The Seokyoung Guild was the world's first guild, established during the apocalypse 12 years ago by a Korean awakener named Lee Seokyoung.
One day, monsters immune to human weapons began pouring out, and translucent windows appeared before people's eyes.
These translucent windows described themselves as follows:
'Gaia System'
Now, we know that the 'Gaia System' is a massive framework or administrator that manages phenomena unexplainable by science, such as skills, items, and stats. However, at the time, people had no capacity to comprehend such things.
In a world where everything, cities, nature, and more was destroyed, survival was paramount. The guild bearing the name Seokyoung took the lead in defeating monsters, protecting civilians, and organizing the usage of system windows to share with the world. It was also the first to name people like themselves "awakeners." The reason South Korea was able to establish a relatively safe society so quickly, while other countries crumbled, was entirely thanks to Seokyoung.
Having been established from the early days of the great upheaval, the Seokyoung Guild has now become the undisputed number one guild globally. Its headquarters are in Korea, with two branches in the United States, one in Europe, and one in eastern Russia, and it boasts over 1,000 awakeners worldwide.
For 12 years, Seokyoung has dominated the top spot without competition, making it the place all awakeners dream of joining. Its influence is so great that two-character guild names have been a trend in Asia for a decade. Even the Guild of Leaves' leader, Ki Sanghyuk, named his guild Leaves because he admired Seokyoung.
"Seokyoung, huh… Wow. I was planning to beg for help from that masked phantom thief for our poor guild, but I guess I won't need to anymore."
"Kahaha, we're rich now. That thief might even end up stealing from us."
"I don't get why there's a grace period. We're ready already."
"Don't you think the other side needs time to prepare? Merging with a small guild like ours can't feel great for them."
"True. They said Seokyoung has five S-ranks, right?"
"Yeah, two Koreans and three foreigners."
What made Seokyoung especially remarkable was its possession of five S-rank hunters.
Globally, there were only about 17 S-ranks. Excluding the non-combatant survivor Revenger La Bijina and the missing Seo Chaeyoon, there were just 15. Furthermore, S-ranks often disliked taking orders and formed their own guilds, so it was rare for any guild to have more than two. Somehow, Seokyoung managed to keep five in its ranks. Yoon Seo was particularly curious about how they achieved this, as S-ranks were known to resist any temptations.
"They must've offered a ton of money, like, what, a hundred billion won in annual salary?"
"Heewon, you're clueless. For S-ranks, it's probably closer to a trillion won."
"That's ridiculous. A trillion? No way."
Goh Heewon scoffed, thinking it was a joke given the absurdity of the number.
"It's true. For S-ranks, their value is whatever they ask for. Guilds practically hand them blank checks, saying, 'Just sign with us.'"
"Sure, they might do that, but a trillion is over the top. Our guild's annual revenue is only two billion won."
"Don't compare us to them. It's too depressing."
"It's honestly fascinating. Why would they want to merge with a small guild like ours, the kind of guild that only gets mocked for doing volunteer work? For Seokyoung, this is basically charity."
Goh Heewon's blunt words were accurate. The Guild of Leaves, filled with particularly kind-hearted awakeners, often accepted dungeon requests at rock-bottom prices, donated shield traps to slums, and sold dungeon by-products at low prices to welfare organizations. These acts earned them mockery from guilds like Rainbow, which exploited civilians for profit.
"This isn't public knowledge yet, but…"
Park Youngbum glanced around quickly.
The place they were at was a shantytown.
Despite it being the weekend, the civilian support team had come to the shantytown to carry out one of the Guild of Leaves' main activities—volunteer work. Their task was to install shield traps at the request of a local government. However, the payment was absurdly low, essentially making it charity work. They could afford to do such foolish work thanks to Yoon Seo's abilities. Like a master of shield trap installation, Yoon Seo worked quickly and cleanly, enabling the three of them to complete the installation for an entire neighborhood in just one day. The area Yoon Seo had just finished was the last for the day.
"Apparently, Seokyoung has proposed mergers to six other guilds besides us."
Nearby, there were only Park Youngbum, Goh Heewon, and Yoon Seo, but Park Youngbum lowered his voice as much as possible.
"Six others? Seriously?"
"Shh, keep it down."
"There's no one around but cockroaches."
"What if a hunter turned into a cockroach?"
"No way, come on."
"Anyway, I don't know why, but they're merging with six small guilds, including us, all at once. Over 200 people will gather for the merger ceremony the week after next, so get ready."
"200 people? Small guilds have a maximum of 20 members, and you said there are seven guilds total."
"Yeah."
"Team Leader, you need to brush up on your multiplication."
"Why? Seven times 20… That's 210, isn't it?"
Goh Heewon shook her head in disbelief.
While the two were chatting away, pretending to work, Yoon Seo, who had been diligently inspecting traps beside them, clapped his hands to dust them off. The two immediately rushed over.
"Oh, Yoon Seo, are you done?"
"All that's left is infusing the mana."
"We'll handle that. You should rest now."
"You've worked hard, oppa. As expected, the ace of our guild's desk job team."
"I've only been to the guild office twice this week. How am I desk staff?"
"For us, commuting to planets is a desk job. Commuting to other planets is fieldwork. By the way, the fieldwork ace is Soobin oppa."
Yoon Seo chuckled at the answer, which seemed prepared in advance.
Three years ago, it was revealed that the space inside dungeons was another planetary system. Since the great upheaval, there had been various theories about dungeon spaces, parallel universes, simulated dimensions, playgrounds created by higher beings, but three years ago, scientific evidence proved they were alien planets. And these planets weren't even far from Earth.
It was a planet in the Proxima Centauri system, often mentioned in the past as a planet likely to harbor extraterrestrial life: Proxima b.
When this fact became known, more people began dreaming of encounters with aliens. Technically, the monsters in dungeons were living beings, so humanity had already met extraterrestrial life. However, the aliens people wanted weren't monsters or the blessing gods from the Gaia System. They wanted intelligent beings, capable of communication, resembling humans.
In the past, dreaming of alien encounters would get you labeled a conspiracy theorist. Now, it was the opposite, saying aliens didn't exist got you labeled as one. Yoon Seo also believed that meeting aliens was only a matter of time.
While the two continued their chatter, Yoon Seo handed over the finishing tasks and walked off to a more distant spot. Since it was a narrow alley, their car was parked far away. With no proper place to sit, Yoon Seo crouched in a small patch of shade cast by a wall. Then, someone called out to him from behind.
"Hey, hunter. Come rest here."
When he turned around, he saw an elderly man sitting on the wooden floor inside a rusty iron gate, wearing a sleeveless undershirt and motioning toward him.
"Do you live here?"
"I'm the owner of this house. You're from that guild, Leaves or whatever, here to install something, right?"
"We're the civilian support team from the Guild of Leaves, here to install shield traps."
"Yeah, Leaves. Come on in. I'll get you some cold water. You look young, must be tough for you."
"Thank you."
Yoon Seo quickly stepped inside. The old man, sitting next to Yoon Seo, watched him gulp down the water and let out a sound of admiration.
"Wow, you're a handsome young man up close. You still look like a student. Are you new?"
"I'm not new."
"You totally are. I saw those folks over there dumping all the work on you and just chatting away. Bullies like that are everywhere."
The old man clicked his tongue. Strictly speaking, it wasn't that Park Youngbum and Goh Heewon dumped the work on Yoon Seo, rather, they trusted him because he was the most precise. But Yoon Seo didn't bother to correct him.
"Do you want to eat something before you go? Just you, not those folks."
"I'll just accept the gesture, thank you."
"Thanks for today. Must've been hard working under the scorching sun for no pay."
"We got paid a lot."
"Yeah, sure, I can imagine how much. We've been struggling with this shield or barrier issue for years. We don't have the money for it, and the local district doesn't want to spend much on us either, but the government orders them to install it. They've been reaching out to guilds, but the cost never matches up, so it's been dragging on until now. Then, last year… you know Rainbow, right?"
"Yes, the Rainbow Guild."
"Rainbow came and installed barriers for the entire area. They were doing the tall buildings across the road and did ours while they were at it. Rainbow's a big name, so everyone was so thankful, bowing and making a huge fuss. But last month, during that explosion, the barrier completely shattered. They contracted for a B-rank barrier, but it broke to pieces from just a C-rank dungeon explosion, leaving the whole area in ruins. They clearly did a sloppy job. Three people died because of it. Rainbow sent recovery skill hunters to restore the buildings, but so what? The people are still gone. One woman, she was fifty-two, had just saved up enough to leave the shantytown. She got crushed under a roof and died."
The old man pounded his chest, still visibly upset. Yoon Seo could guess the situation. Non-Awakened people had no way to know the grade of a shield trap, and even if they did, they wouldn't know if it was truly up to contracted standards until it was activated. Many guilds scammed people this way with shield traps. It was a problem foreseen even by the person who originally designed shield traps, but there was no solution.
"She survived the Great Upheaval only to die in this so-called peaceful era. We couldn't even hold a proper funeral. Where would we get the money for that? Those bastards used the excuse that they restored the buildings and refused to pay compensation…."
"If they paid compensation, it'd be admitting their shield traps were poorly installed, so they'll never do it. Did they even come to check?"
"They didn't even glance this way."
The old man let out a sigh. Yoon Seo thought it was the old man who now needed cold water, so he poured some from the jug and handed it to him. The old man shook his head, raising his drooping eyelids to glare at Yoon Seo.
"I trust the Green Leaves Guild wouldn't pull something like that."
"It's the Guild of Leaves."
"It doesn't matter if someone like me dies. I've lived long enough. But people like that lady, who are trying so hard to live, shouldn't die. That's just too unfair. She was finally excited about leaving the shantytown, and she died so meaninglessly. I'm fine. Old people like me are fine. But that lady shouldn't have died."
The old man's lament scattered into the air. Yoon Seo looked at his deeply wrinkled face.
"No, sir. You shouldn't die either."
His tone was a mix of gentleness and firmness. Yoon Seo added with a faint smile.
"There's no such thing as someone who's lived long enough. There's no age where it's okay to die, no matter what that age may be."
"..."
The old man said nothing. Yoon Seo thanked him for the water and got up from his seat.