Chapter 87 (1/2)
Act 10
Gurung, gurung—
Su-hyeun petted Miru, currently slumbering away in the middle of the living room.
Compared to the beginning, the dragon had grown so much and now was about the size of a Korean Jindo dog. Miru continued to happily snore away.
It seemed that Su-hyeun’s touch felt really enjoyable to the young dragon.
“When will this kid grow up, I wonder?” Su-hyeun asked.
“Still, don’t you think that at this size, it’s grown a lot now?” Hak-joon replied.
“Regular dragons are supposed to reach their adulthood in about one year, you know. Can you honestly say that Miru will reach adulthood in one year at this rate?”
“Well, no, not really. I mean, it’s only this big, so…” Hak-joon said that before grinning slyly in Su-Hyeun’s direction. “Of course, it’s still a lot bigger than when it was wrapped around your neck.”
“He’s been trying to cling onto me up until about a month ago. Do you have any idea how hard I had to work in pacifying him when he started sulking after I forbid him from wrapping around my neck? And even now, he’s all annoyed and stuff for me not summoning him for a few days….”
“Yeah, I saw that. Miru, this kid, when he gets ticked off, it’s no freaking joke, that’s for sure.”
As Miru’s size had grown pretty large, Su-hyeun could no longer keep the dragon on the outside. Unlike before, his dragon might get mistaken for a monster that escaped from a dungeon if things went wrong somewhere.
“By the way, isn’t it time to wake Miru up? We should get going real soon, right?” Hak-joon asked.
“You’re right, we should.”
With a really expectant face, Su-hyeun stood up from his spot. Hak-joon only needed to see that face to figure out what the older man was thinking and immediately formed a similar sort of expression himself.
“I’m looking forward to it.” He had already heard from Su-hyeun the details of the wager with Robert. “To see just what kind of a face that guy is making right now.”
“Yeah, me too,” said Su-hyeun.
Hak-joon ended up saying what Su-hyeun wanted to say in the first place, so the latter just nodded his head and began shaking Miru. “Hey, time to wake up, sleepyhead. I brought you out after you wanted to come out and play, but you’ve been sleeping the whole day.”
Gurung, gururung—
“If you don’t wake up now, I’m going to put you back in there. One, two….”
Gyaoh-oh-ong, gyaong—
Miru began to wiggle a bit in its curled-up position and began crying out so pitifully.
Hak-joon stared at the dragon with amazed eyes before turning towards Su-hyeun. “Looking at this guy really makes you realize how time flies by, doesn’t it?”
“Right. It’s true that he’s changed a lot since half a year ago.”
Hak-joon must’ve recalled something abruptly from Su-hyeun’s reply because he asked the latter out of sheer curiosity. “What about you, bro?”
“What about me?”
“No, well. Miru’s one thing, but I was just wondering how much you’ve changed during the same time period, that’s all.”
“I haven’t changed at all, you know.”
“Well…To begin with, you were like a scary monster half a year ago. And it’s not like you’d go and laze around like other regular people either.”
There was this thought that popped up in his head every now and then.
Just how strong was Su-hyeun now, really?
What about now?
Or now?
Hak-joon would grow curious about the truth of the matter with every passing month or two.
For one thing, Su-hyeun displayed the rate of growth that let him reach the S rank in two years. If he maintained the same growth rate and continued to get stronger, then it’d be quite hard to imagine just how much more powerful he had become now.
“Bro, you reached the 30th floor recently, right?”
“I haven’t passed the trial there, but yeah.”
“…You probably didn’t take it easy in the meantime and lowered the difficulty, so.”
Hak-joon recalled the figure of Su-hyeun stopping the dungeon outbreak in Anyang, then killing off the master of Ares Guild, Jeong Dong-yeong. It had been about half a year since then.
“Maybe, it’s possible that….” Although his words may come across as unsure, Hak-joon was quietly confident about this. “It’s you who has changed far more than Miru.”
* * *
Something was wrong here.
Robert couldn’t get up from his seat, cold sweat still dripping down his face, even though he’d be late if he didn’t get up this instant.
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For the past ten days, it felt as if his blood was slowly drying up with each passing day. That feeling grew worse and worse as the promised time came and went. At this point in time, he was this close to denying reality, even.
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As per the agreement with Su-hyeun, all contributions made by the Medical Guild would be handed over to him. As for the consequences of that action, it’d fall on the shoulders of Robert himself who signed the contract in the first place.
Knock, knock—
“Guild Master, you need to get going, sir. If you don’t start now, you might…”
“Aaaaaaahk—!”
Robert covered his ears from the urging coming from outside his office and screamed loudly.
This was basically the same thing as a large American guild being completely suckered by Su-hyeun’s scheme.
* * *
The middle of downtown LA.
The attention of the entire world was focused on this location where countless police officers were restricting access.
If you took a look at the faces of the awakeners showing up in this place, you’d be able to find numerous individuals not just famous in America, but throughout the rest of the world, too.
And the most famous of them all was the vice master of the Maximum Guild, the S-Rank awakener Jordan Rogers, who was rather obviously the main lead in this raid.
“They’re late.”
Jordan confirmed the time with his wristwatch and his brows quivered.
Jordan was well known for being very strict with his promises, and he was never the type of man to wait for anyone in a laid-back manner. Even when there were dozens of minutes left on the clock, he’d peer at his watch several times.
“Sir, the Medical Guild’s master sent the word that he’ll be absent this time.”
“…Absent?”
A guild member approached his side and made a report, causing Jordan’s expression to crumple unsightly.
“Does he think this is a damn joke….?”
“And also, sir. Kim Su-hyeun seems to have arrived on location.”
“The one that the Medical Guild recruited?”
“Sir, actually, he’s a mercenary. He was visiting as a guest, but this event happened and the Medical Guild apparently requested his aid.”
“Those morons at least did something productive for once.”
“Would you like to meet him, sir?”
“Later. I will say hello when everyone’s gathered around. I’m kind of curious about him since he’s supposed to be a genius.”
If this was a green-colored dungeon, it would be fine, but the difficulty of the one they were about to attack was a blue color. Not only that, it was in a precarious state where an outbreak could occur not too long from now.
They definitely needed to succeed in this raid. So, the Medical Guild securing the services of an S-Rank awakener was a pretty sizeable contribution.
“Aren’t you expecting a little too much from a kid who became an S-Rank less than half a year ago?”
It was then that a familiar voice entered Jordan’s ears.
This woman’s rather razor-thin voice was capable of souring his moods no matter when he heard it. A middle-aged woman with blue hair and a pale face resulting from an excessive application of cosmetics just so happened to be the other S-Rank participating in this raid.