Mr. Kim Strikes It Rich with Auto-Hunting [Novel] Chapter 18

A day passed.

And that meant?

Rani was fully recharged.

[Summon Fixed Team]

– Rani (High-Grade)

“Director! Rani is here!”

Whenever Hajun summoned her, her sheer energy was on another level.

Waving her hands and bouncing on her heels…

What was with her?

Why was she already this thrilled?

“Give Rani the materials! Director promised that if Rani came back tomorrow, Rani could work with the good stuff!”

Aha.

No wonder she was bouncing off the walls.

“The materials?”

“Yeah!”

Of course.

He was definitely going to give them to her.

Get ready to have your mind blown.

Hajun opened his inventory and pulled out the materials in one clean sweep.

[Venomous Basilisk Fang, Spider Queen’s Poison Sac, Meteor Sword (Fragment), Gargoyle Wing Fragment, Mithril Ingot, High-Grade Magic Stone]

And Rani?

“Materials! Materials!”

She came dashing over with quick little steps, then stopped dead in her tracks.

How about that? Quite a lot, isn’t it?

Just look at her.

Her eyes went wide as saucers.

“Whoa… So many!”

“Right? Told you yesterday you’d get your hands on a whole pile of good stuff today.”

Lee Bojun, the number one ranker.

The man certainly didn’t pinch pennies.

The raw materials alone looked like they cost a fortune.

“A sword! Is it okay for Rani to use this as a material too?”

A sword?

Ah, the Meteor Sword fragment?

“Of course. It was sent here for you to use, so go wild.”

“Yay! Woohoo!”

Honestly, she really could go wild.

The materials had arrived in generous quantities.

[Crafting Commission]

[Requested Item: Sword]

[Main Materials: Venomous Basilisk Fang x20, Meteor Sword (Fragment)]

[Sub-Materials: Spider Queen’s Poison Sac x8, Gargoyle Wing Fragment x6, Mithril Ingot x20, High-Grade Magic Stone x10]

He’d heard a main material usually required ten units.

Baek Hwarang had sent the exact quota, too.

Yet twenty had arrived here.

The same went for the rest of the supplies.

It was precisely double the required amount.

Which meant…

“Forge one to send over, and keep the leftover materials as payment, probably.”

Befitting the generosity of the number one ranker.

Or perhaps.

It was a sign of just how desperate he was.

“Ready! Rani will make it right away!”

What was there to get ready?

Ah, her hammer.

And in her other hand?

She was clutching the materials tight to her chest.

Rani, hey.

I tell you this every time, but nobody is going to snatch those from you…

Regardless.

Carrying the pile as it was, she scampered off to a corner.

“Hehe.”

Beaming from ear to ear, she began pounding away with her hammer.

She’d have it forged in no time.

In the meantime…

“Guess I’ll call Arthur and the other laborers to run some auto-hunting.”

*

“Taking long. Very long.”

No kidding.

Arthur had already cleared the tower, and the orcs had swept the dungeon.

They’d breezed through in a flash, and Hajun had even finished a cup of coffee…

“Hngh-!”

Rani was still hammering away.

Was it taking longer because the materials were high quality?

“Seems like this is taking the longest out of any of them so far.”

“Longer than Wharuruk!”

“Hwalhwal was pretty fast, yeah.”

“Right?”

“Yeah…”

They’d watched it together.

How fast she forged the earlier blades.

Even then, the stats turned out absurd.

Just what kind of sword was she making that it took this long…

“Ta-da! Finished!”

Oh, she was done.

The third blade Rani had forged.

Since it was ready, he had to ask.

“Rani, what do you want to name this one?”

“Sting!”

She didn’t hesitate for a second.

Then again, it was already her third sword…

She’d probably thought of the name while hammering away.

“Sting…?”

“Yup!”

First Hwalhwal, then Wharuruk, and now Sting.

Our dear Rani…

Her naming sense is truly something else.

She was going to craft plenty of gear down the road…

Even so, the creator’s opinion?

He had to respect it.

“Sting… Yeah, sounds good.”

“Right?”

Like hell it was.

There wasn’t much choice, though.

If he picked a proper name, Baek Hwarang-ssi would probably feel left out.

Complaining about why theirs was stuck with Wharuruk.

So, Lee Bojun-ssi.

The name of your weapon is Sting.

Still, isn’t that better than Wharuruk?

“Hmm…”

Maybe they were cut from the same cloth.

Either way.

As long as the performance delivered…

“Right! Wharuruk! Good!”

Look at that.

The client right here was perfectly satisfied.

Besides, Rani had put serious elbow grease into Sting.

The performance was bound to match, wasn’t it?

[Sting]

– A masterpiece crafted by a remarkably skilled artisan.

– Adds potent poison damage.

– High probability of inflicting the poisoned status on enemies.

– Bypasses a portion of enemy defense through the power of a meteor.

– Special skill ‘Deadly Poison’ unlocked for use.

– Grants immunity to poisons below a certain threshold.

“Whoa…”

Rani.

I don’t think this should be called Sting.

This goes way beyond a mere prick.

“Better than Wharuruk!”

“Tell me about it.”

She had used better materials, sure, but…

How did something this ridiculous come out?

The client who requested it was going to be stunned.

They couldn’t have anticipated anything remotely like this.

“Hehe-! That was fun!”

With stats like these, whoever received it was bound to be thrilled.

And Rani had fun, too.

This commission was another roaring success.

All that was left was sending Sting over…

<Commission Complete!>

Commission finished.

The reward dropped straight into his inventory.

[High-Grade Magic Stone x100]

Insane.

“At this rate, I’ll never have to worry about money again.”

A hallmark of hunters:

They rake in piles of cash, but bleed just as much right back out.

Why?

Because gearing up…

Was monstrously expensive.

So what about Yoon Hajun?

“Hmm…”

Why buy gear at all?

Rani would craft whatever he needed.

“Rani really is a lucky charm.”

“Rani is a lucky charm?”

“Of course.”

“Lucky charm! That’s right!”

See?

Even Arthur was nodding along while waving Hwalhwal.

A lucky charm, through and through.

Ding!

[A commission has arrived.]

What now?

Right when he was enjoying watching Rani hop around with glee, someone had to interrupt.

[Client: Lee Bojun]

Huh?

Another commission?

No way, not doing it.

Forging one weapon was more than enough.

Pushing for more would exhaust Rani.

Just as Hajun moved to hit reject—

“Wait.”

The details of the request…

[Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Please accept this as a token of my gratitude.]

That was it.

Calling it a token of gratitude meant he was giving something away, right?

Well, no harm in accepting what was offered.

<Commission Complete!>

What did he send?

Hajun checked his inventory.

“A ring?”

It wouldn’t be a mere piece of jewelry.

Could he check its stats?

Oh, it popped up.

[High-Grade Ring of Recovery]

– Bestows a healing effect upon the designated target.

– Instantly restores wounds up to the level of severe injury.

– Usable once every six months.

“He’s giving me something like this?”

Restoring wounds up to severe injury…

Just looking at it, the thing had to be obscenely expensive.

“That’s good stuff!”

“Right!”

Yeah.

Even a glance made that obvious.

Personally, Hajun liked this even more than magic stones.

He couldn’t imagine his laborers getting hurt, but still.

If someone got injured, having this around?

It would come in handy.

So…

“I’ll put it to good use with thanks.”

May you make good use of the sword as well, esteemed client.

Try not to shatter this one.

*

Seoul.

In front of the house of Lee Bojun, South Korea’s number one tower climber.

“What could he have called us out here for?”

“Didn’t he refuse to see even Director-nim when he came yesterday?”

“Yeah. Just told him they’d talk later.”

“Aren’t you close with him, Section Chief?”

“We are. But he wouldn’t come out even when I dropped by privately last night.”

Section Chief Yoon Jihyeok of the Awakening Management Bureau.

In their private lives, he and Lee Bojun were on close, brotherly terms.

He thought they were tight, but…

Last night, that didn’t matter in the slightest.

How many times had Jihyeok sat down over drinks with him whenever the climber complained about hitting a wall in the tower?

“Well, considering the circumstances…”

True enough.

So Jihyeok had no choice but to pass along the news about the Manpower Office Director and leave.

And yet…

A day later, Bojun reached out asking to meet.

Was he feeling a bit better?

“What about the Manpower Office Director? Are they still taking commissions right now?”

Yoon Jihyeok was an unawakened civilian.

Instead, he brought along an awakened subordinate.

“Um… The one I submitted got rejected, and looking at the board, it seems like pretty much everything was turned down.”

“Haah… If only they could forge just one more.”

“People are saying it’s due to a cooldown…”

Jihyeok belonged to the Awakening Management Bureau too.

Naturally, he knew that much.

Still, the regret lingered.

Just one more…

“You’re here?”

Right.

If only Lee Bojun could get a weapon made.

Sigh.

Jihyeok let out a heavy sigh of regret and looked up, only to—

That thing in Bojun’s hand…

“A sword?”

That wasn’t the Meteor Sword, was it?

No.

In the first place, the Meteor Sword had been shattered.

“Hyung, you told me yesterday, didn’t you? That the Manpower Office Director crafted Baek Hwarang’s weapon.”

“Yeah, I did… No way?”

“Bingo.”

They took the job?

Word was that every request had been turned down…

Jihyeok glanced at his subordinate, who nodded in confirmation.

So how on earth did Bojun pull it off?

“Take a look. You’ll be floored when you see the stats.”

“Hand it over.”

Just how good could it be?

Jihyeok took it and checked.

“Doesn’t this look even better than the sword Baek Hwarang got?”

“Naturally. I emptied my entire inventory to submit that commission.”

“Hey… Good job! Seriously, well done!”

An inventory?

Who cared about that?

What mattered was that he had acquired a blade like this.

Items could always be earned back.

“The Bureau will provide as much support as possible, so take your time and pace yourself.”

Now that he had a weapon, his return was immediate.

Conquering the tower?

He could take it slow.

There was plenty of time left anyway.

“Actually, I’m heading out today to break through the top floor.”

Huh?

“The top floor, meaning the 58th floor?”

“Yeah.”

Wait, what?

There was no need to rush, was there?

Could he even clear the 58th floor right now in the first place?

You punk, you’ve been stuck there for six whole months.

“Calm down first. Let’s prep thoroughly before you go. You said yourself the 58th floor is brutal.”

Jihyeok tried gently talking him out of it, but…

“No. I’m going right now. I think I can do it. I left the front door open, alright? Head inside with your staff and rest up.”

Flash.

Calm down, my foot; he vanished on the spot.

That crazy bastard.

Who treats the tower like a convenience store run?

Leaving Yoon Jihyeok and his subordinate stranded outside.

“What should we do, sir?”

“What else can we do? He said he left the door open for us.”

They’d just have to wait inside.

*

“Do you think he can clear the 58th floor?”

“Who knows?”

“It would be great if he came back after clearing it cleanly like Baek Hwarang.”

“Tell me about it.”

What about Baek Hwarang?

Cleared the 53rd floor.

Currently preparing for the 54th.

Rumor had it that would fall within a few days, too.

“Lee Bojun is in a slightly different boat. His floor is much higher.”

“That’s true…”

The 53rd floor and the 58th floor.

The gap in difficulty was like night and day.

Swapping out a single sword wasn’t going to make it an effortless breeze.

“Well, Bojun knows that too. He probably just went to test it out.”

Surely he didn’t genuinely expect to clear it.

“Still, it’s a huge relief that the Manpower Office Director accepted his crafting commission.”

“Seriously. Ugh, without that person, right now we’d be…”

Yeah.

A total mess.

They would have been completely helpless against those dirty underhanded tricks.

“Did they catch any trace of them?”

“Word is, they haven’t caught their tails yet.”

The sudden leak regarding Lee Bojun’s slump.

There was definitely someone behind it.

Yet no traces had been uncovered.

Just how well did they cover their tracks…

“It’s obvious enough. Probably the countries trailing right behind us in the tower rankings.”

Fucking bastards.

“I really hope Lee Bojun clears the tower floor and walks out.”

If he pulled it off,

it would turn their stomachs inside out…

Even so.

It was probably an unrealistic dream.

Sigh…

*

“Hey, hey! Wake up, both of you. Why are you sleeping so comfortably in someone else’s house?”

Ugh, did I doze off for a second?

Opening his eyes,

he saw Lee Bojun waving a hand.

Checking the time…

About three hours had passed.

As expected, he must have failed.

“Good work. You got a solid warmup in today, so starting tomorrow, let’s prep properly and tackle it for real.”

“Huh? What are you talking about? I told you. I was going to go clear it.”

What?

He cleared it?

“The 58th floor…?”

“Well, yeah, of course.”

No way.

“That 58th floor where you were stuck for six months?”

“S-Section Chief. I checked AwakenedNet, and it shows the 58th floor as cleared.”

For real?

“Why are you getting so worked up over a measly 58th floor? Just you wait. Tomorrow I’m clearing the 59th floor in one straight shot.”

He was even claiming he’d clear the 59th floor.

Just how on earth…

“This sword the Manpower Office Director made for me.”

“Sting?”

“Ahem… Anyway, with this sword, I think even the 60th floor is doable.”

To that degree?

Wait.

Then this was no time to be sitting around.

Lee Bojun could rest.

Turning to his subordinate—

“Start contacting reporters right this second.”

“What should I tell them?”

“What do you think? Just say Lee Bojun cleared the 58th floor and is challenging the 59th tomorrow, and they’ll handle the rest on their own.”

Those rats who played dirty tricks on our country.

It was time to give their stomachs a proper churning.