World-Saving is a Skill

Chapter 98

Chapter 98

Choi Seung-gi took a week to finish investigating the gem.

“What took so long?”

He answered me.

“This turned out to be nastier than expected. Our own tests were not enough, so we had to get outside help.”

Choi Seung-gi handed me a report.

“Anyway, these are the findings. For now, we named this gem Banshee’s Tear.”

What a name. I thought that to myself, and read through the report.

“It is a poison I see.”

“Yes, an incredibly dense and thick toxin that piled up layer by layer and hardened over many years.”

The object called Banshee’s Tear was not a gemstone, it was congealed poison hardened into a solid.

“And to jump straight to the conclusion… Yes, this can serve as a catalyst. We can probably fuse the spear you’re using now with the new spear you sent.”

“That is good news.”

He said performance should be amplified by a wide margin. I spoke, and Choi Seung-gi continued.

“One more thing, even after we use it as a catalyst, about half will remain. And I have a proposal to inlay the remaining material into the spearhead.”

Inlay craftsmanship?

“Im listening.”

In short, we would cut several fine grooves along the spear blade, then hammer in an alloy that includes material from this gem to fill those grooves one by one.

“What effect would that have?”

“It is poison, you know.”

I let out an ah. In simple terms, anyone hit would be poisoned.

“Of course, if we could inlay with the pure gem, the effect would be much stronger. After using it as a catalyst, the quantity drops a lot.”

So we would mix the gem with other material to increase the amount, then use that for the inlay. That was Choi Seung-gi’s explanation.

“We get exactly one chance. Once we synthesize the two spears through the catalyst, there is no way with current technology to do any further processing.”

So I had to decide now. I had no reason to refuse, although he must have had a reason to phrase it like that.

“Is it because of the price?”

He nodded to my question.

“We will get a ridiculously excellent spear. But the processing cost is also ridiculous. This kind of inlay requires specialized craftsmen and equipment, and the material is what it is.”

When he said the price, my mouth fell open before I knew it.

“My god.”

They would slice away sixty percent of everything I had scraped together, including the income from this last job.

“You are not scamming me, right?”

“It is nothing like that. Honestly, the manufacturing cost is huge, but you will get something with huge performance in return.”

I started to think it over. The cost was enormous, but...

Poison was not affected by magic resistance. If this had been something driven by magic, I would have noticed its performance right away.

Paradoxical Flame was useful, but against enemies with magic resistance there was the drawback that I had to burn off that resistance first.

But poison? Poison did not require that. If the target had both magic resistance and resistance to toxins, there was nothing to be done, but if it only had one of the two, I could handle it cleanly once the spear was finished.

On top of that, I specialized in wars of attrition. If I added damage over time to attrition, it would be perfect.

“Let’s do it.”

It was worth pouring money into. If I came up short, I thought it might even be worth taking a loan.

“Understood. We will start work right away.”

It seemed it would take a fair amount of time. Either way, until the weapon was finished, I had to delay the next grade 1 Erosion Core subjugation. I could not afford to charge in barehanded after all.

“For now, do you have a spear I can rent?”

Choi Seung-gi nodded readily.

“Of course. I will prepare a few suitable pieces right away. Shall I send them to the Association?”

“Yes, please.”

After shaking hands with him, I headed off again. There was one more person I had to see before returning to the Association.

“Owner Sa Seung-hee.”

— Hunter Yoo Chan-seok. I heard the news. Congratulations. I also heard you visited Wonder Club.

Her tone was not pleasant. I knew why.

“Yes, Wonder Club invited me to join and I refused.”

They must have assumed we would enter Wonder Club.

— What, you refused such an offer?

Her voice came back in surprise.

“They struck me as a lazy bunch. Strong, yes, but I did not sense any will to do anything.”

They told me to stop going around clearing grade one Erosion Cores. I expected it, but expecting it did not make it any less irritating.

— That is true. I did not think you would refuse though.

“I usually keep promises I make.”

I could not claim I kept them always, but I kept this kind of promise.

“But for about a month, I plan to handle Erosion Zones other than grade one Erosion Zones.”

— Can I ask why?

I explained the situation.

— So you need time to modify the weapon. That is fine. We need some preparation anyway.

Preparation huh. I wondered what that meant.

“Will it take about a month?”

— It’ll probably be around that long. The thing is, during the preparation process…

She drew out her words like she was weighing how to say it.

“Please tell me.”

— You will have to deal with people.

Deal with people?

“I did not expect to deal with people to remove some Erosion Zone.”

— There is an item you must have to enter that zone.

To obtain that item, there would inevitably be friction with people rather than monsters.

Clashing with people did not bother me at all. Still, the part about finding an item caught my attention.

“What exactly am I looking for?”

— A crown. A lavish piece with a frame of platinum and gold, set with eight different gems.

A crown huh. It didn’t feel like she was saying it because we needed it just for its flashiness.

“Does it have a special effect?”

— If you channel magic into it, undead cannot keep their footing. It is currently in the custody of the Korean Hunters Association.

I could not help making a very baffled face.

“If undead cannot keep their footing…”

— If you use the crown, undead that would normally be hostile fight at less than one third of their strength.

Wow. That answer raised the obvious question immediately.

“Then why are they not using it and instead letting it rot in an Association warehouse?”

— As I understand it, there is a dispute over ownership.

An ownership dispute? What on earth were they talking about? This was not a debate over land titles or extraction rights for underground resources.

“Seriously. They don’t even know that thing is turning into shit.”

— Agreed.

An ownership dispute, seriously? Unbelievable. Nearly all of the monsters pushing into Korea right now were undead.

The Association had a fantastic item that could drop the performance of those undead to less than one third!

Yet because of something as silly as ownership, they were letting it sit and rot. I had no words for this. Idiots, fools, morons, halfwits… every word spun through my head.

“So tell me about this ownership issue.”

Let me hear what kind of monumental problem justified shelving something like that.

— About five years ago, there was a grade one Erosion Core removal operation.

It was run by the Korean Hunters Association. The British, American and Japanese Associations had joined in.

It had been a core removal operation that drew high fliers from many places.

— The core in question sat in the United States, in Iowa.

It was rare for the Association to take the lead and assemble Hunters for a removal. They had a reason this time.

— They needed the crops produced in Iowa.

It was not for eating. Nearly all food worldwide had to pass through Korea first anyway.

The goal for Iowa’s crops was mostly processing into bioethanol. In any case, out of necessity the Association directly mobilized Hunters and removed the Erosion Core that had taken root in Iowa.

Then a problem arose.

— For whatever strange reason with that cursed core, after it was destroyed, it paid out exactly one reward.

That reward was the crown in question. Its performance was tremendous. Since it could force any undead under one third power. With that crown, one might even consider the Gonsalok in Beijing.

The problem was that only a single crown dropped from a removal that had involved thousands of Hunters and multiple national Associations.

“So no one could decide who would take it huh.”

There was one reward, and it boasted a terrifying performance.

— Thousands of Hunters risked their lives and only one item dropped. Whoever took it would have a strong claim to speak loudly.

After a brief silence, Sa Seung-hee went on.

— During the struggle over that reward, thirty percent of the Hunters who took part in the operation died.

It was not that rare for people to fight over top-tier gear. I had seen that in the other world I fell into.

People called such items cursed, or demonic blades, and belittled them. In truth they simply fought over them out of greed and destroyed one another.

In any case, the crown still had no owner. Discussions had followed to avoid further conflict, and until an owner was chosen, the Korean Hunters Association had been designated to hold it.

“So how do they intend to choose an owner?”

— Every year, there is an event that selects Hunters to add new names to the List of Hope.

Eligibility was limited to Hunters not yet on the List of Hope. The format was a kind of tournament. Regardless of how many entered, ten Hunters were selected.

Those ten Hunters could each choose someone already on the List and challenge them. If you won the challenge, you took that person’s place on the List.

A Hunter on the List had no way to refuse the challenge. There were other ways to get on the List, but this was apparently the most definitive.

“Fucking hell… What a joke. So they plan to choose the crown’s owner with a martial arts tournament knockoff?”

A curse slipped out before I knew it. Sa Seung-hee continued the explanation.

There were two conditions to obtain the crown. You had to take first place in that event, and you had to challenge a Hunter ranked within the top twenty on the List and take their spot.

In other words, even if you took first place, defeating a ranked Hunter outside the top twenty was not enough.

“The Association really thought that through. I bet Korean Hunters dominate those ranks anyway.”

If they gave the crown to a foreign Hunter, of course that Hunter’s faction would grow stronger.

“Yes. Most of the top twenty are Koreans, and even if someone defeated them, the winner would most likely be a Korean Hunter.”

From the Association’s perspective, they had chosen a method that made it very likely they would not hand the crown to Hunters from other countries.

I did not know whether to praise that as clever. No matter which country’s Hunter took it, the crown would be a huge help against Erosion Zones and monsters.

And yet, because they did not want to hand it to foreign Hunters, they handled it like this.