ICWDS 20

“Prrr!”

A white horse licked my cheek.

The sensation was a little surreal. A creature so breathtakingly beautiful that merely looking at it could entrance a man was showing me such familiarity.

Even Michu, the stray cat that used to live in our orphanage’s backyard, had never spared me a glance.

“Heuro, what in the world just happened?”

[······.]

Heuro remained silent. When I asked again, frustration creeping into my voice, the black blade finally opened its mouth.

[It has been purified.]

“Purified?”

[Yes. By absorbing the monster’s karma and blood, it has regained its original form.]

“Monsters can be purified, too?”

[Depending on the case. A bicorn is simply a unicorn that has fallen into corruption. Originally, it is a being worshipped as a sacred beast.]

Ah, I see.

So, a corrupted bicorn had turned back into a unicorn because I absorbed its blood and karma?

Did my Special Treatment apply to animals as well?

Maybe I should consider changing my career to a veterinarian.

“So, it depends on the case? How do you tell the difference?”

[If you purify a corrupted bear, do you think that bear will suddenly decide not to eat you?]

“Ah~”

Understood.

That meant monsters like goblins would still try to tear me apart even if I purified them.

Heuro added that unicorns belonged to the Good alignment and didn’t attack people carelessly.

[Above all, there is the matter of intelligence. Unicorns are as intelligent as humans. Intelligent enough to know that you purified them.]

“Oh…”

Right. Bestial creatures like goblins didn’t seem to have the brains to comprehend something like that.

They said their intelligence remained the same even in a corrupted state, but goblins were just too brainless.

“Whew… This is a massive loss, though.”

The hunters getting wiped out was their own fault. They had tried to kill me first, so they had simply reaped what they sowed.

The real problem was the mystic items that had been damaged during the fight with the bicorn.

“Can I… recycle these?”

My serf’s cloth tunic and bronze scale armor had been shredded when the beast’s horn pierced through them.

They said bronze scale armor was sturdier than iron, but I guessed it wasn’t enough to stop a bicorn’s full-charge attack.

“Wait!”

A thought suddenly struck me.

Maybe it wasn’t a loss after all.

“I acquired a unicorn, didn’t I? Isn’t this a massive jackpot?”

[Hmm?]

Heuro tilted slightly. But since it was just a sword, it couldn’t read my innermost thoughts.

I decided to demonstrate through my actions instead.

“Aren’t you grateful to me?”

“Neigh-hee-hic!”

The unicorn nodded as if expressing its gratitude.

“Would you mind lowering your back for a moment?”

At that, the unicorn knelt down and bent its back.

Good. This definitely meant permission granted, right?

I climbed straight onto the unicorn’s back.

The moment I mounted it, the unicorn sprang to its feet.

Hell yeah! I am now a Unicorn Rider!

[Hey. Wait a──]

“Neigh-hee-hee-hing!!”

“Whoa, wait—!”

The unicorn started bucking and thrashing wildly.

With no way to stay seated on a violently rearing horse, I was thrown off immediately.

“Agh!”

I landed flat on my back, wincing at the impact.

“Neigh-hing…!”

The unicorn immediately trotted over and began licking my cheek.

What was this? Giving someone a disease and then handing them the medicine?

[You cannot ride a unicorn.]

“Ugh, what do you mean by that? Wasn’t it trying to repay my kindness?”

[Allowing you to ride it is an entirely different matter.]

“Why on earth?!”

Shouldn’t this have been the exact moment I acquired a unique mount?

[You are not pure, after all.]

“······!?”

What was that supposed to mean?

Purity? What was that?

If it meant what I thought it meant…

“I am pure!”

[But you are not a maiden.]

“Ah······.”

Well, there was nothing I could do about that.

“Only pure maidens can ride it… Is this guy some kind of reverse-simp? Wait, a reverse-simp stallion?”

“Neigh-hing!”

The unicorn shook its head frantically, looking offended by my assessment.

Still, what could I do?

It wasn’t as if I could undergo gender reassignment surgery.

“Well, that’s that. Off you go, then.”

I patted the unicorn’s back a few times and shooed it away.

“Live a good life, you hear?”

“Neigh-hing!”

However, the unicorn didn’t leave right away.

As if it had something important to convey, it gently nudged my shoulder with its forehead.

“Careful with that horn.”

Tap!

Right then, something dropped from its forehead.

It was the unicorn’s horn.

“What? Why did that fall off?”

Had it cracked during the fight?

If so, the cut was far too clean.

It was almost as if a lizard had dropped its tail.

[It appears the unicorn has given you a gift of its horn.]

“It gifted me its horn?”

[It is how a unicorn treats its benefactor. If you are a pure maiden, it lets you ride its back; otherwise, it gifts you its horn.]

It would grow back anyway, so it wasn’t a major issue.

“Um… Is this really for me?”

“Neigh-hing!”

So this was a unicorn’s way of repaying a favor.

Since it was offering the horn willingly, refusing it would feel rude.

I tucked the horn away, and the unicorn galloped off into the forest as if its job was finally done.

Watching it fade into the distance, I began cleaning up the aftermath.

Man, with everyone dead, how am I even supposed to report this?

“Yes, you may return now.”

In the end, my report was accepted by the Management Bureau.

The official story was that Joo Hyung-bae and his hunters had ambushed me to steal my arcane items, only to fall victim to the monsters themselves.

The Elven Princess’s Flute I possessed had already been registered with the Bureau, and my condition before entering…

“Well, I was a Golden Goblin, after all.”

And that was all thanks to Heuro’s insatiable thirst for blood.

“Good work.”

When I came out after finishing the investigation, Kang Chun-hwa was waiting for me.

“Every time I go into the Dark Zone, I swear I have to deal with some kind of mess.”

“It’s an extraterritorial zone, so a lot of crazy things happen there. Even considering that, you’re… on the unluckier side.”

“Right? It’s not like everyone out there is a looter, is it?”

Kang Chun-hwa stared at me silently before letting out a long sigh.

“We should form an official party soon. You need reliable party members you can trust.”

“I suppose so.”

This incident had made me realize it all over again.

In the Dark Zone, anyone could turn into a ruthless looter at any moment.

I shouldn’t lose my faith in humanity, but trusting people blindly was equally dangerous.

“Here. I had it appraised while you were being interrogated.”

Kang Chun-hwa handed me the unicorn’s horn.

“What do you think? I assumed it wasn’t anything dangerous, but…”

“It’s a world first.”

A world first?

I tilted my head at Kang Chun-hwa’s words.

“Did I say that a corrupted human returning to normal was unprecedented? The same goes for monsters.”

According to Kang Chun-hwa, bicorns were exceptionally rare, but they had been captured a few times around the world.

They were occasionally caught for research purposes, but naturally, no corrupted bicorn had ever reverted into a unicorn.

“You said it’s a unicorn, right? You’re the only person in the entire world holding a unicorn’s horn.”

“Wow~ So it’s super precious? What am I even supposed to use this for, though?”

“No idea. It’s our first time seeing a unicorn horn, too. We’ve heard bicorn horns are used to brew curses or create contaminating materials, but…”

Apparently, the Bureau had no idea what a unicorn’s horn could be used for.

“Well, get some good rest today. Three days from now is the end of your probation period, so come back to the Bureau then.”

“Understood.”

A world-first unicorn horn.

Well, I could figure out its uses gradually.

“Let’s see.”

Once I got back home, I turned on the machine that measured my Karma Index.

“77,000, huh.”

Right after I first stepped out of the Dark Zone, my Karma Index had spiked to over 90,000, causing a massive panic among the Bureau staff.

If Kang Chun-hwa hadn’t called to let them know everything was fine, I probably would have been arrested on the spot as a Corrupted.

“Pretty decent harvest this time, too, wouldn’t you say?”

[Well, for the price of absorbing a single beast, it’s quite substantial.]

And I’d drunk a lot of blood, too.

“Wait, if even a unicorn that was fully purified gives me this much, just what kind of monster was that elven princess?”

I’d nearly died back then.

Good thing I stabbed her in the back when she let her guard down.

The unicorn ran.

It crossed forests and sprinted across plains, encountering numerous corrupted beings along the way, but it brushed them all aside.

It was Gale.

A phantasmal beast that sliced through the wind. No one could hope to catch up with its gallop.

Yet, the unicorn knew.

Though it had recovered for now, it was destined to walk the path of corruption once again.

This contaminated world dragged everything down into corruption simply by existing.

The mystical unicorns. The guardians of nature, the elves. Even the proud dragons of the volcanoes, deep seas, and azure skies.

After decades, centuries, and millennia of contamination, they had all ultimately fallen.

How many years could it hope to endure?

Even so, it had to press on.

It had to deliver this news.

If those beings were still holding out without falling into corruption…

If those noble entities had not yet given up hope…

As their herald, it had to make the existence of that boy—the savior—known.

“Neigh-hee-hing…!”

How long had it been running?

The unicorn finally reached a certain forest.

It knew exactly where it was.

The forest of the guardian elves.

The land walked by the noble High Elves.

The reason the unicorn had sought this place first was the presence of the World Tree.

It had sensed the aura of the World Tree coming from that boy.

The sound of the flute that had inadvertently lured it in when it was still corrupted…

There was no doubt about it.

It was the World Tree’s flute.

The proof of a noble High Elf.

In other words, it meant that a High Elf remained uncorrupted!

“A unicorn?”

At that very moment, a group of elves approached the beast, which was walking sluggishly in a state of near exhaustion.

Seeing them, the unicorn felt a surge of hope.

If the High Elves, the communicators of the World Tree, remained uncorrupted, then surely their kin, the forest elves, had not fallen either.

“To think a specimen like this is still around!”

However, what greeted it was an arrow piercing straight through its neck.

Startled, the unicorn thrashed, but the elves’ poisoned arrows quickly paralyzed its body.

The elves slowly approached the collapsed, motionless unicorn.

“Princess! It’s a unicorn!”

“Heh, I’ve hunted plenty of bicorns, but this is my first time seeing a real unicorn. To think such a specimen still existed…”

“······.”

Despair washed over the unicorn.

Was it already too late here, too?

Then, the High Elf must have…

“Princess?”

“Gack!”

“Ugh!”

It happened in an instant.

The corrupted elves, who had been licking their lips with greedy grins as if ready to tear the unicorn apart, were suddenly slaughtered by a single elf who appeared behind them.

Was this an internal conflict?

Yet, when the unicorn laid eyes on the newly arrived elf, its eyes widened in shock.

“Who on earth healed you?”

She was an elf.

And not just any elf, but a High Elf.

She gently touched the unicorn’s horn while curing the poison in its body.

“Your horn… Did you give it to that person?”

You, too?

At that, the High Elf nodded softly.

The healing was soon complete, and the unicorn rose from her lap.

“This forest is dangerous. You came looking for me, didn’t you? I was healed thanks to him, but the other elves aren’t so lucky.”

The High Elf wore a sorrowful expression as she looked at the bodies of the elves she had just slain.

Since the ordinary elves were still corrupted, she would have to dispose of these corpses quickly.

“Seek out the Lady of the Lake. Find the Fire Dragon of Mount Imjin. Find the Lord of the Sky Island. Go and tell them of his existence.”

For he would undoubtedly be the savior of their world.

The unicorn recalled the horn it had handed over to its savior.

Since it had parted with its horn, that very horn would serve as a token to find him once again.

It had left the horn behind precisely for that purpose.

“Neigh-hee-hing!”

“You’re curious about him, too? So am I.”

Irsia stroked the unicorn, sharing its sentiment.

The corruption that even great dragons, majestic celestial beings, mystical fairies, and the sages of the tower could not resolve…

What even those mighty and formidable entities could not fix, he had accomplished.

A savior from another world.

The brilliant strategist and warrior who had overcome the temptation of the World Tree’s flute, seen through cunning stratagems, and struck it down.

“What kind of person is he, I wonder? Surely… pure and brave, wouldn’t you say?”

Longing for the day they would meet him again, Irsia and the unicorn found a glimmer of hope within the dark world.

And at that exact same moment…

“Whew~”

An elementary school in Seoul.

Right in front of the school gate, where stationery shops and snack stalls intersected, Yoon Ga-on wore a wicked grin.

“Today’s quota of evil deeds starts here.”

To think I’m about to carry out dark karma targeting an elementary school—I really am a wicked bastard.

[······I’ve stopped expecting anything from you.]