Chapter 177: Black Market
Choi Jin spoke with a stern face.
“… You’re suddenly saying strange things. Anyway, I understand about Kang Chang-ho, so please go, Mr. Kim Hunter. We need to start preparing to leave as well.”
That was a strange reaction. So, Gi-ryeo kept digging into the topic.
But that behavior only chipped away at the goodwill he had earned with effort.
“Enough already! Just go! How many times do I have to say it? I’m already exhausted because it’s late at night!”
The dragon hunter quickly refused the conversation and even raised his voice.
‘What the heck. I tried to be considerate because I heard Seung is a relative…’
Everyone has secrets they don’t want to share.
Besides, the curse that has taken hold of his body is a problem that he can’t resolve anyway.
‘Hmm. Well, it can’t be helped.’
Gi-ryeo pondered for a moment, then shrugged off the situation. After receiving the money for the spicy chicken stir-fry from Choi Jin, he left Chuncheon.
*
Whoooosh.
…the heat radiating from the place was nothing compared to what Choi Jin had emitted.
About three hours after returning to Seoul.
I was, as usual, teaching Jeong Ha-seong basic magic studies. Once this was done, I would probably go home and eat the leftover spicy chicken stir-fry.
It was an ordinary day.
“How was it, Mr. Hunter?”
“Hmm?”
“The skill I used earlier. I concentrated my magic power as you said.”
“Ah, I see.”
“…… But it’s still a bit nerve-wracking. When you acted like an F-Class, you were at least firing the skills from a distance. Now I have to practice with you nearby.”
At least Jeong Ha-seong didn’t seem to think highly of my defense power that skyrocketed thanks to the [Divine Tree Sapling].
Besides, soon enough, I would transition to the next month and receive another 3 billion won in lecture fees.
As you can see, my bank account was steadily on the rise.
Moreover, thanks to the item box I received not long ago, many convenient aspects had improved too. Where else could you find a better flow than this?
‘Hmm…’
But.
In fact, even in this intrusive peace, I felt uneasy.
The reason was the gaze of someone I felt was watching me from somewhere.
Kang Chang-ho. Since the last warning, we had spent our days in uneasy silence, but…
‘Damn it, it’s so uncomfortable!’
There was no immediate problem now.
Truth be told, he was a ticking time bomb that could explode for some reason at any moment.
No matter how well I behaved, he might suddenly change his mind and try to trigger [Enhancement Heart].
‘I regret signing that contract now.’
Back when I signed the pact, I didn’t think the cleanup would be this slow.
A severely damaged lung. Moreover, the magic power within me was at a shameful level for a mage.
‘Nothing about this feels right.’
I absolutely had to escape from this ragged body. That fact was always firm.
Gaining strength and changing my body.
These were both essential goals, though they might have slight differences in speed.
After finishing all my obligations.
As soon as I returned home, I checked the listings for the item I wanted again. It was a routine I hadn’t missed a single day.
.
.
.
…to be precise, it used to be a routine.
[Search term: Dragon’s Lung]
How many minutes passed since then?
I found myself sitting alone in Kim Gi-ryeo’s studio, staring at my mobile phone.
[Search Results: 1 item]
Just to clarify, I’ll mention this in advance to avoid misunderstandings: this doesn’t mean an item is available but that someone has expressed a desire to purchase [Dragon’s Lung] on the buy bulletin board.
So, what’s the hopeful price this someone has suggested?
[76,800,000 (USD)]
I copied that amount into the currency converter on the portal site, leading to this result.
[102,924,288,000 South Korean Won]
One billion, ten billion, hundred billion, thousand billions…
I double-checked the number of zeroes I had just seen, but the result was still the same.
“102 billion.”
….I forgot to mention this earlier, but that morning when I was in Chuncheon, such news had broken on TV.
[Breaking News: The hidden function of ‘Dragon’s Lung’ revealed… Can now unleash Dragon’s Breath with just one potion?]
And that’s how the price of the previously despised item soared.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Why…!
Why is such a terrifying thing happening?
I screamed as if my intestines were about to burst.
I could hardly believe it. When I first discovered that buy post, I thought, ‘Something must be wrong. Someone’s just messing around with random numbers.’
Yesterday’s news seemed to have already become quite famous overseas.
Apparently, a foreign hunter discovered the hidden function of the lung when he accidentally sneezed while drinking a potion that raised attribute resistance.
It turned out that this hidden function was the manifestation of Dragon’s Breath.
Once it became clear that the owner of the Dragon’s Lung could unleash the attribute attack of a dead monster under specific conditions with particular drugs, the world turned upside down.
‘Shit! Plus, this breath’s power follows the grade of the dead dragon, not the user!’
And during this, the biggest influence on the price had come from the oil billionaires of the Middle East.
Rumor has it that even those who have not awakened can use supernatural powers if they own the lung, leading them to jump into the competition with excitement.
Anyway, thanks to the interest of those Middle Eastern tycoons, the value of the Dragon’s Lung shot up late, arriving at a mad price of 102 billion.
Experts explained that since the number of daily uses of breath is limited, it’s likely a temporary phenomenon, but exactly when this inflated price would fall remains a mystery.
I calmly scrolled through the comments of the people on my phone screen.
Then, burying my face in the blanket, I shouted again.
“Oh God!”
To be honest, doesn’t it look like I’m about to go crazy?
Thinking calmly, since the Kagoshima Gate incident, no dragons have appeared on Earth.
Even those wealthy folks in the Middle East haven’t been able to buy a lung until now, so it’s highly improbable that there are any spare organs left in this world. Thus, posting an unreasonable buy offer of around 10 billion before new effects were announced wouldn’t have introduced any variables.
In other words, this means it was a disaster that couldn’t be prevented even if I turned back time.
It seems this is the world’s will to make me give up on the [Dragon’s Lung].
What am I supposed to do from here on out?
Am I supposed to extract the lungs of living people and implant them into my own body?
But to carry out such a major surgery, I would have to go through the same grueling process as when I was trying to raise 30 billion from the ground up.
“Why is this happening to me!”
It’s a natural disaster. After a long time of thought, I’ve reached the conclusion that I have to scrap much of my past plans.
‘Somehow, somehow, I must transfer my soul…’
But is there really anything I can do? I have to just deal with it.
I clamped my mouth shut and squeezed my brain.
While my chest was still simmering with anger, there’s nothing worse than wasting emotions on something that cannot be resolved, so soon enough, I calmed that despair.
*
100 billion.
At first, I thought about borrowing money, but apparently the loan scrutiny for hunters in this world is quite strict.
‘Because you never know when you might die, your credit score tends to be low.’
Should I diligently gather the target amount then?
By simple calculations based on the teaching fees I receive from Ha-seong, I’d complete 100 billion in about 33 months.
But the issue lies in the fact that Ha-seong’s curriculum is a maximum of 6 months.
‘It’s a bit much to stretch that into 33 months.’
Moreover, the plan to raise the lecture fees after the first three months of the trial period seems practically impossible at this point.
-Mr. Kim Hunter, by the way, about the tax handling of the lecture fees I’m paying…
-Huh?
-You asked to keep this transaction confidential, so you wouldn’t establish a separate business, right? Given the scale, it seems that the deposit will likely be considered a gift.
-…….
-Anyway, it’s me who’ll be paying, but can I handle the tax processing on my end?
To be honest, the 3 billion I receive… isn’t just 3 billion.
In a world that has developed this much, there are bound to be various taxes for the rulers, and I hadn’t thought it through properly.
So, to sum up, the money Jeong Ha-seong is actually using, including taxes, amounts to a whopping 6 billion won in cash.
To be honest, even against an S-Class, this level of monthly deductions seems quite excessive. If I were to be greedy and raise costs further, there’s no doubt about how that’d end up!
‘It’s like the story of a goose that lays golden eggs.’
But, I don’t want to sell my Epic-grade Hydra…
I feel like the current price of the lung is overly inflated anyway.
In various ways, it seems the plan to buy the dragon’s organ will be difficult to realize for the time being.
So I reluctantly reviewed the alternative measures I had been avoiding.
The alternative was simply this.
——————=
Extracting the lungs of living humans
and implanting them fresh.
Requirements: 1. Lung donor
Requirements: 2. Body to transfer into
Requirements: 3. Five magic formulas needed to initiate…
——————=
My head already started to throb.
In a world where the law is this stringent, how the hell could one catch a living person, and with my tiny amount of magic power, how would I have the guts to use high-level magic?
‘Moreover, without thoroughly understanding the environment of Earth and the structure of earthlings. Huh?’
I placed my fingers against my temples, chuckling weakly.
“Haha…”
But again, just boiling over alone won’t change anything.
Thinking about it, this world doesn’t seem like it’s going to end today. So now I’ve decided to take it easy.
‘Well, you do need a variable like this to make life interesting.’
Thud.
I stopped my random thoughts and pressed the square button in front of me. Then, a refreshing sound like a clear tune drifted through the air.
Seeing that, it appeared that the button I just pressed was indeed the doorbell.
“Hm.”
Looking around.
This was a single house painted in monochrome. The only reason I had come to this secluded building was one.
[Calling… Kang Chang-ho ☎]
Before proceeding with my plans, I had something to ask an S-Class hunter.
So I had come all the way to his house. It was a rather vague subject to discuss over the phone.
Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep.
After several rings, I finally heard a connecting tone from the mobile.
“Ah, Mr. Kang Chang-ho! I just arrived, um… could you…?”
-Just come in.
Once again, the screen of the phone went dark. The other party hung up abruptly after stating what they needed to say.
Seeing that, I cautiously added “safeguarding the primordial shaman” to my future plans in my mind.
But that was something for the future; for today, I had to follow today’s course.
‘Oh.’
Creeeak.
As I opened the large iron gate, a green garden unfolded before me.
I advanced toward the direction where I could feel Kang Chang-ho’s magic, and as I crossed the entrance, a structure of unexpected interior space was revealed.
It was a wide, airy and vintage space, resembling an artist’s atelier.
‘Is this really someone’s home?’
My eyes widened in surprise.
Until now, I thought Kim Gi-ryeo’s house was nice enough, but in comparison, that looked like a dog house.
Kang Chang-ho’s residence was truly in a league of its own, unfathomably larger in scale.
‘Wow, it’s decorated like a resort or something.’
I walked down the serene corridor.
After a while, through the window, I finally spotted the shadow of the Awakened I had been looking for. An Earthling lying on a white elongated chair laid outside.
It was Kang Chang-ho.
“Hmm?”
But unless I was mistaken, he seemed a bit damp…
‘Huh. With a building this nice, is the bathroom inconveniently outside?’
I tilted my head in confusion as I approached where he was. And as I got closer to what seemed to be the terrace, the reason for Kang Chang-ho’s appearance gradually became clear.
“A swimming pool?”
A structure filled with blue water.
I knew this was called a swimming pool. But never did I expect it would be installed right at a private residence.
“Why did you call to see me all of a sudden?”
Lying on the sunbed, Kang Chang-ho showed no inclination to get up and began the conversation.
His monochromatic gown starkly contrasted with the brightly shining Dragon’s Eye.
Now that the landlord asked about my reason for visiting, I had to naturally reveal that.
I glanced back.
Once again, my gaze was drawn to the personal swimming pool, a treasure of the wealthy.
I almost drooled. To be honest, I couldn’t help but want to just play around here for a couple of days.
“Well, um… shall we go inside and talk for a bit?”
I tried to hide my true feelings for the sake of the Great Mage’s dignity and lifted the box I held.
【Fresh Orange Juice】
This was a set of popular fruit drinks sold by Neo Sisters’ parent company.
Recently, I learned that in this country, visitors to a residence should bring gifts.
I suppose as someone from another world, I was still significantly lacking in common sense.
