The Seokyeong Guild was the world's first guild, established 12 years ago during the Apocalypse by an Awakened from the Republic of Korea named Lee Seokyeong.
One day, monsters impervious to human weapons suddenly appeared, and a translucent screen materialized before people's eyes.
This translucent screen introduced itself as the "Gaia System".
Nowadays, we know that the "Gaia System" is a massive framework or administrator that manages phenomena inexplicable by science, such as skills, items, and stats. However, at the time, people had no capacity to understand such things.
In a world where everything, both cities and nature, was destroyed, and survival became the utmost priority, the guild named Seokyeong emerged. It led the charge in defeating monsters, protecting civilians, and organizing and sharing the methods to utilize the system screens. The first person to name individuals with similar abilities "Awakened" was also the inaugural Guild Master of Seokyeong. While other countries crumbled, the Republic of Korea was able to establish a relatively safe society quickly, thanks entirely to Seokyeong.
Having established itself from the early days of the Great Cataclysm, the Seokyeong Guild has now become the world's number one guild, recognized by everyone. Its headquarters are in Korea, with two branches in the United States, one in Europe, and one in eastern Russian, boasting over a thousand Awakened members worldwide.
Dominating the top spot for 12 years without any real competition, Seokyeong is the place every Awakened dreams of joining. The trend of two-character guild names in Asia for the past decade is also due to Seokyeong's influence. Ki Sang-hyuk, the Guild Master of Nakyup, named his guild "Nakyup" out of admiration for Seokyeong.
"Seokyeong, huh? Wow... I was thinking of begging the Hahoetal Bandit to help our struggling guild, but I guess that's not necessary anymore."
"Haha, we're rich now. The Bandit might even try to rob us."
"I don't understand why there's a grace period. We're already mentally prepared."
"Don't you think they need to prepare too? How do you think they feel about merging with a small guild like ours?"
"Yeah, I guess so. They said Seokyeong has five S-rank Hunters, right?"
"Yeah, two Koreans and three foreigners."
What makes Seokyeong particularly special is that it has five S-rank Hunters.
There are only about seventeen S-rank hunters worldwide, and excluding La Vigina, a survival Revenger who cannot fight, and Seo Chaeyoon, who is currently missing, there are only fifteen. Moreover, S-rank Hunters usually dislike taking orders and often leave to form their own guilds, so it's rare for any guild to have more than two. Yet, somehow, Seokyeong managed to retain five. Yoon Seo was quite curious about how they managed to recruit five S-rank Hunters who wouldn't be swayed by ordinary temptations.
"They must have offered a ton of money, like a hundred billion won a year."
"Hee-won, you still don't understand the ways of the world. For an S-rank, it's probably more like a trillion won."
"That's ridiculous. A trillion won?"
Go Hee-won scoffed, thinking it was a joke due to the absurd amount.
"It's true. They say S-rank Hunters can name their price. Whatever the price, they just hand over a blank check and say, 'Please, just sign with us'."
"That might be true, but a hundred billion won is an exaggeration. Our guild's annual revenue is only two billion won."
"Don't compare us to them. It just hurts."
"It's really strange. Why would they want to merge with a small guild like ours, which is often mocked for doing volunteer work? For Seokyeong, it's practically charity."
Go Hee-won's words were harsh but true. The Nakyup Guild, known for its kind-hearted Awakened members, often took on dungeon raids for a pittance, donated shield traps to slums, and sold dungeon by-products cheaply to welfare organizations. Because of this, members of profit-driven guilds like Rainbow would mock them whenever they crossed paths.
"Actually, this hasn't been reported yet."
Park Young-beom glanced around quickly.
They were currently in a shantytown.
Despite it being the weekend, the Public Support team had come to the shantytown to carry out one of Nakyup Guild's main activities—volunteer work. They were installing shield traps at the request of the local government, but the fee was so low it was practically volunteer work. They could only manage such a foolish task thanks to Yoon Seo's abilities. Like a master at installing shield traps, Yoon Seo could set them up quickly and neatly, allowing the three of them to finish installing traps for an entire neighborhood in just one day. The area Yoon Seo had just finished was their last for the day.
"Seokyeong has proposed mergers with six other guilds besides ours."
Even though there was no one around except for my Park Young-beom, Go Hee-won, and Yoon Seo, he lowered his voice.
"What? Six other guilds?"
"Shh, keep it down."
"There's no one here but cockroaches."
"What if a Hunter turned into a cockroach?"
"Come on, no way."
"Anyway, for some reason, they're merging with six small guilds, including ours. Over two hundred people will gather for the merger ceremony in two weeks, so be prepared."
"Two hundred people? If each small guild has at most twenty members, and there are seven guilds in total..."
"Yeah."
"Team Leader, you need to relearn multiplication."
"Why? Seven times twenty... That's 210 people."
Go Hee-won shook his head. Yoon Seo, who had been diligently working on the traps while the other two chatted, clapped his hands to shake off the dust. The two quickly ran over.
"Oh, Yoon Seo, you're done?"
"Just need to infuse it with mana."
"We'll handle that. You can rest now."
"Thanks for your hard work, Yoon Seo. You're definitely our guild's office ace."
"I've only been to the guild office twice this week. Does that make me an office worker?"
"For our planet, commuting to the office is office work. Commuting to another planet is fieldwork. By the way, the fieldwork ace is Soo-bin."
Yoon Seo chuckled at the quick response.
Three years ago, it was revealed that the inside of the dungeons was another galaxy. Since the Great Cataclysm, there had been various theories about the nature of dungeon spaces: parallel universes, simulated dimensions, playgrounds created by higher beings. But three years ago, scientific evidence emerged that they were alien planets. And these planets were surprisingly close to Earth.
One of these planets was Proxima B, a planet in the Proxima Centauri system, which had always been mentioned as a likely candidate for holding extraterrestrial life.
After this discovery, the number of people dreaming of encounters with aliens increased. Technically, the monsters inside the dungeons were also living beings, so humans had already encountered extraterrestrial life. However, the kind of aliens people wanted to meet were not monsters or the guardian deities of the Gaia System. They wanted intelligent beings who could communicate and looked somewhat like humans.
In the past, dreaming of meeting aliens would have branded you a conspiracy theorist. But now, saying that aliens didn't exist would get you labeled as one. Yoon Seo also believed that meeting aliens was just a matter of time.
While the other two were chatting, Yoon Seo, who had been working alone, handed over the final tasks to them and moved to a distant spot. The alley was narrow, so they had parked the car far away. With no proper place to sit, he squatted in the small shade created by a wall. Suddenly, someone called out to him from behind.
"Hunter, come over here and rest."
He turned around to see an old man in a tank top, sitting on a wooden floor inside a rusty iron gate, waving him over.
"Do you live here?"
"I'm the owner of this house. You're from that guild, Nakyup or something, here to install something, right?"
"We're the Public Support team from the Nakyup Guild, here to install shield traps."
"Yeah, Nakyup. Come on in. I'll give you some cold water. You look young; it must be tough."
"Thank you."
Yoon Seo quickly went inside. The old man watched him gulp down the water and exclaimed.
"Wow, up close, you're a handsome young man. You still look like a student. Are you a newbie?"
"I'm not a newbie."
"Sure you are. I saw those guys dumping all the work on you while they chatted away. There's always some hazing going on."
The old man clicked his tongue. Strictly speaking, Park Young-beom and Go Hee-won hadn't dumped the work on Yoon Seo; they trusted him to do it because he was the most precise. But Yoon Seo didn't bother to correct him.
"Would you like to have a meal before you go? Leave those guys out there."
"I appreciate the offer, but I'll pass."
"Thanks for today. It's tough work, especially in this heat, and the pay isn't great."
"We got paid well."
"Yeah, right. I can guess how much. We've been struggling with this shield installation for years. We don't have the money, and the local district doesn't want to spend much on us, but the government mandates it. We contacted various guilds, but the rates were too high, so it dragged on until now. Last year... You know Rainbow, right?"
"Yes, the Rainbow Guild."
"Rainbow did the whole neighborhood. They were working on those tall buildings across the street and did ours too. Rainbow, you know how famous they are. Everyone was so grateful, bowing and making a fuss. But a month ago, during that explosion, the shield completely shattered. We had a contract for B-rank protection, but the whole neighborhood got wrecked by a mere C-rank dungeon explosion. They did a shoddy job, damn it. Three people died because of it. Rainbow sent a restoration Hunter to fix the buildings, but what good is that? The people are gone. One woman, she was fifty-two, had just saved enough to leave this slum. She got crushed under the roof."
The old man pounded his chest, still fuming. Yoon Seo could guess what had happened. Non-Awakened people had no way of knowing the actual rank of a shield trap, and even if they did, they wouldn't know if it met the contracted strength until it was activated. This loophole allowed many guilds to scam people with subpar shield traps. Even the person who first conceptualized shield traps had been worried about this, but there was no solution.
"Survived the Great Cataclysm, only to die in this so-called peaceful era. We couldn't even afford a proper funeral. Those bastards used the excuse of restoring the buildings to avoid paying compensation."
"If they paid compensation, they'd be admitting they installed faulty shield traps. So, they won't pay. Did they even come to inspect?"
"They didn't even glance our way."
The old man sighed. Yoon Seo thought the old man needed some cold water now, so he poured some from the jug and handed it to him. The old man shook his head and lifted his drooping eyelids to glare at Yoon Seo.
"I trust the Nakyup Guild won't pull that kind of crap."
"It's Nakyup Guild."
"I don't care if someone like me dies. I've lived long enough. But people like that woman, who are trying so hard to live, shouldn't die. It's too unfair. She was so excited to finally leave this slum, and then she died so meaninglessly. I'm fine. An old man like me is fine. But she shouldn't have died."
The old man's lament faded into the air. Yoon Seo looked at his deeply wrinkled face.
"No, seonsaengnim. You shouldn't die either."
His tone was both gentle and firm. Yoon Seo added with a faint smile.
"There's no such thing as having lived long enough. No age is the right age to die, no matter how old you are."
"....."
The old man said nothing. Yoon Seo thanked him for the water and stood up.