Che MinYoung was indeed a skilled informant. When she was receiving his call, she was complaining with half anger and half resignation but ultimately, she still did give him a solution.
The solution she gave was an expert of that regard. Not just a normal expert but an expert for special people.
In truth, Han JinHo had been working mostly by himself and had been uninterested in overseas auctions so he didn’t know how other ability users lived in the world. Che MinYoung could be said to be the first one he had actually been acquainted with.
Other ability users, he had only seen them here and there working as bodyguards for rich people.
In the middle of everything was money.
Everything in the world was connected by a chain called money. Even ability users were not an exception. No matter how exceptional an ability user was, if he had no money, he couldn’t continue living in this world.
That was why a lot of ability users gathered around rich people, and that was also why money gathered around ability users.
And there weren’t many ability users who gained money through completely legal methods. As long as they weren’t millionaires, it was difficult. In fact, even the rich were the same. Which millionaire earned money through legal methods? They were people that used even the weirdest of the methods.
Aren’t they the ones that are willing to turn into monsters if they could protect their money?
In any case, ability users trod along the border of the legal and illegal world. As such, there were gradually some experts that only dealt with ability users.
They were mostly some skilled people in the underworld that slowly turned into those experts.
The person he was planning on meeting today was a person like that.
Sitting in the scheduled meeting place, a café near Gangnam station, Han JinHo was drinking a coffee. It wasn’t a normal coffee, but a mana coffee. He had mixed the mana water he brought from his workshop with a cheap coffee he got from the café.
He didn’t do this usually. It was enough to drink one or two cups of mana water daily at his workshop; that was enough for the mana pool to steadily grow.
The reason he was doing this was because of the new martial arts he had gained. More specifically, it was because he had discovered something new while in the process of investigating the breathing method of the martial art.
When increasing the mana pool by drinking mana water, more than half the mana of the water would dissipate into the air.
The efficiency didn’t even reach 50%.
However, that was enough. The maximum capacity of mana was important, but what was more important was the ability to freely control the new mana he took in.
Realistically, the more mana one had within their body, the harder it would be to control. But in any case, with the breathing method, he had discovered the method to significantly increase the efficiency while intaking mana.
Thus, he was practicing it. He wasn’t proficient enough yet, so it wasn’t that much of a change compared to before. But he was sure that the efficiency would increase as he continued the process, and plus, his controlling skills would naturally improve as well. The breathing method was, after all, fundamentally a mana controlling method.
While he was drinking his mana water, indulging in practice, a person approached.
“Are you Han JinHo-ssi?”
[TLN: ‘ssi’ is a suffix used on strangers that are on equal standing to yourself. An example would be a business partner like in this case.]
Han JinHo stopped his training and raised his head to look at the person who came near him. A woman who looked like a career woman no matter how someone saw her was standing there with a smile.
“Choi MiKyoung-ssi?”
“Yes. Nice to meet you.”
He stood up from his seat and held out his hand. After a light handshake, the two sat at the table facing each other.
“I heard you were looking for someone who could do general work.”
“Yes, exactly. Is it possible?”
“Why, was it out of your expectations that I’m a woman?”
Even while saying that, Choi MiKyoung was wearing a firm smile.
“Actually, all of MinYoung-unni’s connections are women. She said she can’t trust men. In fact, it was more unexpected from my part. It was the first time she introduced a male customer to me.”
[TLN: ‘unni’ means big / older sister. It’s used when a younger woman addresses an older woman and they don’t necessarily have to be blood-related.]
“Hmm… wait, you said ‘unni’?”
Choi MiKyoung smiled.
“Yes, why? Is age important when working? Ah, just so you don’t misunderstand, I’m not that young. I’ll be in the thirties soon.”
Han JinHo’s eyes slightly widened. Then exactly how old is Che MinYoung?
“Unni looks a bit young, right?”
Choi MiKyoung’s face while saying that looked incomparably proud. It was a face that showed how she prided herself of her face which also appeared quite young.
After speaking up to that point, her face suddenly turned business-like. Her voice was also very business-like.
“Let’s now talk about business. I heard that you wanted to bring money in from the Cayman Islands and purchase a building, is that correct?”
“Generally, yes.”
“Are you anxious about being traced?”
“Rather than anxious, it’s more like wanting to eliminate annoyances.”
“That’s not too hard. Is that all?”
“Let’s first start with that.”
Han JinHo spoke while brightening his eyes. Choi MiKyoung also nodded her head without thinking too much of it. This kind of work was nothing to her.
“I want to buy two buildings. One will be remodelled and personally used by me, and the other would be for lease. It would be nice if the two buildings were near each other. And… around 5 stories for those buildings would be good.”
This too wasn’t a very difficult condition. Choi MiKyoung had heard from Che MinYoung that it would be a very picky and strange customer, so facing this extremely normal request, she kind of became downhearted.
‘Well, I just need to do my own work properly.’
Choi MiKyoung motivated herself. It was the first request after a long time, so she didn’t want to make even the smallest of mistakes.
“Then, after some looking around, contact me again.”
“Please tell me things like, which area you want the buildings in, and the maximum budget possible.”
“Around here is fine for the area, and financial budget would be around 200 billion won for now, I guess?”
“Sorry?”
Choi MiKyoung was startled and stared at Han JinHo.
“Why? Is it too less?”
“N, no. It’s the opposite.”
Although it was Gangnam, what they wanted were only two 5-storey buildings. Not even talking about 200 billion won, even 100 billion was more than enough.
“Purchasing the buildings isn’t the last thing, after all. Well, let’s finish up today with that in mind. Please contact me after you finish looking for them.”
Han JinHo left a memo with his phone number written on it and stood up from his seat.
Choi MiKyoung blankly stared at the back of Han JinHo who was walking away.
***
After parting with Choi MiKyoung, Han JinHo got on a car which he had parked nearby and headed towards school.
The person he had asked Che MinYoung to introduce was a skilled secretary. He wanted someone who could take care of any kind of work. A person who had lots of knowledge and experience on laws and also skilled in financial work.
It was because he had judged that he needed at least one person whom he could trust and rely on in the future.
He didn’t expect her to introduce a woman but his first impression of her wasn’t bad.
Now he just needed to see her skills.
He had heard that just because she was a woman, there wasn’t much work despite her level of skill so as long as she was trustable, she would be a total fit.
He had asked Che MinYoung if she was a trustable person, but she replied, ‘See it for yourself’.
That was indeed very true. One can know what’s inside the depths of the water but they won’t know what’s inside a person.
After parking the car in the underground parking lot of the officetel, Han JinHo walked outside. There was another lecture which he had to attend today.
“Let’s see… I guess there’s some time left?”
It seemed to be enough time to test the newly learned martial art from yesterday. The problem was that he had to find a place without human presence, but a there was a perfect place nearby.
The place where he had suppressed the ones from the organisations in the past, that open area. It wasn’t too far from the school, and he had dealt with it with magic processing, so he didn’t need to worry about other’s eyes.
That place was also a location where Han JinHo frequented when he had to train using his body.
The open area was quite close.
Standing in the middle of the opening, Han JinHo calmly went over the recently acquired power in his brain.
“First off… the footwork.”
His feet moved slightly and he suddenly raced around the area at a fast speed. He wasn’t using martial arts as is; he was using normal mana instead of refined mana, only picking out the original process, so his movement wasn’t connected and didn’t seem natural.
At this rate, the method he had been using beforehand – using mana to reinforce his body – seemed much better.
However, as he continued practicing the same moves over and over, the gap between the two methods slowly started decreasing.
The movements he had taken out from the martial art became more proficient and his usage of mana also turned more natural.
Soon, the efficiency of this new move surpassed the original martial arts’. He then incorporated the punching and kicking methods into the footwork.
That too also appeared broken and unnatural at first. But as time went by, he became more used to it and the whole movement gradually turned more natural.
“Fuu, this is interesting!”
For quite a long time, Han JinHo focused on training in martial arts. It had a different sense of pleasure to practising magic.
He had been concentrated so much that he was oblivious to the passing of time. Checking the time after the training, he heaved a big sigh.
“Sigh, damn.”
The time was nearing the end of the lecture, not the start. It was a lecture he couldn’t miss, so the matter had become very troubling.
He quickly rushed to school.
Thanks to the overflowing mana inside his body, he didn’t feel out of breath, but seeing the crowd flooding out of the building gave him a psychological damage.
The lecture had ended already.
“Oh? Sunbae-nim!”
Han JinHo turned his head towards the source of the voice calling him. Yu CheIn was walking towards him with a pleased face.
She laughed gently with her eyes. To a normal person, their hearts would tremble at the sight, but Han JinHo just powerlessly nodded his head.
“You’re here.”
“What is with that lifeless response?”
Before Han JinHo got to say anything in reply, Yu CheIn spoke while smiling as beautifully as possible.
“Is it because you couldn’t attend the lecture?”
He helplessly nodded his head.
“Well… yeah that’s why.”
“Ah, that lecture, attendance is very important right?”
“Yeah, I’m worried about how to handle this matter.”
Yu CheIn once again gently smiled with her eyes.
“I don’t think you need to handle it though?”
“Un? What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you if you promise me one thing.”
“Promise?”
“There’s a meeting today for everyone following the course. Please attend there.”
Han JinHo had an attendance close to the ground when it came to any group meetings. It wasn’t like he had never participated, but it was close to none.
He had mountains of other busy matters so he found it wasteful to use time for those kinds of things. Even this time wasn’t an exception.
He was about to say no but Yu CheIn opened her mouth first.
“Your attendance today, I marked it, sunbae-nim.”
“What?”
Was that even possible? Thinking about it, it was. This lecture on liberal arts had way too many people so the seats were allocated to everyone. If someone had been sitting on that seat for the entire duration of the lecture, their attendance would be checked; that was the kind of system.
So if a person was sitting on a seat, regardless of their gender, they would be marked present, since they only recorded the vacant seats into the roll.
In other words, for the entire hour, Yu CheIn had been sitting on Han JinHo’s seat.
“How is it? Do you now feel like attending the meeting?”
Facing Yu CheIn who was staring at him with eyes as if she wanted to be praised, Han JinHo nodded his head without thinking.
“I’ll attend. What time, and where?”
Yu CheIn made a bright smile.
[PR: awwwwww ≧◡≦]
Che MinYoung was indeed a skilled informant. When she was receiving his call, she was complaining with half anger and half resignation but ultimately, she still did give him a solution.
The solution she gave was an expert of that regard. Not just a normal expert but an expert for special people.
In truth, Han JinHo had been working mostly by himself and had been uninterested in overseas auctions so he didn’t know how other ability users lived in the world. Che MinYoung could be said to be the first one he had actually been acquainted with.
Other ability users, he had only seen them here and there working as bodyguards for rich people.
In the middle of everything was money.
Everything in the world was connected by a chain called money. Even ability users were not an exception. No matter how exceptional an ability user was, if he had no money, he couldn’t continue living in this world.
That was why a lot of ability users gathered around rich people, and that was also why money gathered around ability users.
And there weren’t many ability users who gained money through completely legal methods. As long as they weren’t millionaires, it was difficult. In fact, even the rich were the same. Which millionaire earned money through legal methods? They were people that used even the weirdest of the methods.
Aren’t they the ones that are willing to turn into monsters if they could protect their money?
In any case, ability users trod along the border of the legal and illegal world. As such, there were gradually some experts that only dealt with ability users.
They were mostly some skilled people in the underworld that slowly turned into those experts.
The person he was planning on meeting today was a person like that.
Sitting in the scheduled meeting place, a café near Gangnam station, Han JinHo was drinking a coffee. It wasn’t a normal coffee, but a mana coffee. He had mixed the mana water he brought from his workshop with a cheap coffee he got from the café.
He didn’t do this usually. It was enough to drink one or two cups of mana water daily at his workshop; that was enough for the mana pool to steadily grow.
The reason he was doing this was because of the new martial arts he had gained. More specifically, it was because he had discovered something new while in the process of investigating the breathing method of the martial art.
When increasing the mana pool by drinking mana water, more than half the mana of the water would dissipate into the air.
The efficiency didn’t even reach 50%.
However, that was enough. The maximum capacity of mana was important, but what was more important was the ability to freely control the new mana he took in.
Realistically, the more mana one had within their body, the harder it would be to control. But in any case, with the breathing method, he had discovered the method to significantly increase the efficiency while intaking mana.
Thus, he was practicing it. He wasn’t proficient enough yet, so it wasn’t that much of a change compared to before. But he was sure that the efficiency would increase as he continued the process, and plus, his controlling skills would naturally improve as well. The breathing method was, after all, fundamentally a mana controlling method.
While he was drinking his mana water, indulging in practice, a person approached.
“Are you Han JinHo-ssi?”
[TLN: ‘ssi’ is a suffix used on strangers that are on equal standing to yourself. An example would be a business partner like in this case.]
Han JinHo stopped his training and raised his head to look at the person who came near him. A woman who looked like a career woman no matter how someone saw her was standing there with a smile.
“Choi MiKyoung-ssi?”
“Yes. Nice to meet you.”
He stood up from his seat and held out his hand. After a light handshake, the two sat at the table facing each other.
“I heard you were looking for someone who could do general work.”
“Yes, exactly. Is it possible?”
“Why, was it out of your expectations that I’m a woman?”
Even while saying that, Choi MiKyoung was wearing a firm smile.
“Actually, all of MinYoung-unni’s connections are women. She said she can’t trust men. In fact, it was more unexpected from my part. It was the first time she introduced a male customer to me.”
[TLN: ‘unni’ means big / older sister. It’s used when a younger woman addresses an older woman and they don’t necessarily have to be blood-related.]
“Hmm… wait, you said ‘unni’?”
Choi MiKyoung smiled.
“Yes, why? Is age important when working? Ah, just so you don’t misunderstand, I’m not that young. I’ll be in the thirties soon.”
Han JinHo’s eyes slightly widened. Then exactly how old is Che MinYoung?
“Unni looks a bit young, right?”
Choi MiKyoung’s face while saying that looked incomparably proud. It was a face that showed how she prided herself of her face which also appeared quite young.
After speaking up to that point, her face suddenly turned business-like. Her voice was also very business-like.
“Let’s now talk about business. I heard that you wanted to bring money in from the Cayman Islands and purchase a building, is that correct?”
“Generally, yes.”
“Are you anxious about being traced?”
“Rather than anxious, it’s more like wanting to eliminate annoyances.”
“That’s not too hard. Is that all?”
“Let’s first start with that.”
Han JinHo spoke while brightening his eyes. Choi MiKyoung also nodded her head without thinking too much of it. This kind of work was nothing to her.
“I want to buy two buildings. One will be remodelled and personally used by me, and the other would be for lease. It would be nice if the two buildings were near each other. And… around 5 stories for those buildings would be good.”
This too wasn’t a very difficult condition. Choi MiKyoung had heard from Che MinYoung that it would be a very picky and strange customer, so facing this extremely normal request, she kind of became downhearted.
‘Well, I just need to do my own work properly.’
Choi MiKyoung motivated herself. It was the first request after a long time, so she didn’t want to make even the smallest of mistakes.
“Then, after some looking around, contact me again.”
“Please tell me things like, which area you want the buildings in, and the maximum budget possible.”
“Around here is fine for the area, and financial budget would be around 200 billion won for now, I guess?”
“Sorry?”
Choi MiKyoung was startled and stared at Han JinHo.
“Why? Is it too less?”
“N, no. It’s the opposite.”
Although it was Gangnam, what they wanted were only two 5-storey buildings. Not even talking about 200 billion won, even 100 billion was more than enough.
“Purchasing the buildings isn’t the last thing, after all. Well, let’s finish up today with that in mind. Please contact me after you finish looking for them.”
Han JinHo left a memo with his phone number written on it and stood up from his seat.
Choi MiKyoung blankly stared at the back of Han JinHo who was walking away.
***
After parting with Choi MiKyoung, Han JinHo got on a car which he had parked nearby and headed towards school.
The person he had asked Che MinYoung to introduce was a skilled secretary. He wanted someone who could take care of any kind of work. A person who had lots of knowledge and experience on laws and also skilled in financial work.
It was because he had judged that he needed at least one person whom he could trust and rely on in the future.
He didn’t expect her to introduce a woman but his first impression of her wasn’t bad.
Now he just needed to see her skills.
He had heard that just because she was a woman, there wasn’t much work despite her level of skill so as long as she was trustable, she would be a total fit.
He had asked Che MinYoung if she was a trustable person, but she replied, ‘See it for yourself’.
That was indeed very true. One can know what’s inside the depths of the water but they won’t know what’s inside a person.
After parking the car in the underground parking lot of the officetel, Han JinHo walked outside. There was another lecture which he had to attend today.
“Let’s see… I guess there’s some time left?”
It seemed to be enough time to test the newly learned martial art from yesterday. The problem was that he had to find a place without human presence, but a there was a perfect place nearby.
The place where he had suppressed the ones from the organisations in the past, that open area. It wasn’t too far from the school, and he had dealt with it with magic processing, so he didn’t need to worry about other’s eyes.
That place was also a location where Han JinHo frequented when he had to train using his body.
The open area was quite close.
Standing in the middle of the opening, Han JinHo calmly went over the recently acquired power in his brain.
“First off… the footwork.”
His feet moved slightly and he suddenly raced around the area at a fast speed. He wasn’t using martial arts as is; he was using normal mana instead of refined mana, only picking out the original process, so his movement wasn’t connected and didn’t seem natural.
At this rate, the method he had been using beforehand – using mana to reinforce his body – seemed much better.
However, as he continued practicing the same moves over and over, the gap between the two methods slowly started decreasing.
The movements he had taken out from the martial art became more proficient and his usage of mana also turned more natural.
Soon, the efficiency of this new move surpassed the original martial arts’. He then incorporated the punching and kicking methods into the footwork.
That too also appeared broken and unnatural at first. But as time went by, he became more used to it and the whole movement gradually turned more natural.
“Fuu, this is interesting!”
For quite a long time, Han JinHo focused on training in martial arts. It had a different sense of pleasure to practising magic.
He had been concentrated so much that he was oblivious to the passing of time. Checking the time after the training, he heaved a big sigh.
“Sigh, damn.”
The time was nearing the end of the lecture, not the start. It was a lecture he couldn’t miss, so the matter had become very troubling.
He quickly rushed to school.
Thanks to the overflowing mana inside his body, he didn’t feel out of breath, but seeing the crowd flooding out of the building gave him a psychological damage.
The lecture had ended already.
“Oh? Sunbae-nim!”
Han JinHo turned his head towards the source of the voice calling him. Yu CheIn was walking towards him with a pleased face.
She laughed gently with her eyes. To a normal person, their hearts would tremble at the sight, but Han JinHo just powerlessly nodded his head.
“You’re here.”
“What is with that lifeless response?”
Before Han JinHo got to say anything in reply, Yu CheIn spoke while smiling as beautifully as possible.
“Is it because you couldn’t attend the lecture?”
He helplessly nodded his head.
“Well… yeah that’s why.”
“Ah, that lecture, attendance is very important right?”
“Yeah, I’m worried about how to handle this matter.”
Yu CheIn once again gently smiled with her eyes.
“I don’t think you need to handle it though?”
“Un? What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you if you promise me one thing.”
“Promise?”
“There’s a meeting today for everyone following the course. Please attend there.”
Han JinHo had an attendance close to the ground when it came to any group meetings. It wasn’t like he had never participated, but it was close to none.
He had mountains of other busy matters so he found it wasteful to use time for those kinds of things. Even this time wasn’t an exception.
He was about to say no but Yu CheIn opened her mouth first.
“Your attendance today, I marked it, sunbae-nim.”
“What?”
Was that even possible? Thinking about it, it was. This lecture on liberal arts had way too many people so the seats were allocated to everyone. If someone had been sitting on that seat for the entire duration of the lecture, their attendance would be checked; that was the kind of system.
So if a person was sitting on a seat, regardless of their gender, they would be marked present, since they only recorded the vacant seats into the roll.
In other words, for the entire hour, Yu CheIn had been sitting on Han JinHo’s seat.
“How is it? Do you now feel like attending the meeting?”
Facing Yu CheIn who was staring at him with eyes as if she wanted to be praised, Han JinHo nodded his head without thinking.
“I’ll attend. What time, and where?”
Yu CheIn made a bright smile.
[PR: awwwwww ≧◡≦]
