Laborer Mr. Kim Reaps Sweet Rewards with Auto-Hunting - Chapter 18

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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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018

A day had passed.
And then?
Rani was fully charged.

[Fixed Team Assembly]
– Rani (High-grade)

“Director! Rani’s here!”

The moment she calls out, the difference is unmistakable—the very energy shifts.
The way she’s waving her hand, bouncing on her toes…
What’s this about?
Why is she already so worked up?

“Give Rani materials! You promised if I came back tomorrow, I’d get to touch the good stuff!”

Ah.
So that’s why she’s practically vibrating.

“Materials?”
“Yeah!”

Well then.
I’d better deliver.
Prepare to be astonished.
I open my inventory and pull out the goods in one go.

[Highly Venomous Basilisk Fang, Spider Queen’s Poison Gland, Meteor Sword (Fragment), Gargoyle Wing Fragment, Mithril Ingot, High-grade Magic Stone]

Rani’s reaction?

“Materials, materials!”

She comes sprinting over eagerly, then stops short.
Not bad, right?
Take a look.
Her eyes go wide.

“Wow… there’s so much!”
“Told you so, didn’t I? I said today you’d get to handle plenty of quality material.”

Lee Bo-jun, Rank One.
That man’s haul was truly impressive.
Just the materials alone must be worth a fortune.

“It’s a sword! Rani can use this as material too, right?”

A sword?
Oh, the Meteor Sword fragment?

“Of course. I sent it so you could use it—go wild.”
“Yes! Perfect!”

She really can use all of it, too.
The materials came in solid condition.

[Crafting Commission]
[Requested Item: Sword]
[Primary Materials: Highly Venomous Basilisk Fang x20, Meteor Sword (Fragment)]
[Secondary Materials: Spider Queen’s Poison Gland x8, Gargoyle Wing Fragment x6, Mithril Ingot x20, High-grade Magic Stone x10]

Normally you only need ten of the primary materials, or so I’ve heard.
Baek Hwa-rang sent exactly the right amount.
But twenty arrived.
Same with the other materials.
Exactly double.
This means….

“Make one and send it over, and I get to keep the rest.”

Very fitting for the number one ranker.
Or maybe.
It means he wants this badly.

“I’m all set! Rani’s going to make it right now!”

Is there anything she needs to prepare?
Oh, the hammer.
What’s in her other hand?
She’s gripping the materials tightly.
Rani.
I always tell her nobody’s going to steal those….
Anyway.
She went off holding them just as they were, heading to a corner of the workshop.

“Hehe.”

She started hammering with a broad grin spread across her face.
She’ll have it done before long.
In the meantime….

“I should call Arthur and the other workers and run some auto-hunting.”

* * *

“This is taking forever.”

No joke.
Arthur’s already been to the Tower, the others hit the orc dungeon.
They breezed through and came back, and I even had a cup of coffee….

“Haaah-!”

Rani’s still hammering away.
Is it because the materials are top-grade?

“This has to be the longest one yet.”
“Longer than Hwa-reum!”
“Hwal-hwal was pretty quick though.”
“Right?”

Yeah….
We both saw it.
She made that one in no time.
And yet the options were insane.
Just what kind of sword is she trying to make that it’s taking this long….

“Voilà! Finished!”

Well, it’s done.
Rani’s third sword.
Since she’s made it, I should ask.

“Rani, what do you want to call this one?”
“Kkakkeum!”

No hesitation this time.
Well, it’s already the third one anyway….
She probably thought it through while making it.

“Kkakkeum…?”
“Yep!”

Hwal-hwal, Hwa-reum, and now Kkakkeum.
Our Rani….
Her naming sense is something else entirely.
And she’s going to make plenty more items down the line….
Still, the crafter’s opinion?
I have to respect it.

“Kkakkeum… it has a nice ring to it.”
“Right?”

Of course it does.
But what can I do about it?
If I picked something else, Baek Hwa-rang would feel left out.
He’d say, “Mine’s Hwa-reum!” with that tone.

So, Lee Bo-jun.
Your weapon is called Kkakkeum.
It’s better than Hwa-reum anyway, isn’t it?

“Hmm….”

I suppose that might be true.
Anyway.
If the performance is good, then….

“Perfect! So good! Excellent!”

See?
This client here is satisfied too.
Rani poured real effort into making Kkakkeum after all.
The performance should be just as good, right?

[Kkakkeum]
– A masterwork crafted by a skilled artisan.
– Applies powerful poison damage.
– High probability of applying Poison status to enemies.
– Ignores a portion of enemy defense through the power of meteors.
– Grants access to the special skill Extreme Poison.
– Grants immunity to poisons below a certain potency.

“Wow….”

Rani.
This name won’t work. Kkakkeum? That doesn’t sound right.
It’s way more than just a prick.

“It’s better than Hwa-reum!”
“That’s for sure.”

I did use better materials than before….
But somehow something absurd came out?
The person who placed the request is going to be shocked.
They definitely weren’t expecting anything like this.

“Ha! That was fun!”

With performance like this, whoever receives it will obviously be thrilled.
And Rani’s happy too.
Another successful request.
Should I send Kkakkeum right away?

Done. Request finished.
The reward hit my inventory immediately.

[100 High-grade Magic Stones]

Insane.

“At this rate, I’ll never have to worry about money again.”

That’s the thing about Hunters.
They make money hand over fist, then spend it just as fast.
Why?
You need to gear up….
And gear costs a fortune.
But what about me, Yun Ha-jun?

“Hmm….”

Why would I buy equipment?
Rani makes it all for me anyway.

“Rani’s like a lucky charm, honestly.”
“Rani, lucky charm?”
“Yep.”
“Bucky charm! Right right!”

See?
Even Arthur’s nodding along, waving Hwal-hwal around.
She’s definitely a lucky charm.

Ding!
[A new commission has arrived.]

Are you kidding.
I was just watching Rani hopping around, happy as can be, and now this interruption.

[Requester: Lee Bo-jun]

Huh?
He’s submitted another request?
No, forget it.
One was enough.
Any more and Rani will collapse.
I was about to hit reject, but—

“Huh?”

The commission details….

[Thank you with all my heart. Please accept this as a token of my sincerity]

That’s all there is.
A “token of sincerity”—so what’s she sending?
Well, if someone’s giving something, you take it.

<Commission Complete!>

What did she send?
I quickly checked my inventory.

“A ring?”

It’s probably not just decoration.
Can I see the options?
Oh, there it is.

[High-grade Recovery Ring]
– Grants a healing effect to the target of choice.
– Can fully recover wounds up to moderate severity in a single use.
– Usable once every six months.

“She’s giving me this?”

Healing wounds up to moderate severity….
Just looking at it, something this expensive has to cost a fortune.

“That’s a really good item!”
“Right!”

Yeah.
It definitely looks that way.

Personally, I like it better than a Magic Stone.
I can’t even imagine my workers getting hurt.
But if they do, and I have this?
That’s perfect.
So….

“I’ll use it gratefully.”

And do use that sword well, customer.
Try not to break it this time.

* * *

Seoul.
In front of Lee Bo-jun’s home, the number one Tower Clearing ranker.

“What made him call us out?”
“Didn’t you say the Director came by yesterday and he still didn’t show up?”
“Yeah. He just said we’d talk later.”
“You two aren’t close?”
“We are. But I came by last night specifically, and he didn’t show.”

Yun Ji-hyuk, director of the Awakening Management Bureau.
Lee Bo-jun considered him a brother in his private life—they were quite close, he’d thought.
So why yesterday?
It proved useless.
How many times had Yun Ji-hyuk come out and drunk with him when things got rough with his Tower Clearing?

“Well, circumstances being what they are….”

Fair enough.
So he’d had no choice but to pass along word from the Personnel Management Office and leave it at that.
But then….
A message asking to meet just one day later?
Maybe things improved.

“How’s the Personnel Management Office director doing? Taking Commissions now?”

Yun Ji-hyuk was an unAwakened ordinary person.
Instead, he’d brought an Awakened subordinate with him.

“Well… even the ones I submitted got rejected. Looking at the board, it seems like they all got rejected.”
“Sigh. Just make one more for me, would you?”
“There’s talk it’s because of Cooldown….”

Yun Ji-hyuk belonged to the Awakening Management Bureau too.
Of course he understood that much.
Still, it was a shame.
Just one more….

“You’re here?”

Yeah.
If only that Lee Bo-jun could make weapons.
Ugh.
He let out a long sigh, resigned to disappointment, then looked and—
That thing in his hand….

“A sword?”

That’s not the Meteor Sword, is it?
No.
The Meteor Sword was smashed to pieces in the first place.

“Your brother told me yesterday. The Personnel Management Office director—that person made a weapon for Baek Hwa-rang.”
“Yeah, that’s right…. No way?”
“Bingo.”

He accepted one?
But everyone said he rejected them all….
He glanced at the subordinate, who nodded.
But how did he manage that?

“Look at this. You’ll be shocked when you see the Effect.”
“Hand it over.”

What was so special about it?
He took it and looked.

“This sword seems better than the one Baek Hwa-rang got.”
“Of course. I emptied out my entire inventory and put in a commission for it.”
“Hey…you did well! Really well!”

The inventory?
That doesn’t matter.
What matters is that he got a sword like this.
Items can be acquired anytime.

“The Bureau will support us as much as possible, so let’s take our time with this.”

Now that we have a sword, we can return immediately.
Tower Clearing?
We can take it slowly.
We’ve got plenty of time anyway.

“Actually, I was planning to break through the top floor today.”

What?

“The top floor—that’s the 58th?”
“Yeah.”

No.
We can take it slowly, right?
Can you even clear the 58th floor in the first place?
You’ve been stuck there for six months.

“Just calm down first. Let’s prepare slowly and then try it. The 58th floor is brutal, you said so yourself.”

I tried to gently talk him out of it.

“No way. I’m going right now. I think I can do it. I left the house open anyway—the staff here is going to rest inside.”

Whoosh.
So much for calming down—he vanished on the spot.
That lunatic.
Going to a tower like it’s a convenience store.
Because of him, only Yun Ji-hyuk and the staff members were left.

“What should we do?”
“What else? He left the house open, didn’t he?”

We’d have to go and wait there.

* * *

“Do you think he’ll be able to clear the 58th floor?”
“Who knows.”
“It would be nice if he could clear it cleanly like Baek Hwa-rang did.”
“Yeah.”

What about Baek Hwa-rang?
He cleared the 53rd floor.
Now he’s preparing for the 54th.
He was supposed to clear that within days too.

“Lee Bo-jun’s situation is a bit different though. The floor count is higher.”
“That’s true….”

The 53rd and 58th floors.
The difficulty gap between them was like heaven and earth.
There’s no way he’d clear it just by swapping out one sword.

“Well, Lee Bo-jun knows about it too, so he probably went to test things out.”

He couldn’t possibly be thinking of actually clearing it.

“Still, I’m glad the Personnel Management Office director accepted the crafting commission.”
“Right? Man, without that person, we’d probably be in real trouble by now.”

Yeah.
It would’ve been chaos.
We’d be caught up in their scheme with no way to resist.

“Did you catch the culprit?”
“We haven’t managed to yet, apparently.”

Lee Bo-jun’s slump issue had suddenly been exposed.
There was clearly someone pulling strings behind it.
But they still hadn’t found them.
Whoever was behind it had hidden their tracks well.

“It’s obvious. Has to be countries that aren’t far behind him in Tower Clearing rankings.”

Bastards.

“I really hope Lee Bo-jun comes back from that Tower Clearing.”

If he succeeded.
Then we’d be able to turn those bastards’ world upside down….
Then again.
That’s probably an impossible dream.

“Sigh….”

* * *

“Hey, hey! Both of you, wake up. What are you doing sleeping so comfortably in someone else’s house?”

Oh man, I must’ve dozed off for a bit.
Opening my eyes.
Lee Bo-jun’s waving his hand around.
The time is….
About three hours have passed.
So it’s a failure after all, huh.

“You did well. You got a proper warm-up in today, so let’s make real preparations tomorrow and give it another shot.”
“Huh? What are you talking about? I told you. I said I’d clear it this time.”

Huh?
Clear it?

“The 58th floor…?”
“Well, of course.”

No.

“That 58th floor everyone’s been stuck on for six months?”
“Director, sir. I checked the Awakened Individual database, and it shows Lee Bo-jun cleared the 58th floor.”

Really?

“Why are you so surprised over just the 58th floor? Wait and see. Tomorrow I’ll clear straight through to the 59th floor and come back.”

He’s cleared all the way to the 59th floor.
How on earth…?

“This sword the Personnel Management Office chief made for me.”
“Kkakkeum?”
“Ahem… Anyway, with this sword, I think I could even make it to the 60th floor.”

That far?
Wait.
This isn’t the time to waste.
Lee Bo-jun, you rest up.
I’ll handle the staff briefing—

“Get in touch with the reporters right now.”
“What should I tell them, sir?”
“What do you mean what? Just tell them Lee Bo-jun cleared the 58th floor and we’re challenging the 59th floor tomorrow. They’ll take it from there.”

Those rats who’ve been making fools of our country.
Time to make them squirm.

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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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