Hoarding In Hell [EN]: Chapter 87

87. These Youngsters Don’t Even Go to Hell These Days (2)

To be honest, I wasn’t interested in who won or lost from the start.

I was just hoping someone would randomly awaken a skill while they were killing each other.

Hyun-woo didn’t feel anything special looking at the hunters’ silence.

It was the reaction he expected. Even if their memories were hazy, they had just finished a fight to the death.

They probably felt like they were being controlled by some unknown force. They must have even thought they could really die.

‘Well, if they drop out here, they drop out,’ Hyun-woo thought.

Hyun-woo chuckled lightly.

“We’ll meet tomorrow in front of the Gyemyeongsan Dungeon in Chungju. Those who want to come can come, and those who don’t, don’t. However, some of you must have realized something from today’s ‘test’: what it means to be under me.”

You can’t grow without experiencing the brink of death. It was a kind of devil’s bargain. Hyun-woo helps the hunters gain the power they want, but the hunters also had to give Hyun-woo something close to their lives.

“Don’t worry too much. I’ll take responsibility for executing your will if something happens. And just so you know,” Hyun-woo said.

Hyun-woo slyly raised the corner of his mouth.

“This is still the easiest stage.”

***

Next, Hyun-woo went to the training camp director’s office with Seo Ji-hoo.

Hyun-woo realized that Seo Ji-hoo’s expression hadn’t changed at all, even after watching a life-or-death battle.

He hadn’t cast Dominate on Seo Ji-hoo. There was no need to waste mana on someone who wasn’t even participating.

No, he actually hoped that the guy would watch and remember everything, and that it would reach the ears of his superior, the pinnacle of corruption.

But he seemed to have even less reaction than the other hunters.

“Do you not have emotions?”

“I often hear that, but I’m raising a dog.”

“Be honest. You’re raising a dog because it obeys any command, right?”

“No. People tend to have positive emotional evaluations when they raise pets. I’m raising it for social image improvement.”

“Be honest. You’re a robot, aren’t you?”

“Command not recognized.”

Hyun-woo looked at Seo Ji-hoo with an extremely disgusted expression. Seo Ji-hoo’s expression didn’t change at all.

“I was just playing along with your joke.”

“Don’t ever make anything that sounds like a joke again.”

When they arrived at the director’s office, Seo Ji-hoo naturally took out the director’s ID card and opened the door. As expected, no one was there.

But Hyun-woo hadn’t come to see the director or whatever. He sat down on the director’s desk as if it were his own sofa.

“What the hell does the manager here do?”

“Director Kim Sung-ho.”

“No, I’m not curious about the name. He’s going to disappear anyway. I’m just wondering how much he’s embezzling for it to be in this state. Do you know where there’s a secret vault or any separately written documents? Judging by the way things are, it wouldn’t be strange if he left it to an intern.”

“Did you say disappear?”

“You only listen to things you shouldn’t. I was joking, so tell me about the latter part. Have you ever touched a document that you thought you shouldn’t touch, or is there a memo with the ID and password of a permanent employee?”

Seo Ji-hoo didn’t answer Hyun-woo and just stared at him quietly.

In Hyun-woo’s eyes, this Seo Ji-hoo was quite smart, but he could see why he was working as an intern.

No matter how you looked at it, he was too strange to be kept as a subordinate, so they probably couldn’t stand him and cut him off at the right time.

The problem was that Seo Ji-hoo also knew he was that kind of guy.

“So you want to know about the corruption in this organization, including the corruption that could lead to the top of the Almighty League.”

The corner of Hyun-woo’s mouth rose.

“Do you know something?”

The corner of Seo Ji-hoo’s mouth also rose.

“I’m a *formal* intern who’s been here for a whole month since joining the company. How could I get paid if I couldn’t even figure out that much corruption?”

Seo Ji-hoo said that and started taking out bundles of documents from behind the cabinet.

He skillfully took out the key hidden under the desk, opened the safe to take out the ledger, and even retrieved the ledger with the secret documents hidden by entering the director’s ID and password.

“This is a double ledger with evidence of embezzling training subsidies and equipment costs from the Almighty League, and a file containing irregularities in national subsidies. This contains evidence of illegally deploying probationary hunters to local services to show off their power against civilians. This is an inflated record of hunter equipment costs…”

Hyun-woo was speechless to see the most secretly rotten parts of the training center exposed so quickly.

“How did you collect all this?”

“Director Kim Sung-ho assigns work to Team Leader Seo Yoon-seok, and Team Leader Seo Yoon-seok passes the ID to Deputy Yoon Tae-ho to handle miscellaneous tasks. Deputy Yoon Tae-ho told me the ID and password and ordered me to tamper with the attendance records with it.”

“Wow, it’s a mess as I expected. The grunts are even worse.”

So, the intern has access to director-level confidential information. Well, they’ve been doing it because there hasn’t been a problem even if they do it this way.

Look at the facilities. There’s no one using them, so there’s no way anyone would come to check or inspect them.

The hunters are all paying for their self-development costs and have lost their monitoring function over the organization, so it was already rotten to the core.

“But why were you collecting all this?”

“Why do you think?”

Seo Ji-hoo answered as if he were asking something obvious.

“Because a group with poor hygiene gets worse in every way.”

Thanks to this obsessive-compulsive whistleblower, things seemed like they would be easier than expected.

“What do you want? You must want something if you’re handing this over so willingly.”

“Branch Manager Kang Hyun-woo, please tell me, you already know what I want.”

Hyun-woo knew the value of these documents well.

It wasn’t just the director’s corruption, but also content that could lead to documents that could shake the entire Almighty League.

He needed to collect a little more data, but once he pulled out the first clue, the rest would surely follow like a string of sweet potatoes [a Korean expression for something that comes easily once you start].

If he handed over something like this willingly, what should he give in return? Money? Fame? Power?

“I’ll think positively about whatever you suggest. Tell me.”

When Hyun-woo smiled and offered a blank check, Seo Ji-hoo opened his mouth seriously.

“I…”

What would this obsessive-compulsive psychopath robot suggest? Hyun-woo was slightly looking forward to it.

“I would like to be hired as a full-time employee.”

“…Full-time employee.”

“The annual salary is at least 32 million won [approximately $24,000 USD]. Anything less is unacceptable.”

“…30 million won [approximately $22,500 USD].”

“Surely that’s not possible? I think that’s worth enough.”

Seo Ji-hoo showed a slightly impatient look for the first time.

He had even pulled out his trump card, but the reaction was so weak. He seemed to be wondering if he was going to eat and run [take advantage and disappear].

Instead of answering, Hyun-woo took out his glasses, the glasses he used to examine the hunters earlier.

Seo Ji-hoo didn’t know what it was, but he realized it wasn’t an ordinary pair of glasses.

When Kang Hyun-woo, who had been standing still, suddenly raised the corner of his mouth slightly, Seo Ji-hoo felt a chill down his spine for the first time. Finally, Hyun-woo opened his mouth.

“You’re fired.”

“I’m a *formal* intern. I can work for at least six months…”

“No, you’re unemployed from today because you’re going to submit your resignation due to personal reasons. And from now on, you’re going to start negotiating your salary with me. The annual salary is 100 million won after taxes [approximately $75,000 USD]. Anything less is unacceptable.”

“100 million won, you say? That seems like too much.”

“Are you negotiating with me right now? 200 million won [approximately $150,000 USD].”

“It hasn’t been proven that this information is worth that much…”

“3…”

“I’ll do it for 200 million won. I’ll prove the rest with my skills.”

The corner of Hyun-woo’s mouth turned up.

“I’m not someone who throws money away, you son of a bitch. If I didn’t think you were worth it, there would be a hundred ways to shut you up. I spent money on *you*, not this information.”

Hyun-woo saw the ability that Seo Ji-hoo had. He was a talent worth spending 200 million, no, even 1 billion won [approximately $750,000 USD] on.

Anyway, he was planning to raise hunters with the money he received from Oh Dae-sung.

***

The next day, Hyun-woo headed to the Gyemyeongsan Dungeon in Jecheon. Seo Ji-hoo was in the passenger seat.

‘How many will come?’ Hyun-woo wondered.

He could expect a significant number to drop out after having a harsh experience.

He would be annoyed if he made a wasted trip, but he didn’t really care. He didn’t need a lot of people anyway. He was planning to plant a tumor inside the Almighty League.

He didn’t need many tumors. They just needed to grow strong and large enough to become Hyun-woo’s hands and feet.

When they arrived, some people stood up when they saw Hyun-woo’s car.

“More came than I expected,” Hyun-woo said.

Eight people.

All the guys who had mastered skills and traits came. There were also guys who hadn’t gained anything, but they seemed to be subtly expecting something, probably because they had heard about it from other hunters.

As expected, a sure reward is more addictive than anything else.

Especially if you can awaken a skill or trait in just one day, you can’t ignore it.

‘That’s why I can’t leave Difficulty: Hell even though I suffer so much,’ Hyun-woo thought.

When Hyun-woo stood in front of them, they all looked at him with fearful but longing eyes. Among them, the one standing at the very front was a hunter named Song Yeo-woon.

Hyun-woo liked his eyes because he was one of the hunters he had been paying attention to.

“Is there any need to say much? Let’s go.”

The hunters, who had expected some kind of encouragement from Hyun-woo, were flustered, but they followed Hyun-woo.

The Gyemyeongsan Dungeon that Hyun-woo headed to was a 3-star dungeon, but it was fixed, so there was no one guarding it except for a few stationed troops on alert.

When the hunters realized that Hyun-woo was really going into a 3-star dungeon, their faces started to turn even paler.

This was also one of the reasons why he told them the dungeon name in advance.

He told them to gather in front of the dungeon, so they would naturally go into that dungeon, and there was no way they wouldn’t search it up.

A 3-star dungeon is equivalent to the Guillotine Dungeon, and it’s a place where their distant superior, Seo Tae-kyung, and countless hunters died.

‘To strengthen your mental strength, you have to overcome the closest trauma first,’ Hyun-woo thought.

As expected, some hunters couldn’t take a step right in front of the entrance.

It didn’t make sense for hunters with the lowest level of 11 and the highest level of 15 to step into a 3-star dungeon when they were only 1-star and 2-star.

Even if Hyun-woo supported them with potions, there were injuries that potions couldn’t heal.

Injuries that are crushed or close to instant death, and excessive bleeding are difficult to recover even with potions.

In the case of lacerations, recovery is impossible if the severed area cannot be found.

Soon, Hyun-woo saw that no one was following him.

Without saying a word, Hyun-woo took out an envelope containing a will from his pocket and tapped it.

You can only lick the sweetest fruit when you’re close to death.

Soon, Song Yeo-woon bit his lip tightly and took a step forward first.

He looked like he was going to pass out just from entering the dungeon. But when one person took a step, the rest started to follow.

Hyun-woo watched all five of them enter and stood in front to enter the dungeon himself.

Then Hyun-woo suddenly noticed someone standing there blankly.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you going in?”

“Huh?”

Seo Ji-hoo looked at Hyun-woo with a flustered expression.

“Did you think I brought you here to show you the scenery?”

“I’m level 1 and have no dungeon experience. The same goes for equipment. According to domestic law, you must successfully attack at least a 1-star dungeon to be allowed to enter an upper-level dungeon. I guess there’s a flaw in me being a full-time employee.”

Hyun-woo smiled and started approaching. Seo Ji-hoo’s expression gradually changed as he thought Hyun-woo was joking.

Hyun-woo was serious about dragging him, who was level 1, into a 3-star dungeon.

“Don’t worry,” Hyun-woo said, reassuring him.

“Compared to the dungeon I first entered, this is nothing.”