Chapter 9
Chapter 9
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 9
Chapter Title: New Goal, Penthouse on a Skyscraper
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Squeeze.
When I pressed down on the surface with some force from my fingers.
Boing.
The perfect elasticity pushed my fingers back.
"Truly amazing...."
Lee Ye-hwa, vice guild master of New Moon—one of the five major guilds—was fiddling with the recently popular Molrangtori, letting out one exclamation after another.
She could certainly call herself lucky to have obtained such a rare item.
Of course, she had mobilized as many guild members as possible for that lottery event with ten winners.
But considering that all the other top five guilds except New Moon had failed, she was definitely fortunate.
Sparkle, sparkle.
Faint flecks like stardust floated on the surface of the mysterious tool.
'Probably finely ground mana stone powder applied on it.'
Ye-hwa was an S-rank adventurer herself, with plenty of experience subjugating pudding slimes.
Each time, the sticky texture had been a real annoyance... but they'd solved it using mana stone powder.
"A brilliant idea."
No one had known about this until now.
Pudding slimes had briefly been a subject of major research before being quickly abandoned.
Sure, their ability to swallow anything was a clear merit, but turning that into a practical, commercialized tool involved too many hurdles.
From the monster's rarity itself to how it melted away completely upon death, and more.
They'd even tried taming them, but the fragments created that way melted down soon after.
"How in the world... did they do it?"
She wanted to uncover the creator's identity by any means necessary.
But the hunter community strictly protected users' identities. Unless they revealed themselves, it was hard to figure out.
Even the community messages—the only contact method—hadn't reached the creator.
He, or perhaps she, seemed to be rejecting offers from all guilds.
"......"
Her head throbbed.
Too many strange things had been happening lately.
The high-rank monsters occasionally appearing in Seoul's skies were headache enough, and now an inventory creator had shown up.
There were even reports of gate monsters attacking each other.
None of it had any leads—it was utterly frustrating.
"Hoo...."
Ye-hwa let out a deep sigh and fiddled with the Molrangtori again.
The happy squishiness seemed to heal her weary heart a bit.
**
**
**
"Where... shall we see how much came in~"
After successfully clearing the B-rank gate and selling all the distributed materials, it had taken about two days.
Her first time subjugating a quasi-A-rank monster. So her expectations were sky-high.
Ding!
[JH Hunter Love Future Account (4213) Deposit: 6,320,000 won - (Hunter Points Withdrawal)]
"Whoa...."
She could hardly believe it. Wait, is this for real?
Roughly five hours of work for this much income. Her hourly rate had blown past a million won.
If quasi-A-rank paid this much, just how much were the top 1% hunters raking in?
Truth be told, she still couldn't quite grasp it.
A-rank and above hunters were exceedingly rare, and they never shared their earnings.
Swish.
She drew the curtains and cast her gaze far away.
The place she wanted to take in was Seoul's city center.
As a metropolis, it had plenty of tall buildings, but some stood out prominently among them.
"One, two, three, four... five."
The five skyscrapers that had become Seoul's landmarks.
Owned respectively by the five major guilds: New Moon, Quantum, Zenith, Hwayeon, and White Night.
"Just how much money did they make?"
To build those on Seoul's prime land where per-pyeong prices laughably hit billions.
New Moon made sense—they'd been a massive corporation even before guilds existed.
But the other four had essentially earned it all from hunter-related income. Sure, there was tech development and material sales too.
That was probably why rumors persisted about S-rank gates being secretly managed in the basements of those five skyscrapers.
Swish.
She yanked the curtains shut.
Looking at them made her recent earnings feel pathetic, sapping her motivation for no reason.
The hormones surging again.
Before plunging into gloom, she stood in front of the mirror.
A routine she'd recently adopted to manage her fickle girlish emotions.
Just seeing her cute self filled her with bursting confidence.
"Hehe... perfect!"
Okay. She'd set a new goal.
Earn a ton of money and build a building taller than those skyscrapers.
Then make a penthouse on the rooftop and look down on everyone from there.
Squish!
Molrang, who had been timidly following at her side, hopped up energetically and settled on her head.
"You're gonna look down from higher than me?"
Squish!
"Pfft.... Do whatever you want."
**
**
[Molrangtori《《《 For real, upvote if it doesn't work lololol][Posted by: SuperLuckyGuy]
(Video of pulling out a ton of materials from inside the Molrangtori)
Okay, I admit it.
'WantToRaiseADragon'《《《 You really are a god.
- SoloPlayEnthusiast: Fr lmao it's insane
└(OP): It's legit
- F***ing TikTok b***h
- Stop with the viral posts, it's dogshit
└Yeah right
└Mad cuz you can't get one lol
- How much capacity?
└(OP): Manual says 50kg
└Eh, not that great?
└(OP): It can hold a full 50kg of core materials. That's double full combat load. No porters needed.
Another viral post about the diligently operating Molrangtori today.
She loved how it was all praise for her, but at this point, a bit of wariness crept in.
From lurking and seeing multiple hot posts so far.
Communities had this trait: superfans create haters.
Not that the fans had to do anything wrong—just the pure hype bred resentment in some.
Kinda like Hongdae syndrome? Maybe a default human trait.
Of course, it was still mostly memes for now, and too early...
'Need to ramp up distribution fast.'
Spread it to as many people as possible, draw in buyers to the limit.
Then escape this main gallery.
After that, make her own dedicated gallery like the half-gallery, and start full sales there.
'Could probably just mass-produce without limit, though.'
The two-barrel was already running.
From the previous gate raid results, she realized she could summon the slime in front of her without issue.
With her current mana, she could summon any monster twice a day without strain.
Theoretically, one new barrel per day.
Of course, theory was just theory.
Commanding slimes consumed mana too, so immediate execution was impossible.
'Plus, I want to improve it first before mass-producing.'
Flip.
She turned another page.
What she was diligently reading was the report from SoloPlayEnthusiast.
A whopping ten pages.
Structured perfectly with intro, development, climax, and resolution—like a thesis.
You know that saying?
When you want to show someone the gold standard of theses, show them King Sejong's Hunminjeongeum.
Just like that, SoloPlayEnthusiast's report was a pristine thesis seemingly modeled after Hunminjeongeum.
Ding!
·SoloPlayEnthusiast: Did you get the report?
·WantToRaiseADragon: Yep yep. Reading it now~
·WantToRaiseADragon: But how'd you write it so detailed? Ex-pro?
·SoloPlayEnthusiast: Lived in grad school before becoming a hunter...
Oh dear. Quite the backstory.
No wonder it was so well-written.
Still, SoloPlayEnthusiast, that experience made your life easier.
·WantToRaiseADragon: Anyway, thanks for the detailed report. Will send you the new version right away when it's out lol
This way, he'd know for sure she was hand-picking only him so far.
·SoloPlayEnthusiast: Yes! I'll write another detailed report.
Good, that's right.
Felt like she'd scored an excellent assistant.
Maybe even a faint taste of what professors feel?
Anyway.
SoloPlayEnthusiast's report listed about twenty major and minor issues.
She planned to prioritize them and fix one by one.
The issue that gloriously took first place was...
"Too sticky."
Not about the surface—that was solved with mana stone powder.
The problem was inside the Molrangtori.
About 30% of the time, when pulling materials out from inside, intense stickiness came with it.
That gross slime-specific stickiness.
According to SoloPlayEnthusiast, it got worse as the usage limit approached.
Should she apply mana stone powder inside too, like the surface? That seemed tricky.
"Molrangie. Can't you make it less sticky?"
Squish?
Molrang blinked at her question.
Its characteristically dumb expression suggested it had no idea.
Squish....
Molrang glanced at her cautiously, then slipped onto her lap and closed its eyes.
Fatigue from producing a fragment just before.
From Molrang's perspective, it was cutting off its own flesh... no wonder it was tired.
Still, it had insane regenerative power—fully recovered in about three hours.
"How to solve this one."
Throb throb. Her head hurt.
Placing a hand on her forehead, a warm sensation greeted her.
Was there some clear solution?
**
[Getting tired now][Posted by: WantToRaiseADragon]
Even if the world ends tonight, just deal with it yourselves
-lololololololol
-Consistent dude... that's why I like him more
└Li?ke
-Just let it all end already
-Hand over the inventory and die
└(OP): Nope, never giving to you. Remembered your nick, gtfo
└Ah, op. Dear op.
└Not that.
└Sent a DM plz check;;
└Lmao full-on menth here
**
Ding!
Several messages arrived, but she ignored them all.
Ding!
"No. Go away. Should've been nice before."
Wait, normally... normally...
A brilliant idea to solve the stickiness hit her.
**