The Hero Returns

Chapter 334: Chapter 334

Act 2

"At me?" Su-hyeun asked with a puzzled expression.

He hadn't heard all the details yet but couldn't really help asking.

The Awakener Authority was picking a fight with him?

If they were targeting the Association, then it made some sense. The relationship between the two organizations wasn't all that amicable, to begin with. As a matter of fact, the two being in a cat-and-dog relationship was already a part of history and tradition at this point, and practically everyone knew about it.

Even then…

"Picking a fight not with the association but with me? Just what does that even mean?"

With Su-hyeun, the story was different. Rather, more correctly, it was different with Paragon Guild, which Su-hyeun was a part of.

The association and the guild were obviously not one and the same, in the same way that the Paragon Guild and Su-hyeun were distinct. Meaning, the Authority simply didn't have a reason to get on Su-hyeun's bad side.

The Paragon Guild was undeniably the strongest guild on Earth. Its size might not have been the biggest, but each member of the guild could not be taken lightly at all.

Never mind Su-hyeun's presence, there was also Gordon Rohan, America's strongest awakener and the world's wealthiest man.

Not only that, but both Hak-joon and Thomas were also acknowledged as two of the world's best. Finally, Lee Ju-ho as the chairman of the Korean Awakener Association was also not someone you could look down on either.

So, now that Lee Ju-ho was installed as the association chairman, the Awakener Authority should be even more passive.

"Everyone in the world knows that you and I are connected. But as soon as I become the association chairman, the Authority has made a move. Honestly, I don't think they are doing this to target only me."

"Then, you think they are aiming for the Paragon Guild, bro?"

"Yeah, that's what I think."

"Just what happened here? Can you tell me at least?"

"You know that there's a system of sorts in place to raid the dungeons, right? The locations of dungeons, the dangers associated with its tier, the order of appearance, assigning the currently available awakener manpower, and so on. All of those things are actually pretty complicated."

"Of course."

Back in the beginning, when there weren't enough dungeons to go around and plenty of awakeners could be found, the system was as simple as it could get.

If a dungeon showed up, awakeners could apply to raid it first, and then, they would get the priority on raiding it before everyone else.

Of course, there were other complicated criteria within that setup to consider as well, but the priority on raids worked on a first-come, first-served basis.

But now, in an era when people were worried about possible dungeon outbreaks, this system became a lot more complicated.

Just like Lee Ju-ho said, one now had to consider a dungeon's level of danger, its location, and even the spare awakener manpower when talking about the order of dungeon generation.

"The association has been operating on its own system for a while, and the story's the same for the Authority. But now, a problem has reared its head recently."

"I'm guessing, shortages in manpower?" Su-hyeun replied.

"As expected, you're quick on the uptake."

Snap—

Lee Ju-ho snapped his fingers and nodded his head theatrically.

"Correct. The problem is with the shortage of awakener manpower. In the past, we had plenty of awakeners but not enough dungeons, so both the Authority and the association could freely utilize their own systems. It didn't matter in what order you raided the dungeons, there never was enough of them, to begin with," he explained and began massaging his forehead as if a migraine began assaulting him. "But that's not how it is lately, right? If we divide the awakener manpower incorrectly or decide on the wrong order to raid the dungeons, then that might result in an outbreak. And that's why the Authority wants everyone to operate according to the system they had set out."

"When you say according to their system…"

"Simply put, they want people to raid dungeons according to the order they have assigned. While saying that's the most effective and safest way."

"Hah-ah—" Su-hyeun let out a long groan.

Only then did he understand why Lee Ju-ho was so irritated and why he said that the Awakener Authority was picking a fight.

Su-hyeun muttered, "So, they want everyone to follow their orders, in other words."

"Right. From the perspective of the Authority, they think they now wield the sharpest knife or something because I'm now the chairman and can make the association move at my behest. Meaning, I can make the Paragon Guild move and, by extension, you, too."

After hearing what Lee Ju-ho had to say, Su-hyeun slowly nodded his head.

This choice was, from the perspective of the Authority, an aggressive move and a crafty one at the same time.

The existence of Su-hyeun and the Paragon Guild had been gradually robbing the Authority's power and the ground to stand on, but they had cottoned on to a sure-fire pretext to control the association.

"That snake-like geezer. He's way too good at coming up with cunning schemes," Su-hyeun said, scratching his head in irritation. "Ignore him for now."

"Will that be alright, though?"

"Yes. I'm not sure which side the public sentiment will favor more, but the Authority shouldn't have a way to instantly prove that their system is superior to the association's."

"The public sentiment has already turned against us, though. That sly director must've planned this for a while because several articles saying the association is disregarding the Authority's system for the sake of profit have popped up already."

"And you haven't done anything yet?"

"It's only been a week since I've become the chairman, you know. Besides, didn't I say it? It looks like that old man has been working on this whole thing for a long while now. No matter what I say, the press won't even budge."

"What's the association's stance on this?"

"It's the same as yours, ignoring them for now. But that's not as easy as you think. No matter what, it's almost fatal for the association to have an image of turning a blind eye toward a dungeon's threat to pursue better profit, you know."

Lee Ju-ho must've thought that he had run out of time because he quickly gulped the coffee down after saying that.

As for Su-hyeun, his own coffee became lukewarm during the conversation, so he warmed it back up again.

While Lee Ju-ho stared at the steam coming off from the coffee with a look of amazement, Su-hyeun spoke to him again. "Even if that's the case, the Authority won't be able to make any aggressive moves until they can physically prove that the association's system is faulty."

"But to flip that around, one wrong move from us and that'd be enough of a pretext for the Authority to attack."

"Just wait for a little while longer. There haven't been any mistakes so far, right?"

"You want me to wait? What are you planning?"

"That director geezer, it's about time to pull him down from his position."

The glare in Su-hyeun's eyes changed all of a sudden. As he sat there drinking coffee, he noticed that Lee Ju-ho was staring at him with a stunned expression.

"What's wrong, bro?"

"You…your personality seems to have changed a lot."

"You think so?"

"In the past, you came across as a pretty 'pure' guy, but now, there's some venom in your eyes, you know."

What Lee Ju-ho said just then made Su-hyeun smirk a little.

He had changed?

That wasn't wrong, however. Even to his own eyes, Su-hyeun felt that he had changed quite a lot lately compared to how he was.

He didn't feel all that dissatisfied with that, though. Actually, he thought this was a good kind of change.

"In any case, I better finish up the remainder of my work first. Can you make time for supper? I might need until dawn to finish up all the piled up work, but we should still get together and—"

Knock, knock—

Someone had suddenly urgently knocked on the office door.

"Mister Chairman, please excuse me. I'm coming in."

Creak—

The door had opened up even before Lee Ju-ho could respond. It seemed that the matter at hand was too urgent.

"Hyeong-seok? What's the matter?"

"Why didn't you answer the phone, sir?"

"I left it on silent."

"But sir, you also had the office's phone unplugged. We've been trying to call you several times already…"

"What happened?"

"Oops…This isn't the right time." A young man named Hyeong-seok urgently pushed forward a tablet PC he brought along. "Please take a look at this, sir."

With a puzzled expression, Lee Ju-ho took over the tablet. Su-hyeun craned his neck a little to check out the screen of the device as well, and their expressions hardened instantly after seeing what was on that screen.

"What the hell happened here?"

There was a large red dot blinking on top of the city of Cheonan located in South Chungcheon province, which indicated that a dungeon that had appeared in that location was about to enter the outbreak stage.

"We're also not sure how this happened, sir. Without a doubt, this dungeon was not in our system's raid order, so it's unclear how it managed to progress to this stage…"

"Are you saying it was somehow omitted from the order?"

"Yes, sir. And we've only found out recently. Not only is it a blue color, but from the call we received earlier, it's also a fairly large-scale dungeon."

"How big are we even talking about here?"

"According to the electromagnetic signal, the interior of the dungeon is as large as a province, sir."

"…Son of a gun."

A dungeon as large in scale as a province would normally need at least 10 days to raid. If this dungeon's existence had been discovered earlier, then it would have taken the number one priority in the raid order.

"With this rate of progress, it'll be not too surprising to see it become an outbreak not in a day but in one hour…"

"We must immediately summon all awakener manpower to Cheonan and evacuate the nearby civilians, sir."

"Of course. Hey, Su-hyeun, you heard that—" Lee Ju-ho pulled his eyes away from the tablet and looked over to Su-hyeun, only to keep looking around his office.

"What's wrong, sir?"

"Where did he go?"

"He?"

As the matter was too urgent, Hyeong-seok didn't even have the mental leeway to recognize Su-hyeun's face earlier, so he could only make a puzzled expression.

"Now that I think about it, weren't you speaking to someone just now, Chairman?"

"…Hey, Hyeong-seok?"

"Yes sir?"

Lee Ju-ho's eyes began gleaming dangerously.

"Make a call to a couple of reporters."

<hr />

The Awakener Authority was meant to manage the awakeners, and naturally, the awakeners were supposed to abide by the organization's commands. That was the director's honest opinion.

"I guess the 'event' is about to go down right about now."

A thick veil of cigarette smoke filled the director's office. The director of the Awakener Authority had been smoking nonstop for quite a while before finally stubbing the very last cigarette from his packet on the ashtray.

"But, sir, isn't this too dangerous?" Section Chief Han Myeong-gyun spoke in a worried voice, but the director simply scowled deeply.

"It's already progressed this far, yet you're asking if it's too dangerous? Is that something you should say in this situation?"

"W—well, that's true—"

"That's something you should do before making a move. What will change by worrying about it after making a move already?" The director watched the last cigarette die inside the ashtray and buried his body deep in the couch. "That ship has already set sail. If all goes well, I'll immediately become the next vice minister, while you, my man, will become the director of the Authority. Instead of worrying about something that won't help us but simply ruin my mood, just patiently wait, will you?"

"Yes sir, I understand."

Despite his answer, though, Han Myeong-gyun's expression betrayed how concerned he was.

It couldn't be helped, however. Picking a fight with the association, with the Paragon Guild and Kim Su-hyeun in particular, was such a monumental task, after all.

If they made one slip up somewhere and ended up colliding against either the association or Kim Su-hyeun head-on, then his head might figuratively roll off his neck or some such.

Inwardly, he thought, "On the other hand, if this matter works out well for us, then…"

Then, just like what the director had said, climbing up several ladders in the career ladder wouldn't even be a challenge anymore.

Holding the clear justification to make the association, the one where Lee Ju-ho was the new chairman, move meant that the Awakener Authority's power would grow just as much.

It also signaled the position of the Authority—the organization that managed the awakeners—growing so much more significant. If all went well, then the director could rise up to the position of a minister soon.

The director asked first, "By the way, isn't it about time that we hear something back?"

"Sir, I've already called a few people. I'm sure they are on the move by now."

"Well done. What about the association?"

"They must've cottoned on to it by now, too. And the fact that they realized it only now means that even if it's Kim Su-hyeun—no wait—even if his grandfather showed up, he wouldn't be able to stop it from happening at this stage."

"Haha! That's true. Then again, that punk is probably too busy climbing the tower and isn't even on this side, anyway." The director leisurely reached out to his cigarette packet while saying that, but he belatedly remembered that he finished the last one not too long ago and could only smack his lips.

"Look, Section Chief Han. Give me a cigarette," said the director as he pulled out a lighter and beckoned with his free hand. However, Han Myeong-gyun, who was staring at his phone's screen, didn't respond at all.

"Section Chief Han, a cigar—"

"S—sir, please take a look at this!" urgently said Han Myeong-gyun and pushed his phone forward.

Dying for the next hit of nicotine, the director could only frown deeply and took over the phone.

"What's wrong now?" he asked in an irritated voice and glanced at the phone's screen. Then, his eyes caught the headline of an article composed only a few minutes ago.