The Flip Side of the Coin

Namdaemun.

Among serious drinkers, it was also famous under another name: Namdun.

"Short for Namdaemun Dungeon."

"Dungeon?"

"What dungeon?"

"You'll get it once we're there."

He had come with Sora and Hye-ri. Liquor—especially old liquor—had to be seen and chosen in person.

Which is exactly why you have to be twice as careful.

There was a reason people called it a dungeon. Even the shops' location was anything but ordinary.

A bustling traditional market. Somewhere in it sat an unidentified passage that looked for all the world like a subway entrance. Anyone coming for the first time couldn't help but tense up.

Why on earth was it there?

"It really does look like a dungeon entrance."

"Barely anyone around, either. The whole vibe is creepy."

"How many people are out buying foreign liquor, anyway? That's why that one stretch is weirdly deserted."

The interior was rundown. Plenty of empty storefronts. Everything about the place screamed that you shouldn't go in.

But the scariest thing about a dungeon isn't the atmosphere.

If ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that were all it was, the nickname would just be a joke. The real reason Namdaemun was terrifying was something else entirely.

The monsters.

The second you stepped inside, a man lunged out and started talking.

"Oh my!"

"Looks like it's your first time here. Looking for something?"

"Well, it is my first time, but…"

"I'll help you!"

Sora—for whom almost nothing was ever a first—got snagged. On the surface he looked like a friendly merchant.

That's how so many people get fooled.

Huh? This place is nicer than I expected. The moment a customer let their guard down, they spilled their entire budget.

"We're looking for some liquor."

"Liquor?! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠What kind of liquor~?"

"It's something called Suntory. Suntory."

"Ah~! Suntory! A lot of people have been looking for that lately, heheh."

A genuine first-timer. Didn't seem to know much about alcohol, either. Once those two facts were established, all that remained was to get fleeced.

They're going to rip her off.

Think of it as the liquor-market version of a Yongpal scam. They stuck newcomers who didn't know spirits with outrageous markups. People who understood the game offered the victims a kind of eulogy and called it this:

The baptism of Namdaemun Dungeon.

"Really?"

"If you come to our shop, we can give it to you cheap~."

"Oh, really? Thank you!"

"Oppa, give us a good price!"

There was no need to play along. Sora and Hye-ri got thoroughly played in spectacular fashion.

They're so pretty, after all.

They had almost certainly never been exposed to real human malice. Being waited on was their everyday life. But this place was different. These were people who had sold their souls to the devil just to make a living.

"Stop that dead-mother bullshit and get lost."

"Excuse me?"

"Senior, that was a bit…"

"Ah, sorry. My mother did die, haha!"

Not human. You had to treat them as monsters. You could not trust the face they showed on the front side.

This is the flip side.

Just like that meme circulating online. In real life, there really were people who lived that way.

"So it was a scam?"

"Yeah."

"He said he'd give it to us cheap, so I thought he was a nice oppa…"

"That's how dungeons work. The naive ones get made into examples first."

"Ugh!"

And among them, these were the most vicious. He hadn't deleted his parents for nothing.

They set up shop right by the entrance, after all.

They targeted first-time customers. Watched them, sized them up, and if they looked soft, came over to squeeze money out of them. So-called newbie hunters. There was a reason this place earned the name dungeon.

"Senior!"

"Hm?"

"I found it! The liquor you bought a ton of before!"

Of course, dungeons didn't only have monsters. Travelers came for a reason.

Treasure chests.

Or, put another way, a chance at a rare drop. Naturally, the underground mall had plenty of other shops. They were browsing one of them when Sora seemed to spot something and tugged at his sleeve.

"No. High chance of off-flavor on that one."

"What's that?"

"Means the contents inside have gone bad."

"??"

Treasure chests were never just lying around for the taking. The only place that worked like that was Diablo.

A pure loot-box game.

You had to start from suspicion. What looked like a treasure chest might actually be a mimic in disguise.

"Look. A ton of the liquor's evaporated."

"Oh, you're right."

"That much evaporation usually means it sat in direct sunlight."

"I see…"

Old bottles. Aged liquor carried rarity—and risk in equal measure.

The contents have gone off more often than you'd think.

Surprisingly many people had no idea how whiskey was supposed to be stored. Older generations especially. They mixed it up with wine storage methods.

"What about this one? This one barely evaporated."

"That one's no good either."

"Why?"

"The label's heavily worn. Means it was probably stored on its side."

Whiskey was not supposed to be laid down. High-proof contents could dissolve the cork and change the flavor.

There wasn't just one or two things you had to watch for.

Even without the newbie hunters, Namdaemun was a place where the odds of getting ripped off ran high. Buying liquor here was genuinely difficult. Merchants never taught you a thing. If a customer walked out ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with a bad bottle, that was the best possible outcome for them.

"Then this one…"

"That's not what we're buying."

"This is it, though. Suntory Royal."

"Different production year."

"What?"

That wasn't all. Even the same spirit varied sharply by the year it was made. The Suntory Royal 12 Year Sora had grabbed—

was post-2000 production stock.

It didn't contain the rare base spirit. On taste alone, it fell short.

"Oppa, what about this?"

"Oh, that one's good. Hye-ri's got an eye for this."

"Hehe."

"…"

Hye-ri had found a solid bottle—one that would climb hard in price later on.

A post-1997 production run, the upper lineup above the original Royal. Key-malted with Yamazaki 15 Year sherry cask, it had a strong reputation among drinkers.

"Senior, I found one too!"

"That one's no good."

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"

"I really wish I weren't."

The ingredients list on the back. A version where the line about containing Yamazaki had been scrubbed—fallout from Yamazaki whiskey's surge in popularity.

It's the gold version, too.

He touched the cork; it wobbled slightly. Seven out of ten of these were defective bottles with flavor problems. You had to weigh a dozen factors before buying. This was not a neighborhood warm-hearted enough to offer refunds.

A famous line from a nineties Japanese manga—Mr. Sushi King. In the Namdaemun liquor market, it was simply reality.

"Buying liquor is ridiculously hard."

"That's whiskey for you. Especially old bottles."

"Ah, right~."

"It's a fascinating world."

Hence: dungeon. Real risk came with the territory—and real fun came with it too.

It had that taste of adventure.

There were other places besides this one. The flea market was worth a visit as well, though the scene there was small enough that a phone call usually did the job. They cleaned Namdaemun out. Business was going so well they needed a serious volume of liquor.

"Senior, what's your favorite whiskey? I bet it's insanely expensive."

"Like, over a million won, right?"

"Johnnie Walker Black."

"Isn't that the one we sell too? I didn't think it was that expensive…"

They bought Johnnie Walker Black as well. If women preferred Suntory, men leaned more toward Johnnie Walker.

And honestly, it tasted better too.

Among whiskey lovers there was a saying: you start with Johnnie Walker, and you come back to Johnnie Walker. The supermarket bottles weren't the whole story. The more you knew, the more fun you could have with it—because each production year had a distinct character. Personally, he favored the 1990s bottlings.

The black-cap 43-percent ones.

High sherry content, peat still clear and present. The marriage of fruit and smoke was outstanding. The key malt was Lagavulin. When people talked about excellent base-spirit quality, this was what they meant.

"This is the one, right?"

"No."

"You bastard."

Late-nineties production was not great. From that point on, the single-malt boom hit, and—

they stopped using good base spirits like Lagavulin.

The malt ratio dropped too. One sip and the lighter body was obvious.

"But a lot of people hate peat, so go for the half-gold caps."

"What's a half-gold cap?"

"A lid that's half gold and half black."

"I'll look for them!"

"Check."

Among enthusiasts, those bottles had the strongest reputation—because of the high sherry content.

That's the general consensus, anyway.

Personal taste was another matter. But the food-and-beverage business had to care about mass appeal. They bought half-gold-cap Johnnie Walker Black, and left word that they'd take more once new stock came in.

There'll be more in the warehouse anyway.

They could just have it shipped. Now that he'd made it clear he wasn't a mark, no one would try a half-baked scam on him.

"So this is illegal after all."

"Do I care?"

"It's only fine because it's a university festival. If this were a real bar, you couldn't even run it."

"That's just how the restaurant business works."

It was like the chunin exams. If you didn't get caught, it wasn't a crime.

If you weren't ready to get blood on your hands, you had no business in food service.

The hopelessly naive got taken first. Namdaemun's newbie hunters were practically cute by comparison. That was business. When everyone else was doing it and you alone refused, you got eaten.

"Still, it was fun."

"There was sooooo much liquor! I had no idea this much alcohol even existed in the world."

"This is maybe a thousandth of what's out there."

"That many?"

They finished the dungeon run and came back out. Five boxes of liquor went proudly into the trunk—bottles that had survived a ruthless screening. Excellent loot was proof of an excellent adventurer.

There'll still be some duds, of course.

That was inevitable. Before serving anything to customers, they'd run a tasting pass first.

"That's what makes it more fun."

"What does?"

"You're basically throwing real money away!"

"Even after all this picking and choosing we still pull blanks. Imagine the people who don't pick at all."

"Ah."

They walked away with a life lesson.