Gangs of Rome (2)
As I expected, the mafia in charge of the deal were fucking trash.
Ugh!! I subdued every last one of the bastards trying to run, knocked them out, and slammed the representative-looking prick to the ground.
—Clatter. When I flipped the duffel bag, it was obvious at a glance that several gold coins spilled out. For a transaction involving that much money, there wasn’t a single decent thug with real strength. Was this some kind of safety blindness?
If it had been me, I never would have assigned such pathetic underlings to a deal worth hundreds of millions of won.
‘…The family’s real heavy hitters probably have recognizable faces, so they figured they couldn’t talk their way out if the scene was discovered?’
With that thought, I stomped down on the fallen mafia member’s chest.
Keuk!
“Who were you trading with here? Don’t even think about playing dumb. Answer me. I heard everything from the middle of your conversation.”
“Heh, hehehe. I have no idea what you’re—”
Even with broken ribs, the mafia bastard was still playing innocent. His courage to act tough in the face of clear evidence was commendable, but it was nothing more than a pathetic last-ditch effort.
“Fine, I understand. Cleaning up corpses is annoying, so let’s just kill you and call it a day.”
I gathered mana at the bottom of my foot and released it. This was different from when I crushed the Wolhyang Family. This wasn’t a place where I could kill and simply walk away.
Although it was being used as a mafia trading spot, it still looked like a logistics warehouse belonging to an innocent merchant group.
—Boom!
The mafia member who took the cardiac arrest strike vomited blood and died on the spot.
Through a process I was too tired to explain again, I drew an honest answer straight from his soul.
“…A mage?”
“Yes. He’s a fucking bastard who treats us like his servants. Our family buys drugs from him and sells him magic reagents.”
The mafia who confessed to belonging to the Ignis Family spoke that way. Ignis Family. The second-oldest of the three major mafia syndicates, those sons of bitches.
“What kind of reagents? Illegal herbs?”
“No. They’re items you can buy from the Mage Guild as well.”
The soul of the mafia answered my questions. The rest of the bastards were all unconscious from the knockout-sleep gas technique, so there was no worry about looking like I was talking to myself or being mistaken for a necromancer.
“…What did your boss say about the deal?”
“He said it was for money laundering or to erase purchase records.”
“I agree. Your boss has a decent head on his shoulders.”
Listening to him answer with unfocused eyes, I steadily filled in the puzzle of my deduction.
“What does the mage look like?”
“A man wearing a robe with bandages wrapped all over his body. Every time we traded, he stank like a rain-soaked homeless person. He also reeked of perfume.”
“Didn’t it smell like a rotting corpse?”
“Uh… ah…? Y-yes, that’s correct.”
The mafia answered after struggling with his dulled mind. I narrowed my eyes.
‘It’s that bastard.’
The son of a bitch who threw punches at Larilura. It seemed that guy had controlled an undead corpse to trade magic reagents with the Ignis Family.
‘Black mages can’t buy goods from the Mage Guild even if they have the money.’
In this world, black mages were essentially terrorists. Since they couldn’t purchase necessary materials even with money, they must have been trading with mafias like this. The Ignis Family had basically acted as a purchasing proxy.
‘…By process of elimination, the black mage belongs to the Corbona Family.’
The possibility of it being the Ignis Family was zero percent. It would be idiotic for members of the same family to go through such a cumbersome trade. The chance of it being the Kitai mafia, Anulus, was also low. Among the three major mafia families, the only remaining possibility was the Corbona Family.
Come to think of it, hadn’t the Corbona Family been the ones who commissioned the Wolhyang Family to kidnap Tirsi? There was also the possibility he was a freelance black mage, but still.
“…Did that bastard set up the barrier covering the warehouse? How do you people enter and leave it?”
“If I have the plaque I carry, I can pass through the barrier.”
“You son of a bitch. If you had something like that, you should’ve said so sooner. I almost missed it because I didn’t ask.”
—Rustle. I searched the corpse and pulled out a wooden plaque. Even with Odin’s Eye, it wasn’t a magic item imbued with spells.
‘He must have set up a barrier that can be passed if you possess this.’
When I thought about the unicorn black mage’s barrier that only allowed virgins and the pure to pass, it was easy to understand. Since this plaque itself carried no magic, I could take it without worrying about being tracked.
I slipped the wooden plaque into my pocket and sighed.
‘This somehow… feels like Immortalis, doesn’t it?’
Equating black mage with those people was too big a leap. But with such an elaborate barrier and financial power, it definitely didn’t seem like an ordinary black mage. Not to mention his proficiency in black magic was threatening enough to end the discussion.
One. A member of Immortalis had intervened in a mafia dispute.
Two. A black mage affiliated with the mafia had joined Immortalis.
It was probably one of the two, but from my position they amounted to the same thing.
‘In the worst-case scenario… something like the golem subjugation might happen—an incident that could overturn an entire city.’
I crossed my arms and let out a low groan.
Immortalis was an organization with a completely different feel from the groups of bastards I had encountered so far. The insane environmentalist cult of Hoenir and his friends. The Compilation Battalion, Romania’s Red Guards. Those two were criminal organizations with tight bonds and something resembling a hierarchy.
But Immortalis was different.
‘These bastards feel less like an organization and more like a black mage social club.’
Think about it. Even though the unicorn black mage bastard had devised a grand plan to hunt Nefertiti and devour Sargadis, he had carried out the entire operation alone. Moreover, that bastard had even maintained personal contact with Yerna. That revealed the individualistic temperament of Immortalis members. Although they were divided into executives and underlings, every single one of them cared only about their own advancement.
Well, it made sense. Black mages were criminals who operated under the belief that as long as they could refine their magic, it didn’t matter if their bodies were ruined by darkness and negative mana.
‘…The one who kidnapped Tirsi was the backer behind the Wolhyang Family.’
And the family boss, Temurgul, had been no different from a slave to the black mage. After all, the black mage could turn him into an undead fighting game character whenever he felt like it.
‘…The reason he could turn that bastard into an undead in an instant was probably because he had performed magic surgery on him beforehand.’
Temurgul was a vulgar bastard who had openly lusted after Larilura. The chance he had volunteered for the procedure was slim. Whether through deception or force, it meant the black mage held absolute dominance—enough that Temurgul couldn’t utter a sound even as his body was remodeled.
‘The question is why they targeted Tirsi.’
No, actually, the “why” wasn’t all that important. What mattered was the possibility that the calculated kidnapping had been instigated by a member of Immortalis.
“…Fuck. Stop thinking such shitty thoughts.”
I pounded my own head at the ominous feeling rising again. The possibility I had deliberately tried to forget was tearing through my neurons. It felt like cold water had been dumped on my optimistic head. I nearly crushed the wooden plaque I was fiddling with in my pocket.
“It can’t be. No way. It won’t be…”
Even as I muttered those words, what came to mind was the unicorn black mage’s laboratory. The human head rotting inside a wooden barrel. It had been an evil spell that buried a skull containing a sealed soul in soil, rotting it to erode the soul’s self-awareness. That was how the unicorn black mage mass-produced golems to use as subordinates.
What if the kidnapping of Tirsi had been in the same vein? What if they had cast an undead transformation procedure on her from the start, intending to use her as the starting point for some enormous plan?
Squeeze…! I ground my teeth and clenched my fist.
Of course this was mere speculation without evidence. Still, it had already been dozens of days since Tirsi disappeared in Lucregens. If, by some one-in-a-million chance, this speculation proved correct, it was hard to believe there was any hope left.
‘…I need to find that black mage.’
I would have to turn the Corbona Family’s headquarters upside down or check every powerful individual in the city that the birds had located. I should report to the young lady and request support. The newly transformed Veronica could use Space Movement to deliver a letter, disguising it as an extremely fast messenger pigeon without raising any suspicion.
If that black mage bastard was the kidnapper, I could learn Tirsi’s whereabouts. If he was only a middleman, I just had to dig out the higher-ups.
It was right when I was grinding my teeth at that thought.
I sensed a projectile aimed at my shoulder and twisted my body urgently.
—Whoosh!!
A silver arrow glistening as if coated in paralysis poison evaporated the soul of the mafia member who had been in its line of fire.
‘I didn’t notice until I was attacked?’
Never mind that my mind had been elsewhere—the enemy that appeared was no pushover. I clicked my tongue and turned around.
Had they been aiming for me, or for the mafia soul? The enemy’s identity and how I treated them after subduing them would change depending on the answer.
With my teeth bared fiercely behind the mask, I witnessed a charging spear flying in without even giving me time to counter.
This bastard too—I had only barely sensed his presence when he was already right in front of me.
Shweeeeeeek—!
The short charging spear flew in. I deployed a technique.
I drew the Taegeuk of a will-o'-the-wisp using the blue flames of the Blood Hand Demonic Art.
The assailant couldn’t dare approach the scattered flames. I used that opening to create distance and assessed the enemy’s appearance.
The opponent who had closed in for melee was an assailant equipped with a charging spear and shield, like a cavalryman. Although she wore a robe, my sharp eyes saw through to the armor underneath.
‘She approached right in front of me while wearing full plate armor?’
Then that armor itself had to be a magic item. In this world, the quality of equipment was an indirect measure of the wearer’s skill.
I observed the knight’s movements while also checking the direction the arrow had come from.
‘The arrow came down at a forty-five-degree angle from above. ──A window?’
I rolled my eyes beneath the mask. An archer stood on the window sill above the logistics warehouse’s main gate. It was a woman with the moon at her back. She hid her identity with a robe and mask, but her posture carried the unmistakable dignity of nobility. The composite bow also looked expensive—clearly a magic item at first glance.
She nocked another arrow and spoke.
“Plan revised. Discard Plan B. Switch to Plan D2.”
“Yes, Madam.”
The knight’s answering voice was also delicate. Both of them were women.
I transformed my flame-wrapped fist into a hand blade and frowned.
‘…These people aren’t mafia?’
The coded exchange made it clear this was a planned ambush. But was there any reason for just the two of them to attack this trading site? The three major families wouldn’t need to do something like this. Which meant these women were neither mafia, security, nor inquisitors…
‘…No, honestly, it doesn’t matter.’
They had attacked my shoulder and limbs, so they weren’t trying to kill me outright. Still, I had every right to counter in self-defense. They had thrown the first punch while I was in a foul mood. They must have been prepared to take some hits.
I abandoned any thought of resolving this potential misunderstanding with words. I could ask who they were after beating them a few times.
Booooong—!!
The knight thrust her spear. I raised my hand blade and stupidly deflected it. She seemed startled by the fist energy of my Blood Hand Demonic Art, yet still pushed forward with the shield in her other hand. I sensed with my intuition that mana was gathering there.
The knight holding the shield whispered.
“Impact.”
I predicted an attack technique and struck the shield from below with a Taekwondo palm strike.
—Thud!!
The surface of the shield, struck by my hook-like hand, flipped toward the sky. From it burst an electric current like a stun gun hooked up to an industrial battery.
‘A suppression technique?’
The shield that combined offense and defense was getting in the way. I glared.
‘I’ll take out the shield first.’
I aimed for the knight’s opening and prepared to fire Calamity Horn. Even if she blocked it, the mana would pierce into her body and destroy the arm, making it impossible to hold the shield.
—Whoosh!!
Naturally, the archer didn’t just watch. The arrow that flew in like a ghost struck my arm and halted the motion.
“Huh?!”
But the archer was shocked even after landing the hit. Her arrow had bounced off without penetrating the giant leather armor and the defensive power of Beast Regression inner armor mode.
“Tsk.”
I clicked my tongue as well. I had trusted my defense and neglected to dodge, but the arrow’s power was stronger than expected. My right shoulder was pushed back slightly as if from a body check, and I lost the killing angle.
The knight seemed focused on supporting the archer and began increasing the distance.
‘I won’t let you get away.’
Creating distance was only welcome. I altered the mana.
When using the Blood Hand Demonic Art, I continuously deployed the ᛒ (Berkanan) rune. On top of that, combining the spell formulas I had analyzed with Odin’s Eye made creating new magic simple.
I wove the “shoot out mana” formula from the series and transformed the flame mana into “flying wings” using the transformation magic rune.
“Screeeeeech──!!”
The mana perched on my forearm let out a shrill roar and spread wings of flame.
I hurled it using a form from Gerður.
When my power combined with the speed of and the acceleration from wingbeats, the blue vermilion bird gained three times the speed of the enemy archer’s arrows.
—Boom!!
The elegantly soaring vermilion bird exploded atop the knight’s shield.