Can I Buy That?
Once Representative Kim Dae-yeong’s family was released, he swung over to supporting the Hunter Law amendment.
It was not a complete reversal of his political stance. He simply became a gradualist who insisted the revision was genuinely needed in the present climate and therefore required careful, thorough review. In short, he had been helped this time, so he would help Jeong-Hoon—so long as it did not clash with his own political convictions.
The Organization that had freed Kim’s family remained completely in the dark after cutting loose the dummy used-car company as a sacrificial tail. What their purpose had been in the kidnapping, and why they had released their captives so easily, was still a mystery. Even so, the family did not throw every resource into hunting them down. The territory they were sworn to protect was simply too vast to pour everything into the chase. Instead they turned inward and thoroughly reorganized themselves.
While everything around him spun in a frenzy, Jeong-Hoon spent his days in quiet calm. Right now he was sparring with Min-Ha in Lumen’s underground training room.
Min-Ha wore the restraints that suppressed an Awakened’s power. Jeong-Hoon wore the earliest prototype suit—the one that raised physical ability only to F-class. After the New York incident she had made the spear her primary weapon; today she held a staff. Through their matches she had finally admitted her greatest weakness was real combat—more precisely, a simple lack of technique. That made Jeong-Hoon, who could subdue an A-class Awakened with pure martial skill the moment he put on a suit, the perfect sparring partner. For Jeong-Hoon as well, a moderately strong opponent like Min-Ha was far better training than an overwhelming monster like Butler Ju.
Whish!
Min-Ha thrust the staff in a sharp, clean line. Jeong-Hoon turned his head, dodging by the thickness of a sheet of paper, and reached out.
“Uhk!”
He seized the tip of the staff. Startled, Min-Ha yanked it back hard to reclaim it. The pull dragged Jeong-Hoon forward; he casually flicked a rubber dagger and tapped her neck.
“If someone grabs it, you let go. Why pull?”
“Umm…”
At his scolding Min-Ha hemmed and hawed. Jeong-Hoon let out a long sigh. He already knew roughly what she wanted to say. Without the restraints she could have simply overpowered the grip. Or she could have answered with Paseong. That was why the option of releasing the weapon never even crossed her mind. But that only applied when she fought at full strength. In a sparring match meant to polish technique, it was a worthless excuse. Knowing that, she could only fidget without defending herself.
“Before you fight me again, you need to go train at Apollon for a while.”
In several hours of sparring Jeong-Hoon had not taken a single clean hit. He shook his head. Min-Ha’s face twisted. She was an S-class Awakened and he was a Non-Awakened; somehow it felt completely reversed.
“Isn’t Gaju just cheating? If I switch to a weaker set of restraints and you put on a different suit—”
“Then you’ll be carried out on a stretcher tomorrow.”
Any better suit raised physical ability all the way to A-class, and even Jeong-Hoon had trouble controlling that kind of power.
“Hahaha. Min-Ha is no match for Gaju at all. How surprising.”
Butler Ju entered the training room, laughing at the scene. He had stepped out briefly to handle Lumen business and had just returned.
“Maybe it’s because I always spar with you, Butler Ju, but Min-Ha’s movements look like slow motion to me.”
Jeong-Hoon shrugged and pressed the suit’s release. Cool air washed over his body. “So what was the call about? I only half-heard that it was something from the government.”
Butler Ju shook his head as if it were nothing important. “An official request asking Lumen to host the dungeon-bid event in a few days.”
“Wait… that was held at Lumen?”
Dungeon bids. Clearing a dungeon did not instantly make a guild rich. Monsters did not drop loot like a game, and dungeons did not produce some new energy source. What they did produce was natural resources—a treasure house of them. Guilds therefore sold the development rights to the dungeons they had cleared to corporations. The law that only guilds could clear dungeons and hunt monsters, while corporations could not, had created that structure. To prevent cozy collusion between guilds and companies, the government auctioned the development rights of every dungeon whose clearance had been reported that quarter.
“I never knew the auction was held at Lumen.”
“Lumen is not the only venue. There are several. The one held here is simply the largest.”
Jeong-Hoon’s eyes lit up at the news that Lumen hosted the biggest dungeon-bid event of all. “Can I go watch?”
“You could even enter the dungeon-development business yourself. It might become the group’s first historic step.”
Butler Ju bowed in agreement the moment he saw Jeong-Hoon’s interest. In truth he had already planned to ask Jeong-Hoon to attend; he needed a proper stage on which to announce the formation of the group.
Engine Guild was a small outfit of seven B-class hunters. Like FC Guild, which housed the youngest S-class hunter Han Si-Eun, it was tiny—yet because every member was B-class it was classified as mid-tier.
Its master and members stepped into Lumen with trembling hearts.
“Welcome, Engine Guild. I am Lee Jeong-Hoon, chairman of Lumen.”
“Ah—good day, sir! Engine Guild!!!”
Jeong-Hoon stood at the lobby entrance with Butler Ju and greeted them warmly. The dungeon-bid event drew countless corporate leaders and famous hunters; as Lumen’s face, Jeong-Hoon was personally welcoming every invited guest at the door.
“The hall is that way. Our staff will guide you.”
He held out an event booklet and pointed. Their eyes followed automatically; they nodded without thinking.
“Th-thank you for the hospitality.”
The guild master accepted the booklet with both hands and walked on, fighting the tremor running through his whole body.
“Whoa… so that’s Lee Jeong-Hoon—running a conglomerate at only twenty. Real presence.”
“It’s the charisma of someone who was born and raised in a completely different world from us.”
A single brief greeting had been enough to crush them under his aura. Even their footsteps grew careful, as if stepping on the gleaming marble itself were a crime.
“Get a grip. If we fail to sell again this time, the guild is finished.”
The master tried to snap his members out of their excitement, but his own voice shook. To Engine Guild, Lee Jeong-Hoon was a titan they could barely look at. The rumor that Saturn Guild—once one of the top ten—had been ruined in only three months after drawing his eye was already known to every hunter alive. Meeting that man in the flesh made tension inevitable.
“Maybe Chairman Lee will buy our dungeon?”
“Are you stupid? Have you ever seen Lumen do dungeon development?”
“But the event’s at Lumen this time. Maybe he’ll buy it on a whim?”
“Just shut up before you say something that gets us marked.”
Engine Guild was mid-tier, yet far too small for Lumen’s dungeon-bid event. The only reason they had been invited was simple: the dungeon they had cleared last year was so unprofitable that it still had not sold, so the government was giving them one last chance. Fail again and the cash-strapped guild would close its doors. The master understood why his members dared to hope, but Lee Jeong-Hoon was simply too big a fish. One careless word could offend him and mark them for ruin.
“I set the reserve well below cost, so someone will buy it. Stop fretting.”
He had abandoned any thought of profit—just put out the fire first—and slashed the hoped-for bid price. Still, a quiet hope flickered even in him: that Jeong-Hoon might whimsically buy it for something close to break-even.
After personally greeting every guest, Jeong-Hoon returned to his suite and changed clothes, thinking of the most unusual visitors of the day.
“Why was Engine Guild even here?”
“A dungeon they couldn’t sell for nearly a year finally got pushed all the way to this event.”
“Is that really so bad? They looked half-dead…”
“Rumor says even if they sell it this time they’ll just pay off debts and dissolve the guild.”
In other words they were on the brink of collapse. Jeong-Hoon exhaled a short sigh. He knew Engine Guild well. A seven-man elite unit that ignored large dungeons and deliberately targeted small, low-profit ones. Once most guilds grew past a certain size they stopped looking at small dungeons entirely—the returns were too poor. Yet from the day it was founded until now, Engine Guild had stubbornly cleared only small dungeons and never expanded. Not because they lacked the skill, but because they believed it was their proper duty and had doggedly stuck to the same work.
“…Butler Ju. I can buy that dungeon, right?”
“The family’s wealth is Gaju’s. You have no reason to ask me.”
“Still, a dungeon costs hundreds of billions, doesn’t it? I can’t just buy one because I suddenly feel like it, can I?”
“Ahem. Gaju, if you subtract ten billion from infinity, how much is left?”
Butler Ju cleared his throat and fixed him with a sharp look, the expression of a man who had just heard a foolish question.
“Uh… infinity?”
“Exactly. The family’s fortune is the same. Ten billion doesn’t even register. Spend a trillion a day and the fortune still grows faster than you can spend it.”
“Money doesn’t just copy itself. How is that—”
“It multiplies faster than a printing press.”
“So I can spend it? I’m really going to buy it.”
“You may purchase every dungeon offered today. In fact, it is high time Gaju learned the kind of luxury that befits the scale of his wealth.”
Watching Jeong-Hoon worry over a mere few hundred billion, Butler Ju finally realized the mistake he had overlooked. Jeong-Hoon looked so naturally like a family head that one forgot: he had lived a life completely divorced from luxury and simply did not know how to indulge.
The dungeon-bid event held in Lumen’s grand banquet hall followed auction rules, yet felt more like a dinner show. Round tables covered in red cloths filled the room; each held a tablet labeled with a number and a company or guild name. Once bidding began, participants typed amounts into the tablets; the highest offer won.
“Well, did everyone enjoy dinner? We’re about to start the real bidding—everyone came prepared, I hope?”
After a light meal and social round, a famous celebrity hired as host stepped onto the stage and took the microphone.
“Then here is today’s first dungeon! The E-class dungeon cleared last year by Engine Guild! Everyone knows an E-class dungeon usually goes for around thirteen billion, right? Yet tonight it has appeared at a mere three billion!”
“Whoa!”
Unlike ordinary auctions, dungeon bids began by publicly announcing the guild’s minimum hoped-for price. It guaranteed the guild at least some return and prevented companies from overheating and spending more than the dungeon was worth. No one was shocked that the price had been revealed. The gasps came because the price was absurdly low.
Just the labor and equipment Engine Guild had spent clearing that dungeon exceeded four billion. Now they were offering it for three. It was an incredible bargain, yet not a single company reached for it. The expected profit was only five billion—and that was gross revenue before development costs. After expenses you would still sink at least four billion. Buy it for three and you were twenty billion in the hole. No one in the room was a charity worker ready to burn twenty billion just to save a mid-tier guild.
If it failed to sell again the government would buy it, but the government reimbursed only the amount left after mining costs. Engine Guild would receive roughly one billion—nowhere near enough for a guild that had been thrashing for a full year to survive. In other words, Engine Guild was finished.
“Uh—uh? Uh?! Engine Guild’s E-class dungeon—sold to Lumen for fifteen billion! Hot start tonight!”
“Whaaaat?!”
Even the host, who had never expected a sale, stammered as the dungeon sold for an enormous sum. Everyone leapt to their feet shouting. If a company already in the dungeon-development business had bought it, people might have assumed they had spotted hidden value. But Lumen—which had never once entered the field—had just bought it. That was pure charity. Every eye locked onto Jeong-Hoon.
“What? Is there a problem?”
Feeling the entire hall’s gaze, Jeong-Hoon merely shrugged. After Butler Ju’s crash course in how to spend money like a proper chaebol heir, his eyes were half-lidded and his posture languid, as if to say, You’re making a fuss over this little thing? We’re only getting started.
And indeed, that was exactly how the rest of the auction unfolded.