"Yes, yes, I understand, don't worry. Mr. President, please go in. Lee Deputy, I called you earlier...!"
After hanging up the phone and opening the office door, Mr. Park stopped dead in his tracks.
The office was in shambles.
Three guards lying on the ground, tears in one corner, a runny nose, and pants soaked with urine.
"...Moo, what happened? Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Wake up!"
Shake the unconscious Lee Sang-chul to wake him up.
"...Ba, Chief Park...."
"You, what's wrong with you? What's wrong with the office? What the hell happened to you?"
"Dr. Park! Black! Some madman...some madman...came in here...grrrr!"
It was Lee Sang-cheol who could barely speak through his sobbing voice.
"So you're saying that a hero came and made them like this, and he's strong enough to turn C-class guards into that?"
"Yes! That bastard was crazy! He told me to take a one percent commission on my own terms... Black!"
"So, where's the money?"
"That's...."
He did indeed take the 1% commission and left with cash.
The only good thing is that I didn't leave the crystal stones behind.
But even the gate center that officially buys and sells the stones takes 5% in commission.
That left only a 1% commission... I can't say it was outright robbery, but it was still too much.
"How dare you! Did you take a picture of him? Did you take his name? Did you take his age and where he lives? No, it's all there, right?"
Enraged, Mr. Park gritted his teeth as he checked the three CCTV cameras in the office and found them to be working properly.
At that moment, Deputy Lee Sang-cheol said.
"That bastard... said he'd come back again."
"...He'll come again?"
"He said we'll have a cool deal in the future...."
Chief Park Chulwoon could only stare in disbelief at the ridiculous sound of the words, which poured cold water on his anger.
* * *
He earned 9 million won for a single trip to the C-class gate.
"When will I make 110 billion?"
Even if he hunted at the C-class gate every day, he couldn't calculate the amount.
"I need to go to a higher tier...."
However, gate hunting doesn't get easier the higher the rank.
Regardless of the difficulty of the monsters, gate management is tight.
Unless you're a full-fledged Hero, it's not as easy to enter unauthorized gates as a Class C gate, and you'll probably get into a fight with the control center staff before you can even hunt the monster.
In short, you're going to have to start from scratch, and then you're going to hunt monsters and get Spirit Stones?
No matter how I thought about it, it was just a waste of time and a lot of hassle.
"Should I get hero status?"
But I was reluctant.
I didn't like the idea of my identity being known to certain organizations.
I didn't like the idea of my identity being known to certain organizations, and I didn't like the idea of being labeled as a hero, and the obligations that come with being a hero.
Plus, the taxes are exorbitant.
Just an intermediate-level spirit stone costs 2 million won a piece.
Higher grades, intermediate and upper intermediate, cost 5 million and 10 million won, respectively.
You can get all three of these types of gems by hunting only Class B gates.
In short, you can easily earn hundreds of millions of won in a single day of hunting.
Do you think the government would let that happen?
It's impossible.
In the name of gate management, they impose huge taxes.
Right now, the fee for the spirit stones alone is 5 percent, and if you add in all the other taxes, the net amount of money that actually comes in from the sale of a 10 million won high-end spirit stone is less than half, or 5 million won.
"The selfishness of those in power is the same everywhere."
Part of me wanted to rip them to shreds, but what difference would that make?
New greedy people would just fill the void again.
At least the trading of the crystal stones in the Gasan Hero Complex was tax-free, even if it was illegal.
"I'll be good to do business with you in the future."
Shoving the business card in his hand into his pocket, Sanae gazed out at the crumbling houses.
"If only."
Clicking his tongue, Sana pushed open the gate of the ramshackle house with his hand.
A snap.
The gate swung open with an unpleasant clang.
"Is it Dojun?"
"Big brother!"
The voice was both phlegmatic and weak.
The window, barely there to keep out the rain or the wind, creaked open, and a skinny old man and an equally ugly girl stuck their heads out.
"Please, please... please, just take care of Grandma and Eun-young!"
It was the grandmother and sister with whom the man, the owner of the body named Seo Do-joon, lived, and with whom he would have to live in the future.
* * *
The world I lived in was destroyed.
Suddenly, a giant hole opened up in the sky, and countless monsters poured out.
This happened all over the continent.
People were forced to fight monsters to survive, and that's how I spent my entire life.
To maintain my family's honor, I had to abandon my dreams of becoming a great knight and living for the empire, and I had to wield my sword solely to live, to protect what was left of my family.
Days, months, years, and even decades passed in a blur.
I lost track of time, fighting and fighting and fighting, and before I knew it, people were calling me Sword Guy, then Sword King, and finally Sword God.
With a single sword, I could cut down any monster, and I was not afraid.
But no matter how many times he was called the Sword God, he could only do so much.
With each kingdom that fell, each empire that faltered and fell again, my allies who fought alongside me died and left my side.
What broke my heart more than anything was the fact that my friends and comrades had turned to the side of the monsters.
They gave up being human and became monsters themselves, helping to destroy the world.
The monsters and the humans who sided with them accelerated the destruction of the world.
At first, I was angry at the betrayal and took out my anger by killing everything in sight. I didn't hesitate, even if it was an ally I had once trusted with my back.
If anything, their ugliness, worse than monsters, made me lose my senses.
But as time went on, the hatred and anger slowly faded away, leaving me with only a terrible sense of emptiness, wondering what I had taken up my sword for.
As I watched the world fall apart day by day, my own emotions dried up, and I cut down like a machine anything that stood in my way, whether it was a monster or a human.
I killed, and killed, and killed, and killed, until I was the only one left.
"Give up. Your world is doomed."
I hadn't had a sip of water and had been wielding my sword for days when the thing that had caused all this appeared.
Resembling a human, but by no means human, he spoke fluent languages and acted rationally, not on instinct.
"Your talent is wasted, be my sword."
I shouted back, and with the last of my strength, I slashed at him.
The creature's fingers were sliced off by the last of my strength, and then he ravaged my body in a fury.
My shoulders were shattered, my arms ripped off, my legs severed.
"No matter how vicious you are, you are nothing but a worm to me."
At the sight of my impending death, he relaxed, as if he didn't need to look at me anymore.
At that moment, I launched myself at him, slashing at the ground with my barely mobile elbow for the final blow.
It wasn't much of an attack, to be honest, it was just a near-death lunge.
It was a useless act, like a fly slamming into your body.
He knew it, and he didn't stop me.
He merely stared at me with a look of disbelief.
Until I bit off his jewelry.
"You... you!"
His expression widened, and his voice grew urgent.
The blue jewelry he was wearing.
I don't know what it was, but it was the only jewelry on his bare body, and I intended to take whatever he had with me upon my death.
Boom!
With that, the blue jewel shattered.
"Ah, no, no, no!"
Hearing his near-scream, I blacked out, feeling myself being sucked into something.
Death.
That's what I recognized as death.
But.
As my blurry mind returned, I could see what looked like a puff of white smoke floating in front of me.
"Nu, who are you?"
It wasn't a voice, but a language that echoed in my head.
Who are you?
"Seo Do-joon, my name is Seo Do-joon. I'm... dying."
Funnily enough, I had entered the body of a dying man.
Not the one I was living in, the one that had already been destroyed, but the body of a human from a completely different world.
I, and this man, Do-Joon Seo, shared each other's memories.
Since two souls cannot inhabit one body, one must perish.
"If you grant my request... I will quietly disappear as I am."
Why would I?
I don't have any more regrets in my life.
I've barely finished my hard life, so what's the point of living in your body?
And you're already dying, aren't you?
Your soul will die naturally, no matter what I do.
"That, that's...."
He was speechless, as if he'd been hit on the nail on the head.
Judging by the way the white smoke that was supposed to be his soul flickered and wavered uneasily, it wouldn't take long for it to dissipate.
"Please. Please... please... just be responsible for Eun-young and Grandma."
There is nothing more cruel to ask of me than to be responsible for someone.
I firmly said no, and he pleaded with me again and again.
After a while, he cried out in desperation.
"It's easy for you! I'm asking you to help Eun-young become independent! I'm asking you to help my grandmother live out her last days in peace! If you don't help me... if you refuse my request to the end, I'll kill you...."
So, what are you going to do?
I asked sarcastically, but he said nothing.
I know his past, just as I know mine.
A good man, a weak man.
"I beg you. Please, please, please. Please, please, please. Please."
His soul flickered faster and faster as he sobbed and repeated the same words.
It was a sign that his time of annihilation was near.
Take your pick.
I'll only listen to one.
Tell me what you want.
You'd better not make too many broad, sweeping demands.
Be clear, tell me the one thing I can do for you.
Even as he neared annihilation, he hesitated, and it wasn't until he was almost gone that he said to me.
"What I want is...."