The Awakening Management Bureau
The Awakening Management Bureau was a different beast entirely from the Awakened Association. It answered directly to the state, and every hunter on its payroll was a civil servant. As a rule, it was the hunters who failed to land a spot in one of the major guilds who ended up there. Between the generous tax breaks and the respectable treatment, it was actually far more popular than the mid-to-small guilds.
"We received a report and responded!"
"Is everyone here all right?"
Three hunters in black suits filed through the door. One of them — Ha Taemin, the Crisis Response Team Leader — swept his gaze rapidly across the scene. The collapsed ceiling. The scorched scorch marks. And then…
A burnt bat corpse?
With a horn on it, no less. That would make it a D-rank Horned Bat.
Heh. Ha Taemin's mouth fell slightly open. He took this thing down with magic? Then he's got to be a genuinely skilled hunter.
He stepped forward to poke at the carcass, while the hunters who appeared to be his subordinates approached Seo Hwarang and Yoo Seon-ah. A brief interrogation followed.
"Are you an awakened hunter, by any chance?"
"Ah, yes. I'm E-rank, and… this guy here—"
Yoo Seon-ah flicked her eyes toward Seo Hwarang.
"I'm just a civilian."
The truth was, they'd synced their stories before the authorities arrived. Neither of them wanted to reveal an awakening here. Flaunting things had never been in Seo Hwarang's nature. Once his awakening came to light, he'd be subjected to an official inspection — and then his S-rank status would come out immediately. A standard examination involved a powerful institution using an item called a Status Window Detector to peer, with brutal honesty, straight into a hunter's status window. Even if you wanted to hide your rank, there was no hiding it from that.
Ugh. When that day came, the whole country — no, the entire world — would be watching. He'd built his life around the simple pleasure of reading books in peace, and there was a very real chance he wouldn't even be able to do that anymore. I'd rather die than let that happen. He'd be dragged into a whirlwind of busyness half against his will.
"Noona, getting tangled up in incidents like this exhausts me, so let's just say you took down this Horned Bat all by yourself. It's technically a public-service achievement, so the reward payout should be substantial — and if you want to buy back that magic staff you sold, you're better off taking the whole thing anyway."
It seemed like an odd thing to insist on, but Yoo Seon-ah had readily agreed. She had nothing to lose. A record like this would count as a plus when she applied to a major guild later — and an E-rank taking down a D-rank Horned Bat solo? That was the kind of feat that didn't come around often.
Seo Hwarang recounted the day's events with just enough embellishment to be plausible.
"…So you're telling me that hunter Yoo Seon-ah over there took down that Horned Bat single-handedly, with fire magic?"
Ha Taemin wore an expression of pure disbelief. An E-rank mage would be around 2nd Circle at best, and a Horned Bat was no easy kill for one — unless the hunter in question happened to have exceptional control and operational talent.
"That's right."
Seo Hwarang nodded with theatrical enthusiasm. "You should have seen her — a true Fire Magician through and through! She told me to run first, then threw her own body in the way to shield me. It was magnificent. Honestly, this woman saved my life."
"Hmm."
Ha Taemin's brow creased. If what he's saying is true… then there's a high probability Yoo Seon-ah is hiding her real abilities. There was, in fact, a way to do it — an item called the Veil of Deception, which temporarily falsified a user's status window to deceive anyone inspecting it. Of course, using such an item these days was flagrantly illegal. Concealing yourself was one thing, but there were hunters out there who used the Veil of Deception to inflate their own market value and commit outright fraud. That was why the state recommended a re-examination at least once every six months.
But who on earth would burn that kind of money just to look like an E-rank? The Veil of Deception changed hands only through black-market deals, at a going rate of roughly ten billion won. Nobody short of a lunatic had any use for it.
Hmm. Ha Taemin scratched his chin. There was one other possibility, though. What if that civilian — Seo Hwarang — is actually an awakened hunter himself? Ordinary civilians were never subjected to inspections, which made them the perfect candidates for living quietly with an unregistered awakening. In practice, a fair number of people got caught exactly that way. Managing awakened individuals was the Bureau's entire reason for existing! The law even required citizens to report any sudden awakening to the Bureau.
Ha Taemin narrowed his eyes with suspicion. "May I ask you one thing?"
Seo Hwarang opened his mouth. "Of course. Go ahead."
"Is what happened today going to end up in the media?"
"…The media."
At those words, Ha Taemin's face crumpled. It was the very thing keeping the Bureau's higher-ups up at night lately: the dungeon break phenomenon. In truth, overseeing everything meant the occasional dungeon slipping through the cracks — but the press laid every single one of those lapses at the feet of Bureau negligence.
"I read something in a current-affairs essay, you see… it said that when there are few witnesses, the Bureau will sometimes raise the reward payout if you sign a confidentiality agreement…"
"Ah — ahem."
Ha Taemin cleared his throat. He knew exactly which essay that was, because the Bureau had deliberately planted the information — paid for it, even. Everyone at team-leader rank and above was in on it.
"That only ran in some obscure little magazine… impressive that you came across it."
"I do love my books."
"That's correct. Sign the agreement, and appropriate compensation follows."
"How much are we talking?"
"It varies case by case, but typically around one million won per person."
"…I've been a bit short on money lately. Would it be possible to sign that agreement?"
"Oh, we'd be more than happy to."
Ha Taemin's expression softened a touch. It was a headache of a problem, and witnesses volunteering to keep quiet like this was a genuine relief.
"But—"
That was when Seo Hwarang put on a look of urgent anxiety. "The thing is, I actually have an appointment coming up soon… and if I'm signing this agreement, we should probably do it quickly. Could we move things along a little faster?"
"Hmmmm."
The investigation wasn't finished yet…
"Or I could just go through the full interrogation and leave without the agreement. I really am in a hurry…"
Hmmmmmm.
The Bureau's guiding principle was to overlook not even the smallest clue or faintest possibility — but judged by his own authority as team leader, sealing these two's lips mattered more right now than inspecting Seo Hwarang.
"Very well. Sign the agreement first, then." They could write up the contract now — and keep a careful watch on them afterward.
The rewards broke down like this: six million won for Yoo Seon-ah, one million for Seo Hwarang. Naturally, they signed a confidentiality agreement covering the library incident, with formal notice that any leak could result in prosecution under special law.
"Wow… you are shamelessly smooth, you know that? With this, I can actually afford a better staff."
"I told you, I'm paying you back right away. Keep the rest of the reward too — it's all yours."
From Yoo Seon-ah's perspective, it couldn't have worked out better. The reward money should rightfully have been Seo Hwarang's in the first place. Even granting they'd taken it down together, his contribution had been overwhelmingly the larger one.
"In exchange, I have one favor to ask."
"A favor?"
"Yes. Run a few dungeons with me. F-rank ones."
"Dungeons…?"
He let it slide for the moment, but Seo Hwarang had definitely felt it — Team Leader Ha Taemin's clingy, unrelenting gaze boring into him. He'll definitely come back to inspect me sooner or later. He needed to prepare for that starting now. And Seo Hwarang had already worked out his entire response for when that day came.
I need to slip past him again.
The ancient Etherion Continent. A 1st Circle skill book, wedged in a shelf at the magic guild in some small village!
And the Veil of Deception was in that collection.
Veil of Deception — in Korean, Hwiui-ui Jangmak. A light illusory spell, one that could deceive about something for a set period of time… and he remembered reading in a book that it could alter a status window, too. Seo Hwarang intended to learn it first thing.
That was lucky.
He'd researched the Veil of Deception further. Merely acquiring the skill was illegal, and the skill book alone had reportedly been appraised at a hundred billion won on the black market. And I'm the legend who remembered all that.
This was the upside of reading so much — his head was packed edge to edge with miscellaneous, half-useless knowledge. If he'd never read those books? He wouldn't have been able to react this quickly.
"…You're serious? You'd have to register as an awakened hunter to enter dungeons."
"F-ranks don't even get inspected anyway."
There were simply too many dungeons in the country to control all of them. That massive number kept vanishing, appearing, and reappearing in an endless cycle — and because of that, low-rank dungeons weren't staffed with human oversight at all, just managed electronically.
"Fair point… but why on earth are you hiding it? That skill of yours is completely broken."
Yoo Seon-ah replayed the scene in her head. A Fire Bolt that spat out a fireball the size of a meteor. And that wasn't all — he'd claimed he could cross between worlds, reading skill books there and extracting their skills for himself.
"Come on, just tell the Bureau. You'd get a straight shot into a major guild, and your life would open up."
"Open up? My life would close."
Seo Hwarang answered with a frown. "It'd be a life where I can't even read books. I want a life where I read in peace. That's all."
"…You're insane."
The man was genuinely unhinged. Book-crazy lunatic!
"By the way, what rank are you, anyway?"
"Me?"
"Yeah. You're so absurdly overpowered I figure you've got to be high. Honestly, that's got to be at least B-rank or better."
"B-rank? No. Wrong."
"Then A-rank?"
"Nope. F-rank."
"…Bullshit."
So it's no comment, apparently. There was no way an ability that broken was F-rank. Hmph. I'm hurt. Hurt, I tell you!
But Yoo Seon-ah planned to keep hovering around Seo Hwarang regardless, and she had no intention of ever rubbing him the wrong way. Why? That world. She wanted to see that impossibly vast dungeon again. Yoo Seon-ah had felt it in her bones. There's a windfall in there — the kind that could carry me past E-rank, all the way to S. That world has to have it.
Of the gates multiplying like bamboo shoots after rain, F-rank was by far the most common grade. Reports came in at a rate of one or two a week from the hills behind ordinary neighborhoods — that said everything. First, the library had decided to close temporarily for repairs. The Bureau had agreed to cover all the costs, so there was nothing for them to worry about there.
"Alright, let's go."
For an E-rank like Yoo Seon-ah, F-rank dungeons were routine. She'd cleared countless ones. That was exactly why he'd put her in charge of guiding him. He could have soloed one with Master Fire Bolt, sure — but having an experienced veteran lead the way was faster and far more reliable.
There was one thing Seo Hwarang wanted to verify. Just one. Will an F-rank dungeon actually drop coins?
Step, step.
They walked up the hiking trail on Inwangsan.
"You already know this, but F-rank gates are purple."
Just think of a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Red was for S-rank dungeons, violet for F-rank. He'd read so many books with such indiscriminate appetite that he actually knew most of what there was to know about awakened hunters, too.
After some time had passed, they found one — a purple gate.
"Here it is."
Thunk!
Yoo Seon-ah drove a strangely carved wooden fragment into the dirt at its base. "When a hunter enters, they leave a marker to show the dungeon's occupied. With F-ranks, it's proper etiquette not to enter if someone got there before you."
The markers were sold in bundles by the Association. It struck him as a fairly convenient system.
"Alright, let's head in. Your skill will make short work of it anyway."
"Yes, ma'am."
Sweep.
Seo Hwarang glanced around. Thankfully, not a soul in sight.
Alright — will an F-rank dungeon cough up coins or not?
All that remained was to find out.
Yoo Seon-ah stepped through the gate first.
Gulp.
Seo Hwarang swallowed dryly and followed her in.