006 - Settling Accounts (+) Interest

The first thing Jinwoo did upon his return was rush to the hospital.
Although the Magi contamination was gone, his injuries remained, and he wanted a check-up just in case.
He had all his wounds treated, got tested for any potential viruses, and even underwent a purification by the hospital's resident healing Hunter.
It might have seemed a bit excessive, but it had to be done.
His body was literally his livelihood now; he needed to take care of it even more meticulously than his equipment.
"Excuse me? Two million won?"
"That will be 2,137,000 won. The cost of medicine is separate."
Of course, his head spun when he got the bill from the administrative office.
On top of that, the medicine cost another 300,000 won.
With more than a month’s income gone in an instant, he suddenly felt sick to his stomach.
Still, it was a necessary expense he couldn't avoid.
Leaving the hospital, Jinwoo let out a long sigh.
'Still, I brought back a lot. Let's go get paid.'
The expense was painful, but his earnings were great.
His mood lifting again, Jinwoo boarded a bus headed for the Hunter Management Bureau.
A short while later.
Jinwoo was able to exchange a happy greeting with his designated official.
"Mr. Jinwoo! You've returned safely."
"I was lucky. I just came from the hospital."
Noticing the bandages visible around Jinwoo's shirt, the official nodded.
So he hadn't escaped injury. Still, seeing him walking around looking perfectly fine, it seemed he had gotten off with minor wounds.
"That's a relief. The first Gate is always the most dangerous, since you don't have any real abilities or experience. You did well to get through it. Did you awaken any skills?"
"Two, no, about three of them."
"Wow."
The official's eyes widened at the news that he'd awakened three skills.
Typically, awakening even one skill during a first Gate was considered a success. Awakening two was a significant achievement.
Awakening three meant he was off to an incredible start.
Of course, the record holder was said to have awakened eleven skills in their first Gate, but that was an outlier.
"What kind of skills are they? You don't have to be specific, just whether they're for frontline or backline, combat or support. Also, if you have any direct healing abilities among your support skills, please mention that. Healing Hunters are treated differently."
"Do I have to say?"
"You can keep it to yourself if you wish, but it will be difficult to find party members that way."
She explained that by using a magic item called a "Feather of Connection," multiple people could enter a Gate together.
However, it was a consumable item, it wasn't cheap, and each person had to carry one, so people only partied up with truly trusted companions.
This was news to Jinwoo, who hadn't even known such an item existed.
"So there's an item like that. But where do you get something like it? Do you make it from a blueprint or something?"
"No, you get them from the 3rd Stratum. Once you reach B-rank, you're skilled enough to operate in the 3rd Stratum, and the main source of income there is the Feather of Connection. Thanks to that, when you hit B-rank, your income jumps by at least one zero."
Hunters were commonly divided into those above and below B-rank.
Hunters up to C-rank, who operated in the 1st and 2nd Strata, were considered second-rate at best within the industry.
Only when you became a B-rank Hunter who could enter the 3rd Stratum and beyond were you treated as a first-rate Hunter who could pull their own weight.
"How do you raise your rank? By bringing back a lot of hunted game?"
"That's factored into your score, but it's a very minor part. It's mainly determined by the amount of magic stones you supply."
"Magic stones..."
Jinwoo wondered about the quality of the magic stone he had acquired.
The black bear that had charged at him, pulverizing the forest, had been a suffocatingly dangerous foe.
Considering that, the stone should be quite high-grade, but... it was still just a monster from a 1st Stratum primeval forest, and he had killed it in a single strike, so maybe it wasn't that great.
Well, he could just ask about it in a bit.
"Before that, could you please take care of this? I found a dead Hunter inside."
"Ah..."
Jinwoo handed the official the dog tag bearing the name Mark Tesman and the man's personal belongings.
If he left them with the Bureau, they would contact their New York counterparts and ensure they were delivered to the family.
The official accepted the items carefully and offered a prayer for the New York Hunter she had never met.
And a moment later.
"Could I get my items appraised now?"
The mood shifted as the time for settlement arrived.
"Of course. This way, please."

At Jinwoo's request, the official eagerly led him to a room.
It was a large, cavern-like room in the Bureau's basement. On one wall was something like a workbench, and the floor was covered with a large blue vinyl tarp.
Jinwoo emptied the mushrooms and fruits he had gathered onto the workbench.
"Could you help me sort out which ones are edible?"
"Hmm... most of these mushrooms are inedible. This one will just give you a mild stomachache, though. How about it? They say it tastes good."
"I'll pass..."
The official examined the mushrooms one by one, appraising them.
If it were a more difficult appraisal, she would have had to call an expert, but she was well-versed in the ecology of the primeval forest.
"All the fruits are fine to eat."
"Even this brightly colored one?"
"Yes. Most fruits from the primeval forest are edible, so you're fine. They might not taste very good, so be warned."
That didn't matter.
He put the edible fruits back in his inventory and decided to sell the mushrooms.
Even poisonous mushrooms had their uses, so they had a price.
"A basket full of poison mushrooms... that should fetch about 100,000 won."
"What about these?"
When he poured out a dozen or so fish, the official's eyes lit up.
"Wow, fish! You did well to catch these. With this much, including the mushrooms and fruit, you could get 400,000 to 500,000 won, you know?"
"I'm not selling all of them. I'm taking a few to eat."
"That's a great idea. Grilled with a generous sprinkle of salt, mmm! They're also perfect for a spicy stew."
The official licked her lips as she examined the condition of the fish.
City civil servants generally earned a middle-class income. Among them, officials at the Hunter Management Bureau, who required specialized knowledge, received exceptional pay.
Even a low-ranking official who only managed E or F-rank Hunters was a highly-educated elite.
This was the class that primarily consumed the game brought back by Hunters.
After looking over the mushrooms, fruits, and fish, the official spoke in a reassuring tone.
"You did very well for your first time. 500,000 won from one Gate trip might seem small, but that's just because you're not used to it yet. Once you get the hang of it, you'll be bringing back five, six times more."
"There's still more."
"Oh, really? What is it?"
"Should I put the animal carcasses over here?"
"You hunted, too! Yes, please place them on this blue sheet."
To succeed at hunting on his first Gate trip.
The official was quite impressed. Just coming back alive was a success, and catching fish was more than enough of an achievement.
But hunting, too!
As she waited with sparkling eyes, Jinwoo poured out a dozen rabbit carcasses in front of her.
"Whoa, did you raid a rabbit warren or something?"
"It just sort of happened..."
Since he hadn't caught them himself, he kept his words brief.
The official excitedly examined each rabbit carcass.
All of them had been taken down with a single arrow, so there was little damage to the pelts, and the meat was almost perfectly intact.
This was top-grade among top-grade.
"For this, you'd be better off taking it to a private dealer than having us process it. Would you like to try the Cheonok Group?"
"Understood. And there's more."
"More?"
Jinwoo brought out the wolf carcasses.
The sudden appearance of large wolf carcasses—six of them, no less—made the official's eyes go wide.
While he was at it, he brought out the deer and the boar as well. By that point, the official was speechless, her mouth hanging open.
"Y-You caught all of this?"
"I got lucky."
It wasn't a humble expression; he really had gotten lucky.
Of all this, Jinwoo had only personally killed the two wolves he had cut with his sword.
All the other game had been caught by the Elf, killed instantly by a single arrow.
"Uh, uhm, we can process these two wolf carcasses here, but you should take the rest to Cheonok."
"Got it. Out of curiosity, how much do you think I can get?"
"I don't know what Cheonok will offer, but hmm… you should get at least 30 million for it?"
30 million won!
Jinwoo's face lit up. That was an amount of money that would take him nearly two years to earn.
To get two years' salary from a single Gate trip.
"By any chance, is your father a Hunter?"
"Huh? Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I was just wondering if you had learned hunting skills before you went in. Especially since you caught everything with a single arrow..."
As an employee of the Hunter Management Bureau, she had seen plenty of hunted game.

But she had never seen game caught this cleanly.
Most were caught in snares or had their pelts severely damaged from thrashing around in traps.
And when they were killed, it often took multiple stabs from a spear or the like, so it was common for their bodies to be riddled with holes.
But the carcasses Jinwoo brought out, with the exception of two wolves, had all been cleanly killed by a single arrow.
It was a feat impossible for anyone but a highly skilled hunter.
"Oh, right. There's one more thing."
"There's more?"
It was starting to get scary. A look of tension crept onto the official's face.
Jinwoo brought out the last item: the black bear's carcass, and the magic stone that had been inside it.
Thump!
The corpse of a bear larger than all the previous game combined, and next to it, a black magic stone the size of a fist.
The official was silent for a moment.
Then she spoke in a dazed tone.
"...This will easily be worth over 100 million won."
"Wow."
For a first Gate trip, this was very, very successful.
The two-million-won hospital bill had already vanished from his mind.

At the Bureau, Jinwoo disposed of things like the inedible mushrooms and the two mangled wolf carcasses.
He kept the fruits and fish he planned to eat, as well as the items he would take to the Cheonok Group.
Among the disposed items was the magic stone. Since the private trade of magic stones was prohibited without a permit, it had to be sold to the Bureau.
Magic stones had many uses, but one of them was as fuel for the barrier protecting the city, so the city of Seoul strictly enforced the law against their sale.
'Although I hear they're traded on the black market anyway.'
They said you could get 1.5 times the Bureau's price by selling to a black market broker.
But Jinwoo had no intention of taking such a risk.
The Bureau paid a satisfying amount, and more importantly, if he went to prison, he'd be eating nothing but Blocks for three meals a day.
Now that he had finally tasted real food, there was no way he could ever go back to a life of eating only Blocks.
The amount he received from the Bureau was...
[Balance: 37,432,900 KRW]
Over 30 million won.
The mushrooms and the two wolf carcasses had brought in a decent amount, but the vast majority was from the magic stone.
'They said it was almost a D-class level magic stone. And that it was especially large.'
Magic stones were graded by their size and the amount of magical energy they contained. The black bear's stone was said to be a high E-class, or just barely D-class.
The magic energy in a stone pulsed like a heartbeat, expanding and contracting slightly, and this one was right on the E-D borderline.
That meant it was the highest-grade magic stone one could obtain in the primeval forest.
Which in turn meant that the black bear was the strongest, boss-level monster in the primeval forest.
The kind of monster you'd normally need a team of four or five to hunt, let alone take on alone.
'It was a boss-level?'
Jinwoo sat on a park bench in the city, organizing his thoughts.
He had some time before his scheduled appointment with the Cheonok Group, and he needed a moment to clear his complicated head.
'It was definitely strong.'
The black bear had been a powerful and enormous creature. He couldn't count how many times he had felt the fear of death as it charged at him, turning the forest into a grinder.
No, it wasn't just a few times; every single moment had been a battle against terror.
The explanation that it was the strongest monster in the primeval forest made sense.
But that only made the sense of disconnect greater.
'One slash.'
He had cut down that strong, incredible creature with a single slash of his sword.
A real sword was inherently difficult to handle; normally, one needed training just to cut through a bundle of straw.
That's why he had been shocked when he'd cut down the wolf, but to have literally bisected the even larger black bear...
It seemed his past life had been an even more incredible being than he had imagined.
'The ability to cut the Blue Flame.'
The ability he had gained while facing the black bear, to cut and absorb the Blue Flame.
What exactly was that flame?
It was his own ability, but he didn't fully understand it.
The sensation of using it was ingrained in his instincts, allowing him to use it as he wished, but he had no idea what principle it operated on or what laws governed its function.
The Blue Flame, visible in all living things.
According to the message from his awakening, it "cuts and covets the soul." Did that mean this Blue Flame was the soul?

'I can see it in all the people passing by right now.'
Perhaps because it was a holiday, the park was quite crowded.
He could see the Blue Flame burning like a candle wick in the core of every single person.
For some, it was the size of a real candle flame; for others, it was as large as a fist. The shape of the flame also varied from person to person.

He spent over 30 minutes observing the people coming and going, and not a single one burned in the same way.
Like fingerprints, the shape of the flame was unique to each person.
'Just by cutting that, the black bear was bisected.'
At that moment, Jinwoo had swung his sword seeing only the Blue Flame rising within the black bear's body.
And yet, the iron sword had pierced through the Magi, sliced through the thick fur, muscle, and bone, and cut the black bear down.
If that was what it did to a boss monster with D-class level Magi, it would cut through a person even more easily.
Of course, he had no desire to cut a person.
"Honey, isn't it a little chilly?"
"Yeah... Whoa, look at these goosebumps. Should we go inside somewhere?"
"Mhm. Hold me."
"Come here."
He watched a couple passing right in front of him cling to each other.
Jinwoo clicked his tongue. Goosebumps, my foot. Their actions were what was giving him goosebumps.
The sun was so bright it was almost hot, yet they were using the cold as an excuse to get close. It was incredibly irritating to watch.
Some people were too busy trying to survive to even dream of dating...
Anyway, after spending a reasonable amount of time in the park, he got up.
It was almost time for his appointment with Cheonok.
The Cheonok Group. The conglomerate that represented Seoul, with a hand in every business imaginable, dominating most of its markets and controlling Seoul's economy.
Well, no matter how big the company, the people working there were ordinary citizens just like him.
There was no reason to be nervous about meeting a single employee.
Several hours later.
The meeting with the Cheonok employee dragged on, and by the time it was over, the sun had begun to set.
Only then was Jinwoo able to get a final tally for all the game he had brought: the rabbits, wolf, boar, and deer carcasses, plus the black bear's corpse.
"Thank you, Hunter-nim! Please, be sure to use Cheonok Trading again next time!"
The employee, beaming at the thought of the incentive he would receive, bowed so deeply it was almost excessive as he saw Jinwoo off. As a gift, he gave Jinwoo a large shopping bag containing an assorted set of the highest-quality beef, covering all sorts of cuts. Tucked inside the wrapping was a business card.
Holding the shopping bag, Jinwoo exited the Cheonok Trading building and checked the account on his smartphone.
[Balance: 337,432,900]
A new digit had appeared at the front.