There is No Such Thing as a Bad Hunter

Since there were a lot of people at Chungram Department Store, Jiho was easily able to slip in with the crowd.

Thanks to the great influence of Chungram Guild after the fissures broke out, Chungram, which had been expanding its business, acquired a department store that was on its way to ruin.
They reorganized the goods that were already there and created a second building for hunters that only sells hunter items next to the main building.

The first to fourth floor of the hunter building were open to the public.

Anyone with money can buy potions made by an alchemist or items that are allowed by the Hunter Association.

From the fifth floor on, however, they sell dungeon items, so only hunters can enter those levels.

“Hunter Shin Jiho-nim, your identification has been verified.”

The guard at the entrance recognized Jiho and greeted him respectfully.
Jiho waved his hand to tell him to stop before going in.

Since Jiho usually visited the department store after it was closed, this was the first time he’s come when there’s a lot of people.
Instead of exploring the store, Jiho went straight up to the highest floor.

On the highest floor of the hunter building, an auction for dungeon items takes place regularly.

Chungram Department Store’s hunter auction is the largest exchange of high-rank dungeon items in the world. 

That’s because the world’s only SS-rank hunter, Joo Yiwon, and Chungram Guild trade items exclusively with this auction.

Every half-month, a special auction specifically for high-rank items opens up.

Coincidentally, today was that day of the special auction.

Jiho walked towards the place where they exhibit and appraise magic stones.

The auction hall gave Jiho a spot on the VIP table in the corner. 

They freed up the spots next to Jiho for him.
Jiho didn’t want to raise a commotion, so instead of refusing, he quietly sat down on the spot.

The hunters that filled the seats near him were all high-rank hunters.
Just from a glance, you could tell they were draped in valuable items.

The auction started amidst a quiet atmosphere.

The first item to be brought out was a C-rank equipment item.
Even though this was a special auction, that didn’t mean all the items were high-rank items.

The hunters here were all either guildmasters or hunters that lead their own teams.
They busily bid for items for their guild or team members. 

Unlike them, Jiho was quiet for a long time.

A long time passed.

When a short, ivory-colored piece of armor made of cloth appeared, Jiho’s eyes sparkled.
Jiho sat up straight.

“This is a C-rank piece of armor dropped by a flying monster from Sokcho’s second void-attribute dungeon.
Because the size of the item cannot be adjusted, this item will fit well on hunters under 170cm in height.”

“2.5M gold for this C-rank agility-increasing armor, any other offers?”

As the price slowly increased, Jiho read through the item’s window.

Information

The increase of agility by 10 mentioned by the auction hall is not a large amount.
But reducing fatigue every two hours was a good option.
On long dungeon raids, you can heal injuries with potions or skills, but it’s hard to take care of the small amounts of fatigue that build up.

Unlike how it had been evaluated by the auction, the item’s rank shown on its window was A-rank.

That is not an item that should be sold for a mere 2.5M gold. 

There have been several occasions where good items were sold for less than their worth.
There is a limit to evaluating items.

Because of this, there are frequent examples of when items bought at a cheap price have unexpected powers or when items bought at a high price are worse than expected.

Today, the items that Jiho was going for were items like this.
Items that have not been properly evaluated and are priced lower than their actual worth.

Truthfully, the amount of gold that Jiho has is not that much.
It is impossible to convert normal currency to the hunter currency of gold.
Of course, it seems like it’s possible in shady places, but Jiho had no thought of going to those kinds of places.

Because he saved all of the gold he earned until now, equipment was always put on the back burner, but today, he planned to use as much as possible.
To prepare for what is to come.

Jiho bid for the item. 

“10M, 10M has come out.”

As the item that was about to be sold for 2.5M was suddenly bought by some fool who raised the price by four times the original amount, the auction hall went into a frenzy.
Unlike the confused atmosphere around him, Jiho smiled.

Although he bought it for a high price, it was still a positive.
If the item had been appraised properly, it would have been worth several tens of millions of gold.

Like this, Jiho bought all of the items that had not been evaluated properly and received a low rank.
He also bid for a few items that had been appraised properly because he wanted them.

Once he started buying, Jiho bought like a person who had never been able to buy before.

Although Jiho wasn’t the type of person to waste money, he had never not gotten what he wanted since he was young.
But as he started to run a guild, every piece of gold had to be carefully calculated so… he felt cathartic from buying this way.

Footnotes

1. About $841,000.

2. The expression here is 김칫국부터 마신다 which literally means that he’s drinking kimchi soup before something happens.
The expression means that you should be humble and not get excited expecting something from someone before getting your hopes up.
Nowadays, it’s used more casually, like getting ahead of yourself.

3. This is so sad ㅠㅠ.
Don’t think about these things Jiho ㅠㅠ.

4. From what I know, there’s no proper translation for this so I’m trying to get the pronunciation as close as I can to the original.