One of the Family
Anyone who entered the Temporary Shelter for the first time couldn't help but go wide-eyed with wonder.
Everyone had. Pacific's reaction was simply a bit more direct.
He hung his mouth wide open and busied himself gawking at everything around him.
The only difference between him and the others was that he didn't need to be revived after fainting.
"So I really did die?"
"Die? You didn't die, you annoying bastard. Get up."
"What in the world is this……"
"You're one of us now."
With that, Won-goo turned his gaze to the footage playing on the monitor.
The earthquake was only growing in intensity.
As if something were plowing the earth inside out.
"I'm sorry, Director…… If only I had……."
Geum Chul-soo said with a somber expression.
"Forget it. It's not your fault."
"I should have caught on sooner…… I was only half-sure."
"And you still gave us fair warning. If you hadn't said anything, it would've been a lot worse."
"He's right. It only would've been a bigger problem if the attack had already happened. Don't beat yourself up."
"Hey! Director Gong! What the hell is this place?"
Pacific shouted and rolled his wheelchair over. He couldn't help but find it unbelievable.
He'd closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was in a completely different world.
And on top of that, a landscape straight out of a sci-fi film spread out all around him.
"You're not speaking in dialect anymore, so I guess your head's back on straight."
"……?"
"Follow me. I'll explain everything. The rest of you, go get some rest. You know you can't come here often."
They each set a canned drink in front of them and got down to the interview.
"This is a Gift? Isn't that game-breakingly overpowered? And the Trailer?"
"That's one of the add-on options that comes with the Gift."
"Wow…… That's insane……"
"Is Neoguri's Gift any more believable? What about Number Four's? Honestly, that kind of thing is easier to accept. This one…… it's just too grand."
"Must be nice. A Gift like this is practically invincible."
"Invincible, my ass. This thing runs on money. Well, coins, technically. They're bleeding out right now as we speak."
"Really?"
"Really. You're right, it's a hell of a Gift…… but you pay for it in coins, every single bit of it."
Even after hearing the explanation, Pacific couldn't close his gaping mouth.
He'd seen his share of bizarre Gifts in his time, but he'd never heard of—let alone laid eyes on—anything like this.
"So now tell me. What's your Gift?"
"……?"
"Don't just sit there gawking."
"You're seriously taking me in as one of your own?"
"Does this look like a joke? Why else would I have shown you this place?"
"I mean…… isn't this happening whether I want it to or not?"
At that, Won-goo's face twisted into something like a wild beast baring its teeth.
"You really want to get the shit beaten out of you?"
"Whoa, easy. No need to talk like that."
"This is the price of saving your life. And I know why you're hesitating. It's because of your old crew, isn't it?"
"Nope? I already set all of them up with a way to survive."
"You didn't?"
"Nope. Their debts are all settled."
"Then what did you hoard all that money for? You haven't enhanced your stats with coins in a while, have you?"
"A while."
"Why not?"
"I was planning to retire. Once I saved up just a little more……"
"Ugh……"
"Why are you sighing?"
"Because you're pathetic. Do you really think retirement is possible in this world?"
Pacific's eyebrows twitched.
"I do the math too, you know! Shelter fees, living expenses—all factored in. I had a plan lined up for a comfortable retirement. I mean, I had one."
"So how many years did you budget for your golden years?"
"……?"
"Do you know how long you're going to live? You do, don't you? The moment you enhance with coins, your lifespan stretches. Some idiots treat that like a blessing…… but is it really? And it's been four years since the world ended, right?"
"Almost five now."
"Right. And how many times has the whole system been overhauled in that time? You think the current setup is guaranteed to last?"
"It won't?"
"Think about why everyone enhances with coins. God, this is painful. And shut your mouth. You'll catch flies, bastard."
"Fine, fine. But Director Gong, my situation's different. These legs. A curse did this. No amount of coin enhancement can fix them."
"Then you should've looked for another way. You plan to live like that forever? Can't use your legs at all?"
Pacific laughed at that.
"If I dump every booster I've got, I can run around for about a minute."
"Just running around? Not at your old level?"
"For that one minute? Yeah."
Won-goo scribbled a note in his notebook.
"Your Gift?"
"This an interrogation?"
"Not an interrogation. You're one of us now, so I'm taking care of you."
"Ugh……"
"There's no such thing as retirement in this business. You either survive a little more comfortably, or you bust your ass and die. Which one do you pick?"
"I don't know…… My Gift is that I metabolize drugs well. Amplified drug effects."
"By how much?"
"Double. And side effects cut in half."
"Ha…… So you're the game-breaker after all."
"Don't talk nonsense. I thought I was hot shit too…… That's how I ended up like this."
Pacific pointed at his legs.
"Either way, you're one of us now, so you move in ways that help the crew."
"Fine. I'll shelve the retirement dream."
"We share everything here. Food, clothes. And I'm the one who makes the calls."
"A dictatorship. Smart choice."
"How many coins have you banked?"
"Forty-nine."
"That's it?"
"I haven't hit the milestone in a long time."
"Once we get back to the shelter, do some coin enhancement and pull up your full stat sheet. I need to chart out your progression in detail."
"You're seriously going to invest in me? Looking like this?"
"For every bastard who lays a curse, there's someone who can break it. And a way to break it."
"You think I haven't looked?"
"You just didn't look hard enough."
"……"
Pacific glared at Won-goo with fierce eyes.
"Even if the curse itself can't be broken, I can think of at least one way to get your legs moving. If I can come up with that on the spot, you really think there's no way?"
"There's such a method?"
"You just said you burn through boosters to move, didn't you? A drug that makes your legs move—only it's not about enhancement, it's about killing the pain."
"……"
"The curse doesn't say 'your legs won't move.' It says 'standing up hurts.' Bad enough that you, an Awakened Survivor, can't endure it for even 0.1 seconds. Am I right?"
"Did you investigate me or something?"
"Do I need to investigate when I already know you cold? That's what you call an information gap, my friend. If you dump every painkiller you can get your hands on, your limit for pushing through that pain is one minute. That's the math."
"So what's the plan?"
"First, we find a more powerful painkiller. Second, we find an item that amplifies it. There's a famous one, isn't there? Cullen's Syringe."
"You know where that thing is?"
"You didn't hear? I handled the case involving it a while back. I'm one of the few people who's actually held the real thing."
"Then where is it……"
"I know exactly where. And I've got business there, too. Making it a formal case might take some doing, but still."
A flicker of hope glimmered in Pacific's eyes.
"Anyway, you're the rookie now. Our crew's hierarchy is strict. Absolute obedience to your superiors. You saw Hyun-sung, right? When someone calls, it's 'Yes, hyung-nim. Yes, noona-nim.' Nice and respectful……"
Thwack!
Pacific grabbed the empty can in front of him and hurled it at Won-goo.
"Cut the whining. Anyway—welcome to Won-goo's Services."
"Director Gong."
"……?"
"Everything's fine, but……"
"What."
"Can we change the name? Won-goo's Services? What the hell kind of name is Won-goo's Services?"
"Want to celebrate joining the team with a little physical therapy?"
Oh Gu-sik looked down at Sonjabi, sprawled on the ground, his eyes blood-red.
Sonjabi was still lying there. An axe buried in his chest.
Gu-sik approached him.
"Bastard…… You were wearing some nice armor, huh."
Sonjabi had been wearing slash-resistant clothing under his padded jacket. That was the only reason he could still move after taking a heavy axe to the chest.
"Gonna keep playing dead? Not getting up?"
"……"
"If you lost, you should surrender already. Get up, will you……"
Gu-sik stopped mid-sentence. He'd seen the ground erupting in the distance.
The earth trembling was just the garnish.
Something massive was heaving up from beneath the soil, as if pushing the earth itself skyward—a grotesque sight unfolding right before his eyes.
Gu-sik didn't spare it a second glance. He simply grabbed Sonjabi by the hair and started running.
"Chi-soo!"
Calling for Yeong Chi-soo as he went.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Won-goo watched the chaos outside on the monitor.
The Trailer was being jostled this way and that by the quake.
Like a toy.
"It's not going to break apart, is it?"
"I told you to rest, so why are you still here? Everyone rests properly. That's the crew rule. You come here, you rest."
"Hard to rest in this."
"It's not going to be destroyed, so stop worrying. If you've got nothing else to do, hand over your luggage."
"Luggage?"
"You've got a lot of stuff, don't you? That backpack you threw at me—it was a top-tier Subspace Backpack, wasn't it?"
"Right. What happened to that backpack?"
"Are my crew a bunch of amateurs? Of course we took it."
"Oh…… Thank God."
"Anyway, you put on quite the one-man show out there. Stay alive. Gong Won-goo."
Won-goo said in a mocking drawl.
Smack!
"Ow!"
Pacific rammed his wheelchair into Won-goo's shin.
"Now you're causing traffic accidents too?"
"Thanks. I'll work hard so I'm worth the trouble."
"Good. So let's sort out your inventory. You dealt in Fisher-grade items, so you must've racked up plenty of money."
"Not much in gold coins. Plenty of goods, though."
"Is it all in that bag?"
"Not quite. The key to my warehouse is in there too."
"I see. Then how much are you actually carrying? We're taking losses as we speak."
"Because of maintaining this place?"
"That too, but…… that thing's sinking into the ground right now."
Won-goo pointed at the Trailer on the monitor.
"So?"
"To haul that back up to the surface, we burn coins. A lot of them."
"Ha…… So that's why you were always harping on about money, Director Gong."
"So how many coins do you have right now?"
"Just gold coins?"
"Yeah."
With that, Won-goo called out into the empty air.
"Simya. Bring Pacific's bag, please."
Simya appeared, as stunning as ever.
Pacific, already having heard the explanation, didn't react with shock.
Pop.
She handed over the bag and vanished.
"Thank you, Simya."
She answered with a smile and a nod before going.
Pacific checked inside the bag.
"Just the gold coins…… Let's see…… about a hundred?"
"What?"
Won-goo nearly jumped out of his skin.
"About a hundred. Gold coins I've got on me right now."
"Not silver coins. Gold coins!"
"That's what I said. Gold coins!"
"……"
Is this guy insane?
The thought popped into Won-goo's head.
"Why the hell are you hauling all of them around! You're supposed to spend them! Are you a goddamn moron?"
"Jesus…… I told you, I had a retirement plan! Retirement! You know what that is?"
"What about the rest? You'd get more if you liquidated it, right?"
"It's all physical goods. And besides, someone wrecked a Fishing Ground a while back, so who knows if it'll even sell anymore."
"I'm the one who wrecked it? That place tore itself apart in infighting."
"Anyway, the rest of it's mostly Fisher-exclusive gear."
"Ha…… I genuinely can't wrap my head around it. A hundred gold coins?"
"I go through drugs constantly. And drug prices aren't exactly modest. Those bastards…… they know I'll keep buying no matter what, so they keep quietly raising the prices. Why do you think I still haven't retired? It's the drug prices. All of it, the drug prices."
Come to think of it, that actually made sense.
Even if you retired and lived the leisurely life in a shelter, drugs still cost money.
Pacific needed his medications on a daily basis.
"You should've built up trust with a drug dealer by now. The kind where you get it at close to cost."
"Where would you even find a dealer like that?"
"There is one. From now on, I'll source your drugs myself, so don't worry about it."
Baek Seol and Won-goo had a relationship that bordered on an outright alliance.
No credit, ever—that was the ironclad rule of the pharmaceutical trade. But even Baek Seol would front drugs to Won-goo on credit.
"Seriously? The stuff I use is expensive."
"Expensive or not, I just need to find what you're already using. Tell me what you'll need later. Let's go."
"Go where?"
"The earthquake's over, isn't it? Time to head back."
Won-goo immediately summoned the crew.
The crew assembled.
"Before we head back—this is our newest member. You all know him. Pacific. He's about my age, so don't give him too hard a time. Got it?"
"Yessir!"
"His role is…… Hey. What am I supposed to use you for?"
"Classify me as non-combat support, obviously."
"Non-combat or not, you still need to pull your weight. Ugh…… Now that I think about it, this is giving me a headache……"
"Me? I'm great at making money, you know."
"……?"
"It's true. I'm a coin-printing machine. Isn't that enough?"
Won-goo's Services — Merchant Pacific has joined the crew.