Leveling Up Alone

Chapter 82: Special Member of A Raid Party (3)

“The selection meeting is today, right? Was it at three pm?” Yoo-Bi asked Han-Yeol.

“Yes, it's at three pm,” Han-Yeol replied.

Yoo-Bi was currently at Han-Yeol’s house. She was in charge of the raid selection meeting that would be held via video conference, since she was Han-Yeol’s personal manager.

“The response is starting to get really intense,” Yoo-Bi said.

“I know right,” Han-Yeol said.

It was currently one-twenty pm. The website where the video conference would take place was already full of the raid parties’ IDs even with an hour and forty minutes left to go.

“Wow, all the famous raid leaders like Hike, Porine, Kakasro, and more have gathered. It really is amazing to be both healer and supporter at the same time,” Yoo-Bi said while seemingly fascinated by the situation.

“Keke! Exactly,” Han-Yeol laughed leisurely.

Han-Yeol had worked as a Porter for four years, so he was already quite experienced with raid groups and guilds to the point that he was sick of them. He had also seen firsthand how much they were obsessed over Healers, so that was why he was able to gauge how valuable he was going to be when he first gained his Restore skill.

That was why he was not impressed with all these raid parties and guilds gathering here today; he had already expected this to happen.

‘They were bound to get riled up since I explicitly mentioned that I will be joining a raid party and not a guild,’?Han-Yeol thought.

There were going to be a lot of raid parties that were affiliated with a guild trying to scout Han-Yeol, but there were bound to be even more raid parties that were not affiliated with any guilds. These raid parties without any guild affiliations were bound to be even more riled up than the others, since scouting a Healer to join was already a difficult thing for them to do, and most of the Healers they did manage to scout usually ended up turning out to be ‘fake’ Healers.

‘They?will absolutely?go crazy if they found out about my Healing Bullet skill as well,’?Han-Yeol thought while grinning.

He did not get the chance to show off his Healing Bullet skill during his Land Stalker hunt live stream, which had been a solo hunt with no party members to use the skill on.

The Healing Bullet skill was a long-range healing skill, and it was going to be an incredibly efficient skill to have in party hunts. The raid parties were already in an uproar simply because Han-Yeol possessed Restore, but he was certain that even the guilds, who initially showed disinterest, would jump into the fray as well if they found out that he possessed Healing Bullet too.

‘Ah, I have to go to the Hunters’ Association and update my rank,” Han-Yeol thought. He had completely forgotten about it since it was not an urgent matter, and he did not pay much attention to it.

Han-Yeol had visited the Hunters’ Association twice at the beginning of his awakening.

The Hunters’ Association did not care or intervene in what Hunters did, but it was going to intervene if a Hunter was doing something illegal or if a fight broke out between Hunters or if there was a murder of a civilian by a Hunter. They were already raking in a huge sum of money without having to intervene, and the guilds usually kept the Hunters in line, so none of them ended up causing a mess that required the association’s intervention in the first place.

The main task of the Hunters’ Association was to protect the interests of the Hunters whenever the government or the congress tried to meddle in their affairs.

“Oppa, there’s only ten minutes left before the meeting starts,” Yoo-Bi alerted Han-Yeol, who was immersed in playing his phone game, that the event was about to start.

“Oh, you’re right,” Han-Yeol replied.

Han-Yeol shut down his mobile game and went out to his living room. Then, he turned on his camera and logged in to the website of the Hunters’ Association, and accessed the public video conference room. He greeted, “Hello.”

His face appeared on the screen once he connected to the video conference room, and his video conference room was posted on the main page of the association’s website since he was the main star for today. Thanks to that, everyone immediately knew that he had logged on for the meeting.

[Oooh, hello!]

[Han-Yeol Hunter-nim!]

[Kyaah! I am a fan!]

The video conference’s chat was very hot with reactions and comments blazing in.

The video conference was conducted in an open conference room, and that was why even the people who were not directly participating in the conference could take part through the chat.

The raid selection meeting was usually kept away from the public’s eye and conducted behind closed doors, with only a few invited individuals or entities taking part. However, this meeting was made public since Han-Yeol had requested it to be made public, and the association had no choice but to agree to his demand.

Then, Yoo-Bi stepped forward and brought the microphone toward her. She began calmly reciting the lines from a script she had memorized. “We will soon begin the raid party selection of Lee Han-Yeol Hunter-nim. The explanation of this meeting’s rules was supposed to begin ten minutes later, but I will start explaining now since the representatives of the raid parties that signed up are all present. We will start the raid party selection meeting ten minutes after the explanations have been provided.”

Han-Yeol had told Yoo-Bi to read from the script since it was not even an official broadcast, but she had chosen to memorize the entire script. She did not want to look incompetent by reading from a script in front of so many people.

“Most importantly, it is forbidden for raid leaders to criticize or argue with each other. We will force you to leave the meeting if you cause trouble or start a fight with one another. Please keep in mind that this is a public broadcast for everybody to see and not a private meeting,” Yoo-Bi said.

Han-Yeol possessed quite a unique set of abilities, which were mostly growth-type, but there had been others who had awakened with outstanding abilities and received quite the exposure to numerous raid parties and guilds. However, this was the first time that someone had ever held a raid party selection meeting that was open to the public.

They laid out the rules of no fighting while the raid party selection was going on because Han-Yeol was also well aware of the rumors going on between the raid parties and the guilds. Their relationship was like that of oil and water, and it was practically impossible for them to get along and mingle with each other.

‘My name, Lee Han-Yeol, will now become a luxury brand among Hunters, and the days of me being just another ordinary person will be long gone. My brand has to be more famous and stylish than any other celebrity out there, and it has to make an unforgettable?mark on history,’?Han-Yeol thought as he steeled his resolve once again.

It was incredibly difficult for someone to build up a good image, but it took way less effort to destroy someone’s image compared to the effort needed to build it up.

Han-Yeol could not afford to be humiliated from the beginning by the raid parties and guilds quarreling among themselves in the event where he was officially launching his brand as a Hunter.

“Second, please wait for your turn to talk during the raid party selection meeting. It will be very noisy and chaotic if you do not wait for your turn, since there are many participants in the meeting. You will be issued two warnings before you are forced to leave the meeting, so we hope that you keep this in mind,” Yoo-Bi continued, using the ten minutes to explain what not to do during the raid party selection meeting.

She did not really have to explain the other rules of the selection process since everyone would already be familiar with it.

“Thirdly…” Yoo-Bi continued talking as she explained the other rules.

Ten minutes quickly passed, and it was now exactly three pm. That was the moment Yoo-Bi announced, “Then, we will start the raid party selection meeting.”

[Wow!]

[Just watching this selection meeting is making me nervous.]

[Who will take Hunter Lee Han-Yeol?]

[The Falcon raid party? Or the Brown Bomber? Or maybe the Bear Trap?]

[I don’t care who takes him! I only want to look at Yoo-Bi!]

[Yoo-Bi, this oppa loves you so much!]

Yoo-Bi had a lot of fans blowing up the chat. This was unsurprising, since she, at the young age of eighteen, exuded youthful beauty on-screen. The viewers, who were mostly male, went crazy over her.

Han-Yeol read the intense reaction on the chat window and thought, ‘Yoo-Bi really is growing up and becoming a beauty.’

Perhaps she was eating well after becoming a Porter, or maybe it was her constant exposure to mana, but Yoo-Bi was indeed getting prettier by the day.

‘They say that girls are all grown up when they reach high school, but Yoo-Bi is still?blooming,’ Han-Yeol thought.

It was a bit strange, but Han-Yeol felt proud of the fact that he was working with her.

The meeting had already begun while Han-Yeol’s mind was drifting elsewhere.

[First, I will speak on behalf of the Hike raid party. As you may all know, Hike raid party has a lot of top-end equipment thanks to our huge financial power, and we have a few secret items as well. We are willing to rent him one of these secret items for free if Han-Yeol Hunter-nim joins our raid party until he decides to leave our group,] the representative for Hike proposed.

[…]

There were no further words.

‘That’s it?’ Yoo-Bi thought as she was dumbfounded by the representative’s words.

It was true that the representative did not personally stand to gain anything from recruiting Han-Yeol, but his demeanor was basically akin to him saying that their raid party was not interested in scouting Han-Yeol at all.

‘Well,?it's still too early to tell, since that’s only the first person,’ Yoo-Bi thought as she shrugged it off.

[I am the representative of the Eight Crown raid party, as all of you may be aware; Eight Crown has a lot of top-end equipment thanks to our huge financial power…]

‘Huh?’?Yoo-Bi was shocked by what she just heard.

After the Eight Crown raid party finished their statement, the Falcons, the Brown Bombers, and Bear Trap raid parties all just repeated the same statement all over again.

Han-Yeol, who was watching from behind, could not help but click his tongue in frustration. He thought angrily, ‘They are colluding with each other.’

In commercial terms, the raid parties were forming a cartel to purposely drop Han-Yeol’s value.

‘Ha! Are they looking down on me? Or are these raid parties stupid? Or was my calculation wrong?’?Han-Yeol thought while being flabbergasted by the situation.

It was now the turn of the twenty-second raid party to make their proposal. They were not included in the cartel since the conditions they proposed were entirely different from the previous raid parties. However, the problem was that the previous twenty-one raid parties were the so-called prestigious ones, and the fact that the twenty-second raid party proposed something of better value meant that the rest of the raid parties after this were bound to be the lesser-known ones. In other words, the raid parties starting from the twenty-second one were all small fries.

‘Hmm, what should I do with these bastards?’ Han-Yeol thought angrily.

Han-Yeol did not show any emotions on his face, but he was incredibly angry on the inside. To be honest, he could just go ahead and hunt alone at the intermediate hunting grounds if he wanted to. It was going to take a lot more effort from his end, but it had the advantage of being able to monopolize all of the mana stones and monster corpses for himself.

However, he had created this event because he wanted to experience something new. He also wanted to become famous… He just never imagined that the raid parties were going to collude with one another and stab him in the back like this.

[W-What?]

[What the hell is going on right now?]

[Tsk… Tsk… The raid parties are colluding among themselves.]

[Then, what is going to happen?]

[Is the raid party selection meeting ruined?]

[I hate everything those raid parties do.]

Han-Yeol was not angry at the fact that the raid parties were colluding with each other to lower his value, since he could just hunt solo if he did not like any of them. However, what infuriated him was the fact that they were making a public spectacle out of him by humiliating him in front of the entire nation.

‘Damn it, they dare to ruin my debut and humiliate me in front of the whole nation?’?Han-Yeol angrily thought.

Just as he was gritting his teeth and was about to explode, the last participant to make the proposal spoke up and made him hold his temper.

[I wish to ask all the Hunters in this room how stupid you guys can be. You guys are so stupid that I found it unpleasant to watch you,] the woman, who was the last to make a proposal, said.

The woman’s words changed the entire atmosphere of the raid party selection meeting as she successfully managed to incite most of the other participants.

[Who are you?!] one of the raid party representatives retorted in anger.

[Just who do you think you are? Which raid party are you from?!] another representative said.

Angry shouts from the first twenty-one raid parties, who colluded with one another, came from all directions. They could not help but be triggered by the woman, since they had agreed to play roulette to have Han-Yeol decide which one of them he would be joining without them having to enter into a bidding war.

‘It’s true that his ability to heal and support at the same time is very desirable, but the price he is demanding for himself is too burdensome for a greenhorn. Let’s remember that we are established and prestigious raid parties. We are not?the?ones that?need?him, but he is the one that needs us. He will definitely come crawling even if we lower his value.’

This was the mentality of the prestigious raid parties that valued their pride and ego above everything else, and this made it easier for them to collude together. In fact, they wanted to teach Han-Yeol a lesson since they hated the fact that he had called for a raid party selection meeting and had made it a public one on top of that.

Until recently, they had been participating in these meetings to scout the best Hunters for themselves. However, they soon realized that they were the best raid parties around and they had no reason to grovel for the greenhorn Hunters to join them.

They had come up with this plan to put Han-Yeol in his place and let it serve as a warning for any other upstart greenhorn Hunters of the consequences of trying to pull a fast one on them.

[I am from the Horus raid party, which is the last one in line to make a proposal. Lee Han-Yeol Hunter-nim, please do not settle or even entertain the joke of an offer these clowns are offering you, and please come and join us instead. We are willing to offer you special treatment if you become a member of our raid party. We are going to guarantee your absolute independence and freedom to do whatever you wish, and we will provide you with all of the unique items that we have for free. Of course, we will not be renting these equipment to you, but we are going to give it to you as a gift. Last but not least, we are willing to increase your dividend of the spoils by 2.2 from the normal dividend usually offered,] the woman said.

The entire raid party selection meeting was in an uproar from the last raid party’s proposal, and it seemed that the atmosphere suddenly took a drastic turn from a while ago.