Chapter 166
Chapter 166
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 166
Chapter Title: HJH Gate Office's Second Hunter
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A few days later, at a cafe near the Association.
A large shadow fell over Jeong-hyeon as he sat at his table.
"You're here?"
"Did I keep you waiting long?"
"No. I just got here too."
The owner of that shadow was, naturally, Won-ho.
It was the day they had scheduled to meet because Won-ho had said he wanted to talk when they ran into each other at the hospital.
"Is your new place quiet?"
"Who else is like you?"
It was half a joke mixed in with a greeting.
The two sat facing each other, soft smiles on their faces.
Now it was time to get down to business.
"What about Vice Guild? Did you leave for good?"
"Yeah. Our contract was ending soon anyway. There was a penalty fee, but I paid it."
According to Won-ho, it had been a short-term contract from the start.
Waking up with an A-Rank trait had been great, but he had no real ambition for advancement, and he was sick of fighting monsters, so he signed a brief deal with Vice Guild.
For Vice Guild, it must have been a no-brainer to accept an A-Rank Awakener who was hard to recruit.
After hunting with Jeong-hyeon, though, he wanted to start properly tackling Mission Gates.
"I owe quite a debt to those monsters myself."
"Yeah, who doesn't these days."
Jeong-hyeon nodded calmly.
In this day and age, it was harder to find someone who hadn't lost family or friends to monsters.
But turning that memory and desire for revenge into actual monster hunting wasn't easy.
Especially when it came to higher-level Mission Gates.
Jeong-hyeon hardened his expression and spoke in a heavy voice.
He had made the recruitment offer first, but some things needed to be made clear.
"Mission Gates are places where you could die at any moment. Like with the Grand Mantis last time. No, I might not even be able to protect you like I did then. Are you prepared for that?"
At the warning, Won-ho's expression turned serious as well, and he fell silent for a moment.
Jeong-hyeon had since encountered the absurd Ashurek once more, but for Won-ho, those two Grand Mantises had been the greatest walls of his life.
And if they started seriously tackling Mission Gates, they'd inevitably run into those kinds of monsters—or worse—often.
Especially since he couldn't reveal that going with EX-Rank Jeong-hyeon would make it even more so.
That concern had become reality in the Lizardman Sanctuary just recently.
But Won-ho dispelled the last traces of worry in Jeong-hyeon with his response.
"Why ask something like that? I'm way older than you."
"Good to hear."
Jeong-hyeon smiled brightly.
He then pulled out the contract he had prepared.
It was a contract formally hiring Kim Won-ho at the HJH Gate Office.
'I leaned pretty heavily on Section Chief Nam-sik's expertise.'
Jeong-hyeon had reviewed a few contracts, but he wasn't yet comfortable drafting one from scratch.
Min-ji, the fresh social newbie, was even less so.
They could have mimicked another contract, but since this was their first hunter recruit for the office, he wanted to do it properly.
Plus, settling on a standard format now would be useful for the future.
So he had consulted Nam-sik, something of an expert(?) in contracts.
Of course, oblivious to all this, Won-ho simply took the contract casually and read it slowly.
Then,
"I-Is this for real?"
He looked at Jeong-hyeon with wide eyes in surprise and confirmed.
Jeong-hyeon nodded with a smile.
"I don't plan on paying more than this."
"But... I'm fine with a salary or something. I don't care much about money. And the signing bonus is too big."
Won-ho's surprise was straightforward.
The signing bonus alone was 10 billion won.
When he joined Vice Guild right after awakening, on a short-term deal, he had gotten about 2 billion.
This was over five times that, and with a flexible contract period, it was an even more generous offer.
The quest rewards were even better.
For each completed request, 30% went to office operating costs, and the remaining 70% was split evenly among the office hunters, treating Jeong-hyeon's share as two portions.
In other words, if Jeong-hyeon and Won-ho handled a request together, Jeong-hyeon got 2 parts, Won-ho 1.
It was like Jeong-hyeon taking double, but he was the boss, after all.
Even much worse terms would have been attractive, yet this was offered from the start.
"Still, this feels too burdensome. We could lower it a bit."
"There's just the two of us anyway. We can adjust later, but let's go with this for now."
Thus began the bizarre tug-of-war between an employee trying to reduce his share and a boss trying to give more.
But Jeong-hyeon ultimately stuck to his original terms.
"Sigh... Fine. We'll do it this way for now, and if you're ever unhappy, we can cut the pay anytime."
"That won't happen."
Because once he joined the office, Jeong-hyeon planned to work him hard.
Jeong-hyeon didn't voice what came next.
So far, his party members had all been unrelated to him or clients' subordinates.
He had no need to put in effort to improve their skills.
Ji-hee was a bit different, but she wasn't officially HJH yet, so exception.
If Won-ho thought Jeong-hyeon would carry everything like in the Merrillium Mine, he'd be sorely mistaken.
And perhaps Won-ho sensed that intent, even if Jeong-hyeon hadn't said it outright?
Twitch-
Won-ho's massive frame twitched once.
'Is the AC too low?'
Jeong-hyeon dismissed it as nothing much.
There were no toxic clauses, only beneficial ones, so Won-ho signed without hesitation, bringing the HJH Gate Office hunter count to two.
Jeong-hyeon handed over a copy to Won-ho, looking satisfied.
"Now that we've got one more person, we should really get a proper office."
"An office? You didn't have one yet?"
"Yeah. It was just me and one office worker. Now that you're in, we can get a small one."
Min-ji had been subtly hinting that working from home wasn't cutting it.
With Won-ho's recruitment as the trigger, they were planning to rent a small office.
Won-ho had heard there was only one hunter, Jeong-hyeon, but hadn't expected no office at all. He looked surprised.
"Huh. Makes sense. So, what about titles from now on? 'President'?"
"Hmm, 'President' is a bit much. Just 'Boss' is fine. Or Jeong-hyeon, but it'll look weird once we have more staff."
Won-ho was an old acquaintance with some rapport, so it didn't matter, but as the office grew, employees calling the boss by name would look odd.
Then a question popped into Jeong-hyeon's mind.
"By the way, how old are you exactly?"
They'd always just called him "sir," never his actual age.
Won-ho realized it too and let out an "Ah" before telling him.
"We never exchanged ages, huh? I'm..."
Hearing Won-ho's exact age, Jeong-hyeon was utterly shocked.
It surprised him more than when Ashurek had gathered its full natural power.
'Only four years older than me...?'
He'd pegged him at late thirties, but he was actually a fresh twenty-seven, just four years older.
The shock? With that look, only two years older than Cha Ye-rin.
You shouldn't judge by appearances, but hearts don't work that way.
Even more absurd was Won-ho's reaction after learning Jeong-hyeon was twenty-three.
"Twenty-three? Four years younger than me?"
He'd thought Jeong-hyeon was two or three years younger.
'As if I look two years younger than you!'
Jeong-hyeon, who had some pride in his looks, briefly considered slashing the contract terms.
If he'd known he was in his twenties, he might have corrected the "sir" thing ages ago.
But hearing Jeong-hyeon's doubts, Won-ho chuckled.
"Friends always called me 'sir,' so I'm numb to it. And we were beyond titles anyway."
Fair point; no rebuttal.
By the time they settled the title and age issue, Jeong-hyeon had to force his lips to part to address Won-ho again.
"W-Won-ho... hyung."
"Haha! Yeah. 'Hyung' sounds good. Boss little bro."
Truly, human relationships could surprise more than gates.
***
A simple yet elegantly furnished office.
It looked ordinary enough, but the atmosphere inside was anything but.
"What's the spirit of our sales team?!"
A middle-aged man sitting at his desk yelled at the young man standing before him, hurling a stack of papers.
His aim was practiced; the papers hit the young man's face squarely before scattering on the floor.
The middle-aged man continued shouting in fury.
"There's no such thing as an impossible sale! No!"
'If it's that frustrating, go do it yourself...'
The young man, Park Hwan, swallowed his humiliated thoughts.
He was the sales team leader for Panser Guild, a mid-tier guild known to anyone in Korea.
Talented enough to rise to team leader in his early thirties, but his opponent was Kim Seong-ryong, newly promoted to director in sales.
No matter how capable, he had to bow low.
"Every day it's 'no response,' 'unreachable'... What the hell is this?! Huh?!"
But Park Hwan had his side.
What could he do when the target simply didn't answer?
Kim Seong-ryong's demand was simple.
Han Jeong-hyeon and HJH Gate Office, the hottest topic in the hunter world lately.
Secure him, or partner with the office—deliver visible results.
Easy to say, but possible with an office that barely picked up?
Even calling the listed number got responses like "Boss is tackling a gate" or "I can't reach him either" from what seemed to be a staffer.
'The request board is the only channel...'
Park Hwan had hammered it relentlessly.
No acceptances, not even replies.
Other guilds' sales and HR folks griped the same.
From the boss's view, stalled progress was frustrating; real ops felt it too.
"I'm warning you: get some kind of response by end of week. Or I don't know what I'll do!"
With that, Kim Seong-ryong's rage subsided.
Park Hwan sighed as he left the office.
"Team leader, chewed out again today...?"
Back at his desk, his team looked concerned.
It wasn't the first time since Han Jeong-hyeon rose to fame, but as team rep, getting reamed by Director Kim every time weighed on them.
Especially since Park Hwan treated his subordinates well.
"Yeah... Getting used to it."
Park Hwan shook his head.
He pulled up the HJH Gate Office homepage, now bookmarked in his browser.
"Huh?"
Something was different on the familiar site.
"They opened an office?"
A popup announced the HJH Gate Office's new official address, with "Welcome walk-ins," "Grand opening special: priority negotiations for in-person consultations."
No idea when it posted, but now it was a race against time.
He shot up.
"T-Team leader, where are you—?"
"Out on urgent business! Urgent business!"
"......?"
Park Hwan bolted without even grabbing his jacket.
'So fed up he just escaped the company?'
That was the collective thought of his watching subordinates.