Leveling Up Alone

Chapter 97: A Date with the Goddess (4)

“Aarghh!”?

Han-Yeol lazed around the whole day and finally decided to get up only two days later. It was still early in the morning when he let out quite a loud sound while stretching, but he had already spent a fortune on his house’s interior so his soundproofing was quite excellent.

“Lalala~” Han-Yeol hummed a tune while taking a shower. Then, he picked a nice outfit, styled his hair, and prepared to go out.

Unfortunately, Yoo-Bi was usually busy with her own things after a hunt and his only other friend, Sung-Jin, was currently busy working as a Porter. Needless to say, Han-Yeol did not have anyone else to spend the day with.

However, he had recently picked up a new hobby, and that was none other than shopping. In the past, he would have never dared to even look at the shops selling luxury branded goods from a distance due to his impoverished background. But now, he could freely buy whatever he wanted.

‘Let’s see… I’ll go and shop a bit, then head over to the Hunters’ Association to update my rank. Then, I could probably drop by to check on the office’s construction progress. Hmm… I probably need to drop by the Mulan office too… Wow, it’s a busy day for me.’

Han-Yeol realized that he had a lot of work piled up after being occupied by the hunt for seven days. His father usually took care of whatever had to be done for the house, so he did not have to concern himself with that. However, he still had to take care of whatever personal affairs he had as that was his sole responsibility.

He did not feel comfortable asking Yoo-Bi to do things for him, since she was his manager and not his personal assistant. He suddenly thought, ‘I think I need to hire a trustworthy personal manager… and it probably has to be a guy this time, right…?’?

Han-Yeol decided to look for a male who he could talk freely with instead of a female as all sorts of emotions could blossom between himself and someone of the opposite gender.

Still, that was a task he would have to take care of later on. What he had to focus on right now was to enjoy his shopping time.

Vroom!

Han-Yeol drove his van to the Hunter Mall, which had Hunter goods for sale and a whole separate building that could be enjoyed by civilians.

The Hunter Mall might have a section for civilians to purchase everyday goods, but the items on sale were usually very expensive there. The reason for that was the fact that most people who came to the civilian section of the Hunter Mall were either high net-worth individuals or people related to Hunters or the industry.

Sparkle! Sparkle!?

Han-Yeol’s eyes were sparkling with excitement at the thought of shopping. He wondered, ‘Let’s see, what should I buy today?’

He could buy anything and everything he wanted. In fact, he had been collecting game consoles these days, but he had already purchased so many of them that his house was already full.

‘Should I move to a bigger place…?’

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His solution to his dilemma was simply to move to a bigger house. He had more than enough money to live in whichever house he wanted, after all. However, for some odd reason, he had this unexplainable burden that was making him hesitate on moving houses immediately.

Han-Yeol had very sharp instincts that were mostly correct, and thanks to that, he had developed a habit of relying on his instincts a bit too much.

Anyway, Han-Yeol stepped into the mall.

Murmur… Murmur… Murmur…?

He felt a powerful surge of mana instigating his instinct, and he could hear the crowd slowly getting noisy behind him at the same time.

‘This mana is…?Don’t tell me?!’?Han-Yeol turned around the moment he recognized the mana. Then, his eyes shot wide open from surprise upon confirming the owner of the fragrant mana he was sensing.

[T-Tara?!]

[Han-Yeol?]

[Hello, Han-Yeol Hunter-nim.]

[Ah, hello, Mariam.]

The leader of the Horus raid party, Tayarana, and the brains of the raid party, Mariam, were behind Han-Yeol, and there was a group of Korean and Egyptian bodyguards forming a barricade around them to prevent others from coming near.

[Oh right, please speak comfortably to me from now on, Han-Yeol-nim.]

[W-Why?]

[It is unacceptable for someone on equal speaking terms with Tayarana-nim to speak formally to me, who is her subordinate. I hope you will understand that that is something I cannot accept as her servant.]

[T-That is…] Han-Yeol muttered with a perplexed look on his face before he stole a glance at Tayarana, who simply nodded in response.

Feeling Tayarana’s charisma from that slight movement alone, Han-Yeol had to wonder, ‘Is this the authority of a ruler?’

This charisma was probably something Tayarana innately possessed and not something that had to do with her being an S Rank Hunter. There were a lot of S Rank Hunters in Korea as well, but not all of them had the same aura as her.

Also…

[Oh… Both of you are wearing civilian clothes today.]

Han-Yeol was not wrong. He had only seen Tayarana and Mariam in either their combat gear or traditional Egyptian dress, so this was his first time seeing them in casual wear.

Both of them looked like normal women in their outfits. Of course, anyone could probably tell that their clothes were recently purchased and luxury branded, and the price of their outfit was probably going to send a shiver down peoples’ spines.

Mariam blushed at Han-Yeol’s straightforward comment, but it was so subtle that nobody probably noticed it. She then asked, [Ah, does it not suit us by any chance?]

[It’s not good?] Tayarana asked.

It was quite interesting how their personalities were basically polar opposites. Tayarana looked Han-Yeol straight in the eyes while Mariam blushed, avoided his gaze, and fixed her clothes.

Han-Yeol was extremely happy to be able to look at these two beauties as much as he wanted.

Tayarana was already a well-known beauty. She was so beautiful that she overshadowed anyone around her. Mariam was also a very beautiful woman when compared to any other woman except Tayarana, and the fact that she was always standing right next to Tayarana made her go unnoticed by most men, who were always focused on the goddess alone. However, her beauty did not go unnoticed in the eyes of Han-Yeol, who had seen quite a lot of beauties in recent times.

[No, both of you look great. You look as beautiful as always, Tara, and you look quite cute too, Mariam.]

[Thank you.]

[…thank you.]

They responded in different ways, but both of them smiled at Han-Yeol’s compliment.

Then, the three of them leisurely chatted for a bit, but their surroundings were far from ‘leisurely’.

“E-Excuse me, Han-Yeol Hunter-nim! What are you talking about with the goddess-nim?”

“P-Please give us the chance to know what she said!”

“Han-Yeol Hunter-nim!”

The crowd that luckily managed to spot Tayarana getting down from her limousine desperately screamed and pushed their way to get a closer glimpse of the goddess. However, the only thing they could do was to take photos and videos of Tayarana as the bodyguards were forming a solid human barricade around her.

Then, they spotted Han-Yeol, who was an up-and-rising Hunter and a fellow Korean, leisurely chatting with Tayarana in Arabic. This triggered the typical Korean mindset of ‘acting close’ as they started shouting and asking all sorts of favors from him.

‘Sigh… Do we even know each other to ask favors?’?Han-Yeol grumbled and shrugged his shoulders.

He had no problem ignoring the crowd’s pleas as he was already used to his ‘my way or the highway’ mentality.

[What brings the both of you here? I don’t think you really need to come to a place like this, right?] Han-Yeol asked as he could not understand why they would bother coming all the way here when they had a horde of servants who could bring them whatever they wanted with just a snap of their fingers.

[I was curious about what South Korea looks like. I will be living here for a while, and our countries will probably grow closer to each other from now on, so I wanted to see how life in this country is,] Tayarana replied.

[Ah, as expected of a princess, you really are different from ordinary people,] Han-Yeol responded in awe of Tayarana’s mindset.

They said that a position shaped a person, but whether Tayarana was born with her mentality or her position had given it to her did not matter to Han-Yeol. The only thing that mattered to him was that her mentality was quite cool and it was something he wanted to learn from.

[Are you teasing me?] Tayarana asked.

[Haha! No way, I’m genuinely surprised, that’s all,] Han-Yeol replied while waving his hand.

[Hmm…] Tayarana looked at Han-Yeol with eyes full of skepticism, but he continued to feign ignorance until the end. She then said, [It’s hard to believe, but I guess I can only choose to believe you.]

[Thanks.]

Han-Yeol still found it hard to believe that he was able to chat freely with Tayarana like he was doing right now. This was definitely a benefit he had gained from awakening as a Hunter. He probably would not have been able to say a single word to Tayarana if he had met her before he awakened.

Yes, the old Han-Yeol was a pathetic loser after all. He had worked harder than anyone else, which was something he could be proud of, but the poverty he had faced at that time had dragged his self-esteem through the mud.

That was also the reason why he had spent most of his youth as a delinquent with Sung-Jin and the others. Back then, doing whatever he wanted had made him forget about his pathetic circumstances.

[Also, it must be fate that we met like this, so you should join me,] Tayarana said.

[Huh?] Han-Yeol muttered in confusion as he had expected them to chat for a bit before going their separate ways. He did not imagine that she would ask him to join her.

Mariam stepped in when Han-Yeol was dumbfounded by the whole situation. She explained, [Han-Yeol-nim, you are the Vice Leader of our raid party. You are also the closest Korean Hunter to Tayarana-nim. Tayarana-nim is currently in a foreign land at a foreign mall, so I would be grateful if you may kindly assist her.]

[Oh, okay. Alright then.]

It was a bit burdensome for him to join them, but Han-Yeol immediately agreed to join them as being with a beautiful woman was going to make shopping even more fun. He thought to himself, ‘I’m not going to lose anything by becoming closer to Tayarana and Mariam.’

The crowd got even rowdier the moment Han-Yeol started walking alongside the two beauties, and there were even a bunch of reporters who had appeared out of nowhere as well.

‘Why is this even newsworthy?’?Han-Yeol thought with a grimace when he spotted the reporters.

It was clearly visible in his expression that he did not really like reporters. However, there was no way that a reporter was going to back down just because of the look on someone’s face, right?

“Lee Han-Yeol Hunter-nim! Is it possible to have a short interview with Tayarana? The people have the right to know!”

“Lee Han-Yeol Hunter-nim! You should do an interview with her!”

As expected, the reporters were as shameless as they could get, demanding Han-Yeol for an interview even though there was no reason for him to agree to it in the first place.

‘It’s not that I don’t know how shameless those guys can get. Let’s just ignore them.’?

Han-Yeol chose to ignore the parasites that used the people’s right to information as an excuse to viciously invade another person’s privacy. However, he could not fault them in the end, since they were just working hard in their own ways.

[Han-Yeol, what are those people crying about?] Tayarana asked.

Tayarana’s innocent question made Han-Yeol burst into laughter, and the fact that she had said ‘crying about’ in Korean made it even funnier.

[Haha! Where did you learn that?] Han-Yeol asked.

[Tayarana-nim! W-Where did you learn such vulgar words? Please mind your manners when there are others around!] Mariam reprimanded Tayarana while being surprised herself.

[Is it vulgar?]

[Yes, it is.]

[But they seem to use it quite often in Korean dramas?]

[S-Still… those are only shows. You must understand that those kinds of TV programs are bound to use such vulgar words. I hope that you would be more selective of what you watch from now on so that you would only learn elegant words.]

[But those kinds of shows are no fun.]

“Haha!” Han-Yeol could not help but burst out into laughter once again after listening to the two bickering back and forth in their own manner.

The crowd around them grew more desperate after seeing the exchange between the three.

Well, not that those three cared about those around them anyway.