Chapter 85 (2/2)

I did not tell Adam the details but only informed him that I was looking for a particular alien who had long been hiding on Earth. I recalled the man’s ability from Seo Gyu-Cheol’s memory. Besides the unique skill of [Mercardius’ Seed], there were many other peculiar abilities. For example, the ability to perfectly read Seo Gyu-Cheol’s thoughts without coming into contact with him and modify Seo Gyu-Cheol’s personality and completely erase his paternal love. Other abilities included being able to return Seo Gyu-Cheol’s body and the ability to give Seo Gyu-Cheol 10,000 potential Mana that could be activated within a day.

Adam’s face gradually distorted when he heard my explanation, “Hey, that thing. Were you sure it’s a mortal?”

“Have you never heard of it?”

“It’s mostly unfamiliar, and the effects are tremendous,” He thought about it for a while and said, “Something about it, it smells very dangerous.”

Was he saying that it was out of the ordinary even by the world’s standards where the tutorial had been completed?

“Let’s say everything else is as it is, but he can give someone potential Mana To say that is the capability of a mortal, it is rather…” He said in a low voice, “It’s almost like something that only the ‘system’ can handle.”

No way, it can’t be. Adam pondered and told me, “This is interesting to me, too. I’ll gather information from my original dimension as well.”

“Thanks. Anyway, you’re saying that there’s a mix of dangerous beings on this list, right?”

He looked at the hologram with a different glance, “Hey, one piece of advice is…”

“Yes, I’m not going to stalk them.”

“I’d recommend that, too. It won’t be too late to decide after receiving a reply from our world. We don’t know what other hidden abilities our opponent may have.”

Then, he suddenly raised his voice, “If I barely had built a partnership with you and you die, I’ll be wasting my time and lose my point! It’s a no-no for you to die that sad.”

“I’m grateful, thank you.”

*

After that, Adam was leisurely lying around at home, waiting for me to receive a screening quest. I deliberately didn’t inform him that I was already selected. Screening quests were fluid trials in which content is changed in real-time and was linked to each other. To make the first step perfect, I decided to start the first quest to complete the upcoming historic event. Anyway, it was a quest that other people would only be able to access after a few years, So I didn’t worry about anyone else stealing it away from me. However, I lied because I had to explain the fact that I knew the future to justify such an explanation.

‘Since it’s a difference of little time anyway.’

When the future event I remember took place, I planned to say that I received the screening quest and then proceeded with the Clear. On the other hand, Adam’s life as an unemployed man unintentionally ended early because of me.

– Breaking news! It’s the update that the Celestial Dragon Guild’s Gate Search Team had found another gate again in Jeonnam. It’s already the 7th gate they had found by the guild this month. They were discovering new gates at a truly phenomenal pace.

The search team was expanded and reorganized and consisted of support-type Awakened, locally and internationally. They dug up the gates as if they were pointing out the water veins all over the country.

“Hmm? What. There were such monsters? I’ll be right back; I will be going there for a while.”

Some monsters got Adam interested, as were found suddenly, and if he saw such a thing, he went on a single-person mission. When he finished collecting samples, he also Cleared them. Such behavior only made Celestial Dragon’s evaluation go up further. Of course, the guild’s public relations team quickly arranged to satisfy and manipulate public opinion.

“The Celestial Dragon Guild sends an SSS-Rank hunter even to a C-Class dungeon!”

It was only because the type of monsters was important to him regardless of the Class of dungeons, but the public did not know this motivation.

“If they use their human resources like that, it would balance their profit.”

“They’re stating that safety of the people is more important than profit!”

“But isn’t the Celestial Dragon Search Team amazing too? They find a gate almost every day!”

“They mean to say that there is no business that could win over numbers. Has there ever been a guild that’s focused so much Hunter on the gate search? Most of them were busy mining cores in dungeons that had already been discovered.”

Obviously, if one could discover the gates well because of the number of people poured on the workforce, all the guilds would have done so. The real secret lay in the fact that I led the search to the right place, but those circumstances were unknown to the public. The public and the media were enthusiastic about the Celestial Dragon, who found the gates at a pace that could not be compared to the past. This excitement led to criticism of questioning the competence of what other guilds had done before.

It was pointed out that if they had invested in the workforce to the extent that the Celestial Dragon was doing now, they would have found more gates and lowered the risk of breaks. On the other hand, some seemed to have noticed that the Celestial Dragon’s momentum was clearly abnormal.

*

“Hmm?” Adam, who was talking to me in the room, suddenly turned his head. He didn’t use any skills, but he noticed someone’s approach.

“Oh, it’s him again.”

I could tell who he was talking about by unfolding the [Penetration] along the direction he was looking at.

“Woah, he’s hardworking. He checked in today as well.”

Back then, suspicious signs had often been seen around the guild building and my home office. First of all, envoys secretly sent from governments, hunter agencies, and foreign guilds offered me naturalization, offering various conditions. There was also a proposal to merge one’s country’s guild with Celestial Dragon, promising massive compensation. Of course, I didn’t even pretend to hear it.

‘I already have much money to the point that it might start rotting, and it’s most important that I can move freely in the first place.’

When there was no response, the spy that rushed in with another intention caught my eyes afterward. The unprecedented moves and achievements that Celestial Dragon had recently shown, meant that some were trying to dig up the secret hidden behind them. Among them was the man who was hovering around this house in disguise today as well.

I said leisurely, “He’ll probably cross the fence tonight.”

“How do you know?”

“Nate’s already sneaked one of his subordinates into his shadows.”

“Ahhhh,” Adam nodded.

*

That night, Seo Jin-Wook predicted the presence of an intruder. As expected, a man broke through the barrier and entered the house in the middle of darkness. The internal structure had already been completely identified through scouting and clairvoyance. The man hid by activating the highest ranked [Stealth] skill he could were used to help him not be discovered even though they were all over the house.

‘Here it is, the office in the house.’

The man’s goal was to identify the clues of the secret hidden by Seo Jin-Wook, the Guild Master of Celestial Dragon. He reminded himself of his goal once again.

‘In selecting the location of dispatch for the Celestial Dragon’s Gate Search Team, the Guild Master’s will take over about for 90% of the decision.’

The primary goal was to find out the critical factor affecting the decision. The intruder hid in the Guild Master’s office along the pre-identified route. Seo Jin-Wook inherited the place where Seo Gyu-Cheol originally used.

‘[Penetration!]’ He scanned the inside once again.

‘As expected, there’s a separate server only for the Guild Master.’

The secret of the Guild Master that wasn’t shared with other guild members should have been here. When a man plugged a microchip into a server, the hacking tool was activated. While the chip broke down the server’s security network and copied data without a trace, he noticed that it was his second target.

‘Safe!’ The man approached the wall of the office without hesitation. On the surface, it looked like an ordinary structure, visible to him. A barrier firmly protected the huge safe.

Chak! Cha-chak! Even though he had prepared in advance, the man had difficulty opening the safe. As if to imply how precious the item it protected was, the lock was like solid iron. After dismantling all the artifacts used to magic, the tightly closed door eventually opened.

The man’s eyes widened, ‘It’s the Guild Master’s sword!’

Finding clues to unlock the secret of Seo Jin-Wook’s remarkably fast growth rate

was one of the requests, and some people suspected that growth beyond the realm of pure talent was due to special items. Seo Jin-Wook’s most representative item known to the public was…

‘The sword that only himself knows about its details.’

There was no alarm magic or barrier on the sword itself.

‘First, let’s analyze its value.’

After finding out what it was, he planned to steal it and run away if everything went south. The man opened a [Analysis] scroll with one hand and carefully stretched out the other towards the sword. The moment he grabbed the handle of the sword, he heard someone whispering in his head.

‘······Sigh, you stupid bastard.’

The intruder stiffened his body, and then his eyes became blurred.