Chapter 102 – Defamation (1)
The day after returning to Korea.
We had lunch at a restaurant near the Society’s headquarters and returned to the office.
Tia was playing with a toothpick with a rather satisfied face.
“Whoa… Braised short ribs is the best. I love spicy food since I’m in Japan.”
“Whoa, whoa! Whoa…”
Kerr, who had agreed very strongly, suddenly cried in low warning.
After hearing the boy’s cry, I found a group of people in front.
A protest was taking place in front of the association’s headquarters.
“What is it? It wasn’t there before…”
When I listened to the voices of the protesters for a while, I heard a very absurd slogan.
“Abolish the hunter pension that threatens the survival rights of hunters! Abolish it!”
“Association, disclose the issue of fund depletion transparently and return the pension funds immediately!”
“Eh… Abolition of Hunter Pension?”
Alice, who came out of the restaurant with a mint candy, reacted as if she had been beaten.
It was no wonder that she did this.
This is because the hunter pension is a system that is working well enough to be considered the best among the hunter-related policies implemented in Korea.
The demonstrators who found us belatedly rushed towards us.
The reporters and cameramen who came out to cover the scene scrambled to grab their equipment.
“Special Investigator! A word about the Hunter Pension System…”
“It’s a monster! We fed the monster with our taxes!”
“Eh…”
As soon as one of the protesters shouted, Tia hid the Coke can behind her back her.
I took advantage of the opportunity when the police who were dispatched to dissuade them and explained quickly.
“Tia and Kerr are hunter pets that Alice owns. All of these guys pay for their food by themselves.”
“Abolish the Hunter Pension!”
“Does it make sense to earn over 100 as a pension when you earn 300 per month!”
As I listened to the slogans composed of various bullshit, my mind became confused.
Originally, I was just going to get over it quickly, but I couldn’t.
Here, I decided to point out one thing for them.
“Everyone, Hunter’s pension is the best welfare system in Korea. To be honest, I’d like to have one too.”
“No matter what, if you take away 30% of your income, what are you saying?”
“The reason why the pension insurance premium is so high is because it includes the cost of medical insurance. And the payment period is so short. Hunters can receive pension until they die even if they fill the minimum service period.”
In fact, it was the government’s intention that insurance premiums go crazy.
Hunters were making too much profit at the height of their lives, so they decided to stop inflation and tie up the money with insurance premiums.
The Hunter Association made huge profits by investing its pension funds in hunter-related infrastructure.
Thanks to this, Korea has become one of the world’s leading hunter powerhouses, and the Hunter Pension Management Corporation has become extremely financially stable.
Of course, from the standpoint of active hunters who have to pay a monthly pension, it would be absolutely crazy…
When you retire, the story changes.
Hunter pension begins to be paid at the same time as retirement, and it comes out until death.
The reason is that the hunter pension also serves as hunter-only medical insurance.
“As active hunters may not know, abilities do not last forever. There are many cases in which side effects of abilities are manifested after retirement.”
Looking at it right now, I’m in a position where I’m exposed to radiation every time I pull out green dust.
Hunter ability is not a power originally allowed for humans, so it is more rare to have no side effects at all.
For hunters whose income has become unstable after retirement, this hunter pension is a lifeline.
“If the hunter pension is abolished, retired hunters will not be able to receive proper treatment. The hunter pension will return much more than you paid.”
“Yo, I heard that the pension fund is depleted because the occurrence of dungeons has decreased a lot these days…”
“It’s nonsense. Hunter’s pension is very stable. Pension fund investment is huge every year, so the National Pension would rather run out faster.”
In other words, the protesters were protesting because they were worried about something that could not happen.
I don’t know where the hack I got it wrong…
They got angry again and tried to raise their voices again.
We evaded them and quickly ran to the office.
“Even though the pension fund investment was a hit, they extorted money like that?”
“Hunter pension is a scam!”
“Oh my gosh…”
As explained earlier, the Hunter Pension is very different from the National Pension.
Hunter pension is a necessary welfare to prevent hunters from dying from suffering after retirement.
Hunter pensions are essential to prevent hunters driven by the hardships of life from turning into criminals.
“I have no intention of listening to you.”
“…Won’t this cause problems later?”
“Suddenly what’s wrong?”
Alice closed her eyes tightly as if praying instead of explaining her details of her.
It wasn’t long before I returned to the office feeling ominous.
Alice, who was looking at her smartphone with her nervous face her, screamed at her.
“It’s up!”
“What?”
“Internet articles! The ones covered earlier were reporters from the Hunter Department.”
“What?”
How long has it been since you talked there, and an article has already been posted.
Aren’t these guys even retired?
As I was genuinely freaking out, I saw a very provocative headline.
[Hunter Association Special Investigator Warns of Possible National Pension Depletion…]
“What a bastard!”
As soon as I read it, I screamed out loud.
While giving a lecture to the protesters, the story of the national pension came up only once…
He distorted it and created a trashy article.
It was the same that the contents of the main text were very bizarrely transformed.
[The special investigator who said that if the hunter pension was abolished, all hunters would die…]
“What the hell is this bastard?”
“Looking for it, it’s very famous?
Alice was already diligently moving her fingers.
After a while, the knight went straight down.
Alice had contacted Yeriel and the Winter Kingdom Guild, so she took her action her.
Seo Ji-yu, unlike me, couldn’t even guess the secret of her magic, she asked with a puzzled face.
“Uh, what did you do?”
“I called Gilma’s sister and asked her to stop advertising.”
“Ah…”
Newspapers originally made up most of their revenue from advertising, but…
Paper newspaper subscriptions have declined in recent years, intensifying this trend.
This is because Internet newspapers, by their nature, have almost no subscription fee.
Currently, newspaper companies earn less than 20% of their revenue from subscription fees.
On the other hand, the percentage of advertising revenue has long since exceeded 50%.
So, you can never do anything that would dislike a large corporation like Winter Kingdom.
In the first place, it’s insane to openly curse at Yeriel Frost’s husband.
I was furious because I hadn’t cooled down yet.
“I have to show these people a taste of search and seizure without a warrant and arrest investigation. Is there anything good to do?”
“Why don’t we send Kerr to ask him?”
“Keru can’t ask anyone. Tia can go instead.”
Even if I say this, I’m dealing with civilians, so I’m going to endure it as much as I can…
The next morning, a problem arose.
I went to work in a fresh mood after a long time, and I was slightly taken aback by Lee Seo-woo’s fuss.
He, too, had become accustomed to the work of the Special Forces, and was no longer surprised by trivial things.
“Chief, have you seen the news?”
“Why is the news all of a sudden?”
“It’s a mess right now. You know the reporter who gave the wrong report about the team leader yesterday…”
“Oh, that giraffe?”
Let’s relive what I barely forgot and feel the discomfort…
Lee Seo-woo delivered the news like a thunderbolt from the blue sky.
“The reporter is dead!”
“What, where did you receive the heavenly punishment?”
“No. Well, he was murdered very brutally…”
“What?”
Indeed. The portal site where Internet news is posted has already been in a frenzy.
Everyone is gritting their teeth and updating the breaking news, probably because a partner has been changed for a long time.
I couldn’t even sit down and asked.
“Does the Hunter have a penchant for crime?”
“I-I’m that much… But since the victim was a reporter from the Hunter Department, wouldn’t it be very likely? Besides, he was murdered in the middle of the night near the newspaper office.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
I decided to go on a business trip with the feeling that I should at least look around.
Fortunately, the scene of the incident was not too far from the association.
While the police were in control of the scene, reporters were already excitedly poking around.
“I’m an association investigator!”
“Sir, what did you say about this case…”
“I’ll tell you what I’ve seen.”
I passed the reporter holding the microphone and entered the control line.
Indeed. This was a crime of retaliation, no doubt.
The smell of blood stinging your nose from afar.
The victim, whose clothes were stripped naked, was hanging from a rope, exposing his body.
At first glance, it seemed like the work of fake green dust, but I felt a much stronger grudge than that time.
Lee Seo-woo immediately suspected the guy’s crime.
“Could this be the same as the last time?”
“No. It’s a very different feeling. He was a serial killer. When he arrested and sent off criminals, he sent cards, but there’s no crime statement here.”
What is felt at the scene of this crime is only the deep-rooted resentment towards the victim.
I was convinced by examining the corpse.
“See. The amount of blood loss is considerable. This time he was hung while he was alive. He didn’t die from a cervical vertebrae injury, but he was suffocated while unable to scream. Looking at it, he even pulled out his intestines.”
“It’s terrible.”
Even though it was an early morning with little traffic…
I can’t do something like this in an alley with a moderate grudge.
The culprit must have been prepared to be arrested from the beginning.
“Looking at the traces of the rope, he was alive for quite a long time in a hanging state. Oxygen was supplied to him from time to time. A mediocre guy can’t do this.”
“Is it also a hunter crime?”
“The probability of that is higher. The culprit is more likely to be a hunter who worked directly in the dungeon.”
I turned my back on Lee Seo-woo for a moment and asked on my smartphone.
“Blanche, can you sort out the list of potential suspects? Select only hunters who have a grudge against the victim.”
[That’s too many.]
“… What?”
In an instant, Blanche uploaded a list of over 20 people on the screen of her smartphone her.
I was very dizzy for a moment and closed my eyes tightly.
