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Disappointment (1)

While I was looking at Ray Chen’s body, I realized I made a huge mistake.

‘He turned into a rag.’

His body was in a terrible state after repeatedly being struck by sword energy and magic. The exploration team leader was the most suitable subject for my goal, but he was no longer usable for the purpose I had in mind.

I asked Nate and Hibiki.

“How is it? Are there some intact corpses?”

But the two shook their head.

“Really? Well, we can’t do anything about that. It’s not your fault. I became too arrogant.”

My order to secure the state of corpses while fighting dozens of hunters, who were technically SSS-Rank and SS-Rank, was too much to ask.

Even I couldn’t stop myself from putting his body in a heavily damaged state as I fought. In the first place, they were not unchallenging enough to be killed in a single blow.

“Ah, instead, there is someone who’s still breathing!”

“Really?

I was all ears to that statement. As I approached the place that Nate pointed, there indeed was a Chinese soldier who remained alive and breathing.

Although he was on the verge of Mana exhaustion, the blue light in his core was faint, but it hadn’t completely been cut off.

“Hmm.”

However, although he was still breathing, his body was a mess. His rib cages were broken, so the chest’s shape had collapsed, and below his knees, everything had been torn open and apart due to the ripping caused by zombies. It’s an injury that would’ve killed him long before it reached such a demented state if he weren’t an SS-Class hunter.

“Nate, perhaps you could do that in his state?”

He shook his head.

“Absolutely impossible.”

Hibiki asked a question.

“Are you planning to use healing magic? With my current Mana capacity, reaching the point of regeneration would be virtually impossible.”

“No.”

There was no need to contemplate which to consume between Mana resources, which couldn’t be bought with money, or item, which could be acquired with cash.

Having a hard time acquiring an Elixir applied only to typical guilds. From my position, as I already had a trade channel opened with the Senator, it’s not that precious of a thing.

After tying him up so that he couldn’t move even if he were to wake up, I took out a glass bottle from the snake inventory to forcefully feed the hunter. The contents of the top-tier potion, a single sip of which already cost hundreds of millions, slid down his throat and disappeared. Since I had more than enough money to spend, I couldn’t even consider what I did as nothing but a waste.

Shhhh!

His cut-off legs grew out again, and everyone could see the regeneration and rejuvenation that took place all over the entirety of his body.

“Ugh!”

The conscious man looked at his tied-up body as he must be analyzing what was going on. He gritted his teeth, realizing that he was healed back from certain death.

“Damn it! Don’t be silly. You’re all destined to die here! There is no way any of you can return to our world.”

He must have misunderstood that we planned to hold him hostage and return him to Earth to negotiate with the Chinese government.

“I won’t cooperate with anything. Just kill me already and be done with it!”

I replied calmly.

“I was planning to do so.”

“Huh?”

Puhk!

Without hesitation, I struck my sword down, causing it to pierce through his heart.

“Keup!”

His startled eyes, which were staring at me in vain, slowly lost their colors. His gaze was filled with questions that could not be hidden until he stopped breathing.

He must have been dumbfounded even at the very moment he drew his last breath. He must have wondered why I healed him if I would kill him just because I asked him to anyway.

Thanks to that, he died with his body remaining in a rather tip-top condition.

“Nate, please.”

“Okay!”

Woong!

The red Mana that emanated from his body seeped into the body of the dead Awakened.

“Rargh···!”

The hunter that turned into a zombie rose up from the dirt floor.

If the corpse was ruined beyond a certain standard, Nate couldn’t turn it into a subordinate.

The reason why I killed him after necessarily healing him was for that.

“Search his memory later on. For now, just put him in your shadow.”

“Roger that.”

*

“Eek!”

“Mmmp!”

Next, I approached the paralyzed hunters on the ground.

The three struggled to move their bodies but were unable to move.

The red Mana that the dead General had injected three days prior didn’t disappear. Rather, it all still existed in their bodies since it was maintaining the properties of paralyzing toxins.

“Now, listen up.”

I spoke to them.

“We can help you get better and help you to return to Earth safely.”

“…?!”

A light of distrust lingered around their eyes.

One by one, they forced their frozen tongues to move all for the sake of leaking a word of doubt.

“R… Really…?”

“N… Way…”

I shrugged.

“You’re saying it doesn’t make sense? Yeah, it should be hard to believe. However, you’re going to die here if you don’t accept our help anyway. Will there really be anything to lose?”

As they couldn’t grasp what kind of situation they were in, they only blinked their eyes to showcase how bewildered they were.

“In return, you all need to promise me one thing.”

“…?!”

“What you’ve seen so far and what you will see from now on will be strictly confidential. Do you understand? And I need you to help me with my work. If you keep your promise, there will be no harm done to you. I promise.”

They didn’t need a long time to think about it.

Since they had no alternatives, they all took turns nodding as hard as they could in agreement. But it seemed like they doubted what I could do in that situation.

“But for the sake of security, we can’t leave your promises only to your conscience.”

I took out a paper made out of unique materials and a pen from the snake inventory.

Swish!

I spread three sheets of paper tightly with psychokinesis and float them in the air.

I then picked up the pen and started to write on it without hesitation.

Hibiki opened her eyes wide when she saw the letters that she had never seen before.

“From which country is that language from?”

“It’s the devil’s language.”

“…?”

The texts I was writing down were textures from the demons I used when I signed the contract while subjugating the devil’s sword as a slave.

Those were components necessary for making an absolute contract with the soul as collateral.

Watching me write down with brushstrokes filled with certainty, the devil’s sword on my back muttered as if it were absurd.

‘What kind of life have you been living so far that you get to write down the contracts that demons use with so much confidence at that speed?’

I answered back with a small murmur.

“What do you think? Did I write it down properly?”

It replied in a tone that sounded like it didn’t want to admit it.

‘… The grammar and formats are all perfect. It’s enough to scatter to the young demons as textbooks.’

“That’s a relief.”

After I finished writing, I pushed the paper towards them.

A signature was not required. With mental consent, the contract could be concluded.

“What…?”

A contract was written using a language that wasn’t recognizable from their perspective.

“Repeat after me. I agree to the contract.”

They would be wondering what it was all about.

They seemed reluctant as they felt like they were being scammed, but they eventually repeated what I said since they had no other option.

Their mind had become bound to follow language intuitively.

Shhhh!

The three sheets of paper fluttered up into the air and glowed as Mana spread.

The contract was signed in an instant, and they seemed to have sensed that something had changed. Everyone’s faces turned pale.

They instinctively sensed the shackles that bounded their souls.

“What is this?!”

“Alright, the deal has been made. You’d better not think about breaking it. As you must have already felt it… it can lead to terrible consequences.”

I was planning on explaining all the details of the contract later.

“Well, let’s get you guys healed first, shall we? As I said, let’s get to work as soon as you get better. It’s a job that requires labor from Awakened beings, after all.”

I then performed healing magic, and the three SSS-Class hunters soon became able to move their bodies. They wore expressions on their faces that told me they couldn’t believe what just happened.

“Oh, my God, that’s amazing! How the hell did you do that?!”

One by one, they stood up, their states fully recovered. I spoke to them.

“Oh, right! Before anything else, give me all the Mana cores you have.”

“…?!”

That was a legitimate entrance fee to operate the [Door of Hope].

But they only stared at me dumbfounded as they couldn’t understand what was going on.

Just as they were about to ask me the reason…

“Huh? Huh?”

They were bewildered to see their bodies acting on their own like robots, completely disregarding their free will.

The three hunters moved in perfect order as soon as my instructions entered their ears. They searched their battle backpacks and gave me all the cores they had collected thus far.

“What’s wrong with me?”

The judgment was made from an automatic area; that they had to follow my instructions. A fear unrecognized by their consciousness was moving them.

Looking at those people, Nate approached them.

“Jin-Wook, we’re going to take them out of here through the Door of Hope as well, right?”

“Of course, but that comes after I finish up a job here.”

He tilted his head and asked another question.

“By the way, why did you tell me earlier that you were in a bad mood?”

“Oh, about that…”

I gritted my teeth, thinking about the incident that happened when I received the additional compensation.

*

“We meet again.”

In the dark space, I grinned at the ministry spirit.

“What should I do? Seeing that you’ve appeared again, I think I picked an EX-Class item.”

In the face of the spirit, there was a blatant lamentation that seemed to say, ‘Oh, I met the troublesome headache again.’

Meanwhile, when she appeared out of the dark space, the reward that was approaching me had frozen in place.

I continued to talk as I looked at the crystal of flash that hardened just before it sprinkled powder of light.

“If you can’t give me the EX-Class since we’re still in the tutorial phase, shall we negotiate again today? During the A-Class break, you gave me 10 SS-Class items and listened to my two additional requirements. But since it’s an SS-Class dungeon this time… Shouldn’t you at least give me 100 SSS-Class items?”

The spirit then blatantly showed me a truly disgusted expression.

– Please don’t push that strange way of counting in front of me, Mr. Seo Jin-Wook.

It was just something that I said without thinking it would be possible, anyway.

But then.

– And things are different today. The compensation system for breaks is not chosen by the Awakened, but by our choice. Thanks to this, I found an error in the stage before the compensation was finalized, and I was able to intervene and replace it with appropriate compensation.

Wait, the direction that the story was going felt strange.

My eyebrows furrowed deep.

“So, are you telling me that the replacement is impossible this time? That’s unfair…”

– Listen to me until I finish talking. This time, it’s a Dungeon-Clear reward, so Mr. Seo Jin-Wook chose it yourself. We couldn’t stop it because we weren’t aware beforehand since this was a choice based on the mortal’s free will. Well, it will only get complicated if we were to talk more about it.

She then continued to say a phrase that I didn’t expect at all.

– In this case, we will be forced to give the reward that the user has chosen.

What?

The outcome was quite contrary to my concerns.

It meant that she had to give me that EX-Class item because the water had already been spilled!

– But!

Why was she putting conditions on what I won fair and square?

For words that started with that phrase, there were no good ones that followed.

– We’re going to impose some penalties on the performance. As you know, EX-Class items are not supposed to be allowed to exist in a tutorial dimension.

What the hell did that mean?

“Wait! Then it’s practically nothing different from getting an SSS-Class item…”

– No, that’s where you’re mistaken. This penalty will be voided as soon as your world enters the main quest. It’s just a temporary debuff.

I still didn’t like it.

Furthermore, having listened that far, one of the assumptions in my head solidified even harder.

“I think it would be better to give me another item than to do this, but you’re saying it’s impossible right now?”

– …

“I see. Are you saying you can’t control this mechanism of me having the items I chose?”

The ministry spirit’s expression hardened.

– I can’t answer that.

Well, that came out as quite a pleasant surprise for me.

I looked at the crystal of light that stopped in front of me. The Mana’s flow for it to move actively had completely stopped. To make that possible…

“It looks like you’ve isolated the entire space around that item and frozen the time in it.”

– …

“If you can’t give me an EX-Class item, you can get rid of this or hide it, but stopping time to buy some time… I guess your limitation is reached when you’re limiting the properties of the item.”

The ministry spirit barely changed the subject.

– Now, if you agree, I’ll give you the item as I suggested…

Did she think I was insane?

“Wait!”

I experimented again with the principle that I was aware of in an attempt to get more information.

“Is it ‘absolutely impossible’ to give me an EX-Class item without performance limitations?”

– It’s absolutely impossible.

If the system said no, there was absolutely no way.

I gave up what I have to give up neatly.

I could get something else instead.

“Is it ‘absolutely impossible’ for me to give up the precious EX-Class item and receive multiple SSS-Class items instead?

– It’s absolutely impossible.

The absolute principle of receiving selected items could not be broken either.

Then all I could choose was to get additional rewards while receiving items with functional restrictions.

My head was running at full speed. What would be useful?

“…!”

I spoke to her after I made a decision.

“The performance limit is a penalty. Shouldn’t you compensate me accordingly in return for my troubles?”

– What do you want?

“I’m proceeding on a screening quest right now. It’s all thanks to your designation of me as a chosen the other day.”

– Yes, I know.

The spirit had a face that seemed to be wondering what bullshit I was building up to.

“After completing the quest to Clear SS-Class dungeons with a contribution rate of more than 20 percent, the linked quest had appeared.”

I recited the contents of the quest that I had just received.

– Quest Name: Verification of Qualification (2)

– Description: To climb the Tower of Choice, you must prove your qualification as a worthy Awakened. Among the dungeons opened in your world, attack three dungeons in which dragons appear as bosses.

– Rewards: From 2.5 million experience points based on contribution rate.

– This quest can also be shared with non-chosen.

I continued to speak of my thoughts with the spirit.

“I asked an alien friend who had finished the tutorial, and I heard that we need to complete more than ten quests in this way to summon the Tower of Choice.”

– Indeed, so?

I spoke confidently.

“I mean, 10? How many days do you think we’ll spend just to complete all that? It’s not like we have a surplus of time.”

– …

“I’ll take into account the performance degradation of the EX-Class item. However! In return, please consider that I have cleared all the associated quests I need to summon the Tower of Choice!”

She tilted her head.

– Then, you want me to let you skip all the quests and summon the Tower of Choice…

“No, I’m not telling you to let me skip it. I’m asking you to consider it as Cleared!”

I couldn’t believe she dared to put up a smokescreen.

‘Shall we start negotiating, then?’

I continued with a big smile on my lips.

“It’s not only proceeding straight to the Tower of Choice sequence, but I’m also asking for every point I’m supposed to get when I’ve Cleared the remaining quests all in one lump sum!”

Only then did the spirit begin to curse me with her eyes.