Reader - Chapter 68
Chapter 68: Mercenary Agency
Translator: MagicFishCat
Proof-reader: Asada
-Yeon Jung: Tell me when you’re about to start. The Reader Guild will help you as much as we can. We’ve always wanted to bash their empty heads in, haha. So, make sure to tell me! It’s also your guild from now on as well!
-Soo Hyuk: I will.
-Yeon Jung: So, when are you going to join?
-Soo Hyuk: Whenever you want me too. I don’t have anything holding me back now.
-Yeon Jung: Okay, then I’ll contact you when we’re ready!
-Soo Hyuk: Sure.
Soo Hyuk, who had just arrived at the library, ended his chat with Yeon Jung, then entered the library after handing in his token. As he was picking books from a bookshelf, he thought,
‘Now there’s only two days’ worth of books left.’
There weren’t many unread books left in the library. Staring at the remaining books on the bookshelf, he suspected that he would finish them by the day after tomorrow. Soon, he managed to pick out the usual six books, he went back to his reading desk and dived into the world inside them.
* * *
Jang Yool shook slightly as he stared at a monitor intently.
‘Finally.’
With his voice tinged with excitement, Jang Yool turned his around at Yang Joo Hyuk and shouted,
“Team leader!”
“Mnn?”
When Yang Joo Hyuk replied with a grunt, Jang Yool continued,
“He’s conquered it!”
“Conquer?”
Yang Joo Hyuk was confused by the sudden shout. Conquered? Conquered what exactly? Looking at the confused Yang Joo Hyuk, Jang Yool continued,
“The Matab Library!”
* * *
Since his holiday and conflict with the Demon Guild had ended, Soo Hyuk had gone back to his usual routine of reading every day, except that he hadn’t been hunting recently. As he opened the shining white book, he thought,
‘This is the last one.’
There were no more unread books in the library anymore. The book he had opened now was the last glowing book in the library.
.
.
.
The day it is freed from its seal, darkness shall engulf the world again.
.
.
.
Soo Hyuk closed the book as its white glow disappeared and the system message appeared.
[You have read all the books in the Matab Library.]
[You have obtained title: Conqueror of Matab Library.]
[You have conquered 2 libraries.]
[You have obtained title: One Who Likes Books.]
“Hmm?”
Soo Hyuk cocked his head at the unexpected messages.
‘Bookworm?’
He had expected to get the title ‘Conqueror of Matab Library’, but the second title caught him off guard.
‘To think I got two titles…’
Excited by the unexpected rewards, Soo Hyuk hastily opened his character window.
Class: Archmage’s Descendant
Level: 102 Experience: 62%
Health: 56200 Mana: 63800
Satiation: 84%
Strength: 40 (+10)
Agility: 35 (+16)
Stamina: 1108 [554 (+10)]
Wisdom: 3190 (+10)
‘Does it increase my wisdom?’
His wisdom had increased a lot from the last time he checked. To confirm, he opened the title window and checked the effects of the two titles.
-Conqueror of Matab Library (Wisdom +100)
The first thing that came into his sight was the ‘Conqueror of Matab Library.’
‘Increased by 100?’
The ‘Conqueror of Matab Library’ title had the same effect as ‘Conqueror of Oren Library’, which was increasing his wisdom. But maybe it was because of the library’s larger size, the amount of wisdom was also in another scale. After admiring his new title, Soo Hyuk moved onto ‘One Who Likes Books’.
-One Who Likes Books (When reading books, gain extra stat experience.)
“…?”
Soo Hyuk tilted his head as he read the effects.
‘Stat experience? What’s that?’
Soo Hyuk had never heard of stat experience before. What did it mean by stat experience?
‘It is that?’
He suddenly remembered when his wisdom would rise when he read a book. Of course, it didn’t rise every time, as it depended on thickness of the book, how many books he’d read etc. He suspected that something was behind this inconsistent increase, but it seemed like that something was stat experience.
‘As for how much it gives, I’ll have to find out by reading. I have to quickly decide on a library as well.’
He couldn’t test it in the Matab Library, as he had just conquered it. There weren’t any more books that he could get stat experience from.
Concluding his thoughts, Soo Hyuk stood up from the desk and started looking over the bookshelves one last time after returning the books. It was to check whether another book had changed colour.
‘There aren’t any.’
After looking over all the bookshelves and finding no new books, Soo Hyuk directly logged out of Pangea.
When he got up from the capsule, he went straight to his computer and opened the Pangea homepage.
“Where should I go?”
Title: Just what the heck is the boss monster inside the Library of Darkness? [5]
Title: Is level 150 enough to hunt in the Library of Darkness? [12]
Title: I’m lvl 140 and I’m trying to go to the Library of Darkness, but where is it? [17]
When he typed ‘library’ in the search bar, numerous results appeared. But they weren’t the information that he wanted.
‘So confusing.’
The posts that appeared were all about a hunting ground named ‘Library of Darkness’. He had thought at first that it was a library without any conditions, but it was a hunting ground with the name ‘library’ in it without containing any books. To narrow the search results, Soo Hyuk wrote an extra word after ‘library’ in the search bar and pressed [SEARCH].
Title: Kozan Kingdom’s Royal Library access conditions. [9]
Title: List of library enter conditions that I know about. [14]
Title: There’s a library in Oren, but what kind of condition is 50 gold! [23]
When Soo Hyuk added the word ‘conditions’, the information that he wanted appeared in the results.
“Hoh, there’s a lot more now?”
He could see a lot more posts about libraries than when he searched for it previously.
“List of library enter conditions?”
Plus, there was was a particular post that attracted his attention, but he started reading from top to bottom nonetheless.
Title: Kozan Kingdom’s Royal Library access conditions.
Posted by: ArchaeologyIsMyDream
I found the need to use the Kozan Kingdom’s Royal Library for a quest. But the condition was weird. I need an item called ‘Kozan Kingdom’s Recognition’, but how do I obtain it? Just to be sure, there’s no other way to access the library, right?
Replies:
-MasterOfEveryThing: You can only get the Kozan Kingdom’s recognition with conributions. To my knowledge, less than 100 people have managed to contribute enough get the item. It’s just one of those hard-to-get items.
-ArchaeologyIsMyDream: Really? I need it to use the Royal Library…
MasterOfEveryThing: The conditions for using the Royal Library are difficult to achieve, and it’s the same for a lot of other ones. The easiest one is probably the Matab Library, because you only need to change your class.
“Hmm.”
Soo Hyuk complained in his head as he read through the replies.
‘Why are the conditions for the libraries so difficult?’
While sighing out of disappointment, Soo Hyuk went back to the results page and quickly switched to a smile. The next post was one he anticipated.
Title: List of library enter conditions that I know about.
Posted by: TheInfiniteLibrarian
1. Oren Library: 50 gold.
2. Matab Library: Magician Class
3. Pade Kingdom’s Imperial Library: Unknown. Suspect that nobility or title is needed as approaching the Imperial Palace is required.
4. Pade Kingdom’s Great Library: Position above viscount or recognition as a great person.
5. Pade Kingdom’s City of Ailin’s Library: Over level 500
“Oh.”
Soo Hyuk sighed in admiration as he scrolled through the article. It went above and beyond his expectations.
“Did this person go around only figuring out about the conditions?”
There weren’t just one or two libraries listed in the post. Other than the ones you found out in the beginning, the conditions for libraries was surprisingly hard to discover, so to know this much information, Soo Hyuk’s couldn’t help but wonder if this person had spent a lot of time searching for these data.
However, he still frowned when he finished going through the list.
“Is there only Hadrac?”
There were a lot of false information on these forums, so he couldn’t be sure if this was true. But even if it was, Hadrac was still the quickest way. After going through a few more posts, he decided.
“There’s only Hadrac.”
In his current state, the library that he could us the fastest was the Hadrac Library. After deciding, Soo Hyuk lightly cooked up some ramen for lunch then connected to Pangea.
‘Let’s come again after opening another door.’
Soo Hyuk, who had connected to Pangea again, looked around at the library that he had spent months in. It wasn’t a permanent parting. He still had to come after opening the third door to read the book again.
“Archmage’s Subspace.”
[Warping to the Archmage’s Subspace.]
Soo Hyuk warped to his subspace, then warped again from the magic circle to Hadrac. When the distorted space was repaired, the familiar sight of Hadrac’s warp gate site filled his view. He then headed towards the Mercenary Agency while wondering,
‘How long will it take to become an A-rank?’
The conditions to enter Hadrac’s library was to either be an A-rank mercenary or belong in a S-rank guild based in Hadrac. Since Soo Hyuk was planning to join Reader, which wasn’t based in Hadrac, he could only take the first route.
‘Hua, the differences are too big.’
Not many users could rise to A-rank yet, but there were still a lot of information about them on the web. The problem was that the amount of time they took to get to A-rank varied vastly. Some people took 4 months while some took a mere month.
“Who wants go on an orc subjugation mission? It’s D-rank! Above Level 100 only!”
“Where can I buy orc blood? Oh, I don’t care about the varieties. So that place…”
Soo Hyuk eventually arrived at the Mercenary Agency, where numerous users were exchanging items, information etc outside.
‘It’s crowded.’
There were truly an enormous number of users around and inside the Mercenary Agency. Judging from the number of users that he could see crowded around the building, there was likely a long line awaiting inside as well. He confirmed his prediction a moment later a he entered the Mercenary Agency and saw the winding lines behind the counters.
The length of the lines was all around the pace. One line had 10 people, while another had over a hundred users lined. The reason for this phenomenon was ranks.
‘The C-rank is massive.’
The rank where the most people belonged to was C-rank. The number of counters set up C-ranks were also the highest, five counters. Bypassing the rowdy lines, Soo Hyuk arrived at the F-rank line.
F-ranks consisted of people who were looking to register or people who had yet to complete many quests. Of course, there were only five people lining up on the F-rank counter. While thinking that his turn should come fairly quickly, Soo Hyuk lined up at the back.
“Next person!”
It was Soo Hyuk’s turn not long after.
“What have you come here for?”
The NPC asked him as Soo Hyuk sat down on the seat opposite him.
“I want to register as a mercenary.”
“Ah! So you want to register as a mercenary.”
The NPC then handed him a piece of paper and continued,
“Could you please place your hand on this crystal ball.”
Soo Hyuk wasn’t surprised at their method as he had read about it before and put forward his hand as if he had waited for it.
[You will bleed for 10 seconds.]
A message appeared as he placed him hand on the ball. Since he knew about this as well, he didn’t panic.
“Next, could you place your hand on this?”
At the NPC’s words, Soo Hyuk put his hand down on the boxed section on the piece of paper to stamp his hand. Next, the NPC took back the paper and after checking the handprint briefly, he said,
“Please wait a moment.”
When Soo Hyuk nodded, the NPC walked to the door on his back and went through it after opening. Then, the NPC came back after a few minutes, and in his hand, was a square wooden seal. It was the Mercenary Token.
“Here is your proof of identity.”
The NPC said as he handed the Mercenary Token. The letter F was inscribed on the token.
“Your current rank is rank F. Would you like an explanation?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Soo Hyuk politely refused when the NPC offered to explain. Since he already researched before, there was no point in wasting his time listening to an explanation. After refusing, Soo Hyuk tilted his head and asked,
“Can I have a look at the ranked mission catalogue?”
From E-ran onwards, you had to complete a lot of regular missions to attempt a ranked mission, but F-ranks could try straight away.
“Ranked missions?”
At Soo Hyuk’s request, the NPC asked again with a surprised voice. Ranked missions were of a higher difficulty than regular missions and this newbie wanted to attempt them right after registration.
“Yes.”
Soo Hyuk confirmed while nodding.
“Then please wait…”
At Soo Hyuk’s unwavering answer, the end of the NPC’s words trailed off as he started searching his drawers. Then after a few seconds, the NPC pulled out a separate sheet of paper and held it out to Soo Hyuk.
“You can tell me which one you want to attempt.”
The sheet of paper was a list of F-ranked missions. Soo Hyuk received the list from him and started looking through the mission.
‘Hmm?’
As Soo Hyuk was about to turn to the next page, he froze in surprise.
-Alchemist Kora’s Ingredients!
‘Kora?’
A familiar word entered his sight. He had read it somewhere before. As he was searching through his memories for the word ‘Kora’…
“Ah!”
Soo Hyuk exclaimed in realisation and hurriedly opened his quest window.
