Anon (56F) (OP): I genuinely don't know what I did wrong… it was even licking my face to wake me up, we were totally close, so why is it acting like this?
ㄴ Fenrir: …?
ㄴ Anon (56F) (OP): ?
ㄴ Fenrir: It… licked you…?
ㄴ Anon (156F): Yep yep, don't be jealous.
ㄴ Fenrir: No, that's not what I mean—it doesn't do cute stuff like that unless you feed it. That's the thing.
Fenrir continued explaining.
ㄴ Fenrir: Anyway… the Golden Carriage is set up to skip floors for anyone who doesn't qualify to use it.
ㄴ Fenrir: If you've got 0 gold on you, it skips you entirely. Doesn't even show up.
ㄴ Fenrir: So the horses' normal route probably starts from floor 100, but because of you, this time they had to start from floor 25.
"Huh…?"
Anon (56F) (OP): So… you're saying the horses got mad because you made them work more?
ㄴ Fenrir: The problem is that you climbed without stopping.
ㄴ Anon (56F) (OP): ?
ㄴ Fenrir: 31 floors straight! Can you imagine how exhausted they were just trying to keep up with you…! Not a single break!!!
ㄴ Fenrir: Look at the size of that carriage… from their perspective, they hauled that thing up 31 floors!
"Hmm…"
That explanation didn't quite land.
ㄴ Anon (56F) (OP): I mean, the Demon King's Tower is 1,000 floors… if they're this wrecked after just 31 floors of stairs, what are we supposed to do? That doesn't make sense.
ㄴ Fenrir: That's because you didn't feed them. Animal abuser.
So I need to feed them, huh.
ㄴ Anon (56F) (OP): Feed them? What do they eat? I didn't see any horse feed for sale in the carriage.
ㄴ Fenrir: Everything in the carriage is food.
ㄴ Anon (56F) (OP): ?
ㄴ Fenrir: Ro and Ru eat items. Normally they'd rest at least every 10 floors while breaking down and enhancing gear. But you starved them for over 2 hours and just kept cracking the whip. Poor things ㅠㅠ
"Oh ho, enhancement, huh…"
ㄴ Anon (56F) (OP): fr?
Fenrir: Yeah, feel bad for them right…? You should feed them… take off your earring right now and give it to them.
ㄴ Anon (56F) (OP): wait no way there's a breakdown and enhancement system too?
Anon (421F): Look at these two talking past each other lmaooo
ㄴ Anon (56F) (OP): But then, to get them to calm down, I need to feed them my gear?
ㄴ Anon (421F): Yeah, that's right. Give items to the black horse and it'll make enhancement stones. For the skeleton horse, put in equipment along with enhancement stones and you can enhance the gear.
ㄴ Anon (574F): Do NOT feed the earring to the black horse—give it straight to the skeleton horse.
ㄴ Death Note Grand Canon: Leave the Death Scythe absolutely alone!!!
ㄴ Anon (56F) (OP): Understood, sensei…
Guess I need to enhance the earring.
The thought of sacrificing my precious gear as tribute made my bones ache.
But to buy the 120,000-gold Jet-Black Knotted Band, I had no choice but to step inside the carriage right now.
*Let's start with the common gear.*
Of the three rings on my fingers, I handed the [Adventurer's Ring] to the black horse first.
Hiiiiigh!!
Refused. It turned its head away.
"You don't want this…?"
I took off the [Obsidian Ring of Insight] and held out both rings together.
Then.
Prrrrrr!
It snorted, sniffed at them, and then flicked out its tongue and swallowed both rings whole.
Seemed like it was just a matter of quantity.
"Thank goodness… I thought it didn't eat common gear…"
It rolled them around in its mouth for a moment…
Gulp!
Swallowed them without even chewing.
Hiiineigh—!
It tossed its mane and cleared the way.
Seemed satisfied.
"Sorry for making things hard on you…"
But where does my broken-down item come out?
No way.
"Ah… please."
"Ah…"
"Oh."
Exactly as I'd imagined.
The output wasn't dirty in the slightest, but it was still a bit hard on the stomach.
"Next time I'll have to look away…"
What came out were two stones of different colors.
"So these are enhancement stones."
I picked them up.
Now it was time to feed the skeleton horse.
I placed the two enhancement stones that had fallen to the ground, along with the earring I unclipped from my earlobe, between the skeleton horse's jawbones.
Clack! Clack!
The skeleton horse clapped its jaw shut, then started crunching the earring and stones together in one mouthful.
Crack! Crunch!
"Ugh… this is fine, right?"
The brutal noise made me worry the item was being destroyed, but—
Inside the skeleton horse's hollow ribcage, blue and red light began to swirl and blend together.
Kiiiiing—!
With a sound like hammering, the earring dropped out from the hole in the bony belly.
"At least it's just bones, thank god…"
The skeleton horse stepped aside.
I picked up the earring and pulled up the hologram window.
[Magitech Cerulean Earring +1 (Charge: 31%)]
Enhancement bonus effects: Intelligence +2, Stamina +1, Perception +2, Luck +1, Defense +2
"Wow, this is insane? 100% transfer?"
The junk-stat rings had been compressed into stats for my core item, the earring.
ㄴ Anon (432F): Up to all-stats +10 it's lossless, so you can feed it literally anything.
So that's how it works. Then feeding it common gear was actually the better play.
*So SSS-Rank Gear Chaser had already seen this far ahead…*
Thinking that, I pushed the earring back into my earlobe.
At last, the entrance to the Golden Carriage opened.
"There we go."
I stepped inside.
I looked toward the top.
Beyond the glass display case, something had been waiting for me.
"Heh… I'll get you out of there."
[Jet-Black Knotted Band (Unique)]
Price: 120,000 G
"Purchase."
[- 120,000 G]
[Payment complete.]
[Balance: 4,097 G]
The glass vanished, and its full form was revealed.
It was luminous.
A perfect black—the kind that gave the illusion of the space itself being erased.
I picked up the Knotted Band.
A smooth, silky texture.
"But where do I equip this…?"
The moment I thought that, a hologram appeared.
[Unique Item Effect: 'Synchronize' activated]
[Equipment evolves to match its user.]
"What."
The thick Knotted Band began to tie and cut itself on its own…
And started taking on a shape.
A moment later, something small and dainty was resting in my palm.
Two of them.
[Jet-Black Knotted Band → Twin-Tail Black Ribbon]
"Ribbons…?"
"Twin-tails…?"
I was at a loss for words.
"It wants me to… tie my hair in twin-tails with ribbons…?"
I stood frozen, staring down at the ribbons.
The design did match this Death God girl's gothic lolita outfit as a set.
That must be what "evolves to match its user" meant.
But obviously, I had never done anything like this in my entire life.
I tried tying them around my wrist like a bracelet.
"…"
Nothing happened.
"Well, what choice do I have…"
This is a 120,000-gold Unique item with 90 raw magic power and a 30-second cooldown Blink attached to it.
Pride means nothing.
I carefully gathered my silver hair—which fell all the way to my waist—into two sections.
Something I had never done once in my life.
I clumsily gripped the strands as they slipped through my fingers, then looped a black ribbon around each one and tied it off.
Swish, swish.
Every time the silk ribbon bound my hair, the nape of my neck was exposed.
"I can't get it right…"
The trial and error went on for a while.
I had no idea what I was doing, so I had to undo and redo it several times.
About five minutes passed.
Clumsy as it was, I managed to tie both sides.
That's when my reflection in the Golden Carriage's smooth glass display caught my eye.
"……"
My silver hair, which had been flowing calmly down, now perked up on either side, and two black ribbons swayed and fluttered gently.
"Ugh… oh no…"
The back of my neck, now fully exposed with my hair tied up on both sides, felt strangely hot.
I pressed my lips together, let out a small pout, and quickly dragged my gaze down to the floor.
That's when it happened.
A hologram appeared.
[Item Skill: 'Black Shift' acquired.]
And then.
Boom—!
In an instant, jet-black aura erupted from the ribbons tying my twin-tails and surged up to envelop my entire body.
It was almost suffocating.
"Whoa, what the—"
It was overwhelming enough that something like embarrassment didn't even register.
"So magic power… you can feel this one too, huh…?"
The recoil of 90 magic power rising all at once was hitting me.
It was a sensation difficult to put into words.
If I had to compare it—it was like a new organ had grown inside my body, and growing pains were radiating from that spot…
*That's a weird analogy… wait, hold on. It's not an analogy.*
Only then did I realize.
That just a short while ago, a new organ had genuinely grown inside my body.
Slowly.
I quietly closed my eyes and focused my consciousness inward.
Deep in my core.
Three days ago—the jet-black ring I had ripped from some nameless mage and planted inside myself.
Whirrrrrr—!
The massive circle seated within me was spinning rapidly.
"It's faster now…"
It felt like the torque of an engine had gone up.
I was starting to get a feel for what magic power actually was, but it was still idling.
I wanted to use it right now.
I had an instinct.
These ribbons were something that used magic power.
I steadied my trembling hand and looked out at the wide marble plaza outside the carriage.
"Black Shift."
I murmured the skill name softly.
And then.
Wuuung—