Chapter 65
[SG Pharmaceuticals (formerly Seil Pharmaceuticals) Becomes the First in the World to Produce Potions!]
[Can Non-Awakened People Drink Potions Now?]
[Potions That Aren’t Items, but Just as Effective as Item Potions?]
[A Medical Revolution! What Does the Future Hold for Disease Treatment?]
The news that potions could be reverse-engineered and mass-produced broke shortly after the information was published in an alchemy journal.
Naturally, the reaction online was explosive.
─You again, GOAT.
└Since when is Germ Man a goat?
└Starting today!
└Honestly, with Germ Man’s achievements, even Zephyros has to take a back seat. We have to admit he’s the GOAT of Korean Hunters.
└??? : Tap tap ... Germ Man... Korea... must be the GOAT...
─Germ Man didn’t even make them. I heard it was an alchemist at his company. The Germ Squad really has no limits when it comes to sucking up to him...
└That alchemist joined Germ Man when he acquired her company, though.
└I heard she used to work at Seonggwang’s research institute.
─Apparently, she first developed the Power-Q Elixir while she was at Seonggwang.
└Isn’t Seonggwang going to sue her?
└Yeah, apparently the ingredients were completely different from what she made at Seonggwang. Only the concept was the same.
─I heard she left the company because she got pushed out for political reasons, lol. No wonder Seonggwang’s going under.
└Seonggwang’s going under?
└The KOSPI’s been on fire lately, but Seonggwang Group’s the only one that hasn’t gone up.
My name was being mentioned too, but Ms. Gyuseon had become famous overnight as well.
She didn’t seem particularly thrilled about it, though...
But there was no way to stop her from becoming famous. Potion production had caused that much of a stir around the world.
As soon as the news broke, requests for production licenses came pouring in from all over the world.
Some wanted to place orders for the finished products, too.
I’d expected it, but it was absolute chaos.
For now, I was planning to meet domestic demand before starting exports...
Once Professor Oh Min-wook’s surgery went well, the first batch would probably be completely sold out domestically.
The National Health Insurance Service had also assured us that they’d add the potions to their coverage as soon as their effectiveness was proven.
If we could pull that off...
At least in Korea, hardly anyone would die of cancer anymore.
And according to Zephyros...
“The National Health Insurance Service has plenty of money these days. They’ll probably cover that much.”
“Really?”
“There’s a cap on health insurance premiums, but it’s pretty high. Most Hunters working as freelancers are enrolled as regional subscribers, though.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Haven’t the number of millionaire and billionaire Hunters in Korea shot up? They’re all paying hundreds of thousands of won in health insurance premiums. How could the system not be flush with cash? Budget deficits, the risk of running out of money... That’s all old news.”
“Korea’s gotten a lot better.”
Zephyros shrugged and looked at Segyun.
“It could’ve gone the other way. We’re still managing to live pretty well thanks to someone.”
“President Kang Min-guk?”
“You, idiot. You.”
“...Me?”
“You have no idea how much economic impact you’re generating.”
“I do that?”
Hadn’t I just gone abroad to clear a few dungeons and bring in some foreign currency?
It wasn’t nothing, but...
Calling me a pillar of the entire nation seemed like a bit of an exaggeration.
“Because you cleared all those untouched Gates across the country, dungeon companies’ fundamentals got a huge boost right off the bat. That rapid rise in their value bought us time when the market opened—unlike Taiwan or Japan. Even if Kang Min-guk had his grandfather come to his aid, do you think he could’ve kept American capital out without you?”
“If everyone united around a central figure...”
“You’ve got the order completely backward.”
Zephyros shook his head.
“They united because they had a chance of holding them off. Kang Min-guk even took on the political risk to make it happen.”
“Then if I hadn’t been around...”
“By the numbers, American and Chinese capital would’ve swallowed everything. Just like Japan now. You showed up at the perfect time, like you’d been sent by God. The Americans and Chinese must be dumbfounded. They gave up on Europe and turned to East Asia, only for you to dump a whole load of ash into a meal that was just about ready.”
Zephyros shrugged and continued.
“How do I know? I was an adviser to the government task force.”
“You were?”
“In the worst-case scenario, the government’s plan was to combine just three of the Big Five, including RHS, and use them to hold the others off. It was conditional on me returning to active duty.”
“...If I hadn’t been around, you would’ve had to return to active duty...”
“And I would’ve died. So I was thinking it over, too. That was right around the time I met you.”
It still felt like just yesterday.
The day I went there without even checking my skill window, got thoroughly beaten, then came back and disassembled Zephyros’s scabbard.
I never thought that connection would bring us this far.
“Come to think of it... you still haven’t used that chest ad you bought for a billion won.”
“It’s my secret weapon. If you ever cross me, I’ll put an embarrassing picture on your chest.”
“What? Pfft!”
We laughed at each other for a while, then Zephyros suddenly exclaimed, remembering something.
“I hear Kaiser’s not doing too well lately.”
“...Kaiser? Is he drowning in booze or something?”
“H-How did you know?”
“He bought 300 billion won worth of liquor from our company alone. I thought he was crazy.”
Zephyros chuckled and shook his head.
“The old man never touched alcohol when he was young. What kind of old-age madness is this?”
“But how did you hear about it?”
“Kaiser Corporation is denying everything, but the stock price doesn’t lie. I hear a few hedge funds are starting to pull out.”
“Whoa, really?”
Was even Kaiser’s absolute authority starting to crack?
“There’s also talk that Ryan Spencer and Robert Garcia are teaming up, raising money from the hedge funds pulling out, and breaking away to go independent.”
“If they’re number one and two in the U.S., I guess they wouldn’t want to be under someone else.”
“You don’t think they became number one and two because they were under Kaiser?”
“...They did?”
“The world doesn’t always work out fairly.”
Zephyros shrugged and continued.
“That’s not what I wanted to talk about... A few hedge funds have made us an offer, too.”
“What kind of offer?”
“They want to join forces.”
“...Join forces?”
“They’re planning to break away with a few dungeon development companies they own and merge with us.”
“We’re supposed to acquire American dungeon development companies?”
Was that... really a good idea?
“If we’re planning to expand our business into the U.S., it’s not a bad offer.”
“Then we should do it.”
“They’re just testing the waters for now, so the terms aren’t great. They’ve probably contacted all the major dungeon development companies around the world, not just us.”
“...But will Kaiser just sit back and let it happen?”
“Who knows? He might do nothing and get stripped of everything, or he might snap out of it and step in to bring things under control.”
Right at that moment...
Both our phones rang at the same time.
It was a news alert.
Since I was running a publicly traded company, I figured I should keep a close eye on domestic and international stock markets, so I paid for a news subscription.
[Alexander “Kaiser” Heinrich Makes His First Public Appearance in Two Months, Confirms He’s in Good Health.]
[Declares Return to Active Duty and Intention to Rechallenge a Level 70 Gate, Announcing the End of the Under-Seventy Era.]
“Has he lost his mind?”
That was Zephyros’s brief reaction after reading the news.
I felt the same way.
Even so, a level 70 Gate was...
“...That’s a pretty grand move if he’s just trying to bring things under control. What’s gotten into him? How’s he supposed to clear a level 70 Gate when he couldn’t even do it in his prime?”
But...
The next news alert held the key.
[Kaiser: Ending the Under-Seventy Era Is Impossible Alone; Urges Hunters to Reach Level 70.]
[This Is the Right Time, with the WDDO Taking Effect This Year; Calls for a Transnational Hunter Dream Team Beyond National Interests.]
[Urges Humanity to Break Through the Level 70 Wall and Open a New Chapter.]
Huh. So that’s what he’s really saying?
“Do you think he’d planned this far ahead from the start, ever since the WDDO took effect?”
“...It’s certainly possible.”
Before the global dungeon market opened, it would’ve been a disaster for each country to let Hunters reach level 70 without any restrictions.
They would’ve lost a huge amount of the pacification effect, and the dungeon economy itself would’ve stagnated.
But now that the market was open...
It had become much easier for Hunters from different countries to train and clear dungeons together.
The problem was that it had taken far too many years to reach this point of global dungeon market liberalization.
Long enough for Kaiser, once a young, active Hunter, to become a retired one.
And aside from Kaiser, who else could you name?
There were plenty of level 69 Hunters around the world—the so-called max-level Hunters.
Zephyros was level 69, and the U.S. number one and number two were both level 69, too.
But none of them could match Kaiser in his prime.
There was a reason he was still revered as an “absolute being.”
If it were as simple as leveling up a few active level 69 Hunters to level 70 and clearing a Gate together, the Under-Seventy era wouldn’t have lasted for decades.
What on earth was Kaiser thinking...
Ding! Another news alert.
[Kaiser Focuses on Hunter Kim Segyun.]
...What?
[The Day Hunter Kim Segyun Reaches Level 70, the Under-Seventy Era Will End.]
[Kaiser Declares He Wants to Challenge a Level 70 Dungeon Alongside Kim Segyun.]
[Kaiser: Only Kim Segyun Is Worthy of Being My Party Member.]
Zephyros seemed to be reading the same article. He let out a hollow laugh, then muttered a short curse.
“Fuck.”
“...What the hell...”
“That crazy old man really has lost his mind.”
Zephyros looked angrier than I’d ever seen him.
“Is this really something to get that mad about...?”
At a glance, it seemed like he was trying to hype me up.
“For one thing, he’s trying to throw off your leveling pace.”
Ah, I could see that.
People had already started asking when I’d hit level 50 and tried to clear the Wonders.
“So people are going to expect me to reach level 70 and clear level 70-and-above Gates.”
“Yeah. Those people won’t change your pace, of course, but we can’t ignore public opinion.”
Now that Kaiser had said it, there’d be more than one or two people bringing up level 70.
If I really focused on leveling, I could reach it within a year.
Raising my level alone wouldn’t be difficult at all.
There was a reason people called it an “inflated level.”
It was the same reason Japanese Hunters at level 69 got brutally trounced by Spencer from the U.S.
A Hunter’s strength depended on skills, items, proficiency, and...
a whole lot of other factors.
“Second, he’s trying to make your upcoming Wonder dungeon runs seem less exciting and draw public attention away from them.”
“Because to someone who might challenge a level 70 Gate, clearing the lower-level ones is nothing, right?”
With my current stats, they wouldn’t be difficult, but...
If raw power alone were enough to clear a dungeon, why would any Gate ever be labeled impossible to clear?
Most of them had such bizarre gimmicks that it was nearly impossible for anyone to even attempt them.
“Third... he put you beneath himself right to the end. His party member. That crazy old man.”
He’d even arranged the details that carefully.
“But I don’t know if it was intentional or a mistake... There’s a fourth thing, and that’s the problem.”
“...The problem?”
“Kaiser just drew the aggro of every max-level Hunter in the world—the highest-ranked Hunters—and used you as a buffer between himself and them. Simply put, he basically said that there isn’t a single decent Hunter out there besides Kim Segyun.”
...The highest-ranked Hunters lived on their pride alone.
If people like that heard those words...
“They’ll rush to level 70, right?”
“...You don’t even have to ask.”
I could almost hear the engines revving on all those Hunters who’d been parked at level 69 for so long that dust had gathered on them.
“Gasp! Could it be... he’s thought this far ahead...?”
“...Why? You’re making me nervous.”
“What do you think will happen if the level 69 Hunters in every country are unleashed and start pushing for level 70?”
“Level 70 Gates will appear everywhere, and the pacification effect will be lost.”
“Then the chance of getting the pacification effect from clearing even one of those lower-level Wonder Gates you’re tackling will go down.”
It was valuable because it was the only missing puzzle piece.
If that insane level 70 Gate puzzle piece fell into place...
“Its significance would fade a lot.”
“And you’d get less out of it.”
“So he’s trying to throw a wrench into things.”
“...That’s a possibility.”
He was openly taking a shot at me.
“Tch. There are always people who can’t stand to see someone doing well.”
If that was how he wanted to play it...
Even if it was a little difficult, we’d have to move quickly...
I called Director Cho Hyeong-bin right away.
─Yes, Hunter. Did you see Kaiser’s press release...?
“Yes, I just saw it.”
─The internal think tank at the Awakened Management Bureau is currently simulating the impact of this media play.
“That’s good, but... I think we should move quickly. There were a few places where negotiations had been finalized, right?”
─Three places have finalized negotiations, and we’re still discussing the details with five others.
“Just reach a reasonable compromise with the places where we’re still negotiating the details.”
─Pardon? Yes, understood. But which ones...?
If they’d thrown a jab...
“All five.”
The proper response was to hit back with a straight punch.
“We’ll clear all eight impossible Gates by the end of this week.”
Looks like the Gates in the thirties...
would have to be wrapped up quickly.