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“This is driving me mad…” But for some reason today, Noel was struggling with one hand on her forehead. She was looking at the sheets of paper on her desk with a solemn expression. And after contemplating it for a while, Noel finally let out a long sigh. In the end, she was just an assistant; she couldn’t be a game changer like Chi-Hyun.

“…It can’t be helped.” Noel got up from her seat.

***

They reached an agreement with the buhguhbus and fulfilled the second condition.

[Yeriel Lilly Dula Mariaju- Page (1/1)]

2. Become acknowledged by the ‘buhguhbus’ tribe and gain their cooperation (Complete)

It was easier than Chi-Woo had expected, but he couldn’t celebrate yet as there were still four other conditions to fulfill. Among them, the most urgent condition was to find a tohari. Chi-Woo asked where he could get one and was astonished by the answer he got.

[I don’t know either.]

This was Mangil’s answer. But even he seemed apologetic for the unhelpful response and hurriedly added a couple of words. To sum things up, it appeared that tohari was like a very rare ginseng in that one couldn’t find it easily even if they wanted to. Furthermore, since tohari moved around of its own will, it was even more difficult to find. Thus, when blacksmiths happened to find it, they all celebrated in joy. Furthermore, it’d been decades since one was last seen because of how rare it was. Chi-Woo didn’t find any more useful information besides that, and right now, the task of finding a tohari seemed like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“I will try my best for now. Meanwhile, Ms. Yeriel—”

“Yes, yes. I know. You’re telling me to rise to Platinum rank and become an Advanced Professional Engineer, right? I got it.”

“But considering the situation…I’m not sure if I can do my part. Don’t expect too much,” Chi-Woo said.

“No, I will be brimming with expectations and hope. So much so that I wouldn’t be able to get a wink of sleep from the excitement. So, you must find it at all costs. For me and our children, okay?”

“But we don’t even have any children between us.”

“Not yet, but don’t worry. As soon as you get that tohari for us, I will give birth to two kids. One son and one daughter.”

“No.”

“Oh my, do you want to have more than that? What a beast. But that’s fine. I’m fine with having ten kids or a hundred. It’s all fine as long as you get that tohari.”

Chi-Woo thought Yeriel would tell him to not feel too pressured out of etiquette, but she did the opposite. She pressured him even more and made him promise to get it; and even when they were parting ways, she cheered him on, saying, “Have a safe trip! And don’t forget to bring back a lot of toharis when you come back!”

Chi-Woo left feeling like a dad with the great burden of feeding his large family. And on his way back, he met Eval Sevaru. Chi-Woo explained the situation to him, and Eval told him, “Boss, why don’t you ask around at the Apertum?”

“Apertum?”

“You know, the tower that long-head guy set up. The tower has the biggest moving population in this city, and you can take advantage of the collective intelligence there.”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. It won’t hurt to try, but what do I do?”

“First of all, you should clearly lay out the details of your request, and you should think of the compensation fee.”

“What do you mean by ‘compensation fee’?”

“The money you will give to a person for giving the information you need. When a client is looking for information at Apertum, they are supposed to write down the sum they are willing to pay. Whether you like the information you end up getting or not, you would need to pay the price you promise.”

Chi-Woo looked a bit taken aback by Eval’s explanation.

“That doesn’t sound favorable to the one making the request.”

“It depends on how you set up the request. If you just write down that you want information about tohari, you might attract any random guy looking for some extra cash; but if you write down that you are looking for a place to find a tohari, you could weed out some people. Also, you can set up the minimum and maximum price you are willing to offer, so there’s sort of a safety net you can fall back to.”

“Ah, that sounds more reasonable.”

“Yes. Of course, selling information depends largely on how the seller feels. It’s important to consider what minimum price would make them feel assured and what maximum price would make them want to spill out all they know. In the end, so much of it is a psychological battle…but you can leave that part to me.” And Eval explained that Seven Stars had a lot of extra savings thanks to Ho Lactea taking a large brunt of their construction fee.

“Let me see. We first need a card to prove our identities…”

A card? Seeing Eval fumble through his pockets, Chi-Woo also looked through his belongings just in case.

“Are you talking about this card?” Chi-Woo took out the black card he had. It was the card Zelit gave to him when he visited Apertum with his brother last time.

[Besides the principle, what about the interest?]

[Here. Take it whenever you need it. Whenever and how much you want.]

Zelit told him while handing over the card.

‘Ah found it!’ Eval finally took out an ashy copper-colored card and raised his head. When he saw the black card in Chi-Woo’s hand, his eyes widened, and his mouth gaped open.

“B-B-B-B….!” His whole body trembled, and he couldn’t finish his thought.

“What’s wrong? Is this not the right card?” Chi-Woo tilted his head and extended the card.

“Oh shit! This is the black card! Blaaack!” Eval shouted and seized the card from Chi-Woo’s hands. Then he rolled his feet and rejoiced loudly. Chi-Woo was greatly taken aback because Eval usually didn’t act like this.

“Boss! How did you get this? I thought you had never used the Apertum before.”

“Mr. Zelit gave it to me.”

“Ha! That man. I thought he kept to himself, but he also knows which line to ride on. Fufu. Anyways, everything changes with a black card. I worried for nothing.”

“Could you explain a bit…?”

“Ah, that’s right. The most important thing in Apertum is this card. It shows how much others can trust the card owner.”

The more times a client paid the payments they promised and satisfied the seller’s expectations, the more their trust ranks went up. After fulfilling a specific number of requirements, they gained a new card, and the card was basically a way to signify the person’s trust rank. An ashy copper-colored card was basically Steel tier in terms of the growth system, and Chi-Woo’s black card was akin to a Challenger rank.

“In short, it’s like having a gold key since the Apertum is vouching for your credibility.”

Black was the highest rank a person could reach in the Apertum, and in this way, the card was saying, ‘The owner of this card can be trusted 200%’. As a result, they would be freed from all sorts of complicated rules involved in the exchange.

“With this, we will guarantee trust from the other party. Furthermore, possessing a black card shows that you have an incredible amount of influence, so I doubt anyone would dare to try to con you.” Eval stroked the black card like he yearned for it. “Anyways, with this, unless there’s no one in Shalyh who knows the information you seek, there would be nothing you can’t find with this card.”

It appeared Eval felt impatient to try the card out and hurriedly went to fill out a request form.

***

Chi-Woo didn’t know too well, but the power of a black card was clearly great. As soon as they placed the request, Apertum publicly advertised it and searched for a seller. Many Apertum users talked amongst themselves since it was their first time seeing someone possess a black card.

And the next day, Eval sought Chi-Woo out early in the morning. Perhaps it was the advertising effect of the Apertum, but a potential seller had appeared in just a day.

“The seller at least knew that tohari was a fire that moved on its own will,” Eval said.

“Then it must mean the seller isn’t lying about the whole thing,” Chi-Woo said.

“Yes Boss, but the price she is asking for is quite high.”

“How much?”

“She heard about a place where one could find a tohari, but she can’t be a hundred percent sure of its whereabouts since it’s been a long time since she heard it. But for revealing the place, she is asking for 50,000 royals.”

“That much?” Chi-Woo asked in shock. That was a high price for some uncertain information.

“But she added that on the account that you found some success, she won’t claim any ownership of it. And she promised to keep her mouth sealed for just 50,000 royals.”

“Shouldn’t that be obvious?”

“Yes, but why did she even bother to bring that up?” Eval questioned, and Chi-Woo contemplated. He soon came to a realization since he wasn’t a complete idiot.

“That must mean there’s something else besides tohari.”

“I’m sure that it’s ‘there could be something’ rather than ‘there is’. That’s what I got based on what she said…so what should I do, Boss?”

Chi-Woo pondered and asked after a sudden thought, “Could I perhaps ask about the identity of the seller?”

“Yes, the seller is…”

Chi-Woo was slightly surprised to hear who the person was, but soon he said determinedly, “Please arrange a meeting with her. I want to hear her out too.”

***

“Wow, this building is really cool,” the seller visited Seven Stars on that very day. “Hello, hello. It’s been a while.”

“Yes, I don’t think we’ve seen each other since we went to rescue the eighth recruits,” Chi-Woo replied to the woman waving at him.

“Yes, probably. But I thought I would be meeting the legend after hearing that the client possess the black card. I didn’t think it would be you at all,” Shadia said, and Chi-Woo smiled.

Chi-Woo had been in a team with her at the Salem Academy exploration and also received her help during the eighth recruit rescue mission. Chi-Woo thought he would be able to get some extra help from her again this time and decided to meet her in person.

“How have you been?”

“Thanks to you, it’s been pretty good. I’m not doing amazing, but I have a house and can take care of myself. I’m currently at the silver tier too.” And after a short exchange of greetings, the two got to the main topic.

“It feels uncomfortable to tell my former boss this, but you know that you have to pay me 50,000 royals if I give you the information I have, right?”

“I will decide after hearing you out. I could give you less or more depending on your answer.” That was the privilege of the black card. The owner of the card didn’t need to follow the rules of Apertum exactly.

“Fufu, as I thought, you aren’t easy. But it’s fine since I’m also confident in my information. I just have to hope that you aren’t planning to underpay me.” It seemed Shadia was confident since she didn’t insist on getting that 50,000 royals right away. Chi-Woo felt his expectations rise as he craned his ears.

“Let me see. Where should I begin…? Ah, yes. Since you are my former boss, you must know a bit about me—that I am a magician but also have knowledge in alchemy.”

“Yes, I do know. I’m still grateful for the potions you gave me before.”

“Tee-hee. Anyways, I continued to make potions even after coming to Shalyh. Since I could produce ingredients myself as long as I had mana, I was able to make a good amount of money,” Shadia said while pointing at the top of her head, which was looking lumpy under her hoodie.

“Of course, I didn’t always sell everything I had. I sometimes gave some leftover potions away for charity\'s sake. For example, I looked after sick natives and distributed some for free.”

“How nice of you.”

“Not really? I did it to gain merits,” Shadia shrugged and continued, “Anyways, once I began to do that, I did it routinely. It didn’t take me long to build relationships and get to know people. Then, one day, an old native who lived by himself told me a story from long ago.”

To summarize Shadia’s story, it went like this: during the time when humans were still thriving on Liber, there was a legendary thief. The thief mainly robbed tombs and looked through all the tombs in the world. Yet the thief had one great ambition and wish: it was to find and rob the tomb of the great emperor who had united an entire continent in ancient times. But this wasn’t an easy task. Even after searching for it his whole life, he couldn’t even pinpoint the location of the tomb.

Not only was the tomb built a long time ago, but the descendants of the emperor had also thoroughly kept the location of the tomb a secret. They were so secretive about it that they killed everyone who worked on its construction. Historians only wrote down their general guesses of where the tomb could be, but there were no details recorded anywhere. A great length of time had passed since then so that stories of the tomb were only passed down as legends, but the thief didn’t give up. They carefully studied the few records about the possible locations and continued to investigate and search. In the end, they were rewarded for their hard work; on one cold winter, the thief experienced something strange.

Inside a mountain where a snowstorm was raging, there was one area where the temperature was different from the rest of the land. While all other parts of the region were frozen and buried under piles of snow, that territory alone was free of the slippery layer of ice. It was a very subtle difference, but the thief’s sensitive senses didn’t miss it, and they wandered around looking for the area with the greatest temperature difference and dug there. They then found the reason for the difference.

“With an empire where the sun never set, he made it so that he could always see the world he created in a bright place,” Shadia sang the words, “It’s one of the few records that historians wrote about the tomb. And the next lines go like this:”

Shadia cleared her throat and continued, “Thus, they caught several fires moving alive and lit up the insides of the area to make it bright as day….”

Chi-Woo’s eyes lit up at those words. The heat from the mysterious beings crawling deep underneath the earth was seeping outside and making the area a different temperature from the rest of the mountain.

“How is it?” Shadia smirked seeing Chi-Woo’s response and asked, “When they are talking about a fire moving alive…they are talking about a tohari right?”