Chapter 7

Chapter 7

“Haah... It’s completely hopeless. This isn’t going to work.”

It was the third day since Haejin had met Pasu.

As usual, Haejin was grilling meat to lure monsters, but he shook his head in disappointment.

The reason he had already lost all his energy so early in the morning was simple.

For three whole days, he hadn’t encountered a single monster.

“The monsters really have gone completely extinct around here. Right, Pasu?”

“Bark bark!”

“You’re the only one living the good life, Pasu. Eating piles of beef every day. You sure found yourself a good owner, huh? Heh.”

Was it thanks to the recovery effect of the ‘My Comfortable Home’ Trait he had obtained before?

Pasu, who had been painfully thin, recovered at astonishing speed and had now completely returned to full health.

That part was good, but with monster hunting—his main source of income—cut off, Haejin had a lot to think about.

‘Well, sure. Even if this is technically a frontline region, it’s not... some extremely deep, dangerous zone.’

Nobody could live here, but it was still within the national defensive line.

He had already known there weren’t that many monsters around.

He was simply disappointed that they had vanished much faster than expected.

‘Should I go loot some more places? Now that I have Pasu, scavenging should be easier too.’

Maybe it was because he had been tamed through the Skill, but Pasu understood Haejin remarkably well.

Without any special training, he could already shake, sit, wait, bite, and obey all sorts of commands.

More importantly, he rarely barked, making him easy to take along.

‘Most of the monsters are gone anyway, so it should be safer. As long as I don’t go too far, even if we meet one, I can just run back into the pension like last time.’

He couldn’t stay cooped up inside forever, performing rain rituals and praying for monsters to appear.

After reaching that conclusion, Haejin grabbed his long spear and a few basic supplies, then left the pension.

“Let’s go, Pasu. Time for you to earn your keep too.”

“Bark bark!”

Perhaps because reliable Pasu was beside him.

Haejin felt far more at ease than before.

* * *

‘Seriously... Nobody comes around here anymore. Nothing has changed at all.’

For now, he headed toward downtown Odeok-ri.

It was where he had first begun scavenging.

There was no other town nearby that could even remotely be called safe, so he didn’t have many options.

Naturally, the results weren’t much better.

“Haah, this is driving me crazy.”

Perhaps there was a reason even scavengers had stopped coming here.

Not only the jewelry shop and convenience store he had searched before, but several other buildings he checked yielded nothing worthwhile.

Whenever he thought he had found something, the shelves, registers, and everything else had already been cleaned out by other scavengers. He could only sigh.

‘They say beginner’s luck is the best luck. I really was insanely lucky my first time scavenging.’

There were no people, no monsters, and nothing worth money.

Wandering through an abandoned town alone with Pasu made him feel like the protagonist of some famous movie where humanity had gone extinct.

But he couldn’t give up.

He stubbornly headed toward another nearby building.

-Ding!

“Hmm?”

A system window appeared without warning.

Haejin’s mouth slowly fell open when he read it.

[You have entered an ownerless building!]

[Would you like to acquire this property?]

“Huh? What’s this?”

He had never seen a message like this before.

With his face full of confusion, he stepped back, then entered the jewelry shop again.

But this time, nothing happened.

No window appeared.

Wondering if his guess was right, he went back to the building from before.

[You have entered an ownerless building!]

[Would you like to acquire this property?]

Once again, a message appeared asking whether he wanted to become its owner.

Haejin stood still for a moment, thinking, before arriving at his own answer.

‘Could it be... something like this? Even an abandoned building won’t work if the owner is still alive. But if the owner died or simply doesn’t exist, I can claim it for free?’

If that hypothesis was correct, it was quite astonishing.

It meant that as long as he found a house with absolutely no owner, he could instantly make it his without spending a single won.

For now, he entered the building that had triggered the acquisition message.

It was a shabby fruit shop covered in dust.

Calling it a shop was generous. It was so badly broken and ruined that the abandoned building looked ready to collapse at any moment.

Even so, the moment he expressed his intent to acquire it.

[Ownership of the property has been transferred!]

-You have acquired new real estate!

-The list of available properties has been updated!

“Oooooh!”

He had suspected it, and sure enough.

He really had acquired real estate completely free.

But the truly astonishing part was only beginning.

Rumble-!

The ruined building, now Haejin’s property, began shaking violently with a tremendous noise.

Then, at incredible speed, the building began repairing itself.

Broken walls restored themselves, torn flooring returned to normal, and dust-covered fixtures flew through the air and settled back into place.

He hadn’t been able to properly watch it happen with the pension, but seeing it from inside was nothing short of spectacular.

“Whoa... Wahahaha! This is insane!”

Had even a minute passed?

In the blink of an eye, the building had perfectly returned to its original state as a fruit shop.

The sight of it gleaming as though it had just been newly built brought a smile to his face.

The automatic repair effect of the ‘My Comfortable Home’ Trait.

Now that he had actually seen it in action, it was far more incredible than he had imagined.

“Kyaa, this is crazy. But then... can I just keep going around picking up abandoned houses? The system decides whether they qualify anyway. Ooh?”

He had thought there was nothing left to gain around Odeok-ri, whether monsters or loot.

But if this possibility existed, everything changed.

Until now, he had mainly entered commercial buildings and shops that looked like they might contain valuables, but this had once been a residential town, meaning there were plenty of houses and villas left behind.

And compared to commercial buildings, houses were more likely to have no legal owner.

That didn’t necessarily mean their owners had died.

After North Korea became a Demonic Realm and monsters moved south, the government evacuated people and sealed off this region.

To help refugees who had lost their homes, and to manage the area.

Anyone willing to relinquish ownership of their house here received help finding a new home cheaply elsewhere.

‘Of course, some people still refused because they couldn’t give up their homes... but maybe residential houses really are a gold mine?’

Good. He had made up his mind.

From now on, instead of picking up items or money, he would pick up houses.

A thought suddenly occurred to him.

‘Could this actually be the ultimate form of scavenging?’

The absolute peak of easy-mode profit.

He had now reached the point where he was literally farming houses off the street.

* * *

To start with the conclusion, yes.

“This is amazing. An absolute jackpot.”

Wasn’t there a saying about rain after a drought?

As though compensating him for all the fruitless days he had wasted until now, Haejin reaped profits beyond anything he had imagined.

-You have acquired new real estate!

-The list of available properties has been updated!

[Owned Properties – 24]

[Leased Properties – 2]

He roamed not only downtown but throughout the village until evening, visiting a total of fifty-six houses.

As a result, a whopping twenty-three houses became Haejin’s property.

At the same time, he gained another major benefit.

Cash and valuables.

‘So once I claim ownerless property, the system really treats me as the actual homeowner. Kyaa!’

He discovered afterward that whenever he acquired a property, information about the locations of important items inside was uploaded into his mind as well.

As though Haejin truly were the owner of those abandoned homes.

As a result, Haejin was able to thoroughly collect everything valuable hidden in every corner of the houses he had claimed.

From golden toad ornaments left behind during hasty evacuations, to gold rings tucked deep inside cupboards, and even bundles of cash hidden beneath the flooring.

There was far more than he expected. The backpack on his shoulders had grown noticeably heavy.

Of course, there was one disappointing point.

“I figured as much, but still... Tch. My attack power isn’t going up.”

It would have been perfect if it synergized with ‘The Weight of a Landlord.’

Perhaps because these houses were inside a Demonic Realm and had even been abandoned without owners.

The homes he acquired today weren’t assessed as being worth even ten won.

As a result, Haejin’s attack power remained completely unchanged.

Still, he could hardly complain.

‘If I ask for more than this, my stomach will burst from greed. I’m satisfied. Completely, utterly satisfied!’

Having finished an extremely rewarding farming run, it was time to settle the profits.

Haejin diligently gathered up the valuables and returned to the Hunting City.

He went back to the jewelry shop and pawnshop where he had already established a connection.

When he dumped the contents of his bag in front of the owner, the man’s jaw dropped.

“Wow... Sir. You gathered all of this?! Scavengers have been complaining every day lately that they’ve come back empty-handed. You must be seriously skilled.”

“Oh, no, not at all. I just got lucky.”

“Lucky? This is skill! Between the gold rings and everything else, this should be worth quite a bit. Hehehe, since you trusted me enough to come back again, I’ll appraise everything quickly and give you a good price!”

After selling everything off, Haejin ended up holding a thick envelope stuffed with cash.

A bundle packed with crisp new fifty-thousand-won bills.

Grinning as he counted them, he found there was a whopping 5.6 million won.

“Kyaa! This is it!!”

Unable to contain himself, he cheered.

Dozens of additional properties, plus a huge cash payout as a bonus.

He had never scored this big since becoming a Hunter.

“This is great. So damn great!”

A huge grin refused to leave Haejin’s face.

Pasu, standing faithfully at his side, also looked delighted as he wagged his tail nonstop.

“We can’t just go home after this. Pasu, today we’re eating real beef. No imported stuff—we’re getting proper Korean beef! I’ll grill yours too. You can look forward to it, okay?”

“Bark bark! Bark bark bark!!”

The happy days of effortless profit he thought had ended were still going strong.