Chapter 36
[The Stage 17 Gate, ‘Mutated Star Spirit Valley,’ has been completely subdued.]
[The Gate has changed into the Stage 1 Gate, ‘Perfectly Purified Valley.’]
Once I cleared it and came out, another message appeared.
Maybe because it had changed into a Stage 1 Gate, the pacification effect hadn’t returned. But since it was only a Stage 1 Gate now, any rookie could clear it.
When the light receded and I opened my eyes, I saw two people staring blankly at me.
“Y-You really...”
“It’s dangerous.”
The bodyguard—probably Nikolai, a hulking high-level Hunter—stopped Arina as she tried to run over to me.
“He may be irradiated.”
Oh, right. Officially, I was in a radiation-contaminated state.
Should I cough up some blood?
No. They’d find out after a few tests and a medical examination anyway.
In that case...
“I’m fine.”
“...Pardon?”
“I’ve been through several brushes with death, but I’m fine now. The dungeon was purified when I cleared it, apparently. I owe my life to that.”
No one knows what happened inside.
Since the dungeon’s new name was ‘Perfectly Purified Valley,’ there shouldn’t be a problem if I said I’d been perfectly purified in the process, too.
“You brought a Geiger counter, right? Let’s check.”
Despite my confident tone, Nikolai apparently wasn’t taking any chances. Keeping as much distance as possible and even putting up a mana barrier, he tossed me the Geiger counter.
They say fortune favors the faithful. Tsk.
Even when I held it up to myself, it naturally didn’t register anything.
My bacteria had eaten all the remaining radioactive material, so of course there was nothing to detect.
“I think he’s fine.”
Only then did Nikolai lower his guard, and Arina slowly approached me, looking me up and down.
What, checking whether all my limbs are still attached?
“Are you really all right?”
“I risked my life, and it saved me. Thanks to someone. Thaaank you.”
She understood the barb in my words, and her face flushed red.
To anyone watching, it must have looked like I’d been cornered, risked my life, and barely made it out alive.
“I-I didn’t mean it. I just... thought you shouldn’t give up so easily...”
“That’s how it sounded to me. What can I do about that? I’m tired. I’m going back.”
For now, I wanted to get out of Russia as quickly as possible.
Even if it would be hard to prove I’d run off with the Star Relics, they’d keep suspecting me... Just staying here was a losing proposition.
Though honestly, nobody but me could have purified it anyway, so I’d basically taken a prize that would’ve remained out of reach.
In any case, now was the perfect time. They were caught off guard because they hadn’t expected me to clear it and come back out.
“This will probably be the last time I clear a Russian dungeon. I’m not a Russian Hunter who clears dungeons under threat. Please ask Russian Hunters to handle things like this in the future.”
“For now, please calm down...”
“Calm down? Do you even know what I went through in there?”
What did I go through?
Click, then absorb the Star Relics.
...This is amazing.
No, that won’t do.
Think sad thoughts, think sad thoughts...
“...Just when I thought I was about to die, the dungeon was finally purified and I barely survived.”
“As I already said, I was emphasizing the concept of ‘resolve’ or ‘will.’ I didn’t mean you should take it literally and die in there.”
No, that’s not what you said.
“That’s how it sounded to me!”
“...All right. Russia will remember Hunter Kim Segyun’s sacrifice. Besides, the outcome was good, wasn’t it? Is there any need for us to be at odds?”
“Just remember?”
I’d gotten pretty brazen.
Negotiating from the other side now, huh.
It seemed effective. The Russian princess sighed and nodded.
“Of course... there should be compensation. This was an unexpected haul, after all. Please wait in Moscow for a little while. I’ll discuss compensation with my father and let you know. No one could have anticipated this result.”
No, this is bad.
I want to go home already.
**
In the end, I failed to return to Korea right away.
There was no way the dictator ruling Russia would let me leave the country after he’d specifically told me to come see him.
But leaving Russia by another route was difficult, too.
I could manage it if I pushed, but there was a high chance of causing a huge problem, so I kept it as a last option.
Still, the good news was that Zephyros had looked into it through diplomatic channels and heard the reaction among Russian political circles wasn’t bad.
About a day later, President Romanov summoned me.
“I saw your heroic performance. I hear you went in to size it up and ended up clearing it right away?”
“...I saw an opening, and it just happened.”
“You even risked your life? You look perfectly fine, though.”
“That’s how dungeons are, aren’t they? They only let you clear them if you stake everything, right up to the limit.”
Though I hadn’t this time.
“Hahaha! So it really was designed to make you risk your life despite the danger of radiation!”
“Something like that. It was completely purified.”
Thank goodness the changed dungeon name included the word ‘purified.’
It made it easier to come up with a story, too.
“Our inspection team has been dispatched and started examining it. Unfortunately, there are no Star Relics to be found at all. After all that trouble, you didn’t get anything out of it, did you?”
President Romanov even teased me as he laughed heartily.
The mood seemed good.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem angry that the Star Relics were gone.
He didn’t suspect me, either.
Well, it was more rational to assume they’d vanished when the dungeon was purified than to believe I’d mined every last vein there and smuggled it all out in the less than two hours I’d been inside.
“It seems they all disappeared during the purification process.”
When I gave him the answer I’d prepared, President Romanov nodded, too.
“The dungeon experts are speculating the same. It’s astonishing that the dungeon’s stage changed, since that’s exceedingly rare.”
“The Star Relics disappearing must be a huge loss for Russia, but I was already entitled to a share under the contract...”
“A loss? We’ve gained a great deal, if anything. Why would that be a loss?”
“...Pardon?”
“We can now mine Intellectium steadily, and on a scale incomparable to before. For one thing, since it’s now a Stage 1 Gate, we can send in a much larger and cheaper workforce.”
Mining in a Stage 17 Gate required miners who were at least Level 17, and that alone made them expensive.
But if it was a Stage 1 Gate, a Level 1 Awakened would be enough.
In other words, the barrier to entry had become much lower.
What’s more, the monsters in a Stage 1 Gate were very weak.
So they could deal with them by sending in just one or two Hunters.
“And there’s the pacification effect that returned to the Chelyabinsk region.”
“Oh, yes, I saw.”
The notice had said some Ivanov or other had gotten the first clear.
“On top of that, an old friend of mine made a sizable donation to the party, saying he wanted to give his youngest son the honor of the first clear.”
President Romanov smiled.
Holy shit, he even sold off the first-clear credit?
This guy was quite the operator.
“Yes, I’ve gained quite a lot thanks to you. But you risked your life and got nothing in return.”
I got a hell of a lot.
But I couldn’t say that.
Time to play the victim.
“Honestly, I thought I was screwed. I should’ve listened to the adults who said to make sure you write a good contract.”
“Haha, you focused only on the Star Relics, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“A magician directs the audience’s attention one way and hides the trick.”
Misdirection.
While I was celebrating getting my share raised from 10% to 50%, this man had given up a notional 50% to secure the real gains.
Is this the experience of a max-level politician?
Luckily, I’d scraped up every last Star Relic in there, even the scorched rice crust at the bottom of the pot. If I’d actually just waited to receive whatever Star Relics remained, I’d have been sick.
“But if word got around that you went through all that and got nothing, no foreign Hunters would come to Russia, would they? We ought to give you something... What do you need? You seem to have plenty of money.”
...Is my bank balance public property or something?
“I’m fine without money.”
“I thought so. How about an item? Should I get you that hat you wanted?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Because I’d gotten a much better substitute.
“Hmm. What should I do, then?”
I don’t know either.
What should I ask for?
I couldn’t even tell how far he was willing to go.
“What about my daughter?”
“Come on, don’t joke around.”
He sure knew how to joke.
Russian humor had some real quality to it.
“Why? You seemed to win her heart at first sight.”
“...Huh?”
“She got all embarrassed and punched me right in the chest as she walked by.”
President Romanov pulled open his suit jacket and showed me the black bruise on his chest.
Wait, your daughter is kind of violent, isn’t she?
The doting-father president laughed heartily as he looked at that evidence of filial impiety(?) and continued.
“And yet she never said she disliked it.”
“I-I’m not...”
“You’re past the usual age for marriage, aren’t you?”
“That’s true, but... I’m committed to staying single.”
Before I became a Hunter, I’d been single against my will.
Now... I was very much single by choice.
I had no desire to become a dictator’s son-in-law!
“Well, people change their minds as they live. Don’t feel pressured; just go out with her. Dating is fine, isn’t it? Is there someone you’re seeing?”
If I said yes, he looked like he might send me some radioactive tea.
“Uh, no.”
“Come by often.”
“Pardon?”
“Hehe. In your country, they call a son-in-law a guest for a hundred years, don’t they? Is that right?”
“There is such an expression.”
“A Hunter of your caliber would be a perfect guest in Russia for the next hundred years. You’d always be welcome.”
We call that a state guest.
Whether a state guest or anything else, I should absolutely never come back to Russia.
This land is dangerous.
“Oh, and... as a small consolation, I prepared something for you.”
“Yes? What is th—”
[Star Relic]
Man, that startled me.
Just seeing the item information made me shudder.
“This is...”
“You must not have gotten any. I’ll give you some of the strategic reserves our country holds.”
Judging roughly, there was enough Star Relic to make up about 3% of the staff’s material.
I couldn’t call that a lot when I’d only restored 20%, but there was no reason to refuse a gift.
“I’ll accept it gratefully. I’m short on this stuff, too.”
“You may or may not know this, but the world’s Hunter community... no, since the Hunter industry has already swallowed the economy as a whole, we might as well call it the economic sphere. That sphere is divided between the United States and Western Europe. The remaining regions are also being swallowed up by their influence. Your homeland is no exception.”
“You mean Korea?”
“You’ve held out well so far, thanks to your policies protecting the dungeon market. But if the United States really gets involved, can that protectionism keep working? Pressure to open the dungeon market is now a reality. This is exactly when we need great Hunters. But individual strength alone isn’t enough.”
Is he talking about me?
“Likewise, Russia has the potential to be the best in the world in every respect, but Hunter talent is the one thing we’re short on. Of course, our Hunters aren’t bad, but it’s a shame we don’t have top talents like Ahmad or Kaiser.”
“I’m still a long way from being compared to names like those.”
“I’m not telling you to become that right now. I’m saying you should think about it. I think if you came over, we could become one of the major powers on par with Western Europe or the United States.”
And if I became your son-in-law, that’d secure your hundred-year hold on power, too.
The decisive reason I couldn’t accept was...
Hadn’t this guy’s eldest son-in-law been purged?
People obsessed with power can’t even trust their own children.
Much less a son-in-law with different blood...
I’d be nothing more than a tool.
A guest is always just a guest.
Never the host.
**
After being treated quite lavishly in Moscow, I returned to Korea.
Home really is the best.
Even without the treatment given to a state guest, I felt at ease, unlike in Russia, where I’d been uncomfortable deep down.
And there was someone who made me feel comfortable, too.
“You must be busy. Why’d you come all the way here?”
“I really am busy, but I need to take a break sometimes, too.”
Thanks to Zephyros, who’d gone all the way to the airport to meet me, I could head back a little more comfortably.
“...What’s with this car?”
“The car you won in the bet. I’ve been driving it. Take it.”
“...It’s my car? You mean the one that old Hawaii Association chairman bought?”
“Yeah.”
Riding back in a Rolls-Royce that made me feel under a lot of pressure.
I couldn’t exactly sit in the back while Zephyros drove, so I sat in the passenger seat and gazed out the window.
Taking in the view along the Incheon International Airport Expressway, which was gradually becoming familiar, I spoke.
“Master.”
“Yeah?”
“How strong was Kaiser?”
“...Strong enough to be terrifying.”
“Compared to you?”
“Even if there’d been five of me, I’d have lost. With six, I might’ve been able to put up a fight.”
“What if you fought him right now?”
After a long moment of thought, Zephyros slowly spoke.
“I think I’d still lose, but I might be able to hold my own somewhat. I can’t hide my age.”
“I see.”
“Why Kaiser all of a sudden?”
“He’s kind of the benchmark for strength, isn’t he? And now it’s about time...”
I just wanted to live by clearing dungeons, but I had a feeling I might be forced into some strange situation.
“I think I should prepare for fighting other people, too. With that in mind... how about we spar today?”
“You? With me?”
“Yes.”
Normally, going one-on-one as a mage against Zephyros, who was loaded with techniques geared toward fighting other people, would be suicide, but...
I needed to test the performance of the new defensive skill I’d acquired.