A House with a History
And so we spent three days exploring the dungeon. Fortunately, nothing out of the ordinary happened. Building on the clumsiness of that first day, we improved, and we hauled in far more monster byproducts than before.
I told Yeonji about my real ability as well. She was far more shocked than Sujin had been, but after seeing her own sudden growth, she accepted it without much fuss.
Abilities were mysterious forces that already far exceeded humanity's understanding, so a case like mine wasn't all that strange. Of course, I was borrowing the utterly inexplicable power of the Unix Cube — but she didn't need to know that part.
After revealing my true ability to Yeonji, I used my inventory to sweep up every last monster byproduct. Since items of the same type occupied a single inventory slot, we were able to collect far more than we had on the first day.
That said, stuffing the inventory without limit would only make the buyers suspicious. I had no intention of revealing my special power to the public. The fewer people who knew a secret, the better it stayed a secret.
When we tallied three days of earnings, the total came to roughly 48 million won. We'd underperformed on the first day, but by putting the inventory to full use on the second and third, we'd blown past our projected profits. After deducting various expenses and splitting the remainder three ways, each of us walked away with about 15 million won.
Fifteen million won in three days. That worked out to a daily wage of five million. For a novice Dungeon Hunter, it was absurdly high. Newcomers typically hemorrhaged money rather than making it. And while Dungeon Hunters raked in enormous sums, the taxes were no joke either.
A Dungeon Hunter's tax rate was 25 percent of total earnings. At a glance, that might seem modest for a high-income profession — but then there were the association dues. Not a government tax, technically, but for a Dungeon Hunter it might as well have been. Those dues were another 25 percent of total earnings. In other words, Dungeon Hunters effectively faced a 50 percent tax rate.
By that math, our actual daily take was closer to 2.5 million won. Still a high income, but watching half of it vanish was a little painful.
"On my first expedition, I didn't even get any byproducts. I just burned through potion money and gear costs. Almost went bankrupt."
Yeonji said this while staring at the amount that had just landed in her account. Her experience was typical of a beginner Dungeon Hunter.
"That's why I took out a loan and suffered so much. Luckily, Dungeon Hunters can get uncollateralized loans up to a hundred million, so I survived."
Dungeon Hunters were treated as professionals, same as doctors or lawyers, which meant the major banks were willing to extend generous unsecured loans. Once you got past the beginner stage, it was a profession where you raked in money by the fistful.
Of course, the more you earned, the more you spent. The equipment Dungeon Hunters used was expensive beyond imagination. High-ranking Dungeon Hunters supposedly went through potions that cost hundreds of millions per bottle like they were tap water. Then again, even after spending like that, they made more in a few days than an ordinary person could earn in three lifetimes.
"Anyway, this expedition ends here. Good work, everyone. You too, Sujin. You too, Yeonji."
"Yeah! You did great too, Jaeseong."
Sujin seemed happier that the expedition was over than she was about the money. She'd worked the hardest of anyone on this trip. Yeonji had suffered plenty as the tank, but thanks to Sujin's relentless effort, by the last day we weren't even tanking anymore — we were just slaughtering every monster that showed up.
The stats she'd gained through the Power of Sex, combined with her actual combat experience, had already pushed Sujin past the level of a Rank 10 Dungeon Hunter.
"So we're heading back now?"
Yeonji looked down at me with a faintly disappointed expression. We were heading back, all right — and of course I was taking her with us. She knew my secret, and she'd already been registered as my slave. On top of that, she was a precious tank resource for the party. I had no intention of letting her go.
"We're going back. With you."
"Huh? Me too?"
"What, you thought we were splitting up? You're mine now. Don't even think about running."
I pinched her nipple between my fingers as I said it. Despite the crude gesture, she flushed as if she'd just been proposed to, shaking her head from side to side. It was amusing, the peculiar places she felt embarrassed. I told her to sell her current place as quickly as possible.
"Wait, Jaeseong. If Yeonji's going to live with us, shouldn't we move to a bigger place? That room's way too small for three people."
Sujin had a point. The studio we were living in was barely adequate for three. It felt cramped even with just me in it; two people had already been a stretch. Love could only cover so much — one extra person, max.
"Then should we start looking at new places? Ugh. Guess we'll have to take out a loan."
Sujin had some savings, but finding a spacious, comfortable home in Seoul was genuinely difficult. If Sujin, Yeonji, and I all took out loans, we might just be able to swing a detached house in the suburbs. I'd have to spend the next few days looking at real estate.
"I've, uh, saved up a bit. About a hundred million…"
"Wow. You saved that much?"
"I worked hard. That's why I joined a three-person party this time — I figured the profits would be good."
"You have some kind of goal?"
"Nah, nothing like that. I just figure you should grind hard while you still can. Once you get older, you can't even do the brutal stuff anymore."
She wasn't wrong. Thanks to Yeonji's thriftiness, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. If we maxed out our loans and pooled Yeonji's and Sujin's money, we might scrape together around 500 million. Of course, we couldn't dump all of it into a house. We needed to keep a reserve for the next dungeon expedition.
"We might have to go right back into an expedition."
Normally, the standard was to rest at least a week after finishing an expedition. The training academy actually recommended a full month, but that was unrealistic. If every Dungeon Hunter took that kind of break, modern industry would grind to a halt. Monster byproducts were as essential to our society as plastic or oil.
We set those complicated thoughts aside, packed our things, and boarded the bus home. Even if we had to work again tomorrow, I wanted to rest easy today.
The next few days were a blur of real estate offices. There were fewer listings than I'd expected. The decent houses were far too expensive, and the ones that fit our budget were houses I didn't want to live in.
A thirty-year-old wreck on the verge of collapse. A house that wasn't just in the suburbs — it was buried in the mountains. Once you started listing conditions, there was no end to it, but even so, the complete absence of anything we actually wanted was enough to make me sigh.
I was almost tempted to just convert the platinum coins I'd brought back from the Solari World and use those.
"This is the last listing. The owner has it up for 300 million."
The realtor was a balding middle-aged man with a thoroughly receded hairline. Sujin, Yeonji, and I followed him to a weathered detached house. It was old, but it wasn't the haunted-looking ruin we'd seen earlier. That one had been a genuine haunted house, starting with a front gate that hung half off its hinges.
"It's bigger than I expected. The yard's huge, too."
A large iron gate creaked open. It didn't look well-maintained, but that was something we could fix quickly enough. As Sujin had said, the yard was surprisingly spacious — roughly 150 square meters, by the look of it.
Of course, it hadn't been tended, so it was nothing but weeds. Still, a large yard was a tremendous advantage. With some upkeep, we could put it to all sorts of uses. Outdoor sex, for instance. Or outdoor sex. Or, you know, outdoor sex.
"Let's take a look inside."
The realtor opened the door and led us in. The house was three stories above ground with one basement level. A basement was a rare feature in Korean homes, and a significant one.
The basement had a room that had been used as storage and another that looked like a workshop. The workshop was enormous — easily 165 square meters. The storage room was fairly spacious too, perfect for stashing miscellaneous junk.
"What did the previous owner do? This place is packed with tools. Was he a carpenter?"
"An artist, as I understand it. He left the country in a hurry, which is why he listed it so cheaply."
An artist. For an artist, the workshop was a bit crude. The first floor had a living room, a kitchen, a dining room, and a large empty room. According to the realtor, that last one had been used to display artwork. True to his word, it had no decorations or furniture at all — it didn't even look like a room anyone had lived in.
Having a kitchen and dining room as separate spaces was a plus. The dining room was quite large; with a long table, you could easily seat ten. An ideal house for a big family. The spacious yard already pointed in that direction.
The second floor and above were private rooms. The second floor had six rooms — two on each side of the hallway — and the third floor had four. All the furniture had been cleared out except for the bookshelves. The rooms were all the same size and shape, almost boringly so.
At the end of the second-floor hallway was a small room used for storage, still packed with odds and ends that hadn't been cleared. Once we cleaned it out, it could serve as another private room. All the rooms here were generously sized anyway — two people could share one without a problem.
"I like the house. It's a bit run-down, but we could patch it up without too much trouble, right? And it's really spacious. It'd be perfect as a party house."
Sujin seemed quite taken with the place. I was fine with it too — no complaints. If anything, the price seemed too cheap.
"Yeah, I think it's good."
"It's a decent house, for once."
All that legwork had finally paid off — a decent house, right at the end. If they had a listing like this, they should've shown it to us first. Realtors, always playing games.
"Do you like it?"
"Yes. I like it a lot."
I smiled as I said it, and the realtor returned an awkward smile of his own. An uneasy smile. Why did it look like he was about to say something?
"I'm glad you like it. This is actually a pretty nice place. You won't find a house like this in this price range."
"Not in Seoul, that's for sure."
"However… there is one thing that might give you pause."
What? Was this a fake listing? No — if it were fake, he wouldn't have shown us this much.
"This house has a history. The previous owner leaving the country in a hurry was because of that incident, actually."
"An incident? Did someone commit suicide?"
That would be a bit unsettling.
"No, not a suicide. There was a monster attack. Dire Wolves came down from that mountain into this village."
The realtor pointed through the window at the mountain beyond. In Korea — a dungeon paradise — monster-related accidents were as common as earthquakes in Japan. And because they were so common, the response protocols were thorough, so often there was no damage. But not always.
"The lady of the house was the one who was attacked. In the yard. When they recovered the body, even the surgeons shook their heads at the state of it. Her entire lower half was gone, apparently. The owner was so traumatized by it that he left the country."
A traumatic event, no question. Monster-attack fatalities did show up on the news from time to time.
When you saw it on the news, it barely registered. Being the one it happened to was a different story. You could see how someone might grow disgusted with Korea, dungeon paradise that it was.
"We're Dungeon Hunters, actually. A monster attack… well, it shouldn't happen, but if it did, we could handle it."
Fodder like Dire Wolves, I could handle on my own. And if an attack like that occurred, the alert level at nearby dungeons would go up, so the odds of a repeat were low. Probability-wise, at least.
"I'd like to sign the contract."
I liked this place. A lot.