Chapter 447

'I have to do whatever I can to keep this guild from rising any further.'

Kim Giryeo closed his eyes.

'By the way, Choi Jin is A-rank, so the scale of her earnings is different. Even if she's motivated by money... why are the lower-ranking employees working so hard too?'

A clear thought passed through the darkness behind his eyelids.

'If it were me, I'd just take the guild's basic salary and take as many days off as possible.'

The first word that came to mind the moment he realized his plan was falling apart was restraint.

'Even when the company keeps paying them steadily, who in their right mind would go to work on the weekend?'

Why on earth were the members of this guild working themselves so hard?

Back when he was still F-rank, Kim Giryeo had spent ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) every day worrying about whether he would fall behind on rent again.

'That must have been rough.'

So, hoping the primitives who joined his guild wouldn't have to live like that, he treated them generously—and an entirely unexpected result followed.

'For reference, whenever I, the guild master, try asking them directly, they just tremble and never give me a proper answer as to why they're so obsessed with work.'

Tuk, tuk.

'Everyone's scared because of the way this skin looks, so I suppose it can't be helped.'

In one corner of the office, the ticking of an old clock echoed.

'Then there's no way to naturally find out the reason from the humans.'

But just as in the reality of this world, spending a long time thinking did not always lead to the correct conclusion.

'As expected, that was the problem with our guild!'

Kim Giryeo arrived at an answer on his own.

Unfortunately, it was completely wrong.

'They must be working overtime because the pay isn't enough! There are definitely households in this world where people have no choice but to work on weekends, right?'

Kim Giryeo opened his eyes again.

'Then if I give them more money, they'll work less.'

He lightly clenched his fist, signaling that he had finally figured it out.

'It's actually a simple problem. I just need to improve the benefits.'

He reasoned that if he gave the hunters more money and naturally limited their activity, the company would be able to make use of them without drawing too much attention to the iron rods he had created.

However, the alien's additional salary soon produced an obvious result.

'Huh?'

His guild prospered even more.

Moreover, it reached the point where top-tier hunters from all over the country were asking, 'Why won't you accept us?'

***

A guild that had only been temporarily established to eliminate the main enemy of the Gisimche world.

Then why did it keep becoming more famous?

'Oh, I don't understand.'

Today's workday began with those words.

The fourth S-rank Hunter of South Korea.

Yes. Now that I had officially regained my qualifications and truly become a Hunter again, I headed to the office as soon as Tuesday morning arrived.

'An S-rank monster says he wants to protect the Korean Peninsula again, so what can the Association do? They have no choice but to accept it passively...'

The return of a retired archmage wasn't important right now.

Even if the internet was buzzing with criticism, what I ultimately needed to focus on was the crisis unfolding in this reality.

'I really don't understand this.'

Tak!

I rose from the cheap chair and briefly looked around.

This was the newly acquired rental office, and in the middle of the room sat a table I had picked up from a secondhand market.

As you can see, that old table was now covered with dozens of different artifacts—

'This company was clearly created to exploit F-rank workers for a small amount of money. So why am I the one doing most of the work?'

The situation had become so absurd that questions naturally started piling up.

It was as though the people in my guild had decided to become the sworn enemies of laziness, producing results at an almost record-breaking pace.

'Business is going too well...'

And so, as the guild master, I ended up sitting here and sorting through the items myself.

'Why... why... How did things really end up like this? This is obviously wrong.'

I stared helplessly at the various pieces of loot scattered across the desk.

Then, suddenly overcome with frustration, I threw open a nearby window and sank into thought.

'Stop bringing back so many items—!'

But what good was there in agonizing over it?

To be clear, it was impossible to leave the Earth item appraisal work known as [Appraisal] to someone else.

After all, analysts with psychic abilities on Earth were among the highest-paid professionals.

'Anyway, we'd probably lose out to companies like Korea Magic Tower or Neo Sisters in the hiring competition, so there's no way we'd be able to recruit anyone decent.'

And the work I had to do wasn't limited to just [Appraisal].

'If this is how things are going to be, why did I even fix up the office in the first place? I barely have time to breathe!'

It seemed I needed to produce a larger quantity of metal rods.

The guild members went out on plenty of investigations, but the results were far too poor.

The fact that exploration was progressing much more slowly than I had predicted—or even imagined—was definitely not a good sign.

'As expected, could it be because this planet simply doesn't have enough water?'

Since using the rods in such a dry environment likely reduced the effectiveness of the measurements, it was time to start thinking of some kind of breakthrough.

_

Perhaps I might even need to abandon the metal rods altogether and develop a new investigation tool.

If that's the case, then I'll start by drawing a concise conclusion.

Now I'm an alien with no money—at least compared to other S-ranks—no time, and, on top of that, barely any friends.

In such a miserable situation, what could I possibly boast about?

'A brilliant mind?'

Because I was sleep-deprived from everything that had been going on, ridiculous thoughts started creeping into my head.

An inferior body—truly, a body that couldn't be more lacking.

At this point, manners be damned; I was even starting to think I should just get some jellyfish gelatin and completely overhaul this skin...

'Of course, that was just a joke.'

Dmrk.

Still, I was beginning to notice traces of Earthling habits in my everyday life.

I sat down in the used office chair I'd bought from a secondhand market and continued thinking.

'What am I supposed to do with all these employees?'

I'd considered this before, but suddenly restricting how often they could enter dungeons was impossible.

F- and E-rank Hunters already had low base incomes, so they would only see such a measure as something that hindered their ability to build up assets.

In the worst-case scenario, they might not even bother complaining and simply quit, saying the place was too much of a mess.

Therefore.

'The return of the early-retired S-rank Hunter has drawn far too much media attention.'

The hesitation was brief.

'Besides, giving them more money would only make things worse. For now, I'll have to take a harsher approach to put out the immediate fire.'

At last, a brilliant idea came to me.

'I'll order them to submit all their equipment for Enchantment. Then, if I hold onto all the items for about a week, the news will surely move on to another topic. Society on Earth moves quickly, after all.'

Without any artifacts at all, no one would be able to enter the dungeons.

And under the pretext of enhancing their equipment, the authority of the guild master would remain perfectly intact.

'It's like taking a farmer's hoe away from him.'

This was the choice I ultimately made after growing sick of being battered by the media and trying every possible method to avoid attention.

If I left all the attention on the guild unchecked, even my suspicious metal rods might eventually end up in the news.

But the primitive Earth mages would never even imagine that this was the true purpose behind it all.

'Anyway, even when I openly tell them not to work so hard, they don't listen. So how could they possibly know my true intentions when I haven't even said them aloud?'

After finishing my thoughts, I felt a sense of relief and pulled out my phone to draft a few messages.

==== [Real-Time Chat] ====

[Me: Seohyeong-ah]

[Me: Seohyeong-ah, are you busy?]

[Me: We've been friends since middle school, right?]

[Me: Then, can I ask you for a favor?]

[Gu Seohyeong: It's been a while since you contacted me, and you're already talking nonsense from the start.]

====================

But it was at that moment.

Knock, knock, knock.

Suddenly, a sound came from the door of the old rented office.

'Come in.'

At first, I heard only an ordinary knock and mistakenly assumed it was Choi Jin.

But then I realized that the person entering the office was an ordinary civilian with no magical power whatsoever.

To put it simply, a seasoned manager—someone who had come to oversee all the internal affairs of our guild—finally stepped inside.

'What's the matter?'

'Ah, Director... Kim Giryeo!'

'Yes.'

'We received a call at the company asking for you, sir. It seems to be Hunters from Japan, and they've been requesting to be connected to you for a while now.'

A phone call?

From Japan?

Both words were unexpected, but at the same time, it wasn't entirely surprising.

'Choi Jin was furious when she found out my personal number had been posted on the company contact list.'

I sincerely hoped they wouldn't discover that I was an alien because of some mishap during the company's transitional period.

'Then, please connect me.'

'Yes, understood.'

Following the guild secretary's guidance, I picked up the old receiver.

And surprisingly, the person on the other end of the call turned out to be a formidable S-rank individual.

Hello! Ranker Kim Giryeo!

One of Japan's top awakened Hunters, Hunter Iori.

'Judging by the voice faintly coming through the translator... this doesn't seem like a fake or some kind of manipulation. It really does sound like the actual S-rank himself.'

For some reason, the image of the other person frequently wearing green flashed through my mind.

Come to think of it, unlike certain other Hunters, I didn't really have any reason to reject this one.

'At this point, he's someone who lives conscientiously. Strictly speaking, he's the only primitive who didn't commit any wrongdoing during the [Kagoshima Raid] incident.'

I quietly shifted my eyes.

The sight of my sambagean eyes glaring sharply into empty space would probably seem rather frightening to anyone watching.

But the thoughts behind that expression were surprisingly peaceful.

'So that's why they made an international call... They want to have a quick conversation with me?'

Of course, it was natural to feel uneasy and a little anxious when a famous S-rank suddenly did something like this...

'Whatever this is about, there must be some reason behind it, so let's listen carefully for a moment.'

I was curious.

Although I was busy every day with appraisal work, it wasn't as though I couldn't spare a few minutes, so I readily accepted Iori's proposal.

[Received message]

[Ranker, thank you!]

[It seems I didn't inform you of the exact visit time, so I'm contacting you again by message.]

[As I mentioned over the phone earlier, this matter is difficult to resolve through conversation alone, so we apologize, but we plan to visit in person.]

[The visitors will be myself and Moritake Ito, Japan's top-ranked Hunter.]

[This message was translated in real time using the Pixy S paid translation app.]

Amid all this, one small relief was that their country had a visa exemption agreement with ours, so there was no need to wait for a visa to be issued.