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Proof-reader: Asada

“Next person?”

The NPC called out to Soo Hyuk again .

“Excuse me . It’s your turn now . ”

At the NPC’s call, the users that were behind Soo Hyuk all haggled at him with annoyed voices .

“Ah, yes . Sorry . ”

Finally snapping out of his thoughts, Soo Hyuk closed his character tab and walked forward to the NPC .

“What have you come here for . ”

“I want to see the mission catalogue . ”

Soo Hyuk answered while getting out his new token from his inventory . The NPC quickly verified the token, then pulled out a stack of papers from his drawer and handed them to Soo Hyuk . It was the E-rank mission catalogue .

“Tell me after choosing . ”

At the NPC’s words, Soo Hyuk received the paper from the NPC and started looking through the different missions .

‘Hmm?’

Soo Hyuk cocked his head as he read through the list .

‘Are they only in F-rank?’

What Soo Hyuk was looking for was a mission that required gathering items to complete, but he couldn’t spot them anywhere so far on the list .

‘Hmph . ’

When Soo Hyuk arrived at the last mission on the list without any progress, he let out a dissatisfied grunt and went back to the first page again .

‘This is probably the next best one . ’,

He thought while staring at the very first on the list . It was an orc hunting mission, and since there were a lot of orcs around Hadrac’s outskirts, it wouldn’t take a long time .

“I’ll choose this mission . ”

[You have selected the quest ‘Orc Village Investigation’,]

After he received the mission from the NPC, Soo Hyuk came out of the Mercenary Agency and opened his quest window .

[Orc Village Investigation]

Orcs have been appearing near the city of Hadrac . Go to their village and stop them!

[Orcs: 0 / 200 ]

[Quest Reward: 200 gold]

‘The NPC said that the orcs were everywhere except on the southern side . ’

After remembering what the NPC said before, Soo Hyuk closed his quest window and turned towards the east . There was no particular reason, just that the closest city gates to the agency were the eastern gates .

“Who wants to go goblin hunting together!”

“Looking for people to hunt tigers together! We have healers and tanks already! Just need a damage dealer! Magicians are welcome!”

Soo Hyuk was met with a scenery similar to the Matab city gates as he arrived at the crowded east gate .

‘Gates are gates . ’

He thought as he looked around at the numerous users searching for a party . Of course, he wasn’t planning to join a party himself, so he headed out alone to the hunting areas around Hadrac .

-Human!

-It’s a human!

Soo Hyuk entered the ‘Goblin Plains’ not long after he headed out . Immediately, goblins jumped at him ferociously, swinging their short weapons .

“Flame Dance . ”

Meanwhile, Soo Hyuk was unfazed by their sudden attacks as he calmly cast Flame Dance and burned the goblins down to ashes .

“Firebolt . ”

“Poison Sphere . ”

“Poison Chains . ”

For the next ten minutes, goblins kept leaping at him from the tall grass, while Soo Hyuk reacted quickly with various spells with Soo Hyuk coming out victorious each time . And so, he was able to escape the goblin plains and arrive at the Kamain Mountains, the habitat of the orcs .

“Looking for a party!”

“We need a healer! Is there a healer anywhere? Our party member is dying! We’ll give you compensation!”

Like the city gates, the entrance to the Kamian Mountains also had a lot of users camped around it . They were calling out to each other, trying to get into parties and whatnot .

“Hey, isn’t that a poison magician?”

“Wow, a poison magician . ”

“That’s a poison magician, right?”

“Yeah…”

“That user, I respect him . How did make it here with poison magic? I heard it was a crazy hard element . ”

As Soo Hyuk was walking through the crowds of users, his ears picked up a conversation between three users, who were talking loudly while pointing at him .

‘Is it just those guys, or are poison magicians generally badly received?’

Soo Hyuk thought as he listened to their conversation . He had already known that poison magicians were the least popular out of all the elements, both as an element and a choice in hunting parties . However, it seemed he had underestimated just how much they were looked down on .

“Excuse me Mr Magician, do you want to party with us?

“Ah, I’m sorry, I’m already in a party . ”

“Are you perhaps a healing magician? Can we hunt in a party?”

“Do we leave immediately if I do?”

Magicians were few in number in Hadrac, so there were naturally many trying to party with them . In other words, magicians were popular . However, no one could be seen trying to approach Soo Hyuk .

‘Even though I wasn’t going to party up…’

If someone had come up to him asked to party up, he would’ve refused them without hesitation . But even so, seeing no one approaching him left him with a bad aftertaste .

At that moment .

“Excuse me!”

As he was feeling grumpy about his poor popularity, someone walked up to him and blocked his path .

“Eh?”

Soo Hyuk couldn’t help but feel flustered as he stared at a woman in front of him .

“Hello!”

The woman greeted him cheerfully .

“Ah, yes . Nice to meet you . ”

Soo Hyuk tentatively greeted her back as he tried to hide his confusion .

“Do you remember me?”

“Err…”

However, he ended up falling deeper into confusion at the woman’s next question .

‘Do I know her?’

Remember? Did he know her before? All sorts of questions popped into existence, yet he still couldn’t remember .

‘Did she make a mistake? But now that I look at her again, she seems familiar…’

He couldn’t deny that there was a familiar feeling coming from the woman . He felt that the memory was just an arm’s reach away, yet he couldn’t quite get his head around it .

“So you don’t remember!”

The woman then arbitrarily came to a conclusion by herself when she noticed his reaction . Though she wasn’t wrong, he was still frustrated .

“Oren library? Do you remember now?”

“…Ah!”

Soo Hyuk exclaimed in realisation when she offered a hint .

‘It was that woman!’

The woman that he had met at the Oren Library . She had rattled on about how wisdom could be increased in other ways, how reading was inefficient, and so on . Of course, he didn’t look down on, or even have a negative feeling about her because of it .

“Ah, hello again . ”

Soo Hyuk greeted the woman again after he remembered her .

“You finally remembered!”

The woman exclaimed while smiling in response to his greeting .

“Did you perhaps come here to hunt orcs?”

“Yes, it’s because of a mission . ”

“Then do you want to hunt together? We have a healer, a tanker and everything!”

The first person to offer to team up . Although it raised his self-esteem slightly, it was a shame that he had to refuse .

“I’m sorry . I need to hurry somewhere else after hunting for a while . ”

He answered . He was not hunting to level up . He was hunting for a mission . 200 orcs? It would be over in a blink of an eye . Partying on the other hand would slow him down to a crawl .

“Ah, I see…”

The woman made a regretful expression at his answer and said goodbye with a slight bow .

“Then I’ll see you next time! Have fun hunting!”

The woman then reverted to her usual cheerful tone and ran back to her waiting party members .

“Do you know him?”

“Yep . He’s the person I met at the library . ”

“Ah, that person who used the library just to read books?”

Her conversations with her party rang out as Soo Hyuk started walking again .

-Chueek!

-Human! Chueek!

“Panther-nim! A heal please!”

“Stream of Life!”

Was it because they were near the outskirts?

“Hey, where are the orcs?”

“Should we go in more?”

“Yeah, let’s . ”

There were more users than the orcs, so hunting near the entrance would take a longer time than in the depths of the mountains .

‘I’ll just use the subspace on my way back . ’

And so, he head further inside the mountains .

-Chueek! Humans! Chuueek!

-Kill him! Gueek!

“Heal, heal please! Quickly!”

“It’s on cooldown! Use a potion first!”

Soo Hyuk could still faintly hear the yells of various users as he kept walking . Then at some point, silence descended as users disappeared from around him .

-Uuek?

-Human, chueek .

As Soo Hyuk approached the orcs, he thought,

‘Now let’s hunt these orcs . ’

He could hunt without fear now that the competitors was far away from him . He was more afraid of user ambushes than the monsters .

“Flame Dance . ”

Beginning with the tow orcs in front of him, he began his slaughter .

“Firestorm!”

“Poison Storm!”

“Poison Cloud!”

A new drop appeared every second .

‘The eyeballs…’

The most eye-catching drop was the sheer number of eyeballs in the drop window .

‘This is why it was 1 gold . ’

He had been wondering why the monster drop was so cheap but looking at the continuously rising eyeballs, the reason was obvious .

Then Soo Hyuk, who was still firing spells at the orcs, checked his quest window to see his progress . After a few more spells, the nearly full count was satisfied and his hunt ended .

“Archmage’s Subspace . ”

[Warping to the Archmage’s Subspace . ]

* * *

Mercenary Agency 2nd floor .

‘Unbelievable . ’

Rowling, who was one of the receptionists on the 2nd floor, muttered in shock .

‘How long has it been since he received the mission?’

Although he asked in his head, he already knew the answer .

‘It hasn’t even been 1 hour yet! He already hunted 200 orcs in that time?’

He had already verified that this was true through the Mercenary Token . There had never been a case where the token was false, but that meant that this man had indeed hunted 200 orcs . But there was another problem .

‘An E-rank did this?’

Rowling had a blank look on his face as he struggled to get his around .

“Am I done?”

The man asked .

“Ah, yes…”

Looking at the man who had a dumb expression on his face, Rowling couldn’t help but get a bit angry .

“Then could you return my token?”

But the man’s next words woke him up from his daze and he hurriedly returned the token . He then also took out the box containing the rewards .

“Then goodbye . ”

Once the man received his token and rewards, he returned to the 1st floor with a goodbye . Meanwhile, Rowling stared at the man’s descending back and thought,

‘Soo Hyuk…’

The man’s name was Soo Hyuk .

‘I’ll have to pay attention to him . ’

“Could you please show me your token?”

Rowling resumed his work with Soo hyuk on the back of his mind .

Then 50 minutes after .

“…”

Rowling was surprised again by a person who had walked up to him .

‘Again? How…’

The man from 50 minutes ago . That Soo Hyuk had returned in lightning speed again .

“Here you go . ”

Soo Hyuk was holding out his mercenary token .

‘Don’t tell me he completed another mission?’

People only came up to the 2nd floor for one reason only . The completion of a mission . Rowling received Soo Hyuk’s token with a flustered face .

‘Crazy!’

When Rowling looked at the records on the token, he couldn’t help but scream inside .

‘He hunted 50 ogres?!’

The records clearly showed that he had received a mission about hunting ogres . Ogres weren’t weak in any way . With their powerful physique, even hunting one was difficult . But this man had just set a record for fastest time to hunt 50 ogres .

‘Not even 1 hour!’

Hunting 50 ogres was hard in itself, but doing it in under an hour? This Soo Hyuk was definitely not at the standard of an E-rank . When his soul was about to escape from his mouth,

“Did you finish?”

Soo Hyuk asked .

“Y-yes, could you please wait a moment?”

Rowling hurriedly returned his token and reward . When Soo Hyuk received them, he stood up and walked down to the 1st floor just like before .

‘Don’t tell he’s going to come again?’

Rowling muttered as he stared at the disappearing figure . He had a bad feeling about this . Then 1 hour later, his hunch came true .

“Here you go . ”

Soo Hyuk, who was still nonchalantly handing him his token . At such a man, Rowling couldn’t do anything but stare with his jaws on the floor .