Chapter 81

“Do you know who this person is?”

Jaeha showed them a photo while they sat crouched on the floor. His Reverse Gravity field was spread out around the area.

Among the people there, not a single one still had the will to fight Jaeha. Of course, most of them had already been knocked out by him.

“Talk quickly.”

But they gave no real answer, and Jaeha, who had been crouching, stood up as he spoke.

“Well, fine.”

Smiling, Jaeha took out his cell phone and called Ji Cheolmin.

“It’s me.”

<Is it going well?>

“The target was somewhere else. I’m about to head there now, but I’d like you to handle the situation here a bit.”

<I’ll send people right away.>

“Tell them to come to the entrance and knock.”

After saying that, Jaeha hung up and spoke to Gnome.

“In a bit, someone will knock at the entrance. Bring that person inside.”

<Yes.>

Gnome walked over to where the door was, and Jaeha stood still, beginning his casting. Then he used magic on the person in front of him.

“Leader Memories.”

[Please select a target.]

[Choose whether to extract or implant memories.]

[Select the range of memories to retrieve.]

Jaeha set the range to only the memories concerning the female target. However, the person he used the magic on didn’t have proper information.

At that moment, the Hunter who had been the target of the magic spat out blood, and Jaeha, not paying it much mind, stood up from his spot.

Then he approached a Hunter who was comparatively stronger than the others. That Hunter’s panic was visible even from the way he reacted as Jaeha approached. Jaeha smiled and used magic on him.

“There we go.”

When the magic finished, Jaeha was able to obtain satisfactory information.

“You’re the Master, right?”

The target of Jaeha’s magic was the Master of Shelus, an S-Rank Hunter. Being an S-Rank Hunter, he seemed to have avoided serious internal damage from Jaeha’s magic as well.

“Just in case the people coming can’t handle you all.”

Saying that, Jaeha used magic over a wide area around him. The Hunters who were still conscious all fell unconscious as well.

As soon as he passed out, Jaeha stood up, looked around, erased his traces, and immediately went back up to the ground floor.

And at that moment, a person was coming down into the secret basement along with Gnome. Jaeha looked at him and spoke.

“There are still people left inside. If you’re taking them alive, do that. Otherwise, clean it up without leaving a trace.”

“Good work.”

After hearing that reply, Jaeha left the building with his spirits.

* * *

Ding-dong.

Jaeha pressed the doorbell of an ordinary house, and not long after, a voice came from inside.

“Yes~”

A person opened the door.

“What brings you here?”

“Are you Lee Sehwa?”

“……Who?”

“I’ve come at the request of Chairman Ju Jaeryong.”

“…….”

She said nothing in response, and Jaeha looked at her as he spoke.

“Let’s go inside for now.”

Watching her quietly roll her eyes, Jaeha smiled.

“Shelus is already finished.”

“…….”

“Giving up is the path that lets you leave comfortably.”

“I-I’ll give you several times the money that man promised. So please…….”

“Haha.”

Smiling, Jaeha grabbed her shoulder and pushed her inside, stepping into her house along with her.

“Conveniently enough, your house is in a fairly secluded spot.”

“……Please.”

“Isn’t life always a series of choices?”

“…….”

“Farewell.”

With those words, Jaeha moved his hand, and she collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Handle it.”

At Jaeha’s low-spoken words, someone walked into the house. Without any further reply, Jaeha left the house and headed to his hotel.

* * *

Having returned to the hotel and resting comfortably, Jaeha got up at the sound of the doorbell. Then he opened the door. There stood John, Jane, and Von.

“Oh, what’s up?”

“We came to pay our respects. We heard you did something big yesterday.”

“Come in first.”

“Yes.”

Having come inside like that, Jaeha spoke to them as he looked at them.

“Well, should I order you something to drink?”

“That’s alright.”

“Me too.”

“I’m fine as well.”

At that, Jaeha ordered some drinks through the phone in the room, then sat down on the sofa.

“This is the first time we’ve seen each other like this since back then.”

“Yes, that’s right. Have you been well?”

“Me? I’ve been fine. I heard from Von that you’ve all been doing well in your own way.”

“Yes. It’s all thanks to your help, Jaeha.”

“Enough with the flattery.”

“Haha.”

“Actually, we figured you’d want to know how yesterday’s incident was wrapped up, so we brought this.”

Von handed some documents to Jaeha, and Jaeha received them and began to read.

“It was an incident where at least dozens of people died, so the police and prosecutors were on high alert trying to investigate, but whether Umbratio pressured the politicians connected to Shelus or not, it all got swept under the rug like nothing happened.”

“Hmm.”

“It seems the police just concluded it was a gang shooting among themselves and closed the case.”

“Cleanly handled, then.”

“Yes. And, if you don’t mind, there’s something I’d like to ask.”

“What is it?”

“It’s possible that Umbratio might try to pressure you later. I thought we should prepare ourselves before something like that happens.”

“…….”

At that, Jaeha looked at them as if asking what they meant. Then John spoke while looking at Jaeha.

“What if they try to slander you? You carried out that incident this time, and since they—not us—handled the cleanup, I started thinking that if they used that as leverage, it could become a problem.”

“Ah, no need to worry.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. The ones I killed were at most one or two, and even those died to low-circle magic. Not a single one died from a sword or a gun, so you don’t need to worry.”

“……You’re far more meticulous than I thought.”

“Well. It was just the method that would lighten my burden, so I chose it. It just ended up that way.”

Jaeha shrugged once and spoke to them.

“Anyway, how are things going on your end? Seems about time to move on to the next job.”

“We’ve already secured several newly formed dungeons.”

“Good work.”

“Yes. We’re still debating whether to attempt them or not. We’re gathering information on the purchased dungeons. If they look like they can’t be cleared, we plan to give up on them.”

“Handle it as you see fit.”

“Yes.”

Having said that, Jaeha rose from his seat.

“I should be heading back to Korea soon.”

“You’re leaving already?”

“I came here to do that job.”

“Why don’t you rest a bit before you go?”

“Nah. I’ll rest at home.”

“I see.”

“I’ll be off now. Contact me if any problems come up.”

“Understood.”

“Take care.”

“See you next time.”

“Yeah.”

Having said that, Jaeha left the hotel and headed straight for the UN Hunter Bureau.

* * *

After going through various procedures at the UN Hunter Bureau, Jaeha began flying back to Korea using Sylph’s power. While flying toward Korea, Jaeha eventually got bored and pulled out his cell phone to watch some videos.

He opened the MuTube app. But the app wouldn’t open—a window popped up instead.

[MuTube Maintenance: 6:00 AM ~ 11:59 PM]

“What the. It’s under maintenance.”

But the maintenance window was ridiculously long.

‘Why would they do maintenance for 18 hours?’

With that question in mind, Jaeha passed the time doing other things. As he killed time watching videos on other sites, he soon arrived in Korea. The moment he landed in Korea, Jaeha headed to the UN Hunter Bureau.

After completing his entry procedures at the UN Hunter Bureau, Jaeha returned straight home. Once home, Jaeha peeled off Sia, who clung to him, and went into his room to rest.

And after sleeping straight through to rest, Jaeha woke up and came out of his room.

“Yawn.”

“You’re awake?”

“Yeah.”

“If you wake up in the middle of the night like this, when are you going to sleep again?”

“Well, if I don’t sleep, that’s that.”

Saying that, Jaeha checked the time.

[AM 12:00]

“It’s 12.”

“Do you have plans?”

“No, not that. MuTube’s doing maintenance.”

“Hmm. Is that so?”

“Wonder what they’re maintaining. With how long it’s been, there’s probably something.”

Saying that, Jaeha pulled out his cell phone and opened the MuTube app. As he looked around, he noticed something new had been updated.

To get more detailed information, he started browsing the internet for the update notes.

“Oh…….”

The update was that every two weeks, the highest viewer count, new subscriber count, views, broadcast time, and finally viewer votes would be converted into points to rank streamers against each other.

“Hm. Rankings.”

Depending on the rank, taxes would be reduced, and on top of that, ranks 1 through 10 would have their links posted on MuTube’s main page.

“So the rankings change every two weeks. But if they rank hunters and regular streamers together, ordinary streamers wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Jaeha said that while looking over the update details, and at the very bottom of the page it stated that since it would be unlikely for regular streamers to take high ranks if hunters and general streamers were ranked together, hunters were given their own separate category for ranking.

‘Makes sense. That’s the right call.’

Saying that, Jaeha opened the MuTube app and checked the rankings.

“I wonder what rank I am.”

However, Jaeha’s rank wasn’t displayed. After searching a bit more, he found out that only ranks 1 through 1000 were included, and those outside the top 1000 weren’t listed at all.

“Hm. Well, I did stop streaming properly after that content. Still, it’s a bit of a shock. My views are doing fine.”

And after looking into it further, he learned that when calculating the scores, people who hadn’t accumulated a certain amount of broadcast time received heavy deductions.

That was why, even with high views and subscriber counts, his rank wasn’t measured highly.

“Well, it’s an interesting system.”

Having said that, Jaeha looked at Sia and spoke.

“Sia! Feed me.”

“Yess~ One moment.”

However, Jaeha didn’t pay much attention.