A Monster Who Levels Up

’Korea’s Proud Son.’

That was the title for this week’s article on one of the world’s most influential publications, the ’Times’.

The main character was Kim Sae-Jin. Describing him as a ’man who possessed a variety of unexplainable abilities’, the article went in-depth with introducing the public to the road he had walked on to get to where he was now.

As one would expect from the article focusing solely on Sae-Jin, it brought about a much more explosive amount of reaction from the populace of South Korea, than compared to the USA.

And by riding on the wave of this fame, The Monster passed the Guild evaluation and thus became a full-fledged Guild in the process. Also, the price of the land the ’Guild’ was on, as well as the value of the surrounding lands as the tourist attraction, reached heights previously unseen.

Plus, many famous celebrities from different parts of the world personally flew over to Korea in order to meet with Sae-Jin, saying he was someone who could create ’treasures’ as the Orc Blacksmith. Hell, there were some individuals who wielded incredible influence in the world resorting to pressuring the government personnel for a chance to meet with him.

Whenever he received these requests for a meeting, though, Sae-Jin checked out that person’s personality first. In other words, he didn’t meet with everyone. He figured that, if he kept on refusing, then people might start ’hating’ on him, and if he met them all, then it’d go on forever.

And so, for the next three weeks or so, Sae-Jin held many meetings with celebrities which started off with him meeting the greatest Knight in the USA named ’Ropetess’; from there, he met the 3rd Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, a world-famous Elf songstress which even made him cower timidly, etc, etc... Sae-Jin got to build personal connections with lots of celebrities. (TL: What the... Just who names their kid "Ropetess"? This author really needs a better naming sense... And yes, I TLed it literally, as written in the raw.)

Initially, meeting up with all these celebrities he saw on TV and newspapers proved to be really cool, but as it continued on and on, both his body and mind became fatigued.

It couldn’t be helped, as those who succeeded meeting with Sae-Jin were all very happy, but those who failed to do so were busy slagging him off for being an arrogant prick.

Finally, using the excuse of The Monster becoming a Guild and thus its administration requiring a specialised and dedicated touch, Sae-Jin stepped away from the Guild Master position, while also installing Jo Hahn-Sung as his proxy. He then told everyone that he’d be taking a long break from all the stressful work and began a NEET-like existence in his house, inwardly feeling quite pleased with himself.

Even though there were Knights who were wholeheartedly waiting for the Orc Blacksmith to release new weapons, Sae-Jin decided to let them wait for a while. Most of all, it seemed there were too many idiots who thought that his continued show of ’goodwill’ had become their right or some such.

Instead of feeling grateful for him presenting his creations to the public, these bastards were busy spewing crap like Sae-Jin was getting lazy and lackadaisical and whatever, when he broke the promise of releasing two weapons a month.

It was because of these morons, he decided to rest for at least three months or so. Of course, he’d every now and then post a few smartly-chosen words on his SNS profile, too.

"...Hmm."

Anyways. Currently, Sae-Jin was savouring a cup of coffee within his own house, not in the Guild’s HQ building, glancing through a newspaper while enjoying the early morning of his sabbatical.

[Kim Hahn-Seol, after saying he’d bet his entire life, resigns from h

is ministerial position after the continued revelation of corruption.] [Is the vice chairman of Great Wisdom, Kim Jong-Hyuk, also implicated in this corruption scandal?]

Kim Hahn-Seol - a man resembling an onion with layers upon layers of dark secrets continuously being revealed. It seemed that he’d be seeing the inside of a jail cell in a near future, while his backers were all getting mired in the scandal as well. No matter how one cut it, at this moment in time, one could definitely say that both Sae-Jin and the Dawn Corporation had won this game outright.

[The Divine Beast type Soo-in Yu Baek-Song, appointed as the Commissioner of the Police.]

And the story he had been waiting for, the rise to power of a certain someone, was also printed on the side with small letters.

"It’s finally done~."

He put the newspaper down while a satisfied smile showed up on his face. Now, even without him being there, the Guild would run smoothly, although that had been the case since the beginning anyways, and the idiots who didn’t know their place were being escorted into a prison one by one, so...

So, there was just one more issue he had to tackle now.

Vampires and his parents, as well as the truth about himself.

"Next week."

Sae-Jin murmured to himself as he looked at the calendar. July 14th, the date he’d meet up with Yu Baek-Song.

Around the same time, he heard the sound of a door opening.

While carrying a smile on his lips, he waited for the woman to enter his arms.

"...You went out on a stroll again?" (Yu Sae-Jung)

Yu Sae-Jung walked in uneasy steps and sat on the couch before falling into his arms. She wore nothing other than a thin shirt over her naked form so the sensation transmitted to Sae-Jin was rather stimulating.

"It’s fine going outside while I’m still asleep, but can’t you be by my side when I’m about to wake up?" (Yu Sae-Jung)

"Why don’t you get dressed first?"

"Don’t wanna."

She replied with a pout and lightly bit his neck.

"Honestly... Where does Oppa go every night? You don’t think about me who might wake up in the middle of sleep, right? Do you know how lonely it can get when when two suddenly becomes one?"

"..."

Now that his guilty conscience got poked, he couldn’t say anything so to change the topic, he switched on the TV instead.

< < 24. <<<<

- ...This is an emergency alert. Near the city of Youngju, North Gyeongsang Province, the Monster ’Arteramus’ has appeared.

Instead, he was greeted with a breaking news. Thankfully, it was a good enough topic to change the flow of this conversation.

"Why is there so much chaos in this country all of a sudden..." (Yu Sae-Jung)

Yu Sae-Jung made a worried expression as she looked on at the emergency broadcast. The news was showing the images of the bird-type Monster building a nest near the North Gyeongsang Province.

- The body of the Arteramus is believed to be bigger than the entrance to the Dead Fissure that appeared in the North Gyeongsang Province before; the experts have expressed their curiosity as to how such a Monster could exit from that Dead Fissure with its massive bulk.

An Arteramus was famous for being a difficult Monster to deal with. Nay, it transcended the level of merely being ’difficult’ and firmly into the realm of impossibility, even.

The first time this thing appeared was around 13 years ago, and the unlucky host that time was Osaka, Japan. Appearing suddenly out of nowhere - as if it fell from the sky or something - this Monster bird used its powerful crow to cause the city to fall in utter chaos, and then using mysterious tentacles that grew on its body instead of fur, killed countless people.

- The Arteramus has been classified as a Boss level Monster. And the Raven Order that found the Monster first is forming a raid team centered around its Highest Tier Knight, Miss Kim Yu-Rin.

As its classification said, it was a boss-level Monster in the similar concept as one would find in games, right down to how heaven-defyingly impossible it was to defeat this creature with one or two Knights only. Such powerful Monsters would show up once every year in different countries all around the world.

"It’s pretty close to our home, too... I hope they can subjugate it without much problem." (Yu Sae-Jung)

Yu Sae-Jung pretended to be a helpless young girl and sneakily leaned her head against his chest. Sae-Jin simply stared at the top of her head for a bit before uttering out what was on his mind.

"By the way - aren’t you supposed to go to work by now?"

"....Haaah. Seriously?"

She gritted her teeth and glared at him. She was quite dumbstruck at the moment.

Sae-Jin still quietly studied her current appearance. It was as if she was trying to tell how peeved she was via her facial expressions - her brows were narrowed, her lips pouting.

That was why he suddenly snuck in with an unexpected kiss. She was so adorable at that moment, and he didn’t really feel like trying to appease her annoyance as well.

As she was annoyed by him, she resisted at first, but well. She was beginning to lose to his already-proficient movements.

"Mm... Mmm..."

<

Her eyes closed; she followed with her senses his hands that had become a lot more familiar with her lately and were busy roaming all over her body.

"Haaaa... ahh..."

Sae-Jin slowly lowered her down on the couch. Since there was only an over-sized shirt to get rid of, taking her clothes off proved to be quick and easy.

"Wait, I..."

But before they could go any further, Yu Sae-Jung became shy from the early morning sunlight shining down brightly, and pushed him slightly away.

"...You don’t have to hide such a wonderful body, you know?" (Sae-Jin)

Sae-Jin couldn’t understand her reaction at all.

"No, I mean, it’s just... If it’s too bright, I feel a bit shy..."

"..."

Yu Sae-Jung’s face reddened deeply and covered up her chest with both of her arms. Sae-Jin’s brows narrowed but he still closed the curtains quickly.

Only then, she jumped into his arms.

And so, the morning’s activity resumed from there.

*

The following day.

"The Arteramus that appeared in Osaka was also classified as a Boss, but the one we’re going to face is suspected to be a lot more powerful than that one."

Within the Raven Knights Order’s Team 1 conference room, the briefing was being held to hash out the subjugation detail for the Boss Monster that had finally appeared after a long while.

"Looking rather grotesque from any distance, the Arteramus resembles a jet-black rooster from afar, but when studied closely, it has something like tentacles rather than fur on its body. And the bad news is, these tentacles contain a ton of concentrated Mana and each one of them are strong and sharp enough to easily pierce the defenses of a Knight." (Unknown Knight)

<

Tentacles grew from every part of its body, so the Arteramus possessed no blind spot in its direction of attack. That placed this bird into the category of the "really, unfairly cumbersome" Monster to face, yet its remains fetched enormous price thanks to all of its tentacles having small Mana Stones embedded inside.

Some even said that Japan’s economic woes of the time were solved in one go with the capital earned from subjugating one Arteramus...

"So the composition of the team should be... At minimum, High Tiers and above?" (Yi Hye-Rin)

Yi Hye-Rin spoke with a somewhat tense face. If she participated in this raiding party, it was quite obvious that the monetary rewards would be more than sufficient.

But the issue was with the inherent risk. No matter how much money she earned, she had to be alive first to enjoy it...

"Not too long ago, the Goblin Alchemist has decided to supply all the potions necessary for this raid in exchange for the small part of profits earned from the sale of the bird’s remains. So you can rest your worries." (Kim Yu-Rin)

"Let me! I’ll do it!!"

As soon as words left Kim Yu-Rin’s mouth, Yi Hye-Rin quickly raised her hand up high. There was a bright smile on her lips.

She felt like an idiot, right then, because it was rather obvious that the Goblin Alchemist would definitely help out here, since they were members in the same Guild to begin with. Even though Kim Yu-Rin was only a non-regular member, but still.

<

To have such a reliable and capable support, now this was what she was talking about. (TL: In this line, the author wrote an idiom "천군만마". The direct translation of it means, "thousand soldiers, ten thousand horses". I changed it at my behest.)

As Hye-Rin was being deeply impressed by The Monster Guild’s personal connections, she was...

"You can’t."

...She was being ruthlessly rejected.

"....Wah, why not?! I’m also a High Tier Knight, though?!" (Yi Hye-Rin)

"Your compatibility with that Monster is just too low. How will you defend against all those tentacles that shoot out tens of times in a single second with that sword of yours?" (Kim Yu-Rin)

"I, I can definitely defend against them!! Instead..." (Yi Hye-Rin)

"Be quiet. We’ll talk about that a bit later... For now, the next portion of this briefing will be done by me." (Kim Yu-Rin)

Kim Yu-Rin coldly cut Yi Hye-Rin’s words off and took over the proceedings.

While carrying documents, she stood before the podium and let out a fake cough. It was unknown what she wanted to say just yet, but one could see how nervous she was.

"The total number participating in the raiding team will be... ten. That is the initial estimation. The plan is, of course, to pick Knights with Tiers at High, and within them, prioritise selecting the candidates with over ’B’ rank in terms of the general capability, including the combat proficiency."

There weren’t too many Knights in South Korea that met the strict conditions Yu-Rin had put forward.

This was because, High Tier Knights with general capabilities rated at B were good enough to really consider advancing to the Highest Tier rank.

"And so, the ones selected for this subjugation raid, are... Song Min-Yu, from Team 2, Joo Hah-Yeoung from Team 3..."

Kim Yu-Rin read out the names of eight people and then...

"...And Yi Hye-Rin." (Kim Yu-Rin)

"Whew..."

Yi Hye-Rin was the 9th to enter the list.

However, Yu-Rin didn’t name the last participant. Only just that, she was busy wetting her rapidly-drying lips, while they moved up and down slightly.

"...And who is the last one?"

Yi Hye-Rin wondered out aloud. Kim Yu-Rin then took a deep breath and then, spoke.

"For the last position, I’d like to invite the Hero Orc."

She spat out these words.

For a few seconds after those words left her mouth, no one spoke up. At first, no one could quite understand what she was saying, and then, thought that she was cracking a high-level joke instead.

"...I believe that the Hero Orc’s martial prowess approaches that of a Highest Tier Knight already. And its compatibility also fits, so if the Orc participates, it’ll benefit us greatly. Not to forget, Orcs are creatures that enjoy battling strong foes. Definitely..." (Kim Yu-Rin)

"Nonono, wait a minute here! Are you, really, really serious about this?" (Yi Hye-Rin)

Unfortunately for the listeners, Kim Yu-Rin’s attitude was quite serious, so Yi Hye-Rin had no choice but to step in.

"...I’ve taken over the management of the Hero Orcs of late. Enough people saw me enter that village. Also, the whole country knows that the Hero Orcs are not a threat and the current situation is, people wish to call them ’Korean Orcs’ instead...."

"No, wait right there, but that’s not the problem here?!"

Hye-Rin shook her head hard while showing how shocked she was.

"But it’s completely nonsensical. You’re telling us to raid a Monster with Orcs, which are also Monsters?" (Yi Hye-Rin)

<

"...What’s wrong with that?"

Too bad, Kim Yu-Rin was completely, totally serious about this. Towards her, every Knight gathered here in the conference room sent in stares of utter shock.

"Also, the weapons wielded by the Orcs are special, so...."

However, Yu-Rin showed not one bit of concern and carried on with the briefing.

No, it was far more correct to call this a ’presentation’ instead, to make these people accept the idea of the Hero Orc.

< 28. Changes in the Daily Life, part 2 (1) > Fin.

(TL: $35 left out of $50 for next week’s first extra chapter.)