Chapter 26
[You have cleared a Gate above your entry level.]
[A legendary achievement! You have earned the ‘Overrun’ achievement.]
[As a reward, all stats have increased by 8%.]
So there are achievements like this, too.
Normally, you can’t enter a Gate above your level, but I guess other people besides me have gotten credit for clears through various exceptional circumstances.
Anyway, it’s nice to get a reward that boosts my stats, but...
The problem is that a message announcing my clear was sent throughout North and Central America.
But judging by their expressions, I’m the only one looking gloomy.
Everyone else is grinning from ear to ear.
Oh, right. None of them are still active...
“Brother, thanks for inviting me to something fun. You should come on my show sometime.”
“I’d go on a show a hundred times over, but could it handle someone like me?”
“You have no idea how many people still go crazy over Zephyros. Though you’ve aged a bit, so I’m not sure they’ll recognize you.”
“What was that, punk?”
Zephyros chatted with Andre, the hulking Black man, as they chuckled together.
Beside them, I quietly asked Linda, who was laughing along with a hand over her mouth.
“What do you do?”
“Andre? He’s a chef and a streamer.”
“A chef? A streamer?”
Now that she mentioned it, I felt like I’d seen him somewhere before.
“He owns over thirty steakhouses across the U.S. alone, and he has more than thirty million streaming subscribers. You’ve never heard of ‘Dungeon Cooking’?”
“...Oh, I think I’ve seen it.”
Was that really the guy from those wild videos where he went into dungeons, hunted monsters, and cooked them right away?
“Andre’s Monster Steakhouse has a location in Honolulu, too, right? Andre! We’re having the celebration dinner at your place today, yeah?”
The last part was directed at Andre, who nodded readily.
“Of course! Where else would we go but my place? We’re going to eat every scrap of meat in Honolulu today!”
“Um... it doesn’t serve monster meat, does it?”
“Don’t worry. It’s beef.”
“And the other two...?”
“I own a fashion brand. Ever heard of ‘Linda Williams’?”
It seemed this woman ran a business under her own full name, too.
To be honest, I’d never heard of the brand.
“I’m sorry.”
“No need to be. It’s a women’s clothing brand. If you get a girlfriend someday, ask her. She’ll know it.”
Um, you’re not assuming I’ll have a girlfriend, are you...? Yeah, I guess you are.
...Still, she sounded so confident that any girlfriend of mine would know it.
Is it a luxury brand or something?
“Then is he also... a businessman?”
I pointed at Eric, a skinny white man with a rather melancholy look, and Linda shook her head.
“He’s just unemployed.”
“Don’t put ‘just’ in front of a person.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? An unemployed guy who married well.”
“......”
“Isn’t your wife looking for you today?”
Bzzzz. His phone rang with uncanny timing.
His already melancholy-looking eyes seemed to grow even more sunken.
He shot Linda a resentful glance, then stepped away to answer the call.
So he was henpecked.
“He may not look it, but he’s the husband of Jesse Bennett’s only daughter—in other words, Jesse Bennett’s only son-in-law.”
Zephyros explained the identity of the gloomy man, who was now nervously taking a call behind us.
Jesse Bennett...
“The founder of Igloo.com?”
I was pretty sure Jesse Bennett was the owner of the world’s largest logistics and shopping company.
He was also someone who was always competing for the title of the world’s richest person.
“That’s right.”
“Wow, you’re all incredible people... So why did you come?”
“Well, it’s free advertising that reaches five million people, right? I figured I could promote my company, and I also wanted to see my name pop up in the global announcement window again after all this time. It brings back memories.”
“Same here.”
That was Linda and Andre.
“...I’m happy anywhere I can get away from my wife.”
That was the poor guy who’d just ended his call and come back with an even more hollow look in his eyes.
At that point, it was practically an ad campaign for bachelorhood.
“Even so, this could have been dangerous...”
“Zephyros said it was safe.”
“That’s right. If you can’t trust Zephyros to assess a dungeon, who can you trust?”
Nod.
The three of them nodded in unison.
Zephyros.
What on earth had he done back when he was active to earn a level of trust that bordered on faith?
Now that I’d seen another side of him—the Zephyros known throughout the industry—
this side of him
struck me as something entirely new.
**
Chairman Jake joined us on the Big Island, and we decided to take his private jet to Oahu, to Honolulu.
As soon as I boarded, Mr. Jake thumped me on the back.
“Hey, young man! What kind of sorcery did you use on those has-beens to clear a dungeon that had even elite active Hunters stumped?”
“That doesn’t sound very nice to the has-beens listening, you potbellied old man.”
“Oops, sorry.”
He hadn’t meant it as an insult, and the others didn’t seem to take it that way, either. The mood was good all around.
“Anyway, thanks, everyone. You really saved my ass. I never thought I’d get to benefit from old friends like this.”
“You’re not just going to thank us with words, are you?”
“Of course not. Ahem. The Hawaii State Hunters Association deeply appreciates your contributions to this clear and will award each of you 50,000 points...”
“Are you kidding? You’re trying to settle this with 50,000?”
Linda’s sharp retort made Mr. Jake’s already red face turn even redder.
“Our budget...”
“I don’t care. We didn’t come here for pocket change. Pay more.”
Mr. Jake looked around helplessly, but everyone was firm.
At last, he looked at me... Well, even I thought we deserved more than 50,000, so...
I casually looked away.
“A-All right... 70...”
“100,000.”
“Hey! If I authorize 100,000 points, that’ll use up the whole budget for the year!”
“What nonsense. Have you forgotten that headquarters will send additional funding because of the pacification effect? The association’s about to become a hub-level branch. Are you really complaining about the budget of this little rural association?”
“...You’re a demon. An absolute demon.”
It seemed hard to argue with experts who knew the industry as well as he did. Chairman Jake sighed and nodded.
“All right. 100,000 points each.”
“Good. Send all of ours to that promising young Hunter over there.”
“...Me?”
I’d been listening with a smile, but that caught me by surprise.
How much were 100,000 points even worth?
“Hey! You’re not even going to take them...”
“Whether I take them or not, I won’t let you lowball us.”
“Phew... Fine, all right. You’re all giving your points to that young man, then?”
Andre and Mr. Eric both nodded.
“We don’t need the points.”
“...You can have my points, too. Will you call me again if you have another job later? Actually, I’d be even happier if you called often.”
Zephyros nodded with a smile, and in no time at all, I had 500,000 Hunters Association points.
Adding the 50,000 points I’d received before, that made 550,000.
Wow, what should I do with all this?
Well, to be honest, it was hard to be excited about little things like this when...
Current unrealized return: 3,133.76%
I had an account that had gained another 1,000% or so, and it was only going to keep growing.
Even if I sold right now, it would be worth more than 3 trillion.
When I first came to Hawaii, I’d been a country bumpkin thrilled to ride first class for the first time in my life...
By the time I went home, I’d be rich enough to buy an entire airline.
I wonder if they know back in Korea?
Of course, the truly impressive one was the gentleman beside me, who’d become more than twice as rich as I had.
**
A neatly trimmed beard and dark brown hair streaked here and there with gray.
The man, dressed in a black suit and sitting in an armchair with his eyes closed, snapped them open at the sound of a knock.
He looked toward the door with piercing blue eyes, then spoke.
“Come in.”
The office door opened, and a young secretary entered slowly and bowed.
“Chairman. Here are the materials you requested. Also... Carl Isaac keeps calling. Should I continue handling it as you instructed?”
“Fool. What else does he expect after coming this far?”
Alexander “Kaiser” Heinrich.
Crude words spilled from the mouth of the undisputed ruler of America’s Hunter industry.
“I admit the timing was bad... but the real problem is how he handled the aftermath. He acted without even knowing who he was up against. It wouldn’t be surprising if he went under.”
A system message had appeared in his field of vision, too.
[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’!]
The Hunter at the front was a name he’d heard recently, while the Hunters behind him were names he’d known for quite some time.
The name Ryu Hyunsu, in particular, was quite familiar to Kaiser.
“Zephyros. If I’d known he was involved in this, I wouldn’t have gotten involved myself.”
A man like him wasn’t someone you could stop with half-measures.
The first generation had cleared dungeons in extreme conditions where this sort of interference felt routine, and Zephyros had stood alongside Kaiser himself at the very forefront of that generation.
If he’d known his opponent was Zephyros, he would probably have recommended cutting his losses instead of wasting his effort.
Whether Isaac would have listened was another question.
“I heard they made a lot of money from this.”
“Yes. Zephyros is estimated to have made around 5 billion dollars, and Kim Segyun about half that, around 2.5 billion dollars. They’ll likely make about twice that amount on top of what they’ve already earned.”
Kaiser seemed to have a headache. He pressed his fingers to his temples, clearly displeased.
“This is serious. That idiot Isaac threw a wrench in things at the last moment.”
“......”
“What? Do you think I’m overreacting?”
“No, sir.”
But the secretary’s eyes still showed that they didn’t understand, despite the answer.
“Tell me what you really think.”
“...This is only my humble opinion, but it seems like you’re worrying too much about a Hunter who’s not even level 20 yet. No matter what he’s done...”
“Before I lost the European market, I thought the same way you do.”
“Ah...”
The secretary knew who Kaiser was talking about.
“If you mean Ahmad Triaine... he was already...”
“A billionaire. Now that kid has become one, too. And just as we’re trying to expand into East Asia.”
The timing was cruel, too. Carl Isaac had practically handed over all his assets.
Kaiser glanced at a photo bearing the English name SEGYUN KIM and pointed at it with his chin as he continued.
“A Hunter with nothing but strength can be a tool. A Hunter with capital behind him becomes a power. That was true of me, and it was true of Ahmad.”
“I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn.”
“In Alexander Heinrich’s dictionary, giving up territory is something I can afford to do only once. Now that you bear the name Heinrich, the same goes for you.”
“I’ll remember that...”
“Good. You may leave.”
“Yes, sir. And Carl Isaac...”
“Was there someone by that name?”
He spoke as if the man had never even existed in his memory.
“No, sir.”
The secretary smoothly played along and answered at once.
A financier who’d lost all his money wasn’t worth dealing with.
**
I’d returned to Korea from Hawaii just a few days ago.
Zephyros seemed busy catching up on the company work he’d fallen behind on, so I hadn’t seen him for several days.
I was busy catching up on approvals, disposing of waste, and extracting elixir, too.
As I finally started to get some breathing room, the news broke.
[Isaac Enterprises to Go Bankrupt After Failed Short-Selling Bet on Hawaii DDF?]
[A Massive Short Squeeze Is Coming—Who Will Cash In on the Inevitable Windfall?]
News that a Wall Street legend with a whopping 28 billion dollars in assets under management was crumbling spread across the world.
But in Korea, there was another story that drew far more attention than the distant collapse of Isaac Enterprises.
[Hunter Kim Segyun Helped Clear a Stage 50 Gate for the First Time in Hawaii? First-Generation Retired Hunter Zephyros Ryu Hyunsu Also Believed to Have Taken Part (Exclusive from The Voice of Koreans in Hawaii)]
─Holy crap, big bro Zephyros is still in great shape.
─That guy was a legend on Kim Segyun’s level back in the day, too.
└The guy above needs to stop hyping Zephyros up. Honestly, he wasn’t on Kim Segyun’s level. Are there any Gates Zephyros cleared first that still can’t be cleared today? No, right? Kim Segyun wrecked two Gates that had been deemed impossible to clear for decades, and he did it right after his debut. You have to compare like with like.
└Judging by the way this bastard talks, he probably doesn’t even know what the first generation was like. You still in school?
─Hey, I checked the foreign news, and it wasn’t just Zephyros who cleared it. Andre Jones, Linda Williams, and even Eric Donald... Is this some article from twenty years ago?
└What are those people up to these days?
└Andre Jones is killing it with his personal streams and restaurants. Linda Williams owns a brand that’s practically luxury-level.
└What about Eric Donald?
└He married into an American billionaire family.
└I envy him the most.
└I envy him the most 222
└3333
─Hey, wasn’t Kim Segyun just a little over level 11 recently? How did he contribute to a Stage 50 clear?
└It’s called Overrun. It’s not common, but it happens sometimes. He probably contributed in some unusual way. The Overrun achievement reward alone is pretty great.
└What’s the reward?
└All stats +8%.
└That’s insane.
─What’s the next Wonder?
└Gangwon Province, I think. A Stage 24 Gate.
└He’ll be busy leveling for ages before he can match its level.
Well, actually, I still wasn’t leveling up, so that made me feel a little guilty.
It was fun reading the comments under all the news articles I’d missed. I lost track of time.
It was even more fun since the article was about me.
A knock at the door finally brought me back to reality.
Oh, right. I was at the office.
“Come in.”
At my words, the door opened, and Dr. Lim Gyuseon, the CTO, hurried in.
“CEO.”
“Yes? Is something wrong?”
“No... Nothing’s wrong, but...”
“Then what is it?”
“Well... I need bacteria for a lot of parts of my research on the Memoir.”
If it was our precious CTO asking for help, I had to help her.
Just as I was about to readily agree,
she hesitated for a moment, then carefully began speaking while averting her gaze.
“Would you like to come to my lab... and look at some bacteria?”
What was this?
Was this some new kind of flirting?