Chapter 411

In broad daylight, in a space flooded with sunlight, two people were having a conversation.

"What did you say? Did that call really come through?"

On one side of their field of vision was a neatly printed sign that read: 【Faith】. And reflected in the window beside the Korean lettering were two adults sitting across from each other on a red leather sofa.

"I'm telling you. That guy was absolutely losing it at the crack of dawn."

One of them was the company's top decision-maker. The other, despite holding an impressive title, was essentially a parachute hire with no real responsibilities—yet here they were, sitting across from each other and chatting casually.

"If anyone saw you, they'd think you're some upright pillar of society."

"Even though he's been pocketing bribes! What gives him the right to point fingers at other people?"

"But anyway, the important thing is that the police suddenly got mad at me over the Choi Jinhee case."

They continued chatting idly for a while. Since there was no one around to overhear them, they didn't hesitate to speak openly about the unusual subject of a college student's death.

"Surely this isn't because Hunter Ahn Yoonseung meddled somewhere else before he died, is it?"

The voice was clearly angry, yet it carried no real sense of imminent danger.

"Before you start spouting nonsense, don't tell me you acted that quickly."

As could be inferred from their ambiguous attitude, they still had no idea that the victim abandoned beyond the gate had been rediscovered. If everything had gone according to plan, the evidence—the body—should have disappeared. Moreover, the real police were controlling the investigation to prevent information from leaking, so there was no way every detail would reach the ears of this peripheral guild.

"Yeah. They definitely made sure the body couldn't be found. Everything went smoothly... but I don't know why I've had such a bad feeling since earlier."

"Could the guys we paid have messed something up...?"

"That's possible, I suppose."

A sudden sense of unease flared up. But there was no immediate way to know the truth. For now, the executives of [Faith] focused on the matter at hand.

"What on earth are we supposed to do about Choi Jin from now on?"

Whether or not the police became involved, this was their greatest concern at the moment.

Choi Jin.

In this chaotic era still reeling from the Dungeon Shock, she was top-tier talent barely being kept under control by unscrupulous entrepreneurs.

"Haa."

Moreover, she was such valuable top-tier talent that the very first clause of the [Knight's Oath] already contained a safety provision. There was really no need to imagine Hunter Choi growing angry and trying to kill them.

"The sisters wouldn't have been able to enter this building even if they'd decided to kill us."

A young man who was not an Awakener tilted his head.

"It'd be a problem if Choi Jin started having strange thoughts because of her sister's death...?"

For reference, the income of a skilled A-rank Hunter was genuinely on the scale of a corporation. And they were taking every bit of the enormous income Choi Jin earned. The man in the suit loosened his tie halfway. Imagining the enormous potential losses ahead, he displayed an uncharacteristically childish reaction.

"Ugh! This is infuriating. Seriously, what kind of sudden disaster is this?"

"Would you like a glass of cold water?"

"Honestly, there's nothing profitable in this guild besides those sisters!"

But when he thought about it again, there didn't seem to be any need to despair quite so much.

"Um... Director Sung, don't worry too much for now. If we handle Choi Jin properly, we should be able to keep things going somehow."

The subordinate beside him spoke up immediately.

"Of course, given the circumstances, she might be shaken for a little while."

"That's right. That's exactly what I'm worried about."

"No matter how much her younger sister died, do you really think someone would go so far as to throw away their own life?"

"Hmm."

"It's just a sister. A sister. Well, Choi Jin does care about her family more than most people, but in the end, time passes and your own life becomes the most important thing."

"Is that so?"

"Besides, I have a lot of siblings, so I understand it better, but honestly, I don't care what happens to that family anymore. All the fighting and bickering only mattered when we were kids anyway."

"Oh, right. You said you had two older brothers, didn't you?"

"As I've gotten older, everyone's just been living their own lives—"

If that speculation was correct, there couldn't have been better news. For example, if they offered to reduce her workload... As long as they could maintain their contractual relationship with Choi Jin, that A-rank Hunter, how wonderful would that be?

"Hmm. Right. Since she's been struggling so much after her younger sister's death, let's subtly tell her that, out of human compassion, we want to reduce her working hours."

The man wearing a platinum watch rested his chin on his hand, lost in thought.

"Then, after the funeral, we'll slowly coax Choi Jin..."

"Yes, yes."

"XX. But if Choi Jin has any conscience at all, she should just work diligently. Even now, thinking about the [Dragon's Heart] incident makes my stomach turn."

"That's right."

"Looking back, we really shouldn't have used that cheap emotion manipulator. We didn't even realize it was an item capable of saving the country, and we just fed it to Choi Jin!"

"How great would it have been if we could have recovered it, even if we'd had to cut her open?"

"Damn it—I approved it like I was just upgrading a money-making tool."

"Haha."

"Anyway, I'm not letting Choi Jin keep that [Dragon's Heart] without making every last bit of its value back. Got it?"

At first, their thoughts centered on excuses they could use on Choi Jin in the future. But as time passed, their attention gradually shifted to an entirely different topic.

Ssshk.

The first to bring it up was the man sitting near the blinds.

"By the way, no matter how much I think about it, that phone call this morning keeps bothering me."

In addition, [Faith] didn't even know that Ahn Yoonseung had connections in the broadcasting industry. Yet how could a third-rate guild with so little information have planned such a brazen crime? Thinking about it logically, when someone reported something to the police—especially an ordinary college student—they would usually wait patiently for the authorities to respond. So [Faith] had used a familiar acquaintance to carry out this measure.

"They probably thought that if they pretended the report had been properly filed and just bought some time, everything would stay quiet."

Moreover, the procedure wasn't the only thing they'd covered up.

The corpse.

Above all, they had dumped the traces of murder—the most crucial evidence—beyond the gate.

"Why are the police calling at this hour?"

The man wearing the watch frowned as he spoke.

"Ah, seriously. Don't tell me that bald b*stard lost his nerve for a second and went blabbing somewhere again...?"

For a while, the [Faith] guild master continued grumbling. One of the parachute hires nearby responded. Although his expression wasn't exactly cheerful—after all, they were operating in a realm of illegality few dared to touch—he still seemed to have something to say and voiced his opinion without hesitation.

"If you're going to be this anxious, you shouldn't have carried out the operation."

"Huh!"

"You weren't asking some random thug, after all. Weren't you a little hasty?"

But the moment those words of concern rang out, his fiery temper flared again.

"Hey, you brat! 'Hasty' my ass. We already knew Choi Jinhee told him about the contract and then died. What good would it have done to sit around arguing among ourselves?!"

"Ouch. My ear."

"If we'd just dawdled around for no reason and gotten exposed by the media or something, things would've become really painful from that point on."

"Hyung-nim, please calm down."

"Anyway, Ahn Yoonseung was already snooping around our company, probably trying to find some kind of evidence or something...?"

Why would someone with a genetic predisposition to high blood pressure get himself so dangerously worked up?

"That was the best course of action."

"Haa."

"It was better to question him immediately before he started blabbing somewhere else, wasn't it?"

"True, going to the media is usually something people do only after the police fail to handle things properly..."

But then, after raising his voice for quite some time, the [Faith] guild master caught his breath and suddenly asked a question.

"Hey, hey. By the way, are the big bosses really coming to the country next month?"

The subordinate replied.

"Yes."

An A-rank Awakener. From a wealthy family. Moreover, a rookie hunter who had recently improved rapidly and was attracting attention from all sides.

Ahn Yoonseung.

In truth, even they hadn't really wanted to mess with someone so conspicuous, but there had been special circumstances and reasons behind it.

"Hah. This is a big problem. Why would people like those kings living abroad suddenly come here...?"

"Maybe they've already figured it out? Besides, this time it probably won't end with a little tidying up. Ah, it seems they've already stationed people around so there's no way to escape—"

"Judging by the fact that they're coming all the way to Korea, they're probably planning to go through the accounts completely this time."

[Faith] Guild.

This place was originally a laundering terminal used to funnel illegal funds generated overseas into the country.

Pyromancer Necklace.

And, on a larger scale, things like the Hydra and so on.

Since most dungeon artifacts could only be handled separately by corporations connected to the hunting industry, they would buy mid-tier items domestically and then resell them to third countries as a separate line of business. Along the way, they skimmed a little from the revenue each time. The core of their tax evasion and money laundering, however, was precisely otherworldly drugs—potions.

Conveniently, the evidence disappeared, and they could simply report to the state that all the money had been spent purchasing those outrageously expensive drugs. In reality, the potions they supposedly purchased were traded on the black market. In professional terms, they treated the transactions as a kind of "faked" processing. Using this method, they had already committed numerous financial crimes. If converting company funds into cash all at once was too difficult, they simply purchased high-priced items under the pretext that Choi Jin would use them. In this world, there were countless tiny items worth billions, so it was easy to hide money here and there.

"Phew..."

Until now, the laundering business had been running fairly smoothly. But recently, problems had begun to arise in their environment.

"If we can't use Choi Jin anymore, we're finished..."

"But do you really think we can cover all that laundered money just by milking her dry?"

"So what—are we supposed to just take the beating and die? This is basically our last chance, so start thinking about how to bring the money in as fast as possible!"

Actually, there was no need for a long discussion.

They had simply gotten themselves into trouble by spending, at their own discretion, the funds the higher-ups of the organization had been transferring through them. But since they were operating in a realm of illegality few dared to touch, problems quickly followed for the head of [Faith]. In this line of work, embezzlement wasn't something that could be resolved through ordinary disciplinary measures.

"Anyway, the world's really gotten better. Now we don't even have to prepare cement to keep anything from floating back up from the sea."

"What do you mean it's gotten better?"

"There's a free morgue beyond the gate now. If we slip up even once, we'll end up like Ahn Yoonseung."

[Neo Sisters].

[Korean Magic Tower].

Of course, attracting manpower in the shadow of such giant guilds required effort. During its expansion, [Faith] had reinvested all the profits earned by its employees back into the company. Moreover, since they fundamentally offered payout rates favorable to hunters, the profits from the hunting business itself weren't particularly large.

"I shouldn't have gotten greedy. I should've just been satisfied with exploiting Choi Jin's team a little."

"Ah—but honestly, those commissions we were getting..."

So they had merely set aside a small "service fee" while managing the funds. After all, who in this world only needed one or two essential items? For appearances, they still had to drive nice cars. Since he had the title of guild master anyway, he even bought one of those so-called safety artifacts every wealthy person supposedly owned. And since the company dealt with plenty of potions, there was always the occasional extra cup of [Advanced Healing Potion], which was said to have beneficial effects on the body's aging—

"I don't know anymore."

The amount they had siphoned off little by little had eventually reached a staggering 9.1 billion won.

9.1 billion won.

And yet, surprisingly, it wasn't an insurmountable amount—especially if they relentlessly pushed Choi Jin, a famous A-rank, into dungeons and broadcasting appearances, while also selling off the reserve hunter equipment they had in storage.

So that was what it came down to.

"I've got a bad feeling about this. If—God forbid—it ever comes out that we did something to Ahn Yoonseung..."

"What if we get caught?"

"Then we'll just shut everything down and disappear."

"What about the company?"

"The guys we bought from that bottom-tier GDP country have already fled abroad, haven't they?"

"...?"

"Even if they left fingerprints at the scene, it'd be a pain to catch them—and even if those guys get arrested, the police won't immediately come digging into us."

"Hmm."

"Anyway, all of this is just to buy time. Let's grind hard through the rest of the first half of the year, somehow fool the big bosses, and then we'll make a run for it."

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Unlike electronic watches that adjusted themselves automatically, an automatic watch required regular maintenance from its owner.

"Besides, even if the police did find out everything, solicitation of murder? How many years would that even get you?"

The person sitting on the single-seater sofa checked the accessory on his wrist and stood up.

"Alright. Let's stop worrying. I'm 35 this year, and you're 29. We're still young."

"Is that so?"

"Rather than letting the big bosses find out our money bags are empty, it's better to brace ourselves for prison and keep making money."

But just as he finished stretching—

Beep, beep, beep.

Suddenly, a phone rang from one corner of the room. More precisely, it was the office line installed in the room.

"What? Why?"

"Sir, a guest has just arrived in the first-floor lobby."

"Visitor?"

The day's schedule flashed through the director's mind.

"Could it be that the person from the trading company we had an appointment with today has already arrived?"

This guild had an official license and also participated, to some extent, in item exports.

"Uh... Uh... Yes. That's right. That's right."

This company had been openly established for precisely that purpose. However, they couldn't conduct business exclusively with companies that were too conspicuous.

So the person on the other end of the line must have been someone from one of their dummy business partners.

"Hmm. Is that so?"

"It's a little early, but since there's an opening in the schedule right now, I'll guide the guest upstairs first."

"Okay. Do whatever you want."

But what was going on?

A few minutes later, they met the visitor who had been announced to them in advance. However, the person who appeared was someone they had never seen before.

"Huh? You're not the person in charge, are you?"

Freckles.

Light-colored hair.

A white man who had suddenly appeared in place of an Asian client.

Moreover, the clothes he was wearing were a little too peculiar to be called business casual.