Iron Hand (1)
Clunk!
From the last door of the three-story building, the very last one to open, two men stepped out.
One was a man who looked to be at least in his fifties.
“That's the Guild Master,” Yoo Seon-ah whispered.
“Baek Ji-hyeop of the White Tiger Guild.”
So he was famous, apparently. She could recognize him by face alone.
And then, one more uncle shuffled out behind him.
“Huh?”
“Oh?”
The man's eyes met Seo Hwarang's, and both pairs of pupils went wide.
“Uncle Hwang Cheol-woo?”
“You're LeatherMan?”
“What the—!”
“That's him! It's LeatherMan!”
The other suited men began greeting him as well.
Holy crap. The uncles who'd been swigging makgeolli in the dungeon were actually a guild?
Hwang Cheol-woo.
He was the uncle who had finished things cleanly back then and left a rather good impression. The man who'd casually handed over a 100-million-won knife, saying he had no more use for it.
So that's why he did it.
He was the Vice Guild Master of an organization that could drop 28.5 billion won without blinking. Someone like that had to be pulling in an astronomical salary, right?
The ice melted quickly.
“Haha, please forgive us. The goods we're picking up are worth quite a bit, so we've come in force as a precaution against accidents.”
Guild Master Baek Ji-hyeop smiled pleasantly and offered a handshake.
“Of course, perfectly understandable.”
It was Yoo Seon-ah who received the greeting—nominally, she was the CEO, after all.
She wasn't nervous. She knew better than anyone just how absurdly strong the monster called Seo Hwarang standing beside her really was.
“Here are the goods.”
With a smooth slide, Seo Hwarang pulled the bundle of robes from his inventory and handed it over to Baek Ji-hyeop. He and Hwang Cheol-woo then began inspecting the information on all nineteen robes, one by one. Thoroughly.
As time went on, their faces filled up with astonishment.
“...This is the real deal.”
“The White Tiger emblem is seriously gorgeous too, hyung-nim? The tiger looks alive.”
“Condition's good. Pristine.”
Genuine articles, beyond any doubt. And in one corner of each robe, a small inscription had been stitched:
Seona1.
“Hyung-nim.”
“Hm?”
“Let's go burn one for a minute.”
Hwang Cheol-woo led Baek Ji-hyeop off into an alley.
“What's this all of a sudden?”
Baek Ji-hyeop knew. His younger brother wasn't dumb enough to suggest a smoke break in the middle of a critical deal unless he had something to say.
“Hyung-nim, you realize this is huge, right?”
“What is?”
“The artisan Yoo Seon-ah. She's on a completely different level from the other artisans. Normally, even Unique items vary in performance no matter how carefully they're copied—but all nineteen of these are identical. This is a master of terrifying skill. And yet nobody knows who she is. Not a soul.”
“So what's your point?”
“If we ever want to climb up into the big leagues, we absolutely have to build connections now.”
Hwang Cheol-woo was certain. Yoo Seon-ah was about to skyrocket. Maybe she'd join one of the Big 5—or maybe she'd reach even further, out onto the world stage.
And besides that...
That man standing beside her. LeatherMan. He wasn't an ordinary production-class Awakener either. No wonder he kept pulling high-grade leather so effortlessly every time they hunted together. Turned out he worked under artisan Yoo Seon-ah.
“Connections are fine and good, but how would they extend to me?”
“That's for you to figure out, hyung-nim.”
“What?”
“...You were the brain of this guild, weren't you, hyung-nim?”
“Hoo.” Baek Ji-hyeop let out a long sigh. “Cheol-woo, where exactly in our guild is this brain supposed to be? We're all ex-construction workers.”
That was how the White Tiger Guild had started—Awakeners from the job sites who knew one another, gathering around Baek Ji-hyeop as their center, and in roughly five years they'd grown enormously.
“Fine, I got it. Connections—I'll give it a shot.”
Tuk, tuk! Baek Ji-hyeop flicked his cigarette ash into a storm drain and nodded. Then he went back out to face Yoo Seon-ah again.
“You said artisan Yoo Seon-ah, was it?”
“Yes.”
“Truly remarkable. To deliver all this within a single day of placing the order. Hahahat!”
“It wasn't that difficult. The base pieces were already finished—we only added the dyeing and the embroidery.”
“Ah, I see, so that's how it was.”
It wasn't, actually. But Seo Hwarang and she had already gotten their story straight.
“I've accepted the marketplace listing. After taxes come out, the deposit should hit your account shortly.”
28.5 billion won minus 20% in taxes came to 22.8 billion. An amount on a completely different scale from any of their deals so far.
[Park Juhee: CEO! The money's in! BIIIIIG!]
After checking the message, Yoo Seon-ah bowed her head.
“Confirmed. A pleasure doing business with you.”
She was in the middle of a polite bow when—
“Excuse me.”
—Baek Ji-hyeop hesitantly spoke up.
“Yes?”
Yoo Seon-ah tilted her head.
“If you can make more of these robes, could you sell us the next batch as well? As you can see, our guild has quite a few members.”
Thirty-five including the executives—a small elite force, all of them D-rank or above.
“Hmm. I'll have to think about it.”
Sadly, Yoo Seon-ah had no decision-making authority. She was a figurehead CEO, nothing more.
“Ah-hot, yes! Then we'll look forward to your answer!”
Bow. Baek Ji-hyeop bent at a perfect right angle.
“······.”
Hwang Cheol-woo pressed his right hand to his forehead. Seo Hwarang and Yoo Seon-ah laughed awkwardly and offered their farewells.
And that was the end of their first deal.
“Hyung-nim······.”
“Shut it.”
“After all that agonizing, the big idea you finally came up with was 'please sell us the next batch'?”
“······.”
“And what was that at the end? 'We'll look forward to your answer'? Like hell she's gonna think hard about it!”
“······You little punk.”
Baek Ji-hyeop put on an aggrieved expression.
Well then, what would you have done? What could he possibly have pulled off there, when the other side had an artisan capable of crafting Uniques and was otherwise a fortress of absolute secrecy?
“Later on, I'll find a crack in their armor myself.”
Yoo Seon-ah was far too big a fish. But LeatherMan—he'd already sent him a friend request, so he planned to dig into that angle at least.
“Right. You've all earned it, so let's head back and split up the robes first.”
“Yes, hyung-nim. Everyone, let's move.”
“Yessir!”
The guild members piled swiftly into their vehicles and left the village.
And then, in a corner of the village, a man stood watching them go with a meaningful look on his face.
22.8 billion won!
A party was thrown to celebrate the success of their first major deal. The venue: a small barbecue joint near Ant Village.
Sizzle! Thick cuts of chuck roll landed over the glowing-hot charcoal.
“Order as much as you want today. It's on me.”
Seo Hwarang sat in the middle, with Yoo Seon-ah and Park Juhee across from him.
They'd made that much money—was beef even a question? They'd earned enough in a single day to ring the golden bell for every person present, many times over.
“Yes, Employee-nim! Let's dig in!”
“So we can literally eat whatever we want?”
The CEO and the managing director were practically bowing to a single employee.
Park Juhee grilled the meat, Yoo Seon-ah handled the drinks and glass-running, and Seo Hwarang?
He just sat there and went nom nom, receiving his food. He'd earned the right.
“First things first.”
He downed a refreshing glass of soju-beer combo and opened his mouth.
“We should all start living like actual human beings, so let's do a dividend.”
“A... dividend?”
Park Juhee's eyes went wide.
Look at this employee of ours. We've barely closed one deal and he's already splitting the money?
The truth was that Park Juhee was the one actually running the company—Seo Hwarang and Yoo Seon-ah just ran around in dungeons. Which also meant she was the one who needed the capital most.
“Employee-nim. Wouldn't it be smarter to hold on to as much cash as possible right now instead of distributing it? Business is full of unknowns, and we're still in the startup phase.”
“It's fine.”
“Sorry?”
“I can keep sourcing sellable items regardless. Keep just the 2.8 billion we made this time, and split the rest by the standard ratio. Take this first one with a light heart, then we start building reserves from the next deal. The business needs to expand, after all.”
Splitting 20 billion!
At an 8:1:1 ratio, that came to 16 billion, 2 billion, and 2 billion. Apply the 15.4% dividend income tax, and—roughly rounded—13.5 billion, 1.7 billion, and 1.7 billion.
Oh. My. God.
Park Juhee swallowed hard.
What kind of workplace had she stumbled into in this lifetime? It felt like a dream. Whatever they said about reserves and expansion—at the end of the day, the man was handing out cold, hard cash. What employee alive would refuse?
“Employee-nim, allow me the honor of pouring you one more soju-beer!”
“Sure, Director Park. Keep up the good work.”
“You bet I will! I'll take on every ounce of the hard work myself, so please just keep taking care of us! Salute!”
The mood turned festive. Now she could pay off her debts, buy a house, provide for her parents—all of it. She'd have to head to a department store and get a full wardrobe while she was at it.
And...
Park Juhee knew. The money she was about to receive was a mere drop compared to what was coming.
Am I... actually about to join the ranks of the truly wealthy?
The drinks went down sweet.
For Yoo Seon-ah and Park Juhee alike—glug, glug—the surging dopamine had their hands trembling. Chewing their meat, the two of them made a resolution:
From now on, whenever they dealt with Seo Hwarang, they would approach him with the reverence of a loyal subject serving a king.
A pitch-black night.
Crash, crash! In a shuttered container yard at Incheon Port, where the sound of waves carried on the wind—
“Representative.”
The name of the black-hooded man who had arrived there was Park Do-young. An executive of the syndicate known as Iron Hand.
“I confirmed the transaction between artisan Yoo Seon-ah and the White Tiger Guild with my own eyes.”
“And?”
“It appeared genuine. I watched them hand over nineteen robes and part ways with satisfied looks on their faces. Both eyes on it, start to finish.”
“Oh-ho.”
The man they called the Representative—the mouth of Park Cheol-min curled upward.
“So she's the real artisan?”
Iron Hand was a world-class item-selling enterprise. A massive corporation dealing in everything from Rare to Unique, pushing its way into the black markets of every continent.
“Any backing?”
“Doesn't look like it. I dug around and she's clean. She does have some acquaintance with that Ha Seoryeong, but nothing close. Just a dungeon party member she met through a community, by the looks of it.”
“Hmm, really? And the risk level of the job?”
“It might be zero. And the profit relative to that risk looks limitless.”
“Mm, is that so?”
Just as Park Cheol-min was mulling it over—
“KYAAAAH!”
A woman's scream rang out from a container in the distance.
“S-sob, please... please let me go. I can't do this anymore.”
The woman wept and begged on her knees. In truth, she was one of the workers—and slaves—handled here at Iron Hand.
Geese that laid golden eggs: the precious producers who crafted the items sold in the underground markets.
Smack! Along with her sobbing came the sound of blows raining down.
“Mi-young.”
At Park Cheol-min's murmur—
“Yes, Representative!”
—a woman in a leather outfit stepped out of the container. She was an executive as well.
Song Mi-young. Thirty years old. A C-rank Awakener and one of the core members of Iron Hand. Her specialty: kidnapping production-class Awakeners.
“Stop beating her so much. Keep it up and her output's going to drop.”
“Representative······. I think her output's already tanked, though? She can work, she just won't. This witch used to pump out two items a week when she actually focused, and now I'm scraping to get even one.”
“Really? Then give her a beating later. For now, get over here.”
“Yep.”
“Here.”
Whoosh. As she drew near, Park Cheol-min handed her a file.
“Grab this one and bring her in.”
“Oh, that artisan Yoo Seon-ah who's all the rage these days? Look at that face. Cute as a button—exactly my type. Oh, and she's my age too?”
Slurp. Song Mi-young licked her upper lip with her tongue.
“So, can you do it?”
“Do I ever. If I pull it off, though—bonus?”
“I'll give you 50 billion. Under the table.”
“Ooh, I'm leaving right now!”
She seized the worker woman by the hair and flung her back into the container.
Slide—clang! After locking the padlock tight, Song Mi-young grabbed her leather jacket and set off.