Episode 22. What Jealousy Wants
“Wh… what on earth is…”
Thirty years as a professor.
Professor Jeong Inyong, who had attended countless MTs over those thirty years, stared dumbfounded at the scene unfolding in the yard, unable to close his mouth.
“Se… Seonho, did you order a catering buffet or something?”
Jeong Inyong looked at Lee Seonho, the student council president grinning beside him. Lee Seonho shook his head and called out to Sindae.
“Your schoolmate Park Sindae here prepared all of this, Professor.”
“Sindae did?”
Jeong Inyong looked at Park Sindae, who was scratching his head bashfully, as if surprised by the attention.
He looked at the whole pig barbecue rotating in the middle of the yard and laughed heartily.
“Th… that’s amazing, Sindae. Where on earth did you get something like this…”
“I learned it at home.”
Sindae shrugged as if it was no big deal. He cut and served the pork belly to the professor, and Jeong Inyong took a bite.
He looked at the meat in amazement.
“D… delicious… it’s delicious…”
“Seonho oppa, can we eat too?!”
“I want to eat, Seonho hyung!”
Whole pig barbecue, sweet and sour pork, jjageuli, and various other meat dishes.
When Lee Seonho nodded at the students whose eyes were sparkling, everyone began rushing toward the food.
“Wow… this is really delicious.”
“How did he make this?”
“Is there anyone in the student council who cooks as a hobby?”
Watching the students eating, Lee Seonho grinned.
“Everyone, your schoolmate Park Sindae made all of this. Let’s all give him a word of thanks.”
At Lee Seonho’s words, the students’ eyes widened.
They couldn’t believe that Park Sindae had made these dishes.
“That senior? How?”
“Was he a cook in the army?”
“I was a cook in the army, and I can tell you this is impossible for an army cook…”
“What on earth is that senior’s true identity?”
Before, because of his rough appearance, no one had even glanced at Sindae, but the luxury clothes he had worn since coming on the MT.
And the sight he had shown in the dungeon, and the dishes he had made now!
Several students from the History department began looking at Sindae with completely different eyes.
“Thanks for the food, hyung!”
“Oppa, please tell me how you made this next time!”
Sindae scratched the back of his head awkwardly at the crowd’s praise.
He could only smile awkwardly.
‘Being in the spotlight feels awkward…’
“Sindae, you worked hard. Come over here.”
Lee Seonho called the awkward Sindae over to his drinking table. He called him to the table where the student council members were gathered.
‘It’d be best to introduce him in advance, right?’
Having already settled on Sindae as the welfare department head. A few student council members who had already read Lee Seonho’s intentions began naturally moving to the seats beside Sindae.
“I’m Jang Hyeonsu, the sports department head.”
“Hyung, have a drink with me. I’m Lee Yeongjin, Intelligence Vice Chief!”
“Ah… yes… hello…”
It was the first time anyone had approached him at school, so Sindae was bewildered.
Watching him, Lee Seonho smiled in satisfaction.
“Alright! Then shall we make a toast as student council members?!”
Lee Seonho was naturally pulling Sindae into the student council as one of their own.
***
‘Damn it…….’
Byeon Beomsu crushed the paper cup in his hand and spat out a curse.
His drinking table was empty.
And that single word perfectly expressed his situation of sitting there receiving blameful glares from everyone around him.
‘That should have been my seat… damn it….’
Byeon Beomsu looked at Sindae, who was now mingling with other students beyond just the student council, with a jealous gaze.
Just as he was looking at them with eyes flickering with jealousy.
“Do you want that seat?”
Byeon Beomsu was startled and opened his eyes wide at the voice that came without a sound. However, terror instantly rose in him at his body, which had become unable to move.
‘Wh… what on earth….’
“Shall I help you?”
His confusion at the woman’s voice coming from behind lasted only a moment.
Before he knew it, Byeon Beomsu’s eyes looking at Sindae were bloodshot.
‘I want it… that seat he’s in, even the favorable feelings of the people going toward him!’
At this sudden jealousy, Byeon Beomsu found his head nodding on its own.
The being behind him let out a short laugh and then nodded as if to say, ‘I knew it.’
“Then I’ll help you with this jealousy.”
His doubts about what she meant lasted only a moment.
Byeon Beomsu opened his eyes wide at the mana inside his body gradually increasing.
“Wh… what is this?”
The rising mana. And even the snake tattoo etching itself onto his wrist on its own.
To Byeon Beomsu, who was watching everything in surprise, the unfamiliar being muttered softly.
“Congratulations on your Awakening rank going up.”
***
“It feels like I haven’t been home in a while.”
Though he had only been away from home for three days, so many things had happened at the MT that Sindae felt like he was returning home after a long time.
Sindae came inside shaking his head, and as expected, he couldn’t help but frown at the smell of hides rotting.
‘I brought it that many hides, and it’s already rotting them?’
Sindae had definitely placed fifty different monster hides on top of the griffin egg.
However, now that all fifty hides were rotting, he was quite bewildered.
“Is this guy a total glutton?”
Still, Sindae smiled proudly and lifted the glossy griffin egg.
He was pleased that the hatching rate had finally exceeded twenty percent and that it had absorbed the traits of various monsters.
“For now, I’ll lay out some troll hide. Absorb it slowly, little chick, okay?”
Sindae stroked the egg as he laid out the troll hide.
It was while he was spending time cleaning up the house.
[To the Ares Guild-owned 7-star Harpy dungeon by 5 PM tomorrow evening!]
Sindae smirked as he read Cha Yerin’s text message on his phone after finishing cleaning the house.
After replying that he understood, he began worrying about what to do going forward.
‘First, stats of 300…. It starts from here….’
As he had thought before, Sindae had decided to hit 300 in all stats and enter the ranks of the Rankers.
If he entered the ranks of Rankers, it would clearly become much easier to carry out what he had planned.
“Then there’s no reason to pass up the opportunity Cha Yerin is giving me.”
Of course, he would enter dungeons where monsters that gave high-grade stats appeared.
Sometimes the items or daily pay were much higher than when he had worked day jobs, so he had no intention of refusing.
‘Shall I organize these first and get ready to go tomorrow…’
The magic stones and hides obtained from the trap-type dungeon.
Among them, Sindae had obtained a mace, but after swinging it a few times, he had decided to sell it because it didn’t suit him.
“And returning the hundred million won to the Osiris Guild was a good thing… Yeah, a good thing…”
Though he had worried about it a bit, Sindae had returned the money on his way home. After returning it, he had received a reply from Choi Cheolmin, the Lion King of the Osiris Guild, saying that he would come find him in person soon, which had flustered him somewhat.
***
“Mr. Park Sindae?”
The next day, wearing light athletic clothes and carrying gathering tools, Sindae arrived at the Ares Guild-owned Harpy dungeon.
When Sindae nodded to the Ares Guild employee, the employee naturally began guiding him into the dungeon.
“First off, Vice President Cha Yerin has already taken care of all the monsters.”
“Ah… I see.”
Sindae found it odd, as if the employee was reporting to him.
When he entered the dungeon, he could see the winged monster harpies collapsed around him.
“Shall we begin immediately?”
Sindae nodded at the employee’s words.
According to the guild employee, Cha Yerin had temporarily left the dungeon, saying she would rest before catching the boss monster.
‘There’s so much to do… hoo, when will I finish all of this….’
A dungeon the size of Seoul.
Though the Ares Guild’s collection teams were supposedly gathering in several places even now, Sindae had to butcher what looked like nearly three hundred harpies before his eyes alone.
“I’ll start now.”
“Understood. If you need anything, you can find me at the dungeon entrance.”
Once the employee left, Sindae naturally began gathering the harpies.
Having consumed harpy meat, Sindae secretly smiled at his Agility increasing by 7.
‘Wow… I haven’t seen movement speed increase before…’
On top of that, a twenty percent increase in movement speed.
Sindae sneakily moved around here and there, and a smirk formed at how much lighter his body felt than before.
“I should ask them to pack some for me before I go.”
Since the movement speed increase would certainly help in combat, Sindae decided to ask them to pack some harpy meat along with the hides.
***
“What do you think?”
On a hill inside the dungeon, when Cha Yerin asked the man beside her, he looked at Sindae with interest.
“Where did you find an Awakener like that?”
A middle-aged man who appeared to be past his fifties.
However, looking at his solid body and massive greatsword, he looked like a man in his early thirties at most.
Gu Sincheol, the Guild Master of the Ares Guild, an S-rank Awakener, and someone who always came up when discussing the strongest Awakener in Korea.
At his interested eyes, Cha Yerin grinned.
“I didn’t know you’d take such an interest?”
“You brought me here to take an interest, didn’t you?”
“That’s true, but usually you just glance once and tell me to recruit him.”
Cha Yerin spoke, recalling Gu Sincheol’s attitude toward other Awakeners. At her words, he merely shrugged.
“If you had brought an Awakener like him, I wouldn’t have.”
Gu Sincheol looked again at Sindae, who was naturally butchering 7-star monsters.
The fact that he had butchered fifty harpies in thirty minutes was surprising enough, but Gu Sincheol was more amazed that the majority of those fifty had dropped alchemy materials.
‘Harpy feathers that you might or might not see even after catching a hundred… so easily like that….’
A face that showed no particular emotion, whether he realized it or not.
Moreover, when an equipment item dropped after he passed sixty, Gu Sincheol’s eyes looked like they would pop out of his head.
‘Amazing… is he an Irregular?’
“But… unlike you, you left some leftovers.”
As Gu Sincheol frowned and asked, sensing the energy of monsters from where Sindae was butchering, Cha Yerin merely smiled slyly.
“Unlike me? No, I left those on purpose.”
“On purpose?”
Gu Sincheol furrowed his brows, wondering what good it would do to deliberately put a man named Park Sindae in danger.
As he drew his greatsword and tried to hurry over, she stopped him with a sly smile.
“Wait and watch. Let’s see what an Irregular like us is hiding.”
“You little……”