Chapter 38
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 38
Chapter Title: Soap Opera (2)
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I paid with my card and got out of the taxi.
The lights of the Gangnam buildings were as dazzling as ever.
I had arranged to meet Choi Soo-hyun at a restaurant.
It was about that sculpture he'd asked for last time.
Couldn't he just ask Park Si-woo for one?
He has plenty of them.
“I guess people can forget things now and then.”
Maybe because I’d just gotten out of a dungeon, but I looked like a mess.
Stepping out of the elevator, I glanced around.
Just as I was about to enter the restaurant.
“How could you do this?”
“Eun-young, it’s a misunderstanding. There’s no way I’d leave you… Gack!”
“Ugh, Senior Eun-young, are you crazy? How could you hit him?”
“Gasp, I can’t breathe… Eun-young, I was wrong…”
“He deserved it, so he got hit!!”
Song Eun-young was furious.
There was a man, knocked down by Song Eun-young's fist, and a pale-faced woman cradling him.
And finally, there was Choi Soo-hyun, trying to restrain her.
What in the world is going on?
Choi Soo-hyun, holding Song Eun-young back, desperately tried to explain the situation to me with his eyes and gestures.
It seemed to be something along the lines of: the guy and Song Eun-young were dating, the woman next to him was an acquaintance of hers, and she caught the two of them cheating.
Song Eun-young struggled to break free from Choi Soo-hyun’s grasp.
“Let go! This is between me and that son of a bitch!”
The woman finally burst into tears, and an employee, sensing something was wrong, rushed out.
The man was half-unconscious from Song Eun-young's beating.
Still, Song Eun-young was seething, her anger clearly not subsided.
“Hey! If you hit him again, you’ll kill him! Don’t you know killing a civilian is a huge pain in the ass?”
“What do I care! What do you even know about me! Sob…”
“Why are you c-crying? Don’t cry. This is driving me crazy. Kang Han-gyeol! Don’t just stand there, do something!”
It was the soap opera to end all soap operas.
I felt like I was watching a scene from a morning drama being filmed.
Even the people inside the restaurant came out, unable to contain their curiosity.
Should I just go downstairs and grab a coffee until this is all over?
“Eun-young… it’s really a misunderstanding…”
“Oppa, is it me? Or Senior Eun-young? Oppa! You said you loved me!”
“Let go!”
“If you were me, would you let go?”
Choi Soo-hyun tried to calm Song Eun-young down, but it was no use.
This was prime popcorn material.
If I watch this whole thing, I probably won’t need to see a drama for the next three months.
As an Awakened One, the only person who could stop Song Eun-young was Choi Soo-hyun.
I gave Choi Soo-hyun a signal to handle it quietly.
“I’ll kill that bastard and go to hell myself! Let me go!”
Song Eun-young’s struggling fist struck Choi Soo-hyun in the face.
“This girl, seriously!”
Just when I thought Choi Soo-hyun was about to knock her out.
The entire building shook with a loud noise.
The smartwatch on Choi Soo-hyun’s wrist vibrated.
Choi Soo-hyun, the first to check something, gestured for me to look at my phone.
[Notification]
Mothman Cave (B+) Dungeon Break has occurred.
Location: Vicinity of Galleria Building, Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
Details being confirmed.
Wait, the Galleria Building? Isn't that this building?
‘So that’s why he wanted to meet in such a nice place.’
I thought he was treating me to something good.
Of course, it was for work.
Choi Soo-hyun was more of a workaholic than he let on.
I approached Choi Soo-hyun and Song Eun-young.
Choi Soo-hyun pointed up at the building.
“The dungeon on the roof. It’s three days past its scheduled clear date. Not every failed dungeon results in a break, but.”
In short, it was just purely bad luck.
“When is backup arriving?”
“You scared?”
“Hyung, how about you take another punch?”
“Shut up. She’s the first woman to ever hit me.”
He looked like the type to get hit by women often, but I guess not.
No sooner had Choi Soo-hyun finished speaking than a status window appeared and the field manifestation began.
[Mothman Cave]
Grade: B+
Participants: 14
Rewards
1) Slay Mothman [7000 Contribution Points]
2) Mosquito Killer [4500 Contribution Points]
The notification was much simpler than the one for the Black Orcs.
“How many participants?”
“About 14 people.”
Perhaps because the field’s range wasn't very wide, there weren't many participants.
“But you can’t see it, Hyung?”
“We’re not counted.”
“Who’s ‘we’! Mmph…”
“Be quiet.”
Choi Soo-hyun forcibly covered Song Eun-young’s mouth.
I was a bit worried he was being too rough, but considering what Song Eun-young had done to him, it was tit for tat.
The mark from where Song Eun-young had hit him was still visible on Choi Soo-hyun’s face.
“Mothman is pretty annoying. Think you can handle it?”
“I’m pretty strong, you know.”
I placed my hand on the sword at my hip.
The moment Choi Soo-hyun saw the sword, he sighed.
I admit I was in the wrong about that, but there was no need to frown like that.
Choi Soo-hyun glanced at his phone.
It seemed he’d received a message of some kind.
“Mothman is on the roof. We’re going down.”
“Seeing how calm you are, someone must be coming.”
“Of course. You know where we are.”
“This isn’t going to get out of hand, is it?”
“This is nothing.”
The Gangnam area was a mecca for guild offices.
Even the Aria Guild had its headquarters right nearby.
“How about you use this opportunity to quickly find a guild and take all the credit?”
Choi Soo-hyun scoffed at my sales pitch.
“How many contribution points does that thing give?”
“A little over 10,000 in total.”
“You think a measly 10,000 is anything to brag about?”
“Measly! Do you think 10,000 points just pop out of the ground?”
Normally, unaffiliated Awakened Ones can’t earn contribution points.
They exist outside the system.
But Choi Soo-hyun was clearly different from the average unaffiliated Awakened One.
There was a reason people on the internet compared Choi Soo-hyun to a rich, jobless bum.
Though he really was rich.
In any case, I’d heard he had a substantial amount of contribution points from before he went independent.
No one knew exactly how many he had.
It was even said to be one of the three great mysteries of the Korean Hunter world.
I’d asked a few times out of curiosity, but he always played dumb.
At this point, I was less curious about the number and more about the story behind it.
“Did you scam a god or something? How much did you squirrel away?”
“Oh, you should set up a fortune-telling mat.”
I just threw that out there.
If I had been drinking something, I might have spat it out right then and there.
What kind of lunatic scams a god?
How many lives does this guy have?
The glass window that decorated one wall of the restaurant shattered, and a monster entered through it.
A long, white thing slithered down the wall.
“What’s that now?”
“A Hop-worm. For the record, they get troublesome when they evolve.”
“Mmph! I can’t breathe!”
Song Eun-young swung her fist at Choi Soo-hyun’s body.
The impact was strong enough to make a loud thud.
Choi Soo-hyun lowered the hand that had been covering her mouth and frowned.
“Gah, stop hitting me! Hey! You really meant that one, didn’t you? A normal person would’ve broken a bone!!”
Choi Soo-hyun brushed off the spot where he’d been hit.
Song Eun-young turned her head away, pretending not to hear.
Hop-worms crawled in through the broken glass.
There were still people inside the restaurant who hadn’t gotten out.
I drew my sword, rushed forward, and sliced through a Hop-worm.
A white liquid, not blood, dripped from the severed part.
The liquid that fell on my arm stuck to it instantly, like melted wax.
It wasn't a pleasant feeling.
It would probably be a problem if it kept accumulating or if I got covered in it all at once.
I killed the Hop-worms trying to enter the restaurant, helping the people evacuate.
Choi Soo-hyun launched a roundhouse kick at a Hop-worm.
A large burst of fire followed his sweeping leg, striking the Hop-worm along with it.
The Hop-worm flew out through the window and exploded against the adjacent building.
‘Huh?’
Weren't unaffiliated Hunters unable to use skills?
Choi Soo-hyun dusted off his scorched shoetips.
Where the Hop-worm had exploded, a mark was left on the wall as if someone had thrown paint on it.
I didn’t understand why he’d come back into the restaurant after dismissing 10,000 points as nothing.
He said he wasn't interested!
“Why did you come back?”
As I grumbled, Choi Soo-hyun tossed me the ring he was wearing.
It was a ring set with a red gemstone.
“I’m lending it to you.”
I caught the ring and slipped it on my finger.
After putting on the ring, I checked my status window and saw that my overall stats had increased.
The change was like going from a minus to a plus, but I could feel it more than the numbers suggested.
“If you lose it, I’ll chase you to hell and back.”
“What kind of ring is it?”
“The Ring of Ishtar.”
“Are you sure you can lend this to me?”
The Ring of Ishtar was practically Choi Soo-hyun’s signature item.
“That’s why I said you’re dead if you lose it.”
“You just gave it to me and now you’re saying… Ah, he’s gone.”
I called out to Choi Soo-hyun, but he had already vanished.
So damn selfish.
After clearing out the Hop-worms clinging to the windows, I headed up.
On the rooftop, there was something that looked like a giant egg.
A massive, skein-like mass was wrapped around it.
Each writhing thread of the skein was a Hop-worm.
‘Isn’t this a bit more than ‘nothing’?’
The orcs were one thing, but this was on another level.
There had to be at least several hundred of them.
If the Hop-worms were to head down, it would be a catastrophe.
Even in a world accustomed to disasters, there was a limit to how nonchalant one could be.
Pop. Pop.
Several of the worms burst open.
From between the burst flesh, winged Mothman hatchlings appeared.
They were the size of an adult man, their bodies covered in white wings.
Between the wings, large, owl-like eyes were visible.
A few of the hatchlings that met my gaze charged at me.
I sliced through a hatchling's wings.
For a moment, a faint spark flickered at the tip of my sword.
“Hmm.”
After killing one hatchling, I realized what was happening.
A fire flickered inside the gemstone of the ring I got from Choi Soo-hyun.
On a hunch, I infused the ring with my mana.
Flames traveled up my hand and instantly enveloped my sword.
It was a bit tricky to control, but not impossible.
Seeing the flames, the Hop-worms flinched and backed away.
It seemed fire was their weakness, just like before.
Choi Soo-hyun hadn’t given me the ring for no reason.
I relentlessly swung my flame-wreathed sword at the charging Hop-worms.
The fire inflicted greater damage on the Hop-worms.
The Hop-worms' blood instantly ignited when the flames touched it.
The Hop-worms clinging to the Mothman began to fall off one by one from the heat.
I swung my sword toward the Mothman egg on the rooftop.
At that moment, the egg suddenly leaped high into the air.
“Wait…”
An egg isn't supposed to fly!
The egg, having leaped high, fell toward me as if with intent.
The egg finally came to a stop after crashing through several floors of the building.
I looked down through the round hole in the building.
Because of the egg, the nearby Hop-worms and Mothmen fell into the building's interior.
“They’re not going to bill me for this, are they?”
It's not my fault the building got damaged.
Just as I was debating whether to go down, a gust of wind rose from below, and something shot up.
A large Mothman that had broken out of the egg soared into the sky like a rocket.