The SSS+ Hunter License
"Ah. Sorry. I should've stuck to a single skill. You didn't use a defensive skill, did you?"
Startled, I hurried over to Team Leader Kim Jinhyeop and asked.
The first blow had felt, plainly enough, like something he could weather, so I'd cheerfully unloaded the other four. Then the extra hits stacked on—nine more strikes in all—and the shield blew apart in an instant. Team Leader Kim Jinhyeop took the shock full-on and went flying.
"Uh..."
He seemed to need a moment to catch up with what had happened. Staring blankly at the wreckage of the shield, he muttered.
"It broke..."
"Yeah... looks that way."
"Hah..."
"It wasn't a good one, right? Fell apart way too easily. Practice gear, I guess."
"..."
The shield had been handsome enough, but I hadn't taken it for a quality item. Who brings the main weapon they carry into a dungeon to a simple test? They'd handed me a wooden sword, so I'd assumed he'd just grabbed some practice piece they kept around the sparring hall. That would explain why a single attack of mine had smashed it.
"Yes... it was an A- rank shield."
"...Pardon?"
"It's all right."
Team Leader Kim Jinhyeop got to his feet, brushed the fragments off his clothes, and apologized.
"I'm sorry. Allow me to begin with an apology."
"...Why are you apologizing?"
"To be honest, I thought it highly likely you were lying. It was a case I had never once seen, so I took it for an ability that forges status windows. I don't even know whether such an ability exists, but..."
Hunter abilities really do come in every shape. Beyond the ones everyone knows, there are plenty that make you wonder what kind of nonsense ability that even is, so doubting whether something like a forged window could exist was fair enough.
"Ah. I see."
"Please don't concern yourself over the shield. It happened during the test, and the carelessness was mine. Even at full strength, I'm not sure I could have blocked it."
Along with the apology, Team Leader Kim Jinhyeop conceded the point.
"SSS+ rank... To think something this good could happen in Korea."
And he said he would have a hunter license made for me.
The rest of the conversation continued in his office.
"Forgive the impertinent question, but did you truly awaken through Farming World?"
"Honestly, I don't really know. I just awakened, and the status window came up like this. I don't understand it myself, so explaining it properly is awkward. I was only talking around it."
"Ah..."
Telling them nothing and simply insisting I was SSS+ rank was not a smart play. Getting a hunter license issued meant disclosing things to the Hunter Association anyway, and as for why and how I'd awakened, a careful mix of lie and truth would let them draw their own conclusions. I didn't know the real reason with any precision myself.
And there was a reason I had to bring up Farming World, even if it was more than they needed to hear.
"Then the transactions that will be traced back to you, Hunter—did you enter into them without filing a report?"
The Hunter Association might as well be the tax authority of the hunter world. They loosen the reins on hunters' taxes and encourage them to register and work in Korea, but that doesn't mean they look the other way. If anything, tax evasion and money problems outside of hunter activity get checked even more strictly.
My case was especially bad. I hadn't even registered as a hunter. The moment I awakened, I'd sold off several hundred million won in hunter resources through my dad and taken the payout. Not the sort of thing that gets you caught on the spot, but more than enough to climb onto the list of suspicious circumstances.
"Mm... You saw it, right? There's a map on my Farming Window. That's actually my main ability. I have a dungeon of my own. I call it a farm, and it's got quite a lot of resources. That's where I bring them from."
"..."
"I'm telling you this because the Association's internal rules say a hunter's personal information isn't to be leaked. Someone in your position looks high enough up that I'm willing to trust you with it."
"By any chance..."
"If you're about to ask whether you can go see it, no. I think I've already said plenty."
What I'd given him was the minimum I needed to say if I wanted to operate comfortably out in the real world. I had no intention whatsoever of walking him through my farm and laying everything I owned out in the open. Even that much I'd only offered because I figured the Hunter Association wasn't the incompetent pack of morons my common sense had painted them as. If they turned out to be exactly that, I still had plenty of options.
I didn't even need to think about it. Make it public that I was an SSS+ rank hunter and the whole world would come courting. You could see how much emigration that kind of attention had already caused just by watching nations more obsessive about taxes than anyone still hand hunters their tax freedom.
"My apologies. That was rude of me. I'll give you the hunter license as soon as it's ready. And..."
Team Leader Kim Jinhyeop chose his next words with care.
"...This is a proposal we extend as a matter of course. It is also a privilege of the Hunter Association, and you of course have every right to refuse. Would you be interested in affiliating with the Hunter Association?"
"Oh... I heard the bar for getting scouted was insanely high."
I'd thought about it myself. It wasn't common, but dig around online and you could find posts on the subject. The story went that a high-rank hunter who came in to register got good terms and an invitation to join the Association.
Of course, look at the comments and most of them ran the same way.
Still, there were hunters who belonged to the Association, and those hunters deployed out of it, so I'd figured it wasn't a total lie. What I actually wanted to know was the offer itself.
"Contracts are handled by a separate staff member. The terms are something you should discuss with them."
"Then would it be all right if I heard them out?"
"Of course. I'll show you over once your hunter ID is ready."
"All right."
With the business done, Kim Jinhyeop shifted into something more personal.
"Still, that was truly remarkable. It's the first time I've felt power this overwhelming. And your level is still only 10..."
"Ah. Right. That shield—it really was A-?"
"Yes. I wasn't blocking at full power, but I did use a defensive skill, and I never thought it would break in a single hit. Haha..."
"Yikes..."
"It really is fine, so please don't let it weigh on you. I was the one who suggested the test."
I wasn't particularly letting it weigh on me. I'd warned him. I didn't know my own strength, so he ought to go all out on his own. If he had, would that have kept the shield from breaking? I couldn't be sure of that either, but in case he asked me to pay for it, I hurried the subject along.
"Is the treatment good? A guild is usually better than signing on with a state agency like this, isn't it? Is it a strong sense of duty?"
Given my personality, joining a Hunter Association bound to a country like this wasn't a particularly good choice. I had a rough idea of what the Association's hunters actually did. They were basically hunter civil servants. The terms would obviously be good. Do every kind of job there is, and if they don't at least pay a lot, why would a high-rank hunter bother walking in? That was my thinking.
On that point, Kim Jinhyeop spoke with confidence.
"The rumor that the Hunter Association is stingy with hunter contracts is, I can say without hesitation, false. From what I've seen working in this field, I can tell you with certainty that the Association leaves its hunters far freer than some of the top guilds, and that it is better when it comes to signing bonuses and hunter benefits."
"That good?"
In the hunter market, the hunter is the resource. The better the tool you use to dig those resources up, the better the haul you can pull, and the more stably you can keep it coming. So the guilds that manage hunters—and the Hunter Association with them—all want, one way or another, to bring good hunters in at a good price.
The problem is that demand is enormous and the supply of good hunters is a trickle, so a "good price" and a "good listing" can never both be true. A good listing only bothers to glance your way once the price turns expensive.
"I can't tell you the exact signing bonus, but speaking from my own case, I'll say only this much. The bonus alone was over ten billion won."
"Whoa..."
I'd have to hear more before I knew for sure, but on the number alone, it did sound pretty decent.
"The hunter license is ready, Team Leader."
"Ah. There it is."
The hunter license looked a lot like a national ID. A name, a photo, and a rank.
"If you infuse mana into this part—like so."
Kim Jinhyeop took out his own license and infused it with mana, and above the card the license unfolded in a form much like a status window.
"Ooh."
"It's the latest technology. You infuse mana the same way you open a status window—by willing it. If that's difficult, you may set a command phrase instead."
"Oh. It works."
Infusing mana was easy. My hunter license spread open before my eyes.
Name:Kim Suhyun
Hunter Rank:SSS+
Ability:Melee Weapons
Simple as it was, the line that read International Hunter Association was what certified the license.
"This can't be forged?"
"Of course it can. If it is stolen or lost, what matters is that you report it to the Hunter Association at once."
"Right. Thank you."
"Then I'll show you to the contracts staff."
"All right."
The talk with the staff member wasn't nearly as interesting as the one with Kim Jinhyeop. Hunter registration, and a simple scouting offer. I listened with a reasonable amount of interest and walked out of the Hunter Association.