The Hero Returns

* * *

“Please send the commission related to the request to Mister Lee Ju-ho. By the way, the dissolution of the Hungry Guild was a service from me, so don’t worry about that.”

After suppressing the acts of terror in Argentina, Su-hyeun learned the whereabouts of the Hungry Guild’s headquarters from Ginovali and attacked it right away.

The Hungry Guild was created around the former S-ranked awakener from Brazil, Jake Ricardo. Right after Ricardo acquired his S-rank, he used his fame to quickly form a terrorist organization.

This guy was one of the most prolific criminals who evaded capture for the past five years. Not only was it difficult to determine where he was but Jake Ricardo was also an S-rank awakener, so even if his location had been found, no one could catch him if he decided to make his escape.

Tracking him had been even more challenging when he mastered the mobile warfare-type skill that enhanced agility, so average S-rank awakeners couldn’t chase him down even if they wanted to.

That’s why the Argentinian awakener authority couldn’t help but get flustered when Su-hyeun dragged the unconscious Jake Ricardo into their building out of the blue.

“T—this man is really Ricardo?!”

No one there had imagined in their wildest dreams that the most-wanted criminal that had been giving Argentina such a headache for the past few years would get apprehended this easily.

Su-hyeun replied, “Confirm his identity, please. Although, he should be the right guy. I’m not sure what he looks like exactly, but an awakener of this man’s capability shouldn’t be that common, to begin with.”

“But, sir, how did you even capture him?”

“I got the location of the Hungry Guild’s headquarters from one of their executives, and when I got there, he started running away the moment he saw my face, so I gave chase and caught him.”

“Excuse me?”

Galeno made a puzzled face at Su-hyeun’s simple explanation. He was an A-rank awakener affiliated with the Argentinian authority who held a pretty high position within the organization. As such, he had quite a lot of information on Jake Ricardo—the one and only Jake Ricardo.

This awakener possessed a skill similar to instant teleportation. As far as mobility was concerned, no one could hope to even catch up to him, so much so that one could say his ability to escape was truly unparalleled in this world.

The halo effect of the S-rank, as well as his “perfect” ability to escape, served as the perfect shield that protected Jake Ricardo despite him perpetrating acts of terror for the past several years.

But then…

“He captured THAT Ricardo in less than one day?!” Galeno thought as he continued to stare at Ricardo with a befuddled expression on his face only to finally realize that Su-hyeun, who had been next to him only a second ago, was gone without a trace.

Just when did he disappear? Galeno hadn’t even detected any movement at all, yet in the blink of an eye, only Galeno and the incapacitated Jake Ricardo on the floor remained in the office.

Galeno hurriedly pulled out his phone and brought up the mug shot of Ricardo. He compared that face to the man currently lying on the floor unconscious with the whites of his eyes showing. With that, the confirmation was complete.

“It…really is him.”

* * *

Su-hyeun rode on Miru’s back to fly to Germany.

A voice coming from the marble Su-hyeun wore around his neck continued to stream into his mind.

“They are being unreasonable, you say?”

“To put it simply, they are saying I just put some garnish on an already-finished dish or something,” the voice said. It was Luslec’s.

The marble allowed Su-hyeun to communicate regardless of the distance between different dimensions. As such, it wasn’t hard to converse with Luslec no matter how fast Miru was going.

“Who is saying that, exactly?”

“They are from the German authority, and they think they are real tough guys or something.”

“I’ll listen to the details once I get there,” Su-hyeun spat out a groan and patted Miru’s back. “Looks like you’ll have to speed up even more.”

Grrrr—

Flap—

Miru began flying even faster at Su-hyeun’s prompt.

From Argentina to Germany, the distance between the two countries was quite vast, but it took only about one hour for him to get there, all thanks to Miru’s flight speed.

Su-hyeun immediately sought out the German Awakener Management Department. When he got to the department located in Berlin, he discovered that not only Luslec and Thomas were there but even Lee Ju-ho had arrived as well.

“You’ve come?” Lee Ju-ho asked while handing over a cup of coffee he had bought earlier.

Su-hyeun was feeling thirsty, so he took a healthy gulp of the coffee and asked back, “I asked Miru to fly a bit faster, actually. In any case, what happened?”

“This…acquaintance of yours managed to stop the outbreak, but then, a problem occurred after all’s said and done, and that’s to do with the ownership of the dungeon.”

“What kind of problem?”

“The main actor who stopped the outbreak is Mister Luslec over here, yet the German authorities are arguing that their role had been far greater, you see.”

“Please tell me the rest while we’re on our way.”

Su-hyeun wanted to wrap up this absurd situation as soon as possible for Luslec’s sake, and he didn’t want to waste his own time on this, either.

Su-hyeun, Lee Ju-ho, Luslec, and Thomas stepped inside the department building. Lee Ju-ho walked next to Su-hyeun and explained the situation, “First of all, they said that they will honor the commission for stopping the outbreak in full. Well, it’s undeniable that we did what they asked us to do, after all.”

“I was thinking of flipping a table or something if they were unwilling to even honor that.”

“The problem is separate from the commission itself and more to do with this indigo-colored dungeon’s Ether stone deposits. The deposit found inside this dungeon must be quite enormous.”

“By how much, exactly?”

“It’s apparently the largest among all the indigo-colored dungeons that have appeared so far. I’m guessing it must be around five times the average.”

“Five times…” Su-hyeun became speechless and chuckled hollowly.

To think that the deposit was around five times of not some average dungeon but other indigo-colored dungeons…

Sure enough, there was a good reason for the German authorities to argue their case until their faces turned blue.

Lee Ju-ho continued, “At the current Ether stone market price, five times a regular indigo-colored dungeon would indeed be an enormous amount of money. To be honest, even I’m getting tempted by that amount, even though I don’t really care about wealth.”

“I’m sure that’s the case, especially when the market price for Ether stones has risen up by several times lately.”

The worth of an Ether stone deposit found inside the indigo-colored dungeon a few years ago was still rich enough for countries to drool over it.

The story was already like that, yet the Ether stone price had gone through the roof by several times recently, which meant that the monetary value of Germany’s indigo-colored dungeon boasting five times the deposit of other average indigo-colored dungeons would’ve been dozens of times higher compared to several years ago.

“And that’s why they are ‘asking’ us to yield the indigo dungeon’s ownership?”

“Of course, they haven’t asked us to completely yield the ownership since our side did the majority of the work.”

“Okay, what then?”

“The split of one to nine, and we are the ‘one.’ It’s literally putting a garnish on a finished plate.”

“What about confirming the truth?”

“Mister Luslec over here did basically everything by himself. Never mind the boss, even the number of monsters flooding out was ridiculous, you see. Honestly, I was seriously concerned, but…” Lee Ju-ho trailed off and stared at Luslec. The latter shrugged his shoulders with a triumphant look on his face.

Lee Ju-ho shook his head as if he just couldn’t figure it out. “Well, let’s talk about it later. In private.”

“Okay, got it,” Su-hyeun replied.

It was obvious what Lee Ju-ho was thinking about. His face was filled with questions regarding just from where Su-hyeun had found a guy like Luslec.

“Mister Su-hyeun?”

While the quartet walked to the meeting place with the awakener authority’s government minister, Luslec suddenly called out to Su-hyeun.

The latter looked back and Luslec leaned in to whisper quietly into his ear. Su-hyeun heard what the other party had to say and furrowed his brows ever so slightly.

“What do you think?”

“It’d be nice if things don’t devolve that far.”

“Still, you never know, am I right? I mean, plenty of folks get blinded by wealth all the time, after all.”

Su-hyeun had to agree with what Luslec said just now.

Money and power could easily blind people that they would fail to see the distant future ahead of them. In the end, those things would turn into poison that gnawed away at their lives, especially more so in a case like this one.

Issues over raiding a dungeon and its ownership occurred quite regularly, and it got especially more troublesome in cases like an outbreak where the “raiding” did not happen in what would be called a normal circumstance.

“For now, let’s hear what they have to say first.”

The four of them finally reached the conference venue.

They individually revealed their identities and stepped inside to take in the sight of a round table and people sitting around it.

The Awakener Management Bureau’s minister and his deputy, as well as a large contingent of high-ranking officials from the German government, were present.

“Welcome, welcome. We’ve been waiting for you.”

They welcomed Su-hyeun with smiling faces, and the first person to walk up and offer his hand for a shake was the minister of the Awakener Management Bureau, Louis Hesse.

Su-hyeun grasped that hand and lightly bowed his head. No preamble was made, and the four, including Su-hyeun, settled down on empty seats. Thomas continued to look around the conference venue in amazement, while Luslec was clamping his mouth shut.

The first person to speak was Lee Ju-ho. “It is quite unfortunate that we have to meet under the current circumstances. It seems that our opinions in this matter are not in line with the others’.”

“That is certainly regrettable. However, when it comes to opinions, we can always come to a compromise, isn’t it so? The Paragon Guild is Germany’s benefactor, so please, do not hesitate and speak what is in your mind,” said Louis Hesse while chuckling magnanimously.

His smile made him seem like a good-natured person. In fact, that expression of his suggested that he might say yes to everything being asked of him.

However, Su-hyeun already knew full well what Louis Hesse’s expression really meant.

Click, click—

Paht, flash—

Camera flashes exploded in every conceivable direction.

They came from the reporters of the German news media. Flooding this conference venue with them was meant to prevent Su-hyeun from being too strong-willed on this occasion.

As for that smile, it was just a type of acting, and Su-hyeun had seen that sort of a smile countless times before.

“The split of nine to one, right?” Su-hyeun’s lips distorted in a smirk. “It seems that I didn’t get your message properly. Germany takes nine, while Paragon Guild walks away with only one. Is that true?”

“No, you heard correctly.”

“Even though the German authorities haven’t done anything?”

Su-hyeun didn’t beat around the bush and directly drove the knife into the heart of the matter.

He asked, what exactly have you done?

What did you do that warranted you taking away the 90 percent of the split?

“What do you mean, we haven’t done anything?”

“Well, if you want to argue that you did something by sending in four of your country’s S-rank awakeners even though you had no strength to raid that dungeon, which then resulted in the death of three of those awakeners, then yes, you certainly have done something.”

Louis Hesse frowned a little at Su-hyeun’s retort. He was obviously trying hard to maintain his smiling facade, but he must’ve determined that now was a good time to harden his expression because the corners of his lips did come down naturally. “You are crossing the line there, sir.”

“I only spoke of the truth, but you think that’s crossing the line? Are you suggesting that we should lick your boots today instead?” Lee Ju-ho spoke up next. “Attempting an impossible raid, then leaving a dungeon alone despite knowing that an outbreak was imminent, and after we stopped that, you now argue about taking away 90 percent of the dungeon’s ownership.”

“Of course, we’re grateful for your help. However, it’s also true that Germany’s awakeners have valiantly sacrificed themselves to greatly decrease the number of the monsters inside the dungeon. Our position is that we simply can’t forego acknowledging their sacrifices and hard work, that’s all.”

“We fully understand the unfortunate circumstances of the German authorities and all the losses you’ve incurred. However, one should also know when to separate personal from business matters.”

“How can you even think about separating those two issues? This matter is—”

Thud—

Even before Louis Hesse could finish his sentence, a loud and heavy noise resounded inside the conference venue.

Everyone’s gaze shifted in the direction of the source of that noise. Luslec was there, busy cackling away with both of his legs relaxedly perched upon the round table.

The noise from a second ago came from him placing his legs on the table’s surface.

“What kind of disrespectful behavior is this?” Louis Hesse said and furrowed his brows deeply while staring at Luslec.

The German minister already knew that the latter was a powerful awakener, thanks to this event, but even then, to think that he would make such a flippant smile and an attitude to match.

It wasn’t just Louis Hesse but all the others present in the conference venue were sending displeased gazes in Luslec’s direction.

“But it’s funny, isn’t it? Wait, maybe not?” Luslec looked around him before making a puzzled face. He wiped the smile off his face, and then while shrugging his shoulders, asked a question, “I mean, you were basically asking us to mop up all the crap you pooped out, weren’t you? Maybe I heard you wrong?”