Chapter 395: Fight Club (2) |
“What are you looking at, Melissa?”
“Korean news.”
“Korea? We don’t have anything to do with Korean guild affairs—do we really need to keep up with Korean news?”
“There’s someone we’re grateful to there.”
“Ah, right. Anything worth seeing?”
“It looks like he recently killed a notorious murderer-hunter who was infamous in Korea, China, and Japan. And this time, he apparently saved a bus and its passengers from being kidnapped. It’s in Jeonghwa Daily.”
“Jeonghwa Daily… that was the media outlet under Korea’s Jeonghwa Guild, right? They’re basically taking dictation.”
“Yeah. Still, if they’re giving an outsider that much coverage, I guess it’s a hot issue.”
At the British Spitfire Guild, Ganiere and Melissa—husband and wife, and also guild master and vice guild master—were talking.
The place where Park Min-sung’s corpse had been found was so deep that even they, as his parents, had thought it would be impossible to locate.
Inside Ground Zero, hunters died all the time, and it was rare for anyone to recover the bodies.
So of course they were grateful—Kang-hoo had helped them see their son’s end properly.
With that gratitude, they had given him a guild-issued gold card, and Kang-hoo had been steadily using it well.
Spitfire Guild was a fairly large guild in the UK, ranking within the top fifteen.
Recently, their evaluation had risen enough that it would not be unreasonable to place them within the top ten.
Because they specialized in adventure work, remote expeditions, and pioneering inside open-type dungeons with harsh conditions.
They maintained broadly good relations with other guilds. Sometimes that planted seeds of resentment, but at least it kept them from being dragged into conflicts.
They also possessed quite a few dungeons not widely known outside, so their potential was considerable.
However, because their external reputation painted them as a guild that played it safe, they struggled to attract new hunters.
Ganiere and Melissa had once issued Kang-hoo an Observer license.
Deep down, they had hoped he would drop by once or twice afterward, make use of the license, and build a bond with the guild.
But perhaps because things in Korea were so hectic and he kept getting swept into various issues, there had been no contact at all.
When they saw him using the gold card whenever its monthly limit refreshed, they could only think, At least he remembers us this much…
“Should we reach out once?”
Melissa floated the idea.
Lately, her longing to bring Kang-hoo into their orbit had become more urgent.
Right now, the UK was one of the countries suffering the most extreme shortage of assassins and berserkers.
Those two classes—specialized in maintaining bleeding damage—were in high demand everywhere, but the UK was especially severe.
To the point that the hiring price for assassin and berserker mercenaries was exceeding three times the global average.
Even compared to France, which had the second-highest hiring costs, the UK was more than double.
That was why, in the UK, if someone was an assassin or a berserker, they would hire them on the spot no questions asked.
There were even cases where they brought an assassin barely over level 150 into a recommended-level-400 dungeon.
A bleeding shuttle—if they could do even that, it felt like a blessing. But now even hunters at that level had dried up.
“The backlog of dungeons keeps piling up, and because of this damn bleeding issue, we can’t even touch them…”
Ganiere pressed at his temples.
At some point, the chronic problem for the guild had become the absence of a “bleed dealer.” And hiring one was only getting harder.
“Shin Kang-hoo is a mercenary too. Mercenaries move for pay—and if we make an offer worth his time, wouldn’t he be tempted?”
“To bring in an assassin at his level as a mercenary, anything ‘normal’ won’t even register. Especially if he understands how things are in our country.”
“Then we make it not ‘normal,’ right?”
Melissa raised her voice.
What made her anxious was that Spitfire Guild’s number of “uncleared dungeons” was increasing.
When a guild discovered a dungeon that had never been cleared, if they failed to complete an internal raid within a set period—
A phenomenon commonly called a “dungeon break” occurred, like a pot boiling over and popping its lid.
At that point, monsters would appear in the real world, and depending on circumstances, it could cause massive civilian casualties.
If a guild hid the fact that it owned a dungeon and got caught, its guild license itself could be revoked.
If they were lucky, it ended there. Sometimes the Public Safety Bureau stepped in directly and drove the guild’s dissolution.
Because public opinion would not forgive a guild for being blinded by greed and neglecting civilian safety.
At present, several guild-owned dungeons had climbed to a danger level where dungeon breaks were expected. The projected limit: within two months. Not long.
“It might be worth clearly transferring ownership of one dungeon to him.”
“If that lets us clear the whole bundle, it’s a bargain. And it’s better than asking some mercenary we’ve never even seen before, isn’t it?”
“That’s… true.”
“Let’s contact him. Things might get easier than we expect.”
At Melissa’s words, Ganiere nodded.
He, too, had been keeping up with news about Kang-hoo, and Kang-hoo’s stock was rising even overseas.
Kang-hoo himself did not know it yet, but within the mercenary market he was already being viewed as an assassin hunter worth watching.
If he had been sharp about overseas mercenary markets and the information circulating inside them, he would have known long ago.
“Let’s decide what we’ll offer before we contact him. This isn’t something we should appeal to with ties and feelings.”
“Good idea.”
The two began moving briskly.
Since they were requesting a high-end force as a mercenary, the offer had to be “top tier” to match.
From their perspective—wanting the deal concluded in one shot rather than a tug-of-war negotiation—they needed a provocative proposal.
It made them realize anew.
Just how sky-high Kang-hoo’s value had become.
“I’ll need to ask for your understanding. The dungeon we commissioned is… it reset for no apparent reason while it was in standby, so it looks like there will be a delay.”
Meanwhile, Kang-hoo and Ayane—having arrived in Germany and met Lars Abel—were hearing unexpected news.
Lars looked quite flustered. Because this had never happened before. It was completely unforeseen.
“Can that happen?”
“It can, apparently.”
Ayane, experiencing it for the first time as well, tilted her head as she asked again.
Kang-hoo showed no outward change in expression, but inside he was smiling.
Because this was a sign of the “Golden Triangle” that had been mentioned in the original story.
The same phenomenon had occurred with the dungeon where Jang Si-hwan and The Thirteen Stars made huge gains around the Golden Triangle region.
The dungeon reset for no reason, and the raid afterward turned out to be extremely profitable.
“So we’ll have some time to kill.”
“My apologies.”
At Kang-hoo’s comment, Lars bowed his head deeply.
Since their dungeon was having an issue and could not be entered, he could only feel sorry for mercenaries for whom time was money.
Of course, under the mercenary contract, delay compensation would be paid as a matter of course.
It was not an illegal wait—but it could give the impression that the guild had not prepared properly.
And in the mercenary world, that could become a reputation issue for a guild, so it was a delicate situation.
“Spending the time sightseeing in the city doesn’t sound bad.”
“Kang-hoo! If you’re okay with it, I heard there’s a famous ‘fight club’ in Leipzig—want to check it out?”
“So you mean we go see the Leipzig Arena.”
“Yeah. I heard Leipzig is really famous. People say it’s rated the highest in Europe?”
“Oh?”
Kang-hoo found himself tempted by Ayane’s suggestion.
The commission had been delayed anyway, leaving them with open time, and it was also too soon to throw himself into training immediately.
After a long flight, he still had travel fatigue—he did not want to expose his body to tension so soon.
An arena.
Like what he had seen at the Hongcheon Liberation Area before—a place where death matches unfolded exactly the same way.
Odds shifted depending on the matchups, and people wagered money to profit or lose.
The scale of money moving through an arena was incomparable to that of a liberation area, so the scale of fights was also larger.
In particular, Germany’s Leipzig Arena drew hidden masters from across Europe.
It was both a place to show skill and earn money, and also a scouting ground for large and mega-guilds.
Many participated to market themselves as a “product.” Of course, they had to wager their lives.
“Then shall I guide you to the arena? As soon as the dungeon is ready, I’ll contact you immediately. We’re monitoring it down to the second.”
“Let’s do that.”
Kang-hoo nodded.
No matter who Lars Abel was, he could not force a dungeon open while it was undergoing a reset.
Since they needed to kill time one way or another, an arena visit sounded like solid entertainment.
The world was wide, and there were many assassins.
Kang-hoo hoped he might meet an assassin “name” there—someone worth taking as a role model, or at least learning from.
An assassin in a new form, different from himself or his master Celestial Assassin, might be there.
On the way, riding in a limousine.
While Ayane listened to music and enjoyed her own time.
Kang-hoo shared a glass of sparkling water with Lars and casually talked about Germany’s political situation.
Because once you opened a conversation through that topic, it naturally invited a reverse question about Korea’s situation.
From the start, it was a conversation with its purpose perfectly designed—though Lars would never realize it.
“I’ve heard things in Germany have been… unsettling lately.”
“That’s right. Guilds armed with extremism are surging up fiercely.”
“And religious conflicts are frequent, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Many guilds deliberately turn them into flashpoints, and guilds like ours—with many Arab-German hunters—become the first target.”
“That must be giving you a headache.”
“I’m trying to find a wise way through it.”
As someone who knew the original story, there was one future he could uniquely foresee.
Religious tension would ultimately become the trigger that made Lars leave Stark Guild—so far that he even stepped down as vice guild master.
The final blow would be Jang Si-hwan’s offer, but the seed was this issue.
To put it plainly.
Lars would struggle to resolve it, but internal public opinion would split, and the guild itself would enter a path of decline.
“And how is Korea? Lately it seems the Jeonghwa Guild has fallen into an overall mess in more ways than one…”
Lars casually flipped the topic and—just as expected—asked the question.
Now was the perfect time to reinforce a negative image of Jeonghwa Guild inside his mind.
Since it was now confirmed that Ranbir Kumar had joined The Thirteen Stars earlier than expected.
Kang-hoo desperately—no, urgently—wanted to add a “-1” to the “+1” Jang Si-hwan had gained, to bring it back to zero.