Chapter 48: Work, slave (3)

Translator: miraclerifle

Yoo Jaeha was thinking that Ju-Heon was showing off when he didn't know anything.

‘I am the pro. You think you are the pro? No matter how quickly you do it, it’s at least a week per artifact, at least a week.’

Yoo Jaeha smirked while having that thought. It was because he was confident that there were no restorers who were at his level right now.

That was why he said the following.

“Ah right, why don’t you give a demonstration while telling us how it is done? Anybody can say they are an artist, the top student, a maestro or have an annual salary of 100 million won. I won't believe it unless I see it with my own eyes.”

‘Look at this punk, he wants a demonstration?’

Yoo Jaeha then provoked him further.

“But I’ll bet my salary that you can’t do it.”

Ju-Heon chuckled at that statement.

‘He’s going to bet his salary?

He shouldn't say something like that without thinking.’

“Really?”

“Yes sir! Captain-nim, if you can show me a demonstration, I will restore those 10 artifacts in a single day! I also won't receive a salary! But if I win...”

“If you win?”

“I will take a month to restore every artifact as you have touched my pride as a restorer. I want to relax as I work!”

“Is that so?”

Ju-Heon smirked for some reason. However, Yoo Jaeha who did not know the meaning of the smirk was sneering internally.

‘He seems to have some artifact restoration knowledge, but I will burn my own hand if he can really do it. I'll burn my own damn hand. [1] Restoration artifacts are not things that just anybody can handle.’

However...

He heard an unexpected response.

"A demonstration? Sure, why not.”

Yoo Jaeha questioned his ears before his expression stiffened.

“................Excuse me? U, umm, what did you say?”

Ju-Heon just motioned with his finger as if telling him to hand something over.

“I'll show you. Hand over your restoration artifact.”

Yoo Jaeha could not help but become anxious.

“W, wait, what did you say?”

“I told you to hand it over.”

‘Is he being serious?’

Yoo Jaeha finally realized that something was wrong.

About thirty minutes later...

‘This really makes no sense.’

Yoo Jaeha could not help but have cold sweats all over his body. He couldn't help it because this situation was unbelievable.

That was indeed the case.

It was crazy.

His employer must be crazy.

‘What the hell, something like that is possible?!’

Flash!

Another bright light flashed outside the cafe. In a narrow alley with nobody else... Ju-Heon who had asked Irene for a moment and walked out of the cafe to restore an artifact was moving his hand quickly.

Ju-Heon had a brush pen you would find at a stationary store in his hand, and his hand was moving so quickly as if he was a video being fast-forwarded.

Thanks to that, Yoo Jaeha could not help but stand there with his jaw dropped.

Even a restorer would not be able to restore such a critical injury so cleanly in such a short amount of time!

However, Ju-Heon just calmly started to speak without paying any regards to what Yoo Jaeha was thinking.

“There. Isn’t it easy?”

That statement made Yoo Jaeha almost say the F word.

‘This bastard, easy my ass!’

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Ju-Heon looked like a certain mister who was holding a brush, smiling, and saying, ‘wasn’t that easy?’

That was indeed the case.

Ju-Heon picked up the < Brush from the Joseon Palace Flower Garden - B-Grade (Consumable Artifact) > and started restoring an artifact as if he was used to it.

But what the hell?!

‘Ah, this is driving me nuts, I bet my salary on it!’

Yoo Jaeha was crying internally.

He had considered himself to be talented in restoration, but he just looked like someone who was trying to teach a fish how to swim!

Furthermore, Ju-Heon's knowledge of restoration that he was spewing out as if he was a professor, was not at an amateur’s level.

‘Shit, how is this possible?’

It was as if he was an elementary school student while Ju-Heon was a university professor!

That was why Yoo Jaeha was going crazy as he felt shame, but also admiration for Ju-Heon’s sense of restoration.

‘Damn it, I might fall for him! No, this bastard is definitely a bad bastard!’

Although Ju-Heon was a shitty superior, Yoo Jaeha the genius artist could not do anything about it. He could not help but respect someone who could create wonderful works of art.

That was why Yoo Jaeha shouted in pain.

“Damn it, Captain-nim! You're even more talented at it than I am! Why are you making me restore artifacts?!”

"Why? Because it's annoying.”

Yoo Jaeha almost fainted after hearing that. However, Ju-Heon just chuckled while looking at Yoo Jaeha.

It took a lot of focus and energy to use restoration artifacts.

That wasn’t the only thing.

“Also, my using restoration artifacts would destroy them too quickly. They can't tolerate me. It’ll be like using something that could be used 100 times just once and throwing it away.”

“R, really?”

That was the truth. Restoration artifacts focused on affinity, but Ju-Heon's affinity was so low that the restoration artifact would try to commit self-harm.

Honestly speaking, he had forced the brush to activate just now to the point that the artifact tried to reject Ju-Heon and its durability significantly went down. In simple terms, they were not a good fit for him.

But most importantly...

‘My skills are only at the level of regular restorers.’

He was just someone who could patch things up.

That’s how restoration worked.

Restoring artifacts was similar to restoring ancient cultural items where the restorer patched things up to look normal. There was no way to completely restore something that was damaged.

Of course, that meant that it was impossible to restore something that was broken into pieces or to return the durability to normal.

However, Yoo Jaeha was different.

‘Don’t look so down. You have a much higher level of < Fit > than I do.’

That was indeed the case.

< Fit > was something that existed separately from Dominance and Affinity.

Basically, Fit represented natural talent to handle specific artifacts based on heritage or abilities.

For example, a talented mathematician would have a high chance of handling math-related artifacts very well. Other examples would be musicians with music-based artifacts or Jews with historical Jewish artifacts.

‘And this punk has a scary level of fit with art-type artifacts.’

Normally, a person would be able to pull out close to 100% of an artifact's abilities with their dominance or affinity and there was no way to get past that.

However, the people with extremely high levels of Fit were able to pull out the hidden abilities that went above 100%.

It was very rare, but Yoo Jaeha was able to do such a thing with art-type artifacts.

He was able to completely revive artifacts with < Artifact Revival > and < Artifact Regression. >

He was able to revive an artifact that was destroyed into pieces back to normal and regress an artifact that had lost all durability back to full durability.

It could be considered an upgraded restoration skill.

‘That is why you are going to become an Elite restorer that nobody can match in a little bit. You little punk.’

Ju-Heon started to laugh wickedly as he was the only one to know that fact.

“Your annual salary. You said you will give it up, right?”

“Damn it!”

He then smiled without caring for Yoo Jaeha's grumbling as he had this unmatched Elite working for him for free.

“Alright, get started right away since I showed you a demonstration. You have exactly 24 hours from right now. Finish restoring all 10 artifacts.”

Yoo Jaeha wanted to jump up and down in anger after hearing that.

‘Why does this person have to even be good at restoring artifacts?!’

Why?

It was because he had to hand over all good artifacts to Chairman Kwon and had to develop his other abilities if he wanted to survive.

The restore skill that he had used for emergency situations inside tombs had increased Ju-Heon's rate of survival.

“Shut up and get started. Ah, by the way, I will decrease the time to 10 hours if you fail this time. No eating or leaving work until you are done.”

“Hey! You devil!”

Ju-Heon chuckled.

‘Grow quickly if you hate it that much, Yoo Jaeha.’

It might sound like an impossible task, but Ju-Heon knew this punk's extremely competitive nature. He was the type to get fired up when he saw someone who was better than him at something.

And lo and behold, Yoo Jaeha who had seen Ju-Heon's abilities was burning up with the thought of catching up to Ju-Heon as quickly as possible.

It was at that moment.

[The Dexterity skill has risen to C-rank!]

- Quickly learn how to use any item (artifact) even if it is your first time using it.

- Speed of consumption decreases significantly when using consumable artifacts.

- Quite Skillful in artifact maintenance and restoration.

- Chances of stealing artifacts from other people increases significantly.

[ You have received the title of < Superhuman Restoration Expert > and have learned about the existence of a new skill.]

[< Tomb Restoration (F-Rank) > skill has been awakened.]

Ju-Heon was shocked after seeing the sudden messages.

‘Huh?’

He was fine with the sudden messages by now. The crow seemed to awaken some weird things here and there.

However...

‘Not regular restoration but tomb restoration?

What kind of skill is this?’

Ju-Heon only had an artifact restoration skill in the past. However, he seemed to have gotten a special restoration skill different than the artifact restoration skill he used in the past.

Ju-Heon decided to test out the skill.

However...

[This skill cannot be used unless you are inside a tomb or near a tomb.]

Ju-Heon decided to ignore it for now since he would eventually learn about its uses.

Now that he taught this punk Yoo Jaeha a lesson, he needed to handle Irene now.

And lo and behold, Irene was looking at Ju-Heon with anticipation when he returned to the cafe. Ju-Heon smiled while looking at her.

“It’s time to remove your curse now.”

Irene’s face brightened after hearing his comment.

‘Finally!’

“Do you think it is possible?”

“Possible my ass.”

“!”

The person who responded was not Ju-Heon but Yoo Jaeha who was next to him. He plopped down on the ground and started to sniffle.

“Aigoo. I'm done for! I hope the Earth blows up tomorrow.”

Ju-Heon just chuckled while looking at Yoo Jaeha. He probably thought that he was ruined because he would need to work without pay for the rest of his life.

‘Don't worry. I’ll add your salary on to the bonuses.’

Of course, Ju-Heon had no plans on telling him about this right now. Why? Yoo Jaeha was fired up for something else because he had lost his salary.

‘Damn it, if it is like this, I might as well work hard at restoring artifacts to earn a lot of bonuses.’

The unreliable restorer had become extremely inspired.

Ju-Heon who was easily handling his subordinate like this started to speak.

“You don't need to worry about this punk. It’s time for us to have our conversation.”

“Okay! How will you do it?”

It was fine until that point. Irene was feeling positive as well.

However...

“The method is simple. However...”

“However?”

“You have to give them to me. Your time and your body.”

He said something that might give people the wrong idea as if it was nothing.

1. It’s a Korean saying that is used to say it is impossible. Similar to the English expression, ‘When pigs fly.’