CH 235

Tae-Sung logged out from the game and checked his email.

He had many unread emails from other gamers, and they were all from those who had been bullied by the Genesis Guild.

‘First things first…’ Tae-Sung accepted all of the gamers who had participated in the Vampire Lord raid.

Why?

The Genesis Guild wouldn’t have fallen for his plan if there had been a spy among them, so he decided that it would be fine to trust them. The problem was that there were a thousand and eight hundred gamers left after he accepted the ones who had participated in the Vampire Lord raid.

‘How do I filter all of them? Do I have to watch every video and open every screenshot they sent…?’ Tae-Sung couldn’t help but sigh at the daunting task in front of him.

However, he wasn’t planning on giving up.

‘I need my own power,’ he knew that he needed enough Adventurers to fight against the Genesis Guild, and this was why he had to embrace the gamers who had approached him first.

In the end, Tae-Sung decided to…

“Let’s go! Manual labor for the win!” he exclaimed. He decided to read every single one of the one thousand eight hundred emails and started filtering the gamers that he was going to accept to his guild.

***

Sorting the gamers wasn’t that difficult. The only thing Tae-Sung had to do was to read the email, look at the screenshots, watch the videos, and verify the proof the gamers had sent before deciding whether to accept them or not.

However, the problem was that there were one thousand eight hundred of them.

Search "pawread dot com" for the original.

“Am I a broadcasting watchdog or what…?” he grumbled.

He felt no different from government employees shifting through media content to see if there was anything that they should censor. The only difference between him and them was that he was trying to see whether the gamer and the Genesis Guild had any relationship or not.

In short, it was truly a boring job.

In the end, Tae-Sung decided to…

“Hey, Seung-Gu. How many have you done so far?”

“This is my thirty-seventh one, hyung-nim.”

“Hurry up, will you? I’m already on my seventy-eighth email!”

“Yes, hyung-nim…”

Tae-Sung decided to ask Seung-Gu for help, and he was going through the emails with him.

“I told you to just use part-timers…”

Cheon Woo-Jin shook his head and looked at the two with eyes full of pity.

“You have a ton of money at your disposal, so why are you insisting on doing this by yourself?” Cheon Woo-Jin asked.

“Do you really think that money grows on trees? Why would I hire part-timers when I can do it myself?” Tae-Sung replied.

“What a stubborn bastard…”

“Fuck off if you’re just going to watch and nag. We’re busy,” Tae-Sung grumbled. He suddenly smirked and added, “Or maybe you can pay for the part-timers?”

“What?! Y-You…!”

“I’m just kidding. How can I trust the part-timers to do a proper job? I have to see these kinds of things for myself.”

“Hmm… I guess you’re right, but…”

“But what?”

“Let’s say you watched the videos and all, but can you trust those one hundred percent? They could have staged it, you know?”

“Huh? Oh, you’re right…” Tae-Sung muttered with a surprised look.

“What would you do if they sent you staged videos, and then they became spies once you accepted them?”

“What should I do? Should I just fight the Genesis Guild by myself?”

“Nah, you’re probably going to get wiped out in less than a second if you wage war by yourself.”

“Y-Yeah, you’re probably right…”

“You should see what they’re doing in-game as well instead of relying on these emails.”

“In-game? Hey, I’m already very busy, you know? How am I supposed to track all of them in-game? There’s more than a thousand of them!”

“Hmm… You’ll just have to hire around three thousand, then.”

“Huh?”

“The Thieves Guild.”

“…!”

“Try placing a request with them. They can find out what anyone in the game is doing, but only if you can request their services.”

“Ah!” Tae-Sung exclaimed after remembering the guild with the largest information network on the continent—the Thieves Guild.

***

The ‘Thieves Guild’ had the word ‘Thieves,’ but it was more like a labor union with the slogan of—uniting to survive! It was formed by the bottom-feeding petty thieves of society.

The Thieves Guild was composed of thieves, snatchers, prostitutes, gangsters, etc.

In short, the Thieves Guild was basically the official criminal organization of the continent, and keeping them nearby was quite dangerous since it was normal for them to commit crimes. They would also stir up trouble wherever they went.

However, the Thieves Guild possessed the largest information network on the continent.

They collected information from their millions of guild members throughout the continent, and their information gave them power.

And that was why Cheon Woo-Jin suggested the Thieves Guild to Tae-Sung...

It was going to be extremely easy to check the background of two thousand Adventurers if he utilized the vast information network of the Thieves Guild, and that was definitely going to make his life much easier.

But the problem was… how was he going to contact them?

“Ah… I need to know where the hell their guild is to place a request, right?”

Tae-Sung logged into the game and descended on the Nürburg Continent as Siegfried. He immediately went to the place famous as the City of Pleasure and the city where he first met Shakiro—Dondegiri.

The reason he headed straight to Dondegiri was quite simple. The city was known for its bustling entertainment districts.

The entire city was basically one huge pot of debauchery.

Siegfried thought that this was the first place he should check if he were going to search for the Thieves Guild.

However, getting in touch with the Thieves Guild was definitely not going to be easy because they were basically a criminal organization. They wouldn’t place a signboard in front of their buildings.

‘Hmm… I can’t just nab criminals off the streets and start asking them questions…’ 

Siegfried was troubled. He didn’t have even a single clue about the Thieves Guild’s whereabouts, so he was forced to walk around the streets of Dondegiri aimlessly for five hours

“Hey! Owner punk! Where the hell is that Thieves Guild? Hamchi can’t get a whiff of their scent! Kyu!”

“I’m frustrated, too,” Siegfried retorted at the hamster’s grumbling.

“I cannot seem to find them, too,” Gringore added.

Thud!

Someone bumped Siegfried’s shoulder...

“Hey! Watch where you’re going!” roared a man who looked like a weasel.

“I’m sorry,” Siegfried immediately apologized to the man.

“You better be careful,” the man said before walking away.

Then, the man looked back at Siegfried once he was far.

He smirked before muttering, “Keke! He looked like the son of some rich family. Let’s see… how much does he have—huh…?”

The pickpocket was shocked to see the content of Siegfried’s pouch.

“W-What the heck?! These are nuts!”

The pouch was filled with many different nuts, such as walnut, almond, macadamia, etc.

It wasn’t filled with gold coins like what he had been expecting.

“Damn it!” The pickpocket fumed, but he soon discovered a problem.

“What the heck?! Where’s my wallet?!”

The pickpocket had decided to satiate his hunger with a chicken skewer, but he noticed that his wallet was missing.

***

Meanwhile, Siegfried was enjoying chicken skewers at a nearby stall with Hamchi and Gringore after getting his pouch of nuts stolen.

“Munch… Munch… This is really good.”

“Kyu! The seasoning is excellent! The meat is excellent!”

“Hey, can a hamster eat chicken skewers?”

“Hamchi can eat anything! Stop being racist!”

“…How am I being racist, you crazy hamster?” said Siegfried with narrowed eyes.

However, Hamchi didn’t spare him even a glance.

Hamchi was completely engrossed in his chicken skewer.

“Great Spirit of the Forest, my ass…” Siegfried grumbled before paying for the chicken skewers to the stall owner. “Here you go.”

“Aigoo! Thank you very much!”

“I hope you sell a lot today,” Siegfried responded.

Surprisingly, he didn’t take money out of his Inventory.

He took some money out from an old battered leather wallet.

“That old piece of trash doesn’t suit you at all, Your Majesty! Should I request them to craft you a wallet made out of the hide of the Chromatic Dragon?” Gringore asked.

“Oh, this?” Siegfried smirked, and then he added, “It’s not mine.”

“Pardon me…?”

“Some guy bumped into me earlier, and he stole my pouch of nuts, so I decided to steal something from him as well. I lost the nuts, but he—let’s see—Wow! Eleven gold coins and seventy-six silver coins! We can have as many chicken skewers as we want! It’s going to be paid for by that guy!”

“T-Then the chicken skewer we had just now was…?”

“Paid with the money I stole…”

“Heok!”

“We’re even. Well, technically… I earned more. Hohoho!” Siegfried let out a despicable laugh. Siegfried was too sharp, quick, and despicable for the pickpocket that the pickpocket ended up getting pickpocketed.

“I guess we can gamble away these eleven gold coins if we get bored—”

“Hey! You!” someone shouted at Siegfried from a nearby alley.

Siegfried turned around and saw a familiar face—no, he saw the exact same pickpocket who had gotten a taste of his own medicine.

“Come here!” the pickpocket shouted.

“Me?” Siegfried feigned ignorance.

“Who else? Come here! Hurry up!”

“Ah, yes! I am coming!”

Surprisingly, Siegfried went into the alley after he was called, and then a few large men surrounded him and his party.

“Hey, you got quite the nimble pair of hands.”

“Thank you!”

“W-What did you say?!” The pickpocket was flabbergasted.

He was trying to sound sarcastic, but it seemed that the young man thought that he was praising him.

“Did you just thank me?!”

“I thanked you because you praised me…?”

“Wow, look at this punk! Do you have a death wish, ha?!”

“Nope.”

“…!”

“Why did you call me here? And why are these scary-looking hyung-nims[1] here?”

“Give me back my wallet or else—”

Pak!

The pickpocket felt his vision spin, and he started seeing stars spinning around him.

Why?

Siegfried had punched him in the face.

And the hyung-nims suffered the same fate as well…

Puk! Puk! Puk!

Siegfried started beating the living daylights out of the pickpocket and the hyung-nims with him.

The beating continued for around five minutes before Siegfried stopped and said, “Excuse me?”

“Y-Yes, sir?!” The pickpocket jumped in fright.

“Give me everything you have,” Siegfried said.

“I… I do not have anything, sir…”

“Then, can I take everything that I find?”

“That’s…”

“Or what about one thousand punches per silver I find? Deal?”

In the end, Siegfried got a few gold coins, gold necklaces, weapons, and even the clothes of the pickpocket and his hyung-nims. Of course, he allowed them to keep their underwear on because his eyes would get scorched if he saw them naked.

Siegfried suddenly had a brilliant idea.

‘Wait a minute… I can just make them come find me if I can’t find them, right?’

There was a saying that one should make the tiger come to them if they couldn’t find the tiger’s den.

‘Should I act like a gangster and wreak havoc in this place for a while? The Thieves Guild is going to come to me if I become the boss of a large organization, right?’ 

Siegfried decided to enter the underground world of Dondegiri to get in contact with the Thieves Guild.

“Listen up,” Siegfried called the attention of the pickpocket and the gangsters before saying, “From now on, you guys are my subordinates, and I’m your boss. You also have to call me Boss from now on. Do you understand?”

The pickpocket and the gangsters all thought the same thing at the same time…

‘This guy is a psychopath!’

1. Hyung-nim is another term for a gangster in Korea. ☜