21
Yes, it was just as Buy This had said.
He, too, had been to Forest-Access Druid Village, so there was something he knew.
Of course, he had never properly checked the mana concentration, but he had thought it would be around 200.
“Was the place I am at 600?”
This was Area 3.
If one had to classify it, the mana concentration of the Family guild’s company residence, located on the outskirts, was 600. Even that was the result of installing a private filtration device and raising the mana concentration because he specifically wanted to live here.
However, high mana concentration did not mean everything was good.
That much was clear from the fact that every time he breathed the air here, he compared it in real time to the clear air of Forest-Access Druid Village, where he had visited.
There, many things were at work besides mana concentration.
‘No, rather, mana concentration is only a byproduct.’
How should he put it? It felt as if nature were seeping into each and every cell.
He could not shake the feeling of being healed.
Just thinking about it made him want to go back and breathe the air there again!
The fact that he had dropped by briefly during the day, saw one rusty screw that had fallen on the roadside, suddenly felt as if it resembled his own situation, and grew teary-eyed was a secret he would take to his grave.
And yet,
2,000,000 credits was expensive?
“It was dirt cheap.”
And true people like him would recognize the value of that land.
“It will sell out quickly.”
A person capable of creating such an environment.
Ki Ja-hyeon.
He was curious about that person.
“I want to meet him once.”
Naturally, he searched for the listing notice.
[Forest-Access Druid Village for Rent.]
Limited to 100 people. From 2,000,000 credits.
“Hmm......”
The recruitment notice date was next week.
He himself could not go even if he wanted to, but,
“It might help my younger siblings.”
***
“Strength and a good morning!”
As soon as he woke up, the corners of Ki Ja-hyeon’s mouth curled up.
“Hmm, the day has finally come!”
That was right.
Today was the day listed on the notice!
Naturally, the gathering place was the center of Forest-Access Druid Village.
Among the places Ki Ja-hyeon had purchased, it was also a place with a purpose similar to a community hall.
Even before he went inside, he could see people gathered in such crowds that the door was packed.
‘Wow. There must be more than 300 people, right?’
Ki Ja-hyeon scratched his head.
He had known there would be more than 100, but to think this many would gather?
‘Hmm, is this the Buy This effect?’
Ki Ja-hyeon had also watched the review broadcast of Forest-Access Druid Village.
He was the person concerned, and because he thought it might look like he was showing off, he had not donated or acted as if he knew her. But at the end, she had burst into tears, so he had no choice but to calm her down with donations.
‘Of course, I do not know whether making her turn off the broadcast midway counts as calming her down....’
As he was thinking that, someone caught his eye.
Was she around her mid-twenties?
A woman with pale skin whose dyed hair was braided up into a ponytail.
Buy This, who had been sobbing her eyes out here just a few days ago, was radiating a bright, sparkling glow even among the crowd of 300 people.
‘Wow. She’s prettier in person.’
He almost waved his hand.
But there was no need to draw attention, so Ki Ja-hyeon quietly entered through the back door.
‘This is unexpected. Did she not say she lives on prime land?’
Someone he had much to be grateful for.
He decided that, if possible, he would let her in.
Of course,
‘she still has to pass my standards.’
***
The time came, and the interviews began.
There were documents for the people who wanted to move into Forest-Access Druid Village, and according to those documents, people lined up and entered one household at a time.
Beside him was that bodyguard from before.
The person guarding the entrance of Forest-Access Druid Village was a C+ Grade Awakened named Jeong Gi-tae.
The cost of hiring him was 300,000 credits per hour!
It was pocket change to an Awakened who went hunting, but to an Awakened named Jeong Gi-tae, who was resting for some reason, it was fairly sweet income.
Should he call it an exquisitely balanced hourly wage that both employer and employee could nod at?
This kind of precision was also one of Jeongbyeong Manpower Office’s special strengths.
‘To think I would end up using Jeongbyeong Manpower Office!’
It truly felt as though times had changed.
In Jeong-byeong, the representative of Jeongbyeong Office, had been overjoyed when he found out that the Forest-Access Druid was Ki Ja-hyeon.
– What? You Awakened? Hey! Congratulations! I knew you would do well like this, Ja-hyeon! I knew you were the kind of guy who would become something! Still, you could have given me a hint, you know? Ah, fine, fine. I was not saying that to complain! I look forward to working with you from now on too, dear customer? Wahaha!
Thinking of In Jeong-byeong made him smile.
Ki Ja-hyeon was wearing that very smile now.
Because,
“Krrr, so you have become someone this high up?”
another person who had recognized him and extended a hand to him when he first started working as an odd-jobber was before his eyes.
“Are you going to live here?”
“Why? Am I not allowed?”
“That is not it! But do you not have a house?”
It was not prime Area 4 land, but he knew In Jeong-byeong had bought and lived in a house two areas beside prime land.
“Well, I can rent it out!”
“That works too!”
Ki Ja-hyeon laughed, and In Jeong-byeong laughed as well.
Naturally, In Jeong-byeong passed the screening.
In Jeong-byeong would think he had passed because of his connection with Ki Ja-hyeon, but....
‘Mr. In Jeong-byeong. You are quite a bright blue! It is hard to be that blue while working in this field. You pass!’
He had simply passed the screening!
“I will notify you soon of the date you can move in!”
At last, the necklace of acceptance was placed in his hand.
On the gold-plated center of the gold-plated necklace, the word “Forest-Access” was written in stylish calligraphy.
“Ohoho!”
Determining black and white as to whether someone was qualified to live on his land. No, rather, whether they were someone he wanted to let live there....
Black-and-White Tenant!
The first start was good.
However,
only the first start was good.
Looking at the man dressed in a neat suit, smiling at the corners of his mouth, Ki Ja-hyeon could not give him the same smile he had given In Jeong-byeong.
A D+ Grade hunter.
There was no need to even look at his name.
‘...Ugh, what is this?’
If the hunter Ki Ja-hyeon had driven out before had been the color of sewage, the person in front of him now looked like a carefully shaped piece of shit.
A color far too unpleasant....
Just how many rotten things had he done with that neat, bare face?
“Hmm, this is my first time doing an interview like this. What should I do?”
“Stand up and leave.”
“Pardon?”
“You are rejected.”
“...What? Why?”
Without saying anything, Ki Ja-hyeon simply waved his hand away.
For the sake of keeping things pleasant, he could smile at someone in front of him all he wanted, but this was a person he did not even feel was worth that.
Had he felt insulted? The man’s neat face turned vicious.
A crack appeared in his mask, and his true expression tried to emerge from within.
However, beside Ki Ja-hyeon,
“You heard him say leave, did you not?”
a C+ Grade hunter was raising his eyebrows.
“......Fucking bastard.”
The hunter left like that.
“Wow... I honestly wonder if I should report him to the police.”
If one dug into him, it seemed like a great deal would be found, but Ki Ja-hyeon did not know any police officers, so he could not even tell them.
Of course, that had only been until just now.
A kind hand held out a resume.
Ki Ja-hyeon accepted the resume held in that hand and flipped through it, then eventually stared quietly at the man.
“...Blue, close to achromatic. Hmm......!”
He was certainly a good person.
If Ki Ja-hyeon met a person like this on the street, he could smile.
But he wondered whether he should take him in.
Because he felt there would be many kinder people!
Of course, 300 people had come, but among them, there might not be more than 100 people who met Ki Ja-hyeon’s standards.
And only then did he think he would look for this man.
So Ki Ja-hyeon made an apologetic expression and said,
“Mr. Lee Man-hyeok? You are on hold.”
“Huh...! May I know the reason?”
“The degree to which your good karma has been cooked was not even.”
“E-Even...? Good karma...?”
“If you are selected later, I will send you a text!”
“Yes....”
Like that, Lee Man-hyeok left, crestfallen.
After that, Ja-hyeon’s knife-sharp screening continued.
“Your career is impressive, but the degree to which your humanity is cooked is too underdone. Rejected.”
“Ah...this is unfortunate. Your bad karma and your disposition are playing separately. Why are you trying to walk a bad path? You seem like a good person. On hold.”
“Your excessive self-packaging has covered up the natural flavor of your good karma. Regrettably, I will put you on hold.”
And finally,
“Accepted!”
The necklace of acceptance was placed in a man’s hand.
Jo Ji-un, who received the acceptance necklace, wore a bewildered expression.
“What? I passed?”
Honestly, he had not thought he would pass.
Because he himself knew very well that he looked exactly like a cattle thief.
“Were you not reading physiognomy?”
Still, he wanted to become stronger, and life on prime land did not suit his temperament. Since this place was said to offer mana concentration comparable to prime land, he had come to try it for now.
There were many people who had come with him too.
All of them had been rejected.
Those guys and he were all Awakened from the outskirts of Area 5, so they had lived lives that were rough beyond measure.
It had been obvious that Ki Ja-hyeon was reading faces, so he had planned to simply submit his documents, hear that he had failed, spit, and leave. But now he had suddenly passed?
“Am I really allowed to pass?”
“Do you not want to?”
“No, that is not it, but....”
Looking at Jo Ji-un scratching his head with hands as large as pot lids, Ki Ja-hyeon gave a small laugh.
“I do not judge by appearance.”
“...Then what was my judgment value?”
“May I tell you next time?”
“You are bland....”
Roughly one out of every ten people who came were accepted, and two or three were put on hold.
Like that, Ki Ja-hyeon mechanically continued the screening(?).
Then a participant appeared before him and made Ki Ja-hyeon’s eyes, which had been growing tired from all the petty good karma, open wide.
“Wow... Lord Thundercloud! You were this handsome? Wow! I think I am going to become a real fan! Wow...!”
“Ugh, Ms. Buy This, I am the fan here!”
“Come on, would you call me Kim Ji-yun instead of Buy This?”
“Uhohot. Then please call me Ki Ja-hyeon instead of Thundercloud too!”
“Yes, Building Owner Ki Ja-hyeon!”
“Uhohot! B-Building owner...building owner!”
What a sweet word it was!
That was right.
Ki Ja-hyeon had now become a building owner!
And this was a place where the building owner chose tenants....
He wanted to talk more about how things had been, but there were still more than a hundred people to screen, so Ki Ja-hyeon cleared his throat and refreshed the atmosphere.
‘No matter how much of a fan I am, I still need to do what I need to do, right?’
A grateful person who had always reviewed his products well.
In his heart, he wanted to go together with her, but that did not mean he could keep someone covered in bad karma by his side.
Therefore, just as Buy This had reviewed his products, this time, he had to review the person named Kim Ji-yun.
Staaaare.
That was the reason he ended up staring intently at Buy This like that.
Of course, the person on the receiving end would feel differently.
“U-Um?”
Flush.
A strange and mysterious face that seemed ordinary enough, yet never grew tiresome the more one looked at it, and whose final impression would inevitably be “handsome.”
As that face stared intently at her, Buy This Kim Ji-yun, exposed to those eyes, felt as though she had been stripped bare and had no choice but to blush.
And soon, a childlike smile drew itself over Ki Ja-hyeon’s expressionless face.
“Acceeeeeeeepted!”
“Heeeeh?”
The necklace of acceptance was placed in her hand!
After hearing that she would soon be notified of her move-in date, Buy This rose from her seat.
She felt dazed.
Why had she passed? What was the reason? And,
‘Why was he staring at me so...so h-hard?’
But she could not ask.
Because the next person was waiting behind her!
As he watched her disappearing back, Ki Ja-hyeon smiled with satisfaction.
“Wow. She is much bluer than I thought.”
Should he say it was a color that did not match her age?
It was a color that could not be emitted unless the person herself was truly quite kind.
Amid that pleasant mood, the next people came in.
No, the next “people” came in.
Rumble, rumble.
Five people approached like that.
Ki Ja-hyeon’s expression was even.
There were many people entering, but they were not the only family unit to be screened.
However, this was the first time the expression of Jeong Gi-tae, who had been guarding Ki Ja-hyeon beside him, changed to shock.
“K-Kang Cheol...Kang Cheol-jin...!”
“Hmm? It seems there is someone you know?”
Even so, he could not give special treatment....
As Ki Ja-hyeon was thinking that, one of the five who had come in gave a small smile.
“Well, if anything, I suppose someone in Area 4 might not know.”
A big shot who did not suit the garbage-yard outskirts of Area 4 at all.
Hyeonmu Shelter Rank 13,
the master of the guild “Family,” Kang Cheol-jin, was meeting Ja-hyeon’s eyes.
“I am Kang Cheol-jin. I run a small guild called Family.”
The hand he held out in greeting was thick, cold metal.
A mechanical prosthetic body that seemed capable of crushing anything it held if he wished.
Ki Ja-hyeon looked at it with fascination and clasped that prosthetic hand.
“The raw material of your karma is very heavy.”
“......?”