Chapter 29
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At first, he panicked. As easily demonstrated here, Sae-Jin’s identity wasn’t worth much to dig up. What troubled him more, though, was Hazeline. Under the context of having a friendly relationship, he had shown her his real face, after all.
Of course, he was not worried about his secrets being exposed as Dark Elves hated meeting people in the first place as well as placing a huge importance on being trustworthy, but still, he did feel somewhat uncertain as there had never been a precedence of an alchemist moonlighting as a Hunter on the side.
"….But man, this is so weird."
Whatever the case may have been, his name, face and the job description was exposed here for all to see in the top portal site of South Korea, Neighbour, and he found all these oh-so-strange. And the photo of his face taken from the side was showing his ungainly chin line as well…… (TL: to be honest, I’m not sure if I TLed the last line here correctly. The author wrote "his chin from the side seemed fatally jutting out." I took it as MC not liking how his chin is shaped or some such.)
‘After being a Mid Tier ranked Hunter at the young age of 22, Kim Sae-Jin is acknowledged by other Hunters as one of the top prospects of the future, having already received the title of the Heavenly Gifted.’
The journalists seemed to love fabricating stories. He had no clue just who had acknowledged him as a top future prospect. But he had to concede that reading such rumours about himself was a fun thing to do. Likewise, he found the words written in the article itself, as well as the ments in the ment section, rather interesting too.
– He’s got a nice enough face, got a good build, his height is just about right, so he matches up well with Yu Sae-Jung, me thinks. [Upvoted 983] [Downvoted 482]
└Matching up well, my a*s. You really think a romance between a regular Hunter and an unobtainium spoon is possible?
└Me agree. The Dawn ain’t the name of your pet dog. They are duking it out for the top position in the country. Plus, Yu Sae-Jung is still a sophomore in a high school.
└Oh and BTW, what’s Yu Sae-Jung’s real height?
└Saw it personally, it’s between 159~160. But me thinks she’s got a plex about her height, always insisting that it’s 164.
└?? ?? That was really cute. "I told you, it’s 164!! Not 159!!!"
Obviously, not every ment posted would be of nicer opinions but still, he found it fun just reading all the replies.
That night, Kim Sae-Jin stayed awake while reading all the articles related to himself and the acpanying ments sections.
***
In the following afternoon, Sae-Jin headed to the Yoseon Alchemy House to meet up with Hazeline. Since he was going to ask her for another big favour, he took along 9 bottles of potions as well.
He handed the potions over as soon as they met, and he waited until her face was glowing with ecstasy and happiness before bringing up the real reason for his visit today.
"The rest of the money…. can I repay you slowly over time? Right now I’m running short on funds…"
Hazeline showed a brief panic, but soon, nodded her head with a magnanimous smile on her face. Her reason was simple enough - the alchemist she was going to work together for a reall
y, really long time shouldn’t be left destitute, after all.
She immediately transferred $1.7 million US out of $4.2 million accrued from the sales of the potions so far. She even added that he could take his time to repay her.
Sae-Jin thought that she was really one cool woman.
[The persuasion has been successful. The Skill Proficiency Level for the Passive Skill "Pleasant Voice" rises.]
And there was an unexpected bonus to boot as well. As Sae-Jin was glowing in the satisfaction, Hazeline remembered something and asked him about it.
"By the way, what was that reality TV show all about? I was really surprised to find that you are a Hunter. And also, friendly with the granddaughter of the Dawn Corporation Chairman, too."
"Oh… that? That’s my side job. I was getting a cabin fever stuck in a workshop churning out potions, so was trying to de-stress when I accidentally ran into Miss Sae-Jung…. that’s about it."
"Is that true? How mysterious. But well, it really doesn’t matter what you do on the side anyways. And with Yu Sae-Jung… Keheum."
Fortunately, Hazeline didn’t try to dig in deeper.
To her, who knew about Sae-Jin, it was understandable to a degree - since the near-crippled Yu Sae-Jung was able to quickly recover soon after taking the potion brewed by none other than the alchemist Kim Sae-Jin right here.
‘Have the Dawn made contact with him already?’
While making such wild guesses, she inwardly accepted why Yu Sae-Jung and Kim Sae-Jin were so friendly with each other. It was a totally plausible scenario. No matter what other people said, the Dawn Corporation was the biggest pany in the country. And if they wanted to find someone, it wouldn’t be hard for them at all.
"Ah, right. Sir Alchemist, you do know that, by law, direct dealings between people are prohibited, and you must go through an Alchemy House, yes? If you receive a sales request, please, you must inform us first."
Hazeline was sincerely asking for something that made no sense from Sae-Jin’s point of view.
"Huh? Oh. Of course. I’ll do just that."
*
Kim Sae-Jin bought a detached single-unit house near the Monster field of Gangwon with the money received from Hazeline. But the house cost him a whopping $1.6 million, instantly depleting his bank account and making him feel bitter inside.
The house had two floors above ground and one basement floor. He decided to use the above ground floors as the living space, and to convert the basement into a workshop where he could do his blacksmithing and alchemy work.
With the remaining funds, he went around and bought various furniture. Besides the obvious things like a bed and a set of couches, he also got himself proper potion crafting tools and storage cabinets to store both the ingredients for potions as well as the metal ingots for blacksmithing.
Although he purchased so many things while feeling excited for the future, there was still a week left before he could move into his new home. He had to learn the hard way that the dates of buying a house and then moving in, could be quite different from one another.
After all that, the remaining money was around $2600 US.
Currently, Sae-Jin was inside his cave.
Inside this dark, gloomy cave, he was concentrating on making the next weapon for the 2nd Round of the Blacksmiths Tournament, which would take place in a week’s time as well. He initially thought that once some leeway was found, he’d not want to do this thing again, but no, he was getting really fired up for this. The reactions of the media and the general populace were like a drug to him. He wanted to be praised by them some more. He wanted these people to see his hard work and go bonkers mad with admiration.
And his desire helped him to find the true value of the Orc’s Smithing Technique - the potential of this incredible skill.
And that is the "bestowal of special characteristics."
It meant, as the words implied, to enhance an armament with special powers. At first, just like those simple minded Orcs, he only thought about one dimensional special traits like "sharper
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