Master Smith Under Ministry of National Defense

046 – Fun and Exciting Real Estate Shopping

When Myung-jun and his team arrived in Sejong City, they booked a hotel for the night and spent several days exploring numerous properties in the city, but they couldn’t find any that met their preferences.

Unfortunately, while there were plenty of vacant buildings, most of the ones in prime locations were divided into small units for retail spaces, which didn’t align with Myung-jun’s vision for the clan’s headquarters. Therefore, Myung-jun quickly abandoned his initial plan to select an empty retail building.

Instead, he started looking into office buildings that had enough space in the lobby area, but even this didn’t entirely satisfy him. The lobby’s spaciousness, which could serve as the clan’s request reception area and a meeting place for various freelance Awakeners, wasn’t enough because there were no office buildings with properly secured parking or reference spaces that Soo-jeong had requested.

In particular, to utilize Byung-tae’s ability to operate Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFV), an underground parking garage with high ceilings was needed. However, in Sejong City, where land prices were already high, there were no property owners unnecessarily raising the height of their parking garages in the building designs.

Furthermore, as soon as Soo-jeong arrived in Sejong City, she decided to continue her research and disappeared into subspace. As a result, Myung-jun, along with Ho Chang and Byung-tae, had to scour Sejong City’s real estate without Soo-jeong’s assistance, compiling a list of suitable properties for the clan’s headquarters.

However, Myung-jun’s team soon started to enjoy the process itself, as the act of selecting a building for their headquarters was somewhat like a ‘real estate shopping’.

While not paying the entire building price upfront, Myung-jun, with the financial backing of the knowledgeable Soo-jeong, contemplated whether to buy this building or that building. It made him feel like he had become somewhat like Bruce Wayne.

“This lobby here is nice. There’s a good corner for a café. Isn’t it a suitable place for waiting while having a drink?”

“Are you planning to set up the display for Awakener equipment on the first floor? But it seems like this space won’t be enough?”

“I like it here, but there are too many pillars blocking the view.”

After searching various places for a week and failing to find a building that met their criteria, the Liberal clan members eventually compiled a list of buildings with some flaws but which matched their conditions the most.

A week later, Soo-jeong returned from Myung-jun’s subspace, where she had been conducting research, and rejected all over ten buildings by looking at the interior photos and floor plans that her colleagues had gathered.

“Here, the reception desk area is ideal, but the parking garage is too low.”

“Here, the space for the lobby is great.”

“This building itself is too small. We need a building that is around six stories high and spacious, not a tall one.”

When she rejected the last of the ten buildings, Ho Chang, who was determined, grumbled to Soo-jeong.

“No, this is the best I could find. If they were going to build a building on this expensive land with such a spacious site, they should have made it tall. Who deliberately builds a low-rise building?”

“Is there really nothing?”

“After searching everywhere, this is all there is.”

“There are no buildings in Sejong City that meet all of Soo-jeong’s conditions.”

“Hmm…”

Soo-jeong once again skimmed through the interior photos of the buildings on the list. Then, she shook her head and threw the photos onto the table.

“This won’t do. Our clan headquarters, where we’ll be residing, needs to function as a defensive base as well.”

“A defensive base?”

“Our clan will play a role similar to an adventurers’ guild, where numerous Awakeners come to accept gate exploration requests, sell collected materials to the clan, share profits with party members, and recruit new members. The lobby will always be filled with Awakeners who can take on tanks by themselves. What would happen if such individuals engaged in combat inside?”

Ho Chang recalled his previous duel with Hak-soo. Imagining such a fierce battle taking place indoors among a crowd of people, Ho Chang concluded that a modern building designed for ordinary humans wouldn’t withstand an Awakener’s intense battle for even three minutes.

Even reinforced concrete, which couldn’t be easily destroyed by human strength, would crumble like tofu when it came under an Awakener’s hands.

“After one fight, the building could really collapse.”

“That’s right. So, the building that will serve as our clan headquarters needs to have a high ceiling. From floor to ceiling, it should be thickly covered with specially processed armor to withstand these forms. And in case of emergencies, there should be suppression turrets hidden throughout the building that can easily quell any situation.”

A building with formidable weaponry capable of subduing powerful Awakeners with just the press of a button, even operated by civilian receptionists. It would also serve as a building that could deploy equipment anywhere in the country, acting as an ‘outpost’.

Soo-jeong desired a building that fulfilled all these conditions, but unfortunately, such a building did not exist in the central part of Sejong City.

Upon hearing Soo-jeong’s conditions, Byung-tae, who had been listening, raised his hand and asked her a question.

“Um, could we possibly compromise on the parking space at least? Maybe we could move around in regular vehicles for now and summon equipment on-site…?”

“Well, Myung-jun didn’t mention it, but it costs an exorbitant amount of points to store equipment in the pocket dimension and then retrieve it. Even if the development is done in the research lab within the pocket dimension, it’s best to bring out the finished products as much as possible.”

One advantage and disadvantage of Myung-jun’s ability were the ‘point system’. It was the core of Myung-jun’s power, allowing him to convert resources obtained while hunting into points and use those points for various abilities. However, the drawback was that without points, he couldn’t do anything.

That’s why Soo-jeong aimed to minimize point consumption in the base’s design, as the clan heavily relied on Myung-jun’s ability, and their greatest shortage was not money but points.

“If we’re short on points, why don’t we expedite gate exploration to earn points quickly? We received training for that in the training ground, didn’t we?”

“That would be the best course of action, but the problem is that Myung-jun’s special law request hasn’t been passed yet. That means, currently, all gates are owned by the government. Of course, once the law is amended, there will be a legal basis for the original discoverer to claim rights to the gate and trade authority to buy and sell it. However, as it stands, exploring gates without authorization is illegal.”

“With our current points…”

“For the time being, it’s fine. But to create and install as much equipment as we want in the clan headquarters, we’ll need an enormous amount of points. We’ll also need to reserve a certain amount for gate exploration.”

“So, the sneak exploration method we used last time is out of the question?”

“It’s difficult. Moreover, surveillance has been heavily increased here. While they won’t approach us recklessly because we’ve demonstrated our abilities, they haven’t given up on monitoring us either.”

In a situation where points were needed but couldn’t be acquired, all the clan members could do was look to their leader, Myung-jun. He was the most powerful Awakener among them and the leader of the clan, so they hoped he could come up with a solution to overcome this predicament.

Myung-jun sighed softly as he saw his comrades’ gazes focused on him.

“Well, what Senior Soo-jeong said is fundamentally correct. Whether we create new equipment, build facilities for the headquarters, summon equipment from the pocket dimension for your use, all these actions consume points as a resource. Furthermore, no matter how much we overrun and clear Rank 3 gates, there is a limit to the points we can obtain from a single Rank 3 gate.”

“So, what should we do?”

“Let’s go hunting.”

“Are you saying we should hunt gates that are currently under the management of the government? How do you plan to secure gates for exploration?”

“We’ll have to negotiate.”

“Negotiate?!”

“We’ll extend an irresistible offer to them in exchange for the authority to explore the gates.”

Ho Chang thought Myung-jun intended to provide Awakener-exclusive equipment made from the material of this monsters to the government, just as he had dealt with the U.S. government. However, to Ho Chang’s knowledge, the abundant materials they had initially obtained from the exploration were now decreasing.

“Even if you want to make equipment, don’t you have a shortage of materials?”

“Well, currently, yes. But don’t we have the beautiful culture of credit and trust, which is based on each other’s reliability in Korea?”

“If it’s about credit…”

“We’ll secure the exploration authority first and then offer payment afterward. Fortunately, there are cards that the government would be crazy to have, and they’ll be in our favor.”

Myung-jun had a small smile on his face as he spoke.

***

“Director, there’s a call requesting to speak with you.”

Hee-cheol, in the midst of reviewing documents to be submitted to the National Assembly, heard his secretary’s voice and became irritated.

“What?! Can’t you see that I’m busy right now? We have a Law Committee meeting in 30 minutes!”

“But…”

“But nothing! I don’t even have time to take a call right now!”

Since learning the specific terms of the agreement between Myung-jun and the U.S. government, Hee-cheol had been incredibly impatient. Although it consumed Crystal stones, the ‘wire coating equipment’, which allowed civilian to hunt down this monster, held an invaluable worth that couldn’t be measured in money.

If they could supply the modified K2 rifles, upgraded with the wire coating equipment, to over 300,000 members of the Army, they could easily suppress ongoing gate incidents and similar threats with a single blow.

However, this option was only viable under the assumption that Myung-jun would stay in Korea. If the U.S. government succeeded in taking Myung-jun and his family out of the reach of the Korean government, there was no telling when the Korean government’s control would be restored.

Hee-cheol had considered using all of EDA’s Awakeners powers to physically detain Myung-jun, but the thought of the hundreds of turrets Myung-jun had summoned in the plaza made him quickly abandon that idea. Myung-jun’s combat abilities were so extraordinary that his name was almost synonymous with ‘overpowered’.

It was an astonishing ability that bordered on being considered a ‘Balance Breaker’ when viewed by others. It was clearly a superior version of Hee-cheol’s own ability,. While Hee-cheol’s Doll Master ability allowed his dolls to mimic the combat abilities of individuals he touched, including using their exclusive equipment and even copying the unique abilities of Awakeners, his dolls couldn’t move as perfectly as the original Awakeners even when copying their abilities. There was a limitation that prevented Hee-cheol’s dolls from fully matching the power of the copied ability.

However, despite this limitation, nobody in EDA denied that Hee-cheol’s ability was almost like having an army of one. That was until they witnessed Myung-jun’s ‘overpowered’ abilities firsthand.

‘In the end, it’s Myung-jun. I should have done whatever it took to stop his discharge back then.’

Hee-cheol thought. If only he had been able to detain Myung-jun back then, he could have gradually built the ideal system he desired without resorting to such drastic measures.

Having reached this conclusion, Hee-cheol suddenly realized that his secretary was still standing there.

“What is it?”

“That… there’s a phone call…”

“I told them not to call, didn’t I?”

“The caller said that Director, you would surely say that, so you should say this…”

“What?”

“Well…”

Seeing his secretary hesitating to answer, Hee-cheol felt frustrated. However, his frustration turned into joy the moment he heard the message conveyed through the secretary.

“I don’t know for sure, but they said, ‘If you want to get second position, meet right away.'”

“Call the National Assembly now! Tell them the Deputy Director will attend the Law Committee meeting!”

The secretary, relieved that the message had been delivered, couldn’t help but sigh deeply. Clearly, as soon as the Director’s words were relayed to the National Assembly, someone responsible on their end would start shouting at him. However, that wasn’t his concern. Without hesitation, Hee-cheol hung up the phone and opened the window of his office, preparing to jump out.

“Director! We’re on the 15th floor…!!!”

“It’s okay!”

Occasionally, when he had truly urgent matters to attend to, Moon Hee-cheol would leap out of windows like this. It was faster than waiting for the elevator.

It was a performance only Awakeners who could jump from a 15-story building without getting a scratch could show, but for those who witnessed it, it was just stressful. When the windows of a high-rise building opened, the pressure difference caused all the documents on office desks to fly away. Of course, it was the responsibility of ordinary secretaries to clean up the mess.

“it’s so messy, I should just throw them away…”

The sight of a secretary hunched over, muttering complaints while picking up documents, illustrated vividly that even EDA headquarters, dealing with unprecedented surreal matters like Awakeners and gate incidents, was not free from the common workplace stress faced by regular employees.

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