Chapter 176 (1/2)

Su-hyeun was currently sitting inside a tent, wearing a thick padded coat.

There was a hotly-burning stove inside. Despite that, he still didn’t take off the coat. He preferred his body to be sufficiently warmed, after all. And he also believed that the cold weather dulled one’s body, and slowed one’s reflexes, as well.

It was a habit to stay as warm as possible.

<< I’d like to be at ease, but… >>

Su-hyeun took a look at the handful of people also inside the large tent, stealing glances at him.

<< This is really making me uncomfortable. >>

He was sitting in front of a table, while everyone else was standing around awkwardly. It was hard to tell who was the host and who was the guest with things like this.

In the end, Su-hyeun decided to stand up. That action startled the person claiming to be the mayor’s secretary, and he quickly walked over to say something.

“Please remain seated. Mister mayor will soon be here, sir.”

“Everyone is standing around, and that’s kinda making me uneasy, you see.”

“There are only two chairs, unfortunately. And this is our job, sir.”

“You can bring in extra chairs from outside, plus I’ll feel better standing rather than sitting all by myself. So, don’t worry about me.”

His Russian wasn’t very good, but, since the other party used English, communicating didn’t pose a problem.

In the end, Su-hyeun waited standing up. It made him a little more comfortable, at least.

<< A blue-colored dungeon in the middle of Moscow, is it… >>

Su-hyeun had been searching for a dungeon with a difficulty higher than green color, and, thanks to Lee Ju-ho, he had found the information he wanted quickly.

Actually, it didn’t even qualify as ‘information’, strictly speaking. Soon after this dungeon appeared in Moscow, the news broke in several countries throughout the world, after all.

One could say that he had gotten lucky, in a way. Of course, that didn’t mean he felt happy about it, though.

<< This is already the fifth one. >>

The United States, South Korea, China, Britain, and now, even in Russia.

At this rate, it wouldn’t be strange to see several blue-colored dungeons popping up every month in the near future.

<< In a way, isn’t this the very first international trip for the Paragon Guild? >>

Su-hyeun, quietly standing around, chuckled to himself. Originally, he’d been thinking of accepting raid requests much further down the line, but somehow he’d found himself on the clock, so to speak, already.

Of course, he still didn’t know if the Russians wanted his cooperation. But Su-hyeun was confident that they were definitely in need of his help.

<< Because they don’t have anyone else right now. >>

Currently, awakener manpower wasn’t exported to other countries in what you’d call a smooth way. Governments wanted to prevent such exportation of their ‘awakener resource’ to elsewhere and required that the dungeons found within their territories be raided first, instead.

Obviously, you’d need a lot of time if you wanted to clear the tangled mess of bureaucratic red tape.

So, to solve such a problem, it wouldn’t be the Authority but the individual guilds stepping up to the plate, instead.

<< And that is precisely what being a mercenary guild is all about. >>

The Authority didn’t have any means to discourage a guild wanting to do business that way. If they even tried, then the awakener associations would oppose such an action forcefully.

With this set-up, any Awakener Authorities or guilds now had the pretext to ask for assistance from awakeners of other countries.

“Mister mayor has arrived.”

After Su-hyeun had stood around for ten or so minutes, a man in his fifties brushed past the tent’s flaps and walked in. It was Moscow’s mayor, David Sobyanin.

“Oh, welcome to the city. Nice to meet you, Mister Kim Su-hyeun.”

David Sobyanin’s English wasn’t as good as his secretary’s. It didn’t mean he couldn’t be understood at all, though.

Su-hyeun shook David Sobyanin’s offered hand. “I’ve heard the news.”

“Yes, news. It circulates very fast these days.”

David Sobyanin immediately understood how and why Su-hyeun had come from this brief exchange.

Reporters broadcasting the news, and various social media sites, formed a rather scary information network. Especially so with the latter—through social media, dozens, hundreds, tens of millions of people got to spread information to all corners of the globe.

In this day and age, information could reach the other side of the planet not in a matter of days, but hours. So, it wasn’t that strange for Su-hyeun to hear about the situation in Moscow and show up quickly like this.

“Do you require assistance?”

At Su-hyeun’s question, David Sobyanin began weighing his options in his head.

Wouldn’t it be better to blow the Korean off, at least once? Would the negotiation be a bit more advantageous for them if he came out and said that they had enough manpower to do this thing?

<< No, wait. I can’t gamble on this. >>

Opportunity had come knocking at the perfect time.

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that heaven was helping him right now. He shouldn’t kick away an opportunity of this magnitude because of some momentary greed.

<< If I got greedy and that resulted in the destruction of Moscow…. >>

No, wait—this might not end up as a Moscow-only problem.

Maybe, even the surrounding cities, too…

If the blue-colored dungeon caused an outbreak, letting monsters run amok throughout the whole of Russian, then forget about hundreds of thousands, countless millions might lose their lives.

<< I shouldn’t be worried about money. >>

There was no more need to ponder this anymore. David Sobyanin bowed his head. “Yes, I need your help. Please help us.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. The future of Moscow now depended on what Su-hyeun’s reply was, and what kind of conditions he put forward.

But then…

<< Why isn’t he saying anything? >>

David Sobyanin cracked open his tightly-shut eyes a little and sneaked a glance to his front. And what he saw utterly stunned him.

“We’re here to speak as equals. There’s no need to lower your head to me,” said Su-hyeun.

Meaning, if you lower your head, I’ll lower mine, too.

Only then did David Sobyanin raise his head, prompting Su-hyeun to do the same and look straight at the Moscow’s mayor.

“Now then. Shall we start from the beginning again?”

* * *

The negotiations didn’t last long.

From the get-go, the Russians wouldn’t have anything to say even if Su-hyeun demanded the majority of the Ether stones extracted from the dungeon. But even then, he only demanded a small portion of the stones as well as a little bit of money.