The S-Classes That I Raised

Chapter 552: Manhattan Auction House (3)

└ asdfkjlolololololololololol? Ah seriously, I think I just used up all the laughter I had for my whole life now.

└ lolololol I wanna see how delicate he looks too, Yujin T_T

└ This is crazy, Sesung Guild Leader lololol. Yujin, swap eyes with me just once.

└ So delicate lolol. Yujin’s gonna be kicking his blankets over this later lololol.

└ □□□□ has probably never been called delicate once in his whole life.

The back of my neck burned. I coughed for no reason.

“Judging from how you’re laughing, you must be big, strapping Hunters. Naturally.”

Statistically speaking. Among this round’s participants, the only ones you could call small are Yerim and me. Well, there’s Gyeol and Peace in his spirit form too. Judging from their reaction, they’re probably sturdy Hunters around two meters tall even among Hunters. Yeah, I guess this would be hilarious to them.

└ Let us see the unfiltered face!!! I!! also!!! wanna check out that delicate slave face lololol?

└ I’m watching both streams at once and the other side is going wild too lol.

└ Yujin, how do they look through your eyes??

“Mm, so… they’re a pair of twin siblings, late teens–ish…?”

└ Twin lolololol siblings lololololol

Judging by how they were dying of laughter at the word “siblings”, odds were both of them were men. Or else they had some kind of relationship that made “siblings” a really weird label. No way it was Yerim and Chief Song. No, that made no sense. They were bottom–tier. The chances of them being people I knew were really, really low.

“They’re small too. About Yerim’s size? They both have short silver hair, and they’re pale…”

…Right, I’m glad you’re all having fun. What now. Just from appearances, it looks like I could tuck them under my arm and run, but if their strength and weight are the same as usual, that’d be hard. And from the feel of it, I’d have to take both of them. The handcuffs linking the twins together. If I could separate them, I could leave one as bait and only take the other. Should I use a Cookie?

I was about to cancel my Stealth skill to talk to them when–

Creak.

I heard the sound of the closed door opening. I held my breath and slipped into a corner. A Hunter, probably a thief, stepped inside and headed straight toward the twins without hesitation.

└ Another thief?

└ □□□□□□□!!

They’d probably get stolen. The thief grabbed the cell door and tore it off in one go. If you’re going to call yourself a thief, at least pretend to pick the lock. No pride in your work at all.

└ He’s gonna lose them!!

└ Stop him quick 111111111

└ All the participants here are way stronger than HYJ tho? How do you stop that.

Fair point. I couldn’t stop them by force. As the thief dragged the twin siblings out of the cell, I hurriedly pulled out a police uniform, threw it on, and canceled my Stealth skill.

“I knew you’d come, Thief Hunter!”

I deliberately added “Hunter” to show I wasn’t one of the non–participant cops. The thief flinched in surprise and turned to look at me.

“There’s no cops he–”

“It’s a police special skill.”

“What? Damn, that’s cheating!”

Yes, it is cheating. The thief ground his teeth but calmly checked my position. Maybe he thought I was a high–rank Hunter; he didn’t dare rush me and instead looked for an escape route. Please, get away safely.

└ Thief vs con artist

└ That thief’s personal stream is flipped lololol, in a sea of □□□□ they’re yelling at them to fight or run lolol.

└ I’m going to their stream too, gotta tell them to just run lol. Yujin, fighting!

└ Me too me too

So they could at least backseat “run” or “fight”. Luckily, that Hunter seemed too focused on me to properly check their chat window. If “try fighting” had been the dominant opinion, they might have gotten suspicious, so that was a relief.

I curled my lips at the Hunter and rubbed my thumb and forefinger together like one of the eliminated cops.

“Hand over one gold coin. Then I’ll let you go.”

The Hunter grimaced hard and pulled out a gold coin.

“Don’t move. I’ll go to the door and throw it.”

Keeping as much distance from me as possible, the Hunter slowly moved toward the door. Then they threw the coin inside to the far side from me and bolted.

“Wow, thank you kindly.”

└ You stripped him clean lolol, just eating it all up lolol?

└ I went around all the other personal streams and I swear Han Yujin’s and the Yerim–Song stream are the funniest lolol, I’m losing it lolol.

└ □□□□ In the thief’s personal stream, I bet half of what’s getting filtered is swearing lololol. If he just rushed him he’d probably win lol.

└ I just came from the stream that got robbed, it was so frustrating!!!!

└ Feels like viewers increase every time Han Yujin robs someone. Anyone here from the eliminated cop streams?

└ Me!!!!!!!!

└ Once you’re eliminated the stream ends, so I came over here 😉

So if you die and get knocked out early, you can’t stream at all. Do you just wait unconscious until the end, like when your invitation gets stolen? If I think about the stream, I’ve gotta survive as long as possible.

When I approached the twins inside the cell, a message window popped up.

[The Slave team must always stay together.]

[Skills and items cannot be used on Slaves.]

Great. Well, of course, if you could use skills and items on them, it’d be too easy. There are Hunters with teleport or flight skills, after all. I really should cooperate with a Capitalist. How am I supposed to drag two of them around by myself.

“Um, I was just pretending to be a cop, I’m actually a thief.”

I awkwardly spoke up.

“Your role is ‘Slave’ for now, but… what should I call you?”

Calling them “Mr. Slave” or something felt wrong. Even more so with how they currently looked. If they were older than me and ridiculously burly Hunters, maybe.

└ Yujin, why are you like this lolol

└ This is insane lololol what do we even do lololol

“People are naturally weak to what they see! They look way younger than me, and all that.”

It’s like how Peace is an S–class monster that could drop an elephant in one hit, but in his spirit form he looks fragile and cute. To my eyes, they’re, well, kids!

“Can the blindfold come off? Want me to help you up?”

└ Yujin, I’m definitely rewatching your stream later.

└ For real, you have to watch it lolololol

└ He can’t even call □□ by □□… The greatness of Hangeul has been seen through… Honestly, this is more unfair than Hong Gildong.

No matter what the chat said, I helped the twins up. Why were they barefoot.

“Not even giving you shoes is too much. What is this, in the middle of New York. Where are the human rights, human rights.”

Even if this isn’t real. I couldn’t do anything about the cuffs, but the blindfolds came off. It seemed the Slaves couldn’t remove them themselves. If it were some thief other than me, it’d be better to keep their vision blocked, cut off their information, and just drag them around, but I needed the Slaves’ cooperation.

Once I removed the blindfolds, two pairs of bright red eyes were revealed. Two identical faces, cute and pretty, stared at me at the same time.

“They’re just like a white rabbi… I mean, to my eyes, to my eyes! It’s how Chatterbox made you look!”

This is Chatterbox’s fault. I’m not the weird one!

“S–so, for now, will you come with me? I don’t know what the Slave win condition is though.”

The twins blinked, then nodded. Wait, could it be.

“You can’t talk?”

They nodded again. Seriously, what the hell, Chatterbox…

‘Wait. Could it be that Slaves are the ones who know the most information or something?’

They couldn’t attack anyone. Since they just quietly stayed locked up, it seemed even simple use of force was restricted. With conditions this unfair, they had to be advantageous in some other way.

‘Usually, that’s information.’

‘Maybe Slaves know the conditions for every role. And they can win by using that.’

My head was getting complicated, but more importantly–

“Let’s get out of here, quickly.”

Escape came first. Thankfully, that thief from before seemed to have taken care of all the guards. That must be why nobody showed up even with the noise. But I didn’t know when another thief might barge in.

“I’ll keep pretending to be a cop until we get outside. The cuffs…”

I pulled out a Breeding Facility towel from my inventory. With information blocked, it would probably just look like an ordinary towel. Even if not, the commemorative towels had been widely handed out to Hunters, so it’d be hard to figure out someone’s identity from it. I wrapped the towel around the chain connecting the twins’ wrists to hide it.

└ □□□□□□ I don’t know if I should say this but… this is so fake–sweet…

└ Throw away the shell

└ Dear Slave, this is your cue to strike an even more delicate pose…

One of the twins checked their own chat and beamed. Naturally, I couldn’t see other participants’ chats. The other twin shook their bound wrist a little irritably, as if tugging. If my chat was like this, the Slave chat had to be absolute chaos.

“Please follow me from a little distance. I’ll trust you.”

They wouldn’t run, right. I could tie them up with wire and hold on, but I didn’t feel like it. To make thieves avoid me on their own, I deliberately pulled out a longsword. If I was holding a sword instead of a gun, they’d think, “Oh, a Hunter!” I looked ready to fight, so they’d probably run the moment they saw me.

Once preparations were done, we slipped outside. A guard was lying unconscious in the hallway. Near the stairs, only a guard’s cap was rolling around. They’d probably died and vanished. I grabbed the unconscious guard’s shoes.

‘The non–participants must be complete illusions.’

They didn’t seem to be physical entities like monsters in a dungeon. If they actually existed based on a dungeon, there would at least be fragments of incomplete magic stones left behind, like in the Chinese dungeon.

Maybe that was the difference between things based on the power of the Source and things created by Chatterbox’s ability. The people in the Japanese and Chinese dungeons that were based on the Source… could become real. Strictly speaking, we and our world were also born from the power of the Source, so if you think about it, it’s hard to say which side is fake and which is real.

“Police?!”

A thief who seemed to be coming down to the basement saw me, flinched, and ran away. Convenient. But the non–participant guards…

“Who are you!”

blocked my path.

“Viewer discretion advised.”

They’d mosaic it on their own anyway. I charged in before the guards could draw their weapons. They were men about twice my size, but they were unawakened and itemless. Not opponents I couldn’t handle.

“Sto–”

I threw the longsword I was holding at the guard drawing his gun. At the same time, I drew a dagger and lowered my body, slipping between the two guards. The fist flying at me felt slow. I lightly tilted my head to dodge and raised the dagger’s edge straight up in a slash.

No blood spattered. Even the wounds looked unreal. The guard whose neck had been slit vertically from just below his chin vanished like smoke, and I pushed off the ball of my foot, spinning my body. I reached out, grabbed the arm of the guard with the gun, and yanked him toward me. For all that bulk, he came along helplessly. As his upper body dropped low, I struck the back of his neck with the dagger’s hilt. When he collapsed with a grunt, I pulled off his shoes, then this time drove the dagger’s blade into his neck. The moment he took a fatal wound, he too vanished with a soft fade.

└ Even an F–class is still a Hunter…

└ If they’re geared up, even F–class can enter D–class dungeons and above.

└ Then shouldn’t we stop treating low–rank Hunters like “pre–awakeners”? It’s dangerous.

└ But if you’re F–class, getting top–tier gear itself is impossible, you know? Even mid–tier is hard T_T Only rich kids can do it.

└ If you’re that rich, why would you even become F–class and go to dungeons lolol

└ At that point it’s just a hobby.

In reality, rich people did go monster hunting as a hobby. Decked out in top–tier gear with high–rank Hunters guarding them. It was illegal, but they’d already gone around on African big–game hunts before all this.

“As you said, if you equip mostly high–grade gear that boosts stat points, even an F–class Hunter can clear D–class dungeons or higher. In theory.”

I gestured for the twins to hurry over as I spoke. I had no idea who the Slaves really were, but they listened well. Which made them look even cut… I mean, because of their looks! If I saw their real selves, I’d never think this.

“But there are many other factors in clearing a dungeon. Throw a newbie F–class Hunter with S–class gear into a D–class dungeon? They’ll die.”

└ Once you’re actually inside a dungeon, newbies seriously can’t do anything.

└ It’s basically accepted there are hidden stats too, like intelligence, recovery speed, guts, and stuff.

└ Chief Han’s guts are definitely S–class.

“For mid–rank Awakened, especially from B–class and up, they say they can respond relatively calmly even if they run into a monster without any preparation. But low–rank Awakened, even with theoretical training, are scared out of their wits most of the time. That’s why an E–class can fall to an F–class monster.”

My expression unconsciously stiffened. I tried to add that I’d been scared too, but that got stuck. That’d be pretty much the same as revealing I was F–class. From how I’d just fought, the twins had probably figured it out, but maybe things were mosaicked for them.

“Practical training for low–rank Hunters is absolutely necessary. If any of you viewers awaken and become Hunters, make sure to get practical training on your own, at least! With thorough preparation and dungeons that match your rank and experience, even low–rank Hunters can clear them safely.”

Compared to mid and high–rank Hunters, it might feel like they’re not worth investing in. But really, if you just pay a little attention, it makes things easier for everyone.

“Because the streets are rough.”

I held the guards’ shoes out to the twins. They were big, but better than nothing. If they were actually smaller, that would’ve been a problem too. If they had their real foot size, they might have been too small. Fortunately, both of them could put the shoes on. The twins bowed their heads at the same time in thanks. Very polite. Maybe they were originally good–natured Hunters.

└ Yujin, your face…

└ □□□□! □□□□□□□□!!!

└ Who’s in charge of the filter over there, I need a word.

└ Y–Yujin, I had a blackout so I couldn’t watch your stream.

└ I just got here too, what’s going on, why is □□□□□□ like that???????

One of the twins waved with a smile, and the other jabbed that twin hard in the side with an elbow. The one who got hit looked at me with a wronged expression.

“No fighting. You need to get along.”

└ Damn, look at □□□ acting all pitiful lololol

└ Poor □□□ lolololol

We slipped safely out the back door and into an alley. The way they were dragging their shoes looked uncomfortable, so I said I could carry them on my back if it got too hard to walk. One of them grinned, and the other frowned deeply again and swung a fist. I couldn’t tell if they got along or not. It did look like they were just teasing each other. Since they were a team, they couldn’t be that bad.

“Alright then.”

I told the twins to stay below for a bit and climbed up a building overlooking the auction house.

“Doing this in broad daylight is a liiittle embarrassing though.”

└ Someone said to tell Chief Song they’re sorry in advance.

└ Of course Chief Han can use bombs too, obviously yeah yeah yeah.

└ Blow it all up!!! Do whatever you want, Chief Han!!!

└ Let’s start pooling bail money for Yujin’s jail time in advance, 1/n

“Boom~”

I pressed the switch. And right away–

Bang! KWAANG! Bang!!

The bombs I’d planted started going off one after another. With clouds of dust, the building collapsed with a roar. I took out a telescope and checked the people evacuating outside the building. Let’s see, the neat suits were probably the Capitalists. It’d be nice if there were someone I knew among them.

Then, among the chat scrolling by about the explosions, I caught talk about the Police Commissioner.

└ Have you seen the Police Commissioner’s personal stream? Right now they’re □□□□□□ □□□□□□□□□

└ □□□ is the Police Commissioner really □□□□□□□□□□□□?

What on earth were they doing for people to be talking about them even here. Were they really going around killing all the cops? If so, that’d be great for me though.