Chapter 9: Bicheon (2)

Immediately after submitting my resignation and leaving the Bicheon Guild.

I looked up at the guild’s 15-story headquarters, a towering structure dominating the heart of Mangwon-dong.

Finally, I’m escaping this godforsaken pigsty.

Still, there was a time when I gazed at this building with dreams of glory, believing it would be the launching pad for my growth.

I was wrong.

A baggage handler who left half-paralyzed, without any compensation, had once said,

“I thought this guild was supposed to be ‘Ascension,’ but it’s just ‘Contemptible.’”

He was right.

This place wasn’t for those who wanted to soar, but a battleground for those destined to crawl.

I tore my gaze from the guild headquarters.

Then, my eyes drifted to the chat window, where users were spamming the same emoji nonstop:

No matter how I looked at it, the situation was screaming, “Pay attention to me!”

With no other choice, I called out to him.

“Management Mi.”

“What’s been up with you lately? What’s with that emoticon?”

“But it’s driving me crazy. It’s incredibly distracting.”

After all, how could I not be distracted when a Status Window I couldn’t even delete was relentlessly flashing the same emoticon in the corner of my vision?

“That emoticon was someone throwing down their resignation?”

I thought something serious had gone wrong.

Management Mi finally used a different emoticon.

It seemed imagining herself quitting her job had put her in a good mood.

But as we talked, a new question arose.

I strolled along the sidewalk in front of the office building and asked,

“Hey, Management Mi…”

“So, you… you’re actually working at a company, right? The one that manages the Status Window?”

“What kind of qualifications do you need to join that company?”

Management Mi left the message window blank for a moment, as if deep in thought.

Then, after a brief pause, she replied.

“Is that really something to be glad about?”

He supposed it might be good news for a company employee who was just copying and pasting resignation emojis.

However, Management Mi quickly changed the subject.

“Thanks.”

Management Mi had mentioned that she had to regularly report details about me to her superiors.

If that’s the case, there was only one question she could ask.

“So, what are you going to do now?”

Before answering about his future plans,

Beeep. Beeep. Beeep.

The smartphone in my pocket vibrated.

I checked and saw several messages had piled up while I was walking and talking with Management Mi.

There were also a couple of missed calls.

Most of the calls and messages were from Choi Jinho.

There was also a message from guild leader Kim Kyungtae, his tone almost pleading, urging me to reconsider.

Of course, I had no intention of checking each one or returning the calls, so I promptly ignored them.

Then I checked the latest message I had just received:

“How long will it take to receive them?”

“We’ll expedite the Detoxing and essence stone registration process immediately. Still, it will take at least five days.”

Lieutenant So Yeonwoo seemed to have more to say.

Typically, such task report texts end with a closing remark like, “This concludes our business,” but this one didn’t.

He immediately sent a reply:

“Do you have anything else to add?”

The response arrived in less than ten seconds:

“Yes, regarding the Commendation Certificate for Hunter Lee Taejun for his contributions to the Yanghwa Bridge gate extermination. We’d like to inquire whether it should be awarded by the guild as a whole or individually to the hunter.”

A medal.

Sudden gates, though not uncommon, typically emerge in remote mountain areas or during late nights when few people are around.

In contrast, the Yanghwa Bridge gate that appeared this morning materialized during the peak of the already chaotic morning rush hour.

It opened in the middle of a busy circular highway, crowded with civilians.

In other words, this fissure had the potential to cause substantial casualties and property damage if not properly contained.

Unsurprisingly, the media went into a frenzy. A quick glance at the news notifications on your smartphone would reveal headlines like:

The articles were plastered with stories that would have been exhausting to get tangled up in.

If Lieutenant So Yeonwoo hadn’t secured an escape route for him in advance,

he would have been swarmed by reporters camped outside the restricted area and grilled until he was utterly drained.

Now, the question is… who should receive the commendation?

Without hesitation, he tapped out a message on his smartphone.

After a moment’s hesitation, he added:

Ding!

A notification chimed almost immediately.

Great, it seemed like they’d said everything they needed to.

Just as I was about to reply with a farewell, Lieutenant So Yeonwoo sent another message, as if adding something urgently.

“Ah, the Hunters Federation.”

My finger paused mid-scroll on my smartphone.

The Hunters Defense Agency was a subordinate organization of the Ministry of National Defense that managed gates and dungeons, essentially the joint chiefs of staff’s counterpart for hunters.

“Re-enlisting is a bit much.”

I was already a discharged soldier.

Though not a typical enlistment, I’m a discharged soldier who went through hell at Hunters Den, the Awakened training institution.

The food was utterly disgusting, the drills relentless: obstacle courses, simulated winter and summer survival, base defense, and covert infiltration.

No weekends, just endless training, training, training—a soldier’s life distilled to its most brutal essence, designed specifically for Awakened individuals.

Rumor had it that joining the Hunters Federation meant enduring that hell for over a year again.

Ugh.

“Thank you. You have a good day too, Lieutenant.”

I sent the message I’d already drafted.

Management Mi swiftly eliminated one possibility from my future plans.

The essence stone from the Venom Spore Mother arrived exactly five days later, accompanied by a commendation directly awarded by the Hunters Federation and an extermination badge.

“So this is the extermination badge.”

I casually tossed the commendation aside and examined the badge, crafted from pure gold.

Engraved within were the words “B142 Gate Extermination, Lee Taejun.”

Well, these won’t be useful until the S-rank evaluation anyway.

Still, it was enough to feel a sense of accomplishment.

With the extermination badge put away,

Now for the main event.

Gazing at the room filled with essence stones, I asked Management Mi, “Ah, what a magnificent sight. Don’t you agree?”

In reality, eighty-one essence stones were far too many to cram into my tiny five-pyeong one-room apartment.

Thanks to them, my one-room was now so packed with fist-sized rocks that there was barely room to set foot.

“If they were just ordinary stones, it would hurt, but these aren’t just ordinary stones.”

They were essentially bundles of money.

The market price for low-grade essence stones, which I’d checked this morning, was one million won per stone.

The three-quarters of a mid-grade essence stone I’d carefully placed on my desk was worth at least thirty million won.

In other words, the money currently lying around my room totaled over one hundred million won.

Of course, even if you gave me ten billion won, I wouldn’t trade these essence stones for anything.

“I know perfectly well, so don’t pretend you’re reminding me with that 안내문.”

As expected of the Status Manager, his explanations were impeccably thorough.

Anyway.

Time for some flexing.

I immediately activated the Status Window:

The familiar second-hand trading interface appeared.

I tapped the coin-shaped icon next to my name.

A small rift for inserting essence stones materialized at the bottom of the Status Window, and the charging page popped up.

“Let’s see here…”

This was the first time I’d checked the recharge function. What was this? This scene felt so eerily familiar.

No matter how I looked at it, this page resembled a failed gacha game on a mobile platform rather than a used goods trading app.

No, wait, more importantly…

“Management Mi, it seems only Low-grade Essence Stones can be used for recharge here.”

A single complete Mid-grade Essence Stone was worth 40 million won, while a High-grade Essence Stone went for 100 million won.

So, inserting one Mid-grade Essence Stone would give me 40 Low-grade Essence Stones’ worth of Coins.

It was said that one High-grade Essence Stone could recharge the same amount of Coins as 100 Low-grade Essence Stones.

I checked the recharging window again, muttering to myself, “Coins are more expensive than I thought.”

By my calculations, each Coin was worth ₩100,000.

So, the healing potion I bought from that scammer last time was supposed to cost 70 Coins according to the reviews.

That meant I’d gotten a ₩7,000,000 potion for the price of a ₩1,000 chocolate bar.

Even now, it seemed like a miraculous bargain.

If only there were more buyers for rare items like that on the marketplace.

Unfortunately, I never found another deal like it again.

“Well, let’s look on the bright side.”

I immediately fed 80 Low-grade Essence Stones and two Medium-grade Essence Stone fragments into the rift below my Status Window. About ten minutes later…

1050 Parsley Coins have been charged!

“Just enough.”

I’d barely managed to purchase a recharge package that gave me exactly 50 more coins.

A mere 50 coins, but a fortune worth five million won.

Yet, it didn’t feel particularly satisfying.

Recharging 300 million won would grant me 3,200 coins—a bonus worth twenty million won.

Now that felt like a truly satisfactory deal.

Alright, my next goal is to recharge 3,200 coins.

With renewed determination, I closed the recharge window.

I was about to embark on my serious shopping spree.

Ding!

Notification: Skill [ Remarkable Growth (S) ] has been activated during the Parsley Coin recharge process.

You have acquired a new passive skill.

This shows up here?