The Hero Returns

Hak-joon sucked in his breath after hearing Kim Seok-jin's question and looked at Su-hyeun. To think, it's a blue-colored dungeon.

There had only ever been talks of such a dungeon potentially appearing in the future, but it had never appeared until now. But still, such a dungeon was waiting for them in their destination.

Now that he thought about it, Su-hyeun had never explained the reason why they were going to the United States of America in the first place. No, he simply told the younger man to tag along, that's all.

"I heard the news, and I'm certainly intrigued by it." Su-hyeun opened his lips a beat later, but his voice remained calm and collected. "I was thinking of stopping by there, actually."

"What I'm asking you is, did you have foreknowledge of a blue-colored dungeon generating in that location?" Kim Seok-jin asked.

Su-hyeun brought up the need to go to the States before the blue dungeon had appeared. But then, a blue dungeon did indeed appear in that very same country. This all could have been nothing more than pure coincidence, but Kim Seok-jin was feeling this unexplainable sense of incongruity.

However…

"There's no way that's true. How can I predict something like that?" Su-hyeun's reply was as expected.

There was no sure-kill method to make him talk. Not only that, Su-hyeun's initial purpose wasn't the dungeon, to begin with. Even within the Reaper Guild, only two people — Kim Seok-jin and Ji-yeon — knew of the information related to this event.

<<Then again, maybe the matter of whether a dungeon exists or not isn't important to him?>> Kim Seok-jin thought.

He then nodded his head at Su-hyeun's reply. "I see. In that case, I'll let you know when we have touched down. Please rest until then."

"Thank you."

Kim Seok-jin stood up and headed to the next cabin. Hak-joon, unable to breathe until then, spat out a long sigh and spoke up. "A blue-colored dungeon? Is that for real?"

"Probably. It should show up on the evening news later today."

"How did you find about it?"

"I heard from Park Ji-yeon."

"Didn't you say a minute ago that you wanted to go there….?" Hak-joon asked again. "Were you being serious?"

"Of course I was serious."

"Wow…."

"If you're scared, you should turn back now. I'm not planning to force you."

"Scared? Who, me?"

Su-hyeun asked in case Hak-joon was scared by the prospect, but the latter was forming a completely different expression from fear.

"No way. I'm actually looking forward to it, you know."

"…You're also a weirdo, aren't you?"

Although Su-hyeun said that in a somewhat unhappy tone of voice, a smile floated up on his face soon after.

It was a uniquely satisfying reply. Well, if Hak-joon got scared by events like this one, then it'd be a bit hard to expect greater things from him in the future, after all.

* * *

The private plane flew for ten hours and finally reached the other side of the globe.

As soon as he stepped on the brand-new country, Hak-joon looked around at the surroundings as if they were all too strange to him. Nothing seemed too different from home so far, but just the fact of being in America alone must've been too stimulating for him.

"Is this your first time in America?" Su-hyeun asked.

"That was my first time riding on a plane, actually."

"Ah, that's right."

"Have you been to America before?"

"Nope."

At least during this lifetime, this would be his first. Of course, he came here often in his previous life. He had traveled to America at least twice before he even became an awakener. After that, he came here around two or three times a year; he didn't have much of an impression of this place anymore.

"Please at least pretend to be excited, will you? Where is your humanity, man?" Hak-joon lamented.

"Well, it doesn't matter where people live. It's all the same, anyway. Besides all that…"

Su-hyeun scanned the people on standby near the airport's runaway one at a time. Around ten folks showed up today, and they were all awakeners, to boot.

Kim Seok-jin, climbing out of the plane along with Su-hyeun, approached them first. Maybe they were already acquainted to a certain degree because he formed a bright expression and did a simple hug with a man stepping forward from the waiting group.

Kim Seok-jin then proceeded to converse for a little while before beckoning at Su-hyeun. "Please come this way."

He introduced the man he was talking to to Su-hyeun and Hak-joon.

He was a white male with blonde hair and blue eyes, kitted out in a comfortable-looking tracksuit. While studying Su-hyeun with mystified eyes, he spoke. "You're a lot younger than I thought."

"My name's Kim Su-hyeun. And this is Choi Hak-joon, my closest friend."

"I'm Josh, from the Medical Guild. I've heard your name many times. You're a hot topic even in this neck of the woods."

The rankings within the Tower of Trials were applicable to all countries. As no such thing as one's nationality applied within the Tower, the rankings had been unified.

Su-hyeun's ranking on each floor always showed the overwhelming first place. He was the only one who climbed up to the 30th floor and passed the 10th level trials every single time.

"Personally, I'm a huge fan of yours. I've been cheering you on your challenges so far," said Josh.

For a first meeting, they sure were rather embarrassing things to say.

Unsurprisingly, though, this man named Josh was a rather excellent awakener.

<<Is he around the level of a newbie A-Rank?>>

The United States possessed the highest number of awakeners. However, that didn't necessarily equate to their overall quality being high. So, even in America, someone with an A-Rank should be considered as occupying a pretty high plateau.

On top of this, Josh was the chosen representative of the group of ten waiting here to offer their greetings, so he must have occupied a very high position in the guild.

"We heard that you were hoping to get in touch with our guild," said Josh.

"I have a favor to ask of you, actually," Su-hyeun replied.

"If we can build a friendly relationship with you, Mister Su-hyeun, then we will do everything within our power to accommodate you."

That was a considerably positive reply.

It was around then that Kim Seok-jin, quietly listening to Su-hyeun's and Josh's conversation, decided to butt in. "Well, then. I shall be on my way back now. If you're in need of anything, please don't hesitate and give us a call."

"Ah. Thank you."

Su-hyeun and Hak-joon shook hands with Kim Seok-jin to bid him farewell. They certainly didn't expect the vice guild master of the Reaper Guild to personally guide them here.

"Shall we talk more while on the move? My guild master also wishes to speak to you as well, Mister Su-hyeun."

Su-hyeun nodded his head at Josh's suggestion.

All three of them climbed aboard a large SUV. Josh rode shotgun in the front passenger seat, while both Su-hyeun and Hak-joon settled down on the back.

The ignition was turned on, and when the vehicle finally set off, Josh spoke again. "You said you have a favor to ask us earlier. Do you mind if I ask you about it now?"

"It's not something too difficult, actually. I was wondering if you'd let us participate in the upcoming dungeon attack, that's all."

"The dungeon attack, is it?"

"Yes."

Josh's eyes trembled as he stared at Su-hyeun's and Hak-joon's face through the rear-view mirror. At that moment, he was recalling a rather special dungeon in his head.

"Are you by any chance talking about the blue-colored dungeon that showed up this time?"

"Yes, that one."

Josh had to work extra hard to keep his lips straight at Su-hyeun's reply.

<<Jackpot!>>

The blue-colored dungeon.

As a matter of fact, Josh's guild was having issues with the lack of high-ranking awakeners to deploy in that dungeon — especially so with the number of S-Ranks, as that was even more insufficient.

There were a total of five S-Ranks in the whole of the United States. Unfortunately, three of them hadn't returned from the Tower of Trials yet.

In fact, the newly-appearing blue-colored dungeon had garnered quite a lot of attention, and its difficulty was currently impossible to estimate.

It was the same story back in the past with the green-colored dungeons, as well; it was a normal practice to send the highest-ranking awakeners you could find into the dungeons that had never appeared before.

<<If the Medical Guild can secure the services of a rank S Awakener….>>

They should be able to have quite a sizeable voice in the upcoming blue-colored dungeon attack.

As a matter of fact, they were thinking of requesting Su-hyeun for his participation in the assault team during his visit, so him bringing the topic up first was doubly great from Josh's perspective.

"I think I'll have to speak to the guild master first regarding this matter. But, please be rest assured. I believe my guild master will be rather enthusiastic with his response," said Josh.

"I see."

Su-hyeun also didn't think Josh could give him a definite answer to his request. From the get-go, this was a matter only the guild master could decide on. No, he simply let his intentions be known for the purpose of starting the talk a little earlier than expected, that's all.

<<There is still a lot of time remaining, after all.>>

Su-hyeun decided to take it at a leisurely pace.

From the outset, the United States was infamous for its unwillingness to accept other countries' awakener's manpower. If this were any other case, they wouldn't even agree to Su-hyeun's participation.

However, the situation this time was different. The difficulty of the dungeon Su-hyeun wished to attack was blue-colored. On top of this, the Americans were currently dealing with a void within their home-grown S-Rank manpower.

<<I'm sure they are thinking a lot about this.>>

Su-hyeun couldn't tell how they would respond to his demands. Now normally, they would've agreed to his request in a heartbeat, but…

<<If it's that guy, Robert, anything can happen.>>

The guild master of the Medical Guild, Robert William.

Su-hyeun knew that man pretty well. Among all the filthy-rich awakener guilds, he was rather famous for being the greediest of the lot. Would such a guy be satisfied with this?

<<Let's wait and see.>>

The bait had been set.

It probably wouldn't take long before an answer came in his way.

* * *

Under Josh's guidance, Su-hyeun and Hak-joon arrived at a massive house.

The building was empty from its first to the third floor, and as if it had been tidied up ahead of time, it was also quite clean as well.

Josh told them to unpack and rest for a little while and went somewhere. It seemed that he needed to have a private chat with the Medical Guild's guild master.

"Their treatment is better than I expected," said Hak-joon.

"It's probably due to the Reaper Guild's influence."

Not only was the Reaper Guild famous in Korea, it was also deeply respected internationally as well.

The guild master Ji-yeon being an S-Rank had something to do with that, but some part of their fame was also based on the considerable number of awakeners affiliated with the Guild itself.

"First of all, the States just don't have enough high rankers when compared to the overall number of the awakeners living here," said Su-hyeun.

"Really?"

"The number of Awakeners living here ranked B or lower is overwhelmingly high, sure, but there isn't much difference when compared to South Korea on the ranks A and above. Actually, they have one less S-Rank compared to Korea at the moment."

"Is it because of you?"

"Yeah."

"I guess the Americans did have a reason to be worried about you, bro. Plus, their pride of being the world's number one must've taken a knock because of you, too."

Compared to its population numbers, South Korea enjoyed a relatively high percentage of high-ranked awakeners. One only had to take a look at how the number of S-Ranked awakeners was higher than America's to understand this. America only had a total of five S-Rank awakeners while South Korea had six, including Su-hyeun.

"That's why they won't be able to ignore my suggestion," said Su-hyeun.

"If they only have that many S-Ranks, they will definitely need awakeners from other countries for the upcoming blue-colored dungeon attack."

"Correct. Not all of the S-Ranks would be manning their positions, after all."

Most of the S-Ranks chose to continuously climb the tower, which meant that it was only natural for the time they spent walking on the American soil to be a lot shorter than when they were not. If they learned of a blue-colored dungeon being generated beforehand, sure, but they didn't have a reason to interrupt their trials in the middle without knowing what happened.

"The only variable is their pride." Su-Hyeun dropped his luggage on the side and spoke while sitting down on a comfy couch. "The pride of being the best."

No matter what anyone said, America was still the world's largest and strongest awakener powerhouses. The pride of its citizens ran high accordingly. It was no shock that they had never borrowed awakener manpower from other nations until now, too.

There being no precedence meant that it'd be that much harder for them to make it happen.

"Will they be able to let go of their pride?" Hak-joon asked.

"It'll be difficult, I think?"

"…Eh?" That way-too-easy of a reply caused Hak-joon to form a puzzled expression, instead.

Difficult? If Su-hyeun knew that, what was his reason for making that request in the first place?

"Just wait, and you'll see." Perhaps he found Hak-joon's expression rather entertaining since Su-hyeun grinned as he laid down on the couch. "A human's greed knows no bounds, you know."