Capítulo 241: Chapter 227
Awakened people instinctively understood their newly obtained powers and could use them according to their own nature. And in the case of Ma Dongwook, who had walked the single path of a martial artist all his life, that nature was 'strength' itself. Tremendous monstrous strength. The moment he awakened as an S-rank, the most powerful skill befitting that strength was engraved on his body. Skill: 'Gigantification'
Crack! Crack!
Sensing the threat, Ma Dongwook's body instantly swelled up. The loose clothes he was wearing tightened and then tore apart. And the judo techniques that had been deeply ingrained in his body through tens of thousands of practice sessions over the past decades were used against Suho.
Fwoosh!
A fierce wind brushed past his ears. Ma Dongwook used his monstrous strength to reverse Suho's force and pull his body. And with that momentum, he slammed him to the ground. Or rather. He tried to…
'…Huh?'
Whoosh!
'What just happened?' Ma Dongwook saw his vision flip upside down. The astonished expressions of the people looking at him flashed past at high speed. And for a brief moment, he saw stars.
Crash!
"Keuk?!" A sharp scream and pain followed belatedly. He might have even blacked out for a moment.
As Ma Dongwook came to his senses, he finally realized. The one who was miserably slammed to the ground wasn't Suho, but himself.
"…Huh." Pain aside, a hollow chuckle escaped his lips. Superior physique and expert technique. But Suho had pure strength that overwhelmed all of that.
Thud!
The moment he let go of Ma Dongwook's hand. His arm went limp like a corpse. It flopped around like a mollusk.
"…!"
And all hell broke loose. He could see the medical staff and the A-rank Healer who were waiting in the distance rushing towards them. And through their words, Ma Dongwook learned that all the bones in his hand and arm were shattered.
* * *
"Uhahaha! I can't keep up with you young guys!"
"…Are you alright?"
"Of course, I am! Why are you all making such a fuss over a few broken bones? I'm the toughest tanker in our country! Hahaha!"
"Luckily it wasn't worse. Haa." Chief Director Lee Se-hwan breathed a sigh of relief as he watched Ma Dongwook, who was being treated by the A-rank Healer while laughing heartily.
And as he wiped the sweat from his forehead he discreetly turned his head. There, he saw the S-rank Hunters, who were frozen with expressions far more serious than his own. He felt a bit better seeing they were as shocked as him, though he felt sorry for Hunter Ma Dongwook.
'He really takes after his father… Thanks to Hunter Ma Dongwook, he had quite the initiation.' Was it even right to call this an initiation?
'…He's really crazy.'
'He overpowered Ma Dongwook with pure strength?'
Even Lim Tae-Gyu and Baek Miho, who knew Suho's strength, couldn't calm their surprised hearts. If they had competed using combat abilities or skills, they wouldn't have been this surprised. He wasn't just bragging; Ma Dongwook really was the strongest S-rank tanker in Korea. Both in terms of pure power as well as durability. Ma Dongwook, this man who looked like a gentle, bearded grandpa from the neighborhood, possessed monstrous strength that could break the neck of an A-rank magical beast with his bare hands. But Sung Suho had overpowered him in a pure contest of strength.
'He was even using the Gigantification skill, but he was still helpless.'
'Just how strong is he, if he can do something like this?'
Those who had been wondering if the magical beast that Suho had blown up like a balloon in the India video had weaker defense than it seemed now had their minds completely wiped clean. On the other hand, Ma Dongwook suddenly seemed to be quite fond of him.
"Hahaha! Sung Suho, you are a real gem! Do you want to join our guild..? No, how about becoming the Guild Master instead of me? I am getting to old to fight magical beasts anyway." He joked, fiddling with his hand that was still numb even after treatment. Then, sensing the strange atmosphere surrounding Sung Suho, he burst into laughter.
"Haha. I'm the one who got hurt, why is everyone so serious?"
"…"
"…"
The S-rank Hunters, who witnessed Sung Suho's strength thanks to Ma Dongwook, remained silent. Among them, there was one person who was especially pale. It was Hyeonmoo Gang. His hand, which had shook Suho's just a moment ago, was trembling slightly. He was so pale that he didn't even realize he was covered in cold sweat.
'…What kind of crazy person wrote that nonsense about Sung Suho being a summoner in his profile?' It was a mistake to naively trust the Association's information in the first place.
'What? S-rank summoner?'
'Are they crazy?'
He overlooked the possibility that person's abilities might change upon reawakening. It was a rare case in the first place, so it wasn't strange for any kind of variable to occur.
Glance. Hyeonmoo Gang's gaze unconsciously turned to Seo Jiwoo of the Blue Dragon Guild next to him.
'Seo Jiwoo… Come to think of it, that woman is also a reawakened person.'
In Seo Jiwoo's case, she became younger with reawakening. As her physical abilities reached the extreme at the S-rank level, she unexpectedly started looking like like she was in her 20s. But her real age…
'…She requested the Association to keep her information private, so no one knows.' The Association was lenient towards S-rank Hunters.
Anyway, whether he was originally a summoner or whatever, the current S-rank reawakened Sung Suho had become a tanker with strength surpassing Ma Dongwook. And he must have 'intentionally' hidden that fact. Perhaps he was aiming for this very situation. He needed to make a strong first impression on the other S-rank Hunters to easily persuade them about conquering North Korea.
'I've been completely fooled.' Hyeonmoo Gang's face burned with shame. What did he say earlier? He proudly presented a summon-related rune stone to a tanker who relied on brute strength even more than Ma Dongwook!
'Damn it!'
But he couldn't give up now. To escape from the clutches of that tenacious CEO Yoo Jinho, he had to win over Sung Suho! He racked his brains desperately.
'What Sung Suho wants is to conquer North Korea. There's still a chance.'
He had already sensed that the other S-rank Hunters, except for him, were favorable towards Sung Suho. But even if these four approved him going to North Korea, if Hyeonmoo Gang cast a opposing vote, Suho wouldn't be able to achieve what he wanted. Of course, even if he opposed it, Suho could go around begging the other S-rank Hunters who didn't participate today.
'But that's not going to happen.' He could be sure.
The S-ranks who didn't come today weren't interested in Sung Suho. Rather, they were probably glad that a new S-rank Hunter had appeared to lighten their workload, so no one would welcome him suddenly leaving for North Korea.
'Then my vote is the deciding factor. Let's see. If the rune stone doesn't work, should I try asking him to join our guild as my condition?' Of course, the others would object if he did that. Judging from the current atmosphere, they all seemed to want Sung Suho to join their own guilds.
'But I'm different.' His goal wasn't to recruit Sung Suho in the first place. He simply wanted to use Sung Suho to escape from Yoo Jinho's clutches.
'Recruitment or whatever, I'll do anything as long as I can use Sung Suho as a bargaining chip with CEO Yoo Jinho. It's rather easier if he's a tanker, not a summoner. I can offer him something like expensive armor.'
As seen with Ma Dongwook, just being strong wasn't enough to fight magical beasts barehanded. Rather, the more powerful you were, the more problematic it became. If you swung a sword with that brute strength, the blade would quickly become dull or even break. The gauntlets Seo Jiwoo was wearing were also consumables. It was natural for the durability of the armor and weapons you wore to decrease the more you fought. That's why you needed sturdy weapons forged with expensive materials.
'And our guild has a lot of high quality weapons that tankers would go crazy for.' But, the moment Hyeonmoo Gang's eyes gleamed with confidence again…
"Huh. That's strange." Ma Dongwook, finally fully healed from his injury, looked around the Association's gymnasium where they were gathered with a surprised expression.
"What kind of building is this? The floor is fine even after all that commotion. Is this building entirely made of magic stones?"
"…?!"
"Yes, that's right. It's a gymnasium that was recently completed for training Association Hunters and various special purposes."
"…!" As Chief Director Lee Se-hwan nodded and answered, Hyeonmoo Gang's eyes widened in shock.
Only then did the other S-rank Hunters, who had been focused on Sung Suho, realize something they hadn't paid attention to and looked around with their mouths agape.
"Oh my god. Is this real?"
"It must have cost an astronomical amount of money to build a building of this size with magic stones."
"Does the Association have that kind of money?"
It was unbelievable. Even large guilds like theirs couldn't afford to build a training ground of this size in their guild quarters. It had only been two years since the Cataclysm. Even large guilds didn't have the financial resources to invest this much money in a building alone.
Well… They were making more than enough money, but they were busy spending it on making and repairing weapons for their guild members, which broke down quickly after just one dungeon raid as well as other expenses. Of course, they also had sturdy training grounds for their hunters, but they couldn't even dream of anything this size. To build a training facility of this big, they would need to diligently save up for at least three, no, five years…
"Wait. Is this… again…?" At that moment, a name suddenly came to everyone's mind. The initials that always followed such groundbreaking things.
"What has the Association President Woo Jinchul done again?"
"Did he get government support or something?"
"No, it would take at least a year to build a building."
"There's no way the country would have granted such a huge amount of money last year? There's a government budget!"
Chief Director Lee Se-hwan, quite pleased with their surprised reactions, answered with a grin. "Yes. Of course, it wasn't government support, we had a good investor. This building was part of a project that the Association President started before he left for North Korea."
"Project?"
"Investor?"
At those words, everyone, including Baek Yoonho, raised their eyebrows.
"Investor? Don't tell me the Association, which should remain neutral, has started receiving investments from private companies?"
"What's the difference between the Association and private guilds like us then?"
"Ah, there seems to be some misunderstanding." Chief Director Lee Se-hwan could fully understand the S-rank Hunters' reactions.
'…I was also quite surprised when I heard it from the Association President about this.'
As they claimed, it was an international rule that the Hunter Association, which represented a country, should not be affiliated with any organization. The Hunter Association held the abilities and information of all Hunters in their country, so there was a concern that if they received investment from an individual or a specific group, that information could be misused for someone's personal gain. However…
"As you all know our Hunter Association was the first one created in the world. It was even launched much earlier than the International Hunter Association."
"So what?"
"Why are you bringing that up all of the sudden?"
"Ahem. So…" Chief Director Lee Se-hwan wasn't intimidated by the S-rank Hunters at all and simply conveyed the truth he knew with a confident smile.
"Our Hunter Association is the only organization in the world that is exempt from international law."
"…What?"
"What does that mean?" The Hunters, sensing something strange in his words, froze.
Association President Woo Jinchul. He was originally a police chief, and he created the Hunter Association with the government's permission just as the Cataclysm begun. He was a national hero who took the lead in working for the rights of Hunters and the safety of citizens. Could it be that he…
"In short, the Hunter Association of Korea is like a national-level personal guild of Association President Woo Jinchul, created with the government's approval."
"…!"
"Of course, as you all know, the Association President has never used the Association for any personal gain. That's why you all never realized anything, but as I said the Hunter Association belongs to the Association President. So he can receive investments from anyone if he wishes. And naturally, there's no problem with international or domestic law."
The S-rank Hunters gathered at the Association were speechless at the somewhat shocking statement. It was difficult for them to interpret the legal implications of what they had just heard. Did that mean Association President Woo Jinchul could give orders to all Hunter guilds in Korea if he wanted to?
There's no way the law was that lenient, right?
No, never mind that, why did Woo Jinchul do such a thing?
Amidst everyone's confusion. There was one person who wasn't fazed. Sung Suho.
"So… who is that investor?" Even as he asked, Suho had a feeling he already knew the answer. And as to confirm his suspicions a voice came from behind them. The door to the gymnasium opened before Chief Director Lee Se-hwan could even speak.
Burst!
"Suho! You rascal, you went to a dangerous place again without telling me?!"
"…Uncle."
"Please greet him with respect. This is CEO Yoo Jinho, an investor of the Hunter Association of Korea."
PENSAMENTOS DOS CRIADORES 
Craftyprogamer
Craftyprogamer Edited by Fotnmc
1/8/25
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