Leveling Up Alone

Chapter 96: A Date with the Goddess (3)

Chapter 96: A Date With the Goddess (3)

Dudududu!

After wrapping up the hunt and packing their equipment, the Horus raid party boarded the helicopter that was waiting for them at the entrance of the hunting ground. Then, the helicopter flew toward Seoul and landed at the Hunters’ Association’s helipad.

Everyone got off the helicopter upon landing.

Crack!

“Euuk!”

“It’s finally over!”

“Phew!?I can finally relax now!”

The Mulan crew members stretched their tired and rigid bodies from the seven days of marathon filming. Most of the work had actually been done by the Hunters, but this was only their second time joining a hunt and the fact that they had to film for a whole week was quite tiring for them. In addition to that, most of them were not used to living in tents for seven days, which added to their level of fatigue.

Han-Yeol did not show it outwardly but he was quite tired as well. He could not wait to go home and take a hot bath.

A Hunter replenished their body through their mana so they physically recovered after a while, but they were still humans. It was unavoidable for them to accumulate mental fatigue during long periods of consecutive hunts.

Han-Yeol tried using Restore on himself just in case it would work, but unfortunately, it did not have any effect in alleviating his mental fatigue.

Tayarana approached Han-Yeol and said, [Thank you for your hard work. The hunt was made quite easy thanks to your efforts.]

Han-Yeol could tell that Tayarana’s praises had no hidden agenda behind them.

Scratch… Scratch…?

He awkwardly scratched his head as he did not know how to respond to her praises. He might be on speaking terms with her, but he did not forget to not overstep his boundaries as she was someone of a higher stature than him.

[No, it’s all thanks to the strength of the Horus raid party that I was able to fight to my heart’s content. Besides, I was only noticeable since you held back, Tara.]

It was exactly as Han-Yeol said. He had fought as hard as he could so that he could gain at least one more experience point from the hunt, and he knew very well that he was not in a position to carry a raid party when there was someone more powerful than him.

[I plan to host an after-hunt party four days later, after we all have rested enough. You can come, right?] Tayarana asked.

[A-After-hunt party…?] Han-Yeol was taken aback at the mention of a party he had never heard of before. This was the first time in his life.

[Why? Is there a problem?] Tayarana asked while staring at Han-Yeol with her same expressionless face.

Her face was not particularly expressive, but Tayarana exuded a charisma that was more than enough to draw most people toward her. Coupling that with her mesmerizing beauty, Han-Yeol wondered if he was dreaming whenever he spoke to Tayarana face to face like he was doing right now.

‘She is really overpowered in her own ways…’?Han-Yeol thought.

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Who would have imagined that the most beautiful woman in the world as picked by an American magazine company would be speaking face-to-face with a no-name Hunter in such a friendly manner?

[N-No, not at all. I will see you at your mansion in four days' time then.]

[Alright, see you then.]

Tayarana turned around and left for the parked vehicle waiting for her after receiving a satisfactory response from Han-Yeol while Mariam politely bowed to Han-Yeol before going after Tayarana.

“Phew…?She isn’t very good for my heart…” Han-Yeol muttered while shaking his head.

“You must be so happy that you are able to become friends with Tayarana,” Yoo-Bi said.

“I won’t deny I’m happy, but I thought my heart was going to explode the whole time.”

“Haha! Do you know how jealous all of the men watching our stream were? I think your heart should be the least of your worries…”

“Huh? What do you mean by that?”

Han-Yeol might be the owner of his broadcast channel, but he was not that interested in it. He found filming and broadcasting live to be fun, but he would usually only check on how many viewers there were and not bother himself with the rest of the details. Well, that was why he had hired the Mulan Crew in the first place after all.

That was why the Mulan team members usually went to Yoo-Bi to provide updates or complain whenever something happened instead of going to Han-Yeol, who was still their employer at the end of the day. They found it slightly difficult to discuss serious things with him.

“Oppa shaking hands with the goddess-nim and nonchalantly chatting with her was broadcast all over the world. You basically bragged to everyone that you are friends with her, so how can you not be worried?”

“Ah… I’m screwed, right?” Han-Yeol muttered as he finally realized the situation he was in.

His whole head had been filled with thoughts of hunting and the Angel Shards, so he hadn’t had the luxury to think about anything else during the Paradise Field in Bundang. He only realized what he had done after finally cooling down from the thrill of the hunt.

[The Hallasan Monster, Kim Tae-San, confessed but was rejected by Tayarana?]

A tabloid newspaper spread some gossip on the internet.

However, that was far from the truth as all Kim Tae-San had wanted to do was forge an alliance with the Horus raid party. He had wanted to form a Korean-Egypt raid party that was both strong and could further bolster diplomatic ties.

Who knows? Perhaps he had some hidden motives as well toward her, but one thing that was clear was the fact that he had been trying to create a powerful ally.

What was important in the end was the fact that Kim Tae-San had been rejected despite what his intentions were, and a journalist lurking near them had caught that specific moment and published an article about it.

Han-Yeol had also read about that article.

“Wow, I think the Tamra raid party might try and do something to you. Korea’s top Hunter was rejected by her, but she accepted your advances? This can only mean that you one-upped Kim Tae-San, right? Wait… Does that mean oppa is Korea’s top Hunter now?” Yoo-Bi sarcastically joked.

“Oh… What should I do now…?” Han-Yeol replied with a hint of nervousness in his voice.

“Haha! Come on, you’re not even dating, so do you think Kim Tae-San will really try and do something to you? Hmm… Although, I think he might express his distaste toward you…”

Yoo-Bi was obviously just teasing him for fun, but Han-Yeol could not help feeling nervous about the whole thing. He grumbled, “Ugh…?I won’t be able to hunt in Korea anymore if the Hallasan Monster has his eyes on me… I guess I should continue sticking to the Horus raid party for now…”

“Don’t pretend that wasn’t your plan from the start. You planned to use the Horus raid party’s name to solo hunt so nobody would bother you, right?”

“Ugh…?You’re too sharp for your own good, my dongsaeng…” Han-Yeol replied with a bitter smile.

Of course, nothing had happened so far, so they were technically putting the cart before the horse.

The tabloid newspaper that published the news article about Kim Tae-San’s rejection was a very small place. It closed down not long after publishing that news article, and Han-Yeol was not so free to concern himself with some news from a tabloid newspaper. Everything he said just now was to banter with Yoo-Bi, and that was it.

“Oh, thanks for your hard work today,” Han-Yeol said.

.

“You too, oppa.”

“Then, see you next time.”

“Alright, let me know if anything comes up, and don’t forget that I’m your exclusive Porter as well as your manager, okay?”

Yoo-Bi made sure to emphasize her role as she did not get to participate in this hunt and was afraid that Han-Yeol might forget what her original role was. There was no other Hunter she would prefer to work with other than Han-Yeol as he treated her quite well, and she wanted to stay with him for as long as it was going to be possible.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to forget about that,” Han-Yeol reassured Yoo-Bi while walking her to her car.

Yoo-Bi got into her car and drove home first.

The leader of Mulan, Soo-In, who was packing their broadcasting equipment, then approached Han-Yeol. “Thank you very much for your hard work, Hunter-nim.”

“Ah, you too, Soo-In.”

“Hehe.”

“Do you still have a lot of things to do?”

“Yes, we have to go over the tapes and make some edits even if we were broadcasting live.”

The Mulan filming crew’s work did not simply end just because the live stream was over. Han-Yeol’s broadcast channel, Level-Up TV, grew much faster than expected, so they were practically the same as a small broadcasting station. This meant that they also had the same workload as one.

In fact, their workload had grown exponentially. They were left with a mountain of work that would make them wonder when they would be able to finish it.

The Mulan crew members greeted Han-Yeol one by one as they prepared to go back to the office. Looking at how tired they were and feeling bad about it, Han-Yeol decided to let them go home for the day. He said, “Please go home and rest for today.”

“Oh, but we have a mountain pile of work to do. We will have to pull an all-nighter just to keep up with it…” Soo-In replied.

Koreans were well-known workaholics. In fact, they were ranked second after Mexico among OECD countries and were known to be hardworking people whether they liked it or not.

As expected of Koreans, the Mulan crew members were volunteering to work overtime just to finish their work without even being forced. However, Han-Yeol was quite flexible when it came to such things.

He shook his head and replied, “No, please go home and get some rest for today. I won’t say anything even if there’s some delay with your work, so please go and get some rest. They say that the body has to be comfortable for the mind to work better, right? There’s nothing urgent with the broadcast and your health is much more important to me than anything else. Besides, it will be very easy for you to get the flu if you push yourself too hard when you’re tired. So once again, please go home and rest. Oh also, take this…”

When Han-Yeol took out a white envelope and passed it to her in front of the Mulan crew members, Soo-In asked, “What is this?”

“I prepared some allowance for you and the girls to dine out. Feel free to use it whenever you guys are free,” Han-Yeol replied.

“Y-You didn’t have to…” Soo-In muttered before she took a peek into the envelope.

In the envelope was a stack of cheques that was probably going to sum up to be quite a handsome figure.

“What do you mean? It’s only normal for me to take care of the team I created, right? I mean, who else is going to take care of you guys? Also, please feel free to go all out and use all of that. Don’t try to save and contribute to your operation costs. You know I’m fully supporting you for that too, right?”

“Y-Yes, Hunter-nim.”

Although Soo-In was still looking lost, the Mulan crew members looked rejuvenated by Han-Yeol’s unexpected show of generosity. They were craving for alcohol after the long hunt, so they wanted to rejoice at the fact that their employer had just given them a big fat allowance to spend.

“Then, I will be going now,” Han-Yeol said.

“Thank you very much!”

“Thank you very much for your hard work, Hunter-nim!”

“Please rest well!”

“We love you, employer-nim!”

The Mulan crew members shrieked out in joy as they bowed toward Han-Yeol.

‘Huh…?’?Han-Yeol thought he had heard wrong, but he decided to ignore the last bit and hop into his van to drive toward the association.

“Unni! Unni! How much is it?”

The Mulan crew members gathered around Soo-In as all of them were curious how much their first-ever dinner allowance was going to be.

“H-Hold on…” Soo-In stuttered after feeling pressure from the twenty pairs of eyes staring at her intensely. When she opened the white envelope and checked how much was in it, she gasped in surprise. “Heok!”

“Why? How much is it, unni?”

“Do you think we can eat pork belly to our heart’s content?”

The Mulan team did not really expect a lot as most companies gave allowances in the range of one hundred thousand won, and that was already more than enough to offset the amount that each of them had to contribute to foot the bill.

“F-F… F… F…” Soo-In stuttered.

“Five hundred thousand?”

“Wow! He is really quite generous!”

“Yeah! I expected it to be around one hundred thousand won, but five hundred thousand won is quite a lot!”

Hunters were quite rich, but they were known to be stingy at the same time. Besides, was it really proper to call someone stingy when they were giving their own money away? That was the reason that the Mulan crew members did not really expect much from Han-Yeol in the first place.

“T-That’s not it…!” Soo-In exclaimed.

“What do you mean by that, unni?”

“F… F-Five million won! He gave us five million won!”

“WHAAAAT?”

“Are you serious? Did he really give us five million won?”

“Yes! Look!” Soo-In showed the stack of cheques in the white envelope to the other crew members. There were fifty cheques worth one hundred thousand each for a total of five million won.

Han-Yeol was a much more generous person than the Mulan team initially thought him to be. In the end, they thought of him as a very generous employer who had gone home after leaving a huge allowance that was more than enough for his staff to eat steak a few times over.

‘Ugh… I’m going to sleep as much as I can once I get home…’?Han-Yeol grumbled.

However, a Hunter’s body was able to recover almost instantaneously, so they only needed to sleep for five hours. It was a truly blessed body that allowed one to save a lot of time on sleeping, but it was also a curse on these kinds of days when one wanted to do nothing and sleep the whole day.

‘Well, I guess I’ll be rolling around in bed doing nothing then…’?Han-Yeol steeled his resolve to not do anything for the entire day and just laze around.

To be frank, it did not sound like a bad plan at all…

1. Younger sibling in Korean.

2. Fun Fact: A cultural explanation here. Most bosses/employers will only give a huge budget for company dinners IF THEY ARE GOING AS WELL. Not only that, they tend to act quite burdensome by flaunting how much they are spending, which nobody really likes. So Han-Yeol giving them such a huge budget without attending was amazing because of Korean cultural norms.