The Hero Returns

* * *

As expected, Su-hyeun ran into a troublesome situation upon stepping out of the dungeon.

The whole dungeon itself had vanished, after all.

The Ether stone mining should have commenced right away after all the monsters had been dealt with, but the dungeon itself had disappeared, so the resulting commotion was hardly surprising.

Su-hyeun made some lame excuse about also not knowing what happened and returned home to rest for half a day or so. By the time he woke up, Hak-joon had already made it back to South Korea.

"Just what happened?" Hak-joon asked while sounding incredulous after he heard about what went down earlier. For a greeting shared between friends who hadn't seen each other for a long while, it sure didn't sound right. But Su-hyeun was clearly the guilty party on this one, so it couldn't be helped.

The middle of Yeoui Island was teeming with people again after the dungeon had been successfully raided. Su-hyeun's favorite cafe also reopened its doors. The two men went there, ordered their drinks, and began chatting about what happened.

"…So, that's what went down," said Su-hyeun.

"Even if the dungeon's scale wasn't that big, the resulting losses are still too great, you know. Thankfully, the Sohwan Guild's people haven't made any demands for compensation yet…"

"I should compensate them regardless. It's my fault, after all."

"What do you mean, your fault? If it wasn't for you, bro, monsters would've flooded out into the middle of Yeoui Island, you know."

"There's that, and this is something else. Well, it's not like I don't have the money to deal with the potential compensation demands, so…"

"But you haven't made a lot of money lately, right? You had to repay Mister Gordon. Also, not too long ago, you spent a lot because of uncle Kim Dae-ho."

Su-hyeun nodded at Hak-joon's observation.

He certainly hadn't managed to save much compared to the amount he earned recently. He figured that his bank account would end up nearly empty after paying out the compensation this time.

"Well, that means I gotta earn a lot more from now on."

"Eh?"

Hak-joon was surprised to hear that unexpected reply.

He always believed that if he needed to point out a person in the whole world who treated money like rocks, then that guy would definitely be Su-hyeun.

But such a guy just said that he would focus on making money from now on. Although it would seem like a normal answer under any other circumstances, Hak-joon was still stunned to hear something like that come out of Su-hyeun's mouth.

"Why are you so shocked?"

"Well, you know. Even I can't figure out why you wanting to make some money sounds so weird to me."

"It's not exactly because of money, though."

"It isn't?"

Su-hyeun proceeded to explain his newly acquired skills to Hak-joon—from the Necromancer trait to the two skills of Soul Accumulation and Dead Summoning.

After listening to the explanations, Hak-joon's jaw dropped to the floor. "What kind of powerful skills are those?!"

"But I'm not the only person with such a skillset, am I wrong? I mean, there's an awakener who's actually called the necromancer, after all."

"You mean the German S-Rank awakener, Daian Gedeck?"

"Right, that person."

Daian Gedeck.

A person who commanded hundreds of the undead and boasted the achievements of single-handedly clearing a green-colored dungeon and, after creating a guild, conquering a blue-colored dungeon that appeared in Germany.

"Even then, bro, your skill is on another level, isn't it? For one thing, you can now order around the boss from a green-colored dungeon, maybe even bosses from blue-colored dungeons."

"Of course. I got this skill after going through so much trouble, after all."

He acquired the "Necromancer" trait and its associated skills after clearing the 50th floor's trial. It was unknown what Daian Gedeck had to go through to acquire the ability to command the dead, but it would not be comparable to the difficulty of the trial Su-hyeun had experienced.

"Well, that's my reason for focusing on raiding dungeons for the time being."

"That means I can take a bit of a break now."

Hak-joon grinned and drank his coffee.

Because of the Paragon Guild's matters, he had been traveling nonstop everywhere to raid dungeons for a good while now.

Although he said he would take a break, it wouldn't be a real break. Hak-joon had a side to him that was a lot similar to Su-hyeun in some ways.

"Which floor are you on now?" Su-hyeun asked.

"The 99th."

It was Su-hyeun's turn to be surprised by Hak-joon's answer.

"Already?"

When Su-hyeun was on the 40th floor, he heard that Hak-joon was about to challenge the 70th. He thought that Hak-joon was already very fast, but as it turned out, he had exceeded Su-hyeun's estimation by a lot.

"I've been basically living inside the tower full time until not too long ago, you see. And from a certain moment onward, it became harder to earn achievement points or other rewards by staying longer on a floor, so I changed my goal to just passing the trials as soon as possible without worrying about the achievement percentage."

"Still, that's really fast."

"It got pretty easy to pass each of the floors recently. Not counting every tenth floors, of course."

Su-hyeun extended his hand toward Hak-joon. The latter immediately understood what that gesture meant and held the offered hand.

Squeeze—

They both sent magical power to their hands and squeezed hard. Hak-joon's hand began trembling. Veins popped up on his arm; seeing that, Su-hyeun's eyes sparkled brightly.

"Hey, not bad."

Su-hyeun let go of the younger man's hand. Not only the physical strength but also the concentration of magical energy or its total reserve that he felt through the hand was outstanding.

On top of this, not a single trace of that huge magical energy was leaking out of Hak-joon's figure. The coffee contained in the cup right below his hand not rippling at all was the evidence of that.

"Bro, you're just as amazing as before. Ouch! I thought my hand was going to break just now."

Su-hyeun watched Hak-joon shake numbness from his hand and spoke, "So, then. One more floor, and you'll be on the 100th."

Hak-joon nodded after hearing that.

"What will you do?"

That question contained a fair few different meanings.

The 100th floor.

Any serious rankers would have to pass this floor at some point. And the trial's difficulty spiking greatly once more on the 100th floor was a fact that had already been proven many times through various other rankers.

The rise in difficulty here was, as a matter of fact, greater than any other tenth floors so far.

"I'll have to keep going."

"Just like that?"

"Yes. If I take a step back now, then it would become harder for me to start climbing again from the 101st floor, I think."

This was the reason why many awakeners decided to lower the difficulty after reaching the 100th floor. The sudden spike in the difficulty could result in their lives being lost, and that would mean all the hard work and effort they had put in so far would be in vain.

Once one passed the 100th floor, the difficulty would settle back to normal from the 101st floor onward. As such, awakeners would lower the difficulty from, say, the fifth level to the fourth, or maybe even to the third.

However, Hak-joon wasn't thinking of doing that.

"Will it be alright?"

"It's not like I'll die, anyway."

"Well, no, you might really die."

"Well, in that case…" Hak-joon grinned at Su-hyeun's reply as if this was actually for the best. "As long as I don't die, I'll surely become better than I am right now, right?"

"…"

"You don't have to worry about me too much. You know how tough and tenacious I can be. Plus, I'm beginning to get this feeling lately, you see."

"What feeling?"

"Just a bit more, just one more step, then maybe…" Hak-joon's eyes looking at Su-hyeun changed just then. "…I might be able to reach it."

No explanation of what he wanted to reach was necessary.

Su-hyeun lightly patted Hak-joon's shoulder. "Let's meet up again after you make it out of there alive."

"Yes, let's do that."

Su-hyeun was the first to get up and leave the cafe.

It was true that he did feel worried.

The 100th floor's trial. Many awakeners vanished without leaving so much as a single clue after failing to pass that floor, so Su-hyeun was deeply wary of that particular floor himself.

He had only managed to clear the 50th floor, yet Hak-joon was already standing on the 99th.

What an amazing guy.

He already knew that Hak-joon was a talented guy, but never did he suspect that the latter would have such a steely, hardened resolve as well.

Hak-joon climbing from the 70th floor to the 99th at such speed indicated that his skill level had already exceeded the challenges those floors offered.

Su-hyeun looked at his hand that held Hak-joon's earlier.

The future was changing.

Dungeons weren't the only things that were going through changes.

Su-hyeun himself had changed, while Hak-joon, Lee Ju-ho, Thomas, and a whole host of others were also changing.

He started walking forward again.

This meeting was held because it had been a while since they spoke face to face. But rather unexpectedly, today's meeting made him realize something he had been overlooking until now.

It was not only him currently going through a change.

Many small changes were happening at the same time, and the world as a whole was changing as a result.

* * *

"You came at an excellent time."

Su-hyeun stopped by at the Association's headquarters located in the Jongno Tower, only to be greeted by a suspiciously warm welcome from Lee Ju-ho.

"I was actually looking for someone to send over to the raid on a blue-colored dungeon, so why don't you do it for me?"

"Isn't this a bit too much, sending me straight to work as soon you ran into me?"

"It was your turn after Hak-joon, anyway. You still remember it, don't you? When it's their turn, every S-Rank awakener must participate in the raids of dungeons green-colored or higher."

"I raided a green one not too long ago, though."

"I know. And I heard that you caused a bit of an incident there."

"…"

"I had to go and speak to the Authority's director just to calm the situation down, you know. That grubby little geezer, when I told him that you were responsible, he shut his mouth right up there and then."

Lee Ju-ho knew very well that the director and Su-hyeun didn't enjoy an amicable relationship. That old man was in a position to determine how the Authority operated, but even someone like him couldn't afford to do anything to high-ranking awakeners, such as those in the S-Rank.

Not to forget, the person in the center of the row was Su-hyeun. Therefore, the Authority wasn't able to punish him despite the incident he had caused.

Moreover, the Authority itself could end up in a precarious position if the director made a mistake and pissed Su-hyeun off, causing the latter to declare that he would emigrate to somewhere else.

"Just leave that old man be. He is plenty of help for us in that position, anyway. If he starts annoying us, well, we'll just pull him down from there, that's all," Su-hyeun said.

"That's true."

"Besides all that, what's the location of the blue-colored dungeon?"

"It's in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province. You said you used to live in Anyang, right? It's not too far from there. I'll send you the coordinates, so hurry and get going."

"You aren't even going to worry about me?"

"Worry? About you? We aren't even talking about an indigo dungeon here but a blue one, so there's nothing to worry about, is there?"

Su-hyeun spat out a long sigh and stood up from his seat.

As Lee Ju-ho had implied, this task shouldn't be delayed. He also didn't have any other raid members, so there was no need for further preparation.

The rights to the raid wouldn't pose an issue either. It was the safest to let Su-hyeun handle it alone since the dungeon in question was a blue one. As for the permission itself, it would only be a matter of time before they received the green light.

"Ah, right. I heard from Hak-joon that you're planning to focus on raiding dungeons for the time being? After you acquired some skills related to the Necromancer."

"Did he call to tell you that?"

"Yeah. After I got your call telling me you were on the way, he called me right afterward. That's why I prepared plenty of work for you before you came here. Once you're finished with this task, most of the other job requests coming in for the Paragon Guild will be yours."

Although that was what Su-hyeun wanted, just listening to Lee Ju-ho about his tasks made him feel tired already. The so-called job requests coming in for the Paragon Guild would mean he would have to travel to other countries to raid the dungeons there.

"I'll send you the details and locations of each request through texts and emails every time they come in. I gotta go and oversee the contract signing, so give me a call when you're finished in Uiwang, okay?"

"Okay."

After their conversation ended, Su-hyeun headed straight to the location Lee Ju-ho had told him about.

From that point onward, he focused his entire being on raiding and clearing dungeons.

On the first day, Uiwang's blue-colored dungeon.

On the third day, a green-colored dungeon located in Shanghai, China.

The fifth day, Hong Kong's green dungeon.

The eighth day, another green-colored dungeon—this time in Thailand.

And then, on the tenth day, Italy's green dungeon.

The number of souls he now possessed was 30. Soul Accumulation had reached the fourth level, while Dead Summoning was at the second level.

And so, on the 15th day…

As his last stop, Su-hyeun began his raid on a blue-colored dungeon that appeared in Japan.