The Rolling Stone Displaces the Settled One
The raid contest that had broken out between the Guui-dong Necromancer and the Mir Guild.
Park Minho’s fame had been climbing steeply of late, yet this was nothing more than a minor dispute over a C-rank gate. Almost no one knew about it.
Or so it had seemed.
……
The moment the contest results dropped, articles poured out in a flood.
Even without releasing the body cams, the fact that Mir’s attack captain Min Taesu had lost an arm spread quietly through the grapevine.
And that was not all. Mir Guild made no response whatsoever to this latest disgrace. More precisely, they could not.
“Ha.”
Guildmaster Yong Cheonwoo let out a hollow laugh as he stared at the articles flooding the internet. All because of some D-rank brat, Mir’s prestige had been shaken.
It was not a major blow. Just a small incident among newcomers. Whether Minho could even grow beyond B-rank remained an open question. If the kid ever gained true insight and climbed higher, Yong Cheonwoo could always crush him then.
The real problem was that the guild’s honor had been tarnished by a mere D-ranker.
I thought he was no ordinary guy. But to think he even took down Min Taesu…
Through the body cams he already knew exactly what had happened on site. A talent everyone expected to reach A-rank for certain—someone Yong Cheonwoo himself had kept an eye on—had failed to respond properly and surrendered an arm.
Park Minho. I have to step on him somehow.
Yong Cheonwoo cut off the thought. Right now, dealing with Minho mattered less than the public opinion itself.
“What has the PR director been doing all this time?”
“I-I’m sorry, sir.”
“I value actions over words.”
“We’re responding right now. Please wait just a moment.”
“Get out.”
The PR director who had been summoned to the office left Yong Cheonwoo’s room with a face gone deathly pale and immediately began hounding his staff.
“Block them! Why the hell are those bastards running these articles?!”
“It looks like Chilseong is intervening.”
“What? Those sons of bitches. So this is how they want to screw us over?!”
The five major guilds known as the domestic Big Five. Strictly speaking, even among those five there was a split into two strong and three weak. Chilseong and Mir—the two organizations ranked as Korea’s absolute top—had always competed.
But this time the situation was a little different.
“Do they think their turn will never come?”
“If the Big Five’s standing gets shaken, it won’t be good for them either.”
The one who had put a scratch on Mir Guild was a rookie hunter belonging to a private agency. Even if Chilseong intervened, there was nothing for them to gain. Cutting down Mir’s name value? Why didn’t they understand they could be hit the same way?
“Call Chilseong again.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mir Guild’s PR department ran themselves ragged until their feet sweated, yet once public opinion caught fire there was no sign of it dying down.
“Playing with fire is always fun.”
Baek Seonghyeon smiled faintly as he looked over the internet articles.
“Director. Us putting in effort for you is only this once.”
“It’s mutually beneficial, isn’t it?”
He had even leveraged his old workplace connections to feed this incident to the mass media.
“Please don’t worry about coordinating schedules with Hunter Park Minho.”
In the past, when he had been a guild director, these team-leader-level people wouldn’t even meet his eyes. Yet Baek Seonghyeon still attached polite honorifics to every sentence.
I have to know my place.
He had not transferred to one of the domestic Big Five that stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Chilseong. He was merely the CEO of an agency managing a single currently hot hunter. That was Baek Seonghyeon’s present reality.
“Whew. You absolutely have to keep the part you promised.”
Chilseong Guild’s PR department repeatedly urged him to honor the agreement. Gates had entry restrictions. Using C- to D-rank as the standard, there was no hunter in the country who surpassed Minho. Even Chilseong was not immune to ending up in the same situation as Mir. At least when it came to lower-rank gates, Park Minho had been confirmed as a typhoon of a person one must never get entangled with. Mir Guild had simply become the sacrificial offering that announced the typhoon’s landfall. The other domestic Big Five would certainly keep a close watch on Minho’s future movements. As long as they never crossed paths, it was fine. Coordinating Minho’s gate raid schedule was Baek Seonghyeon’s responsibility—and that was why Chilseong had taken the risk of lending strength to the public-opinion war.
“Of course.”
After pressing the end-call button, he leaned back in his chair.
“Hwaaaaaah.”
He was exhausted. Yesterday afternoon he had poured everything into preparing for the gate raid, and today was just as busy. Post-raid cleanup, the media war—there was no end to the things that needed attention. Yet Baek Seonghyeon did not dislike the fatigue pressing down on his shoulders.
It’s been a long time since I felt like this.
He remembered when he had first joined Chilseong. Back then he had lived every day in a frantic scramble for promotion. Age had stolen some of his stamina, but it felt as if he had returned to those days.
Grabbing Hunter Park was the best decision I ever made.
Min Taesu. The rookie Mir Guild had recently been pushing hard. When Baek Seonghyeon was still at Chilseong he had regretted failing to recruit the man. The personality had been a bit sharp, but talent and skill had been rock-solid. And yet that same Min Taesu’s attack squad had been completely overwhelmed.
Hunter Park is truly incredible.
When they had told him to take responsibility for Jung Shinho’s defection, rage at being cast out by the company he had loyally served his entire life had eaten away at his heart. Now it was different. Being driven out of Chilseong—no, walking out on his own two feet—had turned into a blessing in disguise. To think he could now care for an outstanding hunter like Minho with his own hands. He might even be able to create a great hunter who would leave footprints not only in Korea but across the entire world.
The excitement would not stop.
Hunter Park. I will support you with everything I have.
Baek Seonghyeon, who had seized a golden rope, wore the smile of a victor.
I still don’t understand how winning the contest against Mir Guild somehow got twisted into “he beat every last one of those hunters into the ground.”
Thump!
“Ow.”
“Anyone watching would think we had a street brawl.”
“Isn’t a contest just fighting and stuff?”
“It’s a contest over who takes down the boss monster faster.”
Honestly. Hunters aren’t supposed to scuffle and chop off arms. Anyone would think we were gangsters.
【I did sever one arm, however.】
That was Sir Isra’s doing. I didn’t cut it, so it doesn’t count.
“Minho, are you really okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
Actually it was a big deal.
President Baek Seonghyeooooon!!!!!
The only person who would blow the trumpet like this is that man!!
So media play was included in the post-processing toooooo!!!
【Haha. As expected, a man of remarkable ability.】
【To strive so hard to spread word of my lord’s great deeds… a splendid retainer indeed.】
Stop it. My life is already at zero!
【Worry not about retaliation. I, Isra, shall chastise them with my blade.】
Nah. I’m not worried about retaliation. Jang Minseok already said it. We’ve already completely fallen out with Mir Guild. Whether the media blows the trumpet or not, things with Mir went sour long ago.
The real headache was—
“Eheheh. Looking at the communities, it’s all stories about Oppa.”
—my household mate who was grinning so annoyingly, and—
“You’re really okay, right?”
—reassuring my worried parents.
“Minjeong.”
“Yes, dear older brother.”
“Say one more word. I dare you.”
Sssssss.
My little sister made a zipper-across-the-lips gesture with her index finger. Good. One mouth sealed.
“I already told you earlier. We just competed over one gate and raided it together. That’s all.”
“I see. As long as it wasn’t anything major, that’s a relief.”
“Minho will handle it just fine. Stop fretting and let’s eat.”
“This man has the two characters for ‘worry’ written all over his face and still only says the right things.”
Father had no comeback to Mother’s counterattack. The family was collapsing, society was collapsing……
“Oppa, you’re thinking weird thoughts again, aren’t you?”
“I’m deep in serious contemplation.”
“What is it, what is it?”
“It’s a secret.”
I ignored Minjeong’s suspicious stare and reached for the chicken.
“Ahhh! My drumstick!”
“You didn’t even spit on it to claim it.”
Chicken drumsticks don’t have owners. The first person to put it in their mouth owns it.
Munch munch—
Nom nom.
“Yeah. This is the taste.”
“Hey! Youuuu!!!”
“Losers go fetch the cola from over there.”
Even the noisy dinner caused by my sister’s internet gossip somehow passed without disaster.
The gate raid contest we had fought against Mir Guild. The effects showed up the very next day.
“I’ve locked in the gate schedule.”
“You said it would be hard to win the bids.”
“Every place Mir interfered with is now available for us to use.”
For the time being, whenever Mir Guild and I both bid on a gate, priority would go to our side.
Wait a second.
“How many did we bid on?”
“With the checks coming in, one by one……”
“So not that many, I guess.”
“We won a total of twenty.”
Uh.
Hold on a minute. Is there water in my ears? I’m not hearing you properly.
“There’s plenty of time, so you can take them slowly.”
“Ah, ahahaha.”
“I’m sorry. Honestly I grabbed a bit too many.”
“No, no. More work is good.”
But I asked for five days a week guaranteed and you bring me a mountain of work—what am I supposed to do? Should I just go seven days a week and finish them all in three weeks?
Anyway.
Just as President Baek said, after the raid contest Mir Guild’s interference vanished completely. Well, strictly speaking only the gate-bidding problem had been solved.
“What kind of moves do you think Mir will make?”
“They can’t touch us for now.”
President Baek answered like a knife.
“There are plenty of ways to harass a freelance hunter, but the timing is bad right now.”
Every media outlet had their nerves stretched taut over my every move. One wrong step and they could catch the reverse wind.
“It’s just one freelancer, though?”
“Hunter Park has me standing behind him, doesn’t he?”
Creating such a huge issue by even using the Chilseong Guild line this time was for that very reason, he said. President Baek gave me a long, complicated explanation, but I roughly grasped the gist.
“Anyway, I just have to keep raiding gates hard, right?”
“Yes. As long as Hunter Park’s topicality doesn’t die, Mir won’t be able to lay a hand on you directly.”
“That’s good.”
Getting stronger? I was more confident at that than anyone.
One week later.
Current level is 100.
This is the limit level. You must promote in order to advance to the next level.