Everyone is Young Except for Me - Chapter 182

Chapter 182
There were a few ringing sounds before Park Muyeol answered my call.

-Yes, Chuntaek.

“Is it that good?”

-It’s great! It seems I’m becoming popular in my old age. Hahaha!

“...What bullshit.”

We exchanged a casual conversation as usual. There were three days left until the round of 8 started so he asked me to hunt with him. However, I said it was hard right now.

-Why? Are you busy?

“Yes, I have a bit of work to do.”

-Hmm, really? Then it can’t be helped. 

Park Muyeol understood easier than I expected. If it was the past, he would’ve clung to me, pestering me to join him. Did he change after getting older? It was surprising. I explained, “It is a simple quest and I will finish it soon. Let’s hunt together after I finish it.”

-Yes. Then I’ll see you later.

“Yes~ We should have a drink soon~”

-Yes, yes~

I was about to hang up when something suddenly flashed through my mind. “Ah, right. Muyeol.”

-Uh, yes?

“Do you know the person called Supreme Fire Dragon that you saw when entering the Colosseum?”

-Ah, that lizard? What about him?

“It seems he has joined hands with Aidan. I think that’s why the rules of the match suddenly changed yesterday.”

-Hmm, are you sure?

“I’m sure there is a relationship with Aidan. They were sitting next to each other on the second floor VIP room and laughing at me. Those damn guys.”

-Um...

Park Muyeol’s silence continued. He opened his mouth after much thought.

-I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.

Certainly, sometimes there was no need to talk to Park Muyeol with words. I didn’t even tell him but he seemed to know what I wanted. I smiled slightly. “Then I’ll leave it to you.”

-Yes. Don't worry about it.

“Yes.”

My face shone on the LCD screen of my phone that I turned off. I went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. There was no one in the house today. Kanghyun had gone to the gym early in the morning. We went hiking together last time and he was shocked because his physical strength wasn’t as good as he thought. I heard he was going to hire a coach or something, but in any case, I hoped he would lose some weight.

“Um, it is probably somewhere here...”

My daughter-in-law went out because she had an appointment with friends. She said she would come back in the evening but before she left, she made my favorite braised chicken. Thus, I had to find it in the fridge, heat it up, and eat it. However, I didn’t know where in the fridge it was. Maybe I should look around here...

“Ah, it’s here.” I opened the lid of the pot with the braised chicken and smiled. It had cooled down but the original aroma was intact and pierced my nose.

I hummed and turned on the gas stove straight away. I put the pot on it and wandered around the house.

“Hum hum~♬ hu hum hum~♪”

It had been a long time since I enjoyed this freedom. I had a secret hobby. It was to moonwalk in an empty house. Then I stopped in front of Mido’s room.

“......”

I carefully opened the door.

...As expected, Mido wasn’t in. These days, Mido was leaving early in the morning because of her school homework. She was studying in the virtual reality department and was given homework related to Arkstar. In any case, she had to go to the capsule room every day because of this.

“My Mido is troubled.”

I went straight into the room. As always, Mido’s preference was set. There was neat, monochrome pink wallpaper and cute cat dolls. She used to put something like a white tent around her bed because she wanted a princess bed. It just looked cute to me. My gaze moved to my granddaughter’s desk.

“......”

There was white A4 paper on it with words written at the top. 

“The power of constellations? What is this?”

I didn’t know why Mido wrote this on the paper. I looked directly below the words and there was a lot of information about Michael. Some things were right and some were wrong. It seemed she was investigating. Why was she writing this type of thing? The question was soon resolved. “Ah, it is homework.”

At the end of the paper was the word ‘homework’ and an asterisk. It looked pretty important.

“Ah, my braised chicken!”

I picked up the paper and ran toward the kitchen. Fortunately, the braised chicken was boiling properly without burning. I put it straight on the plate and then on the table. There were other side dishes but I was strangely craving meat today.

“Ah~ yum.”

The braised chicken entered my mouth. The perfect combination of the sweet and spicy taste and the aroma of chicken was very delicious. The spicy sauce recipe that I had taught my daughter-in-law was simply the best in the world. I chewed while moving my gaze to the paper on the table. Then I swallowed it all at once with a gulp.

“Hmm, shall I give it a try?”

I picked up a pen on the table and started writing something on the paper. The information on all the constellations in Prometheus’ memories was in my head.

* * *

I took a long time to painstakingly write everything on the papers. Then I put the papers in Mido’s room. I once again accessed Arkstar. In fact, I had used more papers because there wasn’t enough room on the one piece of paper Mido had, thus it was probably enough for Mido to get good grades in school. No, it was so perfect that it was actually a problem.

I opened my eyes and could see a familiar room. It was the private accommodation for the Colosseum battle participants. This was the room I had been staying in recently.

“Hmm, two days have passed in the world here.”

The concept of time between reality and virtual reality was different so there were many confusing things. After the previous round of 16, there was a three days break before the Colosseum battle’s round of 8 would start. That meant that there was still one more day to go, so I was going to complete Helena’s request in the meantime.

“First, let’s go out slowly... Huh?”

“Guruuuuuk.”

No, when did she get out?

“Chunza.”

“Guruk?” The owl named Chunza cocked her head. 

“How did you get out of the cage?”

“Guruuuuuk?”

The funny thing was that Chunza was sleeping on the bed, not in the cage. I heard from Sujeong that she kept getting out of the cage but once I saw it in person, I could only laugh. She was a really smart one. As expected of Hecatiana’s favorite owl.

“Guruk! Guruk!” Chunza flapped her wings and pointed at her mouth. She seemed to be hungry. I threw a raw chicken straight away and looked at Chunza’s information window.

[Lv. 11 Chunza] [Owl] 

[Rating: Normal

An owl raised at the coin exchange on the first floor of Fortren’s casino. Usually, the owl serves and follows one master. The main task is to deliver goods. The more it grows, the heavier the items it can carry.

-Magic currently attached: Recognition, tracking.

-There is information that hasn’t been revealed yet.]

“Um, she leveled up.”

Yet it still wasn’t enough. According to the owner of the coin exchange, I had to raise it using raw chicken until level 20. After that, it was okay to give it what people ate. From then on, I would cook in earnest and feed the dishes to Chunza.

“Hmm. Then the magic...”

It was too shabby to believe it was an animal cherished by the goddess of the moon and magic. In my memories, the Lechuza didn’t have such shabby magic.

“Should I buy a magic book from the Magician’s Guild?”

I heard that the Magician’s Guild was selling magic books with various attack spells. Maybe there were some good magic spells that Chunza could use.

“Oh, I have one magic book.” I opened the inventory straight away and pulled out a book with a purple cover. It was a magic book containing the low-grade magic Dark Arrow that Ragneos dropped. It was magic with great synergy with Ragneos’ skull staff, although the staff was gone now. I kept it just in case but hadn’t expected to use it like this. “Now, Chunza. Would you like to read it?”

“Gruruk?”

Chunza ate the raw chicken and headed toward me with curiosity. I handed the Dark Arrow magic to her. Chunza looked at the book with curious eyes. In my memories, the Lechuza was curious about magic. The greed for magic books was also great. So the low-grade magic...

“Gurururuk...”

Suddenly, Chunza looked angry. She picked up the magic book with her feet and started to flap her wings. What was wrong with her? Did she eat something bad?

“Guruuuuuk!” Chunza made a loud noise and flew through the air toward the open window. Then she threw out the Dark Arrow magic book.

“This girl...!”

I opened the window at high speed and fired the cobweb. Fortunately, I was able to grab the magic book. I placed it straight into my inventory and sighed. She was a complete troublemaker.

“Gruruk? Gruruk?” Chunza flew around the room wildly. Now I wondered if she was really a Lechuza. Perhaps I was wrong...? Just then, a message rose in front of my eyes.

[Chunza’s intelligence is too low to read the magic book.]

“Groan. Crazy.” I seemed to be wrong. In my memories, the Lechuza was smart and was even able to read magic books. Now she was a child who didn’t even know Hangul. If so, there was only one way...

“How can I teach you magic?”

The only way left was to show the magic to Chunza. According to the information I had in my mind, if magic was shown, the Lechuza could instinctively reproduce the magic. The problem was that I wasn’t a goddess with great magic and knowledge like Hecatiana.

Furthermore, I had a lot of work and didn’t have time to teach magic to Chunza. I needed to raise Punghee and Solar as well. I was like a zookeeper.

“Ah, wait a minute.”

The question ‘Perhaps this method will work?’ resonated in my head. It was said there was an opportunity in a crisis. Perhaps the answer was found in a crisis. I summoned Solar straight away. A small flame appeared in the air and I spoke immediately, “Solar.”

“What is going on~?”

I watched Solar smiling and couldn’t help but have my lips curving up too. It had to succeed. I pointed my finger at Chunza, who was eating raw chicken, and spoke to Solar, “Would you like to teach her magic?”

Chunza cocked her head. “Guruk~?”