Against the Clock: The Team Leader’s Pursuit of Glory

Chapter 36 - Friend or Foe?

"Never thought Ju Se-ah would have ties with him."

Sung Seon-je, the Strategy and Tactics Team Leader of the Slayer Guild, was engrossed in a report, seemingly intrigued.

"What are you doing at a café at this hour, Ding-Dong?" Sung Seon-je asked, looking up at a guild member who had suddenly popped his face in between him and the report.

"What is Hunter Kam Woo-yeong doing here? There's a Red Gate expedition coming up soon. Aren't you going to attend the final check?"

"Take it easy. The expedition team is always prepared. I just came out for a short coffee break. Ah? This person..."

"Can you step out for a second?"

Kam Woo-yeong, upon glancing at the photo attached to the report, feigned recognition.

Sung Seon-je tried to dismiss him with an annoyed wave of his hand, but Kam Woo-yeong quickly leaned in and snatched the report to start reading.

"This is that guy you've been keeping an eye on, isn't it? He's been promoted under Se-ah recently, what was his name again? Kang, Kang, Kang Mu-hyuk! Right?"

Sung Seon-je snatched back the report, furrowing his brow.

"Now that you're a Party Leader of the Expedition team, Hunter Kam Woo-yeong, act with some charisma that belongs to a party leader. How long will you act like a rookie?"

"What can I do if it's my nature? I'm not good at taking on responsibilities. Haha."

Scratching the back of his head and laughing awkwardly, Kam Woo-yeong reached out to take the report again. When Sung Seon-je quickly hid the report behind him, he sourly asked, "But why do you have another guild leader's resume? Are you trying to sneak him away from Se-ah?"

"And what if Ju Se-ah causes a scene in the guild lobby again? Would you, Hunter Kam Woo-yeong, stop her?"

"Are you insane? I wouldn't dare confront the witch."

"Part of my job is to avoid creating such troublesome situations."

"So you're not recruiting him? But why this guy?"

"Guild Leader Kang Mu-hyuk is someone I've been watching for a while now."

At Sung Seon-je's response, Kam Woo-yeong's eyes widened.

Sung Seon-je was a Strategy and Tactics Team Leader with a meticulous standard for evaluating Hunters. The fact that he'd been keeping an eye on a non-Hunter, and from another guild no less, suggested one of two things.

Enemy or recruitment target.

'He's not the type to memorize names out of simple curiosity.'

The Sung Seon-je that Kam Woo-yeong knew categorized people into two types.

Useful or not.

He remembered those who were useful and didn't even acknowledge the others as people, even if they were from the same guild.

The remembered ones were also divided into two.

Friend or foe.

Kam Woo-yeong was curious about this division.

"You're not really trying to recruit him, are you? If you are, tell me in advance. I'll schedule my leave when Se-ah arrives."

"I thought about it before. When I'm absent or in an emergency, I want someone to step in."

"Wow~ The successor of perfectionist Team Leader Sung? I don't like that. He seems like a picky person."

When Kam Woo-yeong expressed his dislike, Sung Seon-je corrected him sharply.

"He's not a successor, he's a stand-in. More like a deputy team leader. In the Tier-ed Guild, having a 'spare' for any job is crucial for stable operation."

"Whatever the case, if you consider him as your successor, he must be an exceptional individual. And he isn't even a Hunter."

"He's not a successor, he's a stand-in. Ahem, anyway, he's a good asset. I decided to keep an eye on him, but missed the timing as Titan grew to the point where it's a threat to the Tier-ed Guild."

As he spoke, Sung Seon-je glanced at the report, a hint of regret visible in his eyes.

Kam Woo-yeong, who had not anticipated this reaction, was quite taken aback.

"What kind of abilities does he have for our Strategy and Tactics Team Leader to praise him so highly?"

"The Table Mountain operation."

"Excuse me?"

"Guild Leader Kang Mu-hyuk has a few distinctive records under his name. However, the Table Mountain operation alone settles any dispute about his abilities."

"Table Mountain? What's that?" Kam Woo-yeong didn't understand immediately.

The operation Sung Seon-je spoke of was a hunting case from five years ago when he had just debuted as a rookie.

Although Sung Seon-je was cold and particular, he was a Strategy and Tactics Team Leader who was fairly kind to capable Hunters. He explained Kang Mu-hyuk's record to Kam Woo-yeong.

"The Table Mountain operation was the campaign that earned the Titan Guild recognition as an A-class guild. The key architect behind that operation was Guild Leader Kang Mu-hyuk."

Table Mountain was one of the terrains found in South America. It got its name from its tabletop-like shape, with a flat mountain extending above a sheer cliff that seemed as if it had been cut straight down.

At the time, a similar terrain was found within a gate, and coincidentally, a boss monster was perched on top of it.

The summit of Table Mountain wasn't very large, and the only way to get to it was by climbing the cliff. The boss would attack the Hunters who had managed to scale the cliff even before they could form a battle line, causing them to fall.

Even for Hunters, falling from a height reaching 1,000 meters was lethal, unless they were top-tier.

All the Hunters who had embarked on the operation were annihilated by the boss's ambush. The guild that had claimed the gate had to declare that they were giving up on the boss operation.

They were in a situation where they had to proceed with the gate destruction procedure.

During this time, Kang Mu-hyuk, who had been paying attention to the released gate information, formed an alliance with the guild and embarked on a joint operation.

Noticing that the underlying geology of Table Mountain was made of sandstone and mana ore, he transformed the mountain into a huge mana ore bomb.

He successfully concluded the subsequent operation by causing Table Mountain to explode, thereby taking away the boss's defensive advantage and inflicting massive fall damage on it, just as the boss had done to the Hunters.

"Wow, that's insane. To destroy a mountain just to defeat the boss."

"What's crazier is that the temporary estimated value of the mana ore in Table Mountain was at least 3 trillion won."

"3, 3 trillion?!"

"I couldn't have used that method myself. It would have been too wasteful."

Despite the inefficiency of spending 3 trillion won on a single raid, paradoxically, Kang Mu-hyuk's daring operation attracted great attention among some influential Hunters.

"He's somewhat similar to Se-ah in that aspect, isn't he?"

"Are you referring to his recklessness?"

"More like, he smashes first when it comes to monsters."

"..."

"I've hardly seen anyone as obsessed with hunting monsters as Se-ah. She could probably burn more than three trillion if necessary to hunt monsters."

Sung Seon-je had previously mentioned that he missed the opportunity to recruit Kang Mu-hyuk because of Titan's rapid growth, but the real reason was different.

The unspoken reason why he gave up on recruiting him. Or, more accurately, why he didn't recruit him was clear.

'Prioritizing hunting monsters without hesitation over money. Although they try to make a profit where possible, if the success of hunting and the guild's profit are contradictory, money becomes secondary. Such a decision does not suit a large guild like ours.'

In fact, Sung Seon-je had once analyzed data from a significant raid led by Kang Mu-hyuk from the perspective of the Slayer Guild. That data was none other than the estimated revenue.

The final revenue, calculated using the Slayer Guild's methods rather than Kang Mu-hyuk's, was conservatively nearly twice as much.

If Titan had prioritized profit over the opportunity cost of raids, wouldn't they have already become a tier-ed guild?

"Well, no matter what, the idea is quite unique. I'm curious what kind of raid would happen if Se-ah and Guild Leader Kang Mu-hyuk, two steep slopes, collide."

"Those two are now gathered in one guild. In many ways, we should keep an eye on them."

At Kam Woo-yeong's words, Sung Seon-je, whose gaze was directed towards North Pocheon, nodded.

'I don't want to get involved with her, so it's fortunate that she went to North Pocheon. Because she's out of sight of us. I don't like suffering losses every time I clash with her, regardless of the outcome.'

The fact that Kang Mu-hyuk had managed to distance Ju Se-ah from Seoul was enough to make him useful in Sung Seon-je's eyes.

Unable to stand watching the members bustling about, Kang Mu-hyuk issued a few directives.

"Close the shelters first so they can't enter through the windows!"

The windows of the elementary school main building were open to the north and south walls.

The south side was safe as long as Hunters didn't penetrate it through the playground, so naturally, the north side was vulnerable to defense.

When Kang Mu-hyuk designated the elementary school as the base camp, he pointed out this part.

The main building was a place for non-Hunter staff to stay, so it needed a minimum safety net. Although the installation cost them time and money, they brought in an installation-type shelter, which could be used in the defensive zone of the Yalu River to prevent the southward migration of monsters in Manchuria, and blocked all the windows on the north side.

In any case, they planned to remove it from the elementary school and reinstall it once they reclaimed the Sanjeong Lake Resort, so they had boldly spent on it despite their limited resources.

"Deploy long-range dealers on the rooftop. Even if you can't land a hit, I hope you can drive them to the playground so they can't comfortably advance."

With these instructions, the Hunters' tasks were sorted out. The fewer choices there were, the faster the decision-making process tended to be.

No matter how motley the crew, no matter how short their training period, they were all Hunters with experience, and thus, they were able to swiftly take on the large monsters.

"Are we going to be overrun by squirrels here? If so, we might as well quit being Hunters. If we don't quit, I'll make sure we do. I swear on it."

Perhaps it was due to the weight of Ju Se-ah's stern warning, but the Hunters redoubled their efforts.

"Gwi-nam, you break through aggressively! We're going to support you. Our first party's mission is more about drawing aggro than defense. Use aggressive skills to pin them down as much as you can."

Min Dae-hyun, a first-year Hunter of the Iron Will Guild, found himself leading a party.

The main forces in this hunt were low-ranked Hunters, including rookies. The thought of having high-ranked Hunters backing them was reassuring, but the knowledge that every single party play would be evaluated by the guild master and the team leader made them all the more anxious.

'Ugh, why did they appoint me as the party leader?'

After Ju Se-ah personally tested the rookie Hunters and suddenly delegated the party leadership to him, Min Dae-hyun found that his relationship with his fellow Hunters, whom he had been on friendly terms with, had turned awkward.

Although he thought it would be hard for him to relay orders effectively, once they actually began, there was no time to dwell on such matters. Surprisingly, he found himself calmly handing out orders to his seniors.

'Keep calm. Just do what you've been taught. What did the team leader say?'

"There are three basic elements in hunting. First, information; second, accurate information; third, more information. If you have a prior understanding of the monster's type, habits, and strategies, you're already halfway there."

Min Dae-hyun thought about the squirrel-like creatures.

'About two meters in length, teeth, and claws as weapons. It uses the tendrils on its tail to draw out a creature's blood and body fluids, and its fur serves as armor. Its maximum speed...'

Its characteristics were not significantly different from other animal-like monsters, but its agility was the most challenging part. It was nimble when climbing walls or trees and swift on flat ground, managing to change direction freely.

'Keep them at bay and stand our ground against such creatures? Our defenses would be instantly breached. It's better to meet them head-on.'

Aggro management was easier when on offense than defense.

It was the basics of hunting.

However, most Hunters rarely charged at the monsters first in a party play. It was because they could deal more damage with less stamina when counterattacking.

Although sturdy Hunters had been popular due to this, the recent American-style trend had led to the popularity of multi-tankers who could respond faster and more aggressively.

Thanks to this, even domestically, the trend toward defense-centric tankers was gradually changing.

'Come to think of it, our guild master is quite the special case. The best 'defense-only' tanker and yet not lacking in speed compared to the dealers. The real overpowered characters are always overpowered. How convenient must it be to enter a party play with such a Hunter?'

Min Dae-hyun found his mind wandering while tying down a squirrel-like creature in a skirmish with Kim Gwi-nam using his skills.

He had unknowingly distanced himself from the tension. That allowed him to give orders with a calm and quick mind.

"Good judgment, Hunter Min Dae-hyun."

Kang Mu-hyuk, who had been carefully observing the orders of each party, noticed the movements of Min Dae-hyun's party.

"That's the rookie you were interested in last time, right?"

"Yes."

"Phew, I'm relieved he's not screwing up. His movements are quite decent." Ju Se-ah also nodded at the appropriate hunting movements and replied.

Her tone suggested she was proud that she'd at least trained one of them well.

"Despite initial worries, they seem to be holding off quite well."

"At this rate, the second and third lines won't even need to step in."

Kang Mu-hyuk looked at the second and third lines that Ju Se-ah pointed out.

The second line consisted of seasoned Hunters with ranks from C+ to B-, the main forces of Iron Will in their own right. Their number wasn't large, but they were the Hunters who excelled in individual tactics during hunts.

And then there was the third line.

'Hunters of rank B+ and above....'

The most potent, but also the most problematic force in Iron Will. Assembled there were high-ranking officers from the three major factions of the guild, a ticking time bomb, so to speak.

'Especially those neutral Hunters keeping balance among the guild factions. Thankfully, they're maintaining the balance for now....'

Baek Hyeonggyu and Na Dongpa.

Nine Hunters led by the two powerhouses, oddly positioned in the 'Old Taesung Guild.'

The only reason the Taesung Guild managed to barely function was thanks to this neutral faction.

'Their inclinations are hard to figure out, apart from their hunting records.'

Were they really allies, or enemies?

Kang Mu-hyuk found himself paying more attention to the back lines than the hunting scene.