Chapter 13

▶ Chapter 13. My First Disciple (3)

HunterNet

1. Long live NotAHunter!!!!!

2. One of the survivors is my uncle! Thank you so much!!!

3. As of today, I am withdrawing my support for NotAHunter. From this day forward, I am no longer merely a supporter. NotAHunter and I have become one body and one soul. Any attack against NotAHunter will be considered an attack against me.

4. WORSHIP THEM!!!!!!!!

5. That rabbit head was seriously so cute lol. I guess it was for the kid. So considerate!!!

6. Thank you so very much for being born Korean!!

This level of ridiculous praise was only the beginning.

The whole place was going completely crazy.

And when I saw it...

I’m so happy...!

I had been diligently reading every bit of praise about me that appeared online.

Even during the two days I had spent sick in bed.

After all, it gave me such an amazing rush of dopamine.

Ehehehehehehehe!!!

At one point, I burst out laughing like a maniac and caught Twelfth, whom I had taken out of my Inventory, staring at me as if I were insane.

That was a little embarrassing as its owner, so from then on, I did my best to laugh quietly.

Anyway, because the entire country had been swept up in a NotAHunter craze, I had spent all that time focusing on protein intake and personal training.

If I went to the Wish Guild while everyone was this obsessed with me, there was a chance I might get discovered.

The craze has died down a little now, so it should be fine.

I had been slightly suspicious because they had offered me the very attractive benefit of tax exemption, but there didn’t seem to be any problem.

After confirming that no one was around because it was still dawn, I covered an entire roadside public telephone booth with a pitch-black barrier.

I stepped inside, inserted the coins I had brought after wiping them clean with my gloved hand—

because fingerprints could be used to track me—

and dialed the number I had memorized.

It belonged to Han Yonghwan, the eldest of the three SS-rank brothers from the Wish Guild.

I thought about calling Han Junggeun or Han Dongju since I’ve already met them.

But I was curious about Han Yonghwan, whom I had never met in person.

Why am I kind of nervous?

—This is Han Yonghwan.

He picked up after exactly one ring.

I spoke in a serious voice.

“Hello.”

I hadn’t intended to, but my former office-worker instincts made me greet him politely.

“I’ll come to the Wish Guild exactly thirty minutes from now. Can we meet on the rooftop?”

If they intended to try anything against me, dealing with it indoors could become annoying.

—Yes. Come to the rooftop of the tallest building in the center. I’ll have everything prepared.

Han Yonghwan seemed to have realized who I was.

Well, considering my voice was exactly the same as the Seoul Subway Line 1 announcements, there was no way he wouldn’t.

“All right. I’ll see you shortly.”

Once again, I ended the call with a perfectly polite office-worker greeting.

Damn these corporate-worker instincts...!

I hung up, removed the barrier, and began walking toward the Wish Guild while maintaining Stealth.

It was normally a twenty-minute walk.

But for some reason, I felt good and even a little excited, so my pace naturally quickened.

I arrived in fifteen minutes.

≪Search≫

Just in case, I carefully scanned the surroundings.

The area was overflowing with countless sources of mana, which was only natural for a guild headquarters.

Han Dongju’s research building has a lot of unusual things in it.

Probably because it was a place where they conducted many experiments, there were quite a few items that gave off a dangerous feeling.

However, they were all properly secured, so it didn’t seem like an accident would happen.

There’s nothing here that could cause trouble for me.

≪Flight≫

Like the former office worker I was, I landed on the rooftop meeting place five minutes early instead of arriving exactly on time.

The center of the rooftop had been decorated like a beautiful garden combined with a comfortable café.

Among the many rumors about Hunters I had heard while working at One Star Guild, there was one like this.

Han Yonghwan was secretly a plant fanatic.

In other words, a complete plant nerd.

Apparently, he had built his own private garden on the rooftop of the tallest building in the Wish Guild.

I can’t believe that rumor was actually true!

It clearly wasn’t something he had put together in just a day or two.

He really doesn’t look like someone who would care about plants at all.

To be more precise, he looked like a cold-blooded man who wouldn’t care whether it was a plant or a person.

People online even called him the Ice Wolf.

Apparently, Han Yonghwan once heard the nickname and gave everyone such a disgusted look that no one dared call him that to his face anymore.

These brothers really are different.

Han Junggeun stood to Han Yonghwan’s right.

His nickname was Han Grizzly.

The eldest brother, thirty-two-year-old Han Yonghwan, had a sculpted body and face with the cold aura of a ruthless wolf.

The second brother, twenty-nine-year-old Han Junggeun, had military-short hair, a massive muscular body, and a frightening face.

He really did look like a grizzly bear.

And standing to Han Yonghwan’s left was their youngest brother, twenty-six-year-old Han Dongju.

Thanks to the beauty mark on his face and the dimples that appeared whenever he smiled, he looked like an affectionate, playful cat.

A wolf, a bear, and a cat. They’re completely different.

And yet, all three possessed the same silver-colored mana.

Even the feeling of their mana was almost identical.

It was because they were family.

More specifically, family members who treasured one another deeply.

Even the brief glances they exchanged were filled with trust as solid as a mountain.

Somehow... I’m a little jealous.

I had never had anything like a family.

Not in my previous life.

Not in this one either.

For some reason, my chest began to ache.

Maybe because I dreamed about Lu today, I keep thinking about pointless things.

This wasn’t the time for that.

Telling myself to focus, I created a black barrier that covered the entire rooftop so no one else could scan this place.

Only then did I release Stealth.

“Hello.”

Once again, my former office-worker instincts made me greet them politely.

Of course, I spoke using the voice of the Seoul Subway Line 1 announcement.

At the moment, I was using the Business Mode of my Hidden Powerhouse item.

My hair was slicked completely back, and I wore thick-framed glasses, a perfectly neat suit, and dress shoes that made me look not merely proper but almost excessively strict.

According to the description—

[You will appear like an office worker deeply absorbed in work.

The type and color of your suit and shoes will be randomly determined each time.]

But there was one problem.

Why don’t I have any facial features...?

I had checked beforehand at home.

And sure enough, that was exactly what happened.

Basically, I looked like a faceless egg ghost wearing a business suit.

I wanted to use something else, but this was the only mode with the word business in it, so I had no choice.

“Welcome, Hunter NotAHunter.”

Han Yonghwan greeted me politely without the slightest change in his expression.

Han Junggeun did the same.

Thanks to his talent for sensing living beings, he had already been staring toward my location before I even landed on the rooftop.

“I’m so happy to see you again!”

Han Dongju’s eyes widened slightly when I appeared, but he immediately broke into a bright smile, revealing his dimples.

Then he winked with one eye.

I hate it...

Just like last time, it somehow felt like I was witnessing a blood relative trying to act cute.

It made me uncomfortable.

Without even realizing it, I turned my head away from him.

“...I told you not to do that.”

Apparently feeling exactly the same way I did, Han Junggeun muttered through clenched teeth.

“Okay...”

Han Dongju answered dejectedly.

“Would you like to sit?”

Han Yonghwan completely ignored his youngest brother’s antics and politely addressed me.

“Yes.”

“Would you like something to drink?”

Without realizing it, I almost shouted the office worker’s potion of choice—

Iced Americano!

“No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“Then let’s skip the formalities and get straight to the point.”

“All right.”

“You heard the government’s announcement, correct? You may sell all the monster materials, mana stones, and boxes you currently possess. We can prepare as much cash as necessary.”

At Han Yonghwan’s glance, Han Dongju pulled a familiar-looking box out of his Inventory.

It was the same kind of box I had seen last time.

And inside it, just as expected—

Lady Shin Saimdang!!!

It was packed tightly with fifty-thousand-won bills.

What a heavenly sight...!

Even though my current face looked like a faceless egg ghost, Han Dongju apparently noticed how delighted I was because he grinned.

“How much of your monster materials and mana stones would you like to sell?”

“Almost all of them.”

Every Hunter possessed an Inventory, which could basically be thought of as a storage space floating in another dimension.

At Level 1, everyone received one slot.

More slots could be gained through leveling up and rewards.

Each slot was a cube measuring one meter in width, length, and height, and as long as something wasn’t alive, any number of identical objects could be placed inside it.

At the moment, my Inventory had a total of twenty-three slots.

Excluding the one slot occupied by Twelfth, that leaves twenty-two.

That was an enormous amount of storage space.

However, all the monsters I had fought so far had been huge, meaning their materials were also quite large.

My Inventory was already more than half full.

I wanted to clear out as much as possible.

“There’s quite a lot. This place is too small for me to take everything out.”

“Would you like to move to that building over there? We have an empty warehouse.”

I nodded.

I don’t think these three are going to attack me.

And even if they did, I had already calculated that I could easily defeat all three of them.

So I followed them without hesitation.

“This is the place.”

Perhaps they had prepared it in anticipation of trading with me.

A fairly large space had been completely cleared out.

I began taking out the things that had been peacefully sleeping inside my Inventory one by one.

Seventy monster materials and twenty-six mana stones from the neighborhood Grade 5 Gate.

One hundred sixty monster materials and ninety mana stones from the Olympic Park Grade 9 Break.

One hundred ten monster materials, seventy-one mana stones, and twelve Grade 7 Random Draw Boxes from the Jamsil Grade 7 Gate.

“...!”