Chapter 15 - First Task

First Task

He had two choices.

To either remain a scavenger or enter Aegis.

It was, in fact, a no brainer. Fortunately, such a beneficial opportunity introduced itself. He couldn’t be a scavenger forever, and he was offered all the conditions he wanted.

Nevertheless, he didn’t answer right away due to the irregularity of the situation. He was invited to the place where the best in the world were gathered. Additionally, he was offered recruitment at such an odd situation and by the team that he had just fought with.

Of course, with his abilities, he assumed that he would be in such a situation someday once he became stronger, but he didn’t think he’d be offered the opportunity this quickly.

The conditions were excellent.

To start with, one of the essential conditions was the salary portion; the company organized it so that the awakened divided the value of the core obtained fifty-fifty. Il-hyun thought that eighty-twenty was a lot of money, but if he belonged to a different company other than Aegis, he wouldn’t be exempted from the country’s huge taxes.

Overseas, in particular, where there was a shortage of human resources, consigned work with further compensation, and that alone would be worthwhile.

Better yet, he was not tied to the terms of the contract, and he could leave whenever he wanted to.

Over time, the treatment of contracted awakened had improved thanks to the fact that the executives themselves became awakened since the incident ten years ago.

Thanks to this, rather than pursuing the maximum profit, they made many proactive investments and have many gate-related technologies developed.

“So, I signed a contract.”

Il-hyun, who was lying on the sofa, looked into his phone and scratched his head.

He was still spending his second day at home, even after signing the contract.

Due to the nature of the Aegis company, there was no training or education program to raise prospects, and there was nothing to be done.

It was not helpful to Il-hyun, who was a predator in growth.

In the same vein, there was no need for a training center or training room in the company. Il-hyun heard when he became contracted that the contract would be put into action right away.

However, there was no action.

They said they would call him when something happened, but there has not been any news for two days.

He feared that they might have forgotten about him.

“What… I’ve heard about it before signing the contract.”

That’s not to say that Il-hyun didn’t expect anything at all.

Lee Soo-yeon told him in advance that there would be fewer jobs momentarily.

The Aegis A team, which had been dispatched to South America for some time, returned to South Korea.

It was a relatively narrow area compared to the other continental regions. The fact that the area was narrow meant that the gate was less likely to come out and was more convenient for them.

Not only that.

Being part of securing ether and diplomatic activities, the Korean government response team was active abroad. There was also a government response team that handled most of the high-ranking gates in Korea, reducing their work.

In fact, due to their home country’s symbolism, they interchanged teams and alternated vacations.

Though they rotated swiftly, he still thought it was a vacation and was a little reluctant to do anything while waiting.

Il-hyun sat up from a lying position and picked up his phone.

He was playing games to get inspiration to use for his future summons.

“A wolf with a horn?”

Il-hyun, who was swayed by the monsters coming out of the game, woke up while covering his cell phone.

Then, using the summoning ability, he began to form it as he had seen. However, there was a slight difference from his usual procedure. He did not use the transformation ability before summoning the monster.

The wolf appeared in the air from nothing.

“Hmm… It’s great, but I don’t know why it has horns there.”

Il-hyun shook his head as if he was not pleased.

He thought it would be better to increase the concentration of horns on the forehead.

“Anyway, I’m somewhat used to the summoning ability.”

Going forward, even if he did not use it with his transformation ability, he could still summon a monster without a base.

But, of course, it was still more efficient to use the ability as he did previously.

It took less power and was easy to maintain.

It was much more effective to use it together unless it was an unusual situation.

“Transformation and summoning, it’s fortunate that they synergize so well.”

Il-hyun, who summoned the horned wolf, picked up the paper on the table.

It was the result of the first contract condition; it was the awakened class inspection results—the intellect portion was omitted due to consideration by the company.

The test showed a rough grade by measuring numerous items such as body vision, muscle strength, and acceleration with a complicated device.

Awakening-grade testing was a fairly complex process and costly.

However, even though it was not mandatory, and even after considering the high cost, almost every person who awakened measured it periodically.

It was a test that has been proven to be quite reliable; it gave information that was vital for gauging a person’s current capacity. It was better to know your limits, and challenge monsters appropriate to your level rather than going in blindly and dying.

“I just barely got C-rank.”

It was higher than what he thought it would be.

Even a veteran awakener had to work for at least ten years under normal circumstances to reach the C-rank. That was also only applicable when the awakener had above-average talent.

It was said that the higher the level of awakening, the more difficult it became to grow to a higher level.

Even if the person had predation, it would have been impossible to grow steadily with only E rank cores. A turning point was needed; entering Aegis was the most conducive opportunity for him to grow.

But today, it was already past 6 pm, and there was no sign.

The sky continued to darken.

After checking his watch, Il-hyun hurriedly dressed up and left the house.

* * *

“Well? Didn’t you say you can’t come out because of work? “

“Sometimes, the schedule changes.”

Two friends sitting in a meat house looked at him with eyes wide open.

Il-hyun then came into the room with a smile.

“Hey, it’s been a long time.”

“Good. Sit down quickly.”

In the meantime, he was greeted by his friends, friends he hadn’t met in almost three months.

Kim Byeong-cheol was slightly larger in frame and was sitting on the left. He had an ugly face, which often mislead people as his appearance was no representative of his character. Besides, he was a passionate fan of Lee Soo-yeon, who just became Il-hyun’s colleague.

On the right was Kwon Se-hyeong, a guy who worked in the field directly from Special Scene. Even though the special police work was challenging, his salary remained substantial enough to offset it. Because of that, the competition was quite fierce compared to the general police. He was probably the most successful of the three.

It wasn’t long before the liquor began flowing, and they continued talking, adding two additional bottles of soju.

“I went to the scene last night and got Lee Taehee’s autograph. Originally, the awakened don’t do that kind of thing but this brother got one.”

“Hey.”

When Kwon Se-hyung noticed the subject matter, he smacked Kim Byeong-cheol.

“Oh right.”

Kim Byeong-cheol, who was still excited quickly closed his mouth.

Apart from his livelihood, Kim Byung-cheol was a big fan of digging deeper into the gate and the awakened.

After the gate crisis, like fans of celebrities, passionate fans arose. In fact, not only that, but most people paid attention and were eager to hear this kind of stories.

However, Kim Byung-cheol and Kwon Se-hyeong had refrained from telling their stories as much as possible for Il-hyun’s sake.

But that was in the past, things were different now for Il-hyun.

“Continue. I don’t care if you talk about it now.”

“What? Why, all of a sudden? If it was an awakening story, you always became depressed in the past.”

“I don’t know if I can tell you. Ha-ha.”

Il-hyun, smiled, and passed the cup of soju.

Initially, he wasn’t weak to alchohol, but after he became an awakener, soju had the same effectiveness as water.

Rather than getting drunk now, the more he passed the cup, the clearer his mind became.

“I quit the company.”

“I sang a song saying I wanted to quit, and I finally got it.”

“Oh what, are you here to rob me today?”

Kwon Se-hyung’s mind hovered through the thought that the company suddenly changed the schedule today.

Of course not.

“No, I quit it for over two weeks. And I got a job elsewhere.”

“I’m glad.”

“Where?”

His eyes were focused on him, and Il-hyun hesitated for a moment.

And slowly opened his mouth.

“Aegis.”

“Foo-haha!”

“Aha-haha, I thought you were serious!”

At the mention of Aegis, the friends laughed boisterously.

Although he expected it, Il-hyun sighed at the reaction.

“Ha, I knew you guys would react this way.”

The two friends began to talk about the new topic, regardless of his slight mumbling.

“I wish I could get a job at Aegis too. Then, can I see Lee Soo-yeon every day? O-M-G.”

“It’s a dream job, even if you’re not an awakener. It is said that the white-collar job starts at 100 million won. There are a lot of people who have a career in special forces and still want to transfer to their backup team.”

“No, I’m being serious though.”

“Don’t make jokes like that, just eat the meat man.”

“I’m not kiddi-“

Kim Byeong-cheol put meat in Il-hyun’s mouth with forceps.

Then, Hyun-moo drew a tissue to wipe the oil off his mouth.

“Oh, really. Would you like to show your abilities here?”

“I think I saw salt powder move last time.”

His friends weren’t going to believe him.

As Il-hyun was considering to deform the spoon slightly, the outside suddenly became disturbed.

People on the street outside gathered and stared at the sky.

“What?”

The people inside the houses and Il-hyun’s party that looked out through a glass window were all shocked due to the sudden turmoil.

“Well. The text came.”

Il-hyun, looking out, looked at his phone.

And when he realized who the letter came from, his face turned pale.

“No… can’t you wait?”

A white VTOL transporter with a tremendous appearance landed on an unobstructed street in the alley.

With the advent of the transport, which didn’t go well with the surroundings, people took pictures of it, and soon the door of the transport came open.

Ghost and Lee Soo-yeon, wore a black coat, and the skull mask came out. The sounds of cheers and screams came from the people.

They opened the glass door and went into the meat house.

When his idols came closer, Kim Byeong-cheol could not move. It was as if he was stunned.

Lee Soo-yeon approached Il-hyun, who was still standing in amazement, then tossed a defense coat and a sword towards him.

Il-hyun stared at them embarrassedly.

“What are you doing? I’m here to pick you up. Put those on fast.”