After taking off on a whim to clear his head and returning only after three days and two nights, Suho once again held a meeting with the S-rank Admitis to establish the clan.
Those who had worked hard as supervisors in the meantime had finished narrowing down the final successful applicants, and the final list was now in Suho’s hands.
‘Baek Yuri… made it.’
Thinking of Yuri jumping for joy and her grandfather, Chairman Baek, made a faint smile creep onto his face.
“Now, for the third stage, we intend to live together with them for a while, assess their character and so on, and decide whether they’ll be accepted in the end. The contracts will come after that as well.”
At Danbi’s words, Suho shook his head.
“Why bother? We’ve been picky enough already. It’s not like these people are newbies who just awakened.”
“But…”
“If there really is someone strange, we can just cut them loose midway.”
Perhaps those words sounded too harsh, because everyone swallowed a low groan.
Noticing that reaction, Suho added another word.
“That probably won’t happen unless it’s something serious. Really, only if they’re an obviously insane lunatic no matter who looks at them, then we’ll hold a full meeting and cut them if everyone agrees.”
The members of “Ultimate Line” numbered forty, including Suho.
Besides the sixteen S-ranks who had previously cleared the 83rd floor of the Tower, twenty-three Admitis had joined, greatly increasing the number of family members attached to them. So Suho opened up the 15th floor, which his family had been using in its entirety.
In any case, among the sixteen houses on the 15th floor, Suho was only using one.
The rest of his family had once gotten greedy, saying they would each have multiple houses as well, but owning, decorating, and managing several houses at once had become stressful instead. These days, each of them occupied only one house.
As a result, nearly ten houses were empty on the 15th floor alone, and into those vacant homes he brought in trustworthy people and their families, keeping them close.
For example, he distributed the empty houses among Seongsik’s family, Jang Narae’s family, and the families of Joshua, Danbi, Taewoong, Thomas, and others.
And the ninety-six houses located between the 9th and 14th floors were assigned to the respective families.
After that, many of the tasks proceeded at lightning speed, as the experienced former S-rank clan leaders had already prepared everything.
The organizational structure, the members’ roles and responsibilities, and the parts concerning mission execution had all already been put in place,
and as departments supporting clan activities—such as research, intelligence gathering, and supply—were newly established, the empty office floor on the 17th floor was filled to a considerable degree as well.
Suho appointed Joshua Evans as vice clan leader and leader of Team A,
Lee Danbi as head of operations and leader of Team B,
Thomas Harris as head of intelligence and leader of Team C,
and Han Taewoong as head of support and leader of Team D.
Each team was organized to consist of ten members.
It was merely a convenient division for the sake of efficiently clearing the Tower, and was not an organizational system with any particular vertical command authority.
Among the forty S-ranks, there was not a single beginner, and each of them had once stood at the peak of their own field.
Well, except Baek Yuri. To be honest, she was a bit of a parachute hire.
Suho repeatedly emphasized that “our clan is a horizontal organization,” but no one tried to put themselves on equal footing with the clan leader. Even so, everyone regarded Suho’s words as nearly absolute.
And from the 22,500 pyeong park surrounding Elysium Heights, a considerable portion was set aside and construction of a training ground began.
After the lodgings, the clan strategy conference room, and the support team’s office, even the training ground was being added. With only the spaces of Elysium Heights, the framework of the new clan was taking shape.
* * *
“Let’s hold our first regular clan meeting. How about tomorrow after lunch?”
At a single word from the clan leader, each team leader relayed it to all team members, and at that day and time, every single person gathered without exception.
Without anyone needing to explain or force upon them that no important matter could take priority over this, everyone placed the clan meeting first and attended in full.
The “clan strategy conference room” was being unveiled for the first time after its interior was completed.
It was an enormous room where up to fifty people could sit gathered in a circle.
Aside from Suho, everyone was entering this room for the first time, and as they looked around the wide hall, they were busy staring about in a daze.
They had lived wealthy lives as S-rank Admitis and enjoyed most fine things to the point of boredom, but the luxury of this clan strategy conference room was mystifying in itself.
“What is this…”
“The finishing materials are all strange…”
“Oh, so I’m not the only one who thought that?”
Most of it was impossible to identify, but there were a few things they could recognize.
“That chandelier…”
“Holy shit, it’s not acrylic or crystal… N-no way, is it real diamond?”
“Correct!”
Thinking that the Admiti who had recognized at a glance the material of the enormous, splendid chandelier, which was over 1.5 meters in diameter, had remarkable discernment, Suho raised his thumb.
“The floor… What on earth is this floor?”
At those words, everyone looked down at the ground.
Pointing at the floor, whose design looked as if top-quality Italian marble and ebony wood were laid in an alternating chessboard pattern, several people asked.
“Oh, that’s made from a hard wood called Ironroot and a deep-sea rock called Deepstar Stone. They were cut and laid down.”
“Did things like that… originally exist on Earth?”
When one person asked dumbly, Suho answered confidently.
“They don’t exist on Earth.”
“Were there things like this in the Tower…?”
To the person tilting his head, Suho spoke firmly again.
“They don’t exist in the Tower either.”
They were materials that were not actually excavated in the Tower either.
Ironroot wood and Deepstar Stone were things he had chosen from among the goods of the universe according to the knowledge of an EX-rank crafter.
At the words that they could not be found on Earth or in the Tower, everyone looked at Suho with eyes full of questions.
Only then did he realize his mistake and hastily glossed over it.
“Ah! Come to think of it, since they can be mined through my item-collecting ability, I suppose they do come from the Tower after all. In any case, they probably weren’t things that appeared often. They’re rare.”
Calling them rare was a weak excuse, considering he had laid them down as flooring. The heads of the people tilting in confusion looked as if they might snap.
Thomas, thinking that every S-rank was now experiencing the absurd events he had gone through when he first visited Suho and his group’s officetel in the past, found the situation so amusing that the playfulness would not leave his lips.
He asked Suho,
“Captain, the wallpaper looks very unusual too. It’s not ordinary wallpaper, is it?”
Wow, even the wallpaper was noticed. Feeling inwardly proud, Suho began to explain.
“Ah, that’s right. I paid attention to this. Apparently, building codes related to fire safety specify that high-rise interior wallpaper must use flame-retardant, eco-friendly wallpaper. So I just went ahead and…”
Suho said, stroking the wallpaper.
“I covered the walls with Vulcania fabric instead of wallpaper.”
“Vulcania?!”
Joshua, who was not easily surprised, asked with his mouth hanging open.
“N-no… where on earth did you get Vulcania…”
“What is Vulcania?”
At Taewoong’s words, Joshua kindly answered.
“It’s a fabric with extremely high fire-resistance values. Even if you scorched it with something like a flamethrower, it probably wouldn’t even produce soot. Armor made from Vulcania fabric is something fire-type dealers like me are very reluctant to face.”
“Bingo! Correct!”
Suho clapped toward Joshua.
“…That is an absurdly flame-retardant wallpaper…”
Several people muttered.
“Now, now, you can keep looking around later. Let’s sit down. This is a room we’ll be entering until we get sick of it.”
Suho sat first in the clan leader’s seat at the center and gestured, and everyone settled into the chairs around the large round table.
Even as they sat down, one person whispered to the person beside them.
“This… the chairs are no ordinary thing either.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.”
The soft, large, top-quality leather chairs were supple and resilient, and the feel beneath one’s fingertips and the cushioning that wrapped around the body were both exceptionally pleasant.
In the end, one person could not hold back and asked.
“Clan Leader, may I ask just one more thing… What kind of leather is this chair made from? It’s definitely not cowhide… What animal’s leather is it?”
Suho, who had secretly been waiting for such a question, beamed.
“Wow, you’re sharp. That’s right. It’s not something like cowhide. As for the leather of these chairs, it is ‘Serenity Panther leather’!”
“Serenity Panther?”
“What’s that…”
“Huh, you don’t know Serenity Panthers? Is there anyone who does?”
At that, one person raised a hand.
“Oh, Katerina Ivanov.”
Ivanov, who had raised her hand, spoke with emphasis.
“The Serenity Panther is a large mammalian magic beast that inhabits misty plains. Its hide is incredibly soft and tough, with outstanding elasticity as well, and it offers a distinctive sheen and texture. To think you considered applying it to chairs and sofas… Excellent.”
At that, quite a few people began murmuring.
“Why have I never seen a Serenity Panther before?”
To this, Ivanov added an explanation.
“It is a monster that only appears in the Tower above the 50th floor, and it can be considered a rare hidden monster.”
“Oh… so that’s why.”
“How fascinating. No, where did the Clan Leader even get something like this…”
“Now, now. The reason we gathered today is…”
Suho tried to calm the murmuring people and start the meeting, but then he saw Taewoong with his nose pressed against the heavy table positioned at the center, smelling the round table, and burst into laughter.
“Taewoong, what are you doing?”
“Ah, hah, I’m sorry. But the wood of this table is fascinating… It smells good, and somehow it makes me feel good…”
“Mm, that’s the normal reaction. This table is made from a wood called Everglow Wood. When it burns, it emits a bright light, and it also basically has a vitality recovery effect. It’s also famous for its refreshing, sweet scent.”
“Waaah…”
Only then did the Admitis follow Taewoong’s example, pressing their noses to the wood or stroking its grain.
Even so, they were all supposed to be S-rank or higher Admitis, yet they looked just like kindergarteners on some outdoor experiential field trip.
Only after quite a while were they finally able to focus on the meeting, and Suho explained the clan regulations, organization, and various goals that the sixteen of them had prepared so far.
And at last, they entered the main topic everyone had been waiting for.
It was none other than the part where Suho would fulfill the “promise he had put forward as the clan recruitment strategy.”
First, he had already let them all move into Elysium Heights,
and the first month’s pay of their ten-billion-dollar annual salary had already been deposited into their accounts.
What everyone was anxiously waiting for next was the distribution of “one S-rank item suited to their own trait and five S-rank Aetherium.”
Everyone’s attention was focused on whether the clan leader could truly have obtained enough S-rank items—whose rarity was beyond compare—to match this many people.
There were a full forty people.
Even excluding Danbi, for whom he had recently made SS-rank equipment, and Suho himself, there were thirty-eight.
For one person to distribute such a number of S-rank equipment in one sitting was not only unheard of, but something they could not even imagine.
The same was true for Danbi, Joshua, Thomas, and Taewoong, who had watched Suho up close all this time.
Amid anticipation that seemed about to burst,
Suho called each person’s name one by one, took out an S-rank item, and handed it over. Along with five S-rank Aetherium in a stylish wooden box.
As if it were so easy and natural, like a homeroom teacher handing out name tags ordered from a company to the children in class, the distribution of S-rank items and Aetherium proceeded so lightly and smoothly that it soon came to an end.
At that astonishing result, everyone gaped wordlessly.
But for Suho himself, it was an extremely easy task.
After all, in terms of probability, the thing that appeared most often was the failed product called S-rank.
The production probability of an S-rank item was a whopping 43%, far higher than the 15% chance of producing an A-rank item, which Suho called trash.
So it was fair to say that S-rank was simply the grade that popped up if he rammed in attribute materials and casually made a specific item.
Rather, there had been the unfortunate incidents where SS-rank or SSS-rank items appeared midway, forcing him to craft again.
Since he could not give only certain people SS-rank or higher, he set those aside for the time being.