Chapter 78
“One hundred and fifty billion won? That’s way too expensive!”
“Exactly! At that price, we might as well buy a Sea Ghost Mountain shell!”
Shim Yoon-jin and Kim Ji-yeon were so flustered they blurted out their protest in a panic.
I’d thought they were taking the number at face value because it was easy to say, but apparently not. Their reaction made perfect sense, really.
They’d only been thinking of the pinecone as something hard, like a Sea Ghost Mountain shell.
One hundred and fifty billion won.
Was that really an outrageous price?
“……”
Thinking that, I glanced back at Yu Jae-i. She was standing there quietly with a faint smile.
She knew what the pinecone really was.
One hundred and fifty billion was absolutely not an expensive price.
I smiled with easy confidence, then showed them the text message Hong Su-jeong had sent me last night.
More precisely, I showed them the photo of the quality certificate she’d attached to the bottom of the message.
Quality Certificate
This certificate verifies that it was appraised by Hong Su-jeong of the Crystal Workshop.
Product Name - Pinecone
Product Features - First, the outer shell of the pinecone was judged to be Grade A, since it is as hard as a Sea Ghost Mountain shell.
It has two major characteristics.
First, purification ability.
It can purify all polluted substances in the surrounding area.
Second, storage ability.
It can store purified substances as pure mana.
“Huh!”
The look on the two of them as they read the certificate was worth seeing.
Their eyes widened until I honestly thought they might pop right out, and their mouths hung open so far it looked like their jaws would drop.
Which was only natural.
Not only was it hard, it could purify polluted substances around it and even store the purified energy.
In their heads, the pinecone was being redefined in real time.
It had probably gone from “something as hard as a Sea Ghost Mountain shell” to “something better than a Sea Ghost Mountain shell.”
I put my smartphone away and brought up Saessak, then asked, “Does it still sound expensive to you?”
Of course the offer of one hundred and fifty billion won no longer felt expensive.
It must have seemed appropriate, maybe even cheap.
There was no end to what could be done with this pinecone.
The reason I hadn’t decided what to do with the leftover material after making the shield was because there were far too many possibilities.
“No! One hundred and fifty billion! I’ll buy it at that price!”
Shim Yoon-jin decided at once, without the slightest hesitation.
Kim Ji-yeon, standing beside her, didn’t stop her from agreeing to buy it for that enormous sum, either.
She nodded in assent as well.
I tapped the screen and gave a small nod of my own.
“Good thinking.”
They’d been lucky.
If they hadn’t said they were buying it here and now, I had no intention of selling.
Even if I had sold it, I’d have tried to drive the price even higher.
Shim Yoon-jin called me carefully.
“Um, Do-woon?”
“Yes?”
“Sorry, but could you give us a little time? We still have to talk to Yeon-hoo oppa first....”
“Ah, of course.”
As she’d said before, the one paying was Woo Yeon-hoo.
If she didn’t talk to him, that one-hundred-and-fifty-billion-won transaction would never reach my hands.
I’d have to discuss how payment would be handled directly with him, too.
No matter how wealthy a vice chairman of one of Korea’s biggest conglomerates was, it wouldn’t be easy to pay that kind of money entirely in cash.
What I needed right now wasn’t money anyway, but a building.
Getting a building worth the same amount instead of cash didn’t sound bad.
It’d look good to have Jae-i’s Blacksmith and the Crystal Workshop on different floors of the same building.
“Then, Yu Jae-i.”
“Hm?”
“Things turned out this way, so I’ll probably have to make the shield later. Is that okay?”
The deal hadn’t been finalized yet, but the pinecone had effectively become a traded item.
It was no longer something I could do whatever I wanted with.
One-third was mine, but the remaining two-thirds belonged to Ildae Group.
If I cut it precisely, down to the millimeter, with them watching directly, there wouldn’t be any problems.
I was sure Yu Jae-i would cut it properly on her own, but they’d want to see it with their own eyes.
PTAH, the blacksmith subsidiary of Ildae Group, would probably come with them.
“Then of course it’s fine.”
“Good. I’ll bring it back next time, then.”
With that, I put the pinecone back into my inventory.
Shim Yoon-jin watched the place where it had disappeared, then pulled out her smartphone and started typing a message right away.
The person she sent it to was probably Woo Yeon-hoo.
The fact that she’d sent a message instead of calling meant he was probably inside a gate.
A gate....
I ought to head to one today, too.
For some reason, ever since I became a hunter, it felt like I hadn’t gone into gates all that often.
If I counted the number of times, I’d probably been going in and out less than I had when I was working as a dismantling team leader in Baekuncheon.
And the most recent time I’d entered a gate hadn’t even been for hunter work, but to meet Ji Sang-wook.
“I’m heading out.”
“Ah, wait a second.”
“Hm?”
“I’m not forcing you or anything, but could you hurry just a little? For my sake, and for theirs.”
As she said that, Yu Jae-i looked toward Kim Ji-yeon and Shim Yoon-jin.
The two of them were chatting away together.
The topic, naturally, was the pinecone.
They were going on and on about how they’d “seen it with their own eyes and still couldn’t believe it,” or how they’d “just witnessed something incredible.”
Unlike when I’d first seen them after walking into the blacksmith shop, they were unusually lively now.
Like Yu Jae-i said, this was definitely a better look for them. It was enough to make me think maybe using hunters as bodyguards had been the wrong move after all.
“Got it. I’ll do that.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
After accepting her thanks, I left Jae-i’s Blacksmith.
The moment I slid the door shut, I saw a man bent over and breathing hard.
He was wearing a black suit.
“Huff, huff....”
It was definitely the same man I’d seen before I went into the blacksmith shop.
Sweat was pouring off him as if he’d been out in the rain all by himself.
He should’ve taken the black suit off, honestly....
What the hell was this guy doing?
He looked like he’d just run a lap around the neighborhood.
The man, hands on his knees and gasping for breath, must have sensed my stare because he turned his head and looked at me.
After staring at my face for a moment, he said, “B-Baek, huff, Baek Do-woon?”
Then he abruptly called my name.
“You know me?”
Wondering if he might actually be someone I knew, I studied his face closely.
He looked to be in his early thirties, but he was so gaunt his cheekbones stuck out sharply.
I didn’t know him.
None of the people I knew had cheekbones that protruded quite that dramatically.
He was probably one of those people who’d recognized me from the face that had been floating around the internet lately.
“Of course. Hoo.... Who in the world doesn’t know Hunter Baek Do-woon these days?”
The man straightened up and let out a long breath.
He steadied his ragged breathing and brushed off the clothes he’d wrinkled while running.
He looked like he was about to introduce himself.
As he walked up to me, the man held out the ID card hanging around his neck and introduced himself just as I’d expected.
“I’m Kim Tae-seok, from the Hwayeomsan Dungeon Investigation Team.”
“I’m Baek Do-woon.”
I dipped my head slightly in greeting and quickly checked the ID card.
Mapo-gu Office, Hunter Management Division, B-class Hunter Kim Tae-seok.
His affiliation, hunter rank, and name were listed there.
This insane man in a suit who’d run himself to exhaustion was a government hunter.
“The Hwayeomsan Dungeon, then....”
That was the dungeon I’d purified, the one that had returned to Seoul World Cup Stadium.
Or rather, it was the place where Seoul World Cup Stadium now stood half-destroyed.
The man glanced up from the right hand that had been tapping his smartphone screen and said, “Yes. It’s the first place in the world to be purified like this.”
Right. Just as he said, the dungeon had been purified in an instant and restored to its original state.
It was only natural that an investigation team would be assembled.
In fact, it would’ve been stranger if they hadn’t formed one.
I was the idiot for not anticipating that.
“You’ve got your hands full.”
“Not at all. I’m being paid to do this, after all.”
He offered a friendly-looking smile.
But I knew exactly what lay beneath that expression.
It was the same face people wore when they wanted to get on my good side so they could approach Do-hee and Tae-cheon.
A smile that was all pretense.
No wonder he was a government hunter; his behavior was more bureaucrat than hunter.
“You ran all the way here from there?”
Why in the world?
If he was with the district office, shouldn’t he have at least one official vehicle?
Kim Tae-seok saw the displeasure on my face and laughed awkwardly.
“Did I stand out that much?”
“You stood out plenty. Some lunatic in a suit just goes running around....”
“......”
“Hm. Sorry.”
“Haha, no, it’s all right.”
He gave me that friendly smile again.
But I caught it.
The corner of his eye twitched just a little when he said it was fine.
No one would be happy if you called them a lunatic to their face.
“I suppose I probably did look like that.”
“So, can I ask why you were running?”
“Well, ordinarily I shouldn’t tell you, but....”
Kim Tae-seok trailed off and looked around.
I followed his gaze and checked the area as well.
There was only sunlight lying over the alley in broad daylight; not a single other person was around.
Just the two of us.
He lowered his voice and whispered, “All the CCTV footage from this alley to the stadium had been erased.”
“The CCTV footage?”
“Yes. As if someone had deleted it on purpose.”
“On purpose? If that’s true, then whoever did it was really stupid.”
“Pardon?”
“Think about it. If you erase the footage like that, you’re basically announcing that you were trying to erase someone captured in this area, aren’t you?”
“Ah, ah! Yes, that’s true!”
Kim Tae-seok chimed in.
But his expression turned grave almost immediately.
“Still, the problem remains that with all the nearby CCTV footage gone, we can’t identify whoever it was.”
“I don’t know who it was, but that’s some remarkably dumb yet thorough work.”
“Yes. And because of that dumb stunt, I had to come out here myself and run around like an idiot.”
“Haha, you’ve had a rough time. Meanwhile, I didn’t know any of this....”
……Hm?
Wait. Why did this sound so familiar?
Stupid bastard.
Remarkably dumb yet thorough work....
“......”
Thorough and stupid work, by one stupid bastard.
A single face floated up in my mind.
My lifelong friend, Lee Tae-cheon.
It was obvious.
He’d erased the CCTV footage.
And the reason was, naturally, for my sake.
My image must have been caught on that footage the day the dungeon returned to normal.
“...Then, please excuse me.”
With that, I dipped my head slightly in farewell.
Kim Tae-seok looked at me with obvious regret.
There was something in his eyes that belonged to a hunter who’d let his prey slip away.
It was the same look people gave when they wanted something from me.
That was probably why he’d even told me something he wasn’t supposed to say.
But with no leverage to hold me there, he couldn’t stop me.
“Ah, yes. Have a good day.”
Clicking his tongue, he simply accepted my goodbye.
I left him behind, walked to the parking lot, and got into the car.
The moment I closed the door, I let out a long sigh.
Tae-cheon, what the hell did you do?
No, no. I had no right to say that.
He was still better than me, since I hadn’t even thought to erase the CCTV footage.
“Wait....”
If Tae-cheon knew, then that meant Do-hee knew too.
That I could restore a dungeon to its original state.
Ah. So that’s how it was.
As far as I remembered, that was around the time Seo Jae-wook and Sang-cheol had started following me around.
I’d thought they were only worried because they’d seen my bloodstained clothes, but that hadn’t been all of it.
Do-hee had been worrying about me even more.
Then the two of them must have-
The journey of the non-human beings is soon coming to an end.
They are filled with joy and exhilaration at the sight of the young World Tree!
The young World Tree recommends that Manager Baek Do-woon meet them.
Would you like to meet them now? (YES/NO)
“Oh, ohhh!”
At last!