Chapter 447: Caution

The Hunter of the Other World Who Is Being Misunderstood

Chapter 447: Caution

'I have to do whatever I can to prevent this guild from rising.'

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 still working so hard?'

A clear thought flowed through the darkened field of vision.

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

The first thing that came to mind as soon as he realized the plan was falling apart was the word restraint.

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

Why on earth are the members of this guild working excessively?

Back when he was still F-rank, Kim Giryeo spent each day worrying about when the rent might be overdue again.

'That must have been tough.'

So he took care of the primitives who joined his guild warmly, hoping they wouldn't be like that, and an unexpected outcome followed.

'For reference, whenever I, the guild master, want to ask them directly, they just trembled and didn't give a proper answer about why they were so obsessed with work.'

Tuk, tuk.

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

In a corner of the office, the sound of an old clock's hands moving echoed.

'Then it's impossible to naturally get the reason from the humans.'

But just as in the reality of this world, spending a long time in contemplation didn't always lead to the correct conclusion.

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

Kim Giryeo had come up with an answer on his own, but it turned out to be 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 figured things out.

'It's really a simple problem. I just need to increase the benefits.'

He figured that by providing money to the hunters and naturally limiting their activity, the corporation would be able to utilize them without even drawing much attention to the iron bars he'd created.

However, the alien's additional salary soon led to an obvious outcome.

'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 temporarily established to eliminate the main enemy of the Gisimche world. But why is it continuously becoming famous?

'Oh, I don't understand.'

Today's workday began with these opening words. The fourth S-rank hunter of South Korea. Yes, now that I've officially regained my qualifications and truly become a hunter, I headed to the office as soon as Tuesday morning broke.

'An S-rank monster 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 isn't important right now. Even if the internet is buzzing with criticism, what I ultimately need to focus on is the crisis in this reality.

'I really don't understand this.'

Tak!

I stood up from the cheap chair and briefly surveyed my surroundings. This was the newly acquired rental office, and in the center of the room sat a table I had picked up from a secondhand market. As you can see, this old table was holding dozens of different artifacts—

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

The situation was so bad that it naturally raised all kinds of questions. It seemed as if the people in my guild had decided to become the very enemies of laziness, achieving results that were almost record-breaking.

'Business is going too well...'

Therefore, as the guild master, I ended up sitting down and sorting the items like this.

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

I looked helplessly at the various loot rewards scattered across the desk. Then, suddenly overcome with frustration, I flung open a nearby window and sank into thought.

'Stop bringing back so many items—!'

But what good was I agonizing over this? 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 are among the highest-paid professionals.

'Anyway, we'd probably be outcompeted by companies like Korea Magic Tower or Neo Sisters, so there's no way we could hire properly.'

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

'If that's the case, why did I fix the office to begin with? There's hardly a moment to catch my breath!'

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 proceeding much more slowly than I had predicted—or even imagined—was definitely not a good sign.

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

Since it's likely that using it in such a dry environment reduced the measurement's effectiveness, it's time to start thinking about a breakthrough.

*_*

Perhaps I might even need to discard the metal rods themselves and develop a new investigation tool. If that's the case, 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?'

From lack of sleep caused by everything going on, ridiculous thoughts started popping into my head. An inferior body—truly, a body that couldn't be more lacking. At this point, manners be damned; I was starting to think I should just get some jellyfish gelatin and overhaul this skin entirely...

'Of course, that was just a joke.'

Dmrk.

Still, I'm starting to notice traces of Earthling habits in my everyday life. I sat down in the used office chair I'd picked up from a secondhand market and continued my contemplation.

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

I'd thought of this before, but suddenly restricting how often they can enter dungeons is impossible. F-E-rank hunters already have low base income, so they'd only feel that such a measure harms their ability to build assets. In the worst case, they might even skip complaining altogether and just quit, saying this place is too much of a mess.

Therefore.

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

The worry was brief.

'Besides, even giving more money would only make things worse. For now, I'll have to use a tough approach to put out the urgent fire.'

Finally, 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 fast, after all.'

With no artifacts at all, no one would be able to enter the dungeons. And under the pretext of enhancing their equipment, the guild master's authority would be fully preserved.

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

This was a choice I ultimately made after growing tired of being pummeled by the media and trying in every way to avoid attention. If I left all the focus on the guild unchecked, my suspicious metal rods might even become news themselves. But the primitive Earth mages would never even dream of this original purpose of concealment.

'Anyway, even if I openly told them not to work so hard, they wouldn't listen. So how could they possibly know my true intentions that I haven't even voiced?'

After finishing my thoughts, I felt a sense of relief and took 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 noise came from the door of the old rented office.

'Come in.'

At first, I only heard a typical knock and mistakenly thought it was Choi Jin. But now I realized the person who had come into the office was an ordinary civilian with no magical power at all. To put it simply, a seasoned manager—someone who had come to oversee the entire 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 since earlier.'

A phone call? From Japan? Both words were unexpected, yet at the same time, it wasn't entirely surprising.

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

I really hope they don't find out I'm an alien because of that incident during the company's transitional period.

'Then, please connect me.'

'Yes, I understand.'

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

And surprisingly, the call that followed featured a formidable S-rank individual.

Hello! Ranker Kim Giryeo!

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

'Judging from the voice faintly coming through the translator... this isn't a fake or manipulation—it really seems like the actual S-rank himself, though?'

For some reason, the image of the other person frequently wearing green flashed through my mind. Come to think of it, I didn't have any reason to reject this one, even if it meant other hunters.

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

I quietly rolled my eyes. The sight of my sambagean eyes staring sharply into the void would probably seem a bit frightening to any onlooker. But the thoughts I had behind that expression were surprisingly pacific.

'So this is why they placed an international call... They want to have a quick chat with me?'

Of course, it's natural to feel uneasy and a bit anxious when a famous S-rank suddenly does this...

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

I was curious. Although I was busy every day with my appraisal work, it wasn't like I couldn't spare a few minutes, so I willingly accepted Iori's proposal.

[Received message]

[Ranker, thank you!]

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

[As I mentioned over the phone earlier, this matter is difficult to resolve just by talking, so we apologize, but we plan to enter 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.