Han JinHo had come back, but the case wasn"t over yet. As soon as he came back, Lee SunHwa called other people to stop their movement, but, an intense search that had been carried on for eight hours with the help of Yu CheIn wouldn"t just disappear.
To find a person, they needed to give out information.
Naturally, to find Han JinHo, they had given out bits of his information. They tried their best to take back all his details afterwards, but it would never completely disappear.
Actually, instead of spreading Han JinHo"s personal information, they had used the personal details of Park SeoJun and Kim ChulMin who had been with him, so it wasn"t difficult to recover most of Han JinHo"s info.
On Lee SunHwa"s side, that was pretty much all that needed to be done, but Park SeoJun was different.
He was the grandson of HanGw.a.n.g Group"s chairman. He wasn"t the planned successor to inherit the Group, but Chairman Park IlDo was greatly fond of this grandson.
Therefore, his position within the Group was extremely high, and his task was important.
The chairman of HanGw.a.n.g Group, Park IlDo glanced over the people with anger colouring his face. Where his eyes landed, the people further lowered their heads.
"Fuu. Raise your heads. Don"t be like defeated soldiers."
Who would disobey his words? The people who had lowered their heads slowly raised them back up and straightened their back. Now, they wouldn"t move their posture a single bit.
The people here held major roles within the Group but were also martial artists. There weren"t many who had properly mastered inner qi, though.
"I don"t understand it well but is it certain that SeoJun went inside the ruin?"
The secretary manager who was to the side replied immediately.
"The traces are indeed as such, but traces could be made after all."
Chairman Park IlDo nodded his head.
"You"re right. There"s no way SeoJun that boy would enter the ruin. Without preparations, on top of that."
"Yes. Moreover, Manager Park SeoJun was responsible for the management of the ruin. He knows about the ruin more than anyone, so he wouldn"t carelessly enter it."
"More so with all those members with him. How big was our loss?"
"We lost eleven first-rate martial artists that had reached the level of mastering inner qi."
Chairman Park IlDo gave a bitter smile.
"Our strength suddenly reduced to a half, huh."
The secretary manager wanted to say it wasn"t half but held it in. It felt like the loss was over half after all.
The number of first-rate martial artists in HanGw.a.n.g Group was around fifty, and eleven among them had been lost. Considering some people that don"t move much, it was practically over half.
"Now, let"s stop yapping here, I told you to a.n.a.lyse it yourselves, have you done it?"
The major roles of the Group all turned nervous and swallowed dry saliva. One after another, they reported the result they a.n.a.lysed - no - the result that they and their team had a.n.a.lysed.
Chairman Park IlDo who had finished listening to all their reports sharply flashed his eyes.
"So you"re saying it"s not from DaeWoon"s side?"
"Yes. DaeWoon"s chairman, Yu MyungHo was definitely clueless to this time"s occurrence."
"You know how foxy that old man is, right?"
"Yes. We took everything into account and a.n.a.lysed it. We are certain that Chairman Yu MyungHo didn"t know anything."
"Thus, as you had said, Yu CheIn"s solo work?"
"Yes. It is reasonable to view it that way."
Chairman Park IlDo reorganised the flow of thought.
"In any case, the culprit is a third party that isn"t DaeWoon Group. It could even be much greater than our own."
Everyone kept their silence. This kind of uncomfortable truth, they didn"t need to blabber about them.
"But you see. I"m strangely intrigued by this guy called Han JinHo. Don"t you guys feel that way?"
The people closed their mouth and stared at the secretary manager. It was difficult for them to speak up so they were signalling for him to say it.
"He was involved due to attracting Yu CheIn"s interest. We tried investigating but there wasn"t much."
"Our SeoJun had caught this guy, and he got away without a single harm. Are you telling me to just accept that?"
"It appears that the culprits had taken him away in the middle to diverge everyone"s attention. If Han JinHo who had disappeared suddenly came back, all the eyes would be gathered on him."
"And raid our ruin during that period?"
The secretary manager slightly lowered his head and closed his mouth. His thoughts were obvious.
Actually the most important thing this time around, was the ruin. The ruin that was under HanGw.a.n.g Group"s possession had been plundered cleanly.
Excavating a ruin really wasn"t easy. It wasn"t just some normal ruin, it was a special ruin.
In fact, all the rich people who had crazy amounts of money or top-notch power all possessed one or more ruins.
And, the relics that came out of those ruins led to the future development of the Group. It wasn"t just an issue of money.
A low-grade plunderer would find excavate relics and sell them at high prices but moving as a big group, things weren"t so simple.
They research on the special relics in those ruins and the special powers embedded within the ruins to further develop their skills.
No organisation had yet to achieve a ground-breaking discovery, but the skills were steadily being developed.
It would take a long time, but whether one had a ruin in possession or not would later become an important factor that could affect the level of influence of everyone in the world.
But such a ruin was pretty much robbed, so how big of an issue it was didn"t need to be said.
"But who could these guys be? How could they so perfectly excavate a ruin?"
The reason why special ruins were hard to excavate was because of the dangerous factors in them. Not only were there traps, there were even monsters that appeared.
Fighting a monster was certainly not easy, and they were completely resistant to modern weaponry. Therefore, every rich person who possessed a ruin cultivated martial artists. There were not a small number of organisations like HanGw.a.n.g Group, who had a martial clan as the centre.
These monsters were so fierce that even the HanGw.a.n.g Group could not excavate more than half of their ruin.
To properly research a ruin, they had to set up a laboratory inside the ruin after a complete excavation. To do that, they needed to get rid of all the traps within, and eliminate all the monsters, which was an extremely difficult task.
The reason why billionaires were interested in secret auctions that sold and bought special relics was due to this as well. They wanted to use the power in those relics to aid in excavating their ruin.
"Find who it was at any cost. And a.n.a.lyse if it is worth setting up a lab in our ruin."
"Yes sir."
The conference was thus over, but Chairman Park IlDo had no intention to end things in such a half-hearted manner.
"It would be insufficient with just the Group"s informants. Contact the best of the informants outside."
"The cost would be quite high."
"Just find out who they are without caring about the cost. We first need to find who it is before deciding whether to enact revenge or to pull our tail."
The secretary manager lowered his head and walked out.
Chairman Park IlDo who was left alone had intense killing intent burning in his eyes.
"I should first do something about the inter-dimensional s.p.a.ce."
Sitting in the lecturing room, Han JinHo immersed himself in thinking while scribbling on his book.
Actually, it was only a few months ago that he had earnestly started moving like this. Before, he only indulged in training and preparing for a long time. If he hadn"t gotten to know about Luina coincidentally, he would"ve stayed under the surface for a longer period of time.
Luina had a big impact on his life in various ways. Thanks to Luina, he earned a lot of money, and it significantly helped his training.
He had studied many things - the process of covertly sending a relic across, as well as inventing a method to receive the money after selling the relic - he pa.s.sionately studied them.
If he had directed all that effort to school studies, early graduation would not be an issue, and he would"ve been able to advance to a graduate school.
After living intensely like that, the first different activity he started was appraising antiques. Even that, was a part of training.
Making an exquisite counterfeit, and appraising antiques were methods he relied on to achieve a breakthrough in his magic training that had hit a wall.
He naturally started in that manner along with Jung SangPil.
At the start, there were some minor trial and error, but he soon adapted to it. In any case, it was easier than excavating a ruin.
After he started actively moving, without rest, he got connected to the world. Han JinHo viewed that connection in a positive light.
Thanks to that, he had been able to partic.i.p.ate in a secret auction other than Luina, he could continue to partic.i.p.ate in it, and he also realised what kind of standing he had in that place.
Plus, confirming the existence of martial arts was also a great help. Due to coming in contact with martial arts, he had invented a new mana training method, and his physical prowess had directly increased, so now if a dangerous matter surfaced, he could more efficiently overcome it.
Its significance was proved in the excavation of the new ruin this time.
With martial arts and magic, as well as items working together, he had cleared the ruin under the factory in only a few hours" time.
"Actually… the guardian should be awakening again soon."
While muttering to himself, Han JinHo raised his head and stared at the podium.
The lecture was coming to an end.
HanGw.a.n.g Group"s Ruin a.n.a.lysis Team were investigating the insides of the ruin in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the abandoned factory.
"They really excavated everything out. Here, they even took the whole wall away."
"Here they raised the ground up. Huh? There"s an empty s.p.a.ce under the ground! How in the world did they find that?"
It was as if the whole ruin was pulled out and carried away. Of course, that wasn"t what had happened, but everywhere had traces of things being dug out that it appeared to be as such.
"The monsters inside are all gone, and the traps are gone too. They"re really amazing guys."
It was unfortunate that they didn"t know the ident.i.ty of the people. They wanted to know who exactly this amazing team of excavators were.
Not to mention the places HanGw.a.n.g Group had yet to excavate, even in the places they had excavated before, relics and hidden s.p.a.ces that they hadn"t discovered were numerous.
They had used all the most recent technology and still couldn"t find those, and yet the invaders had found all these.
"Why don"t we just dig out everything here and overturn the whole place. That is one method, isn"t it?"
"You"re right."
It didn"t seem like there would be any relics left behind, though.
"Un? Did you hear some sound just then?"
"Sound?"
The ones investigating here had all practised martial arts. There were even two people that had possessed inner qi.
People with inner qi would have all of their five senses become more sensitive. They could hear small sound with ease.
A inner qi holder had spoken up, so everyone there raised their ears.
"Uh? There really is some sort of sound."
It was the sound of something repeatedly hitting the floor. All of them faced towards the place where the sound had come from, and soon, all of their faces turned pale white.
"M, Metal Golem!"
A giant with its entire body made of metal was approaching. The reason why previously, HanGw.a.n.g Group could not excavate the ruin any further was precisely because of that Metal Golem.
Naturally, they didn"t know whether that thing"s real name was Metal Golem or not. It was just a name they had arbitrarily attached.
But the name Metal Golem suited the existence very well. Modern weaponry did work on it, but it would regenerate once it was broken - a true monster.
Its speed was also so fast that even the strongest martial artist of HanGw.a.n.g Group would have trouble driving in a clean hit. Such a guy suddenly appeared, so how startled would they be?
"D, dodge it!"
With someone"s scream as the cue, all of them ran away.
Then, the Metal Golem slowly moved and stood straight on the place he always had been like a metal tower.
a.n.a.lyzing the ruin had now become an impossible task.
Translator: Rain27
Proofreader : Uptime