Laborer Mr. Kim Reaps Sweet Rewards with Auto-Hunting - Chapter 69

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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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Episode 69

A new post on Awakener Net.

[Taking Crafting Commissions – Personnel Management Office]

The response was explosive.

– When do you start accepting??
– Any nationality restrictions?
– Is this an auction like last time?
– Can you do it even for 34-floor materials?
……
…

Comments flooded in the moment the post went live.
Refreshing the general forum, you’d see:

[Why Tower-Ranked Hunters MUST Get a Weapon This Time]
[Canada’s #2, Only One Floor Behind #1, Really Wants That Weapon….]
[Personnel Management Office Weapons…. Insanely jealous.]
……
…

Geez.
All anyone’s talking about is that.
And I’m seeing foreign hunters mixed in too.
Look, all of you.
Why are you doing this on other countries’ boards?
You should be posting on your own Awakener Net.
Where did this rumor even spread from?

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Man….
Guess I was right.
Look at all these comment notifications.
Insane.
This is seriously massive.

“This is going to be way bigger than the last auction.”

Actually, wait.
Now that I think about it, isn’t that obvious?
The conditions I posted on the last Crafting Commission.

——-
[Commission Conditions.]

1. Materials must be from 61st floor or higher.
2. Commission fee: X.
3. Instead, materials must be doubled or more. (Commissions with better terms will be prioritized.)
——-

This time?
None.
Just coordination with the Awakening Management Bureau.
With no conditions, there’s bound to be a lot of interested parties.
There’ll be plenty of comments then.
But…
It won’t make a difference.
I’m not going to read them anyway.
Maybe I’ll post a Crafting piece or two.
But I can guess what they’ll say without looking.

– I’d be forever grateful if you’d make me just one weapon.
– Breaking the 47th Floor is my lifelong dream, please make something for me.
– Could you possibly make it cheaper?
And so on.

Most of them will be useless.
Right.
No deals.
Talk to the Personnel Management Office.
If you lay out your conditions with them, they’ll process them in order.
Though the final decision is mine, of course.
Still…
It’ll be better than Ralph, who supplied 174 materials.

“Oh.”

Except China.
I’m not planning to make anything for them unless the conditions are truly exceptional.

“Todd, you remember? China is excluded unless they offer genuinely good terms.”
“Yes, sir. If they send jumbled scraps like last time, I’ll reject it outright.”

Right.
They said the minimum condition was at least twice what the 61st Floor required.
They threw in all sorts of miscellaneous materials, even slipping in Low-Grade Magic Stones.
Thinking about it now still makes me shake my head.
A hunter from the 60s asking me to forge a weapon, and they send Low-Grade Magic Stones?
Are they joking?

“If they mix in Low-Grade Magic Stones again, we’ll have to reject them permanently then.”
“Ha. Three months from now will be interesting.”

Three months from now?
Ah.
If they can’t break through?
Well…
They’ll figure it out themselves.
Come back with an even bigger bundle and ask again.
Or find another way.

“If worst comes to worst, they could ask another country instead.”

I don’t care about that part.
It’s not my responsibility either.
So as far as I’m concerned, rejection is final.
Though who knows.
If they come with terms that are too big to refuse?
Then I might just say yes.
Though given what I’ve seen of China so far, that’s unlikely.
Anyway, what’s certain is this.

“Rani’s going to have her hands full for a while.”
“Why? Because of making weapons?”
“Well, that’s the thing—I won’t be making just a few. I’ll need to produce quite a lot.”
“That’s fine! Rani absolutely loves making weapons!”
“I know, I know. But looking at this, I’m guessing we’re talking two or three a day, easy?”

Things have gotten completely chaotic.

[Global Notification: Humanity has cleared the First Gate.]
[The Tower of Chaos difficulty will now increase, and rewards will be substantially raised.]
[Additionally, the clear deadline for all towers has been reset and is now set to three months.]
[Should you fail to clear within the deadline, the region where the tower stands will be erased.]

A notification that appeared for every person on Earth not long ago.
There’s nothing to sum up or explain.
Clear the highest floor within three months.
Fail, and your capital disappears.
That’s it.
It’s been about ten days….
So we’ve got almost two and a half months left.
How many countries have cleared the highest floor so far?
Exactly one.
Korea.
The rest?
Well….
Word is it’s brutal.
The difficulty itself shot up, so what can you do.
I’d guess it has something to do with that First Gate thing….
I’ve asked the workers if they know what’s going on.
But I haven’t gotten any satisfying answers.
Apparently you can only find out if you get past floor seventy-one or something.
Nothing we can do about it, I suppose.

“Anyway, now that we’ve got about two and a half months left, people are going to be flooding in.”
“How many?”
“Probably… everyone in the world?”
“Really?!”
“Of course.”

This isn’t arrogance—it’s a fact.
The Personnel Management Office receives Crafting commissions?
How are we supposed to resist that.

“Of course, it’ll be Rani doing the actual making.”
“Right! Rani makes everything!”

That’s right.
Items made by Rani.
They’re incredibly famous.

“Hwal-hwal?”
“Well, hwal-hwal isn’t exactly famous. That one only we know about.”

But there are plenty of others.
Hwal-reuk, Tta-kkeum….
Weapons like those.
The gear Ralph walked away with—none of those names have been revealed yet.
Still, well.
The process itself became so famous.
That auction where top rankers from the Five Great Powers brought materials by the armful?
Just hearing the keywords gets people excited.
And the result: Ralph’s victory, stakes being one hundred seventy-four top-tier materials.
Thanks to that, I’ve already carved one image properly into my reputation.
Equipment made by the Personnel Management Office director?
World-class rankers are scrambling for it, it’s supposed to be that good.

“Even back then people were demanding I make them, but I didn’t open the shop. I was busy making Arthur’s gear and everything else.”
“Right, right!”
“The Cannon and the Hwal-reuk too—and now there’s a Sword Sheath!”

That’s true.
People have been waiting for exactly this moment.
If this were an actual shop, they’d probably line up at dawn with money and materials in hand.
Though even then, the numbers wouldn’t break a few hundred.
There aren’t even that many countries in the world.
And the ones that can meet the conditions? Even fewer.
Still, I’m expecting over a hundred commissions to come in.
Of course, I have no intention of fulfilling every single one.

“Todd, you’ve explained the basic conditions, yes?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve communicated through the subcontract that there are minimum requirements by level tier, and to reject anything that doesn’t meet them.”
“Good.”

That’s the way to do it.
I’m not running a charity.
You need a certain standard to make the work worthwhile, right?
Still, on a global scale there are so many countries that it’ll probably get chaotic and exhausting—

“Perfect! I’m going to make so many weapons!”

Rani’s already excited.
She’s humming cheerfully and bouncing all over the place.

“So should we start right now? Rani, what do you want to make?”

Look at that—she’s already got the hammer gripped tight, eyes gleaming.
Wow.
Every time I see it, it’s incredible.
Doesn’t she ever get tired?

“Rani, you just finished the Cannon. Aren’t you exhausted?”
“Nope! The bang-bang thing didn’t use much material, so it wasn’t that hard!”

Really?
I did notice it finished surprisingly fast.
Though she seems satisfied with how it turned out.

“What’s your assessment, Yeo Hae?”
“Sir, I am most satisfied! Save for one thing—the wick has vanished!”
“That! Rani removed it! But instead it goes Hwal-reuk!”
“Ah, is that so?”
“Yep! I put in a stone that does Hwal-reuk!”

That’s Rani for you.
Her instinct for crafting is simply remarkable.
I was already thinking it’d be inconvenient having to light the wick every time.
With this solution?

“Then everything is most satisfactory! I should like to fire it at once!”
“No, I’ll have it ready for use shortly, so let’s stay calm for now.”
“Understood!”

This won’t work.
I need to get him into a Tower or Dungeon soon.
That man.
If I let him loose on the Training Ground, he won’t be able to control his strength and something’ll break.
But it’s definitely doing something good.
Whether it’s discipline kicking in
or just nerves,
normally he’d have held that rigid stance the whole time.
Today he keeps sneaking glances at the Cannon, distracted.
Even now.
Look—his face says it all. Pure satisfaction.

“Shin-ip, if you work hard you’ll end up like Arthur!”
“Oh! I’ll do my best, sir!”

Wow.
Even motivational coaching.
Arthur’s come a long way.
It feels like just yesterday he was still a junior rank.

“Next time! Shin-ip will rank up too! Train with Arthur!”
“May I fire it as well?”
“No.”
“Yes! Understood!”

Listen here, Manager.
That thing’s stronger than a regular Cannon anyway.

“It’s a shame this one doesn’t have a name either.”
“But… Shin-ip should get Hwal-hwal too. Arthur’s disappointed too.”

Arthur.
That’s…
That’s not a good mindset—making someone else suffer through the same thing.
Though, to be honest, I was looking forward to it too.
What can you do.

“But… this one isn’t finished either. My friend has a Turtle, and I need more materials to make a Turtle from this piece too.”

That’s what Rani says.
Our Rani.
She has firm standards.
If it’s not a complete, finished piece, she won’t even give it a name.
Just Sword Sheath, and that’s the end of it.
This time’s the same.
The man himself’s grinning from ear to ear over just the Cannon—
But Rani’s saying it’s incomplete.
She says a Turtle needs to be made first.

“A Turtle, huh.”

The name of the relic fragment she used this time.

[Turtle Ship Cannon Fragment]

So the finished form would be a Turtle Ship?

“That’s right! A Turtle!”
“Oh….”

Build a Turtle Ship?
That’s right.
Honestly, it felt like something was missing.
General Yi Sun-sin.
Just one cannon going boom-boom — it seemed a little underwhelming, you know?
But later, there’s actually a Turtle Ship?
Now that changes things.
Suddenly I’m excited about it.

“Rani too! Making a huge turtle ship sounds like it’d be fun!”
“Okay, Turtle Ship Cannon Fragments? Let’s try to gather some.”

How?
I have no idea.
They’ll probably drop eventually from dungeons or something.

“For now, I’m not taking any Crafting commissions until tomorrow, so Rani, let’s take it easy today.”
“Okay! Rani’s going to the Training Ground!”

Jeez.
I tell her to rest, and off she goes scampering to the Training Ground.
Like she’s really going to relax there.
She’ll just play around with materials the whole time.

“That’s how Rani rests as a worker, sir.”
“I suppose….”

Right, that reminds me.

“You should rest too, Todd. Watch some TV. You’ve been working hard these past few days.”
“If I was of service to you, sir, then I’m satisfied.”
“Pfft….”

Rani works hard, sure.
But Todd — he’s the one who had it roughest.
This whole Crafting project.
Coordinating with the Personnel Management Office through the subcontractor Truth’s Eye.
Setting every single standard to meet my satisfaction.
Todd handled all of it from start to finish.
That’s how the process was decided.

1. The Awakener Management Bureau receives a commission and filters it.
2. Passed through the subcontractor Truth’s Eye.
3. Processed through Awakener Net.

The key point here is step 3.
Why?
Because that’s how Commission Points come in.
Since my rank went up, the Commission Point Shop got a lot of new items.
Commission Point Shop.
My old rank was Bronze.
Now it’s Silver.
The added inventory is substantial.
Just browsing through takes tens of minutes.
If I had to pick the three most tempting items….

[Personnel Management Office Director, Additional Skill]
– 1,000,000P

[Unique Skill Grade Ascension Leap]
– 1,000,000P

[Fixed Team Management, 1 Additional Slot]
– 500,000P

This has to be it.
An additional skill.
Grade advancement elixirs were already here.
Fixed Team Management is the new one.
But out of all of them, skills are what I want most.

Unique Skill grades, Fixed Teams.
There’ll be ways to raise those eventually.
But skills?
That’s not easy.
The problem is Commission Points cost an insane amount….
But this solves it.
Crafting Commissions.
Those hand out quite a lot of points.
Keep running the 2x Scroll and clearing Commissions?
It’s just a matter of time before the points flow in.
Good.
Tomorrow, let’s run the factory properly then.

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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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