Signs Of Fracture (4)

He had intended to help from the very beginning.

It was what he wanted as well.

Still, he wanted to get paid for it.

You could call it a kind of instinct for trade, something he had been born equipped with from the moment he opened his eyes in this world.

Whenever there was profit to be taken, Kang-hoo wanted to take it.

Of course, that only applied when the other party was someone capable of offering a reward worth being greedy for.

He did not expect absurd compensation from someone with no capital. That would be meaningless greed.

He let the moment linger slightly.

It was a matter that could have ended with a single sentence, I’ll do it, but Kang-hoo merely looked at Lee Ye-rin.

It was a silent gesture telling her to make a more concrete proposal that would be more enticing to him.

Then Lee Ye-rin added more. It seemed she had a proposal in mind as well.

“I’ll make it a personal one-on-one request. Whether it’s Gwak Hyeong-seok or Gwak Hyeong-su. For each one you kill, I’ll fully transfer ownership of two dungeons owned by Cheong-an to you.”

“……”

He deliberately did not answer.

It was a signal that neither of them should waste energy on this kind of adjustment, and that they should just lay out their proposals cleanly and directly.

Since Kang-hoo seemed to hesitate slightly, Lee Ye-rin also continued with the rest of her offer without thinking too long about it.

“Then let’s do this. If only one of the two is eliminated, three. If both are eliminated, ownership of seven dungeons will be transferred.”

“Sounds good.”

Kang-hoo accepted the proposal immediately.

In truth, even this level of offer was already a profitable deal. Of course, that was under the premise that he succeeded.

Moreover, since the task was to assassinate Gwak Hyeong-seok and Gwak Hyeong-su, the leaders of Heuksaja, it would not be easy.

As sweet as the reward was, the risk that came with it was equally great.

At the current point in time, Gwak Hyeong-seok and Gwak Hyeong-su were experts above level 550.

They fell somewhat short of Vincent Meyer and Ishihara Yuji, whom Kang-hoo had eliminated before.

But the strength of the two brothers was that they always acted as one body and always kept subordinates close at hand.

In other words, because they never operated alone, finding an opportunity for assassination was harder than with almost anyone else.

“Just in case, I’ll make this point clear too. Except for the seven core dungeons of our mercenary corps, negotiations for the transfer of all the other dungeons are possible.”

“That sounds good.”

It was good that she made the scope of transfer clear as well.

It meant that as long as it was not one of the seven core dungeons, ownership of any dungeon could be transferred.

In truth, from Kang-hoo’s perspective, he was more interested in leasing than ownership.

Since skill plunder from middle-boss and main-boss monsters only required one dungeon clear.

So his plan was to first negotiate through ownership transfer, then later renegotiate into a license lease.

If that happened, then from Lee Ye-rin’s perspective, she would achieve her goal and still be able to keep ownership of the dungeon as before.

There was a high chance she would promise license leases for even more dungeons.

He did not think Lee Ye-rin was a fool. She was a skilled hunter and a smarter businessperson than anyone.

The fact that she was making this level of proposal meant that she expected the reflected gains from Heuksaja’s collapse to be enormous.

And if Heuksaja collapsed, and the Cheong-an Mercenary Corps filled the empty space they left behind?

They would end up holding several times more dungeons than the ones she would transfer to Kang-hoo. It was a profitable deal for both sides.

“Can I have a moment to think?”

“Shall I step away?”

“That won’t be necessary. Just walk quietly beside me. I’ll just keep my mouth shut for a moment.”

“Understood.”

As the two of them walked along the path in step, Kang-hoo fell into thought. He needed a final move.

‘If I kill Gwak Hyeong-seok and Gwak Hyeong-su, then no matter what, it’ll become a public move. It’ll be known both inside and outside the country.’

It was a fact that could not be hidden. Obviously so, but he had no desire to hide it either.

Heuksaja was an organization whose public evaluation was just as bad as Eclipse’s.

If they fell, ordinary people would cheer. If it caught the wind of social media, he might even become a hero.

Moreover, since even the Jeonghwa Guild had already denounced Heuksaja’s crimes several times.

He thought Seoul’s reaction would smile on him as well.

‘Instead, a clash with the Kashimar Guild backing them will be unavoidable. But haven’t I already earned their hatred long ago?’

The only thing that bothered him was the Kashimar Guild behind them.

Kashimar Guild had never officially stated that it supported Heuksaja. But it was an open secret.

‘I’m not trying to become the Apostle of Justice or anything. But Cheong-an has to remain sound so that I can move around more easily in Korea going forward.’

There was no need to think in circles.

If the dominant force in Daejeon became the Cheong-an Mercenary Corps, then Kang-hoo would have somewhere to go even if he were excluded from Seoul.

That was also why he had built ties with The Abyss. He needed a stage to operate on outside the capital region.

In the midst of all that, his instinct for trade activated. Kang-hoo made an additional proposal, one slightly more advantageous to himself than their earlier agreement.

“Commander.”

“Yes?”

“If I succeed in assassinating both Gwak Hyeong-seok and Gwak Hyeong-su. Could you promise me just one more additional reward?”

“Go ahead.”

“Give me an observer position in the Cheong-an Mercenary Corps. What do you think?”

Observer.

A position completely free from the organization’s obligations while still enjoying its rights. A one-sided benefit could be taken.

Yes, it was greed.

But he believed there was more than enough reason to be greedy. Assassinating not one but two targets would not be easy.

From Kang-hoo’s point of view as well, this was a situation where he would risk his life and stir up something big. He needed greater motivation.

He thought Lee Ye-rin might take some time to consider, but unexpectedly, the answer came right away.

“Fine. If I can hold on tightly to even one little finger of yours in that way, I’ll be happy.”

A cool acceptance.

It was a perfectly concluded deal that left behind no regret or unpleasantness at all, so Kang-hoo was satisfied too.

And so the request was established.

Of course, in peacetime like now, he was not going to aim for the lives of Gwak Hyeong-seok and Gwak Hyeong-su. That would truly be reckless.

The agreed situation for the assassination request was the moment the Cheong-an Mercenary Corps and Heuksaja began all-out war.

That would be when the Daejeon area became stained with the blood of both organizations fighting over the seat of supremacy.

At that exact time.

Kang-hoo planned to act separately from the Cheong-an Mercenary Corps and look for an opportunity to assassinate them.

He had no interest in how the war situation would flow, or how many casualties each side would suffer.

He would simply wait for the target that had to die, for the moment when that target became the most vulnerable and the easiest to strike.

After wrapping up the discussion like that.

With Lee Ye-rin’s consideration, Kang-hoo immediately headed for Cheongmyeong Detention Center.

Since there was no telling when the Cheong-an Mercenary Corps and Heuksaja would begin to antagonize each other, he intended to visit his four dungeons as quickly as possible.

Once the two groups clashed, Cheongmyeong Detention Center too would become a massive battlefield.

If by some chance Cheongmyeong Detention Center fell into Heuksaja’s hands, then when that time came, he might not be able to enter the dungeons even if he wanted to.

So he hurried.

In any case, one dungeon clear was enough, as long as he could plunder a skill.

Since they were not particularly high-difficulty dungeons, he was confident he could clear them if given just a day of leeway.

The next day.

By the time Kang-hoo came out after clearing even the final dungeon, a total of eight skills had been added to him.

Two of them were useful to Kang-hoo, so he decided to keep them without touching them separately.

As for the remaining six, they were lower-version skills that overlapped with the concept of his existing skills, or they looked to have low utility.

So he decided to synthesize them using constellation abilities. Since they were skills he was not going to use anyway, he might as well recycle them.

The constellation Creation.

It was the constellation he had plundered after killing the swordsman from Hayabusa Guild who had threatened Ayane’s life when he rescued her in Germany.

It was also a constellation he had been using quite usefully whenever a useless skill, or one with a low usage frequency, appeared.

‘First, let’s check what’s piled up.’

Kang-hoo sat roughly on the bench in front of the dungeon and looked over his skill window.

Since there was aftershock from having cleared four dungeons in a row without resting, he planned to rest at least while checking them.

Thanks to the maximum proficiency effect, the radius and evasion rate of Transformation Evasion Formation had increased.

The basic setup had been a 2.5-meter radius with an evasion rate of only 14%, so numerically, the values had doubled.

Of course, if calculated by the area of the Transformation Evasion Formation, it was a fourfold increase! Saying it aloud was almost pointless; it was the Dimension Plunderer’s special privilege at work.

‘Now I won’t need to use Silence of the Dead separately in areas where undead are present.’

In the case of the Synchronization skill, along with the maximum proficiency effect, the mana consumption had disappeared.

And the conditional disguise had changed into a form where disguise was applied unconditionally regardless of circumstance.

This skill was better for having fun against monsters than against hunters.

In the land of the undead, it would disguise him as undead, and in the land of hybrids, it would disguise him as a hybrid.

In fields full of monster-related variables, like Ground Zero or North Korean territory, it would be an extremely useful skill.

That was because in such places, the “core trait” was matched to the dominant type of being in that region.

‘It really is nice that skills I would’ve only drooled over without plunder are now mine.’

Transformation Evasion Formation too, and Synchronization as well.

They were skills that were hard to see in ordinary hunters. Even if similar versions existed, their efficiency was low.

Yet because he was taking the exact skill form used by boss monsters and receiving the maximum proficiency effect on top of that.

Whatever skill he took, each one became a skill whose efficiency and ability were close to cheating.

If you broke down Transformation Evasion Formation, even using a conservative estimate, it meant that one out of every four skill attacks would be nullified.

And since it was evasion, it meant the attack would not hit Kang-hoo at all and would instead veer off to the side!

If the skill that veered off had been the opponent’s trump-card finishing move? They would be weeping tears of blood.

‘Let’s cleanly roll the remaining six.’

Kang-hoo immediately activated the constellation Creation’s ability and registered all six skills in the synthesis window.

It was the process of combining two skills into one, with a 51% success rate. And since it was effectively a fifty-fifty chance.

He thought without a doubt that he would only see success once. There was no middle ground between success and failure.

Soon the synthesis began.

Several warning messages appeared to prevent impulsive synthesis, but he lightly ignored them and continued.

Without narrowing his eyes nervously or hesitating with a trembling heart, he went through the synthesis procedure without stopping.

And then, with an effect as if a brief flash of light had flickered for a moment, the synthesis ended in an instant.

The result appeared immediately.

“Heh. Is this a Shin Kang-hoo correction?”

Out of three attempts, two successes.

Kang-hoo smiled at the paradoxically favorable outcome of the synthesis after emptying his mind.

It seemed that things really did work out for those destined to succeed.