Evolution Theory of the Hunter

“With a vote of 5 people for and 1 person against, we have determined that the Stalker will be purchased by Mr. Han Joonseok for the price of 100,000 dollars.”

“Yes!”

Han Joonseok, whose face had been void of emotion until just a moment ago, was all smiles.

Jung Sooah then said.

“But why did you vote against it?”

“Because of the next item we will auction out.”

Jung Sooah looked at me with a puzzled expression.

“The next item ‘Silver Glasses’ will be up for auction.”

Since this wasn’t something even for sale at the hunter market, we didn’t really have an official name for it. There was no one laying claim to it.

I spoke.

“I’ll put out an initial bid of 120,000 dollars.”

“Whew…that’s alot of money.”

Jung Sooah said with wide eyes. Hm. I guess I needed to do some explaining.

“Though it is a common skill for people to find out an opponent’s skill and level, being able to do so without using up a skill slot makes this a great item. I would say that it would be worth purchasing this item even if I were to spend every dime I had.”

“Hm…is that right?”

Jung Sooah held her chin as she went into deep thought.

Even with my explanation, there wasn’t one person who made a higher bid.

“120,000 dollars is a steal, people. If this item were to go up for sale on the market, we would be able to sell it for 300,000 dollars at the very least. Since it is also pretty much one-of-a-kind…it might sell for even more than that.”

I explained it like this but my plan was to keep this for myself. The ‘manual’ that these glasses referred to was bothering me but, most of all, being able to know another person’s skill level would be amazing.

I was pretending that I didn’t want it as a reverse psychology tactic.

“I’m against it.”

“Me too.”

As soon as Jung Sooah said she was against it, glasses girl immediately followed suit.

These girls. Why are you foiling my plan!

“SunbehOppa. You realize your face just turned to stone just now?”

“Shut up.”

“Hm…I’ll vote against it too.”

Han Joonseok said as he nodded his head. Cho Youngoo stared at the three in surprise until Han Joonseok tapped him with his hip. With that, Cho Youngoo responded as if he were doing it reluctantly…

“I…I am against it as well.”

“I’m against it too.”

With Manager Kim’s answer, the vote was unanimous.

Ah….this wasn’t what I wanted.

But I couldn’t backpedal now and say that I’ll give them 300,000 so that I can keep this instead of selling it at the market.

“Due to…er…a unanimous decision..it has been determined that…”

“Before we move on to that. These glasses. They were dropped from a dead person. Who would actually buy this?”

Jung Sooah said haughtily.

“The hunter’s market most likely will not buy an item of unknown origin. Further, we can’t know what level this item is nor can anyone be certain it is safe to use.”

“Su…sure. That was my thought too. That this wasn’t something we could sell.”

“It would be a problem even if the market did accept it. If we sell something like this, we could get some serious bad luck. I’m not just saying this. We need to keep it to remind us of what we did.”

Manager Kim said.

It somehow made this whole conversation seem legitimate hearing Manager Kim say those words with such a serious face.

“Then. I’ll hold on to these glasses. Just for now. In the future, if the need arises, we can then decide on whether we reauction the item or sell it at the market.”

“I agree with SunbehOppa’s decision.”

“I too think party head’s decision is the correct one.”

“Honestly I don’t really care…”

Cho Youngoo responded with a yawn.

A laugh tinkled in the air.

I’m not an idiot. It’s not as if I didn’t know what was going on.

Everyone had noticed I wanted this for myself so they were all playing along to help me keep it without it seeming awkward. This is nice.

***

I didn’t put the Honcheon sword nor the shield up for auction. Reason? Because they weren’t dropped items. They were items we had gained from killing people. Though there wasn’t a procedure on what should be done in this kind of a situation, we were all in agreement that an auction was not what should happen.

It was also clear that selling it was not an option either. Keeping two good items was a much better value than trading it for money.

The items that I could now make using the Item Fusion book was one bloodysword. Now that I had the blisolnite, I thought it was a good time to try my hand at putting the Item Fusion book to use.

But there was something I had to do first.

“…SunbehOppa…um…”

I covered Sooah, who was asleep and rubbing her face on her pillow, with a blanket. Her shifting shirt kept revealing what I had no business looking at so I needed to cover her up.

It had now become a bad habit of hers to sleep over at my place.

“I should make some bean sprout soup.”

But I couldn’t really say anything because again I was the one that had to be piggybacked home after a hard night of drinking with the members. I had low tolerance. I was a drunken mess from just one bottle of soju.

It was a relief that I was a well-behaved drunk at least.

Boil boil.

While the beansprout stew was boiling on the stove, I took out the silver glasses from my backpack. From the look of it, though it did look a bit on the elegant side, it still just looked like regular glasses. And there was no problem wearing it since it didn’t have prescription lenses.

I put it on.

“Hm…”

Now my face looked like it belonged more in a library than a dungeon. I didn’t really lilke that.

Because if you look weak, people tend to want to start trouble.

I stared at the sleeping Sooah with the glasses on.

***

Skill type: Friendship, can grant self and up to 5 allies 20% increase in ability

Additional ability: Super Friendship, can give just 1 person 50% increase in ability. Cooltime of one day after use.

Proficiency: 16

***

Super Friendship. The one person buff’s name was that, it seems. To think that it can give information the skill’s owner didn’t even know. But I didn’t put this on to check for this.

I closed my left eye.

-Would you like to reboot the manual?

That same message popped up again.

What am I supposed to do now? There wasn’t like a button or any other indicator so that I can say yes or no.

“Yes.”

-User acceptance received. Manual is booting.

A shower of green numbers, english letters, korean words, and a mix of other special characters began to jumble together. It felt like the matrix. Then finally the rain of characters formed a square box.

It felt like I was staring at an arcane computer interface I might have seen in a museum one time.

-Manual booting complete. Thank you for using delta v0.1. Before starting, please read the tutorial. All menu options are accessible via word prompt.

“Tutorial.”

As soon as I said that word, a whole slew of texts began to appear.

The contents generally looked like what you would find in a manual. What caught my eye was a section on skill types and their relationships.

“Skill Window.”

-The active skill is ‘Effort’. The stats for this skill are as follows.

Strength 200, Endurance 300, Reflexes 150, Focus 150, Defense 150

“Oh…”

I was super impressed. This meant I didn’t have to keep track of everything anymore. All I had to do was put these glasses on, close my left eye, and reboot or turn on the manual.

There was a [+] button next to each of the abilities.

This was an extremely intuitive interface. This meant that I didn’t have to beat myself up in the area I wanted to raise anymore. All I had to do was press that button to invest my reward points…right? So does that mean these glasses are a cheat since I technically wouldn’t have to put in the effort of pushing myself to the limit anymore?

“Sunbeh…? The soup is overflowing?”

Sooah said as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

“Ah…!”

I ran to the stove and turned it off. Half of it seemed to have evaporated. More flavor, I guess?