The Shadowy Alliance
The interior of the wide detention cell.
Originally, this detention cell was a base controlled by one family, but it has now been transformed into a meeting place for the clans in the lowest floor area.
Five clans had gathered there. Considering that each clan had hundreds of members, it was a substantial gathering.
Of course, the prison authorities wouldn't allow excessive concentration of inmates, but it was only because they feared it would lead to massive riots or escapes.
Those who had no reason to fight each other or rebel against the prison were gathering 'legally' here, and the guards didn't object much.
After all, there were no such gatherings during the time when the families were in power.
"Everyone seems to be here."
The man who stepped forward, accompanied by his closest aides, was Ma Go-jang, the leader of the Makjang clan.
He was a man who mixed his surname with the family name in a somewhat arbitrary way to create a clan name that sounded like garbage, in the sense of being given the name as if to mean 'become the head of a group whose parents have risen to high positions'.
From an outsider's perspective, he might seem like just some inadequate guy, but ironically, he held the highest position in this clan gathering. In plain terms, he was 'living up to his name'.
"Hey, brother. Why hold a gathering so early in the morning? Everyone's still hungover from last night's drinks, you know. We should at least give them time to eat hangover soup."
"Do those tequila-drinking bastards eat hangover soup too?"
"What's with this? I'm a Korean who eats samgyeopsal and drinks soju."
"Bullshit. Illegal resident bastards."
"So that's why you're here."
"Yeah."
The man who exchanged small talk with Ma Go-jang was Antonio, the leader of the Tacos clan, composed of illegal residents from Central and South America.
He was flicking his thick mustache while gulping down the hangover cure Yeomyeong 80000 brought by his subordinate.
He wrapped samgyeopsal, garlic, and chili peppers in lettuce, ate them as ssam, and washed them down with soju and beer, then downed hangover remedies from early morning, making him a true native Korean.
"Anyway, we only have one agenda for gathering here, right? I don't think we need to make a fuss now."
Jang Un-soo, the leader of the Seoul Mulsan clan, which profits by manipulating flea market prices due to having the most clan members despite not having high combat power.
"Isn't that right? This time, the information brokers were all robbed. Even high-ranking officials and powerful guys were all caught and threatened by those guys, so the atmosphere over there has been tense lately."
Choi Jeong-man, the leader of the Tteoksang clan, a group of dopamine addicts who follow the motto of high risk high return.
"Heh, apparently the Crow clan got caught up in it too. They messed up by moving too carelessly."
Yang Do-won, the oldest among the young and vigorous, leader of the House of Hope clan.
Although the five clans gathered here complained a little about having to hold a meeting from early morning, they never acted rashly and waited for Ma Go-jang's main topic to come out.
After all, originally six clans were supposed to gather here, not five.
"As you all already know, one clan that was allied with us a few days ago has disintegrated into dust."
The name of a clan that disappeared too quickly to even use the phrase "in the back of history" flashed through the minds of all the inmates gathered here.
It had now become a desolate clan that couldn't even be mentioned for the sake of the Clan Alliance's honor, but the important thing was that it was an unexaggerated fact.
"They were a new clan that only had vigorous guys, but their combat and armament levels weren't bad, were they? How the hell did they disintegrate in just one Darkzone exploration?"
Jang Un-soo of Seoul Mulsan, who had been in competition with them, asked, and Ma Go-jang immediately raised a hologram video as if he had been waiting.
Then, the interior video of the isolation room, estimated to have been secretly filmed by the guards, was revealed in the air.
In the video, most of the clan members of that clan, who were checking their equipment while loosening up their bodies just before being sent into the Darkzone, and two people who were the only ones apart from them appeared.
One was the notorious troublemaker of the lowest floor area, Super Rookie, whom everyone knew, and the other was Elena Blavatsky, a Russian female prisoner who had started working with him about a month ago.
"As you can see from this video, they were thinking of taking down Super Rookie's pride, so they led almost all the clan members to follow him into the same Darkzone."
"They thought that by taking down Super Rookie first, they could boost their own reputation, and that the strategy of having all clan members sent into the same Darkzone area to maximize safety and yield would be proven correct. It seems the result wasn't good, though."
"Yeah, unfortunately, they lost."
Immediately after, the next video showed the Super Rookie team, covered in blood but filled to the brim with huge amounts of cargo in backpacks and pouches, escaping.
Most of the equipment they brought out was the equipment possessed by the clan members in the previous video, and the dark red blood on them was clearly from humans, not from the monsters in the Darkzone.
"Is there no additional escapee clan member after those bastards came out?"
"I checked with the bought guard, but those guys were the last return team. After midnight, the Darkzone entrance automatically closed, and all those clan members were officially declared dead."
Darkzone non-returners are officially declared dead.
Whether they are still alive in the Darkzone or not, if they don't return to the prison within the designated time, their identity changes from death row convict to corpse once more.
"So, what's the point, brother?"
Antonio, who was chewing on a candy after a hangover cure shot, asked, and everyone looked at Ma Go-jang with the same eyes.
Yeah, they wouldn't have set up this place to hold a memorial for some clan that suddenly shut down its signboard and closed shop.
Moreover, yesterday was a big event where new inmates flooded in, so the prison atmosphere was even more chaotic.
Now was not the time for unnecessary thoughts; it was time to solidify the foundation and prepare for the next Darkzone exploration. This was a fact known even to those who had carelessly messed up and ended up in the cell.
"To make the clan alliance system firm, we need to remove the first mudfish that stirs the water."
"You want to remove him? That's something the Gwangsu family failed at here, and even more idiots failed in the Darkzone."
"Who said we should remove him directly? What we need to do right now is to build a solid foundation while checking other forces, rather than creating unnecessary conflicts. The only major obstacle in the process is Super Rookie, though."
He rubbed the cigarette he was holding in the ashtray supported by his subordinate's two hands with both hands and sent the black digitalized code to each clan leader.
Since everyone had at least one auxiliary implant, they easily received the code and checked the content. It wasn't something that could be openly shown in such a place, no matter what.
And a short while later.
The clan leaders showed different reactions.
Some smiled mysteriously, some had expressions that didn't make sense, some openly uncomfortable, and some showed no reaction at all.
"The capitalist system was introduced in this prison quite a while ago, but the real power of money started to take hold quite recently. The reason is the activation of the flea market and PrisonNet."
"Previously, it was just that the money deposited in Prison Banking was used by individual inmates for their release money, but now the value and utilization of money is not much different from that in the outside world."
"With money, you can buy drugs, women, weapons, even implants as much as you want. And more? You can receive special 'services', and it's not difficult to buy status with money."
Of course, these benefits all come with the mandatory clause that the inmate must periodically explore the Darkzone, but there were no cowards who would give up Darkzone exploration now.
Those cowards mostly died last week or would die within the next week at least.
As the existing power structure disappears, as weak and discarded guys disappear, as only those who constantly want money and power remain, the binding force of capitalism becomes even stronger.
Ma Go-jang used this point to target the troublesome Super Rookie.
"Even if we generously estimate Super Rookie's total assets, it's between 5,000 and 100 million. Although he has broken profit records every exploration, considering his living expenses and equipment maintenance, he can't have more money than us."
"So, instead of overwhelming power, use overwhelming wealth to pressure him? That's a thought only Yankee Wall Street guys would have."
"But it's the safest."
When Ma Go-jang mentioned risk instead of return, all the clan leaders nodded as if agreeing unanimously.
As mentioned earlier, we are in a situation where we need to hurriedly build the foundation before the new water keeps flowing in and the existing power structure is overturned again.
We didn't want to burn down the house just to kill one Super Rookie like those stupid guys who weren't here now.
"I agree. Solving troublesome things with money is our job after all, and if the risk is low and the return is high, the cost-benefit is good."
"Then I should agree too. Personally, I had a romance with this kind of method."
When Jang Un-soo of Seoul Mulsan agreed first, Antonio quickly jumped in.
In contrast, Choi Jeong-man of the Tteoksang clan frowned and showed opposition.
"I don't plan to say we'll settle it fairly, but if the clan alliance is to grind down that guy, it's better to grind him in a way that becomes a clear example. We need to show everyone in front of us that no matter how great that guy is, he's nothing. Just ending it with everyone doing the capitalist thing of taking him down? Aren't everyone's mindsets too lax?"
"Then you take your clan members and fight him yourself."
"Don't you understand the meaning of 'alliance'?"
"You seem not to understand. The clan alliance is not a mediation agency to reflect the opinions of a few, but a business relationship for the common interests of the majority. We're not the UN, friend."
"Tsk!"
Choi Jeong-man, who received a sharp jab from Antonio, clicked his tongue and reluctantly nodded.
After all, no matter how much he opposed, it would end up as a majority vote, and he would lose.
The last person to express his position was only Yang Do-won, the elderly leader of the House of Hope clan.
He had a moment of contemplation close to the elderly's introspection, then opened his mouth.
"Before starting the work, are you all prepared to take responsibility? Perhaps other forces might put a spoke in our wheels in our work, and the prison side might intervene because they fear the matter will become bigger than expected. And more? If Super Rookie, who learns about the incident's perimeter, comes charging in openly, we might suffer no small damage."
"So, you're saying to use money. With money, we can create false information, create fake forces to act as dummies. And more? We can neutralize the spokes of other forces or someone's mediation if we have money. In this world, if there's money, there's nothing impossible."
Even this place, called the worst prison in South Korea, until two months ago, could enjoy a luxurious life if you had money, as a mere inmate.
Now, the guys who blindly pushed money and authority have all been replaced, but we are not a small group that can only use money and authority, but a large group that can use military power as well.
In short, instead of worrying about the impossible, expecting the possible is much more realistic.
"If everyone agrees, let's proceed as is."
Yang Do-won didn't specifically state agreement, but by asking if he had the responsibility to take it, he had already implicitly agreed.
If he didn't have the responsibility, he wouldn't have brought up this topic.
"From this moment on, we will pour false information and requests madly into the information brokers and mercenary brokers in the lowest floor area. The core is to drop Super Rookie's reliability in the first place, while inducing the atmosphere so that people who target Super Rookie besides us seem as many as possible."
"The purpose?"
"He's ultimately alone. Elena Blavatsky is a female prisoner, so unless it's marriage or cohabitation, she can't be with him 24 hours a day under prison law. We aim for that point to make his mind desolate."
We don't directly target him openly.
But by looking at him as if we can target him anytime, we steadily stir his mind.
Then, no matter how strong-willed and strong he is, he will be stressed. It's the so-called neuroses operation.
"The rest is obvious. We want to target when he is sent into the Darkzone?"
"That's right."
Of course, we don't plan to follow him into the Darkzone like cowards.
We don't have the leeway to directly confront him while growing and building our foundation.
Instead, there are plenty of guys who are crazy about money and murder impulses that are rotting in this prison.
"Mercenaries, fixers, contract killers, bounty hunters, whatever. As long as we don't use Stalker service, there won't be any traces left, so it's not difficult to take him down. Even if it takes a long time, we're an alliance and he's an individual. The scale of investable time, manpower, and capital is different."
Until he surrenders or falls, we can harass him madly with money's power.
"So, everyone, make as much as you can in the next Darkzone exploration. Once one mudfish disappears, from then on it's completely our world."
It was the moment when the lowest floor area of Seoul Southern Prison began to overflow with thick murderous intent.