Chapter 456

He wondered whether the world looked different when viewed through the [Dragon's Eye].

"Oh, right."

Before long, one of the practitioners struck up a conversation with Kang Changho. The elderly man didn’t comment on the fact that the man in his thirties had remained silent. On the contrary, he was the one who brought up a new topic.

"Come to think of it, did I mention this before? Thank you for bringing those people yesterday."

He pointed toward the northern part of the dungeon.

"If it weren’t for you, Mr. Kang, we wouldn’t have seen a single Korean in five years."

In the direction his fingertip indicated, two people were lying on the ground.

Even from their appearance alone, it was obvious that they had some experience as hunters. Yet they were in a miserable state, sprawled unconscious on the floor with their shoulders or foreheads pressed against it.

At the mention of them, the man holding the flask finally spoke.

"Was there some particular reason you specifically wanted people from South Korea?"

Kang Changho asked.

"Well, I heard they were needed, so I simply went ahead and picked out suitable candidates..."

"Hoho."

"I don’t understand why you set your sights on South Korea of all places, leaving the major powers aside."

The practitioner answered him.

"I wanted to verify something."

The first response was vague.

"Whether it’s simply luck, some genetic peculiarity, or an environmental factor."

"Hmm?"

"Strangely enough, South Korea has produced a high number of S-rank Awakened relative to its population. Enough to draw the attention of every other country."

"Ah."

"We were curious about what factors might have influenced that unusual ratio."

As the practitioner continued, his objective became increasingly clear.

"Anyway, the most likely explanation is simply luck."

But the moment Kang Changho heard that, the smile disappeared from his face as though he had lost interest.

The subject held no particular significance for him.

"You say that quite easily."

"I’ve lived through it myself, so I have my own impressions."

"Hmm."

"South Korea is just a small, insignificant country."

The blue-purple-haired man spoke indifferently.

"My goodness, Mr. Kang. How can you call South Korea insignificant?"

The practitioner sitting across from him looked almost kindly as he continued.

"South Korea is practically a Kakotopia where every citizen is assigned a unique number and registered in a computer network, but..."

"My country doesn’t deserve quite that much criticism."

"Traditionally, family ties are strong, there are CCTV cameras all over the country, and on top of that, the internet is highly developed."

"It’s one of the most unusual places in the world. Above all, it was extremely difficult to find people there."

Of course, by "find," he actually meant kidnapping.

"So I’d like to express my gratitude to you, Kang Changho."

"You flatter me."

"Thanks to your help, everything went smoothly."

A Korean. ℴ

Handing another Korean over to the organization.

"I... have some history with personally dismantling a human trafficking ring in Korea."

Clang.

Kang Changho, who had been examining the empty flask for quite some time, set it down.

Then he began to speak.

"Why would I go out of my way to do the police’s job? I simply kept some South Korean personnel around for situations like this. It was all part of the calculation."

The practitioner’s response was sharp.

"As the rumors said, you truly have no conscience, sir."

For reference, even the clichéd rebuttal of, "Does morality put food on the table?" never came.

All that followed was the practitioner’s joking tone.

"There was once a university that no longer exists because dungeon monsters destroyed it. Back when I attended, I used to take Korean history lectures as a hobby."

"So?"

"That’s why I’m saying this—you would’ve left your name in history if you’d been born a few years earlier."

The man in his thirties was being openly accused of being a traitor to his country.

"What, did you expect patriotism from someone like me?"

Kang Changho, a mixed-race man, spread his arms wide as he said it, but the grin on his face made it obvious he was joking.

"That country has been taking tens of millions from me in inheritance taxes since I was crawling around."

"Hahaha."

"My parents’ generation already paid income tax on everything they earned, so isn’t that double taxation?"

"I wondered what kind of complaint you were going to make, but it isn’t even about the difficulties of growing up in a multicultural family. It’s just that..."

"On top of that, I awaken, and suddenly everyone insists on forcing someone who has already completed his military service to defend a place that isn’t even at war."

"Were you originally a soldier?"

Kang Changho ignored the part of the foreigner’s comment that revealed his poor understanding of Korea and immediately gave his own opinion instead.

"Anyway, I don’t care if my country falls apart."

The blue-haired Awakened completely dominated the conversation.

"You have to be part of an organization like this before I feel like protecting you."

Kang Changho said that and pointed an accusing finger at the practitioner.

"At first, I only approached you because I was curious about which brat had actually succeeded at artificial awakening. I wanted to find out the secret."

"I heard, Mr. Kang, that you destroyed the branch we had operating in a rural village."

"Now that I think about it, there really isn’t any reason for me to be hostile toward you people, is there?"

The Korean S-rank hunter withdrew the finger he had been jabbing at the practitioner and pointed it at himself instead.

"[Improvement]."

The rare skill he mentioned was a concept that might sound somewhat unfamiliar to outsiders.

"To think that an organization trying to push forward humanity’s mutations would appear right in front of someone with a skill like this."

"If it weren’t for you people, I might’ve died waiting for humanity to evolve."

"Anyway, I’m not the one who has to suffer the side effects, so the faster development progresses, the better. Just imagine how entertaining it would be to cherry-pick other people’s powerful skills. The performance of a skill stolen through [Improvement] still depends to some extent on the strength of the original Awakened."

South Korea’s third S-rank hunter spoke with confidence, as though entrusting someone with an important task.

"So I hope we get good results from the Koreans we captured this time."

"I’ll do my best."

"The immediate goal is still to somehow increase the probability of producing an S-rank, right?"

The old man nodded.

"Once stability has been verified, the next step is to produce power that surpasses the limits of an S-rank."

"Hmm."

"Even if we create an extraordinary superpowered individual, early artificial Awakened tend to have short lifespans, so Mr. Kang would be free to play the hyena. Or perhaps, in this case, I should compare it to a crocodile and a crocodile bird?"

At that point, Kang Changho shifted his posture.

He perched like a thug on top of a nearby laboratory table and asked a question.

"But you know what?"

The practitioner looked slightly uncomfortable at the way Kang Changho was treating the experimental table, as though he might damage it.

Still, such minor feelings did nothing to disrupt the conversation.

"First of all, the artificial awakening project itself is excellent. I’m also very pleased with how quickly the plan is progressing..."

"Yes."

"But when technology this valuable gets released so widely into the market, from an outsider’s perspective, the organization’s real objective starts to..."

"Look suspicious?"

"Starts to worry me."

"Uhm."

"If money were the only goal, couldn’t you have sold the procedure to the richest people in the world from the very beginning!?"

"Hmm."

"Why did you have to make such a large-scale move?"

It was a comment from a man born into old money, someone who appeared to value wealth above nearly everything else in the world.

The man wearing the ruby ring answered immediately.

"Well, to be honest, I don’t really understand the true meaning behind the title 'young man' myself..."

"By the way, the boss’s nickname in this organization sounds cheap every time I hear it."

A noteworthy piece of information surfaced in the middle of the conversation, only to be brushed aside.

"From what I heard before, the organization’s stated objective sounded rather admirable."

"Admirable?"

"Hahaha. He says he wants to create a country where the elderly are respected."

The man’s fingernails had thickened with age, and the backs of his hands were covered in wrinkles and liver spots.

He continued speaking.

"As you know, in this world... people are often judged simply for growing old."

"Even someone who once served as a pillar of the country may later be criticized merely for trying to save a little on taxes."

"And ever since the awakening phenomenon began, the elderly are practically treated as though they’ve already drawn their final lottery ticket, so the disrespect has only grown worse."

"So this is an age of superpowers where even experienced veterans can no longer remain active..."

Kang Changho sharply cut into the elderly practitioner’s words.

"But realistically, most developed countries don’t have enough children, so you can’t exactly build a society by excluding the elderly entirely, can you?"

"Here comes a boring lecture."

"The median age in our country has already reached forty."

"I know."

"There are simply too few super mutants overall."

The practitioner tilted his head.

"Anyway, this kind of evolution has to be attempted, if only to preserve every age group."

At that moment, Kang Changho pointed at the man across from him and hurled a tremendous insult.

"You’re going to die soon anyway, so why are you worried about aging?"

But the practitioner didn’t seem to care.

"If we work hard and... find a way for even the weak to awaken safely, wouldn’t things become a little more equal?"

"Hmm."

"But anyway, the main reason the organization is making such a large move is to broker deals for the evolution of the elderly."

"How righteous of you."

"Whether that’s really true or not, a worker like me only cares about taking a little profit from the process."

Despite the one-sided bickering, the conversation continued smoothly.

"That’s a fair point."

The Korean, dressed simply in a short-sleeved T-shirt, spoke up.

"Then shall we use this opportunity to make that 'profit' a little more concrete?"

Ssshe.

As Kang Changho muttered those words, he reached for a black storage case nearby.

As though anticipating a blinding light, he took out a pair of sunglasses and put them on.

"What exactly do you mean?"

"You call yourself a worker, but someone like you is still fairly high up in the organization."

"A position?"

Through the sunglasses, the man finally took in the scene around him.

Awakened bodyguards filled the dungeon room so densely that the white walls appeared faintly mottled.

For reference, he didn’t feel like using the lenses today.

He was observing them with his bare eyes.

Kang Changho smiled as usual, satisfied by how neatly the Awakened had concealed their mana signatures.

"Anyway, keep your promise. Once you create an S-rank or something even stronger, hand over their personal information to me."

"Yes."

"And since I’m helping your organization, you’ll share information about the artificial awakening procedure itself. I’m going to make sure this arrangement is secured with a Knight’s Oath contract with the highest-ranking members of your organization."

His smile accompanied the casual disclosure of an illegal conspiracy.

"...Understood."

The elderly man with curly, permed hair nodded.

But the conversation wasn’t over yet.

"Mr. Kang, now that you mentioned the symbolic rank of 'S-rank or higher,' something I’ve been meaning to ask just came to mind."

Kang Changho remained silent, arms lightly crossed.

It was an unspoken invitation to continue.

"There were Korean articles saying that you were beaten by someone named Kim Giryeo and then rehabilitated."

"Yeah."

"Wasn’t that true?"

He hadn’t expected that particular topic to come up.

"Haha."

Kang Changho immediately raised an eyebrow, as if asking what kind of nonsense the other man was talking about.

"Sorry, but that was... well, as you can probably guess, just media play."

"Is that so?"

"If I had really been rehabilitated, then logically speaking, I wouldn’t be working with you people like this."

"By the way, why did that South Korean Awakened’s name suddenly come up?"

The South Korean Awakened Kang Changho was referring to was clearly the fourth S-rank hunter, Kim Giryeo.

Understanding the question, the foreigner soon answered.

"I have a message from the boss."

The woman’s voice was calm.

"Mr. Kang, do you remember someone named Brooklyn Morgan?"

"Ah, that person. That one."