章 21: CHAPTER 21
The melted steel that went through the holes it created on the table could no longer be called a spoon. It was a piece of metal crushed and melted into a drop that was still on the ground and burning.
"!"
Each of the boys gulped. As the flames in my hand blazed and then disappeared like it wasn't there in the first place.
But they all felt the heat from the females as they were Sweating to keep their bodies cool.
'That's not an ordinary human's strength.'
'H-he's a Hunter.'
As they cast glances at each other, the boy who had thrown the paper napkin was the first to lower his head.
"I'm… I'm sorry."
The other two quickly followed.
"Sorry…"
"We made a mistake. Sorry…"
After repeatedly bowing their heads, the boys quickly ran out of the café with the girls in tow.
Whoa-
As it was a clear indication that I could break you and then burn you no one would find out what happened.
The other customers, also bothered by the students' loud rambling, sent a silent gratitude toward me. Which I ignored and returned to my seat. Yoo Jinho exclaimed with sparkles in his eyes,
"Hy- Hyungnim that was magic right and that must be the skill called a fireball. I heard it is very hard to get. As expected of Hyungnim!" Yoo Jinho said with a very excited look.
"Enough."
I steered the conversation back to the start,
"So. What. Is. This. About?"
"Well… Hyungnim. I gave it a lot of thought. Like, I really really thought about it hard. And there's something I want to ask you."
I tilted my head, playing my part hard to get. No no, it sounds wrong When I spell it like that.
"And?"
"Hyungnim, the truth is…"
Yoo Jinho's face turned red with embarrassment. He gathered the courage to finish his sentence.
"…I'm trying to create a private raiding party-"
It didn't even take me one second to think about it.
"I refuse."
Yoo Jinho was stunned.
"Hyungnim, I didn't even finish."
"I don't think I have to listen to the rest to get the jist of what you're asking."
I cut him off. It was for me to get a good deal and to put some pressure on him to get my sweet sweet deal.
"Well, if that was all you wanted to ask, I'm leaving."
"H-hyungnim!"
Yoo Jinho frantically tried to stop me.
"Hyungnim! Just 20 times, no just accompany me 19 times!"
"To where? Dungeons?"
"Yes! I'll of course make sure you are compensated properly."
Yoo Jinho was practically begging. I tilted my head. There were two reasons people became Hunters: Money or Duty. Yoo Jinho didn't seem like he fit either ideal. The young heir had no need for money from Dungeons, and if it was a sense of duty that carried him there, he would not have asked for someone else to do all the job for him. But I am aware of what he wants. Daddy issues are not an easy thing.
I saw a strange light of determination behind Yoo Jinho's eyes.
Instead of the "proper compensation" the young man was offering, what caught my interest and the thing I was waiting for was the specific number of 19 Raids. As I hit on his nerves.
"Are you thinking of going for a Guildmaster License?"
"Yes, Hyungnim!"
"You're going to become a Guildmaster. You."
"Well, it's complicated, Hyungnim..."
Yoo Jinho's face reddened even more than before.
"Please hear me out, Hyungnim."
"..."
Now the real thing began. I sat back down.
"Alright, let's hear it."
Yoo Jinho followed suit and sat down across from him again.
"As you said, I want to obtain the Guildmaster License."
It wasn't exactly hard for a Hunter to obtain a Guildmaster License. It just required the Hunter to obtain the experience of 20 Raids of at least C++ ranks. After meeting that requirement, the Hunter just had to take a simple written test, and they will be awarded the licence. Of course, nobody would want to join a no-name Hunter's Guild, and if they could not maintain the minimum number of members required for a Guild, the Guild would be disbanded.
Yoo Jinho continued,
"It hasn't been revealed to the public yet, but the truth is, my father wants to make a Guild."
"Yoojin Construction wants to make a Guild?"
"Yes."
Yoojin Construction was one of the top construction companies in South Korea. Despite their name, their activities were not limited to just construction. The company was known for having a finger in many areas of business, and recently, they had even begun engaging in Hunter-related businesses, making a lot of money. And they were also constructing a new home for me.
'And such a company wants its own Guild?'
Seeing me interest, Yoo Jinho continued excitedly,
"Father wants to gather strong Hunters and grow a large Guild, and through the Guild, he wants to conduct all sorts of Hunter-related businesses."
If a company wanted to conduct Hunter-related business, the cooperation of a Guild was crucial. After all, it required the provision from a large Guild to obtain magic cores, magic beast corpses, mana crystals, and other treasures from B-rank or A-rank Gates.
After all, after the gates opened the world had changed so much technology had made a huge progress. Many lines such as cancer and aids have been cured with disability gone and life expectancy increased.
Fossil fuel uses significantly decreased with a pure source of energy, the technology has evolved to a level that is hard to grasp.
Of course, not everything is all sunshine and rainbows. It came with its one downfall. The biggest of them is the hunter system itself where the strong could do anything.
Money lost its meaning when even a c rank hunter could easily gain a billion dollars a normal office worker could never imagine that. That's why there are still disabled humans because they can't pay for a high-rank healer.
New illnesses, some truly horrific humans with the Black market and experiments, and shit like that.
"So he wants to cut out the middleman in that process."
"You've hit the mark, Hyungnim!"
With their power, it would be no problem for Yoojin Construction to make a Guild.
The problem would be who would manage that Guild.
"Currently, my father wants to employ an S-rank Hunter as the Guildmaster, and make my older brother the Deputy Guildmaster to operate the Guild as a branch of the business… But…"
I caught the hint of what Yoo Jinho was saying. The father's current plan had a small flaw. The Guildmaster's powers in the Guild were absolute. If friction arose between the company and the Hunter they employed, it would result in the destruction of their plan. In that line of thought, there was another option: to make someone who would never betray the company the Guildmaster.
For example, the son of the chairman.
And Chairman Yoo Myunghan had Yoo Jinho as his son.
"...Compared to my brother, my influence or achievements aren't enough to become the Guildmaster. It was his idea to move the company in the direction of Hunter-related businesses, and that direction already resulted in massive profits for the company."
At the young age of 31, Yoo Jinho's older brother had already become an accomplished businessman. Compared to him, the younger brother was just a 22-year old college student, putting aside the fact that he was a D-rank Awakened Being.
It was clear that the chairman intended to leave the business of the Guild to his firstborn. While the older brother could not become a Guildmaster as a non-Hunter, he had already shown great results in the realm of Hunter-related business. They would take the gamble against the risk of the employed Hunter's loyalty.
"And you want to convince your father to make you the Guildmaster?"
"Yes, that is right, Hyungnim."
If the young man just employed a high-ranking Hunter and obtained the Guildmaster License, it would be no different than buying the licence. But what if he went with low-ranking Hunters like himself and completed 20 Raids?
This might just move his father's heart.
Yoo Jinho had to show that he could lead the other Hunters. This was his gamble. Once he became the Guildmaster, he could place an S-rank Hunter as the Deputy Guildmaster and gather other skilled Hunters. As long as one of the leaders of the Guild was skilled, it would be good enough for the other Hunters.
For all this to happen, he needed the 20 Raids. Specifically with low-ranking Hunters.
"Hyungnim, please! I beg you for your help!"
Yoo Jinho bowed his head deeply. If it wasn't for me, he would've lost his life twice on his first Raid. Once from the spider, and the second from Hwang Dongseok. He needed a reliable ally.
'I can put my trust in Hyungnim.' I am sure these were his thoughts.
To Yoo Jinho, I was a man of absolute fairness. I was someone who would coldly kill my enemies without blinking, yet would not needlessly threaten the lives of the weak. A patron of effort who would not forcibly take something that wasn't earned. This was the picture I painted in his head.
The E-ranker Sung Jinwoo was the perfect candidate for his plans.
So now it was my to get Something much better out of this. So I asked,
"What's in it for me?"
Yoo Jinho raised his head and gladly took out a manilla envelope he had prepared. Inside it was the blueprint for a building. He handed it to me.
"It's the building we'll be building for the Guild Office. Estimated value is about 30 billion won."
Although the Association did its best, the possibility of a Dungeon Break always existed in this country. As such, the areas where large Guilds maintained their headquarters had their land values rise explosively. One's life was the most valuable asset, after all. Even the presence of a small Guild nearby would increase their safety, and if it was a large Guild instead?
Plus they were constructed with materials from dungeons just like my new house.
"If I become the Guildmaster, we'll use it for exactly one year until the Guild becomes stabilized. Then, I'll turn over the deed to Hyungnim. Of course, we'll notarize the agreement so the company won't be able to back out in any way."
A 30 billion won building for just 19 C-rank Raids…
Jinwoo smiled,
"Are you saying the price of you becoming a Guildmaster is worth that much?"
"That is correct, Hyungnim."
On that day in the C-rank Dungeon, Yoo Jinho learned that anything could happen in a Raid. Going in with a weak Hunter could result in his death. On the other hand, if he employed a famous Hunter, his father would not be convinced in any capacity. But I was different, I was an E-rank Hunter who took down a C-rank boss and multiple C-rank Hunters alone, without any injuries.
'Hyungnim is at the very least a B-rank… maybe even greater.'
With his help, going through 19 C-rank Raids would be a breeze. If he could become a Guildmaster, 30 billion would be nothing. All that was left was my answer.
Yoo Jinho carefully tried to read my expression.
30 billion won.
It was a massive amount.
If winning the lottery meant one and a half billion won, I would have to win the lottery 20 times to obtain such an amount. On top of that, the building's value would only rise with the presence of a Guild operating out of it. The ordinary Hunter would immediately grab the papers and sign the offer.
But I wasn't for money alone. It wasn't even near my goals, it was just something that I will get without even trying.
As long as I continued my quests and level-ups, I would someday reach S-rank, no, higher than that.
'Power is all that matters to me, billion trillion s were just a number .'
Just the contract fees for S-rank Hunters were in the tens of billions. No celebrity or sports stars could compare to the worth of these S-rank Hunters. This was a world where the number of S-rank Hunters signified the influence and power of a country. As such, the treatment of S-rankers surpassed imagination.
So at this moment, the most important thing to me was not money, but progress. And to grow his powers, being alone was the best.
'I have to minimize the unknown factors. And increase the knowable factors'
Hunting together would decrease my experience points, and it would also be difficult to act under the gaze of others. Even in the last Dungeon, I had to ensure Yoo Jinho's silence to make sure nothing bothersome happened to me. It would also be a headache to match his schedule to my teammates. No matter how I looked at it, the negatives were too much.
I raised my head and found Yoo Jinho's nervous eyes looking at him.
I slowly opened my mouth,
"I have two conditions."
Yoo Jinho's face immediately filled with happiness,
"Anything! Just let me know, Hyungnim!"
I wondered if he would still smile after hearing the condition. I held back my own smile.
"Just you and me. Only the two of us will enter the Dungeon."
"Huh?"
Yoo Jinho was surprised.
"H-hyungnim, forgive me if I got it wrong… But are you saying that just you and I would clear a C-rank Dungeon?"
"You've got it."
Yoo Jinho's face turned as pale as snow.
If it was just the boss, I had already shown that I could solo the spider. But thinking about holding back the horde of insects at the entrance with just the two of them made Yoo Jinho's breath stop.
"..."
Watching Yoo Jinho at a loss for words, I nodded understandingly.
'Still, this is the best method.'
To kill three birds with one stone.
It was very difficult for an E-ranker like me to get into a private raiding party. I realized this after trying to earn money for 10 days. I could not reserve a Dungeon with my own credentials, and it was impossible for me to form my own raiding party. But now Yoo Jinho was offering to create the party for me.
This was the perfect opportunity.
"B-but hyungnim! To enter a C-rank Gate, you'd need a minimum party of ten people!"
"If we told them we just needed to fill the headcount and offered them money, people would be lining up."
The Hunters who did not want to risk their lives but needed money would jump at the opportunity with hunger in their eyes.
Yoo Jinho made an expression of defeat,
"You're… you're saying we'll be taking down all the monsters of the Dungeon on our own?"
Well, it would be just Jinwoo.
"Yep."
With that method, I would be able to hoard all the experience points for myself. Additionally, with just Yoo Jinho at my side, I didn't need to hold back or worry about revealing my true powers, spells, and skill.
'I'll be able to power level with that.'
On top of that, after the Raids were complete, I would obtain that valuable building. Once again, "killing three birds with one stone".
All that was left to do is convince Yoo Jinho. As expected, the young man was terrified.
"S-still… wouldn't it be too dangerous, Hyungnim?"
"Tsk, tsk. You understand one thing but not the other."
"Huh?"
I gestured for Yoo Jinho to come closer, and the young man leaned in.
"If you looked at just the two of us going into the Dungeon from another angle, it means that no one else has to get hurt, right?"
"R-right."
"Let's put aside your first Raid, which you had to join as a tagalong. Imagine how your father will feel if the raid team that you put together goes through nineteen Raids with no one getting hurt." I said, coating my words with honey and pulling the bug.
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