The only person who had the authority to allow exceptions to the rules listed in the Association’s guidebook was the Association’s president. This was something that could not be solved by money. However, there were still alternative solutions to this problem.

‘If I ask Mr. Iron Wall, he might help me set up an appointment with the president…’ 

Park Cheol-Ho, the Iron Wall, was an influential director within the association. In addition, he had recently been noticing Yu-Seong's achievements and viewing them favorably, so he was likely to help Yu-Seong.

However, persuading the president was a different story.

‘Is the fastest way to get an appointment…receiving it as a gift from my father?’

Yu-Seong wore a happy smile on his face, thinking that he would definitely ask for a special hunter's license like Kim Do-Jin the next time Choi Woo-Jae offered to reward him with a gift.

‘Yeup, father is very generous.’

Earlier this year, Choi Yu-Seong's overall bank balance was about 128 billion won. This was just the cash assets, and if the buildings and the houses he owned were included then the amount would be doubled. However, property should not be touched carelessly.

Yu-Seong spent about 1.4 billion won a month. It could be said to be a huge amount, but this ridiculous amount of money was actually ridiculously easy to spend because of the gym’s rental fee for training, his employees’ salaries, and the purchase and management of hunter equipment.

‘The biggest expense is the mana stone extract.’

Mana stone extracts for just two people, Choi Yu-Seong and Chae Ye-Ryeong, were already 1.2 billion won a month. Such luxurious expenses were possible mostly thanks to his real estate assets.

‘I earn about a billion a month just by collecting rent.’ 

Even so, it was true that they were accumulating a steady deficit of about 400 million.

In the meantime, Yu-Seong had decided to spend about 20 billion to help Chae Ye-Ryeong go through her second awakening. This amount was not going to be spent in one go, but as it was an important investment for the future, he didn’t want to cut corners either.

Also, there would be many more occasions to spend such big money in the future as well.

‘It's better to build a gym than rent it, so I also have to move…’

Earning money was difficult, but spending it was incredibly easy. This was true even though he was a conglomerate chief’s son. That was why he had asked Choi Woo-Jae to give him pocket money as a gift, and 50 billion won had been recently deposited into his account.

‘If he can just give fifty billion just like that, as pocket money, how much money does he have?’

Thanks to this, Yu-Seong was able to set money aside for Chae Ye-Ryeong and still enjoy some additional income. Although he was somewhat surprised, it really wasn’t a problem for Woo-Jae to give out this exorbitant amount of money. The more Yu-Seong got used to the privilege of being a chaebol, the funnier it became when he remembered the first time he had seen his bank balance—he had been so surprised that he hadn’t been able to count the digits properly.

‘My father did know about my balance, he just didn’t care about it.’

Although Yu-Seong's bank account balance was considerable, it was not enough for Choi Woo-Jae to bother about it.

Yu-Seong had often felt embarrassed by unfamiliar situations since he came from a completely different world. He had been an ordinary game company employee before becoming a chaebol, but he had to adapt to it. After all, this was the world of the novel’s Choi Yu-Seong.

All of a sudden, Yu-Seong knew exactly what he was going to spend money on.

‘I can support Jin Yu-Ri with twenty billion for now. The more money I have, the better it is for creating and operating an organization. Maybe she could scale it up.’ 

Choi Yu-Seong remembered Yu-Ri, who had left the dungeon with the excuse of a vacation. Around him, there were quite a lot of carcasses of the level 3 monster Thorn Cat.

The level has risen.

If it wasn't for the message that flashed in front of him, Yu-Seong could have continued hunting in a relaxed manner despite having a lot of thoughts weighing on his mind.

‘Come to think of it, this message has appeared several times.’

It had been about three hours since Yu-Seong had entered the dungeon. He just had this realization since his many thoughts had been distracting him, but he was sure that several level-up messages had popped up.

『Name: Choi Yu-Seong

Rank: D

Level: 1 → 5』

Yu-Seong was surprised by the unexpected increase in level. Even though he had not consumed any potions, he was sure that 90% of this experience acceleration effect was due to the Star Factor. Also, because of the level increase, Yu-Seong felt like his condition and movements were actually improving, despite him having spent quite a bit of time in the dungeon.

‘The amount of my mana… No, in my case, it would be the amount of Chakra. It’s increased from 732 to 738.’ 

As he leveled up within the D rank, the increase in Chakra was about 2 per level.

‘...certainly, in terms of Chakra, I am way over the average. Oh, come to think of it, the things I ordered are supposed to come tomorrow. I can't wait to see how God's Chakra would work.’ 

Even though quite a few variables might happen, Yu-Seong had no intention of limiting his own growth. He went a little deeper into the dungeon with a spear in one hand.

***

Leveling up was slower than when he was in the low E-rank levels, but Yu-Seong looked very satisfied after achieving the D-rank, level 7. This was an increase of no less than 6 levels in a day. It was probably because he had just recently become a D-rank player.

Yu-Seong got in the car and headed home. On the way, he checked his cell phone and saw about five CoTalk [1] messages from Kim Do-Jin, whom he had been ignoring for a while now.

‘It's less than I thought.’ 

Yu-Seong had given a couple of replies in order to maintain a proper distance. If he hadn’t replied at all, Do-Jin would have probably visited Yu-Seong’s house again by now. However, the last message from Do-Jin was somewhat incomprehensible.

- You saw the video, so why aren’t you saying anything?

Yu-Seong belatedly remembered the video article among the messages that Kim Do-Jin had sent. He clicked the link with an annoyed look on his face.

‘Why does he need so much attention? Is he a kid or something?’

Of course, Yu-Seong was aware of the danger of such thoughts. He could never afford to forget that Kim Do-Jin was not a child, but a time and space traveler who had returned to Earth after surviving in a different world for decades.

Yu-Seong’s best choice was to make an effort and pay attention to Do-Jin whenever he was calm like this.

“What the… so he did dungeon racing?”

Of course, Kim Do-Jin hadn’t done it in an ordinary way. He had defeated the Dungeon of the Deads alone, achieving a new world record as a C-rank player. This story was also not in the original novel.

‘Yeup, I definitely need to check everything, even a single message like this.’ 

Yu-Seong admitted that he was being complacent. He checked the article’s contents and was once again surprised by the video.

‘Kim Do-Jin, you even used magic?’ 

The magic wasn’t very noticeable in the video, but Yu-Seong could clearly hear the uttering of a strange language that others wouldn’t understand in the middle of the video. At that moment, a light appeared and disappeared from Kim Do-Jin, whose movement then became several times faster and more explosive.

Although it seemed like a Reinforcement skill of a physical talent, Choi Yu-Seong, who had read the original novel, could see that Kim Do-Jin had used the Lun language—one of the languages of the other world—to perform magic.

‘I don’t get it. That’s a power he wasn’t supposed to reveal to the world at this point in the novel.’

Of course, the magic was used appropriately enough for others to be mistaken, but Yu-Seong still couldn’t deny that Do-Jin had revealed his magic usage a lot sooner than expected. He couldn't understand.

‘Why? Come on, think Yu-Seong… you know Do-Jin very well.’

In fact, there was a speculative answer.

‘Even if he had to use magic, he wanted to thoroughly appeal to the other person.’ 

Fascinating the opponent by showing overwhelming power was a method that Kim Do-Jin often used to seduce someone, and it really worked quite well in the original novel.

‘Or he might have thought that taking some risks didn’t matter, since his pride was hurt.’ 

In fact, Kim Do-Jin, the main character, often ignored small risks and still won in the end. The question thus became…who had messed with Kim Do-Jin’s feelings like that?

‘Who would be the one he’s met? Hao Lan? Suarez?‘

After recalling the few characters in the original novel who were strong enough to be called Kim Do-Jin’s rivals, Choi Yu-Seong's thoughts suddenly stopped. A sudden possibility struck him like a thunderbolt.

‘...Could it be me?’ 

It was not an unlikely scenario, which made Yu-Seong even more shocked.

Choi Yu-Seong was originally a villain who was appropriately used by Kim Do-Jin in the novel before being cast aside.

‘But now, he is conscious enough of me to even use magic?’

The relationship had changed.

Yu-Seong trembled at his somewhat belated realization.

"Oh, my…!" shouted Jin Do-Yoon urgently. He slammed the brakes, and Yu-Seong fell forward in his shock.

"What's going on?" asked Yu-Seong. He hadn’t hit his head, because the passenger seat had been pulled forward, but he was still quite surprised.

"Someone ran in front of the car..."

Someone had jumped in front of their car. Yu-Seong raised his head and confirmed the person’s identity. He said with a frown, “Choi Min-Seok?”

An unexpected figure was standing in front of the car with a strange expression on his face.

Anyway, the house was just around the corner. Jin Do-Yoon got out of the car first, and Yu-Seong followed him. Yu-Seong then asked, "What do you think you are doing?"

Choi Min-Seok, who always had a ridiculous look whenever he saw Yu-Seong, slightly shrugged in a sloppy manner. He frowned as if he was annoyed, saying, "...I came to talk to you about something.”

"But why? Did you suddenly jump in front of the car because you wanted to die?”

“I meant to stop the car. I was just trying to reach out my hand to stop you guys.”

"Then why didn’t you wait in front of my house? You know what…just go," said Yu-Seong.

What was the point of continuing to talk?

Yu-Seong sighed deeply, shook his head, and tried to get back in the car. Just then, Min-Seok cried out, "Hey, wait! I have something to tell you.”

"Get to the point," said Yu-Seong.

"Well, that's not something that we should talk about here," said Min-Seok.

Yu-Seong frowned. "What?"

"...let's go to the restaurant I know. I've got a room. I have something to tell you in private..."

"You’re crazy. Why should I eat with you? I'm not curious about what you have to say, so let me just go." Yu-Seong grinned and grabbed the car handle again.

"Kim Do-Jin!" shouted Min-Seok.

“...” Yu-Seong paused because Min-Seok had just mentioned an unexpected name.

"It's about Kim Do-Jin. You're interested in him, aren't you? Let's go to the restaurant," said Min-Seok with a smile.

Certainly, Yu-Seong had thought of that person many times. However, he swallowed the words in his throat right away and glared at Choi Min-Seok. He retorted, “Do you think I know less about Kim Do-Jin than you do?”

There was a rumor that Kim Do-Jin and Choi Yu-Seong were quite close. Choi Min-Seok thought that this pairing was quite out of place, but there was too much evidence that brought about the rumor. There were even photographs of the two together.

Because of this, Min-Seok quickly became mute at Yu-Seong's confident voice. He stomped inside when he saw Yu-Seong opening the car door without further hesitation.

‘What should I do? Byung-Chan hyung-nim told me to take Choi Yu-Seong to the restaurant.’

1. Coconut Talk ☜