Chapter 24 – Solo Raid (５)

‘Three hours and twenty-one minutes.’

A monumental record that would go down in human history.

And that wasn’t all.

He’d even made Triple Casting possible.

The harvest from this dungeon was beyond words.

And now.

“G-Gijun… Mr. Gijun!”

Woo Jimin.

She bolted upright and sprinted toward him.

Her eyes burned with fierce determination.

The resolve that she would never let Gijun slip away.

She wanted only one thing.

For Hwarang to become the world’s top guild.

And the talent who could make that dream a reality stood right before her now.

Why would she care that her own record had been broken?

No—she was actually thrilled.

Because a Superhuman like him was in front of her, and Hwarang had found that talent first.

In an instant, she was before him, grabbing both his hands.

“L-Love…! No, I mean… c-can you talk with me for a bit?”

Her eyes glistened, on the verge of tears, and at Woo Jimin’s desperate plea, Gijun nodded.

*

Gijun and Woo Jimin sat facing each other in her office.

Cha Miyeong was there too.

After all, Miyeong was the Branch Manager of Seoul’s Southern Branch and the one who had personally recommended Gijun to Jimin.

Cha Miyeong, too, hadn’t said a single word since Gijun had come out of the Dungeon.

She looked almost dazed.

Woo Jimin was the same.

With Gijun sitting right in front of them, she just kept shifting her eyes, like she didn’t know where to even begin.

Then she looked at the Vice Guild Master.

A desperate look.

The Vice Guild Master felt that gaze: Please, just say something. Start us off. Anything.

“Haa…”

Finally, the Vice Guild Master let out a sigh and looked at Gijun.

“Alright, Mr. Gijun.”

The Vice Guild Master spoke his name.

“First, may I ask you one thing?”

“…Yes.”

Gijun already had a pretty good idea.

What kind of question was coming.

It’s about the Circle.

It was an obvious curiosity.

Woo Jimin’s record-breaking feat.

That wasn’t something a mage with Mana Circle Formation Disorder — a mage with only a single Circle — could possibly pull off.

No matter how brilliant the talent, it would be like flipping the world’s natural laws on their head, turning the sky upside down.

“We want to know about your current condition, Mr. Gijun. Of course, you don’t have to answer. But we’re planning to make a massive investment in you, and I believe this is something we absolutely need to understand.”

Everything the Vice Guild Master said was right.

But Gijun had nothing he could say.

“My Circle is still only one. And I don’t know anything more about the Mana Circle Formation Disorder itself.”

“What do you mean…”

At those words, everyone in the room had their eyes waver.

Faces that seemed to say they had no idea what Gijun was talking about.

“Are you saying you really still only have one Circle?”

“Yes.”

“…That’s impossible.”

“What?”

Cha Miyeong and Woo Jimin both stared at Gijun with blank eyes.

It was something none of them could have even imagined.

“How is this possible?”

“Is that… feasible?”

“…Well. At least within what I know…”

All eyes were on Gijun.

The Vice Guild Master asked carefully.

“If it’s alright with you… how about undergoing a Mana Diagnosis?”

A Mana Diagnosis.

It was like a kind of medical checkup.

Examining your mana capacity, potential, and all.

A process to see if there are any issues.

“Alright.”

Gijun agreed readily.

In truth, he was curious himself.

He wanted to know what kind of change had actually happened to his body.

*

About three hours later.

Gijun’s diagnosis results came back.

Gijun and the other three were looking at the report together.

“…I can’t believe it.”

“Really, this is a result beyond imagination.”

The Vice Guild Master and Woo Jimin both gasped at the same time.

Gijun was just as shocked.

[Condition: Mana Circle Formation Disorder]

[Formable Circle Count: 1]

[Mana Capacity: D]

[Mana Purity: S]

[Mana Potential: ?]

“…This is pretty confusing.”

“That’s impossible!”

Woo Jimin shouted.

It was real.

Numbers she had never even imagined.

The Mana Circle Formation Disorder was still there.

And the number of circles he could form? Still just one.

This was identical to Gijun’s previous condition.

The problem came next.

“A First Circle with D-grade mana reserves? What the hell is this?”

“D-grade… that far surpasses the average mana pool of a First-Circle mage.”

She was right.

It meant Gijun held mana that a single circle had no right to contain.

This was a phenomenon that defied physics itself.

Utterly incomprehensible.

“Is this thing broken?!”

At Woo Jimin’s words, the Vice Guild Master shook his head.

“That can’t be. We inspect and maintain it every month. Haven’t you always said, Guild Master, that knowing our Superhumans’ true status is our greatest weapon?”

“I did say that…” she admitted.

Just how unbelievable this was.

“Mana purity: S… and potential: a question mark?”

“……”

Mana purity.

That number was directly tied to a spell’s sheer power.

S was unequivocally the highest tier.

A talent that only an infinitesimal fraction of mages possessed.

And the potential for total mana capacity? It was literally immeasurable.

“……”

Woo Jimin looked at Gijun.

Her eyes seemed to drip honey.

At this moment, being a First Circle or having Mana Circle Formation Disorder?

That shit no longer mattered at all.

Gijun felt it too.

‘…I might have become something more incredible than I thought.’

In that instant, his assessment of the situation was complete.

He was unmistakably in the position of power here.

Sure, Hwarang was a massive, formidable guild.

But he had absolutely no reason to cower before its name.

‘An opportunity.’

Gijun thought that at the same time.

This was his chance.

‘Not joining a guild would be a stupid choice.’

A guild wasn’t just a brute-force organization.

It was also a political body that wielded a kind of political power.

Even a single dungeon was tangled in countless interests and overlapping political forces.

‘No matter how skilled you are, it’s hard for an individual to beat a guild’s power.’

Gijun wanted to grow fast.

Faster than anyone.

‘So of course I’m joining a guild.’

The question now was which guild to join.

Honestly, if it was among the top ten guilds, the benefits you could enjoy were almost identical.

So what mattered most to Gijun was…

‘How much does it benefit me?’

Yeah.

That was it.

How well it aligned with his goals, and how much support it could give him to achieve them.

‘I’m going to be the best. To do that, I need to grow faster than anyone.’

That was Gijun’s goal.

A wish he’d held for a long time.

To become the greatest Superhuman.

But Gijun had wasted too much time.

So what he needed now was support.

Support aimed at him.

‘If I get that, it doesn’t matter where I go.’

“Ahem. Hm.”

The Vice Guild Master straightened in his seat.

His gaze settled on Gijun, serious and unwavering.

“To be honest, we don’t have much to say. You’re not under a formal contract with us yet, and you could go to another guild anytime.”

“No!”

Woo Jimin cut him off sharply.

She couldn’t bear to hear the words ‘another guild.’

“I wasn’t finished.”

“I’m sorry…”

The Vice Guild Master’s firm tone made her shoulders slump.

“Let me start over. You could certainly go to another guild, Mr. Gijun. We have no way to stop you if you do. So we have only one thing to say: trust our guild.”

“……”

“I’ll say it plainly. We have pride. We’re going to rise to the top. And we won’t hold back on any support for you.”

Trust me.

Those two words sent a cascade of thoughts through his mind.

That had always been his line.

Just trust me this once.

I’ll work hard.

Can’t you give me a chance?

…All of it.

But now the tables had turned.

He was the one listening, the one who could weigh the offer.

And from Hwarang, no less?

“……”

As Gijun stayed silent, Jimin spoke.

“Check it out.”

She’d already snapped back to herself, sliding a document across the table.

A contract.

Not an ordinary one.

It was completely blank.

“Write down whatever you want.”

In short, a blank check.

She was saying she’d accept any condition he named.

Honestly, even Gijun was surprised.

‘She’s going this far?’

It meant she wanted him that badly.

“Less than three people have received this from our guild, Mr. Gijun.”

She hammered the point home.

Yet even as she spoke, she looked tense.

Her eyes betrayed a fear that he might refuse.

“You’re worth it, Mr. Gijun. I’ll give you anything short of handing over the guild itself.”

“……”

It was utterly unprecedented.

Which meant she valued him that highly.

Of course, Gijun knew the flip side.

‘…And if I stall out, the price will be brutal.’

If he failed to meet expectations, the responsibility would be his alone.

Not that he had any reason to be afraid.

Because he had confidence, and certainty.

“All right.”

Gijun answered.

Far from intimidated, he pressed even further.

‘…What if I take this guild to the very top of the world?’

He imagined it—raising Hwarang to its peak.

It didn’t feel impossible.

It felt well within his reach.

Then—

“Yes! Hooray!”

Woo Jimin let out a cheer.

The Vice Guild Master and Cha Miyeong didn’t shout aloud, but they clenched their fists tight.

It showed just how tense they had been.

Only moments ago, their heads had been full of anxiety at the thought of losing Gijun.

It was a truly horrifying thought.

To let a mage like that slip away to another guild.

And not just any guild — one of the current Top 3…

The gap between them would only widen, irreversibly.

And so Gijun finished drafting and signing the contract.

In that instant, Woo Jimin grabbed both of his hands and squeezed tight.

“You made the right choice. You won’t regret it — I promise. Trust me, Mr. Gijun! Now… want to follow me? I’ll show you around the guild. Let me do a little bragging.”

Gijun nodded.

He was curious anyway.

Hwarang’s facilities for its Superhumans were famous.

Smaller in scale, maybe, but they said the quality didn’t lag behind the Top 3 at all.

No — some even claimed they were head and shoulders above in certain areas.

He wanted to see for himself what he’d only ever heard in rumors. Those privileges that only Hwarang’s Superhumans could enjoy.

Woo Jimin strode ahead, brimming with confidence.

“Let’s go.”

“Ah, yes.”

At the Vice Guild Master’s words, Gijun started walking, and Cha Miyeong fell into step beside him.

“Thanks, Mr. Gijun. Because of you, our team’s going to get a fat bonus.”

*

“…!”

Gijun’s eyes went wide.

Because of the man standing before him.

“Pleasure to meet you. I’m Ha Taehyeong.”

‘Ha Taehyeong…’

They had arrived at Hwarang’s training grounds with Woo Jimin.

There, the regular Raid Team 1 happened to be mid-training.

And the leader of that team was none other than Ha Taehyeong.

Ha Taehyeong was, needless to say, a world-class Superhuman.

Beyond Hwarang, he’d been courted by guilds of all kinds.

That wasn’t all.

Even while belonging to Hwarang, he was invited to core raids for other massive guilds and participated directly — wasn’t that the very definition of world-class?

‘It’s real.’

It was starting to sink in.

That he was now part of Hwarang.

He’d felt it when he saw Woo Jimin, but being here made it even more certain.

“Don’t be too surprised.”

Just then, Woo Jimin whispered softly.

“Three hours, twenty-one minutes.”

“…?”

At that, Ha Taehyeong tilted his head.

His face asked what she was talking about, out of the blue.

News of Gijun’s raid hadn’t reached him yet.

Regular Team 1 had been training day and night for weeks, preparing for an upcoming Level-8 dungeon raid.

Then…

“Huh? Wait — solo raid?”

Ha Taehyeong’s eyes flew wide.

His gaze, now sharp and focused, locked onto Gijun.

It wasn’t just Ha Taehyeong.

Every Superhuman nearby had their faces harden. For a moment, even their breath seemed to stop.