Chapter 9

Chapter 9

“Argh! This is driving me insane!”

The stalemate showed no sign of ending.

Boom- Boom-!

-Screeeeeech!!

The juvenile Basilisk kept letting out hideous shrieks as it repeatedly slammed itself against the invisible gate of the makeshift house.

Haejin, equally determined to see who would win, kept thrusting his long spear without pause, but even after more than twenty minutes, he still hadn’t managed to inflict a meaningful wound.

At this rate, their pointless struggle seemed destined to continue forever.

And then there was that damned screeching.

‘It’s so freaking loud. My head’s ringing. Argh!’

Listening to it over and over inside the booming makeshift house was enough to drive him mad.

He tried desperately to find a weakness, but that wasn’t easy against something covered head to toe in scales.

‘No. Maybe if I aim for its mouth instead...’

The Basilisk seemed completely enraged as well, screaming nonstop.

Haejin took a step back for a moment.

Instead of blindly stabbing away, he caught his breath and waited for the right timing.

‘Now!’

Stab!

-Screeeech... Gweeeeeeegh!!

The instant it opened its mouth wide to scream, Haejin drove the spear deep inside.

No matter how tough a Basilisk was, surely even the inside of its mouth wasn’t covered in scales.

Sure enough, its reaction was completely different from before.

“Yeah, how does that taste, you damn lizard!”

The Basilisk screamed in pain as bright blue blood dripped from its mouth.

Haejin could feel it instinctively.

For the first time in twenty minutes, he had finally landed a proper hit.

Realizing he had found a viable strategy immediately reinvigorated him.

His skull-splitting headache seemed to clear in an instant.

“Let’s see if you’re still alive after I stab you like this another ten times... Huh?”

Just as he was about to continue attacking with renewed momentum.

“W-why won’t this come out?!”

The spear buried deep in its mouth wouldn’t budge.

He pulled with every ounce of strength he had, but it remained completely stuck.

Alarmed, he looked over and saw the Basilisk clenching its jaws shut around the spear.

“You can’t be serious...”

-Screeeeeeech!!

Perhaps realizing something had gone wrong.

The Basilisk suddenly turned tail and bolted straight into the bushes.

Of course, with Haejin’s precious long spear still clenched in its mouth.

It moved so fast that chasing it on foot wasn’t even worth considering.

“You crazy— Hey, you damn lizard! Give me back my spear! Argh, my spear!!”

He desperately shouted after it, but only empty echoes answered him.

It had been his precious weapon, perfectly broken in after all the hunting he had done with it.

“Damn it.”

And just like that, it vanished.

“Bark bark bark!!”

“No, Pasu. Stay. Don’t go outside. No matter what happens, safety comes first for us.”

“Whine...”

Pasu looked at Haejin as though apologizing for being unable to help.

His ears and tail drooped.

Haejin stroked his head and muttered softly.

“Yeah, I guess it was about time I upgraded my weapon anyway. If I want to kill that lizard... Damn. Do I need to get myself a gun?”

Apparently, the house wasn’t the only thing that needed an upgrade.

* * *

To start with the conclusion, yes.

Haejin had one piece of good news and one piece of bad news.

First, the good news.

Stab!

-Yelp!

-Yeeelp!

Garbage Dogs, which had been completely wiped out around the pension, had started appearing again near this expansion base.

There were even far more of them here than around the pension.

Thanks to that, his biggest problem—finding monsters to hunt—was neatly solved.

He bought another long spear and resumed hunting Garbage Dogs, now even more skillfully than before.

But perhaps it was simply the law of the world that good things always came with bad.

-Screeeeeech!

“Ah, shit. Please, just stop!!”

Whenever he finally got into a good rhythm hunting Garbage Dogs, that bastard would inevitably appear.

That damned Basilisk.

Apparently, it had developed a serious grudge against Haejin and seemed determined to settle the score.

-Whine!

-Whimper!

“No, don’t go! Argh!”

The Basilisk was incomparably stronger than a Garbage Dog.

Because of that, the Garbage Dogs Haejin had painstakingly lured over immediately tucked their tails and fled the moment they heard the Basilisk’s bizarre shriek.

By this point, Haejin was genuinely furious.

He glared at the creature while grinding his teeth.

“Fine... Sooner or later, I’m going to cut your damn throat. Let’s see who wins, you shitty lizard...”

About another two weeks passed like that.

After retrieving even the cash he had stored at the studio in the Hunting City, Haejin finally set aside a day to tally everything up.

Savings, cash, stolen goods—how much money did he actually have in total?

There was so much that he even bought a money-counting machine to properly tally it.

Whirrrrr!

“One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand, million, ten million... A hundred million? I already saved a hundred million won?!”

And even after that, he still had another twenty million won left.

He had been too busy hunting like crazy and selling corpses every single day to notice, but his savings had grown considerably.

‘Okay. With this much, I think it’s about time to move on to the next step.’

Of course, he had already planned what came next long ago.

Especially if he wanted to kill the Basilisk that had become his nemesis.

‘What’s the point of just hoarding money? My class is God-Tier Landlord. I should invest properly and make it grow. Exactly!’

He planned to spend boldly for once.

He spent the entire day scouring real-estate offices around the Hunting City, and eventually.

“Hunter, how about this property? It’s the only house that perfectly matches the conditions you’re looking for.”

“Kyaa... Yes! This is exactly what I imagined!”

Haejin managed to find another house he liked.

It was on the outskirts of the Hunting City.

A huge detached mansion that had been completely abandoned more than a decade ago.

“But are you really sure you want to buy it? It’s been neglected for so long that the renovation alone could cost as much as the house. And even for a Hunter, this is still an area where monsters appear.”

Perhaps out of a minimum sense of conscience.

Before stamping the contract, the realtor cautiously asked him one last time.

Instead of answering, Haejin asked a question of his own.

“This house is around 400 square meters, right? And it has a yard and a terrace too?”

“That’s right. The floor area ratio is excellent, and the usable space is laid out really well.”

“And how much did you say the house costs, including the land?”

“Twenty million won.”

Exactly.

This unbelievable conversation was completely real.

A magnificent 400-square-meter mansion, land included, for just twenty million won!

It was a bargain unimaginable not only in Seoul, but even in most provincial areas.

Of course, the reason was obvious.

‘Prices in the Hunting City are insanely high, but once you move even a little way into the danger zone, land practically becomes free.’

This was the front line, after all.

There was no infrastructure and hardly any people, while monsters were everywhere.

The central district where residents, permanent Hunters, the national association, and the exchange were located was one thing.

But land on the outskirts where even a minimum level of ‘safety’ couldn’t be guaranteed.

And with a rotting house on top of it.

Haejin was probably the only person in the world willing to buy something like that.

‘Apparently the owner originally listed this place for 300 million, but nobody bought it, so it dropped all the way to twenty million. I’m the one making out like a bandit.’

Thump!

Haejin confidently pressed his seal onto the contract.

He also paid the entire purchase price in cash right there.

-Ding!

-You have acquired new real estate!

-The list of available properties has been updated!

[Owned Properties – 26]

[Leased Properties – 2]

“Kyaa!”

“Thank you so much for such a smooth transaction, Hunter!”

The system window appeared the moment the contract was finalized.

And that wasn’t all.

[‘The Weight of a Landlord’ has been strengthened!]

[Attack Power Increase: 0.1% -> 0.3%]

It was modest, but his attack power had increased as well.

‘So ten million won gives me about 0.1%... I’ve still got a long way to go. But hey, it’s something!’

After leaving the real-estate office, Haejin immediately headed toward his newly purchased home with his heart pounding.

‘What? The place is rotting away? Renovations alone will cost tens of millions?’

That would be true under ordinary common sense, but only for normal people.

None of it mattered to Haejin.

If anything, it was simply a massive clearance sale letting him buy good properties for cheap.

“Kyaa! This is it!!”

The moment he returned to the house he had purchased, Haejin’s jaw dropped.

The enormous mansion that had been on the verge of collapse moments ago had been completely repaired in the blink of an eye.

The paint was immaculate, while the rain-soaked wood and shattered marble had all been perfectly restored.

Forget renovation—it looked like a gleaming new house that had just been built.

“My Skill really is ridiculously broken. Heh!”

He walked around the garden with Pasu, inspecting every corner of the property.

What he liked most about the house was the garden.

‘First of all, the walls are incredibly high. They look at least two meters tall, so the chances of some monster jumping over and causing trouble are practically zero.’

Haejin was an extreme believer in safety and self-preservation.

Safety came above everything else.

It wasn’t merely that he didn’t want to die—if possible, he didn’t even want a single hair on his body harmed.

‘And this huge gate is perfect too. It’s one of those double gates that only show up in dramas.’

He intended to transport plenty of supplies through this house from now on.

Monster corpses, materials for building more expansion bases, and much more.

A gate this large could easily fit not only an ATV, but even a truck.

‘First things first. Time to move!’

He began moving the furniture from his old studio apartment in Seoul.

A moving company?

There was no need to waste money hiring one.

All he had to do was connect the master-bedroom door to his new house and walk back and forth.

Thanks to ‘My Comfortable Home,’ he didn’t even need to clean before moving in, so the entire move was finished in the blink of an eye.

Looking at his new home, now truly a luxurious residence fit for living, Haejin’s eyes sparkled.

‘Moving’s done, and my attack power went up a little. Then next... it’s time to find a weapon that can kill that bastard.’

That damned Basilisk.

While researching recently, he had learned that demand for Basilisk scales had skyrocketed.

Apparently, alchemists had discovered a new recipe for some kind of buff potion.

Thanks to impeccable timing, the intact corpse of an adult Basilisk was now so valuable that one could fetch as much as five billion won.

Just hearing the number was enough to make someone fall over backward.

Juvenile Basilisk prices had risen too, skyrocketing from around one hundred million won to anywhere between three hundred and five hundred million.

They were practically living gold now.

‘Just wait a little longer, you damn lizard. I’ll be coming to avenge my spear soon.’

Haejin had a plan.

As always.

There might be a few waves along the way, but everything was steadily moving forward with the wind at his back.