"Oi Lee! What are you saying?" the young man asked after coming next to him. His speed was fast enough that the rest of them had to force their eyes to keep up with his movement.
Park Hyung-Jye looked at Ning. "Don't scare the young kid. He's only just become a hunter," he said. "There's no way he can do anything to any of us. We've had way too much experience."
"Haha, I was just asking," the generic-looking man said. "Do you want to try out and see how you fare against them?"
"Not really," Ning said. "I don't really have any intention of fighting right now. Anyway, I heard that the director called us. Where is he?"
"Who knows where the old man is," Lee said. "It will certainly take him some time to come. You should try and compare yourself with him. As far as I know, you have a SSS rank on speed as well, right?"
"I do," Ning said. "Is your expertise in just speed as well?"
"Yes," Lee answered before Park Hyung-Jye could see himself. "He is one of the fastest people in the world. The fastest in South Korea at least."
"What the hell? You just want to see how strong he is. If that's the case then why don't you fight either? If I recall correctly, he has an SSS rank in strength as well," Park said.
"Well, I could. But I just—"
The doors to the room opened and an older man, with rough hair that was streaked with white, walked in. He wore a bluish-black suit and had a body that could only belong to people that were into doing a lot of exercise and fitness routines.
"Are you all gathered already?" the man asked as he walked into the hall.
"Director!" every one that was gathered respectfully greeted him.
The director nodded and stopped right next to Ning. "You must be the new hunter. I am Sung Han-Sum, the director of the Department of Dungeon Defense. Nice to meet you," he said.
Ning shook his hand. "The pleasure is all mine, director," he said.
"I didn't expect you to be so young. I was sure the information said you were 25," the director said.
"I am," Ning said. "My young looks… well, let's just call it a blessing."
"Why did you call all of us here, director? Was there an emergency?" Bak asked as he lowered his barrier and walked up front.
"No, not so much an emergency, I simply wanted to request a few things from all of you," he said.
"What is it?" they asked.
"You guys must be aware of the S-ranked dungeon that lies by the Jongmyo Shrine, right?" he asked.
"Isn't that the one you refuse to sell?" Lee asked.
"Not refuse to. Because of the nature of its location and the fact that it lies in a shrine makes it impossible for Dungeon Defense to just outright sell it," the director said.
"So, what about it?" Bak asked.
"For the last year, we have been slowly bleeding S-ranked hunters that have either been taken away by your guilds or the foreign guilds that keep scouting them. As a result, we've been lacking the manpower to quickly clear them," he said.
All 5 of the Apostles lost their bored look and got serious.
"Director has the S-ranked dungeon…" Kim Min-Soo asked.
"Yes," the director said looking at everyone as he affirmed their thoughts. "The S-ranked dungeon near the Jongmyo shrine has indeed become an SS-ranked dungeon."
The 5 Apostles looked concerned.
"You should have told us if you couldn't clear it in time," the woman from the Silver Star guild said. "We could've lent you some aid."
Ning looked a little confused. He didn't understand what the problem really was here.
"I called you all here to come up with a solution for this predicament," the director said.
The 5 Apostles remained quiet, thinking as to what they could do. Ning was even more confused by this behavior.
"What's the problem here exactly?" he asked.
"The dungeon has evolved into SS-ranked. Beasts inside of it will now be SS-ranked and the boss will even be SSS-ranked. The people who can possible clear it stand in this room alone," Lee said. "Since there are so few of us, we won't be able to continuously clear the dungeon enough for it stabilizes and not turn into an SSS-ranked dungeon. If that happens, we might as well kill ourselves."
"No, I understand that part," Ning said. "I realize how hard an SS-ranked dungeon can be for the hunters. What I'm confused about is why are we even trying to come up with a solution since the solution is obvious."
"It's not that we don't know of a solution, but rather that the solution has to be the last thing we possibly do. After all, if we get rid of the dungeon, we lose a massive source of money, ores, and mana cores for the country," Bak said.
"Here's what we should do, Director," the young man in the tracksuit spoke. "We will go into that dungeon and bring out the SS-ranked mana cores. With that, we should be able to grow new SS-ranked hunters soon enough. That way, they will be able to help us in the dungeon too."
"Yes, we should do that," the rest of them agreed as well.
Ning sighed. His plan to just get rid of the dungeon was not accepted. But how could they? Doing so would be crippling the country in their eyes.
They would rather make this risky play with lives at stake than live a life with no risk at all.
'There's nothing I can do then,' he thought.
"Can the 5 of you work with each other?" the director asked the Apostles.
"We've worked on multiple occasions. We should be able to fight with each other easily," Lee said. "Although, it might be hard if we were to add this young brother into our group. Do you mind asking him and Hyung-Jye to have a mock battle to see how he does?"
