Chapter 33
Governor Johan (3)
The reason Lee Shin had made such a request was simple.
“Ugh, we just can’t figure it out on our own. We can vaguely grasp the overall framework, but we don’t understand the finer details! If only we had a few more engineers around our level... if only we had just a little flash of inspiration, we could’ve done it!”
Hephaestus was in agony.
“There probably aren’t any other races in this World of Stars that use iron to make firearms and weapons, are there? In other worlds, instead of dwarves like us, those with mighty physiques or tremendous magical abilities must have survived...!”
Hephaestus pounded the ground as he sobbed.
While listening to the dwarf lament, Lee Shin had suddenly realized something.
‘Isn’t humanity in a similar situation?’
The dwarves of the past had possessed superior technology. However, after losing what they had to invaders from another world, they had regressed drastically.
In Lee Shin’s eyes, the dwarves’ current technological level was fairly high, but it still couldn’t compare to humanity’s.
At least, not at present.
The dwarves still retained their abilities and craftsmanship as makers, but they were unable to conceive of the “something” they needed to create.
Then wouldn’t humanity’s technology be useful to them?
At the very least, it might be enough to give them that spark of inspiration they desperately needed.
『I do not know whether it will be of help to you, but I shall seek heavenly knowledge from my world.』
“R-Really?!”
『However, to pay the price, I believe I will need weapons like the Spear of Lightning you gave me last time... Would you be able to offer me some fairly valuable items?』
“You may take all of them! No, we can make new ones! They’re items dwarves can’t use anyway... Weapons that could only be wielded by warriors of legend—we’ll make more for you!”
And that was how Lee Shin had reached his conclusion.
If the technology didn’t exist in the dwarves’ world, he would bring it over from Earth.
And as for the weapons Hephaestus handed over?
「Name: Flame Cloak for the Heavens」
「Type: Armor」
「Grade: ???」
「[Supreme Complete Defense], [Fire Attribute Immunity]」
「Unique Engraving: “Flowing Flame”」
「—Continuously deals fire damage to nearby monsters in proportion to the wearer’s Defense stat. Damage increases the longer the battle continues.」
「Overall Evaluation: If you make it to the end, you win.」
「Name: Phoenix Ring for the Heavens」
「Type: Accessory」
「Grade: ???」
「[Supreme Mana Recovery], [Supreme Magic Enhancement]」
「Unique Engraving: “Two Lives”」
「—Upon death, resurrects the wearer at a nearby safe location. (Cooldown: 60 days)」
「Overall Evaluation: One of Hephaestus’s masterpieces. The “Eternal Flame” possessed by the Flame Blacksmith has been fully infused into it, granting it the power of the phoenix. Truthfully, he thought it was a little too precious to offer as tribute, but this time he tearfully gave it up.」
At a glance, their effects were utterly insane.
Manager Kim Dongseok seemed to have lost the ability to speak after examining the items Lee Shin had brought.
The appraiser from Dawn who had accompanied him wasn’t acting like a professional either. He chuckled like an excited child staring at a new toy.
“Wow. This isn’t a dream, right?”
“...How much do you think it’s worth?”
“I don’t think you can even put a price on it. Especially this Phoenix Ring. Rather than selling it outright, you could rent it out like a kind of insurance policy. Someone could live with two lives for a fixed period, and if the engraving gets consumed, you charge them an additional fee. Then, sixty days later, you rent it out again...”
“So what’s its value?”
“...Should we calculate it based on the monthly fee of an American S-rank Hunter? Then we’d have to start at a minimum of a hundred million dollars... It’s hard to put an exact value on it, but if we auction it among the world’s top Hunters, I think we could inflate the price considerably.”
A minimum of one hundred million dollars.
That was the price to rent one of Hephaestus’s heartfelt masterpieces for a single month.
Manager Kim Dongseok burst out laughing.
“Mr. Lee Shin, I think you’re going to have to accept money for this. If you tried to settle the payment through military consulting instead, we’d practically have to bring in the President of the United States himself...”
The situation had gone so far beyond anything comprehensible that he had practically attained enlightenment and was now joking about it.
However—
“...Um, Mr. Lee Shin?”
“Yes?”
“The President of the United States... says he wants to meet you.”
He hadn’t expected it to actually happen.
Dawn Management held an auction to sell Lee Shin’s items.
The items would go to whoever submitted the highest bid. There were simply too many absurdly valuable items for Dawn Management and the Korean government to purchase them all themselves.
Furthermore, if Korea monopolized the items being sold by a Hunter who had attracted worldwide attention, the backlash would be enormous.
Other countries weren’t asking to receive them for free. They were merely asking for a fair opportunity to compete on price and purchase them.
There was no reasonable justification for refusing.
“Even if the performance is slightly inferior, buy it at a high price. What matters is making sure Hunter Lee remembers our name. Think of it as an investment.”
Most of them were thinking along the same lines.
And then—
“A spear that calls down lightning? Aren’t weapons imbued with elemental attributes incredibly rare? And lightning attributes carry an enormous premium on top of that...”
“Look properly! There’s no cooldown. It’s a passive skill that activates every time the spear thrusts. If Zhang Jiang, the Hunter of our great nation, wielded it, heaven and earth itself would shake!”
“How much budget do we have? We absolutely need that one...”
“What the hell is that Flame Cloak? It deals damage proportional to Defense? Has an item like that ever appeared before? Then if you just bring along a whole group of healers and stall for time, a tank could handle the damage dealer’s role all by himself...”
“B-Buy it! Buy it right now! If William wears that, forget S-rank—we could promote him straight to SSS-rank. It’ll immediately solve our chronic shortage of damage dealers!”
“BUY IT!! BID!!”
Not only the people involved in the Hunter industry around the world, who had initially assumed Lee Shin was merely cashing in on his fame, but even high-ranking government officials were thrown into an uproar.
Items like these had never existed before.
These weren’t merely things made by dwarves from some fantasy novel. Just what kind of absurd treasures were these?
Items capable of instantly boosting a nation’s combat power were pouring out one after another.
Increasing the strength of Hunters was practically synonymous with increasing national power.
No matter how outstanding a country’s military might be, it couldn’t stop a Rift disaster without exceptional Hunters.
For the sake of national security, countries around the world had begun pouring their defense budgets into nurturing Hunters.
And at the top of that list, naturally, was the United States—the nation that had been called a trillion-dollar superpower even before the Rifts opened.
“This next item is not for sale. It is available for rental. The winning bidder will receive the right to use it for two months, and once the rental period ends, another auction will be held.”
At the word rental, everyone initially reacted with indifference.
But the moment the item was revealed—
“Seventy million dollars!”
“Eighty million!”
“One hundred million! One hundred million!”
Without exception, they screamed themselves hoarse like middle-aged women storming a once-in-a-lifetime flash sale.
The Phoenix Ring for the Heavens.
There wasn’t even any need for a detailed appraisal.
The moment they saw the Unique Engraving written on it, the game was already over.
Two lives.
With the Fifth Wave approaching, no one knew how the Rifts would change.
If they were to lose an S-rank Hunter, the financial loss would be bad enough, but the immediate blow to national power would be even more devastating.
The ring could protect an S-rank Hunter, one of a nation’s most valuable human assets, and its additional effects—Supreme Mana Recovery and Supreme Magic Enhancement—were incredible in their own right.
With so little time remaining before the Fifth Wave, the mere fact that such an item had appeared now inevitably added an enormous premium to its value.
As everyone’s eyes burned with greed, someone spoke.
“Three hundred million dollars.”
It was a representative of the United States.
Converted into Korean won, that came to 434.2 billion won per month.
“And... His Excellency the President says he would like to meet Hunter Lee Shin.”
Kim Dongseok knew that the equipment Lee Shin had brought was extraordinary, but he had never imagined the entire world would react this passionately. Manager Kim Dongseok felt as though he had completely lost his sense of reality.
Even Seong Chanyang, an S-rank Hunter, had never personally met the President of the United States.
But Lee Shin?
The President himself had asked to meet him first.
The sheer scale of it was mind-boggling.
Then again, for an item capable of “resurrection,” perhaps such a reaction was only natural.
The United States was already famous for investing lavishly in Hunters, and it was one of the countries that had benefited greatly from sweeping up talented Hunters during the early days of the Great Cataclysm.
The United States understood better than most just how important Hunters were in this world, and had determined that the “Phoenix Ring” was valuable enough to justify paying three hundred million dollars a month.
Of course, part of that price probably came from the premium attached to the fact that Lee Shin himself was the seller....
‘But seriously, what exactly is Mr. Lee Shin? The things he brought last time were incredible too, but these items completely shatter everything we’ve considered common sense until now....’
Naturally, there was no way for them to know that Lee Shin’s item was one of the masterpieces created by the Flame Blacksmith, the greatest among the descendants of the dwarves.
As a result, everyone’s estimation of Lee Shin only continued to skyrocket.
A truly extraordinary person has appeared.
“It’s good to finally meet you.”
At Lee Shin’s request, Manager Kim Dongseok accompanied him to his meeting with the President of the United States.
Unlike Lee Shin, who remained perfectly calm even with the President sitting right in front of him, Kim Dongseok was the one who was far more nervous.
His heart was pounding so violently that it felt ready to burst.
“I heard you purchased my item for quite a high price.”
“Yes. It was certainly worth that much.”
“Could you perhaps lower the price a little and give me something else instead?”
Lee Shin said it without the slightest tremble in his voice.
Joel, the President of the United States, looked intrigued.
“What would you like...?”
Was he going to ask for something political?
Then again, perhaps someone of Lee Shin’s stature understood that power was more important than money.
As Joel’s mind began racing, Lee Shin spoke with an indifferent expression, as casually as if he were asking for nothing particularly important.
“America has plenty of weapons, doesn’t it? Could you share some blueprints for weapons like surface-to-air missiles, stealth bombers, and bunker busters? It would be nice if you could send some engineers along as well. Or if you have any exceptional military experts, perhaps you could introduce me to one....”
Even Joel, who had spent his entire life navigating the world of politics, couldn’t stop his face from turning pale.
Manager Kim Dongseok genuinely felt as though he might die of a heart attack at this rate.
Fortunately, President Joel knew that there were plenty of Hunters who were “eccentric in one way or another,” and he understood that Lee Shin hadn’t said this because he was trying to steal America’s core technologies.
After a series of discussions, Joel realized that what Lee Shin wanted wasn’t “America’s latest technology.”
He simply wanted weapons technology advanced enough to intercept and engage extremely durable, high-speed flying targets.
If that was all, there was certainly information they could share.
“Then how much would you like us to reduce the price by...?”
“That won’t be necessary. Think of this as a little spending money to help us become closer. From now on, we’ll be friends. The kind of friends who maintain a reasonable amount of interaction and exchange things with each other... that sort of friendship.”
Spoken like the President of the United States, the land of lobbying.
Lee Shin answered indifferently.
“Sure. Sounds good.”
For a meeting with the president of the world’s greatest superpower, the conversation ended surprisingly quickly.
Of course, quite a lot had changed as a result of this auction.
The world had now realized that Lee Shin wasn’t merely someone capable of closing Rifts.
He was also someone capable of exerting an enormous influence over the entire Hunter industry, and a figure who could become central to the coming era of the Fifth Wave.
News of the meeting between the President of the United States and Lee Shin was reported by media outlets around the world.
At the same time, information about the items Lee Shin had put up for auction was released, throwing the world into an uproar once again.
Every time he stepped forward, he seemed to create a storm.
“Mister, did you really meet the President of the United States?”
“I swear, I just lost ten years off my life....”
“Come to think of it, your hair does look a little thinner.”
“...Really?”
“Puhaha! I’m kidding!”
Unlike Manager Kim Dongseok, whose heart was still pounding, Seong Chanyang seemed to think this entire turn of events was perfectly natural.
As though something that was obviously supposed to happen had simply happened.
‘Everyone should know how amazing our God is.’
Seong Chanyang grinned, her star-shaped pupils sparkling.
“We have to bring him over somehow. That man’s existence alone could completely transform the level of Hunters. His ability to close Rifts is extraordinary enough, but he even possesses items at such an absurd level....”
“How did someone like him remain hidden until now? Could it be that, with the Fifth Wave approaching, he willingly revealed himself in order to help us...?”
“There’s no way a Hunter of that caliber awakened recently. Search through the old records immediately. And we need to find out what he wants. We have to offer him the best possible terms....”
The world was moving frantically.
“Damn it! Mr. Lee Shin, who descended upon us to save our world, has once again turned the entire world upside down! This is no time to sleep, fellow believers! Now we must worship. We must begin the worship! Long live the Lee Shin Salvation Church...!”
Somewhere, a surprise worship session was underway.
“He caused another incident, that idiot. Hmph. Slow down a little so I can catch up with you. How am I supposed to keep up if you suddenly shoot so far ahead?”
Somewhere else, someone was strengthening their resolve even further.
And then—
“Ah, you added more parameters again? I haven’t been able to sleep lately because I keep thinking about this. Now it can even manipulate the climate... Ah-ha, and you said the dragon is roughly forty meters long? Then I’ll have to revise the simulation....”
Inside Dawn Management’s office were Lee Shin and one of America’s finest military experts.
“Let’s assume the dragon has armor comparable to a tank. If it can manipulate the climate, the radar performance of aircraft would deteriorate during aerial combat, right? And since you said it can control the elements, it could destroy armored vehicles or aircraft engines. In that case, we shouldn’t classify it as a simple airborne target, but as a large-scale tactical weapon capable of manipulating the surrounding environment. Then we’d need to conduct a multi-stage offensive combining air-to-air and surface-to-air operations....”
And then—
“Right! We can’t use satellites, can we? Come to think of it, we can’t deploy Aegis destroyers either. How are we supposed to do this without naval forces? If it can manipulate the electrical element, it’ll definitely be capable of EMP attacks too. These conditions are tricky. Hold on! I think I’ve almost got it! Just give me a second!”
For some reason, Raymond, the military expert, was bursting with excitement.
Perhaps that was only natural.
A virtual war simulation.
A strategy for a modern military to subdue a forty-meter-long dragon with maximum efficiency.
It was the kind of subject no man could resist.