SSS-Rank Mechanic Player - Chapter 2.1

It was late afternoon on September 2nd.

In the Ground White area.

This year’s 28 year old Yu-Tae Jeong was a porter.

Porter.

It generally means a clerk who follows hunters and collects monster corpses.

The reason he did this job was for one thing.

Money.

For day-laborers without any specialized skills, it paid quite a bit.

“Sir, there’s still one pile over here, but I’m full. Is there any room left?”

“Oh. Come over here. Hey! Kim, take this one too.” Yu-Tae Jeong handed the last dismantled hide to his team-mate and looked at the giant pile of corpses stacked on the cart.

Today’s haul wasn’t small either.

Normally it would have been a lot of work, but today was supposed to be even busier.

There were less prey than expected, so they had to go deeper than planned.

“Alright everyone, once you’re done, gather up.” At the team leader’s instruction, Yu-Tae Jeong and the other porters began to gather.

Afterwards, there was a quick headcount.

“Teams 5 and below, all present and accounted for! Team 1, you’re up!”

At the shout of the leader, the team at the front of the line received the hunters’ escort and left the field.

Yu-Tae Jeong’s team and the rest of the teams followed, and their figures gradually disappeared from view.

They left the ruined city and crossed a mountain that served as a base and bridge.

The porters’ faces were already dripping with sweat.

Yu-Tae Jeong, who was relatively young, was no different.

‘Ugh, my shoulders.’ He had been working hard for months now and was finally getting used to it, but for a normal human like him, carrying a 40kg load wasn’t exactly light.

At the very least, now that he had some experience and his strength had increased, he hadn’t fallen over once like he had in the beginning.

“Tired?” He heard a friendly voice from behind and turned his head with a start.

“Huh? Sir, why aren’t you coming from the front today?”

“I’ve been taking some medication lately.”

“Medication? Does medication really have that much of an effect?”

“I don’t know if it’s just my mood, but it definitely seems to help. I’ll tell you later, if you’re interested, you should try it too.”

“No thanks. I’m fine.”

“Come on, you make enough money. What else are you going to spend it on?”

They talked and walked for a while.

Yu-Tae Jeong finally arrived at the foot of the mountain where the carts were waiting.

He heaved the cart onto his shoulders and looked around with a sigh, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“But why are there only these carts here?”

It was strange.

Normally, before the job was done, all the carts would have gathered.

But for some reason, today it looked like only half of them had made it.

Taejeong, who was looking down at the ground, approached Kim Keuntaek, who was in charge of the people.

“Sir, why are there only these cars? It’ll take a while to get everyone here.”

“I just heard that there was a problem with the schedule. I heard that the other team is coming to pick us up, so we have to split into two groups. The team leader went to check, so we’ll know soon. That’s one thing, but this is your last job, right?”

“Yes. My younger brother is in college now, and I’ve paid off all my debts, so I’m going to try to get a job.”

“A job? You’re still young, you shouldn’t be stuck in a place like this.”

“It’s not so bad here, but to be honest, I don’t know what’s going to happen with this job.”

“Yeah. I saw it on the news yesterday, six people died.”

“I want to save up money and open a small business as soon as possible.”

As they were talking, the team leader, who had gone to check on the schedule, came back with a worried look on his face.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“The agency double-booked us. We’re supposed to be the last group to leave.”

Taejeong was about to say something in response to the team leader’s words, but he quickly realized that it wouldn’t do any good.

Later, a few more people raised objections, but nothing changed.

All they could do was watch as the hunters left.

All that was left were the porters who had participated in this job.

There were a total of 80 people in the two teams.

“Team leader, approximately when will they be here?”

Taejeong, who was looking at his smartphone, asked the team leader.

“I don’t know. Maybe within an hour. But don’t worry too much, we’ll get paid for the extra time.”