God-Tier Enhancement: My Upgrades Never Fail-Chapter 66: Episode 13 _ Tokemon (3)

3.

It was their first break in weeks.

The Specialists voiced their regret over skipping even a single day at such a critical time, but their relationship with Simin was a tricky one. Despite paying him a fortune, he was somehow the one holding all the cards, and no one could force him to stay.

It was only one day, after all. Hunting on their own wouldn’t stop them from gaining EXP, and they would have to get used to this reality sooner or later anyway. They couldn’t pay for an EXP bonus for the rest of their lives.

Besides, after watching him from up close, they were half-looking forward to it themselves.

The rabbits’ transformation.

Their levels were rising, but all anyone ever saw was ninety-nine rabbits marching in neat ranks behind Han Simin, so it was hard to feel the impact. Only when they saw the newly equipped armor and weapons did they truly grasp how much was being invested.

And what would happen once those items hit +15?

Even a mortal enemy would be curious.

Imagine it: rabbits flooding the hunting grounds, spewing a crimson aura from head to toe as they swept everything away.

No, perhaps it wouldn’t be limited to the hunting grounds.

—“Once I’ve got a rabbit corps, I’m just gonna march straight over and wreck any bastard who mouths off.”

The vicious, offhand remark their owner had tossed out with a grin might very well become reality.

Because this was Han Simin saying it, not just anyone.

The Specialists were convinced. This was, after all, the same man who opened with a hammer swing at any player he didn’t like.

“If the final boss ends up with a whole escort of those things, how the hell are we supposed to break through?”

They fell silent.

Right now, a single rabbit’s level was about the same as the average player’s: Level 28.

Ninety-nine of them were leeching off Han Simin’s EXP and splitting it amongst themselves, but the monsters they were passively feeding on were in a level range those rabbits could never dream of fighting on their own. On top of that, these so-called monsters were enjoying the full effect of the Ring of Blessing, which had contributed enormously to their growth.

Assuming they continued to scale in proportion to player levels, the moment they were properly geared up, a rabbit army stronger than any player would be born.

“That’s terrifying. But I still want to see it.”

“Same here.”

Finding this interesting was a privilege reserved for the Specialists, who had Han Simin as a guildmate. As long as they didn’t try to stiff him or steal from him, he would stay by their side.

“Let’s just hunt.”

If there was one thing they had over Han Simin, who played the game in the most ridiculous way imaginable, it was their level. He was always whining that his level wasn’t going up, that it was too hard. The least they could do was keep their levels higher than his, so they wouldn’t someday slam into an insurmountable wall and fall into despair.

With their shoulders drooping at the sight of their EXP bar shrinking visibly over just a few hours, the Specialists started hunting again.

What else could they do but grind?

* * *

By the time Han Simin arrived at the enhancement forge, the place was already packed.

Within the Ain Kingdom, the forge’s enhancement effect was fairly well-known, and thanks to the screenshots he had posted on the Fantastic World community site, its reputation was growing. Even so, considering the still-low average player level, the shamelessly soaring price of gold, and the fact that enhancement stones—still unobtainable for players—were fixed at one gold coin each, this was a massive crowd.

Which meant they weren’t players.

“Master, is everyone here?”

“Yes. Only the ones who hold real decision-making power for each family have gathered.”

Feeling the flood of disgruntled stares, Han Simin smiled. Today’s meeting was his doing. He had briefly forgotten about it while dealing with matters in the Empire, but once he got back to the castle, the memory popped into his head, tickling his uncanny instinct for profit. He had gone straight to Khan with a request.

Naturally, there was no way a bunch of veteran enhancement masters would show up just because some greenhorn adventurer called them, so he had invoked the Emperor’s name.

’If you don’t come, I’ll hunt you down and kill you all.’

It was an absurd bluff, but word had already spread like wildfire among the enhancement masters that at the festival, the Emperor had taken a liking to him and even made him his son-in-law. So, despite their resentment, they had no choice but to attend.

“Heh heh.”

Knowing that, Simin’s gaze began to look down on them. He had almost forgotten these people existed, since they didn’t particularly interest him.

’Even if you have a hundred regular clients, never let a new, easy-to-fool customer slip away.’

“So, you all brought your enhancement stones, right?” 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

“Why did you tell us to bring enhancement stones?!” one of them demanded.

“Even if you are the Emperor’s son-in-law, how dare you order around those of us from other kingdoms!” another shouted.

“Is this not going too far?!”

The enhancement masters puffed up their chests, their pride stung by this young punk’s power trip.

“I wonder if you old men will only come to your senses after your families are wiped out down to the ninth generation and you’re left to spend the rest of your lives begging in the streets. I went to all the trouble of persuading His Majesty—who wanted to just kill you all because you were a hassle—and this is how you act? They say no good deed goes unpunished, and I guess the old saying was right,” Simin boldly claimed.

The masters questioned his statement.

“I see this won’t do. I’ll just go back and tell him.”

“W-wait!”

Their bravado couldn’t hold a candle to Simin’s nerve. If he could talk back to the Emperor to his face, why would he flinch in front of a bunch of enhancement masters?

Without a moment’s hesitation, he turned his back and reached for the door, and they had no choice but to grab him. No matter what, the fact remained that the Emperor was behind him. And when they recalled the Emperor’s past as the continent’s tyrant, the idea that he might actually slaughter them all didn’t seem so unrealistic.

Realistically speaking, now that an enhancement master had appeared who could raise success rates and enhance as he pleased, there was no reason to protect a bunch of masters whose only skill was leaving everything up to luck. Of course, Han Simin wouldn’t live for a thousand years, but the Khan family he belonged to would remain.

Even if the hundred remaining enhancement masters were reduced to twenty, what difference would it make?

Having thought it through that far, the enhancement masters began to beg.

“Thank you. Thank you for sparing our lives.”

“Right.”

“Please forgive our insolence.”

“If you forgive us just this once, we will live quietly and never cause trouble again.”

It was the downfall of men who had spent their whole lives with their chins held high. But he hadn’t called them here just to watch this. As always, apologies were just pretty words that didn’t make him any money.

And there was no way he would accept an apology that didn’t pay.

“Now then. Let me tell you the real reason I called you here,” he continued. “You see those rabbits outside? All ninety-nine are mine.”

With his best salesman’s smile in place, he opened the forge door. The rabbits were lined up in ranks of eleven, while nearby players, fascinated, snapped screenshots and recorded videos. It was a rare spectacle within the city walls, and the enhancement masters looked utterly baffled.

’Why is he showing us that?’

’Why rabbits, of all things, right now?’

Han Simin cleared up their confusion in one sentence.

“They’re my rabbits, but I’ve been feeling a bit uneasy taking them around. Feels like they might die on me. So I invested a lot of money to get them some armor and weapons, but still... these are rabbits owned by an enhancement master. I can’t not enhance their gear, right?”

’And what does that have to do with us?’

They didn’t say it out loud, but their expressions were hardening. He hadn’t gotten to the point yet, but their long years of experience were already telling them what was coming next.

“The thing is, each rabbit needs two items enhanced, and there are ninety-nine of them, so I need a lot of enhancement stones. I’ve got plenty of money, but as you know, it’s still hard for us adventurers to get our hands on gold coins. So I called you here to ask for your help!”

Ignoring the dozens of glares telling him not to dare, Han Simin boldly laid out his business. At his blatant declaration that he was here to shake them down, the enhancement masters started glancing nervously at one another.

Any questions about why he was raising rabbits as pets were now completely irrelevant. Only one thing mattered.

How were they going to get out of this?

“Oh, of course, I’m not saying I’ll shamelessly take your stones for free. I’m thinking I’ll take the stones you brought now, and then later, I’ll slowly pay you back in gold coins, bit by bit, as I earn it. What do you all think?”

They silently thought, ’You crazy son of a bitch.’

That was surely the shared sentiment of every enhancement master present. They had felt uneasy about being summoned under the Emperor’s name, but still scraped together every enhancement stone their families had in stock and brought them here, only to find out this was the plan.

“Is this not going too far?!”

“Pardon?”

One of the masters, from a family that had brought over a thousand enhancement stones, finally exploded. A thousand stones meant a thousand gold coins. Even for enhancement masters who were famous for raking in money, that was not an amount you could just shrug off.

There are plenty of people in this world who would rather risk danger than let that kind of money be extorted from them. Han Simin was one of those people, which was why he understood them better than anyone.

“Everyone here knows that if we hand them over, you’ll just keep putting off paying us back and never actually do it.”

Nods rippled through the room. A single dissenter could influence the atmosphere.

Simin slipped a hand into his robe and pulled something out.

“I wasn’t planning on taking this out, but...”

“That’s—!” they gasped.

The Emperor’s plaque, made of solid, pure mithril. A collective gasp went up from the enhancement masters. The price was one thing, but the meaning of that plaque was something else entirely. It meant they couldn’t dismiss his actions as childish bravado.

That plaque was the Emperor.

“If someone whose life I spared has the nerve to call me trash for asking a little favor, I should tidy things up and kill them, don’t you think?”

They gasped in shock.

At the same time, he squared his shoulders as if the Emperor himself were standing behind him and drew his +15 dagger. The hammer had higher attack power, but this was a situation where visual impact mattered more. To enhancement masters, a hammer was a sacred tool of their craft.

The dagger garnered far more fear.

“N-no, that’s not what I meant...”

The master who had spoken up backed down in a panic. He had never imagined that plaque would actually be real. He had thought Han Simin was just a son-in-law in name only.

“If you don’t like it, you’re free to walk out right now. If I weren’t an enhancement master myself, I wouldn’t care what happened to you, but as it is, my conscience is bothering me.”

That was the end of it.

The enhancement masters, who had been watching each other, began to shuffle forward with the bundles of enhancement stones they had brought.

“Our family would be fine with you paying us back over three generations.”

“We’ll only charge you half price!”

“We don’t need money at all! We only brought these to repay the favor of you sparing our lives.”

Watching the men reverse their reactions into tearful, desperate attempts to live, Khan let out a hollow laugh. The more he saw, the more his disciple seemed like a demon.

“Master, this family’s stone count is a little short. Why don’t you sell them a few at two gold coins apiece?” Simin suggested.

Khan was speechless.

He confirmed Simin was a demon.

* * *

Originally, Han Simin had seventy-five enhancement stones. Now he had over four thousand more.

“I didn’t think I’d get this many.”

He was dazed, but in a blissful way. He needed three thousand stones. Based on how much he thought he could extort, he had estimated he would get maybe a thousand to fifteen hundred. Even that would have been more than enough. On top of that, he had actually planned to pay back at least some of the money over time, but they had all refused to take it.

“Guess this is what I get for living such a virtuous life.”

He knew better than anyone that wasn’t the reason. It had to be thanks to the mithril plaque in his hand.

“The Emperor really is something.”

If he had tried to pull this on players, it wouldn’t have worked at all. He would have been lucky if they didn’t insist on meeting up for a real-life fight.

In any case, he converted as much of the money as he could into gold coins and was in the middle of preparing for enhancement when some good news reached him, putting a spring in his step.

“So all I have to do is enhance in peace.”

What a comfortable process. It was like being a chef with all the ingredients prepped and laid out, ready to cook. And as if all the ingredients had been provided for free, as sponsorship.

“Let’s go, guys.”

The clueless rabbits trotted after him in a line. He wasn’t sure there was any real bond there yet—they hadn’t exactly shared blood in battle or watched each other’s backs—but whether it was because they were monsters tamed with the Legendary Legendary-grade Tamer’s skill, or because they were just a bit short on brain cells, they followed orders perfectly.

They were exactly the kind of pets Han Simin wanted. For them, he could put up with the grind of enhancement.

“I’ve done a 24-hour enhancement marathon before. This’ll be over in no time.”

In his good mood, Han Simin overlooked one thing. Back in the Empire, all he had had to do was sit in one place and keep swinging his hammer, success or failure be damned.

What he was about to do now, however, was an enhancement that had to succeed.

* * *

Episode 67