Arena Chapter 9:

"Son!"

This family voice . . . .

When I opened my eyes my mom and my older sister returned home . Sister must have picked up mom while heading home .

"You came mom?"

"Yeah, I closed the shop early since I heard you came . "

"Looking at the time it was night 12 am .

The store my mom operated was not a place that sold chicken along with alcohol so there was no need for her to operate the shop so long .

I looked at my older sister .

Kim Hyunjoo .

Age 33 . She was a lawyer that specialized in dealing with corporate disputes . She works at a large law firm currently .

Her oval face wearing large glasses was on the pretty side, but her light in her eyes was cold and without any expression so her impressions are scary .

But for some reason she brought a bottle of wine .

"What's with the wine?"

"It's to celebrate that you stopped wasting your life . "

" . . . . . "

That blunt answer that hold nothing back! That's why she has no man .

"Bring the beer from the balcony . "

"Okay . "

The kimchi refrigerator on the balcony was full of cans of beer . It was due to older sister's love of alcohol .

Wine and beer with the left over chicken mom brought we had one big alcohol session .

Hyunji who was studying slowly crawled out and sat next to me .

Feeling drunk mom slapped my back and comforted me .

"Son! Your brain just wasn't meant for studying!"

"It wasn't comforting at all . "

When your older sister took the exam she only took one year but what about you son? It wasn't even the bar but just the civil employment exam . "

"I'm sorry for wasting my time and money . "

"More than that get married . Son, Hyunjoo get married already . Someone just give me a grandson already . "

Older sister's drinking speed when up considerably when marriage was brought up . After emptying several cans she complain why there weren't any good men around .

On top of that Hyunji also who downed her beer also started begged if she can not get a job and play around . She says she will get a job after playing around for a couple years . Her thinking is still . . . .

No matter how I looked at it I was the one who needed to fix this situation but for some reason laughter came out .

Why didn't I know this before .

Having just being together with your family was happy .

I feel like that this is the biggest reward I received from the first test .


***


Next morning .

The entire household had a hangover .

The empty beer cans and the left over chicken bones were still where it was and my family didn't know where they were going .

Hyunji who had a strong alcohol tolerance woke up first and woke up Hyunjoo .

"Sister you need to wake up . Don't you need to go to work?"

"I don't want to go to work . . . . "

"Feeling lazy Hyunjoo laid back her bed . "

"Then you'll get fired!"

"Just leave me to be fired . . . . "

"No, you'll hit rock bottom when you don't even have a man and lose your job!"

There was a reaction from Hyunjoo due to Hyunji's blunt statements . Hyunji carried Hyunjoo over to the bathroom painstakingly .

The me that just woke up felt like my head was going to split apart and from the headache I sighed .

"I ended up sleeping after all . '

Ah **** .

I completely forgot to train my shooting and spirit summoning skill . Alcohol is my worst enemy .

Hyunjoo went to work with a horrible complexion on her face and Hyunji also left for school saying she had a morning seminar . Mom should wake up accordingly and go to the shop .

Anyway I promised myself I must train my shooting and spirit summoning skill today .

. . . Not now but at dawn .

For now let's go hiking and do pushups .

My body ached all over the place due to maybe over exerting myself yesterday . My condition was great also due to sleeping after becoming drunk but I cleaned myself lightly and went out .


I climbed the mountain breathing hard like a beaten dog and I barely finished 50 pushups with my shaking arms .

This is pathetic . When I was in the army but physical condition was okay .

After returning home and having a late lunch I realized that it was already two in the afternoon .

I filled the tub with hot water and took a bath . After the fatigue went away I applied some medicine to heal my muscles on my somewhat slimmer legs and arms .

After that I slept . Why am I sleeping when even 1 minute and 1 second is precious?

This was because I needed to train my shooting and spirit summoning at dawn when there is no people around .

This was the result of me trying to use my time effectively .

After sleeping for some time when I woke up it was 8 pm .

"Unemployed brother, you woke up?"

Hyunji who returned from school made fun of me for waking up looking messy .

If I think about it, in her eyes she sees a brother who slept because he had nothing else to do .

"It's because I exercised too hard . "

"Exercise?"

"Hiking . From now I'm going to be doing that everyday . "

"Why are you hiking in broad day light? You totally look like your unemployed . "

"My little sister when I talk to you I get angry . Do you want to be hit by me once?"

Hyunji laughs .

But anyway why are you suddenly exercising? You're pretty slim so it can't be to lose weight right?

"If I want to survive in the competitive chicken world I have to be fit . "

From my words she burst out laughing .

I ate a simple dinner with the leftover seaweed soup and side dishes .

I cleared the table and did the dishes and cleaned the house .

And after that there was a lot of time left until the promised time so I took out a laptop .

I searched the web for survival skills to survive in the wild .

I also investigated about shooting forms and shooting skills . If there was something that I could use right away I wrote it down .

'Ah you idiot . I should have studied like this in the first place . '

What the worm **** angel said was completely right . If I studied with this kind of sense of emergency and danger I would have passed my civil employment exam .

Time flowed like this and arrived at the promised time .

'At this time of day there should be no one at the mountain right?'

I changed my clothes and went outside . The training location was Taejo mountain where I hiked everyday .

There are no trace of humans at night and plus there was an area I looked at during the hike .


***


It might be embarrassing for a adult who was almost 30 to be saying this but it was scary walking in the dead of the night by myself .

Taejo Mountain park has people who put up tents and is camping but the mountain trail where I'm headed didn't have any people .

'I'm scared that a real ghost might come out . ' [Really? Even after having died once?]

To a full grown adult you might be thinking what ghost?

I also didn't believe in that stuff before but after coming back to life after dying my thinking changed . The baby angel exists so there's no reason why a ghost might not exist .

"Wait, I have Silpi with me?"

I summoned Silpi immediately .

-Meow .

Silpi who was summoned acted cute by rubbing her face with me . Looking at the adorable Silpi the fear instantly disappeared .

Wait, Silpi's summon time limit was two hours? I better check again .

"Check Skills . "

- Spirit summoning skill (main skill): Currently you have summoned the low level spirit Silpi .
Beginner 1st level: Able to summon for 2 hrs (Remaining  time: 1 hr and 59 minutes) When the time limit is up you can re-summon only after 10 hours .

Two hours was right .

If I use Silpi's power time will drain faster .

'Due to the time limit I could possibly be not able to train in spirit summoning . '

I better conserve my time for summoning .

I said while caressing Silpi .

"Silpi do you want go back for now and I'll call you back later?"

-Meow .

Silpi answered lightly  and disappeared like a mirage .

I was back to being alone in the dead of the night .

Fuck, It's not scary at all! Why am I afraid for when I have to fight with my life on the line 10 days later!

Thinking like this and walking confidently made me longer afraid . There was no problem that was more important than the test that had my life riding on it .

After walking 10 minutes I arrived at the empty plot of land . It was a small area that had trees surrounding it like a shield .

'Let's start . '

First is shooting .

"Equip weapon, Equip tool . "

On my right hand the magic gun and on my waist the bullet carrier appeared .

The number of marble shaped bullets in the carrier in total is 100 . It's plenty for shooting practice . . . .

'Wait a minute?"

My eyes widened from the realization .

'You crazy, what do you mean it's enough! It's completely not enough!'

The marble bullets are consumable . If it is used for training it is impossible to reuse them .

I figured that I could pick them up after shooting and tell Silpi to gather them afterwards .

Thinking about it now the marble bullets are made of lead . If it hits its target due to the strong impact it's obvious that the shape will deform!

"Summon slate . "

The slate appeared in empty space .

"How much are the marble bullets?"

The writing on the slate changed .

-Marble bullets 100 rounds: The lead projectile use by the gun (-2)
-Remaining Karma: 0


Thankfully the marble bullets were only 2 points of karma for 100 rounds .

But the problem is my remaining karma is 0 .

This was the result of frugally using all of the 500 karma points from the first test .

Frugal my **** . I didn't put into consideration the consumption of bullets .

"You **** what are you going to do now!"

I sat down where I was . In this situation shooting practice was out of consideration . There was no point in coming out in the dead of the night to train .

'I need to use the 100 bullets for the second test . '

I don't know what kind of fight the second test will be . It will be a relief if just like the first test only one red ape comes out but I don't know if there could be dozens of them .


I need to use sparingly the bullets which are consumable .

Didn't they say that during the Vietnam war one soldier consumed 50000 bullets?

'No, since my gun has a one bullet chamber I can't just shoot all over the place . '

I need to carefully shoot each and every bullet rather than a machine gun that shoots all over the place .

But if I want to do that I need to practice shooting to bring my accuracy up!

I must practice shooting no matter what . I cannot take the test without having shot even once .

I took out my smart phone from my pocket . Opening the web browser I searched for bullets . I searched to see if I can acquire the same type of bullet .

"It exists!"

I unknowingly yelled from the joy .

They were selling bullet used for rifles on an internet shopping mall .

It was a round marble made out of steel and the sizes were 7 mm, 8 mm, 9 mm and all sorts of different sizes .

I used a ruler app to check the size of the marble bullets . The bullets that were used in the magic bullets were exactly 10 mm big . The internet shopping mall also sold 10 mm bullets .


I order 500 bullet right away . I wish they will deliver quickly . I only have 10 days left .

I felt a bit better after figuring out the problem with shooting practice .