GM Ch5

As a side effect of the dimensional shift, his grade dropped by three levels. Still, Minjun wasn’t too worried. He had already experienced it once in the other world, and he knew how to deal with it.

To be precise, when he clicked on the downgrade, a detailed description popped up.

It didn’t say that he had to defeat the 99 dungeon bosses, but that he would return to S rank as long as he met them and attacked them.

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What was more dangerous than a downgrade was the curse threatening Minjun’s life, Existence Dilution.

Minjun’s face frowned slightly as he read the detailed explanation of ‘Existence Dilution.’ Before he knew it, the attunement rate had dropped to 26%.

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He took out a magic stone from his inventory. He’d brought all the money he’d earned in his eight years in the other world to the lord of the mage tower, but he’d brought along a number of Class C and B magic stones as a backup to withstand the ‘Existence Dilution’.

As he absorbed the energy of the magic stone in his hand, the attunement rate listed in the description slowly increased. He had learned how to use magic stones to raise his soul attunement from a curse sorcerer from the other world. Without it, he would have died a long time ago.

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“It’s a hassle to check.”

Minjun sighed softly. The kind curse sorcerer had advised him to carry plenty of magic stones with him if he didn’t want to die, and to check his attunement every day.

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When his attunement dropped below 15%, his body started to malfunction, and below 5%, it was difficult to think properly.

There was a time when, after being stranded while fighting demons in the other world, his attunement rate dropped to 2%. From then on, Minjun obsessively checked his status, trying to keep his attunement rate above 50%.

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When he returned to Korea and life became easier, he became lazy. There were many times he forgot to check the attunement rate.

“Let’s reflect.”

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Minjun hastily reflected. He came back by sacrificing all his wealth to lift the curse, but dying in vain because he couldn’t manage the curse would be something only a fool would do.

He needed to get his hunter’s licence, get his rank back to S, and then break the curse, find out who put it on him, and then settle into a leisurely retirement.

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Reminding himself of his goal, Minjun spent a few more magic stones to increase his attunement rate to 69%. Just like becoming resistant to medicines, raising his attunement rate with magic stones was becoming increasingly ineffective. In the past, he could have lasted more than 10 days with a B grade, but now it was impossible.

Thinking of all the things that had happened to him because of the drop in soul attunement, Minjun gritted his teeth at the person who had cursed him, whoever it might be.

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As a former S-class hunter, he had his fair share of enemies. It was not surprising, given his socially awkward and cranky personality, refusal to take sides, and lone-wolf behaviour. Unfortunately, he didn’t come up with a good list of suspects. This was because it was not known, then or now, if anyone in the world was skilled enough to cast a death curse.

Still, instead of getting frustrated, Minjun focused on the immediate task at hand. For now, he had to get his hunter’s licence and regain his grade.

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“I should go to bed now.”

Slowly regaining his composure, Minjun closed his eyes. His thoughts didn’t last long as he usually fell asleep as soon as his head was touched.

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It had been a productive day; he had gotten a part-time job, caught a monster running away from the dungeon break, and fixed the hinges in the utility room. Minjun thought about how nice it would be to have such a peaceful retirement and fell asleep, forgetting about meeting Soohyuk.

***

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It was late Saturday evening.

The large franchise burger joint was bustling with people for dinner. Minjun deftly carried a tray with five burgers, two sodas, and fries and took a seat at one end of the store. As much as he loved to cook, he often went out to eat something special. Today’s choice was hamburgers.

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Taking a big bite out of the burger in his right hand, Minjun turned on his cell phone with his left. He had received quite a few texts while he was asleep.

“Ads. Ads. This is also an ad. It’s the Star Guild.”

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As he took a bite out of his burger, deleting the ads one by one, Minjun checked the text from the Star Guild and was impressed. He didn’t have a hunter’s licence yet, but since passing the written exam, he’d been getting offers from several guilds.

The number of licensed hunters in Korea was only around 300 a year, so they couldn’t keep up with the demand of the exploding hunter industry. While large guilds may not be attracted to a C-class, it was a different story for small and medium-sized guilds. That was why several guilds tried to recruit him, offering him huge salaries and bonuses, but Minjun, who had a lot to hide, turned them all down.

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Most of the guilds would cleanly back down after a second refusal. They left business cards and texts and asked me to contact their guild if he was interested. The idea was to make a good impression rather than lose the opportunity by being unpleasant.

However, among them, the Star Guild didn’t know how to give up, and they were strangely persistent, perhaps since it’s a different kind of guild than most.

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Not all guilds jumped into dungeon raiding; many small and medium-sized guilds focused on managing the defence shields that protected buildings. Unlike inside a dungeon, where the logic of power was everything, managing, installing, and repairing defence shields was easy enough for lower-ranked hunters to do.

Some, like the Hancheol Guild Choi Joongho introduced me to, operated like hunter recruitment offices. Hunters’ wages were higher than those of ordinary people, but their efficiency was high, so there was no shortage of demand.

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In that sense, the Star Guild’s business model was unusual; they only recruited strikingly handsome and beautiful hunters, regardless of rank, to join the guild and broadcast their work. At first, they were met with a lot of ridicule, but the power of broadcasting raised the recognition of the guild and its hunters around the world.

It was surprising that guilds and hunters could make money this way. He realised how much the world has changed in eight years.

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“Wow, they’re a celebrity.”

“I don’t recommend joining the Star Guild.”

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A sudden voice made Minjun look up. A towering man appeared from behind him.

“Uh…?”

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At first, he didn’t recognize him. But after a short while, he was able to correctly recognize the person’s face.

Minjun couldn’t believe his eyes. Standing in front of him was Soohyuk. Unlike last time, when he was wearing a suit and coat, he was in plain clothes this time. He was wearing a black knit and a dark jacket with his bangs down, making him look younger than his age.

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“May I join you?”

Unexpectedly, he spoke in casual speech, but Minjun found himself nodding. There were plenty of empty seats around, but he couldn’t tell the S-class hunter to go away if he wanted to sit here on purpose.

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“It’s been a while.”

“Hello.”

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Soohyuk, who sat across from him, smiled and greeted him, and Minjun returned the gesture, while he calculated in the back of his head that it hadn’t been long. Only two days had passed since he’d bumped into Soohyuk in the alleyway.

It couldn’t be that he came to see him right?

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Unable to ask the strongest S-class hunter in Korea what he was doing here, Minjun stared at Soohyuk. Even though he knew what that meant, Soohyuk said something else.

“You dislike the casual speech?”

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“No, it’s alright.”

In Korea, age was the king, and for hunters, grade was the king. In Minjun’s current state, Soohyuk was eight years older than him and had a grade of S, he had no complaints.

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“Are you going to join the Star Guild?”

“Oh… No.”

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Star Guild promised that if he joined, he would become famous and make a lot of money. But for Minjun, who wanted to stay out of the limelight, this was a bad deal.

“Good idea, there are bad rumours out there.”

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“Is that so?”

At first, Minjun was dumbfounded. It was unlikely that the guild leader of one of the top guilds in Korea would lie.

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“Curious?”

“Not in particular, I’m not curious.”

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“The guild leader is a puppet boss, and he’s got some bad apples behind him, and his contracts are notorious for their toxic clauses. Don’t get involved with them.”

Having worked part-time jobs and small businesses before becoming a hunter, Minjun had some experience. It wasn’t uncommon for there to be scoundrels behind a puppet leader. More than that, Minjun was more surprised by Soohyuk’s kind explanation.

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“Is that what you came here to tell me?”

After finishing off his second burger and quenching his thirst with a Coke, Minjun carefully threw a fastball. It was clear to anyone who looked that Soohyuk had come to him on purpose.

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‘Am I on camera? But I was being polite? What was going on?’

Minjun couldn’t figure out why the other man was getting involved with him, no matter how hard he tried to remember, but he just stared at Soohyuk, and the snowball fight continued for a while longer.

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Unlike before, this time Soohyuk spoke first, smiling vaguely.

“Is it okay if the distance is closer this time?”

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“There’s no space.”

Minjun was sitting with his back to the wall, so there was no space to put distance between him and Soohyuk. He wanted to move to a different seat, but he didn’t want to provoke Soohyuk.

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