“Still, they’ve patched quite a few things.”
I wasn’t keen on starting a sentence with, “Back in my day~,” but compared to the beta phase, things had made great strides.
Truthfully, I’d been a bit worried when the foxes started flocking to transform into humans.
“Afraid it would turn into a mass nude party.”
The first time I changed from a fox to a human, I ended up naked, so I’d stretched out Jung Da-hoon’s face puzzle piece with a rolling pin and wrapped it around myself like clothing. Afterward, I always kept beginner clothes—the lightest and fastest to equip—in my bag. When changing from fox to human, I could equip them in 0.2 seconds. Frankly, that was why I always wore beginner clothes around.
“Looking for the problematic pie!! Anyone with a stomach ache?!”
The players who had formed a squad party with the ‘prospective priest’ were digging into all sorts of food.
They had already secured the ‘priest item,’ a potion bottle—now it was time to use it and trigger the job awakening. What they needed now was someone who got a stomachache from eating the wrong food.
But for some reason, none of the food at the official server opening this time was causing any issues.
“…I’ve eaten everything, but it’s all fine. Guess they only put out safe food?”
“Then what are we supposed to do?”
“No idea… We have to heal someone who’s collapsed from poison, so maybe I’ll try eating some toxic herbs?”
As the prospective priest’s party members rushed off, other players, who had been watching enviously, also began eagerly hunting for their jobs.
Then, moments later, an ear-splitting scream erupted from the direction the priest had gone.
“What was that? Don’t tell me… a Murderer?”
“Let’s go check it out.”
Curious myself, I approached the area. There, I found a man collapsed, foaming at the mouth, apparently having eaten poison herbs.
“…Why aren’t you saving him?”
“I gave him the potion! But the poison’s too strong—it’s not working!”
Everyone was flustered, milling about in panic. In the end, the man died, dropping his nearly empty inventory bag to the ground.
Watching the whole thing with a blank expression, Bori Noona remarked dryly,
“Wow, he’s crazy. He ate five Blue Poison Herbs? Two of those will kill you in under a minute.”
As expected of a former Shadow Castle guide. But Kebab, listening to her, tilted his head in confusion.
“You die after just two of those?”
“Yeah. They’re super dangerous.”
“I’ve eaten more than ten of those when I was hungry. Just had some diarrhea and that was it.”
“Huh? Must’ve been a different flower. That can’t be right.”
“No, I’m sure it was that one.”
“Oh… right. That time… Kebab, wasn’t your job ‘Beggar’ back then?”
“Yeah, I was a Beggar. Ah, that makes sense now. Beggars get hardly any penalty when eating things off the ground. In fact, there’s a ‘3-second rule’—if you pick up food someone dropped within three seconds and eat it, your Agility and Resistance go up.”
“Oooh… planning to be a Beggar again in this life?”
“This time, I want a cool job. Something like a Thief, or a Seeker… What about you, Woo-rim? Since you didn’t become a Baby Fox this time, I feel like you’ve got something big planned…”
My teammates who’d turned human after eating the pie looked at me with sparkling eyes, awaiting my answer. But what I had to say was rather bland.
“This time, I just want to be a casual gamer. I poured my soul into it last time—now I just want to relax and enjoy myself, like I’m on vacation.”
“Ah, yeah. No need to go overboard, no need.”
Kessler gave me a knowing glance, signaling he’d also like to play casually this round.
Seeing the chaos settle slightly, I approached the group stunned by the sudden loss of their teammate. Smiling lightly, I offered them a plate topped with delicious cake.
“My condolences. If only he’d taken a bite of cake before passing on, how nice that would’ve been. Tsk.”
“What the hell? Don’t mock us—just get lost…”
Ignoring their hostility, I picked up a candle placed for welcoming new users, setting it down in front of the corpse to soothe his spirit.
Then the prospective priest stomped the candle out.
“Yeah, I don’t know what your deal is, but when I become a priest, I’m not healing you. You look like a Yeo Woo-rim fan, but don’t tarnish his name. Just walk your path quietly. You’re pissing me off.”
“Yes, yes. My apologies.”
I’d accomplished my intended goal, so I obediently retreated. Returning to my teammates, who’d been observing my antics with confusion, they asked,
“Dude, what the hell was that?”
“I think I’m going to get a job.”
“Whoa, whoa. What job? Did you get a special item?”
“Not really, but I think it’s coming. You’ll see.”
Only Kessler seemed to realize what he had done.
Only Kessler seemed to have noticed exactly what I’d done.
That’s right—even if the system didn’t acknowledge personal performances with hidden intentions, a certain distant skeleton who’d watched me closely would.
Soon, an aged skeleton approached me. It was Undertaker Gol, here to witness the newly begun Blood Festival at Shadow Castle.
-Clack clack. I admire your kind heart for tending to the corpse.
The skeleton extended his hand, as if recognizing my actions, and I shook it firmly.
“It’s an undeserved compliment. I only did what anyone should.”
At that moment, a notification appeared.
The undertaker ‘Jukgol’ wishes to take you as his successor.
Undertaker Jukgol is old and frail. Young skeletons these days know nothing but their own skulls. He found them too immature to inherit his craft.
Then he saw you—sincerely mourning and comforting a stranger’s death, despite having no connection to them—and was deeply moved.
Will you carry on his legacy?
Yes / No
Emotion welled within me as I clasped his hand—bones almost squeezing marrow—and nodded vigorously.
“I may be unworthy of understanding the heart of the departed, but with you by my side, I believe I can become someone better.”
[System]: !!!
[System]: ‘Poison-Curing Potion’ is watching you.
[System]: Elder Skeleton, ‘Seeker of the Throne’s True Heir,’ is observing you.
[System]: ‘BeautifulBeggarGol’ licks its lips while staring at you. It believes it could seduce and drain you dry. Exercise extreme caution.
Undertaker Jukgol was the truest kind of old-fashioned geezer in Shadow Castle—one who cared most about a skeleton’s character, the virtue of their being. With someone so notoriously picky taking an interest in me, others seemed eager to poke around.
[You have chosen the path of ‘Undertaker.’
Escorting the dead on their final journey is a difficult, burdensome role—but with sincere and gentle compassion, nothing is impossible.]
[!!! First Job Quest: I Want to Become an Undertaker!
Follow the undertaker and observe how he prepares for partings. To learn, begin by discovering corpses!
Discovered Player Corpses: 0/10]
I discreetly shared the quest details with my teammates, and they all shook their heads vigorously.
—Let’s meet again sometime.
“Yes, Jukgol-nim. Take care.”
After quietly waiting until JukGol—infamous as the castle’s biggest snob—was completely out of sight, my team looked at me, clearly puzzled.
“Wait, Woo-rim, didn’t you say you just wanted to chill this round? How are you the first one to get a job?”
“Pro, weren’t you all about relaxing? Is… Undertaker really a ‘chill’ job?”
Jung Da-hoon shook his head. True to its R-19 rating, the game’s details were way too realistic—it was the kind of job that made you wonder, why even pick that?
“I mean, it’s not like I enjoy looking at corpses or anything, so don’t get the wrong idea. I just wanted to try out a new class.”
That really was all there was to it. Since it was a job everyone avoided, there had to be some occupational perks, and I was curious about them. No one else wanted to pioneer this path, so I decided to satisfy my curiosity myself.
“Besides, I’m now a proper user with a 15+ setting, so the corpses just look like dolls.”
In fact, I’d even set the ‘reality’ slider to zero, so player corpses appeared as harmless teddy bears leaking cotton.
“That’s right. You’re a real user now. Anyway, we should get moving too and find our jobs.”
“Yeah, worst case, I’ll just pick up a hundred items off the ground and become a Beggar.”
“Ooh… Kebab, so that’s the Beggar activation requirement? I still think I’d rather be jobless than do that. Anyway, I’m off too.”
“Good luck out there.”
After everyone else departed, the hall was left empty except for the jobless Kessler and myself, the future Undertaker.
“Hold on a sec.”
Kessler, lost in thought, suddenly followed after the undertaker.
He stopped Jukgol and tried talking to him, but it didn’t seem to go well.
“Kessler, what was that? Were you begging him to make you an undertaker too?”
“Yeah. I went all the way over there, saying I’d do the job no one else wants—and he turned me down. Said he only needs one.”
“You should go for a better class. We’ve got to do the main quests, remember? Seeker would suit you.”
“Meh, that kind of cliché job doesn’t excite me.”
“Then what?”
“I was originally planning to be your guardian.”
So, if I had become a Baby Fox, he’d intended to be an animal guardian and stick to me constantly. Since he created the game, he probably wanted to fool around rather than seriously dive in anyway.
“Really? That’s kinda sweet. But hey, even without all that, we’re together all the time anyway.”
“We’ll need to be even more attached from now on.”
Kessler paused for a moment, thinking, then began plotting a new plan.
