Chapter 137 – Veteran Player (1)

“Now, the hero of the century, the revolutionary Jean-Pierre, is arriving!”

The French airport was buzzing with excitement as reporters scrambled to cover their nation’s hero.

Seeing the man in a tailored suit, his wild, long hair tied back, fans chanted his name with feverish voices.

“Jean, what are your thoughts on being named one of the 100 most influential people in the world?”

“We have so many questions for the savior of Africa. We heard your recent exploits were incredible—what exactly happened over there?”

Amidst the reporters’ fierce competition, Jean-Pierre, the brilliant number one ranked Hunter of France, removed his sunglasses. Then, with a broad smile for the crowd, he answered.

“It was certainly a fantastic adventure, and I know how curious you all must be. I will make time to answer your questions soon.”

Questions continued to be hurled at the hero after his comment, but he offered no further remarks.

The hotel where Jean-Pierre arrived to unwind from his travels.

He took a hot shower and changed his clothes.

The first place he visited was the hotel’s casino.

Whether it was because he was a regular or because he was a French hero, many people recognized him.

He entered a VIP-only room, inaccessible to the general public, and enjoyed a game.

“Jean. How was the latest expedition?”

A large, bald man greeted Jean-Pierre and sat down beside him.

The dealer ran the game, and the two men placed their chips.

“It was fantastic.”

Jean-Pierre.

He belonged to a very special group.

“Damn, it’s a shame I couldn’t join the expedition because of my last injury. Especially since I’m broke.”

“You? What about all that money you had?”

The people gathered in the VIP room were France’s most renowned Hunters.

The man next to Jean was also a Hunter, ranked fifth in France.

“Saving money and I just don’t get along.”

“You can just score big on the next expedition.”

“Ah, right. Speaking of which, I heard a member died this time.”

“Died?”

“They said Li died.”

“Li? The Chinese guy?”

“No, the Korean.”

“Was there a Korean?”

Jean tilted his head in confusion and rinsed his mouth with whiskey.

“You know, the guy they called ‘Korea Superman’.”

“Oh, that guy. The one who flew around shooting lasers from his eyes.”

“Ah, that one. It’s hard to tell Asians apart.”

Jean recalled the Korean madman who had a terrifying fondness for slaughtering the weak.

The members of Chimera all enjoyed the hunt. But it was rare to see someone who started by killing so indiscriminately, without any rhyme or reason.

“He wasn’t the type to be killed easily.”

“They say he was killed by a goblin.”

At his colleague’s words, Jean smirked.

A goblin. The weakest of all monsters. In France, even teenagers could beat them.

“How undignified.”

Chimera was a group that gathered the world’s greatest talents.

Exactly 100 members.

No matter how exceptional a new talent was, they never increased the roster, always maintaining that set number.

It was, quite literally, a gathering of only the finest heroes.

He had never liked the fact that there was an Asian in such a place to begin with.

“I heard they’ve already started screening a new member. They say he’s from the same country, too.”

“Isn’t the next in line the ‘Dancing Empress’, Audrey?”

He had never doubted that Chimera’s next member would be Audrey, the rising star Hunter from France.

It was strange.

He couldn’t understand how a member of Chimera had come from such a small country in the first place.

“Rumor has it he took down a dragon by himself.”

“A dragon?”

A dragon was a top-tier monster.

A beast that could literally be described as a catastrophe.

Australia had once been thrown into utter chaos because of a dragon’s appearance.

Without the help of neighboring countries, Australia might have been wiped off the world map.

“This is the video.”

Jean watched the video his colleague showed him on his phone.

It hadn’t even been a year, but the video had over 500 million views.

The video was simple.

A man holding a monomolecular blade sliced off a dragon’s head.

It was an incredibly clean strike. But Jean realized there was a problem with the footage.

“This is staged.”

“Staged?”

“Yes. Think about it. Isn’t the video quality too clean? As if they were filming an action scene for a superhero movie.”

Jean had a point.

It was like a scene from a movie. A picture-perfect strike amidst overwhelming theatrics.

The thought of another Asian filling the vacant spot was extremely dissatisfying to Jean.

Especially if it was some showman who racked up views with staged performances like this.

Chimera’s conquests existed to protect world peace.

Moreover, he had planned to get his disciple, Audrey, in if a spot opened up.

The fact that an Asian was coming in instead of Audrey, who had been waiting, was deeply unpleasant.

“I’ll have to meet him.”

“Meet him?”

“Yes. I’ll have to make him realize he’s not qualified, won’t I?”

At Jean’s sudden declaration, his bald colleague chuckled.

“That small country in the East is going to be turned upside down. A superstar visiting out of the blue.”

“Officially, I’ll say it’s for tourism.”

The new member hadn’t been decided yet.

He was displeased that a talent’s entry into Chimera could be decided by a single staged video.

The people who joined this place had to be very special, very honorable.

“Isn’t it the duty of the strong to teach the unworthy their place?”

Jean smiled.

***

“So, how was the test?”

As Lee Hyunbin entered the guild master’s office, Im Jae-joon, who had been waiting, spoke up.

“Virtual reality, huh. I’d only heard about it, but it’s pretty good.”

“We invested a lot into it. It seemed quite promising.”

“No wonder. I couldn’t understand why you let Graham go in the first place.”

Graham was the continent’s greatest artisan.

His skills shone even in the modern world, and his touch was on all the technology within the guild.

“So how do you manage to work that prideful short-stack like an ox?”

Graham’s pride as the continent’s best artisan meant he wouldn’t do something he disliked, even with a knife to his throat.

“Let’s just say the alcohol and meat bills were high.”

No dwarf hates alcohol and meat.

“And I had to give a big reaction every time he made something.”

A Demon King, fawning over items made by a dwarf.

The phrase ‘voluntary slave’ momentarily crossed Hyunbin’s mind.

“We plan to distribute the virtual reality battle system to other guilds and run tests. Then we could hold tournaments to see who the best Hunter in the country is, just like in the comics.”

“So we’re really going to have a ‘Strongest Under the Heavens Tournament’. Sounds like fun.”

The question of who was the strongest was something every warrior naturally craved to know.

Of course, Hyunbin had not a single shred of doubt that he was the strongest.

He slowly brought up the real topic.

“Anyway, you found them?”

“Yes, I found them. Not all of them, but some.”

He had originally planned to check on his team’s training progress a bit longer, but the topic of the 100 Mages made Hyunbin antsy.

Unlike Hyunbin, who wanted to get straight to the point, Im Jae-joon took his time.

“First, there’s something I want to ask.”

“What is it?”

“What is it that you want to do?”

It was an odd question.

“You have to ask?”

“To be certain.”

“Obviously, I’m going to crush those bastards, the 100 Mages.”

“Why?”

“There’s a dog that bites people to death roaming in front of my house.”

It was a point that needed no complicated explanation.

“If that mad dog bites someone, they could die. My family could be in danger. I don’t see any reason to just leave it be. Or are you the type to say, ‘Oh, my dog doesn’t bite’?”

“Someone else could get rid of that mad dog. I’m curious why you feel the need to handle it with your own hands.”

“What’s the point of this meaningless back-and-forth?”

At Hyunbin’s words, Im Jae-joon gave a bitter smile. He leaned forward, placing his clasped hands on the desk, and opened his mouth.

“I’m asking what the extent of your goal is.”

“My goal?”

“Yes.”

When he first returned to the modern world, his thoughts had been very simple.

He wanted to regain his former strength. And he wanted to be recognized by people.

It could be said that he had already almost achieved his initial goals.

Of course, he wasn’t satisfied with that.

He had experienced it many times in the other world. Simply being strong wasn’t enough to protect what was precious.

You couldn’t protect everyone.

There were limits.

That’s why he had to become a symbol.

So that Villains wouldn’t even dare to challenge the Hero, wouldn’t even think of trying to harm someone.

He had to engrave in their minds that it was impossible, that they would inevitably be defeated.

“I am the same as before,” Im Jae-joon said.

The man who stood up for the demons who were persecuted simply for being different from humans in the other world.

For having tails like beastmen, for having different skin colors, for having horns on their heads.

Simply because they were different from the standards set by humans, the demons suffered horrors that were too terrible to speak of.

Im Jae-joon knew why such things happened.

Discrimination? That was part of it. But the biggest problem was that the demons had no power.

Im Jae-joon united the demons, who were accustomed to a life of subjugation. And he built a power base with himself at the center.

The modern world was the same.

At first glance, it was a prosperous and equal society. But here, too, social classes existed.

Im Jae-joon was known as the second-generation son of a chaebol, and people assumed that, being born with a silver spoon, he had naturally lived a life of ease.

That had never been the case.

As an illegitimate son, he had not been raised by the group.

No, he didn’t even know he was the son of the Hanul Group’s chairman.

He grew up poor under a single mother, a ‘dirt spoon’, and had to work to support himself while studying.

His mother, a veteran middle-aged actress, was always struggling with the debt left by her brother.

In such a situation, she had no time to look after her son.

With young eyes, he watched the absurdities of the world.

He saw the lives of his half-siblings and suffered the humiliation of being compared to them.

As soon as he graduated high school, he started a business.

It wasn’t anything grand. It was a simple online shopping mall, and he gradually increased his capital based on that small growth.

It wasn’t long before comparisons began between Im Jae-joon, who was making great strides from nothing, and the eldest son, who only ever ruined businesses while living a debauched life.

Eventually, Im Jae-joon was brought into the Hanul Group. And belatedly, he began his lessons in succession.

Of course, Im Jae-joon quickly distinguished himself and was put in charge of a Hanul Group subsidiary as a ‘parachute’ president.

Needless to say, he had certainly made a strong impression on the chairman and the shareholders.

Naturally, he became an object of caution for the eldest son, Im Jae-ho, and the eldest daughter, Im Hyo-jin.

There, Im Jae-joon saw it.

The group’s chairman, Im Jae-yong, was a giant, but he was not a respectable man.

His private life was messy, and for the sake of money and success, he would squeeze his subcontractors dry.

Im Jae-joon did not blindly learn the methods his father, the chairman, personally demonstrated.

The modern world was the same.

The powerless, the weak. Those at the bottom of the hierarchy were merely pretending to live, just waiting to become someone’s prey.

The Gate crisis erupted, and countless people died.

The already small country had regions that were occupied by monsters, which were called demonic lands and cordoned off.

The countless Gate orphans.

Children who lost their parents entered academies, becoming Hunters and mercenaries.

Children who lived by putting their lives on the line, becoming Hunters to take revenge on the monsters.

For children with nothing to their name to clear dungeons, they needed a guild.

They naturally had to give a percentage of their earnings to the guild and pay equipment rental fees.

Since the cost of renting and repairing equipment was not cheap, they constantly fought with their lives on the line, but their actual profits were meager.

Of course, that was from the perspective of a Hunter’s income.

A distortion had emerged from somewhere. And that distortion, all too naturally, ignored social ethics.

The Gate crisis became someone’s moneymaker.

Corporations created guilds to make money and began to hire Hunters.

Someone’s league had already begun.

The Hunter market was, quite literally, a goose that laid golden eggs.

Something was wrong.

Even as Hunters highlighting their heroic aspects were doing PR for corporations, countless people were dying.

They were turning a blind eye, leaving the true darkness of society behind and highlighting only the bright side.

“Pouring a bucket of clean water into dirty, muddy water won’t change anything.”

The clean water immediately becomes muddy. That is the natural order of things.

So, what must be done to turn the muddy water clean?

“I will drain the muddy water.”

Even if you fill it with clean water, that water will just rot again.

“I will make the water flow.”

So that it can purify itself and not become polluted. To create a society where at least a minimum of common sense prevails.

Im Jae-joon was clearly trying to walk the path of the conqueror once more.

It was just that spears and swords had been replaced by the name of capital.

“The 100 Mages exist for the festering parts of this world to fester even more. They include leaders of society, and some even wear the mask of justice.”

Lee Han-seong’s reputation wasn’t spotless, but he was publicly known as an apostle of justice.

Not many people knew his true nature.

“I am now moving toward a new goal. What about you?”

Im Jae-joon was preparing for war.

A thought that had dominated his mind since childhood. He had thought it would take decades more to realize that thought.

However, the person who had allowed him to advance his plan by several years was right here.

“You should be glad our positions are different.”

Hyunbin’s lips curled into a smile.

The Hero leads with overwhelming martial prowess and charisma, while the Demon King moves with powerful political influence and leadership.

“I think it’s fortunate as well.”

Im Jae-joon said with a smile. Then, the smile vanished from his lips as he spoke.

“Let’s do it again.”

Villains who seek to disrupt a peaceful world for the sake of revenge.

And Demon Kings who wage wars of conquest in various dimensions to gain power.

And the established powers who trample the innocent for their own interests.

If the skein of yarn is tangled, you just have to cut it.

“The task of draining all the water that hasn’t just stagnated, but has rotted away.”

Yes. To do that, there was one thing they had to do.

“We will climb to a higher place.”