Leveling Up Alone

Chapter 199: The Phenomenal Hunter (5)

It had been a while since Mujahid last summoned the fourth ember.

'The fourth ember places quite the burden on my body, but what does it matter as long as I'm having fun?!'

Tak!

He explosively increased his mana and relentlessly attacked the Ice Trolls.

"Grr…!"

The Ice Trolls started to slowly retreat from the human, who was growing stronger and stronger.

Kwaaaaang!

Mujahid and Furion kept the Ice Trolls at bay while Balrog and the Egyptian Hunters took care of the other monsters.

Then, everyone's eyes immediately darted toward Han-Yeol and Mavros, who were both displaying overwhelming power.

"Kieeeeeek!"

"Gwuoooooh!"

The monsters slowly lost their sanity in the face of the powerful mana.

The hunt sequence was extremely simple. Macros would lure the monsters to the team, and Han-Yeol would unleash his potent mana to annihilate them. Any stragglers left were dealt with by Mujahid's team. It was a truly effective and efficient sequence.

Ding!

[Your level has risen.]

Ding!

[Your level has risen.]

'Luring mobs in and finishing them off in one go is the best way to hunt,'?Han-Yeol thought as he was extremely satisfied with the result.

He gained two levels after killing almost one hundred monsters.

The monsters in the Cheolwon hunting ground seemed to give a lot of experience points for their level. Thanks to this, the hunt was kicked up a notch after Han-Yeol got motivated, and they were able to fill three of the four transport vehicles they brought right before the sun started to set on the first day.

It was around that time that the Porters were diligently going about their work after the hunt ended. The Manager seemed to be deep in thought before he shook his head and stood up. Then, he went to Mujahid and gave a report of their situation.

[Mujahid-nim, we have filled three of the tractor trucks and a fifth of the fourth one. We might fill the fourth one before the sun fully sets at our current pace.]

[Already?]

[Yes, Han-Yeol-nim's hunting method of luring large mobs and killing them in one go is simply too effective that our trucks are filling up much faster than usual.]

[That's a surprise…]

They initially planned to send the trucks back once every two days, but it turned out that things were not going to progress as they had planned.

Mujahid pondered the issue for a while before he nodded and said, [It's already quite late, and we're almost done wrapping this place up, so let's go out after filling up the last truck and send the monster corpses to the factory.]

[Yes, Mujahid-nim!]

The Manager bowed toward Mujahid and quickly rushed to the Porters as the sun was going to start setting soon.

[Are you alright, hyung-nim?]

[Yeah, I'm fine. I was able to finally let off some steam, and I'm looking forward to our hunt tomorrow.]

Mujahid smiled brightly and gave a thumbs-up. [Hahaha! As expected of hyung-nim!]

[Haha!]

Han-Yeol could not help but find Mujahid to be quite cute whenever he did that.

[Hurry up!]

[Yes, Manager-nim!]

The Porters were able to finish their work before sunset, thanks to the Manager rushing them. Han-Yeol and Mujahid filled up the trucks to the brim and left the Cheolwon hunting ground. The soldiers at the checkpoint checked to make sure that none of the monsters were alive before giving them the clearance to pass. Meanwhile, the Manager contacted the factory.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

[Hello? Yes, Manager-nim?]

[Hey, the hunt is progressing faster than we expected, right? Do you remember that collection agency we scheduled for tomorrow?]

[Yes, I remember. What about them, sir?]

[Ask them to come at once.]

[P-Pardon me, sir…? Do you want them to come now?]

[Yes, tell them to come now.]

Mujahid's manager held the same position as a department head in one of his companies, and the staff was a bit scared after sensing the hint of frustration in the Manager's voice.

[Yes, sir! I will tell them to come at this instant!]

[Good.]

The Manager was quite polite toward Han-Yeol and Mujahid, but he was infamous among his colleagues for being hot-tempered.

Mujahid was not a part of the Horus raid party, so he did not exclusively deal with the Sung Jin Factory. In fact, he had his own factory that he dealt with, which was a well-known multinational corporation.

It went without saying that Mujahid established a Korean branch of his company as soon as he landed in Korea to process whatever monster he hunted.

Of course, half of the monster corpses could have been sent to the Sung Jin Factory as Han-Yeol was also a participant in this raid.

However, Han-Yeol did not have any objections regarding which factory they were going to deal with since he had come to help Mujahid hunt, and Mujahid was the leader of his hunt.

The people should have come to collect the monster corpses tomorrow, but they were forced to come a day earlier as the trucks were already full. Things might be happening against their original schedule, but nobody had any qualms about it.

Around two hours later...

Vroom! Vroom!

Ten specially modified trucks arrived at the Cheolwon hunting ground.

[They are about to arrive, Mujahid-nim.]

[Yeah, I can see that.]

This time, the ten trucks were not the usual open-type ones but rather the closed-type cargo trucks. While it was far more efficient to use open-type trucks in the hunting ground to pile up the corpses as much as possible, for security reasons, closed-compartment trucks were used outside.

The sides of the trucks were decorated with the word 'GOBLIN,' which came from the name of Mujahid's group, 'Goblin Group of Companies.' Initially called 'Mujahid Group,' his trusted assistant, Shin Yoo-Kyung, changed it to 'Goblin Group,' stating that 'Mujahid Group' sounded too tacky.

The reason for naming the group 'Goblin Group' was due to the 'Goblin Embers', and Mujahid instantly liked the new name.

[We greet the prince.]

The executives of the Goblin Factory personally came all the way to the hunting ground to greet Mujahid. They were the branch manager and vice branch manager of the Seoul Branch of the Goblin Factory.

There was no need for them to come personally to the hunting ground, but they rushed there after hearing about the change in Mujahid's schedule to ensure everything was alright.

[Huh? Why are you guys here?] Mujahid asked, tilting his head in confusion.

He found it strange that they came all the way here when there was no need for them to do so.

'I wonder if something happened…'?he wondered but he could not think of anything.

After all, he might be the owner of the group, but the actual person that ran it was Shin Yoo-Kyung. This meant that the executives were supposed to go to Shin Yoo-Kyung if anything happened instead of coming to him.

[Ah… T-That is…]

The executives had no idea what to say since they had rushed here thinking something had happened to Mujahid.

Nudge… Nudge…

The branch manager nudged the vice branch on his waist as if saying, 'Hurry up and say something,' but the vice branch manager couldn't speak as he had been dragged here by the branch manager. Nonetheless, he had climbed all the way to his current position through his glib tongue alone, so he decided to put his talent to use.

[T-That is… We were worried that something happened to your highness, since you asked us to come a day earlier than planned.]

[OH, really?]

Mujahid tilted his head once again. The branch manager didn't miss this opportunity and immediately added, [Yes, this is the first time your highness has asked us to come earlier than planned, so we were worried that something might have happened.]

In the end, both of them decided to come clean as there was no point in lying to Mujahid.

[Haha! It's understandable that you were worried. Hmm… Why don't you guys stay and direct the workers?]

[Yes, your highness!]

Both of them were quite embarrassed and immediately rushed to the trucks to instruct the workers. The work progressed much faster than usual, thanks to the combined leadership of both the branch manager and vice branch manager.

Thud!

Meanwhile, the Manager passed a bag made out of bulletproof material to the foreman after they were done moving the corpses.

[Here you go.]

[Phew…?I still get nervous whenever I get this bag.]

The bag was much more valuable than all of the monster corpses combined as it contained all of the mana stones hunted.

What scared the foreman the most was the fact that the bag was much easier to steal compared to the monster corpses. This single bag in his hand was worth more than tens of billions of won, even though it was just a day's worth of hunting for Han-Yeol. It would be extremely tempting for anyone to try their luck and rob this bag if they knew just how valuable it was.

[Alright, I'll leave the rest to you.]

[Thank you, Manager-nim. And please take care of yourself.]

[Haha! No need to worry about me.]

Most might think that the branch manager was higher up the corporate ladder than the Manager, but the Manager was actually higher in rank compared to him. On top of that, the Manager was more senior than the branch manager, and that was the reason the branch manager was speaking to him so politely.

The branch manager and vice branch manager greeted Mujahid and left the Cheolwon hunting ground.

The sun had set, and it was now dark by the time they finished sending out the trucks. The hunting grounds at night were definitely dangerous, even for Hunters, and it was all the more perilous for Porters and ordinary people.

In fact, it was so hazardous that the association went as far as banning people from entering the hunting grounds at night unless there were any urgent issues.

[Hey, Manager!]

[Yes, Mujahid-nim!]

The Manager rushed over and started rubbing his hands together after Mujahid called him.

[It's dark now, and the Porters are tired. Pitch the tents and prepare to rest. It's quite a hassle to pitch tents at night, so why don't you go over to those soldiers and bribe them to pitch it for you instead?]

[Haha! Please do not concern yourself with that. I will immediately pitch the tents!]

The Manager skillfully commanded the Porters and pitched the tents in no time, despite it being dark by now. The campfire smoke, cooking their dinner, slowly started to rise from the camp.

"Ugh…?I'm so tired…"

Seuk… Tak…!

Han-Yeol entered his tent and crashed on the bed, with not a hint of the charisma he had shown during the day to be found anywhere on him.

"Kyu!"

The same could be said for Mavros, as he decreased greatly in size and was a completely different creature from his majestic look earlier in the day.

The black dragon started excitedly running around the tent's living room. Despite displaying an overwhelmingly powerful presence in the hunt today, he was still a baby that had been born less than six months ago. It was only natural that he would be curious about any new environment he was in.

Beep…!

"Hmm?"

After working really hard all day, Han-Yeol was finally about to rest when he received a message.

[Are you free now, oppa?]

The message was from Yoo-Bi.

‘Huh? Why's she messaging at this hour?’ Han-Yeol wondered and gave her a call.

[HI, oppa. I didn't know you were on the hunting ground. I just texted you out of a whim.]

She definitely knew that Han-Yeol was at the Cheolwon hunting ground, and he was not able to receive her messages. She had sent the message as she thought that he would be able to check his message around this time.

But she was a bit flustered when he suddenly called out of the blue before even replying.

"Yeah, we came out for a while to send the monster corpses to the factory. What's up?"

[Ah, I developed something new for you this time, and I was wondering if you could come straight to my workshop after your hunt.]

"I definitely will. It's a different matter altogether since you’ve made something for me, so you bet that I'll be there."

[Hihi! Do you promise?]

"Yeah, I promise. I'll be there even if you tell me not to come."

[Then, I'll be waiting for you!]

"Okay!"

Beep!

"Hmm… I wonder what she has prepared for me…?"

1. Will-O-Wisps/soul embers are called Dokkaebi Embers in Korea. Dokkaebi translates to Goblin in English, but it's not an exact translation. Still, there was no room for compromise here since the author specifically wrote GOBLIN in English.