Copying Runes to Become the World's Strongest - Chapter 42

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 42
Just yesterday, the gymnasium where robots and hunters had been fighting had been transformed into a splendid banquet hall.
Food laid out buffet-style.
Hunters loaded their plates and gathered at tables in twos and threes, eating and chatting.
“Who took the key, do you think?”
“Is there actually someone who got one?”
“No idea who, but I’m jealous.”
Yet one table was unusually quiet.
These were the Guild hunters who had picked a fight with Hyeonjun and come away battered beyond recognition.
“Can you even swallow your food?”
At the sudden voice, the hunters turned their heads.
The moment they saw who it was, they froze in unison.
“Sure, it’s allowed under the rules, but five of you ganged up on one guy.”
Hyeonjun stood with his arms crossed, glaring at them.
Honestly, he wasn’t that angry.
Nobody had gotten hurt.
If anything, they’d shown up like Santa Claus with a gift.
So at first he’d meant to let it slide.
‘Seeing them stuff their faces like nothing happened is seriously irritating.’
I don’t expect an apology.
If you pulled a dirty trick, at least show some remorse.
These guys didn’t have even that much.
“Aren’t you embarrassed? You guys calling yourselves Guild members?”
“…What do you want.”
Han Chanwoo said quietly, barely holding back his irritation.
Hyeonjun smirked.
“Nothing in particular. Watching your rankings drop is enough for me.”
“D-drop? Don’t be ridiculous! The results aren’t out yet!”
Han Chanwoo flared up.
Hyeonjun shook his head slowly.
“You said yourselves I had you tied up the whole time and you couldn’t do a thing. Do you really think everyone else was just sitting around?”
“Ugh…”
“Not accepting it doesn’t change the outcome, you know~”
Han Chanwoo and the other hunters bit their lips.
They were seething, but there was nothing they could do.
They’d been crushed once already.
This wasn’t a gap they could close by charging in again.
They knew it too well, so all they could do was glare at Hyeonjun as he walked away.
“You’ve got quite the temper, don’t you?”
Seong Sohui came up to Hyeonjun, who was standing in front of the food with a plate in hand.
“I’m just giving back what I got.”
Since he’d started working in the real world, Hyeonjun hadn’t clashed with people over anything minor.
He’d figured he’d rather put that energy into work than waste it on fighting, so he let most things slide.
But when something caused him serious harm, that was a different story.
He never let those slide. He paid back every bit of what he’d been dealt.
That was how Hyeonjun had survived in society for the past five years.
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, huh. I’ll have to be careful around you from now on.”
“You’re fine. You were annoying, sure, but it didn’t really cost me anything.”
Taking the dagger and disrupting the test had, in a way, turned into a blessing in disguise.
Because of it, he’d discovered another way to use the Analysis skill.
“…So what you’re really saying is I’m no match for you?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Whatever. It’s true, isn’t it? Anyway, have you decided where you’re going?”
“Decided what?”
The two kept talking as they filled their plates.
Seong Sohui answered as though it were obvious.
“What else? Which guild you’re joining. Someone like you could pick any one you want.”
“Oh, that’s what you meant. I haven’t decided yet.”
He’d never intended to decide at all, but he didn’t bother saying so.
It wasn’t something he needed to tell Seong Sohui.
“Better decide quickly. I heard some guild people are coming later.”
“They’re coming here?”
“Yeah. Apparently they’re picking people to take on the spot.”
“That’s surprising.”
Guild representatives from a major guild visiting the site just to recruit E-Rank Hunters?
It was hardly an ordinary affair.
“I wonder who’s coming. Will it be someone senior?”
“Probably just a few staff members.”
Hyeonjun loaded his plate and sat down at a table tucked away in the corner.
Seong Sohui took the seat beside him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Why are you sitting here?”
“Didn’t look like you had anyone to eat with.”
“Or is it that you don’t have anyone?”
Seong Sohui pretended not to hear and started eating.
Hyeonjun ate too.
It wasn’t as luxurious as the meal from yesterday, but it was still good.
“You’re going with Seongsam, right?”
“Seongsam, huh.”
“Isn’t it obviously Seongsam over the other guilds?”
“Well…”
“What’s with that vague answer?”
Instead of replying, Hyeonjun chose silence.
As he quietly kept eating, Seong Sohui pouted.
“It’d be fun if we all went hunting together as a party…”
“What?”
“Ah, never mind. It’s nothing.”
It was about thirty minutes later that Nam Jaewoon stepped onto the stage at the front.
The gazes of the Hunters, most of whom had finished their meals, turned toward him.
-Did everyone enjoy their meal?
A few Hunters raised their hands in response.
-Thank you all for your hard work over these one-night, two-day sessions.
A string of routine greetings followed.
A warm atmosphere settled over the room.
-Now, we’ll begin announcing the rankings.
With those words, the air in the hall sank in an instant.
No one knew where they stood yet.
A subtle tension crept through the Hunters who had been chatting amiably moments before.
-Before the announcement, we’ll welcome our guests.
The people who came out from behind the stage took their seats in the chairs arranged on it.
The Hunters started murmuring.
Some of the faces were familiar, while others were not.
-These are representatives from the guilds.
“G-guilds?”
“They came here in person?”
“See anyone you know?”
The reaction grew even more heated.
It was only natural, since these were the people who might decide their futures.
-Along with the rankings, the guilds will now proceed with their selections. Those who are not chosen should not be too disappointed, and are encouraged to keep striving.
Hyeonjun checked the faces of the people being called guild representatives.
‘What?’
For some reason, he recognized every one of them.
He wasn’t acquainted with any of them, but he had seen most of them several times on video.
‘Something’s off. These aren’t ordinary representatives.’
If it were an ordinary representative invited to an event like this, it would normally be a recruiter sitting in an office.
But the people on that stage were all Hunters who had once made a name for themselves or were still active.
“Hey, hey. They’re all Hunters?”
“No way. That’s Kang Daewoong.”
“And Cha Yewon’s right next to him?”
“W-wait, isn’t that Seo Kevin?”
“Why would people like that be here?”
“Is this really how strong we are?”
“I-I don’t know. It’s scary…”
The hunters, belatedly recognizing the faces before them, grew flustered.
It was a natural reaction.
Most of them knew full well that they weren’t the sort of talent that the industry’s heavyweights would come looking for.
Nam Jaewoon, watching the hunters’ reactions, thought along similar lines.
‘They’re being awfully blatant.’
Even if these were the top of the E-Rank pack, this many hunters didn’t warrant a procession of this scale.
The reason was obvious.
Nam Jaewoon’s gaze drifted toward one table.
Hyeonjun sat there, calmly eating the dessert he’d piled onto his plate.
‘I had a rough idea, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad.’
Anyone who had watched his battle at the Ruins would have recognized Hyeonjun’s potential.
So I’d figured the guilds would be paying attention, but I never imagined the people who came in person would be the kind who could be called heavyweights.
‘Too bad.’
Not one of them is going to get what they came for.
“Everyone, please be quiet. We will now begin the announcement. Guild representatives, raise your hand when the hunter you want is called. The selected hunters will hear the terms and decide whether to accept.”
Nam Jaewoon, starting the announcements from twentieth place.
The officials seated behind him chatted among themselves, as though the lower ranks were not worth their attention at all.
“I didn’t expect you to come in person.”
“You haven’t changed your tone, I see.”
Kang Daewoong bared his teeth at Seo Kevin and grinned.
Seo Kevin was the opposite of Kang Daewoong, the savage beast, in both looks and manner of speech.
He was an A-Rank hunter belonging to KS Hunters.
“I’m here too.”
Cha Yewon, seated beside Kang Daewoong.
Seo Kevin spotted her and creased his brow.
“What are you doing here?”
“If we want to take the good ones, we have to put our all into it!”
“Hey, mister~ I’m here too~”
From the seat behind Kang Daewoong, Baek Jehyeok popped his head up without warning.
Seo Kevin’s face twisted into something far worse than before.
“Wow, look at that face. Isn’t that a bit much?”
Seo Kevin seemed to think he’d overdone it as well, clearing his throat and smoothing his expression.
“Didn’t expect a layabout from a backwater town to show up in a place like this.”
“Backwater? Incheon? Have you only ever flown out of Gimpo, mister?”
“Don’t engage with that insolent brat.”
At Kang Daewoong’s words, Seo Kevin let out a sneer.
“Shouldn’t you be used to him by now?”
“I’m only keeping quiet because I’ve gotten used to him. Back in the day, you’d already be face-down in the dirt.”
“How undignified.”
“Both of you, stop it already. Anyone watching would think you came here to fight.”
At Cha Yewon’s plea, Seo Kevin clicked his tongue.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea who you’re all here for. We’re taking Hunter Go Hyeonjun.”
“As if he’d ever go anywhere with an eye for talent as blind as yours.”
“Isn’t that better than a place that sprawls its tentacles everywhere like you lot?”
“We can afford to do it, which is why we can. Hunters’ Guild can’t manage it, so they can’t invest properly.”
Seo Kevin lifted the corner of his mouth, as if to make a show of it.
“This time is different. The Management Bureau’s policy has changed how the guilds handle promising hunters. I don’t know the details, but a massive investment worth hundreds of billions is going to be made.”
“Wow, hundreds of billions? KS Hunters must be going all in.”
Since it was clear he had no chance of competing anyway, Baek Jehyeok admired it with pure sincerity.
Kang Daewoong, on the other hand, was momentarily left speechless by the sum.
Seongsam had invested a lot of money too, but it hadn’t reached anything close to that.
“…I already know Hunter Go Hyeonjun, though.”
Feeling he had to say something, Kang Daewoong spoke up in a hurry.
Even he found it embarrassing to hear himself, but to his surprise, it worked.
“What? You’ve already gotten on his good side?”
“Y-yeah. And two of our promising hunters have gotten pretty close with that kid. Looks like your promising hunter went and made a fool of himself and got thoroughly beaten, though.”
Seo Kevin had also heard about the attempt to ambush Hyeonjun.
“Wasn’t it your promising hunters who did more of that?”
“Aren’t we kicking them out anyway?”
“If we kick them out too, that’s the end of it. Getting worked up over such petty personal connections…”
Even as they bickered, the announcements kept rolling on.
Hunters rose and fell as the rankings were read out, one after another, from twentieth down to tenth.
“Oh, no…”
“Me, fifteenth?”
“How could this happen…”
The Guild hunters who had been thoroughly humiliated by Hyeonjun all landed near the bottom.
They had scored not a single point in the final test.
Still, they seemed shaken, as though they hadn’t expected to fall this far.
“N-no, this can’t be right! Something’s gone wrong!”
Han Chanwoo shot to his feet, protesting.
The only things waiting for him were the cold stares of Nam Jaewoon and the Guild representatives.
“Nothing has gone wrong. I’d also like to convey one more matter. Any hunter belonging to a guild will be expelled from that guild unless a representative of that guild raises their hand.”
This had already been relayed to the participating guilds.
For the hunters who had only just learned of it, it was a bolt from the blue.
“W-what?”
Han Chanwoo’s face had gone ashen.
He was not the only one.
The hunters from Seongsam and KS who had been with him reacted in much the same way.
None of them had been chosen, not by their own guild representatives and not by any other guild.
“Please refrain from disruptions during the announcements. Now, we’ll continue.”
With those at the top pushed down in droves, hunters who had been lower in the standings climbed into the top ten.
“Nice!”
“Ha-ha!”
Hunters were whooping in triumph.
Most had been picked by guilds, and the hunters chose which guild to join.
It was thanks to their performance in the Dungeon test, the one every guild had watched most closely.
The hunters who had been selected were handed slips of paper listing each guild’s conditions.
Some told them they would think it over; others picked a guild on the spot.
“Next, the third place. Kim Changdong.”
The announcements had already reached the podium without anyone noticing.
Plenty had shifted further down, but the top ranks remained unchanged.
“Second place, Seong Sohui.”
Kim Changdong, followed by Seong Sohui.
Kang Daewoong raised his hand for those two without fail.
The Guild representatives who had been watching his face turned away with wistful expressions.
“And finally, first place.”
The venue was charged with more tension than ever.
Everyone looked ready to shoot their hands into the air at any moment.
“Go Hyeonjun.”
The moment the name left his mouth, the representatives reached out their hands.
Every single one of them raised a hand.
Nam Jaewoon glanced behind him, then called out Hyeonjun’s name calmly.
“Hunter Go Hyeonjun?”
Hyeonjun rose from his seat.
A staff member, carrying a basket overflowing with slips of paper listing the basic conditions for joining, made their way over to him.
“None.”
Hyeonjun answered briefly and curtly.
The venue froze in an instant.
The Guild representatives stiffened where they sat.
The staff member who had been heading toward Hyeonjun stopped dead in place.
Nam Jaewoon spoke as if nothing were amiss.
“Are you saying you have no guild to join?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Understood. That concludes the Orientation rankings announcement. The banquet hall will remain open until 23:00, so please feel free to make use of it until then and exit afterward.”
Nam Jaewoon stepped down from the stage.
Hyeonjun, too, left the banquet hall without a backward glance.
“H-hold on a second!”
Seong Sohui called out in a hurry.
Only then did the officials and hunters at the guild start murmuring among themselves.
“What’s going on?”
“He’s refusing to join a guild?”
“He can pick any one he wants. Why on earth would he turn them all down?”
Hyeonjun left the scene quickly, leaving all the commotion behind him.
A few officials hurried after him, but by then he had already vanished.
“Hahahaha!”
Laughter rang out across the chaotic hall.
The guild officials turned to look at Baek Jehyeok.
“Oh, my apologies. Hahahaha!”
Still laughing, he couldn’t shake the story his older brother, Baek Jegeon, had passed along to him.
The offer of a one-year admission ban from the major guilds, made with two billion won in hand.
Even though the boy had turned that offer down, Jegeon had handed over 1 billion won as thanks for saving his younger brother. Looks like it worked after all.
‘Otherwise, why would he skip over all the other major guilds?’
Of course, the truth was nothing like that.
Baek Jehyeok, knowing none of this, grinned with satisfaction, convinced his brother had been right all along.
“Hahahahaha!”
Kang Daewoong, seated across from him, burst into a hearty laugh of his own.
Seo Kevin, who had been holding his head in his hand at the unexpected turn of events, glanced back at him.
“Have you two lost your minds? Ugh, what on earth is going on here.”
“Isn’t it fun?”
“Fun? All it does is irritate me…”
Kang Daewoong fixed his gaze on the exit Hyeonjun had just walked through.
A person with an extraordinary talent.
I had thought his temperament would be rather ordinary, but that wasn’t the case either.
‘Right. Someone with that kind of power ought to have a little flavor to him.’
Go Hyeonjun.
Refusing every one of South Korea’s most prominent guilds, I wonder what path he really means to walk.
Kang Daewoong was eager to see what the future held.

.

“Phew.”
Once he slipped out of the training facility, Hyeonjun let out a sigh of relief.
“Good thing I got out of there fast.”
Before taking part in the closing event, Nam Jaewoon had given him a heads-up.
Because of me, famous figures from several guilds were going to show up.
So, he’d said, once the refusal was announced, it’d be best to leave the spot as quickly as possible.
“A moment longer and things would have gotten messy.”
The crowd that had been rushing over to try and hold onto him.
Following the route Nam Jaewoon had sent him in advance, he shook them off without much trouble.
He had no decent excuse ready for them, so it was better not to deal with them at all from the start.
“This way, please.”
The parking lot.
A vehicle prepared by the Management Bureau was waiting for him.
Following the driver’s directions, Hyeonjun climbed into the car.
“We’re leaving now.”
A little while after the car pulled away.
A message arrived from Nam Jaewoon.
‘So the Zero Fee benefit can be used right away.’
It explained exactly that, and also asked him to reach out to this contact if he needed anything at all.
Hyeonjun read the message and smiled with quiet satisfaction.
‘Just by sitting here, I’m picking up connections left and right.’
First the Michuhol Guild, and now the Management Bureau.
He hadn’t merely gained members of those organizations; he’d forged real bonds with their upper leadership.
Should a major crisis strike, he now had two people he could count on for help.
‘Coming here was worth it.’
The E-Rank Hunter Orientation.
Over that short two-day, one-night journey, he had gained so much.
And I’m not just talking about the Zero Fee at the Exchange or the connections with the Management Bureau.
‘More ways to use the skills I already have.’
Things I wouldn’t have figured out for a long time if not for the orientation.
Hyeonjun smiled, satisfied.
It was easily one of the best two days of his life.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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