God-Tier Enhancement: My Upgrades Never Fail-Chapter 152: Episode 30_My Person—No, My Otter (2)
5.
The taming process had gone beautifully.
He had scared Sudal half to death, rendered it unable to resist, and pushed it into a state of near-surrender.
“Looking at it this way, I really do seem like a villain.”
If even Han Simin could say something so shameless and feel he had put in enough effort to be proud, then failure shouldn’t have even been on the table. With that thought, he approached Sudal at a leisurely pace, a wicked smile on his face.
“So? How does it feel, thinking about becoming part of our family now?”
“Kku-eong.”
Its pitiful cry struck him right in the chest. Maybe it was just its nature, but every sound that came out of its mouth somehow sounded miserably sad.
“Kkyuuu.”
The rabbits let out sympathetic cries as if they could relate. Han Simin’s eyes grew moist as well.
“Man. I’ve suffered so much since I was young, but I kept my head down, endured, and pushed toward my dream, and finally a day like this has come. I’ll work you to the bone—no more, no less than twenty-three hours a day building mines.”
Tears of emotion.
Thinking about it again, it truly was a miracle.
Main Quest Act 2.
His level was too low, and the whole series of steps had nothing to do with his reason for playing the game. It was the kind of quest he could have easily ignored. But because it was near his territory and the Specialists were working on it, he had ended up helping here and there, which led to this stroke of luck.
Whatever the final outcome, he would have to hand the map over to the Kenji Guild and sit back while they wrapped up the Main Quest, but he didn’t care.
So what if it was the Main Quest? Clearing this one wouldn’t end the game, and the Specialists would understand. They just had to do better on the next one.
Ignoring everyone else’s business without a second thought, he reached out toward Sudal.
Setting Squeaker aside as a special case—she had been tamed the moment she hatched—this was his first attempt at taming anything since the rabbits.
His heart pounded for no reason. He had been bothered by the nine empty pet slots with no suitable monster to fill them, and now one was finally about to be occupied.
As if carefully retrieving a precious item from storage, he initiated the taming.
[You use Taming (SS).]
[Taming has failed!]
And then, a hologram appeared.
Like a panorama, memories of the past flashed before his eyes. More than half a year had passed, and all the hellish suffering he had shoved into the depths of his subconscious came surging back up as if it had been waiting.
Why he had ended up taming rabbits in the first place.
Why he had cursed this SS-rank Taming skill as a trash skill for someone like him, already buried under experience penalties.
“Kku-eong?”
Sudal, who had been bracing itself to accept a bleak future, cautiously opened its eyes when nothing happened.
It stared blankly.
Their gazes met.
“Ha... haha.”
A sheepish laugh slipped out.
“Why don’t we suck on some ore and have a serious talk?”
No one in the world could pivot faster than he did.
* * *
He had absolutely no intention of killing it.
He still had the "threat" card in his hand, but after their “conversation of fists” had already pushed Sudal to the point of ’just kill me already’, that wasn’t a great option.
So Han Simin had only one card left to play.
It wasn’t a method he particularly liked, but what could he do?
“How about we go into business together?”
“Kku-eong?”
“You make the ore, and I sell it. Then I’ll buy you tons of delicious fish from all over the continent.”
“Kku-eong!”
“Hey, you little punk. I’m saying this because I’m worried about you. Just because you were born and raised a little differently, you’re going around eating rocks and stuff. That’s a really bad diet, you know? It might seem fine now, but you’re a living, breathing creature. Wait till you get old. If you’re still chomping on rocks when you’re old, you’ll drop dead in no time.”
He tried desperately to persuade it. Every word out of his mouth was nonsense, but once he had decided to steer things toward winning its favor, he had to keep smiling.
’Please, let this work.’
The best outcome was to trap it within the confines of the Taming skill. However, based on all his experiments so far, the SS-rank Taming skill worked great on monsters of a lower level than him, but didn’t function at all on those above. So he decided to try turning an untested theory from novels into reality: if intimacy reached its absolute peak, the monster would leap into its master’s arms and tame itself.
Of course, he had no intention of giving up even if that failed. If it didn’t work, he would just go with the second-best option.
’Though that one’s kind of a pain.’
He would drag Sudal around so it couldn’t escape and work it like a dog. A true, literal slave—something only possible in a hyper-realistic world like 『Fantastic World』. The problem was that he couldn’t expect any loyalty and would always have to factor in the possibility of escape, which gave him a headache.
That was why he poured out every sweet word he could think of, praying it would tame properly.
“How about I kill all those thugs rampaging around this mountain range for you?”
“Kku-eong!”
’You’re the thug who wrecked my mines, you bastard!’
Naturally, it didn’t give in so easily.
Sudal might not be the brightest, but it was still the boss monster guarding the Main Quest. And the mines that were its entire world had been stolen by the bum standing right in front of it.
No matter what happened, it would never submit.
Their back-and-forth continued.
Even after the Specialists arrived.
And then, several days later—
“Kku-eong.”
“Hm?”
“Kku-eooong.”
“Oh. You’re hungry?”
“Kku-eong.”
“...Want a jewel?”
“Kku-eong.”
Sudal had started to grasp reality and was beginning to adapt.
6.
The Main Quest’s saboteur and Kenji finally met.
“...Did you really tame Sudal?”
“Of course. I always do what I say I’ll do.”
His shoulders were squared, his gaze confident.
Kenji and the guild officers all turned to look at Sudal, who sat surrounded by rabbits with a thoroughly displeased expression.
“Looks more like a kidnapping than a taming.”
“Hey now! That’s a rude thing to say at such an important meeting.”
“Kku-eong.”
Sudal cried out in indignation, but it was of no use to them now, so they ignored it. They could, of course, immediately attack Han Simin and the Specialists and kill Sudal, but they decided it was better to accept the potential losses and just clear the Main Quest before the already-shaky public opinion completely collapsed.
“Where’s the map?”
“Right here.”
Since the matter had already been discussed on the forums, the negotiation went smoothly. It was essentially the Specialists’ achievement, but Han Simin was the one who handed it over, and Kenji was the one who examined it.
“What are these colored markings?”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about those. They’re side quests. We already cleared them all, so there’s nothing left even if you go.”
“I see.”
Kenji compared it to their current position and even ran it through an internal guild meeting before nodding. Sudal was a loss, but if this map was real, it was worth giving up. After all, the expedition’s goal was to clear the Main Quest, and it would be far better to achieve that quickly and disband before wavering public sentiment completely turned against them.
“Thank you.”
Kenji bowed his head to Han Simin.
They had their conflicts and had even clashed directly, but in effect, the Specialists had yielded the Main Quest to them. Since the Specialists standing right there weren’t objecting, it seemed to be an agreed-upon arrangement.
Sometimes Han Simin seemed like pure trash, but in moments like this, it felt like he knew where to draw the line. Kenji was even a little moved, his resentment fading and replaced by a hint of goodwill.
All over a single map.
Of course, it didn’t take long for him to realize this was nothing but his own happy delusion.
“I’m glad it’s to your liking. Now, shall we discuss the price?”
To Han Simin, integrity was something he would sell off in a heartbeat if it was worth even a single coin.
* * *
As expected, there wasn’t a speck of conscience to be found in Han Simin.
“Alright. Time for the most important deal.”
They looked at him in confusion.
“A special product sold only to the Specialists! A ticket to clear Main Quest Act 2!”
They were speechless.
They had just watched the Kenji Guild happily march off a moment ago.
Kang Yeseul tried to wrap her dumbfounded brain around the situation, gave up, and asked, “Betrayal?”
“Hey! Betrayal? Where’d you learn such a disrespectful word?”
“Then what is it?”
“Business.”
She was speechless.
’In what world?’
As they stared at him in disbelief, Han Simin kindly elaborated.
“Did you really think I’d sell the Main Quest to those guys and leave you out? Come on. Our relationship isn’t something that falls apart over a few coins. It’s not like I’m some beggar.”
They remained silent.
On the surface, it should have been a touching sentiment. It meant that even to the great Han Simin, they were his priority. But somehow, it felt like the kind of kindness they absolutely should not accept.
“Are you sure you’re allowed to say that after selling that useless map for a hundred thousand dollars a copy?” Kang Yeseul asked.
Watching him hand it over had been so absurd that her feelings had shifted from ’what the hell is he doing?’ to ’I feel bad for the Kenji Guild’. She could barely even remember the moment she had tilted her head, wondering why he was egging Kenji on with the Specialists standing right there.
And yet, she was curious. What was he aiming for?
Han Simin always did scummy things, but he had his own philosophy and logic behind them. The problem was that to everyone else, that logic sounded like complete bullshit.
“It’s fine. What I sold them was just a map. What I’m selling you is a ticket to steal the very end of Main Quest Act 2.”
She was dumbstruck.
And the bigger problem was that his bullshit always turned into reality. Everyone knew it, yet they still had no choice but to buy in.
“You’re a real genius,” Yeseul said.
“Thanks.”
“One day, I want to see you dropped in a desert and forced to sell sand.”
“Pay me and I’ll try it.”
Now that she understood, Kang Yeseul clicked her tongue. At a glance, it looked like Sudal had been captured and all that remained was to destroy the lone gate remnant. But thanks to Han Simin’s instigation, the whole thing had once again morphed into a player-versus-player conflict.
Even if he hadn’t stepped in, it might have ended up that way anyway. The Specialists planned to clear the Main Quest, too, after all. He had simply taken the initiative and pushed things along, accelerating the narrative from climax to conclusion.
Kenji, leading an expedition of thousands, and Han Simin, offering to stand on the opposite side of them.
“If we ride Squeaker, we can get there faster than they can. I’ll give you a discount.”
She stared at him.
“And after the quest, we’ll escort you safely back to the Rich Territory as part of our after-sales service! Also at a discount.”
She was silent.
The three of them didn’t say it out loud, but they all thought the same thing.
’I really want to screw him over just once.’
It was a pure, innocent desire, completely free of malice.
“Haah.”
Of course, even while thinking that, they had no choice but to open their wallets.
