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 gla.s.ses 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 f.u.c.k.

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 compet.i.tive 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d angel said was completely right. If I studied with this kind of sense of emergency and danger I would have pa.s.sed 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 embarra.s.sing 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.

f.u.c.k, 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 s.h.i.+eld.

'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 s.p.a.ce.

"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 a.s.s. I didn't put into consideration the consumption of bullets.

"You r.e.t.a.r.d 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.