WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became the EX-Rank Pet Maker Hunters Obsess Over ◈

Chapter 26: Technology Theft

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While all of Korea was abuzz over Yoo Hyun placing in the competition and inventing a new technology,

Yeon Harim quietly kept busy raising her Hunter rank. Her efforts paid off, and she successfully advanced to S-rank, becoming Korea’s second S-rank Hunter.

The timing was unfortunate, though. News of her advancement seemed to have been buried beneath the attention surrounding Yoo Hyun.

But then...

[ Breaking News ] ‘Korea’s Second S-Rank’ Yeon Harim Holds Official Press Conference... “Yoo Hyun’s magical beast pet was the key to breaking through the A-rank wall.”

[ Feature ] “Yeon Harim at Press Conference: ‘Without Yoo Hyun’s magical beast pet, I couldn’t have crossed the S-rank wall’... Seismic shift in the Hunter world.”

[ Issue ] “Magical beasts are dangerous?” Pro-regulation lawmakers collectively fall silent after seeing the magical beast pet that made Yeon Harim an S-rank.

[ Exclusive ] Yeon Harim Confesses, “Wolyeong Guild’s meteoric rise? It’s all thanks to Yoo Hyun... I feel like giving him guild shares.”

As though she had saved the news for this exact moment, she announced her advancement at a press conference timed with Yoo Hyun’s return to Korea.

On the top floor of a guild tower that stood above all others in Seoul’s guild district, a neat-looking man with dyed blond hair muttered,

“So... Yeon Harim became S-rank thanks to Yoo Hyun’s magical beast pet?”

The suited man wearing glasses nodded and reported the information he had gathered.

“...Not only that, but it appears to have contributed greatly to Wolyeong Guild’s rise in the rankings. Wolyeong was ranked seventeenth until recently, but it has climbed to twelfth in Korea’s guild rankings. That is an extraordinarily rapid rise.”

“It really is an unbelievable surge... Now that Yeon Harim is officially S-rank, they could soon aim for tenth place as well. I thought that woman wouldn’t be able to match Baek Seola, but she’s surpassed Baek Seola in both Hunter rank and guild ranking.”

A guild that had hovered around twentieth place was suddenly producing incredible results and shooting up the rankings at astonishing speed.

The factors with the greatest impact on a guild’s ranking were, of course, Gate raids and the ranks of its affiliated Hunters.

Recently, Wolyeong’s momentum in clearing Gates had reached an entirely different level from before.

“Our analysis team reached the same conclusion as you regarding Yeon Harim, Guild Master. Her momentum is certainly remarkable, but Wolyeong is a mid-sized guild with fewer than a hundred Hunters. Its rise should slow from seventh place onward, where the massive guilds are concentrated.”

“Phew. Fine, I understand. You may leave now.”

Cheonseong was one of the guilds vying for first and second place in Korea.

It was a guild directly controlled by the Cheonseong chaebol family, established with the capital of Cheonseong Group.

Without question, it was one of Korea’s finest guilds. An enormous corporate giant that monopolized over twenty-five percent of domestic Gate rights and the magical-beast byproduct distribution market through overwhelming capital.

Yet despite being such a dominant guild, it could not become Korea’s undisputed number one.

That was because Cheonseong Guild had no S-rank Hunter.

Cheon Sanha, Cheonseong Guild’s master, was A-rank, while the Guild Master of Seogwang, which stood shoulder to shoulder with Cheonseong, was an S-rank Hunter.

Its rival had Korea’s sole S-rank Hunter... No, one of Korea’s two S-rank Hunters. So despite Cheonseong being indisputably Korea’s number one in sheer scale, discussions of the country’s best guild always placed it below Seogwang because Cheonseong lacked an S-rank Hunter.

Still, Cheon Sanha accepted that public assessment.

S-rank Hunters were exceedingly rare even on a global scale, and their value was immense.

Without an S-rank Hunter, it was difficult to hunt the monsters inside an S-rank Gate.

When monsters multiplied excessively within a Gate, they began pouring out of it.

That was a Gate Break.

If an S-rank Gate appeared in a country without an S-rank Hunter, it was an enormous emergency.

Of course, it was not completely impossible for A-rank Hunters to reduce the number of S-rank Gate monsters, but every attempt would come with sacrifices.

That was why countries without S-rank Hunters had to ask Hunters from other nations for help.

There had not even been a successful clear of an S-rank Gate yet, so countries had to spend astronomical sums every quarter hiring S-rank mercenaries to periodically reduce the monster population inside.

People did not say that Hunters were national power for nothing.

“So Korea has two S-ranks now... It’s about time to put some pressure on the government again.”

Thanks to Yoo Hyun, he had a justification as well. The timing seemed right to press the government in earnest.

Naturally, Hunters held the absolute upper hand in this age.

High-ranking Hunters had more or less allowed the government to regulate them.

Why had they quietly accepted regulation, then?

Because government regulation did not come with disadvantages alone.

They could shift responsibility for failed Gate raids to the state by citing those regulations, and they could create barriers to entry to monopolize their vested interests.

Everything depended on how it was used, and Cheon Sanha was a Hunter who understood that better than anyone.

Yet even Cheon Sanha felt anger rise the moment he saw the rumors of Yoo Hyun emigrating.

‘...If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve stopped the magical-beast regulations somehow...’

“Tch... Standing by and doing nothing is a sin too, I suppose.”

He made a call.

Yoo Hyun probably would not remain in Korea going forward anyway...

“Still, it wouldn’t hurt to build some goodwill before he leaves. You never know how things will turn out.”

* * *

Whoosh-

Yoo Hyun looked at himself in the mirror while showering after waking up in the morning.

He had not been exercising much, yet the contours of his body kept growing firmer.

“Feels like my body’s getting better and better.”

I had an idea why.

The cause was probably my EX-rank trait.

Maybe I was jumping to conclusions, but it felt as though it might be optimizing my body without me even noticing.

My trait was full of sub-traits that hadn’t revealed themselves yet.

Well, it felt less like I was becoming stronger and more like I was becoming healthier...

Still, good was good.

Click-

Once I was ready to leave, I headed outside with Haengbok.

And this home I’d just walked out of?

Hunter Yeon Harim had provided it and told me to live here for the time being.

It was famous for being home to Hunters, so security was especially good. There were also plenty of Wolyeong Hunters around, making it a reassuring place to stay.

“Hunter Yeon Harim is a god.”

“Pant, pant...”

She had even used the news of her own S-rank advancement for my sake, given me a house, and sent me nightly check-in messages before bed, wishing me a good night’s sleep.

She had even said that if I felt anxious, I could live with her. The fact that a young woman would say something like that to an unrelated man showed just how extraordinarily well she treated me.

When I reached the lobby, escort staff from Wolyeong and Dongbaek were already waiting. I headed to my shop with them.

“Oh! It’s Yoo Hyun!!”

“Mr. Yoo Hyun, can we get thirty seconds for an interview!?”

“Move. If you don’t clear the way in five seconds, we’ll force our way through.”

Boom!

“Aaagh!! Can Hunters use force against civilians!?”

“Ugh... This is tyranny!!”

People were packed in front of the shop, but the escorts cleared a path, and I got inside without much trouble.

“Phew... Going to work isn’t easy at all.”

“Pant, pant...”

I set Haengbok down, turned on my computer, and checked my email.

【 Inbox 】

[ Ouroboros Bio ] Personal Letter from Chairman Peter Vanderbilt and Offer of a Subsidiary CEO Position... Unlimited R&D Budget Guaranteed...

[ Mansu Precision Engineering ] Direct Recruitment Offer from Wang Xiaolong, Chairman of China’s Mansu Group. Research Funding of 3 Trillion Won Paid as a Lump Sum.

[ Republic of Korea Ministry of Science and ICT ] Request for an Urgent Meeting with Mr. Yoo Hyun... We wish to resolve misunderstandings regarding the recent National Assembly regulatory bill...

“Hmm... Where should I make my next stop?”

Most of the emails offered me attractive terms.

Every option was an exceptional offer, which only made choosing harder.

Honestly, I wanted to set up my own laboratory without belonging anywhere. But Korea lacked the infrastructure, so I would have to go abroad either way...

“This is hard...”

“Pant, pant...”

As I thought it over, I kneaded Haengbok.

Squish, squish-

Well, there was no need to rush. I could take my time choosing.

Click-

I closed my inbox.

“Phew... I need to write a paper, make a pet for Hunter Baek Seola, make pets for the Wolyeong and Dongbaek Hunters, make more Jellykkos... I’ve got a mountain of work.”

For reference, I had also agreed to accept official sponsorship from Dongbaek.

It was not a major benefit for me right now, but Hunter Baek Seola had helped me quite a bit.

I headed to the cultivation room.

I planned to use every technique I had acquired in Germany to create a magical beast suited to Hunter Baek Seola.

The long-awaited first magical beast created using the Duality method.

“This is exciting.”

I had designed it during the competition, but I had never actually made a magical beast with this method, so I was looking forward to it.

Performance that one creature could not produce alone. A beautifully interlocking dual-polar complementary structure. It was a different kind of work from conventional designs, with its own appeal.

The mana cores I would use were two B-rank cores from a top-tier brand.

Sadly, my incubators were not capable of A-rank cultivation.

Still, the B-rank magical beast I made would not be an ordinary B-rank. This one would also possess traits that surpassed its rank, and considering Duality’s potential, it might show performance that exceeded even an A-rank magical beast.

Oh, and my license issue had been completely resolved. Not only had I received the B-rank license I initially wanted, I was now allowed to create A-rank magical beasts too.

I jokingly asked an association employee whether I could make S-rank magical beasts with it, but they turned pale and started sweating, so I told them this was enough.

Hunter Baek Seola had prepared the remaining materials needed for production yesterday, so I immediately began making the Seeds and quickly finished setting them in the incubators.

Hum-

The incubators hummed with mana resonance.

Each incubator contained a Seed, one black and one white.

“About two weeks, then.”

I had raised the incubators’ output as high as possible and used a Buffering Array, reducing the time to two weeks.

Dongbaek would guard the cultivation room twenty-four hours a day during the cultivation period.

“Haah... I really need to find a proper laboratory soon.”

* * *

A few days later.

A bearded, middle-aged white man pressed the power button on his computer and muttered,

“Will he have posted one today...?”

Walton was one of the Magical Beast Creation Competition judges, checking whether Yoo Hyun had published a paper today.

As expected, the people invited to serve as competition judges were famous figures in the industry. Yet those who had agreed to participate were the ones with time on their hands.

It wasn’t that their schedules had happened to open up and they had joined as judges. They had come because they truly had nothing else to do.

Their research had hit walls, and they needed fresh ideas, so they had taken on the competition judging with a sliver of hope. Then what happened? A genius had appeared from the last place they expected, unveiling an incredible invention that stirred their desire to research.

Remembering that time, Walton nodded with satisfaction.

“Yoo Hyun’s conference was extremely enlightening.”

Now, he waited only for the paper Yoo Hyun would upload.

It was impossible to decipher Yoo Hyun’s technology alone.

Then...

“Huh? What are these bastards doing...?”

Strange posts had appeared in the alchemist community.

Most were translations of Chinese news articles.

[ Breaking News ] Mansu Precision Engineering Makes Explosive Claim... “Yoo Hyun’s Technology Is Fake. Even Korean Politicians Recognized Its Danger and Regulated It.”

[ Guangming Daily ] “A Stern Warning Against a Small Country’s Plagiarism”... Chinese Alchemy Association Vows to File a Patent Invalidation Lawsuit with the International Alchemy Association (IAOA).

[ Global Times ] Mansu Precision Engineering Chairman Says, “The Original Is Continental Technology”... Yoo Hyun’s Technology Is Nothing More Than a Plagiarized Imitation. “A Fake Cannot Defeat the Real Thing.”

[ People’s Daily ] “We Will Show You the True Buffering Array.” Mansu Precision Engineering Announces It Will Launch a Magical Beast Using a Buffering Array Within One Week!

The posts had an oddly large number of upvotes, as though someone had manipulated public opinion.

“Hmm... I doubt anyone would fall for this, but...”

If China had thrown enough capital and personnel at it...

They might have successfully deciphered the Buffering Array, the easiest of Yoo Hyun’s technologies to reproduce, within a short period.

“Yoo Hyun’s going to have a hard time with this... Those bastards have no business ethics...”

But a few days later,

[ Breaking News ] “Catastrophe While Trying to Steal Yoo Hyun’s Technology”... China’s Mansu Precision Engineering Fails to Copy Buffering Array, Causing Experimental Magical Beasts to Rampage En Masse!

[ Feature ] “Yoo Hyun’s Buffering Array Cannot Be Copied Carelessly”... Massive Disaster After Unauthorized Reproduction of Korean Technology.

[ Exclusive ] Huge Explosion at Research Complex Near Sichuan Province... Experimental Magical Beasts Rampage En Masse During Attempt to Use Counterfeit Technology!

[ Issue ] China Says, “We Thought a Gate Break Had Occurred”... Sichuan Reduced to Ruin While Imitating Korean Alchemy. Is the Nation Facing a Disaster?

Walton stared at the articles, open-mouthed.

“C-Crazy... What the hell are these bastards doing...?”

China had caused the first magical-beast biohazard in history.

Footnotes:

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