Leveling Up Alone

To be honest, Han-Yeol wondered how such a man could have become the president of the United States, the most powerful country in the world.

Anyway, at least this made it easier for Han-Yeol to deal with him.

“While I’m in the United States, please make P my person in charge.”

[...Sorry?]

The president doubted what he had just heard through the translator, and so he asked the translator to translate once more. However, because the Korean-American translator working in the White House didn’t know who P was, they just responded with the expression as if to say, ‘What’s the problem?’

[Hmm, that’s a bit of a problem. Putting P in charge...]

‘I wonder what’s wrong?’

The Korean-American staff working in the White House didn’t quite understand the president's attitude. They didn’t know who P was, but they didn’t see why it was so hard to put P in charge of someone who was going to help the United States more than anyone else. After all, Hunter Han-Yeol was the most powerful man in the world. The staff thought that if he were the president, even if Hunter Han-Yeol asked for the hottest female star in Hollywood, Veina Jones, he would do anything to make it happen.

Drip.

‘Ah, there I go again.’

The White House staff quickly wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, a consequence of his mind wandering, before anyone could notice.

He was a huge fan of Veina Jones. He loved and adored her to the point where just thinking about her made him drool, and he would get hard. He was the president of the first online fan cafe and was still the president to this day, which proved how much of a fan he was.

The fact that he would even offer Veina Jones to Han-Yeol showcased just how significant Han-Yeol was to the United States. From his perspective, it was only natural for him to question the president’s hesitation, even though he didn’t know who P was.

‘Hmm, P...’

The president had a lot on his mind.

‘Would it be okay to use the treasure of the US on something like this?’

In terms of combat strength, P was a weakling who couldn’t even beat an E-Rank Hunter. He could probably just manage to be on par with an F-Rank Hunter.

However, P’s value couldn’t be measured in terms of combat strength.

He was America's sole portal power, a treasure among treasures. His ability enabled the United States, with a population of 320 million and fewer than 32 Master-Rank Hunters, to ascend. They rose from a nation that rivaled China and even the EU, and they reclaimed their status as the dominant power in G1, as they had been before the Mana Stone Age.

‘Some people say that the US remains the most powerful country because of its technology to deal with mana stones, but that’s ridiculous.’

No matter how good the technology or how much money a country had, in the modern era, Master-Rank Hunters determined a nation's power. What they lacked in number, they made up for in quality, and vice versa. After all, the power of a nation was determined by the discretion of its Master-Rank Hunters, and with a population of only 320 million, the United States didn’t have a great start with the Master-Rank Hunters awakening at a rate of one per ten million.

The United States was ranked third in the world, which wasn’t too bad in terms of global rankings, but the problem was China, their biggest rival. After a rise in population due to the multiple-child policy that solved the problem of the declining population, China had an official count of 166 Master-Rank Hunters and an unofficial estimate of 200.

This wasn’t a matter of what they could do with technology and money. For the United States, it was necessary to become the strongest in the Mana Stone Age because it had been the strongest in the Oil Age. However, they had made many enemies during the Oil Age, and their biggest enemy was still China, their biggest rival even in the Mana Stone Age.

If China were to clearly surpass the United States, would they really leave the United States alone? Absolutely not.

They would surely try to pressure and attack the United States in any way they could, and as a country that had as many enemies as it did allies, this was something they had to prevent.

Fortunately, China was still an inefficient one-party dictatorship in a socialist system even after entering the Mana Stone Age. China hadn’t developed as efficiently as the United States had expected. They were a country that seemed to be growing on the outside but was not very healthy on the inside, which left a lot of room for the United States to dig through.

Also, thankfully, the United States was able to take advantage of India, the next most populated country after China, which had the potential to become a Hunter superpower because they were in the midst of a devastating civil war with internal division from religious and ethnic conflicts.

In fact, while the official number of Master-Rank Hunters in the United States was 54, the actual number within the United States was 128.

In addition, there were 57 other Master-Rank Hunters who were outside the country but still supported the United States. This was a large number compared to the official number of Master-Rank Hunters in China, but slightly less than the unofficial number.

Then, this brought up a question.

How was it possible for the United States, a country of 340 million people, to own 185 Master-Rank Hunters when there should technically only be 34 at best?

This was where technology came into play, and this was all thanks to the secrets of the United States espionage during the oil age and the existence of P’s portal powers.

The start of the Mana Stone Age threw many countries into chaos, especially those that were not politically mature. The United States actively infiltrated those countries with spies to appease Master-Rank Hunters.

They wanted to build a future for themselves and their children in the United States that recognized and treated them well, rather than in their homeland with no future. However, the governments of those countries weren’t stupid, so they thoroughly monitored themselves through high security, but P’s portal ability had made a fool out of them.

No matter how many layers of surveillance they had—be it two, three, or even a hundred—stopping a portal capable of traversing through space was impossible.

They recruited and lured Master-Rank Hunters from politically and socially unstable countries one by one and eventually gathered a staggering 185 Hunters in private.

Due to such reasons, the United States was able to surpass China, which had more than two hundred unofficial Master-Rank Hunters, and still reign as a G1 among the G3 for various reasons, including its technological and capital strength and the advantage of having many allies.

Even China could not overcome the United States' longstanding global power and legacy by simply having more Master-Rank Hunters. China only had a few more Hunters, but the quality of Hunters in the United States was significantly higher. China didn’t know that the United States had 185 Master-Rank Hunters. They only assumed the US had about 80 or so.

However, the United States’ G1 dominance had been a little unsteady lately, and shockingly, it was Egypt rather than China that was the cause of this instability. China was in the midst of a modern version of the Three Kingdoms, worried about its near future, so they were completely eliminated as a rival of the United States. Even if they cleaned up this mess right now, they still had to deal with all the dead Master-Rank Hunters, their tarnished national image, a devastated country, property damage, and more...

The damage in China was staggering even by the looks of it, and instead of any signs of recovering, a war seemed to spread to the south, where a Hunter who made a contract with a crazy demon who called himself the demon king had appeared.

Despite its distance, the United States obtained information faster and more accurately than China, which was at war.

The demon king corps in the south had a Taiwanese Hunter named Jang Gae-Seok (Zhang Zesu in Chinese) from Hong Kong. He ascended from an S-Rank Hunter to a Master-Rank Hunter upon entering the second dimension. Like Han-Yeol, he could summon demons. He could also conjure demons through magic circles, establish contracts, gain power, and earn a modest livelihood through fair trades.

However, he recently watched a video of Han-Yeol and was influenced so much by it that he started to get greedy and became obsessed with stronger demons. After showing such an obsession with demons, he suddenly disappeared one day, only to reappear during the demon king outbreak in southern China.

In any case, P's ability to use portals was the greatest treasure that enabled the United States to become a G1. He was a top-secret figure whose existence was known to only a few people in the United States, including the president.

‘This is troubling. P is important, but I also need to maintain a good relationship with Mr. Lee to ensure my re-election...’

The president’s frown deepened along with the wrinkles on his forehead.

Han-Yeol showed the president a bright smile, but in reality, he felt like his insides were burning.

‘It’ll be a shame if the US doesn’t consider me important enough to lend me P and give up...’

Even if Han-Yeol didn’t know exactly how important the portal ability was, he still understood the importance of the ability to leap through space.

‘P is the first person I know who can travel through space, especially over long distances.’

According to the information provided by Han-Yeol’s heavily funded intelligence team, no Hunter had the ability to jump through space, except for a skill called Blink, which allowed the user to travel a very short distance of about ten to twenty meters.

He still funded the intelligence team, but not as much as he used to.

Furthermore, Han-Yeol had almost given up on finding the spatial attribute. However, after meeting P, he realized why the intelligence team hadn’t been able to find it.

‘He’s the only one with this ability, and the US has been hiding him all along. Of course they couldn’t find him!’

In such a situation, if the United States chose P over Han-Yeol, he might never get the chance to gain the spatial attribute ever again.

‘That would be a real problem...’

If Han-Yeol really wanted to get it, he could either wage a direct war against the United States with all the power he had and steal P, or he could try to steal it from P while he was still close to him.

However, no matter how many powers Han-Yeol had and how he was called the most powerful in the world, he wasn’t strong enough for the United States to be an easy opponent.

If he wanted to fight the United States, he could do so, but the problem was that the Freemasons were his enemies, and if he made the United States his enemy as well, the Korea he wanted to protect and his peaceful life would fall like dominoes.

‘There’s no need to gain that by throwing all this away.’

This chapter is updat𝓮d by fre(e)webnov(l).com