Chapter 3: Offer you cant refuse

“Hey! What are you doing! Move it quickly!! Over here, hurry!!”

As we returned to the base, the female soldiers managing the place were gesturing and bossing around the hunters.

Inside the mana-filled gate, electronic devices, gunpowder, explosives, and fuel were not allowed, so all tasks had to be done manually.

I had never seen those female soldiers, who claimed to manage the base, actually working themselves.

Not all female soldiers were like that, but at least the ones managing our base were.

“Hey, that over there… isn’t that the magic stones we’ve collected?”

Magic stones.

Red stones that came out of monsters’ bodies when they were hunted.

They were completely useless rocks, but they were the only thing of value to awakened beings.

Awakened beings who could handle mana would grind them up, mix them with ion drinks, and drink them to recover their stamina and mana.

We called it a potion, and making potions was part of our daily routine.

These stones, which were otherwise useless, were suddenly being moved by all the hunters in the base.

The members of the three parties who had gone to raid a boss simultaneously looked at me.

I looked back at them.

The reason was obvious.

The useless red stones had suddenly turned into magical items that could earn us a fortune, so of course, they needed to be sold, right?

“You guys, if you’re back, come and help. We have to move all of these out of the gate today.”

One of the female soldiers noticed us and gestured.

“Are we supposed to move everything from the storage?”

“Yeah, move everything.”

“Why are we moving this all of a sudden?”

Playing dumb, Younghak stepped forward and asked.

The female soldiers scowled at his question.

“How should I know? It’s the base leader’s orders. Just shut up and move them quickly.”

The three parties who had dismounted from the wyverns and I, along with Younghak, slowly approached the storage.

We blocked the hunters who were busy loading the magic stones into sacks.

“What are you doing?”

The female soldiers yelled, but Younghak didn’t care.

“Stop. Put all of these back into the storage.”

The hunters hesitated, looking back and forth between the female soldiers and Younghak.

One of the senior female soldiers marched up to Younghak.

“Lee Younghak, are you crazy? You’ve been extended for 3 years, right? Should I extend it by another year?”

But Younghak was not intimidated at all.

“Hey.”

“…Hey?”

“You bitch. I’ve been here for 10 years already. Do you think adding a few more years will make me flinch?”

As Younghak’s fierce swearing and murderous intent made the female soldiers recoil, he roared loudly.

“Stop moving the magic stones! Put them back in the storage!! These are worth money!! They made room-temperature, room-pressure superconductors with these in America!!”

The hunters, who were mindlessly moving the stones, stopped in their tracks.

They stared blankly at the stones in their hands.

These stones, which had been good for nothing but mixing into ion drinks?

Younghak didn’t stop shouting.

“Let’s keep them for ourselves!! Let’s sell them to countries that will pay a lot!! We’ve been working like slaves for 2 million won a month, haven’t we? Isn’t it time to stop that? Let’s live well too, guys!!!”

“Lee Younghak!! This is insubordination!! Insubordination!! If I report this to the Ministry of Defence…!!”

At the female soldier’s scream, Younghak silently drew the sword strapped to his back and pointed it at her neck.

The blade, glowing with aura, sizzled as it burned her skin.

The senior female soldier froze in place.

“Report it. Insubordination, you bitch.”

As Younghak acted, the three parties who had just returned from the boss raid simultaneously drew their weapons and advanced toward the female soldiers.

Covered in dragon blood from the boss fight, they wielded their blunt weapons with glowing auras as they approached.

The female soldiers collapsed to the ground, their legs giving way.

“H-how, how…”

“We need to inform Base Leader Cho Geunsung…”

The three parties surrounded the sobbing female soldiers.

“Disarm them, take the keys, ledgers, everything needed to operate the base, and kick them out of the gate.”

“Yes, sir.”

Until yesterday, the female soldiers had been high-handed, relying solely on Base Leader Cho Geunsung.

But now, overwhelmed by the violent atmosphere, they were completely subdued, handed over everything, and were expelled from the gate.

Suddenly, only men were left inside the base.

All of them were active-duty hunters forcibly brought here.

A total of 103 men.

After telling the hunters to put all the magic stones they were moving into the warehouse, Brother Younghak gathered them all in the centre of the training ground.

“As I said!! Those magic stones in the warehouse are worth a fortune!! We’re taking them!!”

At Younghak’s words, the hunters began to murmur.

“Suddenly like this?”

“What if our service gets extended?”

“The Ministry of Defence won’t stand for this.”

At this, Younghak burst into laughter.

“Hey, you fools. Listen carefully. You will want to keep doing this job from now on. You’ll be earning several times more than living as civilians after discharge.”

Having led the hunters for ten years, Younghak knew exactly how to get people to follow him.

“Now South Korea will have to bow down to us!! Just like we’ve suffered under them! Now we can rob South Korea! Got it? Just wait until tomorrow! I’ll show you the government bowing to us!!”

Murmuring voices.

Confused faces.

But public opinion quickly shifted towards Younghak.

All the hunters in the base were already filled with intense resentment towards the government because of Sangmin’s absurd death incident.

Of course, this was only a very temporary patience.

Most of the hunters were worried about the punishment that would come for what they had done.

It was only because of Younghak, who had risked his life fighting on the front lines for ten years, that they were even staying quiet.

“Everyone, go back to your places and do your jobs. Clean up the base and continue training to prepare for a monster invasion! And Teams 41 and 42, guard the gate with me. Make sure no one touches the magic stones in the warehouse. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ll never go hungry or get hurt! I promise!”

Having quickly taken control of the base, Younghak then called me over.

“We’ve taken the base. But you know this isn’t the end, right?”

“I know well, Hyung-nim.”

Apart from the 100 hunters, the only other personnel in the base were a few female awakened soldiers who managed them but were too afraid to fight.

The structure was such that a mutiny could happen at any time.

And base commander Cho Geunsung knew this well.

So why did he set it up like this?

The reason was simple.

The Ministry of Defence had realized from ten years of experience that the best way to control the hunters inside the gate was to occupy the outside of the gate.

“Food, water, medicine, we only have enough for one day. Every day, just the amount of daily necessities needed for that day comes through the gate, but since we’ve done this, the supplies will be cut off. Starting tomorrow, we’ll have to starve.”

Hunters could only exert superhuman strength inside the gate and were no different from ordinary people once they stepped outside.

So the Ministry of Defence stationed military units outside the gate and controlled the hunters by cutting off all supplies the moment a rebellion occurred.

No matter how dissatisfied one is with the South Korean government, people lose their reason when they can’t drink or eat for just one day.

That’s why several mutinies that had occurred in the base over the past ten years were immediately suppressed as soon as food and water were cut off.

Cho Geunsung probably won’t even blink when he sees the female soldiers being driven out.

Although this is an unexpected situation, he thinks he can grab our leash by controlling the supplies.

But the situation is different now.

He’s seen the news that the magic stones are incredibly valuable.

“This can be the basis for a deal.”

“I’ll take the magic stones to the American sector and try to make a deal with the U.S. government.”

“Will it work?”

“I’ll bring back necessities, medicines, everything. Not only that, but I’ll also open up routes to dispose of these magic stones.”

Younghak nods.

“This is something we started because we trust you. You have to take responsibility, got it?”

“Of course. I’ll be back by tomorrow.”

I loaded a sack of magic stones onto the fastest of my three wyverns and flew straight into the sky.

We’ve been drilled repeatedly that invading another nation’s territory within the gate is a serious violation of international law, but what can we do?

We’ve already openly rebelled; international law can’t stop us now.

And as far as I knew, the United States was not a country to turn down a profitable deal.

Absolutely not.

***

“God almighty, is this real?”

Vincent Volkov, the president of the American Hunter Association, felt a light dizziness and let out a laugh as he read the report from DARPA.

“Not only can Elixir create room-temperature superconductors, but it also has potential applications in the medical and industrial fields, and even the fissure stones could be used to make anti-gravity devices?”

Volkov’s secretary, smiling, repeated the already-read report content to Vincent, who kept asking the same questions.

“Everyone is calling Elixir ‘Magic Water.’ They say this is the most shocking discovery since the discovery of fire. Companies are bombarding us with inquiries to the point that our phone lines are about to burst.”

“Magic Water! That’s exactly what it is! Who would have thought that refining these useless red stones could yield such benefits? Hahaha! Tell me more! What other effects does it have?”

“In the medical field, Magic Water could be used as a treatment for cancer, AIDS, and most importantly, as a cure for hair loss. It can also be used as a perfect insulator, making it applicable in aerospace. There’s even potential for use in room-temperature nuclear fusion.”

“Crazy! Absolutely crazy!”

“And this is just the extent of what we’ve discovered so far. Who knows how many more technologies we might develop with further research. Right now, the White House and various companies are in a frenzy, asking us to confirm the amount of magic stones held at American gate outposts.”

“Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

President Volkov couldn’t contain himself and started dancing.

Could there be a happier day?

But his dance of joy was short-lived.

He suddenly stopped.

“But the problem is, we don’t have many high-level hunters, do we?”

“That’s right…”

“Because of that, our stockpile of magic stones isn’t that large either, right?”

“…That’s true.”

The U.S. took a thoroughly defensive stance regarding gates and fissures.

They spared no expense to create as many outposts as possible in their sectors, and when a fissure appeared nearby, they preferred to lure the surrounding monster hordes or bosses to their outposts to deal with them in siege battles.

As a result, the number of hunter deaths, PTSD, and injury rates were negligible compared to Korea, but the trade-off was that their hunters’ levels and the stockpile of magic stones were severely lacking.

“The more high-level monsters you defeat, the more magic stones you get. And to defeat those high-level monsters, you need high-level hunters.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But it’s not like high-level hunters are going to appear out of nowhere right now. What are we going to do about this?”

President Volkov and his secretary fell silent, deep in thought.

Their silence was abruptly shattered by a staff member who knocked urgently and entered the room.

“President Volkov! You need to take this call immediately!”

“What’s the matter? Why so urgent…”

“Please, just take the call!”

Volkov’s reluctant expression brightened dramatically as he took the phone handed to him by the staff member.

“At least 30 tons of stock? Did they really say that? Holy shit!! I’m on my way right now!!!”

The shortage of high-level hunters.

The lack of magic stone reserves.

A saviour who could solve all these problems at once had appeared in the American sector within the gate.