Chapter 331

At that, Sung Uijae, who had been quietly watching me, reached out, tightly clasped my hand as though shaking it, and said,

“I’ll tell you in advance. No matter what your request is, notifying me the day before won’t work. You have to explain everything you’re thinking, and not only can it not involve killing someone, it can’t be something harmful to society either.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t answer halfheartedly. Once I make a promise, I keep it.”

“I wasn’t answering carelessly either.”

With that, I took the Trust Covenant for Sung Uijae out of the space-saving box. It was weaker than the one I had made with Joo Seowon, but it was still a covenant with enough risk to be bothersome.

“What is this?”

“A contract.”

“It’s an artifact.”

“Yes, a contract with a bit of risk.”

Sung Uijae, who had been trying to gauge what the risk was, accepted the contract.

The reason I had deliberately brought a contract that would not seriously affect his life was as a kind of insurance. It was not because Sung Uijae seemed like the kind of bastard who would break a promise, but to make him aware that such a contract existed. Going further, it was to make the bastard at least somewhat conscious of the risk.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Well, fill it out and contact me, Hunter Sung.”

“.......”

I rubbed the side of my index finger with my thumb and added,

“Using what you just said.”

“Doesn’t this carry risk for you too? If you hand the whole thing over to me, how do you know what I’ll do with it?”

“You didn’t look like the underhanded type, but I guess you are.”

“You look underhanded, and you actually are underhanded.”

Impressive that he even knew what underhanded meant.

After glancing at the hotel employee who had been hovering in front of the car for a while, I finally unlocked the doors.

“Then go.”

“How do I give this back to you?”

“Think about it carefully, fill it out, and contact me. I’ll come get it.”

“I’ve been thinking, and your mind is....”

I roughly cut Sung Uijae off.

“I get it, so get out.”

“If you’re this rude, there’s something wrong with your mind, so make sure you visit a hospital and get treatment.”

“See you next time.”

“I hope I can meet you when your head is a little more normal then.”

“Goodbye.”

After that final farewell, I lightly waved at the dumbfounded Sung Uijae and started the car again.

‘All right, that takes care of this....’

Then I should pay a little more attention to the other things.

*** ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Thanks to the sudden vacation, it was easy to take care of the things I had been putting off. After throwing Kang Sojeong a simple provocation, I checked the artifacts once more, rested a little more leisurely, then went back to the event venue to pick up Do Yehyun.

After contacting him and waiting, several people eventually walked toward the car.

‘What the hell? A whole fucking crowd of useless bastards came too.’

Seok Jiwon was one thing, but why had Tae Hyunjin, whom I had never called at all, come? Yesterday had only been a brief conversation too.

When I opened the door to let Do Yehyun in, Tae Hyunjin quickly grabbed it and shamelessly stuck her head inside.

“You didn’t come today.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you come?”

If she had gone out of her way to come all the way here, she probably had something to say. When I tilted my head without answering, Tae Hyunjin indeed brought up what she had originally wanted to say on her own.

“If you want to properly use my water dragon that you took, have it processed again. Thinking of using it as defensive gear in the first place was a mistake.”

“Why are you interfering?”

“It’s a shame. Seeing such good material... being wasted like this.”

Tae Hyunjin reflexively shifted her gaze to my wrist, confirmed that I was not wearing the protective gear, and shrugged.

“Do you regret selling it that much?”

“I probably wouldn’t care if it hadn’t caught my eye, but since it happened to catch my eye, I regret it.”

Muttering as though to herself, Tae Hyunjin smacked her lips once and obediently pulled her head back out.

“Still, you’d be much better off listening to me. There’s no Hunter who handles artifacts better than I do.”

“That’s impressive.”

I answered halfheartedly, then belatedly looked back at Tae Hyunjin.

“So how would it be most useful to process it?”

At my words, Tae Hyunjin furrowed her brow as though I had asked something obvious.

“You should process it into an offensive weapon.”

“For example?”

“A sword?”

She chose the weapon that appealed to me least out of every possible weapon.

Perhaps seeing my expression immediately turn indifferent, Tae Hyunjin let out a disbelieving laugh.

“You dare ignore my advice?”

“I’ll think about processing the artifact.”

“Fine. And your Skill is frost-type, isn’t it? If you use a water-attribute artifact well, it’ll really help you a lot.”

“Then please get out now. I need to take Yehyun.”

“All right.”

Tae Hyunjin obediently stepped away and disappeared as though giving advice really had been her only purpose. After I exchanged a brief greeting with Seok Jiwon and let Do Yehyun into the car, the bastard spoke in a cold voice as soon as he got in.

“Don’t get close to Hunter Tae.”

“I’m not close to her.”

“Hunter Tae followed me around all day today. She kept asking where you were....”

“Why? Did she say she wanted to scout you?”

That bitch?

At that, Do Yehyun hesitated for a moment before answering.

“She did say that too. She said her guild was short on healers.”

“Don’t go.”

“I’m not going.”

“Good.”

“Oh, while we were eating, she suddenly stabbed the arm of the person next to her with a knife and told me to try healing it.”

As expected, high-rank Hunters really did all have something wrong with them in general.

I nodded with that fresh realization. At that, Do Yehyun made a subtle expression for a moment, then added,

“It reminded me of when you suddenly carved out your palm and told me to try using Heal.”

“I didn’t stab someone else.”

“But yesterday... you hit an old man over the head.”

“That couldn’t be helped. And could you call him the Association Chairman instead of an old man? It makes it sound like I beat up an innocent person.”

After correcting Do Yehyun’s words, I finally took out the artifacts I had bought today.

“I bought you presents.”

“What kind?”

One by one, I showed Do Yehyun the artifacts I had bought for him and explained them.

“This is defensive gear. You keep moving to the front during battles, so it’s for that. And this is an attack-type artifact. It’s disposable, but it looked powerful. The downside is that we couldn’t test it. Keep it with you.”

“Yes.”

Do Yehyun answered obediently, then smiled as he turned the artifacts this way and that with eyes more lively than before.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah.”

After receiving his thanks, I belatedly handed Do Yehyun one more artifact.

“What is this?”

Watching Do Yehyun naturally accept the artifact and inspect every part of it, I answered with a faint smile.

“A deadly-poison-type artifact.”

“.......”

“It affects everything in every direction. There isn’t any particular antidote, and the effect only stops once it disperses into the air. It’s so dangerous that places normally don’t sell it, but someone was selling one, so I got it.”

It had been quite a long time ago now, but there had once been a time when Do Yehyun had made a fuss about obtaining a deadly-poison-type artifact. His idea had been to continuously heal himself while fucking [N O V E L I G H T] everyone else up in every direction.

Even then, I had thought the idea had some use, but I had no intention of actually carrying it out.

That was because even if self-healing was possible, enduring the pain seemed excessively inefficient. On top of that, no matter how excellent his healing ability was, gradually testing deadly poison to find his limit would have been a troublesome process.

But there was a reason I had deliberately given him a deadly-poison-type artifact now.

After entering the Church of Heavenly Decree’s maze Dungeon, Do Yehyun had lost his original Skill, ‘Fight Poison with Poison.’ Since it had been a Skill he could not properly use anyway, he himself did not seem to feel much of a sense of loss... but I did.

‘It would’ve been useful.’

Of course, right now, since we were in a situation where we could bring in a healer capable of attacking from outside, the need for it was somewhat lower. But later, there would definitely come at least one situation where it would be necessary.

And he had lost it....

‘He’ll need at least one last-resort weapon that can attack in another way.’

Do Yehyun, who understood what I meant, slowly raised his head. Meeting the bastard’s eyes, I explained in a calm voice.

“It’s a last resort.”

“When is the last resort?”

“When you’re isolated. When you absolutely have to survive. When you can accept that the other people around you may die.”

“How do I... detoxify it?”

At that question, I lightly tapped the bastard’s cheek with one finger and answered,

“You can’t.”

I turned my head forward and continued.

“I’m going to be away for a while soon.”

“Are you going on a business trip?”

“Something like that.”

“With whom?”

“Im Haekyung.”

Thinking back to what had happened this morning, I added lightly,

“I’m telling you because I think I’ll be busy.”

A trauma Dungeon for trapping Kwon Taehan. Just today, I had obtained from Jin Haedo a way to use one without clearing an ordinary Dungeon.