Chapter 71 - Chapter 71 (2/2)

"You mean, hyung-nim??"

'….Hyung-nim?'

The light within Yu Myung-Han's eyes flickered a little just then. But that didn't last for long.

"That's correct."

Yu Jin-Ho became speechless, then.

'Groan...'

Even a snot-nosed brat would know that now was the right time to confidently say something in order to leave behind a positive impression. However, the one they were talking about was none other than hyung-nim.

Yu Jin-Ho could ask, sure, but he wasn't confident of anything else besides. So, he replied honestly.

"I can't be certain."

"Very good. There is no meaning if the challenge is too easy for you."

The Chairman Yu Myung-Han took a sip of water and lightly wiped the corners of his lips with a handkerchief.

"If you fail, I shall hand over the Guild to your brother. So, how about it? Will you accept?"

Yu Jin-Ho's expression became grave.

'This is the shot I struggled so hard to get....'

If he backed out now, then he wouldn't be able to show himself in front of hyung-nim, who helped him right until the end for this opportunity.

Yu Jin-Ho became deeply earnest as he replied.

"I accept, Father."

"Good."

With that reply, the negotiation between a father and a son had come to a conclusion. Yu Myung-Han wordlessly nodded his head, and Yu Jin-Ho stood up, bowed his waist, and left the room.

Yu Myung-Han took the handkerchief away from his lips. It was getting harder to suppress the smile trying to form on his lips.

'This kid....'

This boy wanted Yujin Guild.

He suspected something was up when they agreed to meet today, but he didn't expect his son to be this daring.

'Indeed, a tiger's cub is still a tiger at the end of the day.'

The smile finally began to spread on Yu Myung-Han's lips.

'….That famous Chairman Yu Myung-Han is actually smiling!!'

Goh Myung-Hwan's eyes were growing large as he witnessed everything.

The widely-known nickname of Chairman Yu Myung-Han was 'Pokerface'. He was famed for never showing any emotion whatsoever, whether it be a joyful occasion or a sorrowful one.

When Goh Myung-Hwan continued to stare utterly mystified, Chairman Yu Myung-Han turned to him and asked.

"Hunter-nim. Was there anything you wanted to add?"

Suddenly finding himself on the receiving end of that stare, Goh Myung-Hwan got flustered and hurriedly shook his head.

"N-no. Not at all."

***

….47, 48, 49, 50.

With a frightening clearing speed, Jin-Woo climbed up the floors.

[You have killed the Mid-Ranked Demon.]

[You have earned 300 experience points.]

[You have acquired (1) Soul of Demons.]

…

….

…....

[You have killed the Mid-Ranked Demon.]

[You have killed the Mid-Ranked Demon.]

He didn't feel tired at all when looking at the total experience points and the accumulated number of souls climbing up higher every time he hunted a monster down.

[Collected Number of Souls: 4,388/10,000]

'It's not even at the halfway mark yet, huh.'

He had been endlessly hunting demons down ever since entering this place, but as expected, the wall of ten thousand souls was indeed high, and difficult to overcome.

However, what about his level?

[Level: 69]

In the space of one day, it had risen by another two.

The levelling up speed had slowed down compared to the beginning, but it could still be considered as blistering when looking at the rate of collecting the required souls. Even now, the experience points were quietly piling up.

"Kiieehk!"

[….Killed the Mid-Ranked Demon.]

[You have earned 300 experience points.]

[You have collected (1) Soul of....]

"Whew!"

After finishing off the last demon still standing before his eyes, Jin-Woo stretched his back and scanned his surroundings. Beneath the confidence-inspiring shadow soldiers standing around him, the countless corpses of mid-ranked demons could be seen littering the ground.

Clap!

Jin-Woo smiled deeply and clapped his hands.

"Nice work."

The soldiers who fought hard for him all returned to his shadow in an instant. The magic crystal could be collected by them, sure, but loot had to be manually collected by Jin-Woo.

[Will you take.....]

Well, he had to manually click 'yes' on every System message that popped into his view, that was why.

'This is a bit cumbersome, isn't it.'

So, that was why when there weren't that many demons, he took care of them himself real fast. And, when there were in a big group like this time, he fought together with his soldiers.

As soon as the battle was over, he'd start collecting the loot right away.

'Just what's so fun about this that Yu Jin-Ho insisted on doing it?'

Jin-Woo extracted a piece of loot from the dead demon and smirked to himself.

There was one more cumbersome thing about this place; it was impossible to extract shadows inside the Demon's Castle.

Didn't matter whether it was a mid-ranked or low-ranked, the black fog-like thing that denoted if he could perform the shadow extraction or not didn't rise up from the demon's corpses.

'Even when I'm staring at the remains, too.'

[This Mana is tainted.]

[It's impossible to perform shadow extraction.]

Nope, he only got some messages saying that he couldn't extract shadows because Mana was supposedly tainted.

'Is there anything I can do about this?'

Just as Jin-Woo scanned the remains of the demons with a helpless expression on his face, a new message popped into his view.

Tti-ring.

[You have discovered 29 'Item: Horns of Mid-Ranked Demon'.]

[Will you take them all?]

Jin-Woo grinned brightly.

'Of course!'

Jin-Woo quickly shook away the regret he felt over the shadow extraction problem, with the help from the abundant loot falling on his lap.

'Nothing I can use directly among the pile, eh.'

In that case, sell them all!

As soon as he sold off all the japtem, more Gold got neatly deposited into his bank balance.

[Current Gold: 914,690,772]

'Heok!!'

Jin-Woo checked his Inventory without thinking too much, only for his eyes to shot open real wide. The amount of Gold sitting pretty in there had shot past 900 million already.

'Well, each pair of demon's horns are worth about 200,000, and I hunted down well over 4000, so....'

Not to forget, he also sold off other unnecessary japtem on his way here as well, so it was understandable that Gold would accumulate at a frightening pace.

'Should I buy a rarity S weapon or armour?'

Before long, though, Jin-Woo shook his head.

He wasn't in a need for one, so no real need to force himself to spend money just because he had some.

'Right, there will come a time when I need to splurge on something.'

Jin-Woo closed the Inventory window and lightly dusted his hands.

He was done with cleaning up his surroundings.

He had procured the important entry permit for the 51st floor a long time ago. So, the only thing remaining was to get to the floor-transfer magic circle and go upstairs, but....

Jin-Woo's sight shifted towards the pillar of light. More specifically, a short distance in front of that pillar.

And a massive demon, plus scores of high-ranked demons, were standing there, waiting.

Jin-Woo raised his sight up higher.

And he could see the giant demon's name, floating in the air in a deep crimson hue.

[The Sovereign of the Lower Floors, The Avaricious Vulcan]

That thing consisted of a huge mess of fatty flesh that must've weighed dozens of tons. No, maybe even several hundred, instead. And then, the massive club this thing was holding in hand looked rather horrifying as well.

However, a smile was etched on Jin-Woo's face.

'So, that's the mid-boss of this place, huh?'

He held only the nicest memories of the bosses found inside the instant dungeons. They all gave him plenty of experience points as well as wonderful items.

Compared to the boss-level monsters found in regular dungeons that required lots of hard work to kill but little reward to show for it, these boss monsters of instant dungeons were more like boxes of gifts, all nicely wrapped up.

So, then. What items would that guy cough up?

Gulp.

Jin-Woo smiled brightly and began drooling.

< Chapter 71 > Fin.