Is the person you sculpt as cute as me?

But Yu Man still wanted to try it himself - so he could start with the only piece of information he had...

It's a rope.

What is the purpose of the rope?

Bundle things, tie things, hang things... Make a lot of things? Hang yourself? Anything is possible.

What else?

"……tie?"

Yu Man softly uttered a word that seemed natural but uninvited.

Strangely, when this word reached her mind, she began to observe that there were some more or less friction marks on the rope... They were so old that they blended with the color of the rope itself and were enough to be ignored.

Knotting - no.

But it is the root of the word knot.

Although he knew nothing about this rope, Yu Man still had some understanding of the story of the old world.

For example, the mythological era - or an era even older than that.

People at that time did not have written language, but they had a certain need to convey and record information.

In a certain epic dungeon, the reflection of the ancient old world was once described like this:

“People are in the wilderness of time—the only way to prove the flow of time is to record events with knotted ropes.”

Because the use of knotted ropes to record events was consistent with reality, Yu Man remembered it quite clearly.

And now-

"Assuming this is the purpose of this rope, then... what is its meaning?"

Yu Man's self-questioning blended into the severe coldness of the house.

The rope that knew the answer did not remain silent.

It calls out to Yu Man silently.

Oh well.

Since it could satisfy his curiosity, Yu Man was happy to succumb to the temptation and started to tie a knot around it.

suddenly--

A line of rainbow-colored writing with a metallic sheen flashed before Yu Man's eyes.

"Achievement: Destroy all terror—"

No.

The line of words decayed instantly, and its metallic color... immediately turned scarlet.

The rainbow colors that were supposed to symbolize glory also withered and faded in an instant.

Afterwards, the words written by the achievements shattered, collapsed, and were destroyed one by one.

The meaning of this achievement has disappeared.

In turn——

They turned into a wriggling, dried blood color, climbing up Yu Man's knot.

The knot—was untied.

136·Li System

This rainbow achievement was not included in Yu Man's career.

Instead, it was torn apart by some force.

"Something's not right."

Yu Man's spirit immediately tensed up and he entered a state of extreme seriousness.

This matter must be of great significance—her battle intuition, accumulated over countless times, was shouting this.

"magic……"

But the rope that pulled all this out did not stop.

After its knot was inexplicably loosened, a slight amount of magic power began to fluctuate.

They linger on the rope, as if calling for something, as if about to open something, as if to become something.

"...Ritual? No, something more primitive, something fundamental... Such crude magic..."

Yu Man tried to decipher the magic on the rope.

But there was nothing he could do.

Just like the early stone tools of mankind unearthed from the oldest cultural heritage.

They are extremely rough, yet they possess some kind of fundamental archetypal structure.

And now, the magic on this rope gave Yu Man the same feeling. It wasn't some kind of graceful magic refined and updated step by step in later generations, but rather something primitive, simple... and effective.

Suddenly—Yu Man felt his vision was distorted.

Like the snow pattern on an old TV, countless signal noise points intertwine and linger in the field of vision.

But they only lasted for a second before everything calmed down.

Then--

They didn't understand... and failed.

A line of system text that had never been seen before, with an extremely evil and scarlet background, appeared in Yu Man's eyes inconceivably.

But it has more than just one line.

The evils of the wasteland have noticed you.

“…What’s going on—this UI is something I’ve never seen before…”

Not only that.

You also touched them and learned the secret method of controlling terror.

"……what?"

Yu Man skillfully made quick gestures to activate the system interface.

Nothing has changed about them, except that there is an extra, extremely eye-catching scarlet line in the specialization list.

Those evil colors stood out from everything and then formed an ancient old Esperanto word.

【fear】

[Mastery Progress 0/10000]

"Profession? I've never seen... or heard of it..."

But unlike the mumbling in his mouth, Yu Man was already thinking rapidly in his mind.

There is no doubt that it has a huge connection with that rope.

Firstly - it requires 10,000 mastery points to max out, which is in line with the tenfold penalty for second classes.

Secondly, it is undoubtedly an unknown hidden profession, and one that Yu Man has never heard of or thought of.

Because... it's another system outside of the one the players have.

The system inherited by the player is shaped by the "Three Secrets" to guide and solidify the souls' journey in the old world.

They have a very orthodox sacredness, and the "Three Mysteries" exist in this way.

In other words, the "Three Secrets" would never decorate the system design with such dirty colors and evil temperament.

The three who are equivalent to GMs are actually just serving a certain purpose or a certain existence, and all their actions are restricted.

But this hidden profession is different.

There must be an extraordinary mystery behind this obviously evil and ancient hidden system. It is unconstrained, yet possesses that level of power.

"Something other than the Three Secrets... It's very dangerous."

Yu Man's mind raced, trying to connect the dots with the secrets she'd learned in the first week and get more information. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't grasp even the slightest clue... This matter was too unfamiliar.

She wiped the sweat off her face without showing even the slightest fear.

——She is a PVE player after all.

He touched upon an unprecedentedly huge secret and obtained a mysterious secondary job that no one understood.

There are even novel system interfaces that are like viruses, invading the system that should be normal.

Yu Man just felt excited, and it was natural for her to be excited.

"...I need to study it carefully. It's very interesting...very interesting."

After grasping the current situation to a certain extent, Yu Man regained his rationality and began to examine the source of all this.

On that rope—the trace of magic no longer existed, and it returned to its previous dead silence.

But it had attempted to perform some extremely ancient, crude ritual magic, and had failed.

There are traces of failure - there are some that remain.

A streak of charred black splattered on the ice wall like blood.

Yu Man approached it, trying to collect it——

[Magic power remaining from a failed contract]

"...there's an item description—and I can understand it...because I unlocked the class?"

Without any hesitation, in order to satisfy his desire to explore, Yu Man invested all the more than 100 expertise points he had accumulated before into this strange secondary profession.

As she entered the profession called "Horror", she soon began to feel more.

[The remaining magical power from the failed covenant.]

Lack of magic, lack of desire.

Therefore, it did not take shape in this world.】

"The reason for the failure has been revealed. It appears to be a summoning technique... No, it might be a little different. That rope is the ritual medium itself."

Yu Man used fragmented soliloquy to quickly understand the current situation.

Before, she just wanted to understand the rope, so she tied the knot casually without using any magic or thoughts...which just met the conditions for failure.

"try again."

But she started taking it seriously.

First, he took out the magic book and reinforced the house with thicker and richer ice and snow, and also prepared an ice wall as a precautionary measure.

In addition, Yu Man began to prepare materials for the so-called "contract".

The cheapest material on hand was the fifth-level enchanting material, so Yu Man selected a piece of metal, which should be of just the right grade and quality.

Next is a bottle of magic potion to replace her own magic consumption. In addition, according to the failure prompt, a wish is required.

"Then—I hope my confusion can be answered." She strengthened this wish, making it specific and clear.

Based on all this——

Yu Man weaved the long rope again, this time it was not a knot, but a bow.

A bow used to tie gifts, symbolizing friendship and beauty.

Everything happened as Yu Man expected—some ancient, crude ritual began.

The magic potions she prepared were sprinkled on the rope, but they hung in the air like gems.

Some existence that came from nowhere is taking away these magical powers one by one.

He didn't look like a glutton, nor like a world-weary person, but rather accepted the gift from the summoner with great courtesy and smile.