d wanted to mine more but couldn’t.
Did I drop only that one while carrying it? The backpack was half-open just now too. I might have dropped it while rolling on the ground right after coming out of the dungeon.
“Wow, me… Even if I lose something, why that one…”
Sitting down on the floor, Raon, who had hastily emptied the backpack, muttered in dismay before fixing his gaze on an unfamiliar scene. The creature that hadn’t been there until he’d rummaged through the bag was right next to him. Hugging the best ore among the four he’d taken out tightly with its front paws.
Waang- the creature opened its mouth and buried its snout in the ore, and when it lifted its head again, he could see some of the ore had disappeared. Waang- chomp chomp, munch munch. The creature that had eaten half the ore right before his eyes kicked the ore lightly with its hind legs as if its business was done and leisurely walked elsewhere.
“It ate it. It ate it. It’s not a normal cat so it would eat special things. If it lived in an ore dungeon, eating ore isn’t strange either, haah…”
The moment he held up the tablet to shine it on the creature’s back, the tablet screen changed.
“Your name was Gem Kitten? Can be found in A-rank or higher ore dungeons, eats ore, metallic attribute, a monster neutral to humans… Even if you meet it in a dungeon, if you don’t bother it first… If you upset its mood, it’s ferocious, willful…”
Sitting in a spot with good sunlight, grooming its fur that now looked light yellow, Raon’s mind grew increasingly confused as he confirmed the information on the tablet about the Gem Kitten.
Why was this thing that could only be seen in A-rank or higher dungeons in an E-rank, and though it said it couldn’t be tamed and was neutral to humans, it was barely even visible. The explanation continued that it was the boss of regenerating ore dungeons, and as long as it was there, the dungeon would continue to regenerate.
So right now, because that dungeon boss came out with him, that dungeon completely disappeared like that. If it had stayed there continuously, MK Center could have definitely had a profitable ore dungeon.
“Why did you follow me?”
If you’d kept living where you were, giving our Hwi a full set would have been no problem at all?
Rubbing his forehead while grasping the situation, Raon got up with a sigh at the alarm that started ringing, apparently 10 minutes having passed. Should he take pride in the fact that a monster no one could tame to make into a pet followed him of its own accord and was brazenly in his house? How do I console myself with that? Raon, about to pick up the cell phone he’d tossed on the bed, looked at the guy who’d arrived before him and had its front paws on the phone.
“Let me turn this off.”
Is it sensitive to phone sounds? Like before, he tried to take the phone from its feet but couldn’t quite snatch it away, and only after saying a word could Raon see the cotton paw disappear from on top of the phone.
…A small, light, and cute existence, but when its own will is applied, even an A-rank physical-type Esper cannot win by strength.
Raon slipped his hand under the Gem Kitten’s belly, wrapped his palm around its stomach, and carefully lifted it. The soft fur really felt like touching a cat. When he pulled it lightly into his embrace, small front paws wrapped around his neck and shoulder.
“Should I find you an ore dungeon? Or will you live with me?”
When a moist, small but slightly rough tongue licked his chin, Raon grinned. Wrapping the small body with both hands to match eye level, he kissed the small face all over.
“Chwi…”
Making a cute sound as its front paws flailed, this time he bit the front paw with his lips. Then it tried to push his lips with the paw that wasn’t bitten to pull the paw out.
No one could tame it?
No way…
At the tussle with the small creature, the corners of Raon’s mouth rose without knowing the sky was the limit.
