Chapter 25
“Zephyros.”
“Yeah?”
I must have been wearing a serious expression without realizing it.
“Let’s talk later.”
He ended the call and looked at me.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“If you got a 3,000% fire resistance buff and went into the dungeon... would you feel confident?”
“What? Me?”
He’d already received the advance team’s rough report on the dungeon, so he knew what to expect.
Even if he was a ‘retired’ Hunter...
“You already ran the numbers, didn’t you?”
“No, that’s just a professional habit... How’d you know that?”
How could I not know, when he worked so hard simulating dungeon raids?
His notebook, packed with notes about dungeon strategies, had gained another page today.
“So, what’s your answer?”
“...You know this isn’t even up for discussion in the first place, right?”
If it were possible to buff someone from outside a Gate, buff-focused classes could make a living with a single ‘click’ from outside without ever entering one. But the world wasn’t that easy.
When entering a Gate, all buffs were temporarily dispelled.
A buff was also dispelled if its caster left the Gate.
There were spells or items that could overcome these restrictions, but they were extremely rare and limited.
That was why those with such rare abilities generally lived like kings.
Now, I could demonstrate that ability myself.
“What if I could give you a buff from outside...?”
“...Are you serious?”
Zephyros knew I had an ability related to fire resistance.
“Want to see?”
But I had no idea how it would appear in the other person’s system window.
For now, I attached around 300 million bacteria to Zephyros.
“W-What is this?”
“What does it say?”
“Something in English. Magmo... what? An undead entity attached to me? I don’t have any undead.”
I prodded Zephyros, who was glancing around.
“And what else?”
“...This is real. My fire resistance has gone up by 3,000%. But the buff will remain on its own even if I enter a Gate without you, right?”
“Yes, for just under four hours.”
“Hoo, let me run the numbers. Four hours, fire resistance...”
Zephyros crossed his arms and thought with his eyes closed for a long while, then finally shook his head.
“Even so, I can’t do it alone.”
“I can cover three people... four at most if we push it.”
Since it took around 300 million bacteria per person for full-body protection, I could probably manage up to around 1.2 billion.
The duration of Imperial Edict would probably shorten a little, but we’d have to compromise.
“Up to four?”
“If we push it. The duration will be shorter.”
“We’ll have to make do. The first generation cleared dungeons even when things were tight. Youngsters these days have no grit... Ah, sorry. I’ve gone full grumpy old man again.”
Guess he had enough room to joke.
“So, you’re saying you’ll do it?”
“You’ve set the stage this nicely. I can’t back out without even trying, can I?”
How many times had I dreamed as a kid about running dungeons with Zephyros?
It hadn’t come completely true, but it was at least becoming a reality to some degree.
I couldn’t help feeling my heart swell with excitement.
“Sounds good. Oh, and what should we do about the DDF?”
“Just hold onto it.”
“What if we sell now, then buy back in after clearing the dungeon? It hasn’t fallen that much yet.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Zephyros clicked his tongue and let out a small sigh.
What? Had I said something stupid?
“Segyun, why do you think the DDF price is falling right now?”
“Because there are more sellers, obviously...”
“Then who do you think is selling?”
“People, and... Isaac Enterprises.”
“What kind of company is Isaac Enterprises?”
“A short-selling firm.”
What was this, twenty questions?
“There’s your answer. What is short selling? You borrow shares and sell them.”
“Right.”
“What do you have to do with something you borrowed?”
“Pay it back.”
“You have to return the shares you borrowed, too, right?”
“Yes.”
“And where do you get them to pay it back?”
“Buy them on the market... Ah!”
I finally understood.
“Isaac Enterprises is borrowing even more shares and selling them recklessly to keep the stock price from rising, right?”
“Exactly. They’re openly fighting the market. No matter how much they manipulate the media, now that an undiscovered Gate entrance has been found, the price is guaranteed to rise by at least 100%, regardless of how difficult it is to clear. They can’t handle that, so they’re trying to hold it down. What do you think happens if we release our shares now?”
“We could realize some profit, but the stock price would crash, and they’d happily scoop up the shares and get out.”
“Right. So we have to hold onto them. We can’t let them get away. They were free to come in, but...”
“Not to leave.”
Where did they think they were going?
“Heh heh. I don’t know what deadline they set for their short positions, but it’s usually 30 or 90 days. If we really do clear the dungeon... I can’t wait to hear them crying when the due date comes.”
Isaac Enterprises would have to buy back all the shares it had borrowed to build up a massive short position against Hawaii DDF and return them when they came due.
If we just held onto the DDF we had, and cleared the dungeon...
That meant a guaranteed surge was waiting for us.
**
Who was the strongest Hunter?
The debate over this question had continued for well over a decade and was still ongoing, but recently it had begun to reach a consensus.
Ahmad Triaine.
The world’s strongest necromancer and master of legions.
He was considered the strongest Hunter of the modern dungeon era.
But a few generations before him, there had been a man acknowledged as the world’s greatest.
That man was Kaiser.
A man who had made his name by clearing numerous Gates deemed impossible to conquer.
Now, like the other first-generation Hunters, he had grown old, given up on raids, and announced his retirement. But his influence in the Hunter industry had only grown, never diminished.
The dungeon development company he owned had continued to expand through repeated mergers and acquisitions, and it was no exaggeration to say that more than half of all dungeon development companies in the United States were now under Kaiser’s influence.
If it hadn’t been for America’s powerful antitrust laws—the same regulations that had broken up the companies of Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan—the entire U.S. dungeon development industry might have fallen into Kaiser’s hands.
And yet...
I never expected Kaiser’s name to come up here.
Zephyros had been calling around looking for Hunters to join the raid, but everyone was reluctant.
“Kaiser, huh? Hah. Even when I was active, I never crossed swords with him. And now that we’re all retired...”
“I hear Carl Isaac is quite close to Kaiser personally. He wouldn’t do something like this just for friendship, so there must be a lot of money involved.”
Chairman Jake’s words made me let out a hollow laugh.
“So Kaiser is threatening to ruin the lives of anyone who comes here to clear this dungeon?”
“Not quite... No, maybe that’s about right.”
Zephyros smacked his lips and let out a low sigh.
Then he glanced at Jake’s expression and spoke in Korean.
“I understand. If it were me, I wouldn’t want to offend a heavyweight like Kaiser for no reason, either.”
“Even so, they’re backing out over a single word... Is there no other way?”
“There is a way.”
Zephyros then touched his index finger and thumb together to form a circle.
“Money?”
“That could solve it, if it were a whole lot of money.”
“How much?”
“Enough to make a promising Hunter capable of clearing a Stage 50 Gate give up both his active career and any chance of staying in the Hunter industry after retirement?”
“...Just hearing that makes me dizzy.”
A Stage 50 Gate was no joke.
If Awakened people made up 1% of the population and Hunters made up 10% of the Awakened, then Hunters capable of clearing a Stage 50 Gate were in the top 0.001% of all Hunters.
No, maybe Kaiser was the crazy one for making even such top-tier Hunters worry about crossing him.
“To make a top-tier Hunter turn against Kaiser, you’d have to pay at least several hundred billion per person, right?”
It was certainly a lot of money, but considering how much we stood to earn from this, it was still worth investing.
“Should we split the investment fifty-fifty?”
“What are you talking about? I put in twice as much as you. If anything, it’d be two to one.”
“This isn’t the time to be nitpicking.”
“Forget it. But don’t throw your money away.”
“...You’re not planning to clear it alone, are you?”
No matter how important money was, it couldn’t be more important than someone’s life.
“I’d rather lose all the money than put you in danger, sir.”
Perhaps he could sense my sincerity, because Zephyros looked at me for a moment, then chuckled.
“Why would I throw away money I worked so hard for? Hey, you still owe me a hundred billion.”
“Even if I lost it, I could pay it back after spending some time as a Hunter.”
“You haven’t even been a Hunter that long, and already you’ve gotten cocky.”
After clicking his tongue, Zephyros smirked.
“Kaiser may have a lot of influence in the Hunter industry, but it isn’t absolute. There are definitely Hunters outside his sphere of influence.”
“Where do we find people like that?”
“We call them. Actually, I’ve already called them.”
It sounded like he already had someone in mind.
It was right then.
The door to the Hawaii Hunters Association opened, and a hulking Black man nearly two meters tall strode inside.
When he saw Zephyros, he grinned broadly and thrust out his fist.
He wasn’t trying to pick a fight; it was just a fist bump.
Zephyros bumped fists with him, then they embraced.
“Wassup, man! How long’s it been?”
“Andre. Almost ten years, right?”
Thanks to the translation necklace, I understood him, but his words came through in Korean with such a distinctly Black American cadence that his way of speaking sounded comical.
“Wait a minute. Linda and Eric will be here soon, too.”
“Linda and Eric, too? What’s the occasion, a party?”
As if on cue, two more people walked in.
A skinny white man and an average-looking white woman.
They must have been happy to see each other again, because they immediately began catching up.
After exchanging greetings with them for a while, Zephyros looked at me, still bewildered, and explained.
“I spent some time digging through social media. I filtered out the retirees who were still involved in the Hunter industry, then checked their selfies. I ruled out anyone whose physical condition had completely deteriorated, like that guy.”
Oh, right.
Compared to Homer Simpson... I mean, Chairman Jake, the three who’d just arrived were definitely in good shape.
Which meant they’d kept themselves fit.
“I narrowed it down to about fifteen, and these three were the ones who ultimately accepted my offer.”
“So, those people are...”
“The ones who’ll raid the dungeon with me.”
If Kaiser had a powerful influence over the Hunter industry...
Then we just had to bring in people who’d left the industry entirely and were completely retired!
It was an idea anyone could have, but hardly anyone could make it happen.
Was this what the connections of a first-generation Hunter were like?
The four of them headed straight for the Gate, got my buffs, and went inside in no time.
But... would it really be all right with retired Hunters alone?
It took less than a few hours for me to learn that my concern had been misplaced.
[Mr. Ryu Hyunsu, Mr. Andre Jones, Ms. Linda Williams, and Mr. Eric Donald have become the first to subdue the Stage 50 Gate, ‘Inferno’!]
[The State of Hawaii, United States, has been pacified!]
[The monsters appearing in all Gates in the State of Hawaii have been weakened!]
The retired Hunters emerged from the dungeon, surrounded by a golden glow, after clearing it with flying colors.
As I stared at them in amazement, Zephyros walked out leisurely, wiping the bloodstains from his sword as he spoke to me.
“What are you surprised about? The dungeon’s called Inferno, but your buff completely wrecked its gimmick. This was the obvious result.”
“Yo, man, you said you were a rookie? That was one hell of a buff. Never in my life have I been caught in flames without feeling a thing.”
“That’s an incredible buff. And you can cast one this powerful without even entering the dungeon.”
“If we’d had a buff specialist like you, maybe I should’ve put off retiring for a little while.”
Was that... how it was?
I was still listening to their praise when it happened.
[The conquerors have unanimously acknowledged your contribution, and the list of conquerors has been amended.]
[Mr. Kim Segyun, Mr. Ryu Hyunsu, Mr. Andre Jones, Ms. Linda Williams, and Mr. Eric Donald have become the first to subdue the Stage 50 Gate, ‘Inferno’!]
...What?