Solo Resurrection

Chapter 125

The Approaching Darkness (1)

A few days later. Kang Hyeon visited the Item Research Institute where Jeong Seo-bin was again.

“You’re a bit late. You said you’d come last time.”

“I had some business that day.”

“Ah, was it perhaps what was on the internet?”

Kang Hyeon nodded at Jeong Seo-bin’s question.

“Then is the person behind you possibly that goblin?”

“That’s right. Kergo. Take off your hood.”

Kergo took off the hood he was wearing.

“It’s fascinating. Usually, names appear above monsters, but nothing shows up for this goblin.”

“Huh? You’re right?”

Surprised by Jeong Seo-bin’s words, Kang Hyeon’s eyes widened.

It had been so natural that he hadn’t noticed.

When they were in the dungeon, the name “Goblin Knight” floated above Kergo.

Later, it changed to “Goblin Knight Commander,” but now even that had completely disappeared.

“Was it when I brought him out of the dungeon? Anyway, at some point, it stopped showing.”

“Oho… How are you communicating? It seems like you can talk if you’re able to bring him around like this.”

“This.”

Kang Hyeon handed the translation device he was wearing to Jeong Seo-bin.

“So if you wear this, you can talk even with monsters. Where did you get it?”

“Mr. Shin Tae-gil gave it to me. Can’t you make something like this, Ms. Jeong Seo-bin?”

“I’m developing something similar, but this one seems to have a high level of completion. How did they make it so quickly?”

“Actually, isn’t Ms. Jeong Seo-bin not that capable?”

Jeong Seo-bin narrowed her eyes at Kang Hyeon’s words.

“Why are you saying such disappointing things so bluntly? This must have involved someone who is extremely proficient in magic. As far as I know, there’s no one who can make something like this in the government or other companies.”

“Someone proficient in magic…”

“There have been rumors about this before. That the government is hiding something. I dismissed it as groundless rumors, but seeing this, I think it might not be completely baseless.”

Kang Hyeon knew well about this.

Shin Tae-gil had told him before.

-Lich Daiance. Do you know?

-Daiance? What’s that?

-That… The skeleton wizard who fought with you before. The one controlling the monsters. Didn’t Choi Dong-woo appear and save you then?

-Ah, I remember now. We should have finished that bastard off. But why suddenly bring this up? Did you catch him?

-Well… Actually, that lich was with Choi Min-jun.

-What!?

-Currently, he’s helping our research in various ways. I thought I should tell you, Kang Hyeon…

At that time, Kang Hyeon had already settled things with Choi Min-jun, so he didn’t say anything more and let it pass.

“Is something wrong?”

Jeong Seo-bin woke Kang Hyeon from his memories.

“Ah, I just had something to think about… Well, I guess the government could hide such things.”

“What is it? If you know something, please tell me. We’re business partners.”

“There’s nothing like that.”

“Tch.”

When Kang Hyeon flatly refused, Jeong Seo-bin quickly gave up.

“Forget it, let’s talk business. How are things these days?”

“Of course, it’s the best. Research is going smoothly, production has stabilized, and as demand has increased recently, we’ve become quite financially comfortable. Although it’s a bit tough because the price of magic stones has skyrocketed…”

“Oh, but the guild provides magic stones cheaply, don’t they?”

Jeong Seo-bin smiled slightly at Kang Hyeon’s words.

“That’s right. Thanks to you, we can get magic stones cheaply, so we’re more comfortable than others. But it’s true that it’s still harder than before because they’ve become much more expensive.”

Her words were not a lie.

The current price of magic stones was indeed skyrocketing.

It was natural since all infrastructure that moves society was being replaced to operate with magic stones.

“Honestly, I think the government is pushing too hastily, but they must have their reasons.”

“I heard a bit about that from Mr. Shin Tae-gil. He said that all electronic devices could become useless soon.”

“So it was true.”

Jeong Seo-bin nodded as if she had expected it, in response to Kang Hyeon’s words.

“Looks like you knew?”

“I have quite a name globally in this field. I’ve been making such predictions for a long time.”

“It doesn’t seem like you’re at a global level though.”

“Stop nitpicking!”

As Jeong Seo-bin frowned and shouted, Kang Hyeon retreated with a chuckle.

“Okay, okay. Why are you getting angry?”

“Sigh… Never mind. I shouldn’t say anything. Anyway, is that all you came for? You said you had some other business.”

At Jeong Seo-bin’s words, Kang Hyeon clapped his hands as if he had just remembered.

“It’s nothing else. The magic absorption device I gave you last time. I was wondering how the research was progressing.”

Magic absorption device.

It was equipment that extracts magic from people, which the ‘Free Ability User Liberation Alliance’ had possessed.

When carrying out the operation to rescue Choi Yeon-hwa and the hostages, Han Se-yeon and Choi Min-jun had retrieved it.

They handed the device to Shin Tae-gil and also gave one to Kang Hyeon, who immediately passed it on to Jeong Seo-bin for research.

“Last time you said there wasn’t much progress.”

“This is equipment combined with innate abilities and contains a lot of magical elements, so it’s difficult to analyze with modern technology.”

“Hmm…”n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

“Still, we’ve made quite some progress this time. The government helped us.”

Government. Government. That damn government was involved in everything.

Kang Hyeon shook his head with a smirk.

“The government seems to be omnipotent.”

“Sigh… What can we do if that’s the reality? I wonder if they really have some other-dimensional wizard in there. It’s bewildering, I tell you.”

Kang Hyeon was inwardly perplexed but didn’t show it.

“So what kind of progress have you made?”

“We’ve managed to extract magic from magic stones and even inject it into other living beings, but… The results aren’t particularly good. The side effects are too severe, and even if they adapt, the level of magic control is completely impossible.”

“It seems it’s still not feasible for actual use.”

“Yes. But it looks like we’ll have something soon, so just wait.”

Kang Hyeon, who hadn’t really expected much in the first place, nodded calmly.

“Is that all the business you had then?”

At Jeong Seo-bin’s question, Kang Hyeon fell into deep thought.

‘There was something else I needed to do…’

Then, as if suddenly remembering something, his eyes lit up.

“Ah! I almost forgot. Here, could you repair these?”

Kang Hyeon started rummaging through his inventory and pulling things out.

The items that came out one by one soon piled up into a small mountain.

“What is all this…?”

“Things to repair and sell. I’ve collected quite a lot.”

“How many times do I have to tell you this isn’t a blacksmith shop!?”

Jeong Seo-bin was irritated, but Kang Hyeon just smiled.

“This place does the best repairs in the country, doesn’t it? And fixing and selling these will be quite profitable. You’re not going to do it?”

“Ugh…”

The benefits gained from repairing and disassembling items weren’t just financial.

In the process, they could obtain various information helpful for research and conduct diverse experiments.

In other words, it was advantageous to accept unconditionally.

“Please divide the sales profits according to the ratio, and I look forward to your continued cooperation.”

Kang Hyeon left the research institute, chuckling.

The remaining Jeong Seo-bin and researchers looked at the mountain of items with blank faces.

“When are we going to fix and sell all of this…”

***

Ippotranslation

***

Badass Guild office.

“Ahh! That’s refreshing. Indeed, cold beer is the best in summer.”

These were Kang Hyeon’s words, who drinks cold beer all year round.

There were many employees working diligently like ants in the office today, but Kang Hyeon didn’t care.

‘It’s not like it’s the first or second day the guild master has been like this.’

The employees were now used to it, so they were all busy focusing on their own work.

“Good, good. What else would you do when you’re young? You should work!”

Kang Hyeon, armed with an old-fashioned mindset, nodded his head vigorously.

“Nice weather.”

As Kang Hyeon was taking out a new beer can and looking out the window, he suddenly remembered something.

“Ah! I was supposed to hand this over.”

What came out of his possession was a single sheet of A4-sized paper.

“I forgot to give this to Director Jeong Seo-bin.”

The identity of this was an item received from Lee Baek-seo of the Taeshin Guild.

-What is this?

-It’s an item I brought after thinking about what I could give to Kang Hyeon as a token of gratitude. Since you probably have much more money and equipment than I do, I thought it would be better to give you something else.

-Oh… What kind of item is it?

-It’s an item that came from defeating a B-rank boss, a device that instantly binds the surrounding magical power. As Kang Hyeon is a martial artist, you’ll probably be able to use it in various useful ways.

An item that binds surrounding magical power.

It seemed that using this would probably prevent the use of skills.

Kang Hyeon checked the item’s description once again.

Name: Magical Power Fixation Scroll

Rank: B

Durability: 5/5

Description: A scroll mainly used when hunting wizards. It activates as soon as the scroll is torn. However, be aware that wizards capable of powerful magical control can ignore the magical power fixation.

Ability: All magical power within a 100m radius is fixed for 5 minutes.

“It seems like it could be useful if used well.”

It seemed like he would know exactly what kind of ability it was if he used it once, but he couldn’t waste the only scroll.

“I’ll use it when the opportunity comes someday.”

Just as Kang Hyeon was about to put the scroll back into his inventory.

“Brother. What were you doing?”

An Yu-seong, who had approached without notice, spoke to him.

“I was working?”

“What kind of work?”

“Supervising the employees.”

“Wow. It’s not my place to say, but your personality is quite something, brother.”

“Why are you suddenly picking a fight, you bastard?”

Kang Hyeon’s expression crumpled at the sudden provocation.

“Brother. These days you’re always going around alone or just with that goblin.”

“So what?”

“I feel like I’m going to die of boredom, so let’s solve a case together.”

“Shouldn’t it normally be ‘feel like I’m going to die’?”

“That was a mistake.”

They decided to overlook the minor mistake.

“So what’s the matter?”

In response to Kang Hyeon’s question, An Yu-seong held out his smartphone.

As he took the smartphone, a brief news article appeared.

“What’s this?”

“It’s an article about a dungeon break.”

“Again, again! A dungeon break?”

Kang Hyeon, who was now sick and tired of dungeon breaks, openly showed a displeased expression.

“The government should step in to solve such incidents. Why do we have to move?”

“Because it seems interesting?”

“What’s the point of talking to you…”

As Kang Hyeon sighed and seemed to lose interest, An Yu-seong hastily continued.

“This is different from other incidents, I’m telling you?”

“How is it different?”

“Small and medium-sized guilds bought dungeons recklessly and can’t clear them.”

“That’s not different at all.”

This was an incident that occasionally occurred in the early days after dungeons changed to an auction format.

For various reasons, guilds with capital beyond their capabilities would recklessly buy dungeons and fail to manage them, leading to dungeon breaks.

Usually, they would request government aid before a dungeon break occurred, but occasionally they would miss the timing and incidents would happen.

And guilds where incidents occurred would never be allowed to participate in dungeon auctions again.

“That’s all old news. Are there still guilds like that these days?”

However, this was something that only happened in the early days. It was an incident that hardly ever occurred now that the system had been established.

“Just looking at it, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. It’s not like people are dying, and they managed to prevent it well. What’s there for us to get involved in?”

“Listen. Recently, these incidents have been occurring unusually often in just one area.”

“So?”

“It smells fishy. My intuition is telling me we need to go solve this.”

An Yu-seong’s eyes gleamed with madness.

‘He must have been quite bored.’

It was true that he had been neglecting to spend time with the guild members for a while.

Partly because he had been busy with various miscellaneous tasks, but the bigger reason was that his level hardly increased from dungeon raids anymore.

Now, Kang Hyeon couldn’t feel like he was growing unless he was fighting battles where he truly had to risk his life.

Therefore, he had been clearing dungeons just enough to maintain his combat sense, waiting for the A-rank dungeon that was expected to appear soon.

“It doesn’t sound very interesting…”

“Kang Hyeon! We must do this!”

At that moment.

Shin Seong-a, who had been listening to the conversation from the side, stood up abruptly.

“Why? Are you bored too?”

“Yes. I’m bored.”

Shin Seong-a nodded with a serious face.

“Is this something to be so serious about…”

Kang Hyeon felt a piercing gaze, but Shin Seong-a maintained her pace.

“So far, there hasn’t been a time when a case An Yu-seong got involved in didn’t turn out to be big. An Yu-seong has an uncanny ability to sense what will be interesting.”

“You do realize that what you just said is synonymous with ‘a very troublesome situation will occur,’ right?”

“I want to solve this case splendidly this time too. We are the Badass Guild after all! People will be thrilled!”

The conversation wasn’t getting through.

In the end, Kang Hyeon nodded his head in resignation.

“What’s the point of talking to you guys…”

It was the moment when the next destination of Kang Hyeon’s group was decided.