- 200 million and 5,000?! Someone spent 200,005,000 Won to acquire the rights to clear a C-rank dungeon?!
Ahn Sang-Min looked at the papers in disbelief.
He was completely lost for words. The maximum amount of profit that could be made on a C-rank gate was 200 million. Using the same amount...
Or, to be precise, even five thousand more would have been foolish.
- Their initial offer was around seventy million. But when I outbid them to a hundred million, those scoundrels raised their offer to two hundred.
In the White Tiger Guild, the default maximum amount for reserving C-rank gates was 100 million. If what he said was true, he wasn't at fault.
- Recently, a certain team started snatching up rights to all C-rank dungeons that appeared.
Ahn Sang-Min's fingers started jumping around on the keyboard. The search results immediately appeared on the screen. As Gee-Chul said, raid permits for all the C-rank gates in the area were snapped up with incredible speed and at a very unreasonable price.
At first, he thought it might be some other guild's way of sabotaging them. But no guild would be crazy enough to waste money just to sabotage them.
Besides, there was no guild foolish enough to start a dispute with the White Tiger Guild.
Not even the Hunters or Harvesters would do that.
But Additionally, it quickly became apparent that it was a private group.
- The head of this group is Yoo Jin-Ho. I've never heard of him.
- From what I know, he's the younger son of the company president who deals in real estate. It looks like he's buying gates with his father's money. - Hyun Gee-Chul added.
- Alright. But it's still a waste of money. He'll make a lousy president.
After a moment of searching through the list of rally participants, Ahn Sang-Min's gaze landed on one of the participants whose name seemed strangely familiar to him.
- Gee-Chul, what was the name of that survivor of the massacre two or three months ago?
- Oh... From what I remember... Sung Jin-Woo.
First, he survived the double dungeon and now he was just having fun in the C-rank dungeons? Something was off here.
- No matter what you're doing right now, you need to stop and find me everything you can about the hunters Sung Jin-Woo and Yoo Jin-Ho.
The speed of the employees' reaction to this sudden task could be surprising. They were called elites for a reason. One after another, reports quickly appeared before Ahn Sang-Min.
Honestly, there was nothing particularly special about Yoo Jin-Ho. He was the second son of the Yoo Jin Construction company president, but apart from that, there was nothing remarkable about him.
Sung Jin-Woo was different.
- So including the double underground incident, he was involved in three such incidents in quite a short period of time.
Sung Jin-Woo and Yoo Jin-Ho met during Yoo Jin-Ho's first raid and were the only survivors.
The third was related to the murder of an Association inspector.
And now the pair formed a team and conquered 2-3 dungeons a day. It was unimaginable speed.
– What do you think they are doing?
Jin-Ho had connections with Yoo Jin's company.
There have been rumors for some time that the president of this form is contacting talented hunters and gathering a team to create a guild.
More and more pieces of the puzzle were emerging for Ahn Sang-Min.
- This son of a bitch has had a second awakening!
Hyun Gee-Chul looked at his boss with wide eyes.
An E-rank hunter was only slightly stronger than an ordinary human. If an accident occurred, almost everyone was presumed dead. But Sung Jin-Woo went through many incidents in which his friends, most often being stronger than him, died while he escaped uninjured.
He might get lucky once or twice at most.
But not as many as three.
Especially not the third one.
The incident in which a hunter from the Surveillance Department, Kang Tae-Shik, committed a contract murder and then murdered witnesses was different. Records showed that a C-rank mage and a B-rank healer teamed up to defeat Kang.
If Kang Tae-Shik wasn't a fool, he would have first tried to take out the highest-ranked one, the strongest being the B-rank medic. That gave two reasons to eliminate her. It wasn't just about the rank but also the potential for reinforcement and healing she possessed.
– According to the report, a C-rank mage defeated Kang. What nonsense.
Mage-class hunters were weak compared to melee hunters, and among them, their worst possible matchup would be against the Assassin class. Perhaps Kang Tae-Shik could have arrogantly ignored the presence of a B-rank Healer, but it was unlikely that a three-year veteran of the Association would have made such a mistake.
It wasn't Song Chi-Yul who stopped the Association agent that day.
He didn't have solid proof, but Ahn Sang-Min was confident in his theory.
Sung Jin-Woo underwent a second awakening and became a high-ranking hunter. Yoo Jin-Ho witnessed his power in their raid and decided to test him to place him in his father's Guild. Everything fell into place.
If he defeated Kang Tae-Shik who has a B rank, then the rank must be above.
Now the question is whether no one has already discovered it?
It's possible that Yoo Jin-Ho's father knew. But if that was the case, he would keep this secret close to himself, after all, the success of his guild depended on it.
The Association?
These guys knew way more than any guild. More than the White Tiger or even the Hunters.
What also bothered him was how experienced agents from the Association were so easily fooled by the story of Kang's death.
By logging into the Association's website from an account representing the White Tiger Guild, Sang-Min checked who was leading the investigation in this case.
Not very surprised, he saw the name of Chief Inspector Woo Jin-Chul, Head of the Hunters Monitoring Department.
He knew more about this man than the average civilian.
Usually, public opinion and the media were interested in top guild Hunters, writing about their lives and careers. No one cared about Hunters in the Association, no matter how strong they were. A or B-rank Hunters working in the Association were anonymous. Working there didn't make them weak or fabulously wealthy, and they didn't clear strong dungeons every few days to attract media attention.
Ahn Sang-Min had never met the Chief Inspector, but the biggest guilds collaborating with the Association often knew a lot about him. After all, he was the head of the Department that dealt with Hunters, cooperation with them, and their care. Additionally, Woo Jin-Chul was a very strong A-rank Hunter that the White Tiger Guild would fight tooth and nail to have in their guild if he ever showed interest in joining.
But he never did. Never.
The head of the White Tiger Guild spoke highly of this man several times.
It was also known that he was practically the shadow of the President of the Go Gun-Hee Association and the president greatly appreciated his advice and opinions.
It seemed absurd that someone like that would simply believe that Kang, his subordinate whose skills he should have known, had been defeated by a mage and a healer.
Additionally, he must have known about the incident with Hwang Dong-Suk, who was the younger brother of an S-rank hunter.
He couldn't believe that Inspector Woo would be fooled like a child.
It was very likely that he had connected the dots, but he remained silent and let Sung remain silent for now.
And if that was the case... Then Sung may have been A-ranked or even higher and had made some sort of agreement with the Association.
Damn!
This missing piece of information was bothering him a lot, but he had no way to fill it in.
But he could still act without that information.
Now, their top priority would be to acquire Sung Jin-Woo before other Guilds or even the Association did, assuming the Association had become interested in him as Ahn Sang-Min suspected. The competition would become fierce after Sung's retest. Even if the man didn't turn out to be high-ranking, it wouldn't matter. Because their number worldwide was incredibly low, an Awakened Hunter would be the primary target of the press. Just that fact alone would make him an incredible source of advertising power that couldn't be bought with money.
It is possible that this is what the Association has noticed, which has recently begun to lose its importance and popularity.
Eventually, they will need new strong hunters.
And few were willing to join them, leaving behind huge amounts of money and fame.
- We don't have time to waste.
Ahn Sang-Min grabbed his coat on the chair.
- Gee-Chul, let's go.
Hyun Gee-Chul was surprised by his boss's actions.
- Where to?
- For scouting.
- Oh? Okay, I'm coming.
Ahn Sang-Min quickly turned towards the exit, and Hyun Gee-Chul followed with his head slightly tilted.
Since he became the head two years ago, this was the first time Ahn Sang-Min had gone out directly for recruitment.
***
Leveling up in the C-rank gates was really profitable. In addition to the levels, he managed to acquire some cool skills and strengthen the ones he already had.
[ NOTICE! ]
[ SKILL: CRITICAL ATTACK LV.1 HAS BEEN ACQUIRED. ] ( ACTIVE )
[ 70 MANA ]
[ APPLIES EXCLUSIVELY TO DAGGERS ]
[ YOU KNOW HOW TO HANDLE A DAGGER. YOUR ATTACKS TO YOUR ENEMY'S VITAL POINTS WILL DEAL CRITICAL DAMAGE. ]
[ NOTICE! ]
[ SKILL: ADVANCED DAGGER MASTERY LV.1 HAS BEEN ACQUIRED. ] ( PASSIVE )
[ APPLIES EXCLUSIVELY TO DAGGERS ]
[ YOU HAVE BEEN USING DAGGERS FOR A LONG TIME, RESULTING IN SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVED TECHNIQUE. ]
[ YOUR DAGGER ATTACKS WILL DEAL AN ADDITIONAL 33% DAMAGE. ]
[ NOTICE! ]
[ SKILL: SPRINT HAS LEVELED UP ]
However, at the end of cleaning another dungeon, something interesting happened.
The announcement of a new level was followed by another one.
[ NOTICE! ]
[ YOU HAVE LEVELED UP! ]
[ NOTICE! ]
[ "PLAYER" HAS REACHED THE REQUIRED LEVEL. ]
[ NEW QUEST ]
[ A NEW QUEST HAS APPEARED ]
[CHANGE OF JOB]
[ DO YOU ACCEPT THE QUEST? ]
[ YES ] [ NO ]
A change of job?
Something interesting.