It's All Mine!
The dungeon auctions held at Lumen had been a fixture ever since the current Hunter Laws were first established.
Every year without fail they took place at Lumen, yet Lumen itself had only ever provided the grand banquet hall. It had never participated.
That was why the news that Chairman Lee Jeong-Hoon would be taking part this time had felt strange from the start.
Barely a few months had passed since Jeong-Hoon stepped forward as chairman and made it clear that Lumen’s course was about to change.
So everyone had expected some kind of incident.
But—
“The B-class dungeon conquered by FC Guild has been awarded to Chairman Lee Jeong-Hoon of Lumen for twenty-one trillion won.”
A dungeon that should have topped out at nineteen trillion sold to Jeong-Hoon for twenty-one.
It was not only the Engine Guild dungeon earlier and this one. Jeong-Hoon was scooping up every single dungeon that appeared for sums that defied belief.
This was no longer a dungeon auction. It had become a public viewing of Lee Jeong-Hoon throwing money around.
The more he spent, the louder the guilds cheered and the deeper the corporations sighed.
Today’s auction was the largest of the year. These were not the cheap dungeons measured in mere tens of billions; these were assets valued in the trillions. The dungeons sold here decided a corporation’s entire yearly profit. And Jeong-Hoon was muddying those waters with pure cash.
Still, they endured. Even if he swept every dungeon on offer, he would break no law. Buying a dungeon meant you had to mine it. Spend that much and the only loser was the spender.
Besides, the truly important dungeon still remained. Every company present had come for that one. Even firms too small to bid on it had shown up to network and catch whatever scraps might fall.
“Well then, today’s highlight. An S-class dungeon conquered jointly by two of the Top Ten Guilds, AJ and X-ONE! We now begin the auction for the Orc Road Dungeon!”
It was the dungeon AP Guild had once tried to conquer with a full alliance, only to fail. It was also the dungeon Jeong-Hoon had cleared with Butler Joo, Jeong I-Yeong, and Yeo Tae-Hyeon—though the public story was that the two guilds had done it together. At last it was on the block.
Today’s main event, and the final one. An S-class dungeon of endless grasslands hiding natural resources of staggering value.
S-class dungeons were already immense prizes. This Orc Road Dungeon had been appraised at well over one hundred trillion won. No one could afford to lose it. Eyes lit with fire as every bidder prepared to write the absolute maximum they could offer.
Because Jeong-Hoon had already cleaned out every earlier lot, the companies still sitting on more cash than expected locked into a brutal war of nerves.
“Ah, I’ll need to buy that one too.”
“It’s a meaningful piece. More than worth purchasing.”
“……!!!”
Jeong-Hoon’s and Butler Joo’s voices cut through the thick, silent tension of the hall. Businessmen who had been carefully gauging the room and writing their bids trembled at the words.
He had already spent hundreds of trillions. And he was going to spend more?
“D-don’t screw with me! Even if Lumen is entering dungeon development, there’s a limit!”
In the end a young man who had not won a single dungeon all day shot to his feet. Slightly slanted eyes, skinny frame, purple suit. He was a team leader at a Top Ten conglomerate, a third-generation chaebol who had come along with his grandfather the chairman to gain experience.
His grandfather had brought him for that purpose. The young man, however, had his own plan: make a splash here and stand out for good. Instead the entire auction had turned into Lumen’s chairman putting on a money-throwing show, and the anger he had been swallowing finally erupted.
“Is there a problem with me spending my own money?”
Still unable to grasp the scale of what he had already spent, his sense of reality not yet returned, Jeong-Hoon answered the third-generation chaebol’s protest with a curt remark while writing down a number.
The units he had been throwing around were so absurd that reality simply refused to settle back into place.
“One hundred seventy trillion?! Are you seriously doing this?!”
“You said it was over a hundred trillion, so I just wrote a bit more than a hundred. Butler Joo, is this price insufficient?”
“It appears quite sufficient.”
When the third-generation chaebol cried out in horror at the figure, the people who had been quietly preparing to bid lost all drive. It was a rare S-class dungeon valued at over a hundred trillion. Most had been willing to go as high as one hundred fifty. Hearing one hundred seventy crushed every last shred of motivation.
The whole event had become a private feast for Lumen—no, for Jeong-Hoon alone.
“Why yell at someone else just because you’re short on cash? Quietly go back to your seat.”
Crushed by overwhelming capital, the hall sank into a gloomy hush. In that silence Jeong-Hoon simply waved the shouting third-generation chaebol back to his chair.
Ordinarily, when a dungeon auction ended no one simply left. People sought out the company that had won the dungeon they wanted, asked about joint development, and—if interest existed—held a quiet negotiation right there. The real main event of any dungeon auction began after the bidding closed.
That was how it should have gone. Jeong-Hoon’s total monopoly had shattered every back-room deal. The after-party therefore carried the atmosphere of a funeral. Guests only sipped the free liquor in silence. No one approached Jeong-Hoon to negotiate. Watching a man who seemed to care nothing for profit throw around absurd sums and take everything made any hope of a deal look impossible.
“Chairman, thank you. You have saved our guild.”
In a banquet hall filled only with the soft sounds of swallowing and glasses shifting, Engine Guild walked up to Jeong-Hoon and bowed, breaking the heavy air. With this auction Engine Guild had been saved—no, they had cast off their crushing financial troubles and could now operate more vigorously than ever.
“I have always supported Engine Guild’s hard work. If anything, I am the one who should apologize for learning of your situation so late and failing to help sooner.”
Jeong-Hoon answered their gratitude with a bowed head of his own. It was not empty courtesy. For a mid-tier guild like Engine to keep conquering low-profit dungeons while scraping by was no easy thing. It required a conviction that put people above money.
As a hunter otaku who loved powerful hunters, Jeong-Hoon also loved those who quietly protected the world. His own parents had died in action as F-class hunters. The words he spoke now were not politeness. They were sincere.
“If you ever need help going forward, please contact me without hesitation.”
He drew a business card from his breast pocket and held it out. Engine Guild froze, unsure how to interpret the gesture.
“Just take it. The chairman likes helping people.”
“H-Hunter Han Si-Eun…?”
From behind the hesitant guild members Si-Eun stepped forward, plucked the card from Jeong-Hoon’s fingers, and pressed it into their hands.
“This is…?”
“I’m friends with Chairman Lee Jeong-Hoon, so I know him pretty well.”
To the guild master’s question packed with unspoken meanings, Si-Eun answered with a reply equally full of meaning, sticking her tongue out in a small smile. The Engine Guild master hurriedly accepted the card and retreated. Simply approaching Jeong-Hoon to say thank you had already demanded enormous courage. When the youngest S-class hunter inserted herself into the moment, their nerves simply could not hold.
“Chairman, it’s been a while.”
“Huh? Has it?”
As Engine Guild withdrew, Jeong-Hoon shook his head at Si-Eun’s bright smile. She was constantly coming and going between Lumen and Myeongil for martial arts and magic training and ability development; they met often enough that “a while” did not feel accurate.
“Is that so? Maybe it’s just me. Ah! Don’t I look different somehow?”
Si-Eun seemed in high spirits. Jeong-Hoon tilted his head. Saying something like that meant something had changed, yet he could not spot it. The formal dress she wore for the big event and her neatly tied hair he had already seen when he welcomed her in the lobby. He wondered if she meant that, but he had already complimented it then, so he sank into thought.
As he took too long, Si-Eun’s expression turned slightly sulky. Looking at her, he suddenly felt that failing to notice and making a mistake would land him in serious trouble.
“Oh? The way you restrain your presence has grown quite stable. Congratulations on reaching SS-class.”
“As expected, Director Joo notices right away! Thank you.”
Realizing that “different” meant she had climbed from S-class to SS-class, Jeong-Hoon wore a blank look.
“I’m not even an Awakened. How am I supposed to know that?”
“Hehe, right? I was just teasing.”
“Anyway, that makes you the youngest SS-class. Congratulations.”
Si-Eun had only been the official youngest S-class because of Min-Ha; she had never actually been the youngest. At Jeong-Hoon’s congratulations her face lit up. After meeting Min-Ha and realizing the girl was already S-class, Si-Eun had felt real frustration. Promotion to SS-class therefore carried special weight for her.
“I’ll update my rank soon. But Chairman, don’t you think you’ve gone a little too far?”
“Sorry? What do you mean?”
“I thought what you said before was a joke, but you really jumped into dungeon development. You already had the whole plan ready back then, didn’t you?”
Jeong-Hoon blinked, unable to recall when she meant. Si-Eun let out a small sigh.
“She’s referring to when we inspected Flamma. Hunter Han Si-Eun, the chairman has been quite tired lately, so please understand.”
“…No. Looking at that reaction just now, I can tell perfectly well you had no plan at the time.”
Only then did Jeong-Hoon remember that, while receiving Si-Eun’s help to pass Flamma’s test, he had casually mentioned dungeon development. He nodded. He had completely forgotten.
“But is it really all right to waste money like that? You completely abandoned any profit.”
FC Guild, Si-Eun’s home, was an elite small-numbers guild. With the youngest S-class hunter as a member they could clear most dungeons alone without forming alliances, so funding was never a crisis. Even so, a dungeon large enough to appear at this auction still forced them to assemble a guild alliance. With conquest costs rising exponentially the more hunters you fielded, even winning at the original price would not have been a huge gain. Thanks to Jeong-Hoon, however, they had made an enormous profit.
“Uh, well…”
“The chairman monopolized them because they are profitable.”
“Is that so… hmm…”
Jeong-Hoon, who had simply been bidding wildly in order to practice extravagance, shut his mouth under the subtle pressure Butler Joo was applying.
“Oh! To generate profit even after spending such absurd amounts—I’m rather curious about that business acumen. Might I hear about it as well?”
Apparently the exchange looked like the guarding of trade secrets. A businessman who had been watching from a short distance approached and spoke. It was the chairman himself—the grandfather of the third-generation chaebol who had earlier exploded at Jeong-Hoon and been dismissed.