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Chapter 358

‘In any case, this is good.’

Choi Yeonseung said lightheartedly, “I appreciate it, even though it’s a regrettable situation. Please don’t take it personally. I have a responsibility to lead Dragon Industry well.”

“...?!?”

The employees of Western Systems were stunned by the sight of Choi Yeonseung shaking hands with Stankey and walking away leisurely after patting him on the shoulder. What just happened...?

“S-stay calm. It must be a bluff,” said Stankey in a shaky voice. However, his fingers were trembling.

“Is... Is it a bluff?”

“It has to be. The advisors at Dragon Industry must’ve given him some advice. They’re trying to pressure us.”

Stankey was convinced. Ever since the Abyssal gate had opened on Earth, dozens of big insurance companies around the world had gone bankrupt.

Unexpected incidents occurred everyday. A giant trading ship had gone missing in a monster raid, a well-known manufacturing company had lost its factory line in a dungeon explosion...

Given that the number of such incidents had increased over the years, companies had developed various measures to deal with them, thus having some semblance of order. In the past, it had been truly chaotic.

There were rules and procedures to determine who was to be held accountable when an incident broke out. But more importantly than that...

-Why is this our responsibility? The government of Country A is at fault for failing to kill the monster properly!

-Why is our country at fault? Country B is to blame for not sending enough hunters to protect their factories!

...The most important thing was to be louder than the others!

It sounded ridiculous, but it was actually true. In a world in which the strong trampled on the weak, everybody had to come off as strong, and in the end, the unfortunate side had to bend over.

“Don’t worry. There won’t be many companies that can supply Dragon Industry with what they need right away. If we don’t budge, he’ll come back to us.”

[President Georges is about to deliver a speech in front of his supporters... Supporters should get excited!]

[The president declares that he will make France even greater... President Georges declares that the upcoming era will be the era of France...]

-Everyone! I made France even greater! I built a French city in the Abyss and beat up those disobedient hunters and corporate bastards!

-Waaaahhhh! Long live the president! Long live France!

“The French are crazy.”

“The very fact that they elected a president like that proves that France is doomed. This would never happen in our great America.”

Stankey watched the news while smoking a cigarette, ridiculing the pitiful state of France. That country had pretty much become the laughing stock of the world; people of all ranks and professions were mocking France.

It was rather amusing. They had elected a man for president who had no experience whatsoever in politics. More absurd was the fact that his popularity was actually growing even though he kept verbally abusing people and mistreating them.

In response to the positive crowd, President Georges shouted even more fervently.

-Look at South Korea in the East! Why was that nation able to become strong? I’ll tell you why! It’s because Koreans know how important it is to sacrifice yourself for your country! Sacrifice yourselves for France!

-Waaaahhhh! Long live the president!

If any Koreans had been present at Georges’ passionate speech, they would’ve been baffled and said, “What sacrifice are you talking about?” Unfortunately, there were no Koreans there, so the French public cheered and applauded President Georges’ speech.

-Here is CEO Belseriff! He’s the leader of a proud French company! Applaud this guy who flattened the nose of an American company and landed an amazing contract this time!

-Waaah! Belseriff! Belseriff!

“...?”

As he sat there and listened to the speech, Stankey suddenly got goosebumps.

Belseriff... Wasn’t he the CEO of Torigava, one of the competitor companies?

“Che... Check it! Check it right now!”

***

Belseriff hugged the staff members upon his return.

“Thank you everyone for your help! If we hadn’t worked hard together, we wouldn’t have been able to sign such a good contract!”

“No, it’s all thanks to your support, Mr. Belseriff!”

“By the way, is President Georges really okay? He seems like he’s got a few screws loose...”

“...Eh, that’s just how he is. Let’s just handle our own business.”

Belseriff knew what his subordinates were worried about. At the moment, President Georges was taking care of Torigava while shouting, “We are French! I take care of French companies!” However, nobody could tell when he would snap and go on a rampage.

“I heard that you met Hunter Choi Yeonseung?”

“What kind of person is he?”

The staff members at the table were eager to learn about Choi Yeonseung. Generally, France didn’t care much about overseas hunters. It was part of their national pride.

No matter what the A-grade hunters in the United States did, the French reported on the performances of the French hunters first, and the French public was only interested in them.

Nevertheless, French people were interested in foreign hunters once in a blue moon. This was the case with Choi Yeonseung.

“My younger brother was in Paris during that siege. Choi Yeonseung saved his life, the only injury being a broken arm.”

“Really? I’m glad some people got away safely from that chaos. How did he break his arm though?”

“Hunter Choi Yeonseung broke it.”

“What? Then can you really say he saved him...?”

“No, you don’t get it. My brother was drinking and refusing to evacuate, so Choi Yeonseung scolded him. He deserved to have his arm broken.”

“Ah. That’s a bit...”

“Hey. Don’t have any illusions about hunters. Choi Yeonseung is human after all. I’m sure he does drugs and kills innocent people behind the scenes just like any other hunter.”

Belseriff waved his hand in response to the conversation of the staff members.

“No, Hunter Choi Yeonseung is a polite and sincere man.”

“Really? I thought that at his level he would only let people into his office if they crawled...”

“Yeah, how do you think Americans are?”

The reactions of the staff members made Belseriff even more embarrassed, but he understood where they were coming from. Hunters were generally arrogant and ill-tempered; the higher their rating, the worse they were.

In addition, the chairmen of large companies were also arrogant and egotistical. Just like hunters, they became worse as they climbed the ladder.

Given that Choi Yeonseung was both an A-grade hunter and a chairman, he was essentially an anomaly for being a nice person.

“But it’s true.”

“Hah... It’s unbelievable.”

In the middle of the conversation, one of the staff members answered a call.

“Yes. Yes? Yes. It’s true... What? He hung up...?”

“What is it?”

“This guy asked me if we really did sign a contract with Choi Yeonseung and then he hung up.”

“Haha, I guess this contract is so amazing that we’ve become famous!”

Belseriff and his staff members congratulated each other. Regardless of anything, they had signed a huge contract. They were going to work hard and make sure that this opportunity wouldn’t go to waste.

***

“What is this?”

“The plant samples that Hunter Han Seha brought back with her. Be careful.”

“Oh my god! Aren’t they really precious?”

“No...”

“...They’re not?”

The researchers at Hanseong Bio were sorting through the plant samples that Han Seha had brought back from China. However, the chief researcher, who was the head of the department, shook his head.

“Hunter Han Seha might be an A-grade hunter, but she doesn’t have eyes for this sort of thing. I guess she just brought us whatever.”

“Ah...”

The researchers sighed.

Ever since the Abyssal gate had opened, plants and animals had been undergoing various changes.

There had been cases of regular people bringing things over to the lab and asking, “Isn’t this wild ginseng?” or “This isn’t wild ginseng, but it has an unusual shape. Wouldn’t this have a stronger effect than wild ginseng?”

However, most of the time, it was just a change in shape. It had taken a lot of specialized skills and research to figure this out.

“Hunter Han Seha was catapulted to the very top. Will our company be okay?”

“She might sell it. Doesn’t the company have a bad track record?”

“T-that...”

“Don’t make a fuss and sort these things out!”

The researchers stopped chatting and got to work. Identifying and analyzing these seeds was tedious and time-consuming work. They took samples one by one, analyzed the ingredients, tested all types of things, and checked the performance...

“Hey, where is that artifact?”

“I’ll bring it to you.”

“Having a hunter here really does come in handy”

“I’m not even E-grade...”

“What does the rank have to do with anything? It’s great that you can supply magic power like this. Do you want to kill monsters here?”

The researchers finished with their tasks one by one and eventually got the results, but they were astonished by them.

“...???”

“What’s wrong?”

“D-did you measure this correctly?”

“Of course, I measured it properly... Hey. Try this again.”

The researchers started trembling. They detected magic power several times more potent than normal in a common type of mushroom.

“Isn’t it really good for detoxification? I think the results came out wrong...”

“No way?!”

“Bring the next one!”’

The researchers proceeded to check the other plants one by one, still confused. It was as if Han Seha had brought only the best out of the hundreds of plants in the field. Every single one of them had yielded amazing results.

“...”

“...”

The researchers looked at each other dumbfounded. What... What was going on?

***

“I managed to get it under control.”

Choi Yeonseung threw the papers aside with a troubled look on his face.

Of course, Torigava was running back and forth trying to provide Dragon Industry with the supplies of core stabilizers that they were missing because of the situation in China.

Choi Yeonseung wasn’t even in charge of all the work. The CEOs of the group took care of their own tasks, but this was still troublesome for him.

‘Once again, I admire Gyeongryong hyung.’

Had Hwang Gyeongryong really been doing such a hard job? On the surface, it had seemed like he was just riding yachts, partying, getting married, getting divorced, and crying...

‘I’ll apologize to him next time I go to my realm.’

“Choi Yeonseung?”

One of the secretaries cautiously knocked on the door and entered his office. Seeing this, Choi Yeonseung suppressed a sigh. He would happily accept training someone in martial arts all day long, but he was instinctively afraid of having to deal with paperwork.

“It looks like one of the hunters in the group will be promoted to A-grade.”

“!”

Choi Yeonseung instantly stood up at the familiar topic. Anything hunter-related would be better than going through a stack of documents.

“Wait. If it’s A-grade...”

“Yes. I’m sure that hunter will be leaving, so I wanted to report it to you.”

“Umm.”

As a company got bigger, it gradually stopped relying on just one top hunter. Instead, it brought in more reliable low-grade hunters.

Those hunters would stop stray monsters from ravaging through their production facilities, gather materials that were only found in dungeons or in the Abyss, develop news spells or artifacts, and so on.

Naturally, Dragon Industry had a large number of hunter clans and was even partners with some of the largest clans.

If a company grew like this, the hunters would naturally evolve in their ratings.

“If it’s A-grade, they’ll probably leave, right?”

“In... In my honest opinion, I think the hunter will leave.”

“I see. I guess so.”

Choi Yeonseung knew how this went.

Working for a company provided a stable income and good treatment, but after reaching A-grade, the hunter was essentially a national treasure, which meant they no longer needed to care about money and treatment from companies.

Perhaps they just wanted to live their lives carefree and enjoy themselves.

“Alright. I have to meet the hunter. I’ll go and see for myself.”

***

Antony sat down, drunk.

He had finally reached A-grade. He had never doubted himself, but he still couldn’t believe that he had finally done it.

-Won’t that bastard get in trouble for being drunk?

-Shh. Let him enjoy himself today.

To Antony, the jealous whispering of the other clan hunters was just background noise, just some birds chirping.

“Hunter Choi Yeonseung is here.”

“!”

Antony’s eyes widened when he heard that Choi Yeonseung had arrived. They were teammates of the same clan, but Choi Yeonseung’s social status was too high to consider him a friend.

However, Antony didn’t care. Hadn’t he finally been promoted to A-grade? He was already anticipating Choi Yeonseung telling him something like “I acknowledge you, Antony. As expected, you are the only one who can lead the poor bastards of Icarus!”

“So, Schneider. When are you going to leave the clan?”

“...”

Antony’s face turned grim at Choi Yeonseung’s words.