Episode 38
Choi Giu said he had come looking for me because of the ant cave incident.
While I was making coffee for both of us, I kept stealing glances at him from the couch in the living room.
Hunter hunting was one of the more serious social problems right now.
Lately, there were even more hunters dying at the hands of hunters than rookie hunters dying in gates.
As a result, more and more people were giving up on becoming hunters at all.
Some people even said it was shaking the very foundation of hunter society.
Still... did someone at team-chief level from the Association really show up in person to see a D-class hunter like me?
Choi Giu, who had been watching me make coffee from the couch, let out a snort.
What was he laughing at all of a sudden?
"So the report was true. You really do like it a lot."
"Huh?"
"Games. Smartphone games."
"Huh? What do you mean by tha... Mother, you startled me!"
I jumped so badly I ended up calling out to my mother, who had died when I was little.
My right index finger was busily tapping the smartphone screen laid out on the dining table.
Saessak seemed to notice my gaze and swished its three leaves back and forth.
"Wh-when did I start doing that?"
"...You've been like that ever since you opened the door to greet me."
"I have?"
"Yes."
Choi Giu stared at me as if he couldn't believe it.
And I was so embarrassed by myself that I gave him an awkward laugh.
"Yes, that's right. I just love games that much. Ahahaha!"
I tried to smooth things over with a ridiculous laugh, but it didn't work.
Choi Giu's expression as he looked at my awkward smile was far from warm.
He was looking at me like I was a hopeless game addict.
...
...
I could understand him.
Because right now, I wanted to look at myself that way too.
With a deep sigh, I picked up my coffee and walked into the living room.
I slipped the smartphone into my pocket.
It wasn't polite to keep playing a game in front of someone who had come to talk seriously.
"Ahem, ahem!"
Choi Giu also coughed a few times after seeing me put my phone in my pocket.
He was trying to shift the mood.
We sat across from each other naturally and put on serious expressions.
We no longer looked like two men exchanging pitiful looks and accepting them in return.
"I'll get to the point."
With that, he began explaining why he had come to my house.
First was the cleanup quest for the ant cave.
He said the ant cave had been confirmed fully cleared, and that as the completion reward for the quest, they would give me 3 million won and lift the quest restriction.
It was an E-rank quest, so the reward naturally wasn't anything special.
They only paid 3 million won, so of course there wouldn't be many hunters willing to clear it.
That was all I could think.
Then he talked about the reward for catching Kim Jeong-cheol's gang, the hunter hunters.
"According to Hunter Kim Jae-sik, Hunter Baek Do-woon was the one who captured Kim Jeong-cheol's group by himself."
Oh?
It seemed he'd spoken with Kim Jae-sik first.
"He said he hadn't done anything and absolutely couldn't accept a reward, so we decided to assign all of it to Hunter Baek Do-woon."
"Huh, really? That works?"
"Of course. Hunter Kim Jae-sik agreed."
He could've just taken his share and left it at that.
Why go out of his way to tell them it was all thanks to me? Still, I appreciated it.
"Since Kim Jeong-cheol's entire group were C-class hunters, we've decided to raise you to C-rank, Hunter Baek Do-woon."
"Nice, one annoying thing off my plate."
"And then there's the reward for capturing the hunter hunters, but in fact Kim Jeong-cheol's group had no bounty on them, so there wasn't any official bounty to collect."
"Oh? Then there isn't any reward at all?"
"No. That's not the case."
Choi Giu shook his head with a faint smile.
"Through the committee, we've decided to give you a base bounty."
"Oh."
"If cases like this happen where no reward is given because there was no bounty attached, then people might stop capturing hunter hunters even when they find them."
"That makes sense."
He was right.
I nodded and agreed with him.
The bounty I was getting was 100 million won for Kim Jeong-cheol, the leader, and 50 million won each for Kwon O-seok and Han Gi-hae, making a total of 200 million won.
On top of that, as a side benefit, all the cash and items the three of them had on them would also be handed over to me.
Choi Giu added that if you counted those in cash, it came to roughly another 100 million won.
For catching Kim Jeong-cheol's group, I would become a C-rank hunter and earn a total of 300 million won.
"Hmm. Not bad."
"Huh?"
Choi Giu looked flustered, probably expecting me to be pleased.
A little while ago, if I'd earned 300 million won, I would've been grinning from ear to ear.
But right now, my account had 5 billion won in it, received as payment for harvesting Udamhwa.
I had given Lee Seong-hun a small cut for introducing me to Chairman Woo, but it wasn't a huge amount.
Adding in my original savings, I still had 5 billion won to my name.
Money was a thing you couldn't have too much of, sure, but right now it wasn't a reward that tugged at my heart.
"You don't like the reward?"
Choi Giu asked with a troubled expression.
He'd brought what he thought was a reasonable amount.
It was only natural for him to feel uneasy.
He must have also been worried I would demand even more compensation.
"There's something I'd rather have than money."
"Something you'd rather have?"
"Have you ever considered letting me take charge of the ant cave?"
"...The ant cave?"
He asked again, sounding doubtful.
"Yes. The ant cave."
"So, you're asking for the exclusive right to the Muju ant cave dungeon?"
"That's exactly right."
At my bright answer, Choi Giu frowned.
He seemed unable to make sense of this unexpected request.
The E-rank Muju Ant Cave Dungeon was a dungeon that offered nothing at all in terms of reward.
And yet it was an obnoxious place where hundreds of giant ants had to be hunted down.
It was only natural for him to look at me suspiciously, as if he couldn't believe I was asking for exclusive rights to a dungeon that people actively avoided.
If I hadn't known that I could turn the dirt Saessak sent me and the giant ant corpses into A+ grade fertilizer, I wouldn't have wanted exclusive rights to the ant cave either.
If someone had offered it to me, I would've told them to keep it and get lost.
"Is it difficult to decide? In that case, you can always come back another day."
I didn't know how much authority the Association's hunter management team chief really had.
Even if it was only E-rank, there was no way he could just hand over the exclusive rights to a dungeon however he pleased.
Choi Giu rubbed beneath his chin with a finger thick with calluses.
Had he been a hunter too?
"To be honest, it's outside my authority."
"I figured as much. Then next time-"
"Even so, I can still transfer the exclusive rights to the Muju Ant Cave to you, Hunter Baek Do-woon."
"What?"
"I imagine the higher-ups would even praise me for it. For neatly reducing one more annoying little headache."
He said that and looked me straight in the eye.
His gaze seemed to warn me, as if to say, The Muju Ant Cave is just one of those useless places the Association is eager to get rid of, so judge carefully.
Fine.
To them it would probably be nothing more than a nuisance, but to me it was a place with a very clear use.
It could supply the fertilizer I needed to grow Saessak.
I smiled faintly at Choi Giu for thinking of me.
"That's fine."
"Really? If you take the exclusive rights, you know you'll be responsible if something happens in the ant cave, right?"
Of course I knew that.
Taking exclusive rights meant taking on the responsibility that came with them.
"Yes. It's really fine."
"Phew. All right then. In that case, instead of the reward I mentioned earlier, we'll give Hunter Baek Do-woon the exclusive rights to the Muju Ant Cave."
And just like that, I secured exclusive rights to the ant cave.
Saessak, are you watching?
From now on, your big brother can keep feeding you fertilizer on schedule!
Saessak dances to express its joy!
Before leaving, Choi Giu said that and wrote me a recommendation letter.
It was only a piece of paper with the name "Hunter Association Management Team 3 Chief Choi Giu" written on it, but still.
The paper I had expected to be treated like a scribbled note turned out to be fully effective as a recommendation letter, probably because it had the team chief's seal stamped on it.
When I submitted it, the staff at the screening hall looked flustered and immediately guided me to the Warp Gate to the Trial Tower.
"So I really did end up coming here... this feels strangely nostalgic."
The Trial Tower was one of the gates monopolized by the Association.
Unlike other gates, there was no danger to life at all, because virtual monsters appeared at a level matched to the ability of the person entering.
It was almost as if someone had designed it so that people could grow through this gate.
Because of that unusual nature, there was even a theory that the Trial Tower had been made by a god.
Something about how it allowed humans to overcome the ordeal of the gates and all that.
Well, I didn't know much about gods or evidence of gods or any of that nonsense.
To me, the Trial Tower was just a place to determine rank.
Low-rank hunters weren't allowed to use it, so I'd never come here once in my life as a D-class hunter.
"Hm?"
As I looked around, I noticed people's gazes gathering in one place.
Following those gazes, I found a familiar face in the waiting area for those entering the tower.
It was Woo Chae-yeon, Woo Yeon-hoo's younger sister.
It looked like she had come to take the test too.
From the side of her face, there wasn't a trace of tension to be seen, and unlike me, she seemed to be quite used to the Trial Tower.
"Was she always that cold-looking?"
Unlike when I had seen her at the hospital, she looked extremely cold.
Even while sitting still, she gave off a frosty aura that said not to talk to her.
Of course, in this world there was always at least one brave person willing to walk straight through that kind of cold atmosphere.
A fairly handsome man strode briskly toward Woo Chae-yeon.
Those who recognized him began to whisper.
"That's Ji Sang-wook...!"
"Ji Sang-wook? Who's that?"
"You don't know? The B-class hunter who recently soloed the Hallasan Gate!"
"What? Isn't that place the habitat of Red Manticores?"
Red Manticores were monsters with the body of a red lion and huge bat wings.
They lived in packs and could fly, which made them an absolute pain to hunt.
At least, that's how Tae-cheon had explained it after he came back from soloing Hallasan Gate.
If he had hunted a place like that alone, then he was clearly a remarkable fighter. Tae-cheon had been a remarkable fighter, after all.
Amid the murmuring crowd, Ji Sang-wook stopped in front of Woo Chae-yeon.
With a self-assured smile, he greeted her.
"Hello, Miss Woo Chae-yeon."
Woo Chae-yeon slowly lifted her head and looked up at Ji Sang-wook with an expressionless face.
The people around us, including me, watched the pair with growing interest.
"I heard you were ill. Have you recovered?"
...
She lowered her gaze almost immediately.
She had cleanly ignored him.
Ji Sang-wook's lips twitched slightly when he realized he'd been ignored.
Even after being brushed off, the fact that he still hadn't lost his smile was impressive.
"Hey, if someone asks a question-"
...
Just as Ji Sang-wook was about to snap at her, Woo Chae-yeon lifted her head again.
But she wasn't looking in Ji Sang-wook's direction.
Her face held both surprise and confusion.
The Ji Sang-wook who had been about to retort closed his mouth when she suddenly lifted her head in a hurry.
Woo Chae-yeon stood up and passed him without even looking at him.
Her indifference was like looking at a stone in the road, and no one even thought of laughing at him.
"Huh...?"
Woo Chae-yeon's gaze and footsteps were headed toward me, which was a little bewildering.
As a result, everyone's attention shifted to me as well.
When she came to a stop in front of me, she greeted me with a bright smile.
"Hello, Ji-on."
She called me Ji-on, not Baek Do-woon.
That meant she hadn't heard my real identity from Woo Yeon-hoo.
If she had, she would've called me Baek Do-woon instead of Ji-on.
How had she recognized me without the mask?
"...How did you know?"
"Your hairstyle."
Woo Chae-yeon answered while pointing lightly at the back of her own head.
No, seriously, could you really recognize someone you'd only seen once by their hairstyle?
As I was wondering about that, I could hear the people around us whispering, "Who the hell is that?" and "Who is he that Woo Chae-yeon is greeting him like that?"
Saessak sensed a petty gaze.
A petty gaze?
What was that supposed to mean...
Ah, I think I know what it means.
Ji Sang-wook was glaring at me as if he wanted to kill me.
Why the hell are you glaring at me when it was Woo Chae-yeon who ignored you?
No wonder Saessak was calling it petty.
Saessak hopes to send the gravel around him to Manager Baek Do-woon.
Gravel...?