The Sweet Old Man in Heat
If someone asked me what I hate most in the world, I could name it without a second thought. Number one, every time: a sweet old man who doesn't know his place and paws at a young woman like he's somebody.
I never lived as a woman, so I didn't see many men like that while I was playing Farming World. Even so, the first one I laid eyes on shot straight to the top of my disgust rankings. He hit every trademark note of the type so perfectly it was almost impressive.
"Hey. You get in here by kissing up to pigs like that?"
"Are you insane? You actually trying to die?"
Kim Sujeong shrieked it at me, forgetting I even had the voice crystal on me, then hurriedly dropped her voice and started making excuses.
"That guy's an A- rank tank. I asked them to open one extra slot because of you, he butted in and said a few words, and now he's acting like this. You think I'm crazy? A potbellied, balding uncle... Like I'm lacking something... shit..."
"Sure. Going around doing that is a privilege only women get to enjoy these days, so I won't give you grief. Just don't pull it on just anybody. If you're going to, he ought to be at least SS+ rank before he can make up for an uncle like th—"
"Oh, you crazy bastard. I said that's not it."
Watching Kim Sujeong flare up was deeply satisfying.
My pity for my poor little sister, out here grinding through workplace politics, lasted about a second. It was the path she'd chosen, and she'd picked a road where you couldn't simply report something like this and be done with it. That said, the uncle did seem pretty bad.
"Sujeong. Oppa bought a new jacket today. What do you think?"
"It's... nice."
"Goes well with the shield, doesn't it? Almost like a couple look with you. Haha."
"Hahaha..."
"Just trust Oppa and stay behind me. If you get too scared, you can even hold onto Oppa's waist."
Honestly, I thought I was on a hidden-camera show. Was this the bit where they started filming the second I showed up and I was supposed to gag from how disgusting it was?
The funny part was that the other hunters wore the exact same revolted looks and still couldn't say a word. Was a hunter's rank really this powerful inside a dungeon? An A- rank did sit inside the top one percent, sure, but still.
It felt worse because the three or so hunters who trailed that uncle like a little gang were snickering right along with him. If he'd been the only one in the party acting like that, you could ostracize him or ignore him and be done. Nearly half of them were going along with it, though, and in the end the side with more power gets the louder voice. They even pulled their weight in actual combat, so the mood had settled into Kim Sujeong and the rest of the hunters basically getting carried. There was a clear tendency to just endure it.
"Damn, hyung. That tanking is filthy."
"That's a real field veteran for you. Huh? He sends monsters off the same way he sends women off."
"Ha... he's being a real piece of shit today."
During a short break, Kim Sujeong dropped down beside me and launched into how fucked the whole thing was. I hadn't asked. She spilled every grievance all on her own.
"I asked them to make one slot for you, and now he keeps demanding I grant his requests too."
"Didn't ask."
"..."
"Who told you to make me one?"
I sounded like a cold older brother, but this really wasn't a spot I'd requested. Why was she suffering over work nobody had told her to do? If it were happening somewhere I couldn't see, maybe I could let it go. Watching my little sister get worked over by an uncle practically dripping with it, though, pretending not to notice didn't sit right either.
How was I supposed to handle this? Wreck the place and flip the whole thing over, nice and clean? Then Kim Sujeong gets the leave-the-guild ending, and I'd be the one stuck cleaning up afterward. That didn't sit right. She hadn't even asked me for help. Stepping in and overdoing it wouldn't be a good look.
I was still turning it over when, fortunately, they picked the fight first.
"Haha. Sujeong's oppa—you only awakened recently, right?"
"Yeah. Has it been about a week?"
Kim Sujeong answered with the usual bored, perfunctory line. He was clearly waiting for some reward, or at least a response, for the help he'd given her, and when it didn't come he got thoroughly pissed. It was obvious he meant to swing the target onto me.
Torment the brother, and Kim Sujeong—who had even secured a dungeon slot out of concern for that brother—might agree to meet him for her family's sake. Some brain-dead idea along those lines, probably.
I played dumb and answered him earnestly.
"Your rank? You register as a hunter?"
"Not yet."
"Heh. Rank must be low."
"Not that high."
If you looked only at melee weapons, I had the highest rank in the world. My real job, though, was farmer. I could pick whatever I wanted and be an SSS+ rank hunter or an F-rank hunter, but right now I had to be an F-rank farmer.
"What. E-rank? D-rank? Don't tell me F-rank?"
"My main is F-rank... technically..."
"I knew it. Our Sujeong isn't the kind of loose woman who just throws favors around, but she begged me in tears. Please, just let my oppa into a dungeon once."
"Oh yeah? You really didn't have to."
"Now, now. A man doesn't need to be that ashamed of taking help from his little sister. Not your sister—me. I helped because I was thinking of Sujeong. Just think of it as help you got from me."
He set a hand on my shoulder and gave it a few pats. I brushed his arm off and asked.
"But I heard the guild master made the slot. You keep going on about how you made it, how you didn't, and I'm getting confused. Are you the guild master?"
I asked it with a face that said I genuinely didn't know, and the uncle's expression crumpled. He'd probably caught the real meaning underneath. You're not even the guild master, so why are you running your mouth? The hunters beside him went ugly too.
"You're not, right?"
"What are you doing. I'm sorry, Team Leader. My oppa's new to dungeons... You idiot. He already said he isn't the guild master."
The air was one spark from blowing. Kim Sujeong rushed over and stopped me. I couldn't tell if she was stopping me or serving me up alongside her. Things got even sharper, but the situation ended there for the moment.
The problem started after that.
"Three monsters, here!"
The uncle who had spent the whole run glued in front of Kim Sujeong with that sweat-stinking body of his started, at some point, conspicuously drifting off the moment a fight broke out. Then he went further and deliberately took a position that left her exposed to the monsters. It was blatantly intentional. Kim Sujeong bit her lip, but she didn't say anything. She knew that raising it here would only put her in a worse spot.
I was standing beside her, and I asked like I didn't know a thing.
"Mages aren't supposed to have monsters come at them, right?"
As if they'd been waiting for it, I heard sneers through clenched teeth.
"Then you can protect her. You've got a sword, so you look like a damage dealer. You can handle one or two, can't you?"
"Huh? I'm allowed to kill them?"
"Of course. Isn't that why you came to the dungeon? I doubt a guy with a dick on him came all this way just to grind up against his little sister's ass."
They were picking a fight, outright. I went quiet, a little pissed, then asked.
"If I kill them... do I get a cut too?"
"What? A cut? Kahahaha!"
Even in the middle of a fight they kept running their mouths, which told me these hunters were at least solid where skill was concerned. High rank to begin with, and in a C- rank dungeon they could trade jokes or insults while they fought. That was probably why they bit so hard on my clumsy little provocation. They were looking at me like I was less than nothing. The things they said while they provoked me weren't empty talk. They said them because they actually believed them.
"A share, you said? Fine, I'll give you one. Ten monsters, by yourself. No—kill even one and I'll hand over my entire cut for today! Dumbass. You wedge your way into a dungeon as a tagalong and think you own the world? Go on. Try it."
Get angry, and you lose. I had never really understood those words until now.
If I had to describe my personality, it probably wasn't far from this uncle's. Twisted, pathetic, no social sense, and incapable of thinking about anyone but myself. But once I had an SSS+ rank ability, even a personality that stupid came with a little room to breathe. I found I didn't want to sink into being an idiot right there with him.
"Why the insults... You said you'd give me a share, so I'll take a spoonful."
I wasn't saying it to mock them. I'd come into the dungeon, done nothing, and only trailed the tank uncle at Kim Sujeong's side because there was no reason I had to do anything. I'd tagged along in the first place to see how much a real dungeon differed from one in Farming World. Now that I was here, I didn't feel a huge difference.
If I had to name one, the dungeons in Farming World were field dungeons sitting in an open world, built a little more naturally into the map. Earth's dungeons felt like someone had gone somewhere, cut out a block of that dungeon biome, and dropped it here. The monsters that showed up, and the resources you walked away with, were about the same. That was it.
I wasn't even being paid to be here, and stepping up wasn't going to earn me a share of my own, so there was no point. No reason to go out of my way and kill monsters. I'd just been watching. If they were going to give me a cut, though, that changed things.
Honestly, even if they meant it, I was already set to receive fifty million won. I had no desire to do something annoying just to split pocket change out of a dungeon. Still, seeing my little sister stuck like that, I suppose I was a brother after all. I wanted to stick my nose in, just a little.
I drew the Sewer Sword I'd hung at my hip purely for the look, and sneers rose from the uncle and the other hunters.
"Look at that. He even bought a sword."
"An F-rank, with a sword?"
"Ooh, scary. You do know the monsters here have a defense of at least 10—"
Before the sneering even finished, I cut down all five monsters in front of me in a single stroke. They were monkey-types, easily twice a human's size, with B- rank stamina, and I hadn't expected that even I would drop them in one hit. Master of Melee Weapons or not, 1,100% attack power or not, this was something else.
While everyone stood there with faces that couldn't make sense of it, I looked down at the Sewer Sword in my hand with a face that couldn't make sense of it either.
"This thing is fucking strong..."
An A- rank sword was fucking ridiculous.