Episode 46
‘An A-grade dungeon, hmm.’
In the end, Jonghyeon decided to participate in the A-grade dungeon clear team. Of course, it was a decision made after considerable deliberation.
He didn’t have much experience with team play. Of course, it wasn’t as if he had ever needed team play, but it was a situation where they had to pool their strength, so it was quite important.
His individual prowess was outstanding, so the probability of clearing was high, but if they leveraged team play, they could even sneakily clear the hidden boss.
Of course, he was probably the only one who knew about the hidden boss.
“Master, what are you thinking so hard about?”
Jonghyeon was currently coming out of a D-grade dungeon with Bori.
He had also checked and guided Bori’s hunting methods.
There were cases where one’s skill improved by leaps and bounds when corrected on bad habits or the direction of their power usage. That was precisely what Jonghyeon was aiming for.
“Nothing. More importantly, make sure you fix what I told you to remember. If it’s still the same when I check next time, you’re disqualified as my disciple.”
Jonghyeon issued a threat, and Bori puffed her cheeks and looked at him, just as she always did. Now that Jonghyeon had grown somewhat accustomed to this as well, he didn’t avoid her gaze and stared right back.
“Tch. Fine. This doesn’t work on you anymore, does it? Still, thank you for teaching me, as always. I’ll treat you to a meal sometime soon.”
Bori, who had no chance of winning a staring contest against Jonghyeon, immediately declared surrender.
Jonghyeon took the wheel, brushing off even Bori’s declaration of surrender as no big deal.
The two immediately got into the car after leaving the dungeon and headed to their respective homes.
Because now was the time to be careful even with trivial actions.
★ ★ ★
Jonghyeon’s fan club was larger than expected, and guilds from various countries as well as domestic figures had sent love calls to him.
Especially the fans’ gifts and fruits that occupied one side of the house. And the letters piled up like a mountain.
He had no intention of reading them, nor did he want to. At first, he had read through a few, but in the end, every single one said the same thing.
The problem was the fruits and snacks.
They had begun to pile up in amounts that four people could eat for over a month, and even the two bodyguards with hearty appetites had eventually given up.
“How are we supposed to eat all of this? We’re human too.”
“Huh? Weren’t you a pig? After seeing you put away fourteen servings of samgyeopsal last time, I thought a pig had learned to talk…”
The two joked around as if they were quite close now, but the truth was there was no way to handle these gifts and fruits.
Especially among the gifts, there were many sent by quite fanatical people.
Underwear they had worn, or letters containing their own nude photographs. And such things invariably had their contact information written on them as well.
“For now, let’s gather all the useless letters and stack them up somewhere as firewood.”
Ever since the two bodyguards arrived, Jonghyeon had cooked quite a lot in the front yard, and it seemed perfect for that.
Thinking about burning the letters infused with perfume, they seemed like they would burn quite fragrantly, better than expected.
‘Then again, what should I do with those fruits and the rest of the gifts?’
Just when disposal was perplexing, Bori happened to come in.
“What are you all doing here?”
Bori made quite useful use of the magic tool Jonghyeon had given her. As Chairman Lee’s daughter, her face was quite well-known, so when coming to Jonghyeon’s house, she unconditionally changed her appearance.
The function that changed her to the point where it was difficult to tell whether she was a man or a woman was quite useful.
“Look at these. They all came within a week, can you believe it? I’m going crazy. Want to take some?”
Jonghyeon said, pointing with his finger to the gift boxes piled on one side.
“Wow. What is all that? Are those all gifts you received?”
Bori smiled quite awkwardly. At Jonghyeon’s sigh-laden story that it was becoming impossible to deal with, Bori pondered briefly and spoke.
“Can I open some of these?”
To Bori, who spoke while looking around the gift boxes, Jonghyeon nodded as if there was nothing to hesitate about, and Bori suddenly began sorting the boxes.
Bori, who had been sorting boxes quite diligently for a full twenty minutes, finally finished sorting the last box.
“Here. Throw away the ones on the left. Send the ones on the right to the orphanage.”
“!”
Jonghyeon couldn’t hide his surprised expression.
Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier?
The items Bori said to throw away were taken outside by one of the bodyguards.
There were so many that he had to make two round trips before he could throw them all away.
The items sorted to the right included clothes, and plenty of things children would like, such as fruits and snacks.
“They’re all new anyway, so the kids won’t dislike them.”
Of course. No, they would like them even if they were used.
The children at the orphanage were receiving considerable support from V Group.
It was both Chairman Lee’s intention to keep faith with Jonghyeon, and Bori’s wishes—she had recently started volunteering at the orphanage—were actively reflected.
Thanks to that, it was a time when children from orphanages that had closed down across the country and new orphans were flowing in considerably.
And these items would be quite welcome to such an orphanage.
As expected, the director welcomed them with open arms, and this matter too was eventually taken charge of by the Equipment Secretary, who delivered gifts to the orphanage at regular intervals.
“Oh right, Dad was really happy that Master applied to the A-grade dungeon clear team.”
At Bori’s words, Jonghyeon scratched his head for no reason and said,
“Well, you know. A-grade dungeons are pretty appealing, right?”
“If that’s the case, he was muttering why you probed him back then.”
“Ahem.”
There wasn’t any bad intention. It was just that his habit of not being able to trust people even now had shown slightly.
Bori didn’t ask any more about that either. Instead, she asked about something else.
“But are you confident? It’s not that I doubt you, Master, but they say A-grade dungeons are on a whole different level from B-grade ones.”
That was exactly right.
A-grade dungeons were certainly few in number, and their difficulty was on a different dimension from B-grade ones.
The dungeon where the Pokgwi had appeared was also one of the lowest A-grade dungeons. It made sense since the artifact was a bomb. And on top of that, it was single-use.
But aside from the issue of the guaranteed item, the Pokgwi dungeon also belonged to the lowest in terms of difficulty.
Of course, Jonghyeon, who had cleared Stage 6, felt it was more manageable than before.
After all, Jonghyeon was human too; if it had endangered his life, he would never have applied.
“Well. You’ve never seen me fight properly, after all.”
Jonghyeon had never shown his darkness ability in front of anyone yet.
Only the fact that his sword aura was black had been publicly revealed. But even that had caused quite a stir, so Jonghyeon had no intention of revealing his darkness ability.
There would come a time to reveal it eventually, but he planned to do so only when he could protect this special ability.
To Jonghyeon, who was thinking such thoughts, Bori abruptly grabbed his arm and spoke.
“Let’s go grab a meal.”
“Me? Me too?”
Jonghyeon looked at Bori with a bewildered expression. To Jonghyeon, who kept tilting his head and pointing at himself with his finger, Bori said in a small voice,
“I want to eat out with you once, Master. I said I’d buy you a meal last time!”
Come to think of it, Bori’s attire today was on a different level from usual. If she had only ever worn training clothes before, this time she had come dressed in proper outing clothes as if fully determined.
“Yeah. Well… did you? Okay.”
Of course, if Jonghyeon and Bori were officially seen together, it could be quite a problem. But Bori cleverly headed to a restaurant that offered private rooms.
Located quite hidden even on the outskirts of Bundang, this restaurant seemed to be just a traditional Korean restaurant. But the cars parked in front were all luxury vehicles.
Perhaps because of that, quite apart from the food prices, every service was first-rate. From the entrance treatment to being guided to a room.
It was probably a secret place frequented mainly by political and business figures.
Suddenly, Jonghyeon began having the random thought, *How much money has exchanged hands over this dining table?* and that appearance was exactly the kind that would earn him a scolding from Bori.
“Oppa!!!”
At Bori’s call, Jonghyeon finally came to his senses and saw Bori’s face, which looked quite sulky.
“Ah, sorry. I was thinking about dungeon stuff. But you’re not calling me Master anymore?”
“It’s fine outside, isn’t it? I’ll call you Master again when we’re inside.”
Bori looked somewhat full of complaints, but the moment the food came out, her expression returned to normal.
Befitting a traditional Korean restaurant, scorched rice came out as a basic, and as side dishes, things like *jeon* that you’d see at ancestral rites or *galbijjim* came out.
“How is it? Does it taste okay?”
“Well. It’s fine.”
Bori, who asked cautiously, had already removed her mask at some point.
The two were really just sharing a meal quietly, and Bori kept examining Jonghyeon without saying a word.
In the end, it was Jonghyeon who broke the silence first.
“What are you staring at? Did I get something on my face?”
“No. Is there… is there nothing different about me?”
What could possibly be different besides her clothes?
Jonghyeon watched Bori with an unknowing expression, and Bori turned to her usual pouting expression.
“Forget it. Ugh, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
But from the moment the silence was broken, Bori and Jonghyeon began joking, and the meal atmosphere concluded nicely.
Eventually, after finishing the meal, Jonghyeon took Bori to the front of her house, and Bori, getting out of the car, spoke to him.
“Get home safely. And I…”
“Huh? Do you have something to say?”
At Jonghyeon’s question, Bori fidgeted, unable to speak.
“Ah, it’s nothing. I just said get home safely. Let’s eat together again later.”
“Yeah, got it.”
At Bori’s strange behavior, Jonghyeon tilted his head, closed the window, turned the car around, and started heading home.
Bori simply waved and watched the car moving away, and only after it completely disappeared did she enter her house, muttering.
“I put on makeup today. You fool.”
★ ★ ★
NIS Office.
The remaining members, including Jonghyeon, had been mostly decided.
Director Kim Jeongtae said, looking at the documents the person in charge held out.
“Three B-grades and four A-grades. Well, that’s a decent combination.”
Currently, guild-type teams had become familiar, and hunting techniques and patterns had been largely developed.
Therefore, even an A-grade dungeon wasn’t something only A-grade rankers could enter. In reality, with proper personnel allocation, even lower-grade rankers could participate in dungeons above their level.
Because of that, there were people arguing that ranks should be subdivided, but the World Dungeon Management Committee, fearing it would cause confusion, was not accepting that opinion.
“Are all three A-grades from the Dangun Guild?”
“Yes, that’s right. Two executives including the guild master expressed their intention to participate. After all, their guild has been heavily influenced by Chairman Lee as well.”
Since this A-grade clear team could be considered hosted by Chairman Lee, there was nowhere his influence didn’t reach.
“Honestly, it was unexpected that Jonghyeon would participate too. Well, skill is skill, so actually it would be strange if he didn’t participate.”
“That brat definitely tested Chairman Lee too, didn’t he? That’s the kind of guy Ryu Jonghyeon is.”
Director Kim Jeongtae remembered Jonghyeon looking straight at him while they talked. He was not a man who would ever be trapped within their ranks.
“Haha. Please don’t hold too much of a grudge. He is someone I rather cherish, after all. And the B-grades are Gang Jeongu and two of his team members.”
Gang Jeongu was active as part of a troubleshooter team. And from that team, he personally selected two whom he considered the strongest, including himself, and included them in the team.
Director Kim Jeongtae skimmed through the documents and spoke as if amused.
“This is a more interesting party than expected in many ways. The problem is Ryu Jonghyeon, though…”
---------= Author’s Afterword =---------
Extreme Job: Equipment Secretary Season 2…
---
Today as well, this candle writes hard to earn your recommendations.
And thanks to your love, I am so happy while writing.
Thank you.