Chapter 113

The next day, Suho headed for Euljiro as soon as dawn broke. Thanks to Rio Singh, he now knew what enemies he would be facing. It was time to prepare accordingly.

'Hundreds of archers...'

Of course, he wasn't taking this information as absolutely certain. He had to allow for the possibility that more ice elves remained undiscovered, making their numbers far greater.

As luck would have it, he had also just acquired a source of funding with a vested interest in keeping him alive.

"Our guildmaster have lots money. I buy Suho items."

Rio Singh, of course.

Sent abroad to recruit Suho, he had a corporate card issued by the Asura Guild for business expenses. He was perfectly willing to swipe it as much as necessary to win Suho over and settle his debt over the Thomas Andre incident in the process.

But Beru grabbed Rio by the collar and snarled viciously.

["Do not swagger over the restitution you rightfully owe. This paltry offering will not erase your crime of endangering the Young Monarch..."]

"Ack, ack. Words too hard. Easy, easy."

["... We'll put it to good use."]

Beru promptly snatched his corporate card and presented it to Suho.

CLANG! CLANG!

WHIRRR!

When they arrived in Euljiro, noise greeted them from every direction.

There was a saying people used to toss around about Euljiro as a casual joke:

'You can buy anything in Euljiro except people.'

An all-purpose marketplace where you could find just about anything you needed. A specialized district lined with custom workshops equipped with all manner of professional machinery.

That was Euljiro.

But it was after the Cataclysm that Euljiro truly began to gain fame.

At last, they emerged from the narrow alley, and their view opened up all at once.

...!

An incredible sight spread before them, flooding their newly unobstructed vision.

[Euljiro Blacksmith]

(Blacksmith: a smithy)

This was how Euljiro had adapted to keep pace with the age of upheaval.

[Wholesale Survival Kits for Hunters]

[Specialized Shield Processing]

[Sword and Axe Sharpening]

[Plate Armor Workshop]

[Blunt Weapons: Casting and Finishing]

It was quite a sight, with signs of every description lining the street and hunter supplies gleaming on display out front. No hunter could look at this without getting carried away.

'Ah! So this is Korea's hunter mall!'

Rio Singh was no exception.

Naturally, India had places like this too, but a new weapons shop always promised new weapons. Besides, seeing so many weapons dealers concentrated in one district like this in Korea was quite a novelty to him.

"Suho! This place so good! Item shops! Blacksmiths!"

In truth, hunters inevitably became equipment enthusiasts, regardless of nationality or rank. Ordinary hunters couldn't level up like Suho, so they had few ways to grow stronger.

Their mana reserves were fixed, leaving physical improvement as the only thing they could work on: conditioning their bodies through rigorous training such as weightlifting or sports, or honing their ability to apply their skills in different ways through extensive combat experience.

But there was one surefire way to grow stronger that could effortlessly bypass all that hardship.

Better gear.

More powerful weapons!

Sturdier armor!

Simply replacing their equipment with something a little better would make them that much stronger. It was only natural for hunters to go crazy over equipment.

* * *

"Tsk. Finally here?"

Someone had arrived ahead of them and was waiting for Suho outside Euljiro Blacksmith. The middle-aged man, leaning back against a wall with his arms folded, gave Suho a disapproving look.

"... You're probably the first brat to drag me out just to recommend a few decent items."

Suho couldn't believe his ears.

"Come on, sir. When did I drag you out here? I just asked if you knew a good weapons shop. You're the one who insisted on coming..."

"You have to handle weapons yourself before choosing one. What if I just texted you a place and you ended up getting ripped off? Would you go around saying the Reaper guildmaster has a lousy eye?"

"Oh, come on. You know I wouldn't do that."

"...!"

Listening beside them, Rio Singh realized who the man was and trembled as though struck by lightning.

'My god! I thought he looked familiar! That's Lim Taegyu, the S-rank hunter! He knows Sung Suho?'

Rio had already familiarized himself with information on Korean hunters before his trip. Naturally, he knew someone as prominent as Lim Taegyu.

'So Scavenger isn't my only competition. It never occurred to me that Korea's major guilds would want Sung Suho too. Of course they would.'

Looking anxious, he probed Suho's intentions.

"S-Suho. You join Reaper Guild?"

"No."

"Oh, you not!"

Rio's face brightened again. But it was still too early to relax.

"Who's this guy, then? A new friend?"

"Yes. He's a hunter from the Asura Guild."

"Oh, an Indian hunter."

At that moment, Taegyu's indifferent gaze met Rio's, and Rio suddenly caught on: Taegyu's expression when he looked at Suho was full of lingering attachment(?).

'This won't do. I'll have to contact the guildmaster and ask him to raise the corporate card's limit.'

If he fell behind now, Sung Suho could be snatched away right before his eyes. And the conversation unfolding in front of him only gave him more reason to worry.

"... Anyway, thank you so much for coming in person. You must be busy, but you still made time for me."

"That's rich coming from the brat who's been ignoring that busy man's messages all this time."

"Oh, I'm really sorry about that. I've been getting so many recruitment texts lately that I haven't been reading them all."

"Well, never mind. I hear you're building up experience to start your own guild anyway."

"How did you know?"

"... I happened to hear. It's a small world in this business."

With a slightly awkward expression, Taegyu quietly steered the conversation away.

The Reaper Guild was in terrible shape these days after the incident involving Vice President Lee Minsung. Its reputation had plummeted overnight, and it was struggling financially as well.

They had run out of money paying compensation to the bereaved families of the hunters killed in the incident, even after Taegyu emptied his own pockets. He had done everything he could to fulfill his obligations, but that alone couldn't easily restore a reputation that had hit rock bottom.

'... That's why I tried so hard to recruit this brat.'

Having lost so many hunters and urgently needing replacements, it was only natural that he couldn't bear to let even one promising recruit like Suho slip away. But there was no way to recruit someone determined to start his own guild.

'Besides...'

Taegyu stared at Suho's face for a moment with a complicated look, then spoke.

"Anyway, what did you say you wanted to buy today?"

"A bow. You're the country's foremost expert on bows, after all."

"Well, that goes without saying."

"... A bow?!"

Their exchange left Rio deeply alarmed.

'That's insane! His answer to hundreds of ice elves is to use a bow himself!'

The strategy was fundamentally wrong!

Rio, who had naturally assumed Suho had come to buy armor and a shield, hurriedly tried to stop him.

"Suho! So many ice elves! Full plate armor! I recommend tower shield!"

"... A lot of ice elves?"

Taegyu's eyebrow twitched at Rio's words. His face rapidly grew serious, and he glared at Suho.

"Wait. Don't tell me you're planning to enter the Glacier Dungeon?"

"Huh? You know about the Glacier Dungeon?"

"Who exactly do you think I am? You think I, Lim Taegyu, wouldn't know that much?"

Taegyu heaved sigh after sigh and ground his teeth at Suho's response. However bad things had gotten, the Reaper Guild had been regarded as Korea's finest guild until very recently. Naturally, he was well informed about that much.

"No, wait. Then the reason Thomas Andre came yesterday... Don't tell me...?"

It was only a small piece of information, but Taegyu had deduced a great deal from it. Rumors had recently been circulating in the industry that Scavenger was targeting the Glacier Dungeon.

He gave Suho a peculiar look.

"You knew Thomas Andre?"

"No. I only met him yesterday."

"What on earth... No, more importantly, whatever other guild you might join, never join Scavenger. They're a bunch of meatheads."

"I'm not joining. Things just worked out so that we're going into a dungeon together this once."

"That's a relief, then. But why buy a bow if you're going to the Glacier Dungeon? Against hundreds of archers, you'd obviously need big, sturdy armor."

"Right! Armor! Shield! Buy tower shield!"

Even Rio joined in trying to change Suho's mind. But Suho had already decided.

He had more than enough defense. Even without a shield, he had plenty of ways to block arrows. And above all...

'Offense over defense, obviously.'

Attacking first suited him better than standing still and fending off attacks.

Unaware of what Suho was thinking, however, Taegyu and Rio followed him into the bow shop, continuing to nag.

"Fine, forget the shield. But why a bow, of all things? You're a swordsman. It's not as if the Scavenger Guild doesn't have its own archers."

"Right. Suho use twin swords. He Asura."

"Exactly, Suho. You seem to have the wrong idea, but bows are by no means easy weapons to handle. Understand?"

As the universally acknowledged finest archer in Korea, Taegyu couldn't tolerate a novice like Suho taking archery lightly.

"Honestly, all these recent games have given people the wrong idea about archers. In reality, hardly any other profession requires as much physical strength. The more powerful the bow, the bigger and heavier it is, so even drawing the string... Huh?"

He stopped short.

The reason Taegyu's seemingly endless lecture had abruptly cut off was simple: Suho had just picked up the biggest, heaviest bow in the shop.

[Strength: 115]

CREAAAK!

Suho was drawing its bowstring, woven from magic-beast sinew, with the greatest of ease.

"...?"

"...?"

"Sir, could you take a look and tell me if this bow is any good... Why are you both staring at me like that?"

Meeting Suho's eyes, Taegyu cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Y-You're certainly strong. But your mana reserves were C-rank, right? No, are you definitely C-rank?"

Recalling the battle he had personally seen Suho fight, Taegyu regarded him with some suspicion.

"Have you had yourself reassessed since then? No, even if we assume you're about B-rank, do you have any archery skills to begin with?"

"No."

"What? You don't? Without archery skills, you'll run out of mana after just a few shots!"

Realizing all over again what a greenhorn hunter Suho was, Taegyu slapped a hand to his forehead. Forcibly condensing mana to create arrows without an archery skill was terribly inefficient per arrow. It consumed anywhere from three to more than ten times as much mana as an ordinary archer hunter used.

Suho shrugged at his question.

"Well, I have my ways—"

It happened then.

Suho's expression hardened alarmingly in midsentence.

—!!!!

An enormous wave of mana swept across the area.

"...!"

"...!"

At that instant, every hunter in the shop widened their eyes and turned in the same direction almost simultaneously. They had sensed an immense amount of energy somewhere in the distance.

"It's a dungeon break!"

"It's nearby!"

Urgent cries erupted from hunters all over Euljiro, all at once. But there was no need to worry.

This was Euljiro, after all. It might well have had the greatest concentration of hunters anywhere in Korea.

"First one to kill it gets to keep it!"

The hunters all set down the merchandise they had been about to buy and immediately raced toward the source of the dungeon break.

Amid the commotion, Taegyu was staring at Suho beside him with a strange expression.

'Was I imagining things?'

When everyone had looked toward the source of the energy wave almost simultaneously, one person had turned his head before anyone else.

'... I'm pretty sure this kid was the fastest.'

Perhaps even faster than Taegyu himself.