The Moonstone Ring

Kim Sujeong and Dad came home around evening. Whatever talks they'd had, they seemed to have ended on good terms.

"Deal's done!"

She dropped to her knees in front of me—I was flat on the sofa, watching TV—and launched into the report she'd put in order.

"The Recovery Herbs and the leaves—Jihyun already had a contract to brew them into potions and sell at market rate, so we agreed not to push the price any higher. We only hauled those in to flex a little in front of the company people anyway. The Sunro Mushrooms, though? I checked. Stuff that raises your stats doesn't exist on the market. At all. Feels like a special mushroom that only grows on our farm, so I figured we should be the ones setting the price. Sold the whole lot at five million won a pop."

The Corrupted Recovery Herbs had, somehow or other, turned into the centerpiece of this farm expedition of ours. They were Recovery Herbs steeped in chaotic energy, so whether better options had stuck to them or not was beside the point—the grade itself came out at a baseline of A-. Some of the berries had even graded A, and expectations were running high that the potions brewed from them would sit in an entirely different class from the D+ to C- stuff they'd been making before. In that sense, Sujeong wasn't entirely wrong to call them a prop for showing off.

From where the distribution company's people sat, Recovery Herbs were rare and endlessly in demand, and here they were turning up by the hundreds every week, steady as anything—and even that wasn't the whole of it, with the grades themselves running premium. How much was any of this worth? They'd have no choice but to start calculating, and no choice, at the same time, but to look at Kim Sujeong, who'd walked in carrying the lot, and decide she was someone remarkable. Seizing the initiative. That was the right name for it.

She'd taken that and used it as a weapon, and sold the Sunro Mushrooms off entire. Normally they were traded by weight, one intact mushroom at a time; grind it, steam it, or scatter it on as a topping, and that was the buyer's affair. They usually moved somewhere between two and two-and-a-half million won. Ours, by contrast, carried an option—Strength +1 for twenty-four hours, when cooked and eaten. A ceiling of rank C hung on it, true, but a single mushroom could be worked into a considerable amount of food, which meant it could serve as doping inside a dungeon.

Blowing five million won a day just to dope yourself did seem, at a glance, like it might be too steep. But that was only the price we were selling to Gwangjin Distribution at, and when Dad sold them on he'd tack his own margin onto it. Even so, there would be buyers. Five million won was a burden if you were spending it alone for the sake of a gourmet meal, but if ten or more hunters put up that five million to raise everyone's stats by one rank for a day, then it stopped being five million. It became five hundred thousand won a head to lift the whole party's rank by one.

We'd brought back hundreds of Sunro Mushrooms, so on this alone the ghost company Sujeong had single-handedly slapped the name Suhyun Company onto had already posted nearly a billion won in sales. This time, too, it did feel like we were spending ahead of ourselves. The mushrooms had been piling up for a good while, and we'd harvested the lot in one sweep—right down to the share that was supposed to go to the Black Monkeys as tribute. A harvest on this scale wouldn't come easily again for some time.

"And the other medicinal herbs all have pretty solid effects, and a lot of them came with Hero options, so they said they'd sort the batch in one go and send a price. They'll take them, barring anything strange. Last thing—the gray wolf hides. Those, um... they said it might take a few days?"

"No blacksmith?"

"Nope. They said they'd need an appraisal first. Dad knows a blacksmith on the accessory side, but he doesn't really know anyone for armor, so he's going to ask that accessory blacksmith to look into it. B+ hides are a first for me too, and I searched and almost nothing came up."

"Yeah. Whatever."

Truth was, I didn't much care what the cash came to. If I'd left it in someone else's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hands, I'd have watched with my eyes burning to see whether they pocketed so much as ten won—but we were selling to Dad's company. So long as we walked away with every won we were owed, letting him keep whatever profit lay beyond that was probably the only filial piety a son who'd loafed for twenty-six years could offer. Sujeong had likely gone in and dealt with much the same feeling.

"Hehe. It is convenient, Dad being president of a distribution company. Cut any old sloppy deal and he pretends he lost and takes it anyway. From what I saw, this stuff means you have to go do sales with the guilds too, and it's stupid complicated. And Dad's been really stressed over exactly that lately, you know."

"Worked out, then."

"I heard the potions from last time got sold to Geumbit Guild? Wonder if they'll deal with them again. Oh—Geumbit Guild is the one Hyoju's in, right? Think I could meet her?"

"Who's that. Some celebrity?"

"You don't know Seo Hyoju? Seo Hyoju! One of the ten S-rank hunters in all of Korea! The summoner, Seo Hyoju."

"Fewer S-ranks than I thought."

"You think S-rank grows on trees? Ten is plenty."

Considering the ranks went all the way up to SS, my own thinking was that there ought to be a few hundred S-ranks. Farming World and reality weren't the same, so it wasn't that I couldn't understand it. Worldwide, they said, S-rank hunters did number in the hundreds.

"She pretty?"

"Oh, please. Obviously she's pretty. She's all over YouTube. You've seriously never seen her, not even once? She's probably been on TV too."

"Like I would have."

"Right... forget it."

From the rough account, it was easy to see why she'd be popular. Pretty, an S-rank hunter, and third team leader of Geumbit Guild, a guild ranked third overall. Only three or four years since she'd awakened, and her level was already past fifty—and standing behind Geumbit Guild was Geumbit Group.

Second in the business ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rankings, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠yes, but second place wasn't somewhere you could afford to shrug off. She was the youngest granddaughter of that Geumbit Group's chairman. The YouTube channel she'd built on their unqualified support and sponsorship had gone famous across the world, and she'd claimed a seat as an influencer on top of it all.

"Geumbit, Hansu—everyone in the hunter business is just printing money."

Lay the circumstances out like that, and it really did seem a hunter couldn't get by on ability alone. Only in fantasy novels did one power let you crawl out of a ditch like a dragon and devour everything in your path. Reality, in the end, wanted money even from hunters. S-rank ability or SS-rank ability, it hardly mattered.

Something on the order of SS-rank might be enough to start overturning that. But raising your level took good gear, and without money set aside, good gear meant a sponsor—which meant, in the end, no choice but to go under someone who already had it. Unless you were a woman like Seo Hyoju, born with a gold spoon in your mouth and an S-rank ability handed to you besides.

A bitter reality. The ones thrashing in the space between were ordinary people, and that was ordinary life. Our dad was one of them. It weighed on me, a little.

"Dad's home."

Not long after Sujeong finished her report, Dad came back as well. He gave the bottle of soju he'd brought a shake and called for pork belly for dinner, and for the first time in a long while a meal was laid for all four of us at the family table.

Dad at the grill, turning the meat. How long had it been since I'd tipped back a glass of soju with them...

First time, actually.

"Thank you, Suhyun."

"Yes?"

I'd just been thinking that this had more romance to it than roasting tasty big rat or gray wolf out in the open—family settled in close, Mom's soybean paste stew on the table, pork belly searing on the grill—when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Dad, a little tipsy, came out with a confession and caught me flat.

Thanks for what.

It was a bit awkward, and when I looked at him properly, Dad seemed embarrassed too. He couldn't meet my eyes. The confession spilled out in a ramble.

"There's this annoying bastard—not a friend of mine, exactly, but he turns up at the friends' gatherings. Yoo Hyunjong. Runs Hyunjong Distribution, the prick. Third son of Hansu Group, too. You have no idea how he's looked down on your old man. Keeping me in check—well, I wouldn't go that far, but the way he gets in the way. Aigoo. Still, this time, thanks to you, Suhyun, I got to square my shoulders a bit. You've helped a great deal."

It was the first time Dad had talked about anything like this. Of course it was. I'd been a son who didn't talk to him at all. Seeing him this way, pride came welling up.

Must have been hard on him...

Not that I was the type who could actually sympathize. Getting a little angry, though—that I couldn't help.

"Who looks down on Dad! Yoo Hyunjong? Hansu Group is the number one group, isn't it? If you're going to be an obnoxious chaebol, go play with other chaebols—why's he doing that to Dad?"

One glass in her, Sujeong flared right up and set about comforting him.

"It's all right. That's just how society is. Still, thanks to the two of you, Suhyun and Sujeong, the company's making it through the crisis. That other business doesn't matter. I was truly worried the company might actually be in danger, and this is good. Hah..."

"Dad. Just wait. Before long I'll have your company flatten that obnoxious man's and take the number one spot."

"Thank you, my girl."

"I mean it. I bet my whole life on Oppa's farm, didn't I?"

Sujeong wrote checks she couldn't cash, and she wrote them without a flicker of hesitation. I gave a short laugh and made no particular move to stop her.

The number one group in the country wasn't a title you claimed or lost overnight. That was a company raised across hundreds of years. But it wasn't as if anyone else was listening. And as I saw it, it wouldn't be easy—only, it wouldn't be impossible either. We were family, above all. What did it matter.

We laughed and chattered, and then Dad seemed to remember something, and drew a ring from inside his coat.

"This. A friend of Dad's put real care into making it."

"Wait—what. That's moonstone?"

The moonstone ring I'd let slip my mind for a while. It seemed it was finally finished.

Dad smacked his lips, reluctant, and asked once more.

"You're really not going to sell this?"

It was a ring that earned every rueful smack of the lips.