I Alone Level-Up

- "And what if I get fired? Will you take responsibility?"

"What? What do you mean by that?"

- "The a.s.sociation president has placed a complete gag order what happened yesterday. He also added that if the Hunter"s ident.i.ty was leaked, he would move heaven and earth to find out who did it and thoroughly punish them."

"a.s.sociation President Go Gunhee-nim said that? He"s never acted like this before."

- "How would I know what the a.s.sociation president is thinking?"

"..."

- "If that"s all, I"m hanging up."

"...I"ll call you again."

click

And just like that, the call ended. Grim Reaper"s Guildmaster Lim Taegyu put down the receiver; his face did not look good.

"Just what happened…?"

He had heard a rumour that a super rookie appeared after two years and called the a.s.sociation himself. He had not expected such a response. "What if I get fired?"? As if there was any Guild stupid enough to hire someone chased out of the a.s.sociation by the Go Gunhee. Especially since there was no guarantee that they even could recruit this super rookie.

"Move heaven and earth to… thoroughly punish them..."

If it was Go Gunhee, it was certainly possible.

"But what the h.e.l.l? Did that geezer finally go senile? Why is he doing something like this?"

Just what kind of a rookie was it? To think that the a.s.sociation would prevent the identify of an Awakened Being from leaking. This had never been done before. Because of that, all Grim Reaper could do was wait while twiddling their thumbs until the official unveiling. The humiliation did not end there.

"How the h.e.l.l did Choi Jongin and Baek Yoonho get the inside scoop?"

Was this the difference in their information network? Did Grim Reaper fall that low among the top Guilds? If this unknown super rookie ended up entering Baekho or Hunters Guild, it would widened the gap even further. In a situation like this, the gag order completely cut off the path for Grim Reaper"s future.

"Were that geezer and I sworn enemies in a past life or something?"

When Baek Yoonho left Grim Reaper, it was that geezer who helped him safely make Baekho. Because of that, Grim Reaper lost its place as the number one Guild of Korea. Hunters Guild and Baekho were advancing further and further, while Grim Reaper seemed to just spin in circles.

"Isn"t it about time you helped us out a little?!"

Suddenly, he felt a resentment for Go Gunhee. But what could he do?

With a frustration, all Lim Taegyu could do was kick his feet on the ground.

-

"The daily quest is all done."

With a light heart, Jinwoo started surfing the internet. There were two days before his remeasurement. He planned to obtain as much information as possible on artifacts and exchanges.

"Whoa!"

Looking at the auction pages, Jinwoo was shocked.

"The smallest increment of currency is in the hundred millions."

Was that all? The useful looking items cost billions.

"Makes sense…"

To a Hunter, the equipment was equivalent to their lifeline. Better equipment meant increased safety. Since the Hunters earned so much, why would they cheap out on tools that helped them hunt faster and more safely? It was very understandable. Still, he could not help but be surprised. Looking at the prices of the artifacts, he began to worry a bit.

"My current funds aren"t going to be enough."

He did not see any artifacts with flame resistance up for auction, but the other high-cla.s.s armors cost far more than everything he had earned so far.

"I thought I already collected enough…"

However, that was through the eyes of an ordinary person. To get to the Hunter"s level, Jinwoo still had a long way to go. The funds in his bankbook amounted to about 1.7 billion won. In order to buy what he needed, he had no choice but to sell the Marble of Avarice. When he switched gears to becoming a seller, his expression changed.

"If it costs a ton to buy artifacts, on the flip side, I can make a ton buy selling my artifacts."

click.

He moved his mouse to click on the section where magic tools were being sold.

"..."

No matter where he looked, there were no artifacts that doubled your magic damage. The closest ones increased it by about 20%~30%. And those artifacts were unbelievably expensive.

"The prices of magic tools aren"t a joke."

In a way, even a 20% increase of power was nothing to scoff at. The only ones able to purchase these expensive artifacts were the high-rank, no, the highest-ranking Hunters. And if those Hunters" powers were increased by 20%? It would make a huge difference. In fact, some of the items already were marked as sold. And if they were this excited about 20%...

"Just how much can I sell this for?"

gulp

Because he had never even dreamt of holding an artifact in the past, Jinwoo was unable to imagine the price of the Marble of Avarice.

"That"s why we have auctions."

He hoped that putting the marble up for auction would result in a good price. With a satisfied smile, Jinwoo closed the auction websites. After his research, he had learned that there were two main ways to sell an artifact.

One. Through ordinary sellers and means.

Two. Through the blackmarket.

However, he had no way of finding a blackmarket. There were limits to what he could find on the internet.

"If you could just reach it in few mouse clicks, you couldn"t call it a blackmarket."

And the Marble of Avarice wasn"t exactly a shady item, so there was no reason to use the black market. And so, Jinwoo decided that the best way to sell the marble was to get in touch with a professional artifact exchange and let them auction it off for him. Even though there were taxes and fees involved, it would be the fastest and cleanest method.

"The problem is that I have to somehow explain where I got it…"

What would they say if an E-rank Hunter brought an insane and never-before-seen artifact to them? Would they accept it quietly? The Korean Hunter Auction was the biggest business when it came to brokering deals between Hunters. They would surely iron out all details involved in the items they sold.

"And that"s why I need that license."

A Hunter"s license with the letter "S" on it. This is why he undertook the retest, and the results were a success. If a.s.sociation President Go Gunhee was right, he would obtain his new S-rank license in two days. He did worry for a moment when he refused the elder"s offer but…

"Thankfully, it doesn"t seem like the a.s.sociation president is that kind of a person."

Even as they bid each other goodbye, the a.s.sociation president was smiling.

Spending a long time reading the hints of other people gave one the ability to read the mood. Jinwoo had done that in the past. As an E-ranker, he had spent four years carefully taking notice of other people. Because of that, he was mostly able to read their moods by looking at their faces. Go Gunhee"s smile at the time was definitely not fake. At least, it looked genuine to Jinwoo"s eyes.

And so, he did not worry about the remeasurement two days from now.

"But… what to do in the meantime?"

Jinwoo leaned back on his chair.

Two days.

Too short to do something serious. Too long to just waste it playing around.

"Should I check that out?"

Jinwoo half-heartedly moved his cursor to the Hunter website"s job board.

click.

With a click, many posts filled the screen. He saw multiple posts stating that people were looking for members for private raiding parties in the area.

"..."

The reason was obvious. When he and Yoo Jinho monopolized the C-rank Gates in the area for few days, all the private parties in the area had to stop working for a while. Now that Jinwoo had stopped, all the stopped parties could resume their work again. The absence of Jinwoo and Yoo Jinho created a vacuum, and many parties appeared to fill that void. Jinwoo chuckled bitterly then went to the next page.

"I don"t level up in C-rank Dungeons anymore."

It took him the entire day of raiding to level up the last time he entered C-rank Dungeons. Actually, it took two days. Since then, he had leveled up more than a dozen times. If he could see his experience points, he knew that C-rank magic beasts would barely make a tickle.

"So, C-rank Dungeons mean nothing to me."

Unfortunately, there were no postings for high-level Dungeons. It was suicide for a private party to attempt a high-level Dungeon, and Guilds wouldn"t be looking for members on a job board like this.

Still, just in case.

"Should I switch up the search terms a bit?"

He changed the filter so only high-level Dungeons would show. He did not expect anything out of it.

However,

"...Huh?"

A posting came up.

-

"You said you were an E-rank?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever done a job like this?"

"No."

"Er… and your category is?"

"I"m a Fighter-cla.s.s."

"Well, that"s good news."

The team leader wearing a hard hat looked up and down on Jinwoo.

"For an E-rank, his body looks strong. His eyes are showing good spirit."

Jinwoo patiently waited for the team leader"s reply. Soon, the man handed him an ID card and laughed lively.

"Ha ha ha, there are many people like you here, Jinwoo-ssi. Don"t be nervous and let"s work well together."

Even though he looked over 40, the ahjussi was filled with energy. His mustache fit his face well.

"We just wait here and go in when the people inside come out. Don"t forget your equipment."

"Equipment…?"

"You can just pick one of those up on the floor."

"...Got it."

Jinwoo nodded towards a pile of pickaxes. Meanwhile, an ahjussi with a towel draped over his shoulders hastily walked over.

"Bae-ssi! We"re shorthanded today, why would you take someone away from us?"

"Eh, your collection team has plenty of people. What if we"re the one who"s shorthanded and miss the timing on the Gate closing? You gonna take responsibility?"

"Well, still."

The mustache ahjussi turned to the towel ahjussi and smiled at Jinwoo,

"Sung-ssi, you can just rest here. I"m going to have words with this guy."

"We can have words here, why do we have to walk away?"

"I wonder. Follow me."

The two ahjussis bantered and walked away.

"So the other team is in charge of collecting…"

The high-level Dungeons were so large that a single raiding party could not do everything. And so, multiple parties were created for each job. A party to clear the Dungeon, a party to mine the Dungeon"s ores, and a party to collect the corpses of the magic beasts[1]. The offensive raiding party would clear the Dungeon all the way to the boss, then leave. Once the magic beasts in the Dungeon were isolated to the boss"s room, the mining team and the collection team would enter. Jinwoo was placed into the mining team.

"...Is this all I need?"

With a sour face, Jinwoo picked up a pickaxe. It was tiny, but he felt a magic power in it.

"It contains magic power."

The modern machines that used electricity did not function within the Dungeon. Because of that, tools like this filled with magic power were used instead.

"..."

There was a reason why Hunters in mining teams were jokingly called Dungeon Miners. Jinwoo turned his head towards the Gate. A giant hole floated in the air. It was a size incomparable to a C-rank Gate.

"So that"s an rank Gate…"

The real reason he was here was because of that.

"I want to see a high-level Dungeon with my own eyes."

Even though all the magic beasts, save for the boss and its minions, would be dead, Jinwoo still wanted to check out the interiors of an rank Dungeon.

"I"ll have to go in a place like that someday."

Knowledge was power. But there was a limit to what he could learn through books or the internet. Even the new recruits of Baekho relied on written knowledge and met an untimely end.

"If I wasn"t there, they would"ve all died."

Knowing something and experiencing it were two different things. When the opportunity appeared, Jinwoo volunteered himself for the mining team so he could take a look at the rank Dungeon. He briefly regretted his decision after looking at the p.i.s.s poor pickaxes but felt better when he saw the giant Gate.

"Coming here was a good thing."

There was still time until his remeasurement. This was a good opportunity.

As if their conversation had gone well, the mustache ahjussi, no, Team Leader Bae Yoonsuk came back smiling.

"Let"s go in, they"re all ready."

Holding a pickaxe, Jinwoo smiled and nodded.

Translator"s Notes:

[1]: Think it was noted in the past that for high-level magic beasts, even their corpses are used for various purposes.