How to Earn 500 Million in Three Days (3)
Kkamdori couldn't foresee the future that was coming and tilted its head with a curious kyarek.
Blood gushing from the massive corpse had already seeped beneath Choi Junseok's feet.
Perhaps because of the atmosphere, Song Hana stared at Choi Junseok with a look of fear.
“W-what on earth are you trying to do!”
“What do you mean. I'm just going to put Kkamdori to work.”
Kkamdori now recognized when its name was called and tilted its head again.
“Kkamdori! Eat it! Swallow it whole!”
“……Kyarek?”
Choi Junseok pointed at the dragon's corpse with his index finger. He wanted it swallowed whole.
Lee Nayeon and Song Hana both looked as though they were questioning his sanity. Lee Nayeon bit her lip, her expression wavering between trust and doubt.
Kkamdori flicked its large tongue once, then opened its mouth wide.
And then something incredible happened.
Recovery Fairy Dragon additional effect activated.
Recovers monster corpse.
Shwaaaak—!
It was actually possible. Kkamdori began absorbing everything like some pink character that sucked up the entire world.
The corpse's size shrank as it was pulled toward Kkamdori's mouth.
The thirty-floor ruler, the Griffin, had been completely absorbed.
It felt as satisfying as vacuuming up dust without leaving a single speck behind.
Kkamdori, its belly now swollen, let out a loud burp and flopped onto the floor.
“This… this is fairy dragon abuse!”
Song Hana stroked its back with a pitying look.
Kkamdori, however, looked like an overstuffed cat that couldn't get up after binge-eating.
“Why? It seems pretty happy, going kyareureung like that.”
Kkamdori genuinely appeared content, catching its breath after the feast.
Song Hana still looked reluctant, but Kkamdori's reaction convinced her.
“But……”
Choi Junseok hadn't asked Kkamdori to do this on a whim. Yu Junhyeok inside the inventory had told him that Kkamdori could handle it and more. Money was tight, so there was no time to be picky about monster corpses.
Besides, this wasn't just any monster. It was the boss of the thirtieth floor.
Choi Junseok was a rare veteran porter who had reached the mid-to-late thirtieth floors. He knew exactly how to dismantle monsters and sell their parts.
After clearing a Magic Tower, he could weave between corpses within thirty minutes and harvest every valuable component with expert precision.
“The problem now is how to dismantle and sell it……”
Lee Jiyu's house was spacious with high ceilings, so summoning it in the living room would technically fit, but doing so would probably get him stabbed in real life.
“Ah. There's a perfect place.”
Even winning second prize in the lottery wouldn't net a hundred million, so earning five hundred million wasn't something that happened by accident.
The only income from the twenty-ninth and thirtieth floors had been 290 grams and 300 grams of fixed magic stones. Altogether, 590 grams—call it 600 grams. At three million won per hundred grams, that came to roughly eighteen million won.
After the top income tax rate of forty-five percent and fees, less than half would actually reach his hands.
Only two days remained.
Even if he sold the magic-nullification scroll he had obtained yesterday, he would still be short about two hundred million.
“We're heading back.”
Kkamdori and the three others instantly turned into streaks of light and vanished.
─┼
Lee Jiyu froze the moment she saw Choi Junseok return in seven minutes—three minutes earlier than the usual ten.
‘It took him only seven minutes to cross the Basilisk Forest and defeat that troublesome Griffin?’
Even she, known as Supersonic Bunny, would have struggled to move that fast. Even flying straight through the forest, reaching the gate would take at least two minutes.
‘At that running speed… even if he cleared every Basilisk along the way, he only spent five minutes on the boss?’
If Choi Junseok had grown far beyond the strength he had shown her before……
She couldn't even imagine how powerful he had become.
Moreover, Lee Nayeon's rank had reached the unprecedented SS-grade.
“Um… can I use the bathroom?!”
Song Hana's question snapped Lee Jiyu out of her daze.
“Ah, of course. You can use the bathroom in any room, or the one on the second floor… make yourselves at home.”
Song Hana beamed openly, while Lee Nayeon gave a slight bow in thanks.
“I was thinking of taking the two of them shopping tomorrow. Is that all right?”
Choi Junseok nodded. If anything, he was grateful.
He handed her the black credit card the government office had given him.
“You can pay with this.”
The card had no personal information registered. It only had a number, and the issuing company was unknown, but Lee Jiyu showed no interest. Instead, she looked at Choi Junseok with renewed curiosity.
“I thought you'd say something stingy, but you're surprisingly generous?”
“I spend money when I need to.”
She scanned him from head to toe and added,
“Actually, you're coming with us. You have time anyway, right?”
“…Excuse me?”
“Don't worry about other people's stares. The place we're going is closed tomorrow for regular maintenance, but they'll open it exclusively for VVIPs.”
“Oh, really?”
“And please, throw away those shabby clothes while you're at it.”
“……What's wrong with these clothes?”
They were clothes he had worn for a long time. Just a month ago, the gray hoodie had been perfectly fine, and he had even worn it while climbing Magic Towers.
“……Never mind.”
From a distance came Song Hana's voice suggesting a bath together with Lee Nayeon. Between her giggling came Lee Nayeon's cool yet oddly warm replies.
Song Hana suddenly poked her head out.
“Want to bathe together?!”
Lee Jiyu immediately frowned and glared at Choi Junseok, but of course Song Hana had been talking to her.
“Not me. You.”
“……Right? I was worried for a second.”
“Don't make me out to be some weirdo.”
Lee Jiyu smiled faintly, nodded at Song Hana, and walked over to her.
─┼
Thus, Choi Junseok entered Haetaesik's room.
The space resembled a massive furnace or the crater of a volcano filled with lava. Choi Junseok stepped inside.
As always, the Undead King—his summon—rose from the quenching tub that looked like a bathtub and greeted him.
“You've arrived… Great……”
“Hey! Stay down!”
Whack!
The hammer slammed into the Undead King's skull hard enough to crack bone.
Choi Junseok felt a twinge of guilt at treating it so much like a tool, but the Undead King seemed quite satisfied, so he let it go.
“It's been a while.”
“Haetaesik. How've you been? The room looks bigger than before.”
He remembered there hadn't been much solid ground above the lava before. Now the platform was noticeably wider, as though the lava had receded.
“Thanks to that guy you left behind.”
“The Undead King?”
Haetaesik immediately grabbed the Undead King with one hand and dunked it into the quenching tub beside them. Then he splashed the cooled water from the tub onto the lava.
Chaaak! The water hit the lava and instantly caused bubbles to erupt.
At the same time, hardened ground resembling dragon scales began to appear on the lava's surface.
“All that hardened stuff piled up and formed more ground. I set up steel plates to block the lava flow and let it cool.”
Choi Junseok didn't understand how it worked, but more land was always welcome.
“Where's the remaining water coming from?”
As Choi Junseok wondered while looking at the empty quenching tub, he felt Yu Junhyeok's strangely pleased presence inside him.
— It is thanks to my gift.
At Yu Junhyeok's words echoing from his chest, Haetaesik nodded as well.
“Thanks to this thing.”
He pointed at a small faucet attached beside the quenching tub.
It looked so out of place that Choi Junseok couldn't help wondering why it was there.
“Apparently it's the essence of Magic Tower engineering—a Blue whatever faucet.”
— Bluetooth faucet.
“Ah, right. That's the one.”
“……?”
Choi Junseok gave up trying to understand it logically and simply nodded. If water came out, that was good enough. It would make cleaning up after dismantling the Griffin much easier.
The moment Kkamdori was summoned into the open space, Haetaesik swallowed dryly with an ominous feeling.
“Wait… what are you planning to do?”
“Sorry. I don't have any other options. Kkamdori, spit it out.”
“W-wait a second!”
Kkamdori's mouth opened wide. Even so, it wasn't large enough for the massive Griffin at first.
Churururuk…
Like a slime emerging, the Griffin slid smoothly out of Kkamdori's mouth.
Blood still poured from the wound pierced by the Holy Sword. The fishy smell made Haetaesik frown.
“Don't worry. I'll do the dismantling. You were bored with nothing to do anyway, right?”
Although time flowed differently in Haetaesik's forge compared to the real world, it was true that he had been idle.
“Never in my life have I seen someone turn a forge into a monster disassembly site.”
“Why not? We can just dump the trash straight into the lava. It's convenient.”
“……Just be careful not to cause an explosion when you throw it away.”
Haetaesik, oddly tsundere, offered to help directly.
“Quite a variety of parts here.”
He looked like a top chef eyeing ingredients and deciding what to cook. Excited, he brought over various tools from the forge and said he would assist with the dismantling.
The Undead King's cooling ability proved extremely helpful during the process. Freezing and shattering tough or rubbery parts that blades couldn't penetrate made the work much easier.
While the three women bathed in the enormous tub, gazing up at the night sky and moon over the city……
Choi Junseok, together with Haetaesik and the Undead King, bathed in the Griffin's blood and sweat.
“Do you need any equipment?”
Choi Junseok's skilled dismantling technique worked flawlessly even on the Griffin's chimeric parts. His deft hands raised Haetaesik's favor toward him—until his next words instantly dropped it into the negatives.
“The expensive stuff. I'm planning to sell it.”
Haetaesik, who had been using a chisel and hammer to remove scales, considered throwing them at Choi Junseok before shaking his head.
It was the first time anyone had asked to borrow his equipment just to sell the results.
“……You really are insane.”