As the conversation with the Association President drew to a close, the Holy Emperor Guild arrived.
As their first official business in Korea, they wanted to witness Karl Buckman’s treatment process.
Since there was nothing to hide, Seong-jun agreed.
Thus, unlike his usual sessions, Karl Buckman’s treatment took place in front of everyone.
*Vrrrrrrrr!*
As God’s Miracle was cast, Karl Buckman’s arm began to regenerate, bit by bit.
“Grah!”
Naturally, the process was accompanied by a fair amount of pain.
Karl Buckman grimaced, but this was a level of pain he could easily endure.
After 30 minutes, the treatment was complete.
“Whew. That’s it for today’s session.”
Perhaps due to the high level of concentration required, beads of sweat were visible on Seong-jun’s forehead.
Seeing this, Karl Buckman smiled.
“You worked hard. I’ll count on you again tomorrow.”
While receiving the treatment, Karl Buckman realized that this wasn’t something that could be finished with a simple snap of the fingers.
He had seen firsthand that while the recipient suffered, the healer, Seong-jun, also had to maintain an extreme level of focus throughout the entire casting process.
Meanwhile, Guild Master William and the executives of Holy Emperor, who had been watching the treatment, were wearing stunned expressions.
“Ha! His arm really is regenerating. No, should I call it reconstruction?”
“We already saw the video and checked Karl’s arm yesterday, but seeing it with my own eyes is truly incredible. Was this even possible?”
“It’s truly amazing. To think he can cast healing, buffs, and even attacks at such a high level, and still possess such a ridiculous, god-like ability.”
They saw that Karl’s left arm had grown a bit longer than before.
However, seeing the reconstructed arm was one thing; witnessing the process of reconstruction was another matter entirely.
Perhaps that was why they couldn’t help but burst out in admiration for Seong-jun’s ability.
Seong-jun turned to them and asked, “By the way, I heard that you’re preparing an A-rank dungeon raid with Changcheon and Genesis. And that you want me to participate?”
When filing their official visit request with the Korean Association, Holy Emperor had asked if the first- and second-ranked guilds in the country, Changcheon and Genesis, were willing to tackle an A-rank dungeon together.
Naturally, both Changcheon and Genesis had agreed to the proposal.
Holy Emperor possessed enough power to have a record of clearing A-rank dungeons on their own.
While it was true that Changcheon had also cleared an A-rank dungeon alone, that was only possible because of Seong-jun.
In reality, it was a bit of a stretch to say they had done it by their own strength.
That was why both Changcheon and Genesis had accepted the offer.
But on top of that, they had requested Seong-jun’s participation in the raid.
“Yes. I’ve heard that Healer Kim Seong-jun’s buffs are extraordinary. Even for us, raiding an A-rank dungeon is no easy task. So, we were hoping to get some help. Of course, this isn’t mandatory. Is it too much for you?”
At William’s question, Seong-jun replied with a serious expression.
“To be honest, after the A-rank raid with Changcheon, I didn’t intend to enter an A-rank dungeon for a while. I judged that now isn’t the time for reckless adventures, but rather a time to grow steadily by clearing C-rank or B-rank dungeons. So, it’s difficult for me to give you a definitive answer right now. I’ll give you my response after discussing it with my companions. Please understand even if I end up giving you a negative answer.”
After raiding the A-rank dungeon with Changcheon, Seong-jun had decided that A-rank dungeons were still premature.
His companions had agreed with his judgment and decided not to tackle A-rank dungeons for the time being.
This was why they had been firmly rejecting the constant advances from Genesis, but this time, the situation was a bit different.
Not only were the country’s top two guilds, Changcheon and Genesis, participating, but the one leading the charge was Holy Emperor—one of the strongest guilds in the world, ranked among the top ten.
With this much firepower, the raid would be possible even without Seong-jun’s help, so Seong-jun was actually viewing it quite positively.
However, he couldn’t make the decision on the spot.
He intended to decide after a thorough discussion with his team.
“Very well. As I said before, I have no intention of forcing you. However, I do look forward to a positive decision. But separate from that, I’d like to make a proposal. How would you like to join our Holy Emperor Guild? Your companions can come along as well, and if you wish, I’ll create an independent team for you. We will provide you with the best treatment that won’t be surpassed by any guild in the world.”
An abrupt recruitment offer.
At William’s proposal, not only the Association President and the executives but also Gwang-taek and Yuseon looked shocked.
No matter what anyone said, this was one of the strongest guilds in the world.
However, Seong-jun shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I appreciate the offer, but as I’ve already told other guilds, I plan to move freely with my companions without belonging anywhere for a while.”
Seong-jun repeated the same words every time a recruitment offer came, and he had no intention of breaking that rule to join somewhere now.
Even if it was Holy Emperor, one of the world’s strongest guilds.
“Well, I heard you had that mindset, but think carefully. This isn’t just anywhere; it’s Holy Emperor. Whatever conditions you want, Healer Kim Seong-jun, I’ll match them to the best of my ability.”
William tried to persuade Seong-jun again.
Of course, it was nothing more than a meaningless echo.
“I plan to reconsider whether to join a guild or not 1 year from now. So, let’s leave that conversation at that. Anyway, regarding the A-rank dungeon raid, I’ll contact you separately after talking to my companions. I’ll take my leave now.”
Having said that, Seong-jun stood up.
Gwang-taek and Yuseon followed suit.
After Seong-jun and his party left with a light bow as a substitute for a greeting, everyone from both the Association and Holy Emperor looked bewildered.
“Ha! To reject Holy Emperor’s offer so flatly.”
“I’m starting to feel a bit of a blow to my pride.”
“What do you mean, pride? With that kind of ability, he’s allowed to do that. In this industry, everything is judged by ability anyway.”
“That’s true. Putting everything else aside, that insane skill called God’s Miracle alone is enough for him to hold his head high.”
The Association staff were glancing at the Holy Emperor members, worried they might be offended.
However, the Holy Emperor members actually acknowledged Seong-jun’s ability and thought it was natural for him to act so boldly.
Awakened society was a place ruled by the logic of power, and in this world, ability spoke for itself.
If someone with nothing to show for it acted that way, they would naturally be offended, but they felt that someone with his level of ability was perfectly entitled to behave so.
***
Japan, Ookami Guild.
After receiving word from the Korean Association, Kato Asumi couldn’t hide her disbelief.
“Ha! What did you say? He’s too busy to come for the time being? He dared to refuse an invitation from me, Kato Asumi?”
Even considering the Ookami Guild alone, it was a guild with significant global influence, and its Guild Master, Kato Asumi, was even more so.
In terms of healers, she was an extremely influential figure, ranked among the top ten in the world.
For Kato Asumi, it was utterly unacceptable that her invitation had been rejected.
No matter what the reason was, he should have come running the moment she called.
“The American Holy Emperor Guild is currently visiting Korea, and one of the reasons is because of Kim Seong-jun. So, it will be virtually impossible for him to move until he finishes his schedule with Holy Emperor.”
No matter how influential the Ookami Guild was worldwide, they couldn’t dare compare themselves to Holy Emperor.
Kato Asumi was well aware of this fact.
“Fine. If it’s Holy Emperor, it can’t be helped. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t he have said he’d come immediately after Holy Emperor finishes their schedule? Instead, he’s pushing it back indefinitely.”
“It seems… he has various matters he’s started in Korea, and it will be difficult for him to move until he settles them.”
Sasaki Genshiro relayed exactly what the Korean Association President had said, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy Kato Asumi.
“I don’t care what it is! It can’t be so important that he dares to refuse my summons. A mere healer dared to reject my call? This is no different from an insult! No healer in the world can dare to ignore me, Kato Asumi!”
Seong-jun hadn’t exactly ignored Kato Asumi, but she felt that way simply because he had dared to refuse her invitation.
“Perhaps the Korean Association is playing tricks in the middle. As you know, the relationship between the Japanese Association and the Korean Association isn’t very good, is it? Instead of going through the Association, why don’t we just send someone to contact Kim Seong-jun directly?”
Sasaki Genshiro suggested that since the Korean Association might be interfering, they should try contacting Seong-jun directly.
Kato Asumi, judging this to be plausible, calmed her excitement and nodded.
“The Korean Association? Hmm, that’s possible. Unless this Kim Seong-jun is insane, there’s no way he wouldn’t respond to my call. But if we send someone, won’t the Korean Association just sabotage it again?”
If the Korean Association was indeed involved, it was a very likely possibility, so they needed a countermeasure.
“That would be true if we sent a guild member or someone from this industry. No matter how incompetent the Korean Association is, they’d be able to figure that much out. But what if we send someone completely unrelated?”
“An unrelated person?”
“There is someone very suitable for this job. He’s a civilian and doesn’t do work related to Hunters. I’ll tell him to enter Korea for tourism purposes and then contact Kim Seong-jun.”
It was a common occurrence for ordinary civilians to enter Korea for tourism, and the Association couldn’t possibly monitor every single tourist.
Therefore, they planned to have someone contact Kim Seong-jun secretly while disguised as a tourist.
“Is that so? Is he trustworthy?”
“Yes. He’s capable and tight-lipped. He’s the perfect person for this job.”
At Sasaki Genshiro’s assurance, Kato Asumi nodded.
“There must be no mistakes this time. Use whatever means necessary to bring Kim Seong-jun before me.”
It wasn’t clear exactly why she was trying to summon Seong-jun so desperately, but looking at Kato Asumi’s reaction, it didn’t seem like she was calling him just to see his face.
***
After a long discussion with Gwang-taek and Yuseon, Seong-jun’s party decided to enter the A-rank dungeon with Holy Emperor.
While participating in a solo raid by a domestic guild would be a huge burden, a raid with Holy Emperor would clearly have almost no pressure.
Thus, Seong-jun sent word through Karl Buckman that he would participate in the A-rank dungeon raid, and the raid was scheduled for 4 days later.
And now.
“The transfer of ownership has been officially finalized.”
Seong-jun’s party visited the building owner with Gyu-taek to finalize the purchase of the building.
Upon hearing the lawyer say that the transfer was complete, the building owner laughed heartily.
“Hahaha! I happened to be in a situation where I needed quick cash, so I’m glad the transaction went so fast.”
Seong-jun also replied with a smile.
“I’m also very satisfied that I could purchase a building I like. But the merchants currently in the building will definitely be leaving, right?”
“Of course. The third through fifth floors are already vacant, and only a few shops remain on the first and second floors, but they’ve all agreed to move out within 10 days. Oh! And since the remaining shops have already ceased operations, no one will be coming in or out except to move their belongings. So, if you want to start remodeling, you can begin with the third and fifth floors.”
The third through fifth floors were completely empty, and the first and second floors were not operating either.
Although some more time was needed to move the existing items, since they weren’t doing business, it didn’t matter if they started remodeling the other floors first.
However, Seong-jun was happy for a different reason.
“Oh! Is that so? That’s great. Then that means I can use this building however I want starting today.”
No matter how secretly he used the second basement floor, the fact that there were other people inside the building had been bothering him.
That was why he had intended to wait until everyone left, but since they had already closed and only needed to move their belongings, using the second basement floor right now wasn’t a big problem.
“Of course. Since this building now belongs to Hunter Kim Seong-jun, you can use it however you see fit. Anyway, I should get going now.”
Since the transfer of ownership had already been handled cleanly, the building owner left without any lingering attachment.
Once the owner left, the lawyer and Choe Gyu-taek also went their separate ways.
The only ones left were Seong-jun’s party.
“I heard that not everyone had moved out yet, so I thought it was strange that it felt so deserted. Turns out everyone had already left, and only their stuff was remaining.”
“Doesn’t that mean we can use the second basement floor right now without any problems?”
At Yuseon’s question, Seong-jun nodded.
“Exactly. Since the A-rank dungeon raid is scheduled for 4 days from now, we have a little bit of leisure time. Shall we go down and summon a dungeon for a test? Since it’s our first time, let’s try a C-rank.”
Being B-grade, he felt they could handle regular or elite monsters without much trouble.
However, it was also true that hunting a boss might be a bit burdensome.
Therefore, he judged it better to safely summon a C-rank for their first summoned dungeon.
Seong-jun’s party headed to the machine room in the first basement parking lot.
This was because the door leading down to the secret second basement was hidden on one side of the machine room.
***
Secret Space, Second Basement.
“Who would have guessed there was a door to the second basement hidden on one side of the machine room? Anyway, what in the world did the previous owner use this place for?”
The secret space didn’t have many divided rooms, but it boasted a very large area.
It was equipped with kitchen facilities, a shower room, and even a bed and sofa for a quick nap.
On top of that, various VR gaming consoles, simple golf practice facilities, a pool table, and exercise equipment were placed throughout the area.
Even the items placed here must have cost a significant amount of money, yet the owner had sold the building without taking a single one of them.
And it wasn’t as if they had charged extra for these items either.
“He said it was a private hobby space. Well, still, I think it’d be better to fix up the entrance. In the case of a machine room, the building manager can go in and out frequently, right? I think it’s better to conceal the entrance properly so only we know about it.”
Seong-jun nodded in agreement with Gwang-taek’s suggestion.
“I suppose so. Anyway, let’s try summoning a dungeon first.”
Having said that, Seong-jun pulled out the Dungeon Creation Device.
*Click!*
As he activated the device…
*Vrrrrrr!*
Along with a vibration, the device began to operate, and soon, a semi-transparent, holographic window was generated from the device.
“Oh! Is it like a hologram? Is this science or magic?”
Gwang-taek looked at the hologram in wonder.
“Hmm, the amount of information is enormous. It would be impossible to check these one by one, so I’ll have to categorize and search for them first.”
Since it showed dungeons that were scheduled to be created all over the world, the hologram contained a massive amount of dungeon information.
The saving grace was that it could be classified by category.
“If I filter for only C-rank dungeons first, and then classify only the Dark Attribute dungeons among them… Oh! There are still a lot.”
Even though he had limited the rank to C and only displayed Dark Attribute dungeons, there was still a staggering amount.
“I see here that we can also distinguish the dungeon type. It shows general dungeons, closed dungeons, and even break dungeons. Wow! You can even know this stuff? This is practically a cheat key, isn’t it?”
In the case of closed dungeons and break dungeons, additional benefits were given, but there was a penalty where you could only leave the dungeon after clearing it.
He wasn’t sure about later, but for now, they couldn’t afford to be trapped in a dungeon for days, so he excluded closed and break dungeons for the time being.
“Let’s exclude closed and break dungeons and just look at general dungeons. And since melee is a bit more comfortable than ranged, let’s exclude the ranged-focused ones.”
As he set the detailed configurations one by one, the number of dungeons decreased to a little over 100,000.
“Crazy. Even after excluding all that, there’s still over 100,000 left? Just how many dungeons are scheduled to be created?”
“Finally, if I ask it to only show the ones scheduled to be created in Korea?”
Once he finished the final setting for the country…
*Fwish!*
The number of summonable dungeons was finally reduced to 125.
“Oh! It dropped a lot.”
Of course, this was strictly limited to C-rank.
If he included everything from F-rank to A-rank, the number of dungeons scheduled for the near future would easily exceed 1,000.
As he checked the list, a suitable dungeon caught Seong-jun’s eye.
“This one looks good. The Resting Place of the Dead. The main monsters are Demon Soldiers, so it shouldn’t be too hard to handle.”
Demon Soldiers were humanoid monsters with a build similar to the average height of a human, and they generally wielded swords.
Although the fact that they used swords made them a bit tricky, they weren’t particularly fast, and most importantly, their behavior patterns were extremely simple.
“Demon Soldiers? They’re definitely among the easiest C-rank monsters to deal with. Then we can just go with this without looking at anything else.”
“Demon Soldiers are a piece of cake. Since they’re Dark Attribute, Holy Weapon Enchant will work perfectly. Go, go!”
With Gwang-taek and Yuseon also in agreement, Seong-jun immediately summoned the dungeon.
“Then, I’m summoning it!”
As he selected the dungeon to summon…
[**Summoning C-rank General Dungeon: The Resting Place of the Dead.**]
Along with the notification that the dungeon was being summoned…
*Flash!*
A dungeon portal was created.
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