Chapter 68: The Path to a B-Rank Hunter (1)

Right after getting out of bed, I immediately prepared to visit the Hunters’ Autonomous Union Guild.

Because Do Sihee had taken me to the department store as soon as we met, the luggage wasn’t small for visiting somewhere immediately without stopping by home, but for me, who had a spatial pocket, this amount of luggage wasn’t even a minor restriction.

It was obviously used for storing monster materials, and it was also quite useful for storing my sword or luggage like this, so perhaps among the items purchased from the point shop, if I had to keep only one, it would definitely be the spatial pocket.

‘…Come to think of it, if I’m going to ‘commute’ to the dungeon, I’ll have to change clothes.’

It doesn’t mean changing from a hotel gown into going-out clothes, but rather changing into attire suitable for activities at the Guild.

The clothes Do Sihee bought me were undeniably high-performance, but still, for sweating inside the dungeon and getting covered in monster blood, a more comfortable outfit for movement would be better.

Above all, the ability to wield a sword was the first thing I leveled up, so a versatile outfit was essentially an outfit that allowed for easy movement. Compared to semi-formal wear, jeans and a t-shirt would be much better for intense movement, right?

While thinking that, as I was opening the shopping bags Do Sihee had delivered to the hotel one by one, I found the clothes I wore when I went out yesterday morning in one of them.

A white t-shirt, light-colored jeans, and ordinary sneakers….

‘……Huh?’

Doesn’t something about my original clothes seem different?

As for the t-shirt design, it was an unbranded item without even a logo from the start, so that’s understandable, but even so, it was a bit strange that the faded jeans had regained their original blue color after being worn for many years. Moreover, the sneakers, which showed signs of wear and tear, looked as pristine as new.

Therefore, this sense of incongruity naturally couldn’t help but cross my mind. The thought, ‘Perhaps, without my knowledge, my clothes were swapped with someone else’s laundry?’

“Judging by the design and size, they seem like my original clothes, but….”

Since they were unbranded items without even a logo, the only means of estimation were the design and measurements, but since those two weren’t wrong, it would be reasonable to assume they were my clothes. However, excluding that aspect, the clothes were practically brand new, so ultimately, there was only one conclusion I could reach.

“It must have been a laundromat run by an Awakened person.”

Some Awakened individuals’ abilities could be useful in society even if they didn’t live as Hunters, so it wasn’t incomprehensible to think that someone with an Awakened ability specialized in laundry had handled my clothes.

Sometimes, the common sense of this world couldn’t be judged by the common sense of the world I lived in during my previous life. If I nitpicked about these things one by one, I’d probably just look unsophisticated.

“Anyway, they really look brand new. The worn-out marks on the inside of the jeans are gone, and the t-shirt had threads coming loose inside too.”

This must be the laundry technique of the rich. Anyway, money really is great. I don’t know if they use such money just for cheap clothes like these, but if it was this much, it would have been better to just ask them to buy me a new cheap one, wouldn’t it?

After changing clothes, I took the hotel card key from the entrance and stepped out of the room. I was determined to somehow achieve results today and step up to become a B-rank Hunter with that resolve.

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In the Hunter Guild, raising one’s rank involves considering many comprehensive factors, but among them, the three most highly valued are capability, diligence, and the number of completed requests.

Capability, of course, refers to the Hunter’s own abilities, making it an essential requirement.

Even in the somewhat haphazard Hunters’ Autonomous Union Guild, promoting a Hunter who lacked the fundamental ability to a higher rank would naturally draw criticism. Therefore, at the very least, ensuring ‘capability’ was a common practice across the three guilds, including the Union, to promote Hunters whose abilities were guaranteed.

Next is diligence. This can be easily explained as similar to a promotion due to long-term service.

Assessing and organizing factors like how consistently one worked as a Hunter without unauthorized absences, how steadily they showed up, and whether they returned with meaningful results each time they came back from an expedition, was what constituted the ‘diligence’ category.

In fact, Han Min-ah, while her capability was close to B-rank, didn’t even rest 3 days a year, and with that insane diligence, she rose to A-rank Hunter status.

If capability was lacking, raising one’s Hunter rank through diligence wasn’t impossible, but for me right now, it wasn’t a factor worth paying close attention to.

Firstly, proving the diligence of a new Hunter who hasn’t even been employed for a month is itself impossible, and more importantly, because diligence is hardly used as a metric for ranking Hunters in the Union Guild.

Unlike companies or foundation guilds where personnel rarely leave once affiliated, the Union Guild still had a strong image as either ‘a place to pass through before joining another guild’ or ‘a place where Hunters affiliated with other guilds pursue their hobby.’

As the guild with the least capital among the three major guilds in Korea, it was an unavoidable reality. Therefore, even if one registered under a suitable alias, they were registered as Hunters without much identity verification, and Hunter rank-ups occurred much faster compared to other guilds.

After all, if a Hunter was too strong for the Union to accommodate, they would quickly move to another guild. Before they leave, to purchase as many high-level monster materials as possible, it was better to quickly raise the rank of affiliated Hunters. It was the better option.

Alternatively, like Cha Yuri, turning a blind eye to her openly sharing the same name as her company and conducting expeditions as a hobby within the Union Guild was how the Hunters’ Autonomous Union survived among the three major guilds in Korea. In fact, many guilds that couldn’t compromise on this aspect perished on this hellish peninsula.

Anyway, in such a Union Guild, people who raised their Hunter rank through diligence were rare. They hardly existed. Moreover, a diligent Hunter could endure frequent expeditions without tiring, meaning their stamina was sufficient. If they had that level of stamina, it was common for them to get hired or switch jobs to a company.

In the first place, to serve as a measure of diligence, one would need to consistently go on expeditions for at least one to two years to prove it. But for me, aiming to switch to a company before the end of this year, it was too long a time commitment. Thus, it was out of the question from the start.

That leaves the last remaining method: the ‘number of completed requests’ that I would use.

Basically, all Hunter Guilds operate on the principle that Hunters obtain monster materials, the Guild purchases them, and then the Guild sells them to those who need them. But sometimes, materials unobtainable through such standard transactions were posted on the Guild bulletin board under the name ‘request’.

Materials that are usually unpopular, so no Hunters go to obtain them, or materials that spoil easily, making them difficult for the Guild to purchase and requiring immediate sale.

Or perhaps, there’s an urgent need for a material, and the Guild is out of stock, causing trouble, etc. There could be various reasons, but I don’t care about those circumstances. I just need to handle those requests swiftly and focus on raising my Hunter rank. Achieving many requests of this type was the fastest shortcut to raising my Hunter rank.

Generally, when accepting requests, Guilds consider profitability and feasibility, but even so, popular and unpopular requests were naturally distinguished.

It could be a request that was truly difficult, so no one attempted it, or the reward conditions weren’t attractive enough to warrant solving it, or Hunters capable of completing the request, for various reasons, might not even be aware of the request’s existence. After all, the Hunter Guild’s website had at least thousands of requests posted.

While there wasn’t a complete lack of search engines for requests, typically, when accepting requests, one would set a specific difficulty level and accept them in order of reward amount, which was the usual practice. Therefore, requests with relatively meager rewards often remained buried at the bottom of the list for a long time.

Completing these kinds of requests before their deadline was also a path that led to the Hunter Guild’s reputation, so when performed, it also had a considerable impact on raising one’s Hunter rank.

Of course, even for mediocre requests, the compensation was better than the Guild’s standard material purchases, so the compensation was decent. From any perspective, it didn’t feel like a loss.

“I’d like to take requests number 96586, 63230, and 119950.”

Therefore, since they hadn’t been accepted for quite some time and were nearing the end of their posting period, I inquired at the counter about three B-rank requests.

“Request number 63230 has a deadline of midnight tomorrow, but is that alright?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

“Understood. I will process three B-rank requests for you.”

On my C-rank Hunter license, engraved with magic runes, after confirming the three request numbers, I immediately headed to the first dungeon and took my steps.

Before tomorrow ends, I planned to complete all three of these requests and quickly set foot on the path to becoming a B-rank Hunter. I planned to move quickly.