Cheonwaecheon Arrives

A wet, slicing rush of air.

Then the heavy thud of bodies hitting the ground.

"This sector's clear too."

An A-Rank hunter finished off three orcs at once and flicked his fingers toward the rest of the team. Choi Tae-min was the raid leader for this run and a hunter belonging to the Horde Guild.

A guild member stepped forward and held out a towel.

"Good work."

"Where's the recovery team?"

Choi Tae-min took the towel from Kim Hoon and scanned the area for the recovery crew. The scouting team had already moved on to another sector to assess the situation, while the recovery team was supposed to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be collecting monster parts as they caught up.

"They're still recovering in Sector Six."

"We're in Sector Eight. You said Six?"

Choi Tae-min's brow furrowed at Kim Hoon's report.

Once hunters entered a Gate, they usually divided the interior into sectors based on a map. The average Gate ran about ten sectors. Wider ones went up to thirty. Truly massive Gates could be split into as many as a hundred.

This one, though, was a small Gate with only fifteen sectors total.

"Those bastards are slacking off."

Choi Tae-min clicked his tongue in irritation.

"Oh, right — word came in from outside. A few extra Association staff showed up in front of the Gate."

"Why?"

"How should I know?"

Association personnel were always stationed outside Gates as a matter of course, but today more of them had been posted than usual. Even the guild members waiting outside had no idea why they were there.

"This Gate isn't about to trigger a Wave, is it?"

"If it were, the monsters would already be going berserk."

"They can go quiet and then suddenly lose it, can't they?"

"Not this one. More importantly, this Gate doesn't produce Waves."

"Huh? How do you know that?"

"Call it a gut feeling."

Footsteps approached as they talked. The scouting team that had gone to survey Sector Nine returned.

"Party Leader. Sector Nine has no anomalies. Monster count is twenty total. No boss."

"Ah, yes. Thank you."

Choi Tae-min ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nodded at the report from Baek Chul. They had brought him into the party through outsourcing, and he was turning out to be surprisingly competent — reading traps and variables well, even pointing out hidden spaces.

"Shall we move on?"

"No. We've got stragglers. Hold position for a bit."

Kim Hoon nudged Choi Tae-min and sent a telepathic message through his artifact.

Hey. Did you see that old man's gear?

Just the stuff on his body is worth hundreds of billions.

I saw it.

Choi Tae-min nodded. He had already ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠looked over Baek Chul's equipment the moment the man joined the party. Even at a conservative estimate, it was worth twenty billion — more than the gear of most S-Rank hunters.

That was why, when Baek Chul first appeared, they had assumed an S-Rank hunter had shown up. Then they checked his ID and found he was B-Rank.

A chaebol, maybe?

I don't know… I know most of the rich families, and I've never seen anyone named Baek Chul.

Choi Tae-min shook his head. He remembered the faces of every major chaebol — even the retired ones. Baek Chul was not among them.

Hm? Did I make some kind of mistake?

Sensing their stares, Baek Chul tilted his head. The party leader and his guildmate had been looking him up and down for a while now. Were they checking his equipment?

Maybe I should have dressed a little better for an A-Rank Gate…

He was wearing the gear Selenia and Jegal Seo-wol had prepared for him. They had bought cheap secondhand pieces and told him he could thrash them without worry, so he had put them on. But perhaps he should have brought something better.

A-Rank is still a fairly high rank. Cheap secondhand junk must be too dangerous to bring in after all.

Baek Chul completely misread their stares. They were gawking because the equipment was absurdly extravagant — not because it was shabby.

Rapid footsteps pounded closer.

"Hah… hah… W-we're here."

"Hey!"

Two members of the recovery team came sprinting from the distance, and Kim Hoon bellowed at them. The whole party had been waiting on those two for a long time.

"You should've gotten here faster! We wasted thirty minutes because of you!"

"S-sorry."

"We're sorry… We were trying to recover everything without missing anything…"

The two recovery hunters bowed their heads again and again under Kim Hoon's glare.

"There were just so many monster corpses…"

"Who asked for your excuses?"

"No, sir. We're sorry."

Baek Chul's brow tightened as he watched. The recovery team had done nothing wrong. When building a party, you normally needed at least three people on recovery. That was standard for C- through B-Rank Gates. Some parties even ran recovery crews of five or more.

This party had only two.

They had already killed well over a hundred monsters on the way here, and those two recovery hunters were expected to collect everything. Of course they were late. Baek Chul had thought the party composition looked strange from the start, and now the problem had surfaced exactly as expected.

"Your pay gets cut in half. The other half goes to our party leader for the damage you caused."

"What?! Th-that's…"

"Then you shouldn't have held the party up in the first place."

The two recovery hunters' faces crumpled. Recovery work was usually done by lower-ranked hunters — people who couldn't handle direct combat with monsters — and their pay was already pitiful. Cutting that in half was crushing.

So that's it…

Baek Chul finally understood why the party composition had felt so wrong. They had deliberately staffed recovery with only two people so they could pocket more of the pay themselves. They couldn't cut recovery entirely, and a single person would have been too obvious, so they settled on an ambiguous two.

And the logic was absurd. If the party had taken damage, why did the cut wages go to the party leader? The cut itself was already unjust.

"Excuse me."

Kim Hoon, still berating the recovery team, turned his head toward Baek Chul.

"That seems wrong to me."

"What do you mean?"

"You botched the party composition from the start and now you're penalizing the recovery team for it."

"Listen here, old man. I don't know what business this is of yours, but do you even know who this is? Our party leader doesn't make mistakes."

Kim Hoon folded his arms and pointed at Choi Tae-min, who stood quietly nearby. For years the man had racked up achievements as an A-Rank hunter, saved countless people, and still continued volunteer work and good deeds. He even shot commercials and ranked among the star hunters. And someone was calling him wrong?

"Being famous doesn't mean a party leader never makes mistakes. From where I stand, the party composition was handled poorly… no. It looks deliberate."

"What?! Deliberate? This guy is really—"

"Enough."

Choi Tae-min stopped Kim Hoon before he could raise his voice further.

"Baek Chul, was it?"

"Yes."

"Then how about you split your own pay with the recovery team."

Baek Chul said nothing.

"Time is money for me. And I genuinely lost more than thirty minutes. Whether having only two recovery hunters was intentional or a mistake doesn't change that."

Choi Tae-min shrugged and gave a thin smile.

"That claim that I deliberately understaffed recovery… can you take responsibility for it? That's a statement that damages my reputation."

"From what I can see—"

"No. Not your personal, subjective view, Baek Chul. We need to look at this objectively."

Choi Tae-min cut him off and turned to the rest of the party. Currently they had four combat members, four scouts, and two recovery hunters.

"What does everyone else think? Do you really believe I deliberately understaffed recovery?"

No one answered as Choi Tae-min looked around the group.

"Be honest. Do you think I did it on purpose?"

"No. Two people is exactly right, actually."

When the silence stretched, Kim Hoon spoke up beside him.

"We entered this Gate after confirming there weren't many monsters inside. That's why we only assigned two. Three or more recovery hunters would have been excessive."

"That's right. We think so too."

"Yeah, hearing it like that, it makes sense."

The others, who had been quiet, began nodding along with Kim Hoon. Of the ten people present, six were Horde Guild members. The two recovery hunters, Baek Chul, and one combat member had all been brought in through outsourcing.

"Six people say no."

Choi Tae-min smirked at Baek Chul. The rest staying silent didn't matter. He already had the majority on his side.

"I'll forgive your remarks out of the goodness of my heart, Baek Chul. But if you truly feel sorry for the recovery team, go ahead and share your own pay with them."

"Very well. I'll do that."

"Wow~ Impressive. Applause!"

Choi Tae-min started clapping, and the other five burst into laughter and joined in.

Then someone stepped up behind Baek Chul.

Choi Tae-min, still clapping and laughing, looked past Baek Chul — and his eyes went wide. For a second he thought he was seeing things. He wasn't.

"Ch… Cheonwaecheon?!"

"Whoa… it's Cheonwaecheon."

Baek Do-ha had appeared, wearing a mask.

"Grandfather."

"What are you doing here, Do… no. A."

At Baek Chul's words, every pair of eyes around them bulged. No wonder the gear had been ridiculous from the start. He was family to Cheonwaecheon.

"That's enough raiding for today. Let's go."

"They said this Gate is near the city center and needs to be cleared. So we should at least finish—"

A flash.

Then a cataclysmic detonation of thunder — thousands of lightning bolts crashing down across the entire Gate at once.

"All done."

The people around them stood frozen, mouths hanging open in pure shock.

"You still have to collect the mana stones, you rascal."

"Don't worry about that either."

Do-ha raised a hand overhead and unleashed the technique. Monster corpses and mana stones from every direction — along with the AS that had appeared when the boss died — came hurtling toward him through the air.

"Finished."

"You little… did this grandfather of yours really seem that unreliable?"

"Of course not. You're SSS-Rank yourself, Grandfather. I trusted you completely."

The people nearby reeled in confusion. His ID had clearly said B-Rank — and now he was SSS-Rank? The measurement had been taken when Baek Chul was only just beginning to learn spirit arts, so the reading had come out low.

But more than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that—

The grandfather is SSS-Rank, and the grandson is SSS-Rank too…?

Does that even make sense? Awakening abilities aren't hereditary!

It was a situation none of them had ever encountered in their lives.

"I trusted Grandfather… I just didn't expect him to get tangled up in something this rotten."

Do-ha fixed Choi Tae-min with a gaze full of killing intent. Cold sweat broke out on the party leader's face as he dropped his head.