"Will you take responsibility if I get fired?" "What? What are you talking about?" "About yesterday — the Chairman issued a gag order. If the awakener's identity leaks out, he said he'll use every means necessary to track them down and punish them without fail." "Chairman Ko Geon-Hee? He's never done anything like this before." "How would I know what the Chairman is thinking?" "..." "If there's nothing else, I'll hang up." "...I'll contact you again next time."
Click. The call ended just like that. Im Tae-Gyu, the Master of the Death Guild, set the receiver down. His expression was not a good one.
*'What is going on here...'*
He'd heard the news of a mega-rank newcomer appearing for the first time in two years and called personally as the Guild Master. Who'd have expected a response like this? If he got fired, would they take responsibility? There was no guild bold enough to take in a Hunter's Association employee who'd been kicked out for being marked by Ko Geon-Hee himself. Not to mention that knowing an awakener's identity didn't guarantee recruitment success.
*'Use every means necessary to track them down and punish them...'*
It was something Ko Geon-Hee was certainly capable of.
*'But why is this old geezer suddenly acting out of character? What's got into him?'*
What wind had blown this change? A prohibition on leaking an awakener's identity? There was no precedent. Thanks to this, Death was left twiddling its thumbs until the official announcement. That wasn't the only unfair thing, either.
*'Then how exactly did Choi Jong-In know and show up there yesterday?'*
Was it a gap in intelligence? Did it mean Death Guild's influence in the industry had fallen that far? If the mega-rank newcomer who showed up yesterday ended up joining Hunters or Baek Ho, the gap that had already widened could never be closed. And with things as they were, this sudden gag order was blocking Death's path forward.
*'Did this old man have some grudge against me in a past life?'*
The same old man had helped ensure Baek Ho Guild was successfully established when Baek Yoon-Ho left Death. That fallout had knocked Death from its position as the top guild. While Hunters and Baek Ho raced ahead, Death kept spinning its wheels.
*'At this point, shouldn't he be helping Death a little?'*
Suddenly, Ko Geon-Hee became a source of frustration. But what could he do? Im Tae-Gyu could only stomp his feet in helplessness.
***
*'Daily Quest is done.'*
Jin-Woo browsed the internet with a light heart. Two days left until the re-examination. He'd turned on the computer to gather information on artifact trading in the meantime.
*'Whoa!'*
His eyes went wide as he skimmed the auction listings.
*'The minimum bid is a hundred million won.'*
And that wasn't all — decent items started at tens of billions of won.
*'Well, yeah...'*
For a Hunter, equipment was their lifeline. Goes without saying that better equipment meant greater safety. Hunters didn't earn a pittance, and why would they skimp on tools that made hunting safer and faster? He could understand. He could understand, but it was still staggering. Seeing those artifact prices, he was starting to get nervous.
*'The money I have right now isn't going to cut it, is it?'*
He hadn't spotted any fire-attribute defensive artifacts in the auction, but purchasing high-grade armor would be out of reach with his current funds.
*'I thought I'd saved enough...'*
That was just the average person's perspective. By Hunter standards, it was far from sufficient. His bank account held roughly 1.7 billion won. To buy the artifact he wanted, he had no choice but to sell the "Greed Gem." Once he shifted into the seller's mindset, Jin-Woo's expression changed.
*'If artifacts cost that much to buy, that means I can sell my artifact for top dollar.'*
Click. He moved his mouse and searched, and a list of magic tools currently for sale appeared one after another.
*'...'*
No matter how closely he looked, there wasn't a single artifact that doubled magic damage. At best, they added 20–30 percent to base power. Even those artifacts were priced at unbelievable levels.
*'The prices for magic tools are no joke.'*
Come to think of it, 20 percent was no small boost. Only top-tier — no, the very top-tier Hunters could afford artifacts like these. And these artifacts boosted their power by 20 percent? The difference would be enormous. Top-tier Hunters understood that, which was why they were willing to pay these prices for artifacts. In fact, he'd frequently seen "sold" labels appear on items just while he'd been browsing. If even a 20 percent boost was like this…
*'How much should I sell it for, then?'*
Gulp. Jin-Woo swallowed. It felt like just yesterday he couldn't even dream of owning an artifact, so at this stage he had no sense of what he could charge.
*'That's what the auction is for, I guess.'*
He hoped the Greed Gem would fetch a decent price when he put it up for auction. Jin-Woo closed the auction window with a satisfied smile. From what he'd found, there were broadly two ways to sell an artifact. One was through official channels. The other was the black market. But the black market was inaccessible — there was a limit to what you could find online.
*'If you could connect with just a few mouse clicks, it wouldn't be called the black market.'*
The Greed Gem was a clean, legitimate item, so there was no need to go through the black market. The best approach was to entrust the Gem to an artifact auction house — the experts in sales — and let them handle the auction. He'd lose some to taxes and commission, but it was the fastest and cleanest method.
*'The problem is, I need to be able to explain how I got this...'*
An E-rank Hunter showing up with an artifact that shouldn't exist. Would they just let that slide? Korean Hunter Auction was the biggest company mediating trades between Hunters. They would go through each suspicious detail one by one to make sure.
*'That's why I need the new license.'*
A new Hunter license with an S-rank classification on it. That was why he'd taken the reassessment. Results: a success. If he trusted what Chairman Ko Geon-Hee had said, he'd have the new license in hand within two days without any issues. He'd briefly worried that declining the Chairman's invitation to join the Association might cause a problem…
*'But it seems like the Chairman isn't that kind of person, so that's a relief.'*
Right up until their final exchange, the Chairman's smile hadn't left his face. When you spend a long time reading other people's moods, you get good at reading the room. Jin-Woo had done exactly that — he'd lived as an E-rank for four years, watching other Hunters' every expression. So he could more or less gauge a situation just from someone's face. Ko Geon-Hee's expression had absolutely not been fake. At least, that's how it looked to Jin-Woo. So there was nothing to worry about — all he had to do was wait for the re-examination in two days.
*'But… what am I going to do in the meantime?'*
Jin-Woo leaned back in his chair. Two days. Not enough time to do much, but too long to just sit around.
*'Maybe I'll browse around?'*
Half out of curiosity, he moved the cursor toward the Hunter site's recruitment board. Click. One click and a flood of posts filled the screen. Especially in this area, there were a lot of posts from individual parties recruiting members.
*'...'*
The reason was obvious. He and Yoo Jin-Ho had monopolized the nearby C-rank Gates for days, cutting off work for the surrounding parties. As a backlash, those parties that had been idle were now running raids actively. Jin-Woo turned the page with a bitter smile.
*'C-rank Dungeons won't give me any experience now.'*
The last time he'd entered a C-rank Dungeon, it had taken him a full day just to Level Up once. No — it had actually taken two days of grinding before he finally got a single Level Up. He was now more than 15 levels above that point. If experience had a gauge, it wouldn't have budged.
*'A C-rank Gate has no meaning for me right now...'*
But unfortunately, there were no posts looking for members to tackle higher-rank Dungeons. Individual parties couldn't attempt higher-rank Dungeons — it'd be suicide — and guilds wouldn't be looking for fill-ins through a public board like this. Still, just in case.
*'Maybe I should change the search filters?'*
Jin-Woo changed the filters to show only higher-rank Dungeons. Click. He wasn't expecting anything, but then—
*'...Huh?'*
There actually was a post.
***
"You're an E-rank?" "Yes." "Ever done this kind of work before?" "No." "What about your… what kind of Trait is it?" "It's combat-type." *'That's a relief.'*
The team leader in the hard hat looked Jin-Woo up and down.
*'For an E-rank, he's pretty well-built. And his eyes are decent too.'*
Jin-Woo calmly waited for the team leader's answer. Soon enough, the team leader handed back his license and laughed heartily.
"Hahahaha, we get a lot of folks like you here, Jin-Woo. Don't be nervous — just do your best."
He was a middle-aged man who, despite having crossed forty, was brimming with energy. The mustache was a nice bonus.
"Wait here, and when everyone arrives, head in together. Don't forget your equipment before going in." "Equipment…?" "Just grab any of those things on the ground there." "…Got it."
Jin-Woo nodded, looking at the pickaxes piled up in one spot. Just then, a man with a towel draped around his neck hurried over.
"Team Leader Bae! Our team's short-handed as it is — you can't just snatch people away like that!" "Oh, come on. The retrieval team has enough. If we hit a snag and miss the Gate's closure window, you lot are going to take responsibility?" "No, but still…"
The mustached man turned the towel man away with a smile toward Jin-Woo.
"You stay put over there, Sung. We're going to sort this out and come back." "Just talk here instead of going somewhere!" "Just come with me, will you?"
The two bickered and quickly disappeared.
*'The other team is the retrieval team, I see...'*
Higher-rank Dungeons were enormous — a single party couldn't handle everything. So they divided up the labor. A raiding party to conquer the Dungeon, a mining team to extract ore, and a retrieval team to collect the carcasses of magical beasts. The mining and retrieval teams entered the Dungeon once all the beasts except the boss had been eliminated. Jin-Woo had signed up for the mining team.
*'…This is all the equipment?'*
With a dubious expression, he picked up a pickaxe. It was flimsy, but he could feel mana infused in it.
*'There's mana woven into it.'*
Modern machines powered by electricity didn't work inside Dungeons. So they infused these old-fashioned tools with mana instead.
*'...'*
Gripping the pickaxe, he understood. They didn't call Dungeon miners mockingly for nothing. Jin-Woo turned and looked at the Gate. A massive hole hanging in midair. A Gate of a size incomparable to C-ranks stood before him.
*'So this is an A-rank Gate...'*
This was exactly what he'd come here for.
*'I want to see a higher-rank Dungeon with my own eyes.'*
Even though every beast except the boss had been eliminated, he wanted to see the interior structure of an A-rank Dungeon for himself.
*'Because someday, I'll have to go in too.'*
Knowledge is power. But there was a limit to experiencing things indirectly through books or the internet. Hadn't the new recruits of Baek Ho Guild learned that lesson the hard way?
*'If I hadn't been there, nobody would have made it out alive.'*
Knowing and experiencing were two different things. Jin-Woo had volunteered for the mining team to engrave the sight of an A-rank Dungeon into his memory when the opportunity arose. The sight of those shabby pickaxes had given him a moment's regret, but seeing the fearsome Gate washed it all away.
*'Glad I came.'*
There was still some time before the re-examination, so this was a great opportunity. The conversation must have gone well, because before long, the mustached man — no, Team Leader Bae Yoon-Seok — came running back with a grin.
"Time to head in! Everyone's ready."
Jin-Woo gripped the pickaxe and nodded with a smile.