"If I close my eyes... ooh, oooh."

When he closed his nonexistent eyes, he could intuitively see a mental image. It felt as though there was another eye looking down at him and the area around him from a bird’s-eye view. And the correct path was highlighted within the view.

...Shall I go?

There wasn't much more he could gain from staying here. With his mind made up, Lee Shin-Woo opened his eyes and started moving along the path charted for him. The clearing was dead silent save for his footsteps, which had also become much quieter, most likely due to the Feather Bone Boots.

Hoo.

The passageway was quite long. Various parts had collapsed thanks to the Treasure Eater's rampage. Lee Shin-Woo had to jump up or forward at times to keep going. He eventually came to the obvious realization that Sprint could be used in tandem with his jump.

If I become proficient in Sprint and time it right, I may become a skeleton who can run in the sky... Ah.

Further along the passageway, the atmosphere changed abruptly. He had been reluctantly making his way through rocks and sand to reach his destination, but now, he found himself following a clear path for the first time since he came here.

This is the real Empire... I can see the walls.

There was a clear distinction between the external passageways and the Underground Empire proper: the castle walls. According to the description of the quest, he would have to face Skeleton Soldiers soon. Honestly, he didn't think he'd lose to a few Skeleton Soldiers now, but he couldn't allow himself to relax since he couldn’t ascertain how many of them there would be.

[Halt...]

Lee Shin-Woo stopped, his joints rattling. There was a single, imposing platoon of skeletons atop the castle walls, aiming their bone arrows at him. Their numbers were small, and they soon disclosed the reason themselves.

[The monster... was it killed...?]

"Yeah, we finished it! But everyone else died except for me..."

Now, he could start acting at the flick of a switch. Some of the guards posted here must have been sent away to take care of the Treasure Eater! It was all because Lee Shin-Woo had made a huge scene. He lauded his foresight, which he hadn't even been aware of, and continued to speak.

"Paul, please open the castle gate for me. I have to return to guard duty too."

[Wait... just a minute...]

It seems the quest will go smoothly… 

He might have jinxed himself, though. One of the skeletons wielding a bone bow rattled its teeth as it spoke.

[I haven't seen...the spear before...]

"The Treasure Eater dropped it."

With his mind focused solely on entering the Empire, Lee Shin-Woo concocted a plausible story without putting in much thought. But the soldier's response caused his nonexistent heart to pound.

[Then... report it to your superior...]

"Huh?"

[I'll... report it.]

Wait! I didn’t know they were working under such stringent rules in the military… And did it say ‘superior’? Doesn’t that mean someone stronger than those skeletons will come shortly? The possibility weighed heavily on Lee Shin-Woo.

"Hey, Paul. Wait a sec. I'll give the report myself, so open the gates first."

[The report... comes first...]

Report first? Damn it! They didn’t even think of complimenting and taking care of a comrade who has returned after overcoming a great difficulty, but instead are going to report to their superior first just because I’ve picked up a new item? You damn egotistic and ambitious skeletons!

"I said I'd be the one to report it!" There was no point in keeping up the charade anymore. If their superior arrived, he'd definitely die at least once! He cursed inwardly and sprinted. The startled Skeleton Soldiers raised their bone bows at him.

[Are you... revolting against the Empire?]

[Are you trying... to embezzle?]

[Is it corruption[1]...?]

"Sprint!"

He ignored what the skeletons were saying and jumped while using Sprint to cling to the castle wall. Surprisingly, he had managed to jump close to two meters. I’ve transcended humanity even though I’m still in the tutorial stage, he thought, before remembering that he was no longer physically human.

[Attack... Subduing.]

[Subduing.]

Now seeing him as their enemy, the Skeleton Soldiers raised their bows and shot arrows at him. Lee Shin-Woo had braced to let a few arrows hit him, but before that could happen, his hand moved on its own accord. 

Huh!? It happened in a split second. Right after he grasped the trajectory of the arrows, he instinctively swung his bone spear and parried two of them! The arrows he hadn’t blocked hit his shoulder, but the damage was negligible.

[You have learned the passive skill, Beginner Weapon Defense Lv1.]

That wasn't all. When he thought about needing to stop the skeletons from drawing their bowstrings again, he instinctively shrieked.

"Kuhwaaaaaaahk!"

[You have learned the active skill, Beginner Shriek of the Dead Lv1.]

[Shriek of the Dead has put enemies in the area in a temporary state of frenzy.]

He didn't know how he had learned Beginner Weapon Defense yet, but the source of Shriek of the Dead was clear. It was the Treasure Eater! He had wanted to learn Roar of Healing, but he ended up with a different skill.

[You bastard...When did you infiltrate the Empire?!]

[I'll... kill you...!]

Using the skill with low mana made Lee Shin-Woo dizzy momentarily, but its effects were astounding. The Skeleton Soldiers had begun to attack one another like they were enemies!

Seizing the opportunity, Lee Shin-Woo pushed himself to scale up the wall. He felt motion sickness due to him overusing his mana, but he grit his teeth and endured.

[W-Where’s that guy?] 

"Right behind you."

[Ugh!?]

By the time the Skeleton Soldiers recovered from their frenzy, Lee Shin-Woo was already atop the castle wall! Bows and arrows weren’t effective at close range. Lee Shin-Woo cold-bloodedly swung his Lv2 Lord Bone Spear and smashed all of them in a single strike, making quick work of his enemies.

[You have defeated a Skeleton Archer.]

[You have defeated a Skeleton Archer.]

Silence returned to the castle walls for the moment. Lee Shin-Woo removed the arrow lodged in his shoulder and sighed in relief. Although he had been slightly injured, he had stopped them from reporting to their sup...

"...The hell is this?"

From the vantage point atop the castle walls, he was finally able to see the scenery beyond. Since the walls had remained intact, he had thought the city within would look like a city from the middle ages... but what he saw instead seemed to be mocking his naiveté.

"Is this the demon world or something...?"

A city? It may have been called a city some time ago. However, all the buildings were weathered, decayed, covered with entangled weeds here and there... All that met his eyes were ruins; there were no proper architectures left standing.The city gate was the only thing that had retained its structural integrity. Casting his eyes further ahead, he saw thick grasslands and sandy deserts form a chaotic patchwork of clashing landscapes. If this were a game, he would say the developers had attempted to implement both a desert map and a grassland map, but neither had loaded properly due to a bug.

"Who’s the superior they mentioned?"

There was no way that any resemblance of a proper military would still be around. The skeletons were simply souls trapped in the past. The same was most likely true of those he would be facing from now on. Even when he thought he was conversing with them, there was no actual conversation going on at all.

"Ha..."

Lee Shin-Woo finally got a real sense of the situation he had been dumped into. With a soft sigh, he shrugged. Honestly, when the goddess told him to purify this place, he had thought he might as well give it a try since he could come back to life, and he didn’t really care about this world at all. Now, however, he felt the urge to fix this place, at least to rid himself of his uneasiness.

First, let's pick up the loot.

He couldn't just sit and wallowed in bemusement forever. Lee Shin-Woo collected the scattered Perium atop the castle wall, as well as the Skeleton Archers' bones, bows, and arrows. Strangely, it was their finger bones that had remained after the skeletons’ death, and when he reinforced himself with the bones, the same message popped up for all of them.

[You have reinforced your finger bone. Agility has increased by 1. Absorbing a portion of the Skeleton Archer's memories and experiences.]

[Why are you putting an apple on my head? ... Wait a second, fine, I'll learn archery! Jeez, I said I'll learn it! - A nameless boy] 

Compared to his leg bones, which he had reinforced to the limits and no longer led to stat growth, his agility almost always increased when he reinforced his finger bones.

[You have acquired a Lv1 Bone Short Bow.]

[You have learned Beginner Archery Lv1.]

"As expected."

He searched the entire area and used all the finger bones he found to reinforce himself. As a result, his agility had risen to 62 even without equipping the Feather Bone Boots, and his Beginner Archery had reached Lv2 even though he hadn't shot a single arrow yet.

He then went on to combine the Bone Short Bows⁠ he gathered—less than ten had been dropped⁠—into one with Reinforcement.

[Bone Short Bow (+4) Lv1]

[Durability: 220/220]

[Attack Power: 20 - 25]

"This ain't half-bad."

Though its attack power was incomparable to the Lv2 Bone Spear, he felt reassured that he had acquired a way to attack from a distance. Even better, there were almost 200 arrows to be found along the castle walls.

[Quest complete!]

[You have acquired an inventory. You can open and close it with the command ‘inventory’.]

[You have acquired access to Goddess's Secret Shop. You can open it with the command ‘shop’.]

"Wow."

The messages popped up one after another as soon as Lee Shin-Woo, having collected the loot, scaled down the wall and set foot on Empire’s soil. He had been so preoccupied that he had forgotten about the quest, so he was a little surprised. He quietly cheered for the acquisition. After all, he couldn't carry 200 arrows all at once.

"Inventory," he muttered.

A checkered, translucent window appeared in front of him, similar to the ones he often saw in games. That’s some intuitive UI design, Lee Shin-Woo mused. When he touched the window, his hand was suddenly pulled in by a suction he could barely resist. He hurriedly pulled his hand back in surprise, only to find it perfectly unscathed.

Will this work?

He grabbed a bone arrow and put it inside. It was instantly sucked in, and an arrow icon appeared on one of the checkered boxes, followed by ‘x1’.

"Let's see."

He shoved all his bone arrows into his inventory, and the number quickly jumped from 1 to 189. He wasn't absolutely sure yet, but it seemed that he would be able to stack items as long as they were identical. He was more than a little relieved by the realization since there were currently only ten boxes in his inventory..

"Let's put the bow in... ah, money too."

When he threw the money pouch inside, the pouch disappeared somewhere, and a black coin icon appeared below the inventory, along with the number 3,420. He honestly wanted to compliment the design because of how user-friendly it was.

"Good, close."

The inventory didn’t close. Maybe he should use the same command again. When he muttered ‘inventory’, the interface disappeared.

An idea struck Lee Shin-Woo suddenly. Rather than speaking out loud, he muttered ‘inventory’ in his head, and the inventory opened. With this, he'd be able to open and close the inventory amid battles without much difficulty.

Next up...

Now that he’d gotten to know the ins and outs of his inventory, Lee Shin-Woo took a deep breath and tried the other reward he’d received.

"Shop."

At that moment, Lee Shin-Woo’s surroundings distorted, and his consciousness became faint. He struggled to open his eyes in an attempt to get a hold of himself, then...

"Guten morgen[2], Mr. Skeleton."

He had arrived in Goddess’s Secret Shop.