Chapter 42
This was already my third visit to the officetel.
I rang the doorbell with a heavy bag slung over my shoulder.
The door opened, and a broker with a rough, intimidating aura behind his sunglasses greeted me.
“You’re here.”
Without a word, I went inside and thumped the sack down on the table.
With a dull thud, the mouth of the sack loosened slightly, and a few mana stones glowing with a brilliant light rolled out.
The broker’s brow twitched.
He adjusted his sunglasses slightly and looked over the sack.
“…What is all this?”
His voice was tinged with unmistakable surprise.
It was a full 8 kilograms.
Even he’d be surprised by that many mana stones.
“You’re not planning to say you gathered all of this by yourself, are you?”
“Of course I gathered it all myself. Who would just hand this over to me?”
“That’s fair enough, I suppose....”
I shrugged and answered lightly.
The broker let out a short sigh and rubbed his forehead.
I could feel his mind churning with complicated thoughts.
But I didn’t give him time to sort them out.
“Come on, sit down. I didn’t come here just to sell this today.”
I sat in the chair and got to the point.
The broker sat across from me in silence and stared at me.
“I’ve got something I want to buy.”
I got straight to the point.
“I need an identity. A completely new one.”
“Right, you did say that.... But why?”
“I want to buy a house and register properly as a hunter, but.... I’m a minor, so I can’t. So I want to create an adult identity.”
At my words, the corner of the broker’s mouth twitched upward.
“Kid. The law changed so minors can be hunters now. That’s how harsh the world’s gotten.”
“Uh, yeah? What?”
“It started at 17, then gradually dropped to 15. In a few years, it might even be 10.”
It was news to me. I widened my eyes.
The broker seemed amused by my reaction and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.
“Anyway, tell me more. Why don’t you have an identity?”
A sharp question.
But I wasn’t flustered.
I’d expected that too.
Because I had a script ready in advance.
I switched to polite speech to look as pitiful as possible.
I’d tried it on the police yesterday, and the lies came spilling out of my mouth.
“I actually lost my parents five years ago.... When the Tower first appeared.”
“But you should still have a birth record, right?”
The broker cut me off coldly.
No, wasn’t this old guy supposed to be weak to stories like this?
Why was he so ruthless?
Caught off guard by a point I hadn’t considered, I stammered and kept making excuses.
“Th, th-the thing is, I actually lost my memory from the shock back then, you know? I even forgot my parents’ names.... No, if it was five years ago, I would’ve been eight...? Anyway, I’d have been too young to remember, right!”
I improvised desperately.
But anyone listening could tell my excuse was flimsy.
The broker shook his head as if I were hopeless.
“Do you actually think that makes sense?”
I was left speechless by his cold words.
My mind went blank.
Still, that was fine.
When a person has nothing to say, they can just get angry.
That’s just how the world works.
“Ah! So are you going to do it or not!”
I slapped the table with my palm and shouted.
“You’re a broker! You do anything for money!”
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not that cheap.”
“What...?”
After saying that, the broker kept silent for a moment.
My clumsy anger bounced uselessly off his heavy sunglasses.
He sat there motionless for a while.
The longer the silence dragged on, the more anxious I became.
***
Meanwhile, the broker’s mind was full of complicated speculations.
‘What on earth is this kid doing?’
The kid’s lie was downright clumsy.
It was nothing but a childish lie.
The problem was that the kid in front of him kept bringing in absurd amounts of mana stones and items.
‘Where did these mana stones come from?’
That sack of mana stones on the table. That wasn’t a quantity an individual could gather.
At best, it was the sort of amount a C-rank guild—in other words, a gang—might scrape together over an entire month.
‘Did they steal them from somewhere?’
The most reasonable guess.
Then was this kid being chased right now?
And that’s why a new identity was needed?
But that didn’t quite add up.
If there were a bounty on the kid or something, there’s no way word wouldn’t have reached me as a broker.
‘...Thinking about it wouldn’t get me anywhere.’
In the end, the broker gave up on trying to understand.
There was no point in trying to infer this kid’s past.
There were far too few pieces of the puzzle, and even the ones he had didn’t fit together.
With his complicated thoughts cleared away, his gaze returned to the girl before him.
Yes, the reason wasn’t important.
A frail body with one missing hand.
A girl about the same age as his daughter.
The child’s plight suddenly felt real to him.
‘If she needs a house.... Has she been sleeping rough all this time?’
Imagining the child spending nights on the street made his chest ache.
Maybe that was why her face looked even gloomier than the last time they met.
‘I can’t just leave her be.’
The broker decided to help this child.
The child’s past didn’t matter.
What mattered was how dangerous the child’s situation was right now.
A minor. No identity. And an amount of money too large to handle.
The future those three things would create was obvious.
That money would become a shackle for the child.
D-rank or C-rank hunters—in other words, middling thugs—would target the child.
A child with neither the strength to protect themselves nor the wisdom to survive the world would eventually have everything taken and be cast aside.
The broker let out a sigh.
He made up his mind.
***
After a long silence, the broker finally opened his mouth as if he’d made his decision.
He looked at me silently for a moment, then with a deep sigh took off the sunglasses he’d been wearing.
For the first time, I met his bare eyes.
Sharp, tired eyes.
But there was unexpected warmth in them.
“All right. I’ll help you.”
His calm words only left me more flustered.
“Let’s handle those mana stones first.”
He picked up one of the mana stones that had rolled onto the table and examined it carefully.
It was the look of an expert.
After a moment, he gauged the weight of the whole sack and named a price.
“180 million won. I’m giving you a bit more than market rate.”
A roughly expected amount.
I nodded.
The broker immediately transferred the money using his phone.
After confirming the deposit notification on my phone, he moved on to the next matter.
“I’ll look for a house too. Do you have any conditions?”
“I’d like a detached house close to the Tower.”
“Hmm, a hunter-only house? You’re being picky....”
“Is that not possible?”
“No, not really. But it’ll use up most of the money you’ve saved.”
“I was prepared for that....”
“Come to think of it, I’d recommend that too. It’d be safer.”
“Lastly, the most important issue: identity.”
“As for the ID.... We can dig through the records of people who went missing when the Tower collapsed five years ago. Find someone whose face and build are similar to yours. Honestly, looking at your build, that’ll probably be pretty hard....”
As I listened to the broker, I thought.
‘Build, huh.... Should I practice changing my build too?’
I hadn’t tried it yet, but maybe I could?
If I used sand to raise my height and chest, I might look like an adult woman.
Going back to looking like a man would still be a stretch, though.
‘Ah, right. I can only extend my leg length so far for now. That would look a little strange, wouldn’t it.’
I was spacing out, lost in a moment of fantasy.
The broker’s cold voice cut through my thoughts.
“But let me warn you in advance....”
His voice dropped low.
“With something like this, at most you can buy booze or cigarettes from a convenience store.”
He paused for a moment, then looked me straight in the eye and said.
“Hunter Association registration, real estate transactions, bank transactions.... None of that is happening. The moment they check the system, it’ll be exposed as fake.”
“I figured as much....”
“I can handle the real estate transaction for you, but.... I can’t do that for hunter registration.”
“It’s fine. I have a plan.”
“You’re not planning to tell me what that plan is, are you?”
“That’s....”
“It’s fine. You must have your reasons. If you feel like telling me later, tell me then.”
“….”
I couldn’t answer that.
For some reason, it stung a little.
Come to think of it, the man before me was a good person despite being an illegal broker.
He’d been consistently kind to me.
‘But it can’t be helped.’
Even if I said Korea’s only S-rank hunter was going to solve my problem, I could understand why that’d be hard to believe.
Without Beetle’s permission, I couldn’t go around blabbing about things that hadn’t even happened yet.
Right. Once everything was over and the registration was done, I’d tell him the truth.
If this old man still didn’t believe me then, there’d be nothing I could do.
I made that vow.
***
Back home, I sat down in front of the computer.
As expected, there was only one option.
I logged into the Mage Gallery.
And after the usual hesitation, I wrote a new post.
[Title: Mr. Beetle. Do you remember what you said yesterday?]
Author: ㅇㅇ(33K.333)
The thing where you said you’d help me register as a hunter. Is it still possible?
The moment my post went up, a comment appeared in less than a second.
ㄴ Beetle : Of course. When were you thinking?
It was almost as if he’d been waiting for my post.
Surprised by his quick response, I tapped out a reply.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(33K.333) : But I kind of feel like I shouldn’t be seen by other people.
ㄴ Beetle: Don’t worry about it. Just tell me the date and time you’ll come. I’ll clear out everything within a 3 km radius of the Hunter Association by then.
“No, 3 km?”
I stared at the comment on the monitor, momentarily at a loss for words.
He’s clearing out the entire area around the Association in Seoul?
Is that even possible?
I was once again made keenly aware of the power an S-rank hunter held.
It wasn’t just raw combat power.
Its influence over society as a whole was beyond imagination.
The comments were all shocked as well.
ㄴ Magic Is Firepower : As expected of an S-rank....
ㄴ pkkatju : Because he’s S-rank, he just goes wild, huh. We need to fight back, huh.
ㄴ Refrigerator : If it’s 3 km, my house is included too. So I can’t leave the house that day?
ㄴ Beetle: Might be. Sorry about that.
ㄴ Refrigerator : No, I was joking, so just take it as a joke....
After thinking for a moment, I made my decision.
There was no reason to put it off any longer.
ㄴ ㅇㅇ(33K.333) : OK. Then I’ll clear the 20th floor within the next day or two and get back to you.
The day was finally right in front of me. I headed for the Tower to clear the 20th floor.