Chapter 101

Chapter 20

“No, wait.”

“Yes?”

“That’s how we can do it.”

“Do what?”

“Think of it simply. I just need to create a safe zone myself. Build buildings in a safe zone I make.”

“That’s true, but…… would there even be a skill like that?”

“If I look, I’ll find one. Anyway, I need to search.”

With that, he went up to his room.

* * *

Two hours had passed since he started searching for videos. But Jaeha still hadn’t found a proper one. After rummaging around for a while longer, he eventually changed his search terms and started over.

‘[Winged Seraph Metatron].’

After thinking for a moment, Jaeha checked the video. If it wasn’t the skill he wanted, he could just discard it and search again, so there was no real pressure.

[Metatron’s Blessing]

[Rank: Ancient]

[Receives Metatron’s blessing, gaining the ability to bridge gods and humans]

[Mechanism: Total Ability × 500]

[Proficiency: 100%]

“This seems quite different from what I got last time.”

Jaeha deliberated for a moment, then acquired the skill. After that, he thought for a bit and tried using it.

[Would you like to declare this area a Holy Ground?]

“Holy Ground?”

[Areas declared as Holy Grounds are immune to monster intrusion. Additionally, illnesses are gradually cured, and crops grow abundantly.]

“……Found it.”

Smiling, Jaeha rose from his seat. He immediately came down to the living room.

“Did you find it?”

“Yeah. Let’s go run an experiment.”

“Yes.”

With that, he left the house with Sia.

* * *

Leaving the house, Jaeha headed straight for a dungeon and arrived at an entrance that people rarely visited. Then he moved toward the center.

Monsters all around pressed in on Jaeha, but since they were all fairly low-rank monsters, the attacks didn’t hurt much even when they landed.

So Jaeha pushed the monsters aside as he made his way to the center of the dungeon. Naturally, aside from the Wave Rooms that only existed in S-Rank dungeons and above, the places with the most monsters varied from dungeon to dungeon.

But on average, the center of dungeons like this had the highest chance of monster density.

“Declare Holy Ground.”

[Please select an area.]

A map appeared before Jaeha’s eyes. He stared at it quietly, then nodded.

“This dungeon’s map, huh.”

Jaeha smiled. Then he looked around and used magic.

“Wind.”

One of the 2nd Circle spells, it simply created a gentle breeze. Jaeha cast it over a wide area. Monsters that sensed the mana-laden wind began charging toward where Jaeha stood.

Jaeha immediately declared a 10cm radius around himself as a Holy Ground. The monsters approached close to him but couldn’t step inside the Holy Ground.

“It works?”

Watching the monsters fail to cross over, Sia asked, and Jaeha nodded.

“Can I remove it or anything?”

After searching a bit, he found that removing the Holy Ground was also possible. Before dispelling it, Jaeha experimented with various things for a while, then nodded and spoke to Sia.

“It works. Good. Let’s head back. Now.”

“Yes.”

After dispelling the Holy Ground, Jaeha left the dungeon with Sia.

* * *

“Hello, everyone.”

—Hey hey hey.

—Jaeha, Jaeha. I heard you’ve been buying up materials needed for construction lately.

—Is that for real?

—Are we finally going to be able to hunt with some breathing room?

“Up until now, I’ve been using Golems to keep an eye on the situation inside the dungeons. Even though I built the buildings for you all to use, I haven’t been paying much attention to them or imposing restrictions on you. Of course, those who went too far were expelled using the Golems.”

Jaeha’s expression was quite serious as he said this.

“Of course, among those using the buildings I created, there are bound to be people who don’t watch my broadcast. I don’t mind that. However, I believe that people must be able to take responsibility for their own actions. Of course, that doesn’t apply to very young children.”

—Ba-dump ba-dump.

—He’s finally drawing his sword.

“From what I saw, the Temple was chaos itself. Most people were ignoring any sense of order and just working with their eyes on making money. That’s not what I wanted. So from now on, I’ll be enforcing stricter measures. As you know, the Monster Temple was owned by the Flame Guild among our country’s guilds. And I purchased that ownership from them.”

—Oh……

—So?

“Including the Temple, all the dungeons where I’ll be building structures from now on will use dungeons under my ownership. And those dungeons will be operated strictly on a membership basis in alliance with the Blue Dragon Guild.”

—Ah……

—Damn. I’m the one getting screwed over because of those bastards again.

“However, becoming a member will be easy, so you don’t need to worry. I haven’t worked out the exact details of how things will be done yet, but I’ve decided on one thing. Anyone who causes problems after becoming a member will have their membership permanently revoked.”

—Nice.

—Permanent is a bit harsh though.

—Then don’t do it. Nobody’s forcing you.

“Anyway, I’ll end the heavy talk here. The details will be posted on my channel and the Blue Dragon Guild’s official website as they’re organized, so please check those.”

Jaeha, having lightened the mood like that, spoke with a smile.

“As I mentioned, for the next few days I’ll be going around just building structures. It might be a bit of a boring broadcast, but it’s something you all wanted, and it’s necessary. I hope you understand.”

—OK OK.

—Agreed.

“For your information, there are 10 dungeons where I’ll be building.”

—Eh……?

—Ten…… places?

“You don’t need to worry because I’ve become able to create safe zones. My Construction skill’s Proficiency was a bit lacking until now. But this time it reached 100%. Once it hit 100%, I became able to create safe zones around buildings.”

—Good heavens.

—This guy really is the mastermind, I’m telling you.

—Definitely.

—At this point it’s undeniable.

“For your information, there’s a limit on the number of times.”

—So that’s how they balance it.

—So the number is 10?

“Yes, that’s right. I can form a safe zone up to 10 times. It’s not like situations where I’d need to create a safe zone because something dangerous happened in a dungeon will come up often anyway. So I just decided to make them in advance and build structures on them.”

—Seems like a decent choice.

—Yeah. With Jaeha’s ability, getting into danger would be harder anyway.

“So I thought a bit about which dungeons to create safe zones in. There are only about 10 dungeons worldwide that have safe zones, but there are plenty of dungeons where monsters keep respawning, right? I picked from among those.”

—Nice.

—I can already see people cramming in there;

“Of the 10 dungeons, 2 will be A-Rank, 3 will be B-Rank, 3 will be C-Rank, and the last 2 will be D-Rank. Actually, looking at Hunter mortality rates, the lowest ranks have the most deaths. So I thought about making one E-Rank dungeon too, but since they’d be hunting in a safe zone anyway, I skipped the E and F-Rank dungeons.”

—But still, those lower-rank Hunters could get attacked and die on the way to the safe zone.

—Come on. They’re making a safe zone anyway, so they’ll put it near the entrance.

“No. The safe zone will be created in the exact center of the dungeon.”

—……Why?

—That way they can hunt the monsters easily. If you build it in a corner, the monsters won’t aggro and you can’t catch them.

“That’s already been discussed with the Blue Dragon Guild. It’s a membership system anyway. With a monthly subscription fee, higher-ranked Hunters or such people will escort members to the safe zone, and when the hunting’s done, bring them back to the gate—something like that. So you don’t need to worry on that front.”

—He really thinks things through;

—My thoughts exactly. Seems like he was born with a business mind too.

“We’ve had a lot to talk about, right? Now let’s get started in earnest.”

Saying that, Jaeha smiled and entered the dungeon.

* * *

“Phew. That’s about done.”

“Good work.”

—Wow. Finished in a single day?

—How do you build a structure in one day.

“Ah, I built it using a slightly easier method. The one I built last time had a basement floor. This one doesn’t have a basement. If you don’t dig underground, you don’t have to excavate as much, and it saves some time—plus, unlike the one at the Temple, there’s no need to make passageways or anything.”

—Good.

“Well, you’re fast.”

“Haha. For your reference, the interior design will be handled by people hired separately from the Blue Dragon Guild, not by me.”

“Nice.”

“So building structures in all 10 dungeons should take about 10 days then.”

“That’s what I’m expecting.”

After exchanging a few more words like that, Jaeha spoke.

“That’s it for today’s broadcast. Good work, everyone.”

After ending the broadcast, Jaeha headed home with Sia. Once he arrived, he sprawled out on the sofa and said.

“Ahh, life feels a bit monotonous lately.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Come to think of it. Isn’t today the day the rankings update?”

At her words, Jaeha looked at her and asked.

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Let me check.”

[Korea Ranking: 1]

[World Ranking: 892]

“890th place.”

“That’s pretty low, isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s true that I’ve been taking it easy. It hasn’t even been a week since I started broadcasting properly.”

“Shouldn’t you be more consistent, even just for the ranking?”

“In the end, I just need to hit 250th, 10th, and 1st. I can just cram the content later.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. The Korea ranking isn’t going to drop below 500 anyway. And as long as the world ranking stays within the top 1000, that’s fine. Maintaining that level is easy.”

“Still, 890th is almost 900th. Don’t you think it’s time to raise it a bit?”

“I was actually thinking of raising it. I’ve been brainstorming content, but nothing’s coming to mind.”

“Is that so?”

Just then, someone came up from the sparring ground.

“Oh, Gersia. Long time no see?”

“It has been a while. Have you been well?”

“What have you been up to lately? You haven’t even set foot in this place.”

“A bit of business came up in our world. It took some time to sort it out.”

“What kind of business?”

“Hmm. A dark mage opened a gate connecting to the demon realm. The Demon Race crossed over, and it took a while to hold them back.”

“So that kind of thing really happens.”

“Indeed.”

“Fascinating.”

Then Jaeha stretched out lazily.

“Hey.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve been working hard on my broadcasts lately, you know?”

“And what do you want me to do about it? Are you asking me to appear on one?”

“No, it’s not that. A ranking system was introduced this time.”

“Humans do seem to have an odd fondness for ranking things.”

“Anyway. With the ranking in place, I’ve got a reason to try for number one.”

“So?”

“To hit number one, you obviously need things like peak viewer counts and all that.”

“…….”

“So I’ve been using content as a way to draw people in. I’ve run two pieces of content so far, and the results weren’t bad. So I was wondering—do you have any ideas?”

“Hmm. Ideas, you say.”

“Yeah. Nothing?”

After thinking for a moment, he spoke to Jaeha.

“I don’t know what content you’ve run so far, but.”

“Yeah.”

“All I need to do is recommend what would be the most popular, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Then only one thing comes to mind for me.”

“What is it?”

At that, Gersia gave a small smile and spoke.