Infinite Evolution Hunter [NOVEL] - chapter 33
President Yang half-jokingly, half-seriously bowed his head to me at the suggestion that he also serve as president of Regen.
“Please don’t do that. Chairman, come on. You can call me the same as always.”
I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back up.
From that day on, the people at the factory started calling me Chairman.
Since we needed a lot of ogre hide as material for Regen’s items, I rushed into every ogre gate as soon as it opened and kept running them, and an ogre hide shortage broke out on the market. Other hunters came too, but they couldn’t keep up with my hunting speed. A B-rank or higher hunter might be faster than me, but they had no reason to bother with a D-rank gate.
Because of that, the material purchasing companies, now in a panic, sent sales reps. They had urgent deliveries to make but no material.
“Hunter Lee Ji-seok. Could you please sell just a little bit to our side? We’ll buy at the highest market price.”
They’d been high-handed before, but now they’d even brought gifts and were bowing low, desperate to get material from me.
“You slammed the door in our faces before, and now you come here?”
“Us?”
He looked at me with wide, startled eyes, like he had no idea.
“Go back and ask Purchasing Manager Park at your receiving office.”
“Uh, well…”
“You can go.”
I sent the sales rep who had come to the factory away. The rep himself probably wasn’t personally at fault, but it was that company’s power-tripping that had brought things to this point. You reap what you sow.
Not that a company that size was going to be seriously shaken just because of me and Regen.
But Regen and Hwagok Collection only had growth ahead of them now. Once we got big enough, we’d start buying other hunters’ mana stones and byproducts to scale up further. When that happened, companies like that wouldn’t be able to look down on us anymore.
“President, the training for the new staff is finished, right?”
“Yes, everyone’s settled into their positions now.”
“Then please have Manager Kim and the Hwagok Collection employees go back to collection work. Now that things are stable here, we need to start running gates hard again.”
“Understood.”
I hadn’t been able to focus on my own growth while we were busy with materials. Now I needed to focus on my development again.
Two months passed while we set up and ran Regen. But I hit level 30 while gathering materials, and looking at the long-term profits that would come out of Regen, it wasn’t a loss—it had been a very productive time.
Once Regen stabilized and I could hunt with peace of mind, I spotted a villain I’d seen in my previous life inside a gate and froze.
The first time I saw him, I doubted my eyes. I hadn’t known he’d already been active as a hunter this early.
The hunter who’d used a shining sword like Sang-heon’s Light Sword in my previous life. An A-rank hunter in silver full plate armor, wielding a sword wrapped in light—excellent in skill and known for his good deeds, a kind of model hunter. At least until his crimes came to light.
This psychopath had kidnapped civilians, kept them confined, played with them like toys, and then killed them.
His crimes weren’t exposed until more than seven years from now. In chaotic times, the case had thrown people even deeper into despair. After all, the A-rank hunter everyone admired had turned out to be a serial killer.
They never even caught him. In the end, when the monster-filled world collapsed a few years later, he probably died then.
The current problem was that I didn’t know whether this guy had once been normal like Na-young and turned villain after some incident, or whether he’d been a born psychopath like Choi Mi-ran from the start.
“Hello. Would you like to party up? I’m C-rank.”
To check, I approached him first. Like with Choi Mi-ran, I might catch him slipping up on-site, and now that I could detect lies, figuring out what kind of person he was wouldn’t be hard.
He wasn’t yet earning like he would in the future, wearing D-rank-appropriate light armor instead of that shiny plate.
“Really? It’d be an honor for us, but are you sure? We’re all D-rank…”
“It’s fine. I get nervous going alone too. We can split the loot evenly by headcount.”
For a D-rank party, an ogre gate was the right difficulty, but unexpected threats like a Twin-head spawn could still appear. With a C-rank hunter along, their safety was guaranteed, and with no reduction in their share, there was no reason to refuse. And judging from their looks, they’d been in the gate a fair while already.
“That would be great, actually!”
So far, there was no malice or attempt to deceive me in anything he’d said.
“Shall we go, then?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Lee Ji-seok. I’m a brawler. What are your names?”
“I’m swordsman Seo Kyung-hyeon.”
“I’m Yoon Hye-eun. Mage.”
“An Hye-joo. Melee DPS.”
An Hye-joo tossed the words out without even looking at me.
“Ha ha… Hye-joo’s just shy with strangers.”
Seo Kyung-hyeon actually covered for her.
Fighting together, he handled his light-clad sword with practiced skill. Personality aside, his technique was something I wanted to show Sang-heon. The light around his blade was larger and his power stronger than Sang-heon’s. He was on the strong side among D-ranks; at this rate, he’d probably promote to C-rank soon.
“What’s that skill called?”
After the fight, I asked him.
“Justice Sword.”
“Justice sword, huh?”
“Embarrassing name, I know. It’s a secret, but this skill gets stronger when I do righteous deeds, and weaker if I do anything unjust.”
There was no lie in that either.
At least so far, he hadn’t committed any crimes.
“Hye-eun, Hye-joo, have some of this.”
“I’ll gather the drops, so you three get some rest.”
The whole time in the gate, Seo Kyung-hyeon not only showed excellent combat skill, but also took care of the party while he himself was tired, showing kindness and leadership.
He looked like nothing but a good guy. With Choi Mi-ran, my senses hadn’t been as sharp as they were now, so I hadn’t recognized her right away—but this was different. No matter how I looked, this guy didn’t seem evil. Maybe he was a case like Na-young.
Even so, something bothered me. Unlike with Na-young, the uneasy feeling wouldn’t go away.
I decided I’d have to keep an eye on him, so after we cleared the gate I asked for his number.
“For me, that’d be great. If we party again later, please take care of us. Today felt like we were on a bus run thanks to you.”
He laughed easily.
“Sure. Looking forward to it.”
“You’re not exchanging numbers with the others?”
“No, I’m fine.”
I didn’t feel the need to.
“Then let’s leave it here for today and talk again next time we go out.”
Putting away my phone, I left the two women glaring at me in disbelief behind.
“President Yoo, how’ve you been?”
Back at my car after leaving the gate, I called Hyun-sung Detective Agency.
“Yes. We’ve been well, thanks to you.”
“Not doing anything shady?”
“No. Just finding family for people in trouble or tracking down debtors.”
“Good. Need money? I’ve got someone for you to dig up.”
That nagging feeling still wouldn’t go away.
“What’s the name?”
“Name’s Seo Kyung-hyeon, D-rank hunter, about 180 tall, slim build. His phone number is…”
“Yes, with that much, he won’t be hard to find.”
“Check if he’s got any dirt on him. And obviously, you don’t get caught. Don’t make contact or do anything weird. Just gather information.”
“We do this for a living. Leave it to us.”
“Then I’m counting on you.”
A few weeks passed after I handed over the case.
“Hunter Lee Ji-seok, I’m calling about the Seo Kyung-hyeon investigation.”
President Yoo from the agency rang.
“Anything turn up?”
“I’ve never seen anyone this clean in a background check. He’s got a great reputation among fellow hunters, volunteers on his days off, and donates a lot. So far, he doesn’t even touch light stuff like alcohol or cigarettes.”
“Yeah?”
“The other day, I saw him bring a homeless guy home and feed him. And since we haven’t seen the guy come out, I think he let him stay over too.”
“…He hasn’t come out? He went in a few days ago, right?”
“He went in four days ago, and we haven’t seen him come out since.”
“You’re watching twenty-four-seven?”
“We set cameras all around his detached house. If anyone had come out, we’d know it.”
“Inside the house?”
“We’ve been peeking from a distance through the windows. Security’s really tight, and setting cameras in a hunter’s house is too easy to get caught, so we didn’t.”
“I’m coming over. Let’s talk at the office.”
“S-sir? What’s going on? Hello?”
I hung up and headed straight for the office. The homeless guy who’d gone in and not come back out bothered me too much.
“Hello!”
When I walked in, the agency staff all jumped up and greeted me loudly.
“Yeah, hey.”
I waved them back into their seats.
“President Yoo, I need to get into that house. How can I do it without being detected?”
“There are sensors on the wall. And cameras all around the perimeter. If you approach carelessly, the private security company will be called.”
“So I just need to get over the wall?”
“No. Once you’re over, there are motion-detecting cameras in the yard. It’ll take time to figure out any blind spots. Right now, unless you drop in from the sky, there’s no way.”
“Then that works. I’ll just come down from the sky.”
“Excuse me? You can use flight magic?”
“Something similar. What then?”
“If you can get onto the roof without being detected, our youngest, Min-woo, can pick the lock on the door.”
“Is he good with locks?”
“My skill is Transformation.”
The guy called Min-woo shaped his finger into a key.
“That’s neat. Can’t you make it into a weapon?”
“I can, but it’s only a little stronger than bone. If it hits a real weapon, it’ll just shatter.”
Well, if it were a great skill, he probably wouldn’t be working at a detective agency.
“Got it. Just open the door. What’s his schedule?”
“He’s going out tonight to volunteer at a soup kitchen for the homeless, so he’ll be home late. But… is this really necessary?”
“Just do what I say.”
After the sun had fully set, we climbed to the roof of a building near Seo Kyung-hyeon’s house.
“Do you know exactly where the homeless guy is in the house?”
“No. He hasn’t come near the windows in the past few days. You think that homeless guy might be dead?”
President Yoo asked beside me.
“Maybe. I’ve got a bad feeling. Min-woo, come here.”
Wearing my suit up to the top of my head, and with Min-woo dressed black the same way, I scooped him up in a princess carry.
“Boss… are you sure this is okay?”
“It’s not like I’m happy about holding you. Shut up or you’ll bite your tongue.”
I lowered my stance and put power into my legs. As my thighs swelled and I jumped, I pushed mana into the suit to trigger the levitation magic.
“Heeek!!”
We shot tens of meters into the air, splitting the night sky.
“I jumped a bit too hard. Hold on tight.”
“Y-yes…”
He clung to my neck.
We hit the peak and began to fall. I adjusted the levitation so we descended at a parachute’s pace.
“Down.”
Landing on the roof, I dropped Min-woo, who’d been clinging to me.
“Think you can get us in now?”
“Yes, if we use that door. There’s no security hooked up to it.”
Naturally, they hadn’t expected anyone to come down from above.
“Let’s go.”
Jung Min-woo transformed his fingers, slid them into the keyhole, and had the door open in no time.
We carefully opened it and went inside, then headed down to the second floor. The interior was nice and well-kept, but there was an eerie feeling in the air.