Chapter 364

“Senior Ahn Yoonseung, if life’s been so hard lately that you’re walking around half out of it, maybe you should just have a cigarette...?”

“What did you just say? Surely you’re not suggesting that I use something my senior personally warned me was harmful, are you?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Is that really what you’re saying?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Wow, he’s completely gone. Forget it. This guy is even more intense than Jung Haseong’s fans were at their peak.”

“Come to think of it, people say that if there are no crazy people around you, maybe you’re the crazy one. But looking at our Hunter Yoonseung, I feel reassured. At least I must be normal. What a relief!”

The lighthearted chatter continued.

The Neo Sisters guild had been worried that their ace-level Awakened might be poached, but in reality, there was no such concern.

“Wait.”

Still, they couldn’t completely relax.

“Come to think of it, didn’t I hear recently that [Garion] was winding down its operations?”

Another guild member brought up a different topic.

“Wasn’t that just a rumor?”

“Ah. Well, considering how the whole thing fizzled out without any official announcement, either that really was what happened, or the government stepped in and persuaded them to scrap the plan.”

Their attention remained fixed on the same issue.

“Now that I think about it, the timing was almost too perfect, wasn’t it?”

“What?”

“The timing of the rumors.”

“Ah.”

“I saw on the news that S-ranks seem to keep in touch with one another fairly often. And right in the middle of all that, rumors suddenly start spreading that Garion is disbanding.”

News that an S-rank Awakened had founded a guild was bound to send shockwaves through the entire industry.

“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe Hunter Haseong heard about it too and was planning to close down his company.”

“Put it that way, and it also explains why Garion is still operating.”

“Right. That K—his Hyung said he had no intention of expanding the corporation anyway.”

It wasn’t only Neo Sisters.

Hunters all over the world were paying close attention to the matter.

Kim Giryeo had declared that he intended to run a one-man guild, but life was unpredictable. No one could say for certain what might happen in the future.

The new wave that had arrived was powerful enough to overturn the industry’s long-established conventions at any moment.

Naturally, most influential figures began preparing themselves for whatever might come next.

***

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■ Dictionary

Paper company

• Meaning

A corporation with no substantial physical presence.

In other words, a nominal corporation.

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It was a peaceful morning.

The faint tapping of fingers against a phone screen filled the room.

“Anyway, I’ve decided to establish a company... but what should I call it?”

It was nine in the morning on a weekday.

Truly the perfect time to head off to work.

“Just like the thing I looked up a moment ago, my guild is basically going to be a nominal organization. There’s no real need to put much thought into the name.”

Of course, I wasn’t actually planning to go anywhere.

I was merely absorbed in something while lying on the sofa.

Even that didn’t last long.

The subject I had been pondering wasn’t particularly important in the first place.

“Then maybe I’ll just call it something like ‘Kim Giryeo Guild.’ Like ‘Soonhee’s Gukbap’ or whatever. Businesses on Earth are often named after people, after all.”

And with that, I finished naming the corporation that would soon come into existence.

From that point on, however, I had to deal with an actual problem.

How was I supposed to make money from now on?

And which dungeon should I target if I wanted to pay off my debt as efficiently as possible?

“Hmm.”

Rustle.

I reached toward the glass table sitting alone in the spacious living room, a relic of the secondhand sale that had never managed to find a buyer.

My fingers brushed against paper.

I had piled various documents on top of it.

“Let’s leave this aside for now.”

The [Prophecy Book] I had obtained during my trip to the United States.

I went over the translated scroll once again.

But just as I had suspected from the moment I first acquired it, there was very little information in it that I could make use of right now.

“Other than the elixir of immortality, most of this is just prophecy about dragons. And more importantly, the timelines are absurdly far apart!”

Well, expecting a single thin scroll to reveal the location of every rare dungeon in existence had been unreasonable from the start.

“The next guaranteed rare monster scheduled to appear in South Korea won’t show up for another two years. How am I supposed to pay these additional taxes before then?”

No matter how I looked at it, the conclusion remained the same.

I had to start working this winter.

Unfortunately, whenever the subject came up, another headache inevitably followed.

“Honestly, closing a Gate itself isn’t even difficult for me anymore...”

I rolled my eyes.

“The real problem is maximizing profit while doing as little work as possible. And now all the high-grade unclaimed Gates that even a freelancer like me could easily take have suddenly disappeared from the country.”

Magic.

Strength.

Even the charisma I thought I had long since lost.

I had regained so much, and yet why did my life refuse to fall neatly back into place?

With the power I possessed now, I could—half jokingly—challenge every Hunter in Korea if I wanted to.

Instead, I was deliberately making complicated something that could have been solved by force.

“If I can just solve this money problem, then truly, truly, truly, all that’ll be left is retirement. I really don’t want to get into any conflicts with people in this industry.”

Even now, merely thinking about the 40 billion made my blood run cold and my hands tremble.

To be fair, it wasn’t as if I had no options at all.

“Maybe I’ll just eat plain rice with the kimchi I bought earlier today...”

Hahaha.

I swallowed a laugh that was seventy percent bitterness and got to my feet.

And just as I shifted my posture—

“Hmm.”

A visitor arrived at the extraterrestrial’s mansion.

[Ding-dong.]

Aside from delivery workers, this was the first guest I had ever received.

“Excuse me—”

It hadn’t been long since I sensed the other person’s mana.

I followed the sound coming from the intercom.

And once again, I found myself impressed by how elegantly practical this Earth device was.

With a single machine, I could see exactly who had come to the door.

“Are you inside—?”

The visitor was Esther.

“Ah. Trouble number one has arrived.”

The woman who had joined forces with the nation’s hero—trouble number two—to wipe out every Gate in sight had somehow made it all the way here looking perfectly composed.

“Wait. But this place is... practically at the end of the beach.”

What in the world was going on?

I tried to estimate the distance from the Korean Mage Tower headquarters to this place, but the thought didn’t occupy me for long.

Soon, I remembered the locations of the Mage Tower’s regional guild branches.

Through the intercom, I saw the woman standing outside, smiling brightly enough for the veins at her temple to stand out.

.

.

.

A few minutes later.

“Oh my—”

An unfamiliar sound echoed through my home.

“Kim Giryeo-ssi~ Hello. It’s been a while since we last saw each other in person, hasn’t it?”

I had simply been distracted by the whole tax situation.

Esther came in saying she hadn’t expected me to hold a housewarming party anyway, and she brought with her an unexpectedly large pile of gifts.

Most of them were ordinary household necessities, things like tissues and towels.

From what I heard afterward, the tissues were apparently extremely high-end, costing several thousand won per sheet.

Eco-friendly.

Naturally sourced.

Sterilized at high temperatures.

Pure...

No matter how many fine qualities they had, they still seemed far too expensive for me to buy with my own money.

But if someone else was giving them to me for free, that was a different matter.

So I accepted them.

And the moment I did, the trouble began.

“Sorry for dropping by so suddenly today!~”

She spoke in a tone that contained absolutely no trace of apology.

“Well, considering how thoroughly we cleared out all the dungeons, the fact that you, Kim Giryeo, are already trying to return to work must mean you’re an absolute perfectionist.”

“Hmm?”

“Wow, you keep such a huge house incredibly clean. It’s so spotless it barely even feels like anyone lives here! But if you’re constantly worrying about everything around you like this, logically speaking, that can’t possibly be good for your health, can it?”

The curse sorcerer’s mana surged violently.

Every time I saw someone’s power fluctuate so strongly with their emotions, I was reminded once again that I truly had landed in a primitive alien civilization.

“How could I possibly sit by and watch while you, sick as you are, try to return to the industry?”

For just a moment, my attention drifted elsewhere.

And in that brief opening, the curse mage’s voice suddenly sharpened.

“And on top of all that, what is this I’m hearing about you founding a guild?”

Only then did the real problem become clear.

From her perspective, as someone who ran a massive guild herself, my casually establishing a corporation must have looked like a considerable threat.

“Miss.”

“Are you seriously addicted to work or something? Anyway, I’m warning you now: no matter how much you try to persuade me in that tone today, I’m not going along with it!”

Seonwoo Yeon had enough grip strength to tear a lion apart.

Esther, meanwhile, could probably crack concrete with a single knuckle.

Knowing that, my body tensed reflexively despite the fact that I now possessed enough power to overwhelm her.

My thoughts raced as I searched for a way out of the situation.

“Please, sit down for a moment.”

I restrained myself from using mind-control magic and hurried into action.

After a moment of thought, I remembered that there happened to be something in the house that might help.

“Thank you, Seonwoo Yeon.”

Green tea.

I couldn’t remember the exact mechanism behind it, but Earthlings generally seemed to calm down somewhat after drinking something warm.

“Huh.”

With the aid of this Earthly substance, I immediately moved to resolve the situation.

I addressed the industry colleague sitting in front of me.

“But I have no intention of competing with the Korean Mage Tower...”

There was no reason to lie over something this trivial.

“The corporation I’m establishing will be exactly like Garion, the one Jung Haseong runs. I intend to manage it in precisely the same way, so naturally there’s no possibility of it harming Esther’s company.”

I made it clear that she had nothing to worry about.

But at that point, the purple mammal pointed out something I had overlooked.

“You hated the idea of belonging to a company that much. Didn’t you say you wanted to remain a freelancer forever? You turned down all those incredible scouting offers, and now you’re suddenly establishing a corporation of your own? I just don’t understand.”

Come to think of it, back in the early days after my reincarnation, I had indeed been busy rejecting every offer from every organization that approached me.

“Hmm.”

I thought about it for a moment.

But no matter how elegantly I tried to phrase it, nothing would be better than simply telling the truth.

So I decided to reveal what I had really been thinking all this time.

“If I put it this way, I think you’ll understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“Actually, it’s not that I dislike companies themselves.”

“Then why did you keep refusing them all this time?”

“What I truly dislike is having... something above me.”

Sssk.

As I moved deliberately, one of my arms made a gesture that looked vaguely human.

“I don’t really like being ordered around by someone acting like my boss. On the other hand, if I’m in a position where I get to make the decisions myself—like being the head of a company—then I don’t see any reason to avoid it.”

“-_-”

“And I’m not some saint, despite what you may think. I don’t even particularly like having someone on equal footing with me.”

“-_-”

“I’m most comfortable when everyone else is beneath me, and I prefer everything to proceed according to my own plans.”

“-_-”

“So how could someone like me possibly accept a scouting offer from the Korean Mage Tower? And now it makes sense why a Hunter who supposedly hated companies would suddenly establish one of his own, doesn’t it?”

From the curse mage’s perspective, every sentence coming out of my mouth was probably unpleasant in its own way.

I calmly laid out the thoughts about guilds that I had been holding onto for so long.

Now that I had regained my power, it was also the first time I had tried to put those feelings into words for myself.

‘A cursed prodigy born on a remote planet at the edge of the universe.’

Yet contrary to what an archmage like myself might have expected, the Awakened woman in front of me responded with startling calm.

“Yes, that makes sense!”

“Huh?”

Slurp.

Esther answered with complete nonchalance and took a sip of her green tea.

Her reaction was nothing like that of the curse mage from Alphauri.

“But... there’s still one thing I’m curious about.”

What was more, she maintained a perfectly casual expression while asking a question that even seemed motivated by concern for me.

“First of all, I understand now that you don’t actually have anything against corporations themselves, Giryeo-ssi. But even so, was there really any reason to go out of your way to create a guild now, after all this time? Especially something as small as a one-person guild...”

Why had I suddenly decided to establish a guild?

To answer that, I had to return to the most fundamental issue of all.

Taxes.

Taxes.

Taxes.

In truth, if I simply revealed that I was an alien struggling desperately to fulfill my civic obligations, what sort of reaction would she have?

I paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain the situation.

But no matter how long I thought about it, I had absolutely no desire to reveal that I was an extraterrestrial yet again.

And so, I found myself completely at a loss for words.