Level Up Machine

Chapter 114 - My Gundam is Not Like This! (1)



Chapter 114 My ‘Luck’ Isn’t Like That! (1)

Six months had passed since the incident where the mercenaries mobilized by the Goldrun Guild were crushed.

The Salvator Guild, which had started extorting money from the Goldrun Guild through somewhat(?) coercive methods, was able to amass an unimaginable amount of wealth in just a short period of half a year.

Since every machine created by Yeong-sik sold explosively, it was natural for them to accumulate such wealth.

Externally, the brand image of the Goldrun Guild, which was producing the machines, grew higher day by day, and they reaped enormous financial rewards.

It was already established as a common belief that the guild master of the Goldrun Guild was the wealthiest person on the continent.

Of course, in reality, they were like slaves who handed over all the money they earned to the Salvator Guild.

The guild master position, which remained vacant in the Goldrun Guild, was taken by Han Jun-man. No, to be precise, Yeong-sik “instructed” it to be so.

It was similar to how vassals would make a puppet prince a king to control him at their will.

Han Jun-man, with deep-seated fear of Yeong-sik, did not dare to refuse his suggestion.

Having taken the position of guild master, Han Jun-man began to diligently bring money to Yeong-sik.

Confirming that the situation had stabilized to some extent, Yeong-sik lowered the price of the batteries so that the Goldrun Guild would not go bankrupt, adjusting it appropriately while sweeping in a vast amount of wealth.

“I can’t believe it,” Han Seong said in a hollow voice as he checked the account issued by the Central Bank of the continent.

The account held an enormous amount of money, unimaginable even during the heyday of the Salvator Guild.

“The business was successful,” Yeong-sik replied, sipping the tea Ara had brought him. At his words, the surrounding guild members looked at him with expressions of exasperation.

Yeong-sik had thoroughly plundered the wealth of the Goldrun Guild, as if to take revenge for everything they had done to him.

At his words, Yu-na pouted and said, “But I still don’t feel good about it. Isn’t this practically the same as being a robber? If we were going to do this, shouldn’t we have just attacked the Goldrun Guild from the beginning?”

At her question, Han Seong shook his head.

“No. If we had done that, Yeong-sik’s business wouldn’t have been this successful. We are not merchants.”

The result would have been vastly different between selling items out of their own desire and forcing them to sell items after oppressing them with power.

Why do people desperately earn money? It’s all to fatten their own wallets.

The concept of bonuses or incentives didn’t arise for no reason.

People move more diligently when there is a reward coming to them.

They don’t desperately work to earn money that they will hand over to others.

Moreover, the Salvator Guild lacked people with outstanding commercial talents, which was another significant reason.

If they had subdued them with force, they would have had to issue appropriate orders to sell the goods, but there was no one to give those orders. If that had happened, it would have been impossible to dream of expanding into the south, where the market was meticulously protected by the empire.

The southern region, where the average national income was significantly higher compared to the eastern region, was the best market, generating much more revenue than the combined total of three kingdoms.

If they had missed that, it would have been impossible to amass such a huge amount of money in such a short time.

“Hmm… That’s true,” Yu-na nodded at Han Seong’s words.

“No matter how much we think about the past, it won’t change anything now. Let’s think about how to use the money we’ve earned,” Han Seong said, looking at the account in his hand.

The guild members gathered in the conference room were deep in thought, with expressions showing they still couldn’t grasp the situation.

Since they had never handled such a vast amount of money before, they couldn’t imagine how to use it.

“Well, generally, we’d buy items or hire mercenaries…”

Park Cheol-tae spoke in his characteristic low, firm voice.

There were usually two ways to increase power using money.

One was through items. By purchasing powerful rare items of grade A or higher to enhance the guild members’ power.

However, this method was effective mainly in guilds with many members, and it didn’t mean much to the Salvator Guild.

Since each guild member already possessed items of grade A or higher, it wasn’t particularly efficient.

To further enhance their power from this point, they needed at least S-grade items, and acquiring those with money was nearly impossible.

No matter how much money they had, it was meaningless if there were no items available on the market.

In the history of the continent, instances of S-grade rare items being available on the market could be counted on one hand.

The second method was to hire summoners with money.

This was the method mainly used by the Goldrun Guild, and with their current wealth, it was possible to form a mercenary group with ranker-level summoners. To confront a kingdom’s army, they would need to hire a large number of summoners, but with the money they had now, it was more than sufficient.

“Indeed, hiring mercenaries is the simplest method,” Han Seong said in a subdued voice after thinking deeply. Some guild members nodded at his words.

“What do you think, Guild Master? The contract with the Leviathan Guild is about to expire, so should we start hiring skilled mercenaries to form a unit?”

At the suggestion of hiring mercenaries, Tiria’s expression turned complicated. She spoke with a slightly dark expression.

“If that’s the only way, there’s no choice, but… honestly, I don’t like it. You never know what mercenaries hired with money might do.”

In the past, the Salvator Guild had fallen into the path of destruction due to internal conflicts among its members. Such incidents occurred even among guild members who thought of each other as family. Moreover, mercenaries who weren’t even guild members could betray them at any time.

That’s why she wasn’t happy about having people she didn’t trust as part of their forces.

“Certainly, hiring mercenaries with money does carry the risk of betrayal. But if we hire the entire mercenary group, that problem will be somewhat resolved.”

Mercenary groups lived on their reputation.

If they betrayed and word spread, they couldn’t survive in that industry anymore.

“What do you think, Yeong-sik?”

Tiria, who had been quietly listening to Han Seong, turned her head to look at Yeong-sik. Her gaze was filled with a peculiar sense of anticipation.

Yeong-sik had always managed to accomplish unimaginable feats using methods she hadn’t thought of. It was thanks to him that Salvator Guild now stood on a mountain of gold.

The guild members’ attention focused on Yeong-sik. Like Tiria, they were all looking at him with hopeful expressions.

Yeong-sik chuckled softly and began to speak in a low voice.

“Actually, I’ve had one method in mind from the beginning.”

“Oh? What is it?”

The guild members tilted their heads curiously at his words.

Yeong-sik had been the one who suggested making money through business to enhance their power.

With his meticulous nature, it was unlikely that he had proposed earning money without considering how to use it.

“First… gather all the minerals coming through the mining rights.”

“All the minerals?”

“Yes. As much as possible, focus on mana stones rather than iron ore.”

“Um… The production of mana stones isn’t very high, though…”

“Still, try to gather all of them.”

Han Seong nodded at Yeong-sik’s words.

The Goldrun Guild owned mines ranging from the most common mana stone mines, like Saronite, to Mithril and Adamantium mines.

Since all those mining rights had been transferred to the Salvator Guild, collecting mana stones wasn’t difficult.

“And purchase all the mana stones that appear in the auction house, such as Adamantite and Mithril.”

“… Do you need that many mana stones?”

“Yes. Since there won’t be many on the market, buy all of them even if the price is above the average.”

Han Seong swallowed briefly at his words. While iron ore was understandable, the price of magical minerals was staggering.

‘Right now, it shouldn’t matter too much.’

Currently, the Salvator Guild was earning money by sweeping up gold from all over the continent.

The only issue would be a lack of supply, not a lack of money.

“I’ll try to get them as quickly as possible. However, doing so might leave us short on funds to hire mercenaries. Are you okay with that?”

Despite the explosive business success, the Salvator Guild had only been earning for nine months.

They couldn’t do everything.

“Yes. I never intended to hire mercenaries from the beginning.”

“… I see.”

Han Seong couldn’t easily imagine what Yeong-sik was planning.

However, he didn’t raise any objections to Yeong-sik’s opinion.

Considering what Yeong-sik had demonstrated so far, Han Seong was confident that he wouldn’t say such things without any thought.

“Oh, by the way, how is that thing I mentioned before going?”

“Hmm… Are you talking about purchasing Black Cubes?”

“Yes.”

The first thing Yeong-sik did as soon as he took over the Goldrun Guild was to advertise widely that they were buying Black Cubes at high prices.

Summoners, who had been holding onto Black Cubes that were mostly useless and just taking up space, flocked to sell them at the sales point upon hearing about the high prices.

“Recently, people have been showing up less frequently.”

The rush of people who gathered at the news of buying Black Cubes had subsided quickly.

Since boss monsters were inherently few and extremely powerful, no matter how high the buying price was advertised, thousands or tens of thousands of Black Cubes did not come pouring in.

“I see.”

Yeong-sik nodded, looking somewhat disappointed.

Each time he bought Black Cubes, he immediately used Structural Analysis to inherit their abilities. Even though the skill level of Structural Analysis was so high that it hardly improved in proficiency, it still had the effect of raising his stats or lifting level restrictions.

‘That’s hard to expect now, though.’

Yeong-sik sighed briefly.

As his level and stats increased, it became increasingly difficult to raise those figures.

After unlocking Security Level 9, his levels and stats had increased explosively. Even when using Structural Analysis on an A-grade Black Cube, there was nothing to inherit aside from skills. Most of the Black Cubes brought by people were of D or E grade, not even reaching C grade.

He checked diligently each time a new batch of items came in, hoping for an S-grade Black Cube, but so far, not a single S-grade Black Cube had appeared.

‘Well, considering it drops from monsters at least as powerful as Lekras, it’s no surprise they’re rare.’

Even though the Leviathan Guild was away, Lekras was a powerful boss monster that had breached the northern border and invaded the mainland. If such boss monsters were common, the northern border would never have held.

‘Still, they’re not useless.’

By extracting Black Cubes, he could obtain metal cores of the same grade.

Considering how many metal cores would be needed for the “plan” he had in mind, it was better to gather as many as possible, even if he couldn’t inherit abilities from them.

“But what exactly are you planning to make that requires so many magical minerals?”

Han Seong asked while jotting down Saronite, Mithril, and Adamantite in his notebook as Yeong-sik had requested.

The guild members, too, looked at Yeong-sik with curious expressions, eager to hear his answer. They were well aware of the insanely high prices of magical minerals.

There was no way they wouldn’t be curious about what he was planning to create using such a large quantity of magical minerals.

“Oh, what I’m planning to make this time is…”

Yeong-sik continued with a nonchalant expression.

“A Terminator.”

“Pardon? A Terminator?”


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