CH 10

Ask anyone to name the most famous guilds in the hunter powerhouse of South Korea, and they’ll probably name three without hesitation.

First, Pado.

Second, Samra.

And third, Seowon.

First and foremost, the Samra Guild was the first officially recognized guild in South Korea. Led by Song Jo-heon, who himself went from A-rank to S-rank and revealed that it’s possible to rise to the acquired grad of awakening, is the guild leader, and has formed a heavy axis of the Korean hunter community based on the solid foundation he has accumulated over a long period of time.

Seowon Guild was famous for a slightly different reason. The guild’s main building was home to a massive library that was connected to other areas. They were a group that sought knowledge instead of money or fame, and their focus was more on research than actual combat.

And finally, Pado. The Pado Guild didn’t need a long explanation. Two words were enough to summarize it.

An elite few, and Lee Sa-young.

One side of the Pado Guild’s spacious conference room was lined with windows, offering a sweeping view of the city. Bae Won-woo, the Vice Guild Leader of the Pado Guild, who had entered the room with a tablet in front of him, knocked on the door to get their attention.

“Alright, I’m going to do a quick head count …does anyone know why we’re four people short?”

He set up the chairs for the exact number of participants, but there were four empty seats. He hadn’t gotten any RSVPs. As Bae Won-woo scratched his head, a woman with dyed red hair tied in a half-bun raised her hand.

“Vice leader~ they’re lying in the treatment room, it must have been a day.”

“Huh? For what? They didn’t even enter the dungeon.”

The red-haired woman, Kang Ji-soo, shrugged in response to his question.

“I don’t know, they got beaten up somewhere.”

“What? Some asshole beat up our kids and you let that happen?”

“Oh, of course, we wanted to beat him up too, but the guild leader told us to leave him alone.”

Bae Won-woo’s gaze flickered over to Lee Sa-young, who was sitting at the head of the table, fiddling with something in his hands, seemingly uninterested in the previous conversation, and tilted his head as if he felt his gaze.

“Why.”

“Nothing…. You’re telling me to leave the kids alone when they’ve just been beaten up by some asshole? That’s not the code of our guild.”

”Leave it alone. It’s the guild leader’s order.”

Lee Sa-young said slowly, his voice still gruff. Bae Won-woo squinted his eyes, trying to get a better look at where Sa-young’s attention was now. What he was holding in his hand… It looked like a crumpled business card.

“What do you have in your hand?”

“A letter.”

“A letter? Who gave it to you?”

“You have a lot of questions….”

With a jerk of his head, Sa-young jerked his chin in the direction of where the guild members were sitting.

“Let’s get this meeting started.”

“Uh… Ji-soo, I want you to tell the people lying down about the meeting.”

“Aish, you always make me do it.”

Kang Ji-soo grumbled, but Bae Won-woo didn’t say anything more, stepping up to the podium and grabbing the microphone. Clearing his throat, he began.

“Okay, I’m going to call this quarter’s dungeon bidding meeting to order. Everyone, turn on your tablets and open the files the support office sent you.”

The meeting began with a few dungeon-related materials, but it was over sooner than expected. Everyone’s opinions were centered on one dungeon. Bae Won-woo stood at the podium, fixed the microphone, and announced the results of the meeting.

“Well…. If there are no further comments, I will decide that the dungeon bid for the fourth quarter will be the Jongno 3-ga underground dungeon, yes, I will decide. Does everyone have any objections?”

“None!”

“Good~ Jongno 3-ga is easy to get to, and the materials inside are good.”

“Is that where they get the materials for the life-restoring potion?  Why did the government release the bidders?”

“I guess they’re broke or something. I’m sure the bids are outrageously high.”

After it became known that dungeons and their byproducts were worth money, hunters who had closed their dungeons after getting drunk went one step further and left behind useful dungeons.

They began periodically exploring the interior of dungeons that had been cleared of monsters and gathering byproducts to make money. In addition, the government and the Awakening Management Bureau have been studying the unclaimed dungeons and selecting the most useful ones to auction off.

Normally, the Guild Leader and Vice Guild Leader would have discussed and participated in the auction, but this quarter’s auction had a particularly high number of valuable dungeons, making it difficult to decide. That’s why Bae Won-woo called today’s meeting to hear everyone’s opinions. It ended on a high note.

“This is the end of the meeting…”

“Wait.”

Lee Sa-young, who had been quietly listening throughout the meeting, raised his hand, drawing the attention of the guild members who were clearing out their seats, expecting the meeting to end soon. Bae Won-woo, who was about to wrap up the meeting, also blinked.

”What’s the matter, Sa-young?”

“If you have something to say….”

“What’s going on?”

Curious eyes turned to look at Lee Sa-young in unison. Was there something he didn’t like, or was he trying to steal another guild’s bid for more dungeons?

But the words that came out of his mouth were unexpected.

“Have you ever seen a man wearing a soju brand apron around here?”

“A soju-branded apron? Out of the blue?”

“Yeah. Black. And he carries a ladle this big.”

“A ladle?”

“It’s curly and…. The hair was black… No, it was gray.”

“He has a curly face and black hair… no, it was gray?”

Lee Sa-young formed a circle with his hands. Bae Won-woo, the Pado Guild’s reliable shield and vice guild leader, looked around as if to ask what the hell was going on. But it didn’t help that everyone else was just looking at him in bewilderment.

‘Hey, don’t any of you know?’

‘If the Vice Guild Leader doesn’t know, who does?’

These thoughts seemed to come from nowhere.

Bae Won-woo scratched his cheek and asked, trying to think as hard as he could.

“Where… Did you see the soju promotion?”

Bae Won-woo was a sincere and reliable tanker, but he didn’t have the intelligence of a sharpshooter. His reasoning was completely flawed, but the other guild members didn’t know what to expect, so they agreed with him.

“Ah~ Guild Leader, where did you go to the grocery store?”

“No, if he went to the grocery store, it would have been on social media by now.”

“That’s another one.”

“Isn’t he kind of a weird person to wear an apron in the first place?”

“Why, if he works in a restaurant, maybe.”

“Why would the Guildmaster be looking for a restaurant worker?”

“I don’t know. Or maybe he had a good meal and forgot to put on his apron.”

“Don’t the bosses usually tell you to take off your apron when you pay the bill?”

“That doesn’t help.”

After listening to the guild members’ opinions one by one, Lee Sa-young gave a cold assessment.

“No, who was talking about the man in the apron out of the blue while we’re talking about the bidding?”

Bae Won-woo slammed the podium in frustration. The wooden podium was dented in the shape of his fist. The head of the General Affairs team seized the moment to adjust his glasses, and the lenses popped and sparkled.

“Vice Guild leader, I’m sending you a bill to replace the podium.”

“Oh, shit. Can you give me a break once?”

In a flash, Sa-young stood up from his seat amidst the clutter in the hall. He twirled his sesame seeds a couple of times and slipped the crumpled business card into his pocket. When he saw Bae Won-woo begging the head of the general affairs team, he waved his hand to dismiss the meeting.

“Okay, meeting over. Go eat.”

“Hey, Sa-young, don’t skip your meal again!”

There was an affectionate nagging in the back of his mind, but Lee Sa-young was the first to leave the conference room without answering, and Won-woo, who had been watching him, let out a long sigh. Kang Ji-soo shrugged.

“Does the leader skip meals for a day or two? Let’s just eat.”

“Ehh…. Yeah, let’s go eat haejang-guk.”

“Ah! I want some haejang-guk. If you’re going to eat that again today, I won’t eat with vice leader.”

“Do you want to come with me? I’ll buy it for you.”

“Alas, I can’t. I’ll eat in the cafeteria. You go alone.”

As Kang Ji-soo quickly ran out of the meeting room without a chance to catch her, Bae Won-woo had one last hope and cautiously asked the rest of the group.

“Does anyone else want to come with me?”

The moment he said that, the hunters were out of the room in a flash. They weren’t even that fast when running away from a rank 2 monster!

“Isn’t everyone taking the loyalty of the pado too lightly?”

In the end, Bae Won-woo had to make his way to Haejang-guk house on his own. The long-established restaurant he frequented every day had a good reputation, but that wasn’t the only reason he wanted to visit.

First, word travels fastest where people gather! I’m going to talk to the hunters there, gather information, and make some friends! The Pado’s Vice Guild Leader ostensibly had these deeper intentions, stamping his presence at the restaurant every lunchtime. The added bonus was the satisfaction of seeing my signature on the worn wallpaper of Haejang-guk house.

Second, Haejang-guk house maintained the old prices as much as possible even when prices were going crazy, and the food was delicious, and the portions were generous. I wondered if there was anything left over after selling it. The owner’s grandmother would greet me every time I visited. Haejang-guk house was the only place in the changed world that retained its pre-Rift appearance.

It was only a few months ago that a strange young man in his early twenties suddenly appeared in the shop.